Across the River Thames

Last week passed by slowly, and without anything interesting.  I watched way too much How I Met Your Mother, and was excited all week for Ever After to be on TV Thursday afternoon.  The highlight of the week was my last missing suitcase arriving Thursday night.  I was pathetically ecstatic to finally have my blow dryer, straightener, and shoes!  The lowlight was our hot water going out (and it's still out).  I do a fair amount of cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, and other "housewife chores", but overall, my days have been boring and long.  On the other hand, Spencer finally feels like he's a member of his team, and is enjoying his job at Barclay's.  He has been given his own project to work on, and is also helping with 2 other projects.  I don't really understand all of it, but it's basically a social media something-or-other that involves him doing field research, working with a graphic design and strategy company, etc.  Even though he enjoys his job, we were both ready for the weekend to come, so we could experience more of what London has to offer. 

Friday night, I met Spencer after work at a Tube station, and we set off once again for Central London. I am in charge of all the tourist research, and decided we'd go to Harrod's.  Harrod's is a five floor store that takes up an entire city block, and claims you can buy anything there.  It's just about true.  They have everything you could imagine from Toy Kingdom (which is the toy store all children dream of), Christmas Land, and Pet Land, to an entire floor of designer women's clothing, and departments for kitchen appliances, technology, fitness equipment, cosmetics, watches, jewelry, in-house restaurants, the works.  They have one area that's a gift shop for their store, so you can buy Harrod's souvenirs! We spent several hours walking around, and we definitely didn't see everything the store had to offer.  Unfortunately the prices were a little out of our budget, and included a $500,000 crystal encrusted bathtub and a $200,000 wristwatch.  One of the highlights was their food court, where you could buy just about anything you wanted, already made.  They had one giant room that was devoted purely to chocolates.  If anyone's going to England, (or wants to come stay with us!) I recommend a stop here.

We didn't take very many pictures inside Harrod's, but it really was awesome.

Saturday, we decided to take a trip to the South Bank of the Thames.  When you think of London, most the things you think of are probably on the North Bank, and it's definitely the richer part of town.  If you go right along the river though, the South Bank still had fun sites to see.  We rode a double decker bus to London Bridge, which was a bizarre experience.  I kept thinking we were going to run into other cars.  We started out at the Borough Market, which was just what it said it would be.  A giant market with fresh produce, meat, fish, cheeses, chocolates, baked goods, and food from every ethnicity.  We visited the Southwark Cathedral, The Shard (the tallest building in Western Europe), Shakespeare's Globe (a recreation of the original theater), and the Millennium Bridge (a.k.a the bridge the Death Eaters destroy in the beginning of the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince).  We made a stop at Tate Modern, because I read it's one of London's most popular attractions and it's free admission.  Tate Modern is a 5-story modern art museum, and after about one floor, we decided that, unfortunately, neither of us were into modern art, and we didn't really feel like staying there.  At least we can say we stopped there!  As the South Bank went on we entered the area where the London Eye (the giant Ferris Wheel) is, and it became very touristy with street vendors and performers, but it was fun just to stroll around.

Traveling by bus in definitely not the most efficient (it took us 3 hours to travel what takes 40 minutes by tube), but it's an easy way to see a lot, without walking quite as much!

On the left you can see all those delicious looking treats!  On the right, you can see our lunch, an authentic German Brat and a baguette with sausage from the Borough Market.

We were the most excited about our treats.  I had yummy banoffee pie, and Spencer got a lovely raspberry tart.  Spencer also got a giant meringue puff because he was curious what it tasted like.  Turns out it didn't taste very good.

The Globe Theater  

The millennium bridge, it's kinda hard to see with all the clouds.

Mandi and Claire are probably so disappointed that I didn't enjoy the Tate Modern more! Sorry guys...

Some street performers and the Southwalk Cathedral

Sunday, we went to church where everyone was overwhelmingly kind to us.  Everyone wanted to shake our hand, and ask where we were from, why we were here, and where we were living.  It feels like a really small ward to me, but Spencer says it's normal for outside of Utah.  The bishop called us into his office, and said they'll be extending us callings next week.  They'll be the first callings either of us have had in over a year!   The ward is extremely diverse with people from Nigeria, India, Taiwan, and more.  After church, we went to Canary Wharf, where Spencer's office is.  It's the very nice, corporate part of London.  It was super clean, with skyscrapers in every direction.  We rented Barclays Bikes again, and rode all around the area.

Last night, we got a chance to talk to both our families, which was the first time since I've arrived.  It was so fun to finally talk to them again!  I suddenly have new respect for all the missionaries who move to new countries with no cell phones, Internet, or family to talk to!