Brussels and Amsterdam

Once again I apologize, this post was supposed to go up a couple of hours ago, but I got carried away with making cookies (the first thing I have officially baked since I've been in England) and finishing off The Goblet of Fire and now a call from one of my families:D

I must also forgive my outfits. I could only take one jacket and scarf, so I'm wearing the same outer layer every day... I promise that each of the days are separate and I changed my clothes underneath!

So...Tuesday morning started really early. We woke up and headed to the bus stop at 3 in the morning. I was still pretty tired from my weekend excursion, so I wasn't very talkative, plus it was REALLY early. We caught our flight at about 7 to head to Brussels and I slept for the majority of the flight. Once we landed we caught a train to the inner city and headed to our hostel. Or we tried to. We (or more specifically I) got mixed up with the map and headed the opposite direction we should have to go to the hostel, but thankfully after walking about a mile we got pointed in the right direction by one of the locals and were able to leave our bags in the baggage room.

Because we missed our 11:00 morning tour, we were able to relax and explore the area until the second tour started at 2:15. We explored the center and found the things that Belgium is famous for! their chocolate, waffles and frites!

This shopping area had a lot of stores (like 50 or so) and every other store was a chocolate store!!! I was in heaven even if I didn't buy any. 

They had really cute animals in some of these chocolate shops. I probably would have bought them, but I wouldn't have been able to make myself eat them! So I took a picture because it would definitely last longer!

And because you haven't gotten a history lesson for me in a while, here you go! The history of a portion of Brussels! We met in the Market Place in the center of Brussels which used to be...you guessed it! A market place where the traders would gather from around the world to sell and buy goods. Our guide told us that Brussels used to be a key trading location in Northern Europe because all the trading countries had easy access from the north and south.

This building used to be the Grand-Place where the Holy Roman Emperor lived during the early 16th century. But before it became the King's house it was a place where bakers sold their bread, so some of the Dutch called this building the "Broodhuis" or the bread house. After it was a bakery, it was used by the Duke of Brabant for administrative purposes and was renamed "Masion du Roi" or house of Royals by the French. Then when Charles V was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, it became the "Kings House".

This building is now the town hall of Brussels and no, the picture isn't off center, the building is actually off center. Its actually kind of annoying! But like many large buildings in Europe, they ran out of funds while building. So it is more than likely that it is off center because of the different building periods throughout history. There only used to be 8 statues on the entire facade, but when the building was destroyed in 1695, they added more and now there are over 50 (I think). 

I'm not exactly sure what this building was, our guide didn't really talk about it, but there was a lot of gold on the facade. 

This little fountain is called the Manneken Pis. No one in Brussels really knows where he came from, but at certain times of the year he can be seen dressed up or pissing beer. Apparently during a time when the French marched through Brussels, the soldiers stole him and took him back to France, but the man in charge was afraid of causing a war, sent him back dressed as the highest ranking French officer. So when soldiers from the French army passed through Brussels, they had to salute him when they walked passed. 

When we reached the halfway point of our tour when we took a break for 20 minutes, the rest of the girls I was with decided to head back to the hostel because it was a long day and we were all pretty tired. But have no fear I stuck with it because I wanted to see more of this gorgeous city!

This is the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, but most of the locals just call it the Gudula Cathedral. There are two very odd things about this cathedral: the first is the resemblance to Notre Dame in Paris. Surprisingly, this was not coordinated, they were both built during the same time period. The second is that while is has been claimed to be "finished" it doesn't look like it! There are many windows that aren't filled in with glass, but the people funding the building were tired of paying for it and declared it finished. 

We then travelled to Brussels Park, which was created by Freemasons. 

In the middle of the park sits a fountain (that runs during the summer I'm sure), and as you can see statues surround the fountain and are placed around the park. I'm not exactly certain who the statues are of, but there are a lot of them. There isn't a lot to say about this park, other than if you look it up on google maps, the walkways in the park make the Freemason compass. 

May I also add here that Belgium is the only country in the world that is run by 4, yes FOUR different governments! And recently, they broke the Guinness Book of Records for the longest time without government. Apparently there was a mix up last year during elections (politics, not my area) and it took a long time to get sorted, Belgium was without a working government for 289 days. 

We then reached the end of the tour, passing the Palace of Brussels where the Royal family used to live (not anymore) 

If you look very closely, you can see the Belgium flag at the top of the palace, this is to indicate that the Royal Family is in the country. Our guide assured us that he's lived there for 15 years and has never once seen the flag taken down. This is of course where the King meets all sort of important people, other royalty, member of other countries and such. 

Although we didn't walk down to it, our guide pointed out the Palace of Justice at the end of the street from the Royal Palace. (I walked down to it later after the tour had ended)

This is the largest Palace of Justice in the world. If you removed the spires on the Cathedral, it would be able to fit into the entry hall of this building and this is 3x the size of the Royal Palace. This building was so big that they had to remove houses around it, dislodging 3000 families. The Palace of Justice took 20 years to build and about $300 million to make and only 10% of the actual building gets used!!! The entry hall is so large that it takes 5 minutes to walk across and a prisoner once escaped because of it. Our guide also informed us that they have been resurfacing the building for over 35 years, he joked that the scaffolding itself needs a remodel. 

This was the view that I found off to the right of Palace of Justice. 

After my side detour of the Palace of Justice, I hurried back to the hostel to meet up with my group and see what we were going to do for dinner! The 5 of us were staying in a mixed room of 6, so when I got back I was able to meet our roommate. A guy who lived in Texas and worked for NASA, he had decided to take a detour on his way back from a conference in Moscow. He came out with us to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant where the pour waitress didn't speak a lick of English, so we had to just point at what we wanted. It was really good and surprisingly pretty cheap!

The next morning (Wednesday) we slept in a bit and decided to go explore the area some more! We got more waffles and it was delicious. (May I at this time point out that we walked over 40 miles this past week, so I was able to eat all of these goodies without gaining too much weight)

While seeing the view of the city the day previous, I had found a new place that I wanted to explore. It was two miles away from our hostel, but I thought it was worth the walk! While we didn't have a tour guide telling us about this building, I did some research on the history of the Basilica. 

This is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. This was built by the Catholic Church, started in 1905 and finished after the second World War in 1969, dedicated to the Sacred Heart and built in the likeness of the Basilica found in Paris. Inside are a restaurant, two museums, a theater and a Catholic radio station. I think the best part about traveling to the Basilica was that a man let us pet his golden retriever puppy in the park on the way. It made our day:D

We finished the day by taking the girls to the Royal Palace, the Delirium Cafe (apparently famous for the amount of alcohol choices they give), and more waffles! 

The next morning was another early one, we were headed to Amsterdam. We arrived at the station on early and stopped in Starbucks to get some breakfast and realized that we were in the wrong train station to go to Amsterdam!!! Thankfully we realized with enough time to spare and took a different train to get us to the right station and then boarded the right train to the Netherlands!

The first thing we wanted to do when we got to Amsterdam was head to the Anne Frank House, but when we arrived, the line was really long, so we decided to head to our hostel instead. We then met our walking tour at the National Monument, which was just a tall building like the Washington Monument and for some reason I didn't take a picture of it. We met the 6th member of our group who had just arrived from Denmark and we started our tour!

Actually, the first place we stopped on our tour was the red light district, which, our guide told us, is the safest place in Amsterdam. So yes, prostitution is legal in Amsterdam. Our guide told us several times that one big policy in Amsterdam is tolerance. The three parts of tolerance in Amsterdam consisted of: 1. makes money 2. it is not obvious or displayed openly and 3. it doesn't hurt anyone. So the members of Amsterdam made prostitution legal to bring a sum of money into the government. 

There is even an old church located in the center of the red light district. The brothels were actually built up around the church because the people figured that they would make it easier to go "repent" after visiting (more like just passing money to a priest to ask for forgiveness from God). And that's all I have to say about that!

The other thing that is tolerated in Amsterdam is weed. Remember the three parts of tolerance? Well technically Weed is illegal, it was made illegal by the United Nations because they were worried that it was the gateway to the abuse of "hard" drugs such as Meth, Crack, Cocaine etc. Surprisingly, weed is very easy to come by in this city. You can visit a "coffeeshop" and purchase your choice of products. While it is still illegal to grow and sell your own plants, if a cop sees you smoking it outside a shop, they won't arrest you. Another surprising fact is the global percentage of people who smoke weed is 6%, Amsterdam's percentage is only 5%. 

Ok moving on to more pleasant subjects. 

The name Amsterdam came from the Dam that was built on the Amstel that formed man made canals throughout the city. Sometimes Amsterdam is called "Venice of the North", but our guide assured us that Amsterdam was built before Venice and hence Venice should be known as "Amsterdam of the South". There was not a lot of room in the city, so many of the buildings are very tall and narrow, apparently when building many of the buildings you were taxed on the width of the building, not the square footage. Because the buildings are so narrow, it is impossible to move furniture up and down the stairs, so each building has a hook at the top. These hooks were used with a pulley to lift large furniture in and out of the top stories. This is also why many of the buildings are tilted slightly forward, because if the buildings were flat, the furniture or the building would be damaged while lifting heavy objects. So to avoid the cost of damages, the buildings are tilted slightly forward! (although this could have been easily fixed with a longer rod at the top)

This is the Amsterdam Palace where the Royal Family used to live, but once again don't live anymore. This building was built in the late 17th century and actually used to be white at some point, but the weather has gotten to it. In the early 19th century, Napoleon's brother became King of the Netherlands and the people really disliked him because he was French. Apparently one time his advisors told him it would be a good idea to speak to the people in Dutch to get them to like him, but instead of saying Dutch for "I am your King!" he spoke Dutch for "I am your Rabbit!" (I guess the two words are pretty close in Dutch) So the people of Holland had a rabbit for a king for a period of time!

This tour was pretty short and we were able to head back to the hostel at a pretty early time. Our hostel was very close to the national "I Amsterdam" sign, so we headed in that direction to get some pictures! 

The rest of the evening we wandered around and saw the sights. I really loved this city and I hope that I have the opportunity to go back during the summer when the leaves are coming out on the trees and all the flowers are blooming. 

The next morning (Friday) we got up early to go the Anne Frank House to skip the long line we saw yesterday. But when we arrived there was already a line formed. We waited in line for about an our to get into the house and it started to rain. Thankfully, they brought out umbrellas to those of us who had none in line. After about an hour we were able to go through the House and it was amazing. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but I think they have some online if you want to look and see the inside! I cannot believe 8 people were able to live inside such a tiny space for 2 years! 

They had quotes from Anne's diary and from Otto (Anne's Father) and the helpers (the people who helped hide the Frank family in the house). It was a very touching experience and I definitely recommend going for those of you who are ever in Amsterdam! (I found out afterwards that you can reserved tickets online and skip waiting in line, which I also recommend) Although I was quite annoyed because there was a group behind us who kept talking throughout the tour!!! UGH!!! When you go to a place of remembrance you're not supposed to talk! I couldn't believe it!

I split off from the group afterwards with a promise to meet up for lunch, I was on the lookout for a fabric shop. (I'm getting fabric from every country to make a quilt when I get home) I wasn't able to find what I was looking for in the first place I looked, but I headed back to Pancake corner to meet up with the rest of the girls. 

On the way back from the first fabric shop I passed the Bloemenmarkt or the Flower Market, the worlds largest floating flower market! Unfortunately, because it's still winter, they weren't selling any tulips, but they were selling a ton of bulbs from all over the world!

I really really want to go back during the summer, although it will probably be really crowded.

We met up at the Pancake Corner and had some famous Pancakes (they are pretty much crepes, but not folded up)

My pancake had ice cream, whipped cream and strawberry sauce. Three of the girls in the group got the banana, whipped cream and chocolate syrup pancake. They were pretty tasty, but expensive.

All of us split up again, 4 of them went to the Flower market, PC and I headed towards the Van Gogh museum and we promised to meet up at the hostel at 5. She ended up going to the museum, I walked passed the museum to another fabric shop I had looked up. The fabric shop was in an area of town that had it's own little market. They were selling lots of different foods, clothes and nic nacs. I found this awesome quote painted on a wall close to the market. 

After I got my fabric, I headed back to the Van Gogh museum which I was excited for! We weren't able to take pictures of any of his work, but they had a large muriel of Sunflowers which I did take a picture of. 

This museum told Van Gogh's story of his life. From his birth to his death and all the people and paintings that influenced him over his life. Some of the pictures that were there was his Potato eaters, another version of Sunflowers, lots of self portraits, Bedroom in Arles, and his Cherry Blossom painting.

I headed back to the hostel around 3 and read HP #4 until about 4:15 and then took a quick nap on the couch while I waited for everyone to show up. We then gathered all of our luggage and headed back to the train station. We stopped for frites on the way at the place that was supposedly the best place in Amsterdam according to TripAdvisor. While the frites were alright, I really liked the sauce on top that I got, it was called Andolousesaus, which was almost a spicier version of In n Out's sauce. 

Afterwards we caught a train back to the airport and from their our flight back. We arrived home around 1:00 in the morning and I fell asleep until about 11:45 in the morning. Saturday was my lazy day, I was finally able to Skype my mom for the first time in forever and my sister as well!

Today was a good day! I got my first calling in my new ward! My first calling other than a Primary teacher! I am now the newest member of the Activities Committee and I can't wait to start! 

It's getting late and unfortunately I have school in the morning:( so until next time!

Valentine's in Sweden

Wow. It has been a LONG week of traveling! I have been to three different countries in the course of a week and I need a break! So today is my day to stay in pajamas, read and update my blog!

Last Friday (the 13th) a couple of the girls from my ward, along with the sister and a friend of one headed to Sweden for a Valentine's Convention held in Anglisas. Now I had never heard of these before, but apparently every couple of months, a city in Europe (typically Northern) will have a convention over a weekend for YSA who want to get together. And once during the year there is a large convention that lasts a week that has dances almost every night (this year it's in Copenhagen during the summer). Anyway, I think they are formed so that members of the church have the chance to meet up with people their own age because there aren't as many members here as in the States. I went with a group of 6 other girls: 1 English, 1 other American and 4 Scottish girls. I had a grand old time with the girls and hope that we can stay in touch! It was a lot of fun to hang out with LDS people my own age who have the same standards as me and know how to have fun! It's been quite sometime since I've spent that much time with any number of LDS girls my own ways, I think the last time would have been at girls camp, but I really enjoyed my time spent with them!

We left at 3:30 in the morning to catch our flight to Gothenburg. Thankfully, because Europe is so close to one another, the flight was only about 2 hours long, so we weren't on the flight for forever, I think most of us slept the entire time. We arrived in Gothenburg at the Landvetter airport and there was a bunch of snow on the ground and you couldn't see very far because there was fog everywhere, needless to say that I was a very cold person!

The 7 of us rented a large rental car to get too and from Anglisas instead of taking a train. I was copilot because I get carsick so easily, so I was put in charge of getting us from place to place. Let me just say this, by the end of the trip, the girls said I was really good with a map! So I can add that to my list of accomplishments!

Ok, so where do you go when you're in Sweden and are looking for a good, but cheap place to eat? You guessed it! IKEA!!! Thats right folks! Our little van of 7 went to IKEA in SWEDEN and got some delicious meatballs and treats!

For those of you who want to know, IKEA was pretty much the same as it was in the states. The only thing that was different was that the Swedish flag was the only flag flying outside the door and all the signs were just in Swedish, not English. They may have had a couple more food items downstairs and the cinnamon rolls had sugar crystals on the top instead of frosting, but other than that it was the same. Just so you know that the American version of IKEA isn't trying to rip us Americans off. 

We spent some time in Gothenburg because we couldn't check in until 4 o'clock or so. We explored the center area that was full of trams and shopping centers. 

In the center of the shopping center there was an old church, I'm not sure what it was used for or when it was built, but I would have liked to know. Unfortunately, we didn't have time for a tour or a history lesson of the city, but I think at some point in my life I want to go back to learn more about the Swedish culture and history.

The convention was held in a school in Anglisas and we slept on air mattresses in the classrooms. It ended up being pretty cold in the rooms because the heaters weren't working, but we rented sleeping bags as well and stayed pretty warm. The 7 of us were able to find a small classroom which we piled into and set up our mattresses and then we had some time to kill. The Scottish girls and I (I'm sorry I'm calling them that, I didn't ask any of them permission to put them in my blog, so that's how I'm going to  keep calling them) made a Megabed, where we placed three of the air mattresses together and slept on it long ways. So there were 4 of us spread across the 3 mattresses, we ended up being pretty cosy.

After checkin in, we went and found a supermarket to grab dinner and some snacks to eat throughout the weekend. It was a shock to me because I hadn't seen any grocery store in quite some time. It was more of a Walmart than a Safeway or Fry's because it sold clothes and other items. I got some chocolate (not for dinner) and it was tasty! That night the convention had rented out an ice skating rink that we spent a good 4 hours in.

I didn't skate that long, because my feet were killing me in the rented skates. But I did manage to only fall 2 times and I had bruises on my knees for the rest of the week, other than that I would say that I did ok. Just ok because apparently when you live in the Scandinavia countries, you are born with skates on your feet. There was a large portion of the group that zoomed around, did flips and spins and played tag on the ice, meanwhile the rest of our group was just struggling to stay upright. (Well I was struggling anyway)

We headed back earlier than everyone else because we had had a long day and wanted to make use of the available sinks and toilets before a large queue formed. Once we had tucked down in our sleeping bags and some of us had fallen asleep, the rest of the convention came home and wanted to party. The halls were filled with noise and lights till about 3 or so in the morning. Needless to say, I had a very hard time going to sleep. That might have also been the lights in our classroom turning on randomly every 45 minutes or so and needing to be shut off. I probably got up between 8-10 times that night.  

We woke up that morning to see if we could get in a shower before the rush. Apparently in the Scandinavia culture, they don't have a problem with community showers, because thats what our shower was. There was a shower room and a sort of locker room attached so you could put your clothes down and change. The three of us (2 Scottish girls and I) were very uncomfortable and thankfully there was only 1 other person in the room, so we took turns going in the shower room. 

Breakfast consisted of cheese, some sort of meat (maybe ham or turkey slices), a couple different types of bread, yogurt, butter, milk and apple juice. Which may not sound like much, but it was quite tasty and held us over until lunch. We had workshops in the morning, you could choose to sit in on a lesson about missionary work, build teddy bears or octopus for kids or practice singing in a choir. I chose to build a teddy bear! These were going to be traveling in ambulances with kids so that they could focus on them instead of the pain that they were in. 

I was pretty proud of my bear! It may have not been the best, but I did it all by myself! It took us over 2 hours to create the bears and we met some nice people from all over Europe. From what I could hear, I was the only American in the room, which was pretty cool. I met some people from Copenhagen that know my adopted Grandma. There was also a guy there who lived in Germany, but was previously from Israel. 

Unfortunately, we weren't given lunch at the school, so we left to go find some! We stumbled across this food stand that sold different kinds of hot dogs, I ended up getting a hotdog with mash (mashed potatoes) on top. It was actually really good. 

Afterwards, we met up at a shopping area that we were supposed to go serve in. We ended up getting there late because our service project went over, but we found everyone. I'm not sure what the other two groups were doing, but because it was Valentines, the singing workshop ended up singing love songs on the corner, they even had an electric piano. Inside the shopping area we found a ice cream place (don't worry I didn't get any) that had a HUGE jar of Nutella and I had to take a picture next to it. 

It's pretty much as big as my head

We then returned to the school for Volleyball games, which is a very serious sport in Scandinavia (I'm only guessing, people got pretty competitive. That's why all sport in a church setting are from the devil). Our team (consisting of 2 of the girls in my group and some other random people) actually lost pretty bad, the entire time I was thinking "why the heck aren't we playing soccer instead?" It was probably because there was snow on the ground outside, but that shouldn't be any excuse not to play. 

After Volleyball, it was time to get ready for the dance! I didn't have much to do, so it was just relaxing time for me! We went back to the grocery store to pick up food for dinner and then got dressed for the dance. The dress code was "formal" and it was interesting to see how each culture viewed that as. There was a couple of people in church like clothes (me), some other people in gowns that could have gone to prom, and even some clothes that could have been worn to the beach. The dance was held in a mansion about a mile from the school and it had 2 different floors. The first was for chatting and eating snacks, the second was for dancing. I think this is a place that is typically used for wedding receptions, but not that night!

I was expecting a more Stake dance atmosphere, where every couple of songs is a slow song, but this was more of a high school dance, where most of the songs were fast pace and throw back songs or songs from Europe that I'd never heard of before. I was just a little disappointed, because I actually love to slow dance (yes, there will be dancing at my wedding reception) although I typically never get asked. Someone told me later that this wasn't so much a dance, it was more like a mix and mingle in fancy dress with music. Thankfully, I did get asked to dance once on a slower, but still fast song. So that was a plus of the night!

We were finally ready to leave close to midnight and 6 of us headed back to the car. While we were waiting for our number 7 we saw that the entire group of people who were at the dance went out and took pictures and lit off lanterns (like in Tangled), but I was too warm in the car to go back outside in the cold. So we just all watched from the car. 

No one really went to bed after that, there was a midnight snack (the same thing we had for breakfast) and our group stayed up till about 3 in the morning talking to people we had met that day. Once we finally got back into bed, it wasn't very long until we had the lights turn on again because of the stupid sensor in our room. 

We all slept in until about 10, right before breakfast ended, we ran down and grabbed something to eat. Our Sacrament meeting started at 10:30 and a few of us were late because we woke up late. But it was a 2 1/2 hour meeting because after the sacrament, a bunch of people got up to bare their testimony. I'm not going to lie, I was falling asleep and may have done so once or twice, thankfully the Scottish girl sitting next to me kept poking me awake. 

Afterwards it was time to clean up the rooms to get ready to leave. Our flight wasn't until 9:00 or so, so once we cleaned up we joined some other people from the convention and played charades to kill some time. We then headed back to Gothenburg to explore the city a little more before we headed to the airport. 

I found a library!

You may have seen the picture I was tagged in on Facebook in front of the museum. We arrived just as it was closing so we couldn't go see anything inside, but we got to step in from the cold for a moment. We walked down around the Boulevard just exploring the area and looked for some dinner. 3 of us found another little hotdog stand that was completely vegan and got some more mash with our hotdogs. 

After dinner it was time to head back to the airport and head home. We had a simi empty flight, so I think that all of us got to spread out and sit with a seat between us so one of us could lay down. Once we landed and got through customs, we took a train back to Liverpool station to try and make the last tube home. I felt bad because once the train stopped I took off to the Underground station without saying goodbye, but I think that they understood. 

I didn't get home until 1:30 Monday morning and I was super tired that day. Monday was my day to catch up on my homework. I had two papers due the 19th of February and they needed to get done Monday because I was leaving again early Tuesday morning. I went shopping for a small suitcase and had to go print off my information at the ISA office, but I was able to finish them and turn them in on time! 

Anyway, my next post about Brussels and Amsterdam should be up soon!

Now you see him...Now you don't!

Wow. I can't believe that it's already the 17th of February. I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in over a week. Things have been crazy and have gotten away from me. I had two papers that are due on Thursday and I wanted to turn them in by Monday before my flights out Tuesday morning. I'll be posting a couple of times this week to catch you up! Never fear! Also, I don't have any pictures on my phone, so I'll post this post and then edit it later with pictures.

So flashback to last Saturday. My dad and I got up early to go to Borough Market (yay!) and had some tasty treats. He ended up buying some homemade jerky stuff (not exactly sure), some delicious Mayfield Cheese (which I have sampled every week I have gone), breakfast which was a egg and bacon sandwich which they made in front of us, a large chocolate chip cookie, and some Nutella goat milk ice cream! I think I've converted him to marketism! (I know, not a real word)

After Borough we went to the Science Museum for an hour or two to kill some time before our match. The Science museum is on the same road as my church building, natural history museum, and the Victoria and Albert museum and they are all free! I really enjoyed the museum, it had some technology history along with modern day discoveries about the human body. It was a really large museum and we only got through the first floor and part of the second. 

We then headed to the Queens Park Rangers (QPR) home stadium to watch our game. While it wasn't as exciting as our Chelsea vs Tottingham game I still really enjoyed it. QPR is ranked pretty low in the division and they played the number 3 team Southhampton. I thought it was going to be a rollover match, but Southhampton didn't score until injury time during the second half. The fans for Southhampton went CRAZY!!! And a few minutes later (still in overtime) QPR scored, although it was called offsides. But it was still a great goal! We had some great seats! Thanks Dad!

After the match (I'll post some pictures), we headed to the Paddington Train Station and had lunch at one of the Pubs there. I had classic fish and chips:) and shared a strawberry cheesecake to share. Afterwards we headed back to my flat and grabbed my laptop to watch a movie at dads hotel. We watched A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. I'd never seen it before, but dad had. In fact he said that The Imitation Game reminded him a lot of it. I enjoyed it and I loved the story, but I still like IG better:)

The following morning we went to church and then returned so dad could check out of his hotel and we went to the airport. I was sad to see him go, but I felt better about it this time! Besides he threatened to be back really soon:)

Guess who's back? Back again...

This week has been amazing!

Monday night was FHE and we had a very fun time running around the building taking pictures of our scavenger hunt. We had to find something that begun with A, take a picture and then B and so on. It was a very short activity, but I had fun. I was able to meet some new people and even added some of them on Facebook! YAY!

Tuesday we put our crockpot to use for the second time and made some soup. I have the latest class, so I put together a creamy potato soup that was soooo warm and tasty. (The first soup we made was a chicken tortilla and I really enjoyed that one)

The top is the chicken tortilla and the bottom is potato. I must say that I was very happy that they turned out well. And even happier when I walked into the flat after coming home from class and smelling that delicious soupy smell. We (MC & TP and I) have decided that we're going to make it a weekly tradition and the girls from upstairs are invited as well! It'll be a fun little dinner party!

Wednesday I got together with SJ to plan some upcoming trips that we want to go to (no I'm not going to tell you where quite yet) and then I took her to Forbidden Planet (yes I'm obsessed) and some of the secondhand book stores I had go to on Saturday (Also obsessed). I don't think I'll ever be able to make a trip to FP without buying something. This is the new DW apron I bought that I cannot wait to wear around the kitchen at home!

We also walked past this mouthwatering bakery, which apparently are famous for their cakes (no, I didn't get any although I was ready for something to eat). 

I think that we'll do something with this for my birthday at the end of the month. 

Thursday MY DAD CAME FOR A VISIT! I left my flat to make the long (but worth it) journey to the airport to meet my dad! 

I was soooo glad that he came for a visit. He's not staying for very long, but I was going to make the most of it! We stopped by my flat before heading to his hotel so that we could drop off all the things that he brought me such as: much needed clothes, chapstick, and goodies from home (homemade banana bread, girl scout cookies, raisins, rolos and organic poptarts). And I loaded the suitcase back up with some clothes I don't wear here, gifts for mom and friends and some of the books that I've bought. I really hope that it doesn't leave here heavier than it arrived.

I was sooooo glad to get some banana bread. (It's only Friday and the loaf is already half gone). 

We went to the National Gallery so I could show him Sunflowers by Van Gogh, but due to some sort of strike going on, half of the museum was shut down. Of course it was the half of the museum with Van Gogh, but we walked around the rest of the museum and stayed there until it closed at 6. 

We went to dinner at a place called the Shake Shack. They sold yummy burger and fries and milkshakes (reminded me of a In n Out). We ate pretty quickly and then decided to go see a movie. As much as I love movies, it is not worth the money to go see one in London. Thankfully, because I was a student I got a discounted price, but the discounted price was still more than a matinee at home.  Anyway, we went and saw The Imitation Game with my main squeeze Benedict Cumberbatch. 

Can I just tell you how much I loved this movie? Not only is it a true story about WWII, but the acting and music were amazing (I almost started to cry near the end). It's crazy to think that a man who saved millions of lives during the war was condemned a criminal just because of the choices he made in life. (Queen Elizabeth gave him a full pardon a couple of years ago, but he died thinking that he was a criminal) I'm not going to say much more on the movie, but just know that I loved it and I'm definitely planning on buying it when it comes out. 

Friday. Today we got up early because we had our Fat Tire Bike Tour at 11 and we met for lunch at 9:30. We went to a cute little French Crepe places which made breakfast and dessert crepes all day. (Don't worry, I had a breakfast crepe with spinach and mushrooms. It was probably the first greens I'd had in a while) We then headed off to meet our guide to go on our 4 hour bike tour. 

I really liked the bike tour even though I had seen most, if not all the places that we stopped at. But like any good tour guide, I was given a TON of history on the places that I saw, which I didn't know before:) 

Our first stop was Kensington Palace. This is the current living place of Prince William and Kate Middleton and little George. Their "apartment" spans across 4 floors and holds 21 rooms and it took 1 million pounds to baby proof it. This is also the house that Diana used to live in while she was alive and now it holds some of her dresses from her life. Queen Victoria also lived here for a time and you can also see a pair of her underwear at the museum which apparently are a 56 inch waistline (I think those are the numbers, don't quote me on that though)

Afterward we rode through Kensington Palace Gardens, Hyde Park and stopped at Hyde Park Corner and saw the arch that is a monument to the Duke of Wellington (who was not born a duke, but given the title later in life). We saw a great number of police on horses ride by and even the artillery pulling cannons behind them. Apparently, they take these cannons into Green Park and fire them on special occasions such as the Queen's birthday, coronation days, when George was born etc. They fired them off in the park today, because today is the 63rd or 62nd year anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's succession to the throne. (Not her coronation day, but the day her father died, making her queen)

After riding through the large group gathered to watch the cannons in Green Park, we headed to Buckingham Palace. Our guide told us a story of how a man (in the 80's) was obsessed with the royal family, he broke into Buckingham Palace, stole a bottle of wine and creeped into the queen's bedchamber. He didn't hurt her or anything and he was almost let go because at the time trespassing was a civil offense, not a criminal offense, but they charged him with stealing the bottle of wine from the mail room. 

We then made our way to Trafalger Square where we proceeded to eat lunch and walk our bikes around the square. Then we headed to the back of the buildings on Whitehall Street and stopped in a large lot between the buildings and St. James' park. These buildings are meeting places of government officials (I don't remember exactly), it also included 10 Downing Street where the Prime Minister lives. This large area used to be a car park, until someone drove a van into the middle of the park and launched 2 missiles at 10 Downing Street almost killing the PM at the time. It since has held a small stadium where the Volleyball games were held during the 2012 Olympics. And underneath the lot is the Churchill War Rooms (a museum that has been voted the best museum in London for a couple of years in a row).

We then biked to Westminster Abbey where many special occasions are held such as weddings (Kate and William), coronations (Queen Elizabeth) and funerals. Although this was not the original Westminster Abbey, the original was torn down by the Normans who didn't like it and rebuilt in their own style. 

Our tour ended in Hyde Park when we rode to the monument that Queen Victoria built for Prince Albert (who, I found out today, are known as the grandparents of Europe, and were first cousins. So a bit of inbreeding going on there.) I honestly think that the monument is really ugly. It's out of place and really obnoxious standing at the edge of Hyde Park, but across the street is the Royal Albert Hall, which is actually rather lovely.

After the bike tour ended, I took dad down the Oxford Circus/Regent street to show him where I was going to school and I wanted to take him to Forbidden Planet as well. We walked around quite a bit and called it a somewhat early night because we have some fun plans for tomorrow which include a museum trip, Borough Market (are you surprised?) and a football fixture!

Fantastic February

Wow. I cannot believe that it is already February. As of yesterday I had been in London an entire month and it sure doesn't feel like it. I can't decide if it feels like I've been here longer or shorter than a month. When I think of how long it has been since I've seen a certain person I feel like it has been forever, but when I think of what I've been doing in London and all the things I've seen I feel like I've only been here a week.

Friday. Can you guess what we did? If you guessed Borough Market you'd be correct! I've decided that every time I go to BM I'll try something new to eat! So this time I got shrimp, squid, and mussel stir fry (at least it was something like that, I'm not exactly sure what it was called)

But each week when I walk past that stall, they are always handing out spoonful samples and I decided to get some this week! It was delicious, but I couldn't finish it all unfortunately. And for dessert I went for some more goat milk ice cream! (to argue, it is a bit healthier than regular ice cream)

I know I know. It was below 40 degrees and I got some ice cream. Well to tell you the truth I wasn't going to get any, but when I approached the stand I saw that they had different flavors from last week! I sampled some salted caramel and fell in love. So thats what I got:) The girls with me joked to the man at the stall that I needed a loyalty card and I had to agree with them. 

TP and I went shopping on Oxford street because her birthday was Saturday and she wanted to look for shoes to go with her birthday outfit. (Who was I to argue about going shopping, especially since we went to Forever 21, which was 3 stories tall!) It was actually the first time I went shopping and spent money on more than one item! I bought two new tops, and undershirt and some more yoga pants for class! To be brutally honest, I'm really intimidated shopping in London because most of the stores are 3 stories or more and I don't know where to start. So most of the time I usually wander about aimlessly until the person I'm with is ready to go. 

Saturday was TP's birthday and I had some errands to run (some of which were for myself and a couple were for her birthday). Ever since PC got me looking at used bookstores I have been determined to find the original UK Harry Potter books.

In case you were wondering I've decided to reread Harry Potter while I'm here. And while I don't need the paper copies of the books to read them, I would still like to take them home with me. I went to a couple different secondhand bookstores that I researched (which surprisingly there are a lot of in London), but I didn't have any luck. 

All of the bookstores were rather large and books lined the walls from floor to ceiling as you can see in the picture above. Most of the stores had a basement as well as a ground floor and I could have spent forever browsing through them and probably spent a fortune. I'm determined to find some more bookshops while I'm here. However, I did manage to buy 4 books while I was out and about. 

A Doctor Who Shooting Scripts books. (Don't ask me what I'm going to do with it, I'm not entirely sure) and the three Lord of the Rings in One book! I also bought The Cukoo's Calling and The Silkworm written by Robert Galbraith (AKA JK Rowling) Now I know what you must think, her book The Casual Vacancy was terrible, why would you read anything of hers that isn't Harry Potter. And while I must agree with you there, I really enjoyed her crime novels, they are indeed much better than the Casual Vacancy. 

Now, I did have other things to do to get ready for TP's birthday, so I couldn't spend my entire day in the bookstores. After leaving, I travelled to Lola's Kitchen (which sells fantastic cupcakes, I was able to control myself don't worry) and picked up her birthday cake!

When I ordered it I thought I picked the buttercream blue option, but I guess I picked red, but the cake still turned out really cute! We went to this place called The Diner for her birthday and celebrated! This restaurant was supposed to resemble a 50's American Style restaurant, but I thought it missed the mark. They did have, however, really good music and really good food. They had lots of American food (I will probably end up there a couple of times during the semester) and they served breakfast all day! I was in heaven! I ordered a short stack of pancakes (which I have been dying for) and onion rings (which I have also been dying for). The pancakes were delicious, but because we were in the UK the didn't bring me enough syrup (healthier I know, but I still like my pancakes drowning in syrup). They also served milkshakes and burgers and lots of different types of fries! After we got home we sang to TP and ate some cake and then we played charades! Overall it was a very fun night!

Today was a very cold day and I nearly froze on my way to church. (Surprisingly, the north of the UK is getting or got a large snowstorm, so it's dropped the temperature here). I was almost late actually because I woke up late and took a bus instead of the tube. We had a wonderful Testimony meeting and for Sunday School we talked about the Light of Christ and watched a video with Elder Bednar in it. For Relief Society we talked about refocusing ourselves on the Savior and Sister Philips (the couple missionaries) said something that touched me she asked "If we were brought to court before witnesses, would there be enough evidence in our life to convict us of being a Christian?" And I thought about that and the things in my life that would be proof to others that I was a Christian, that I believed in Christ. I thought about my pictures of Christ hanging on the wall at my house along with temple pictures. And while I may not have decorations hanging up in my flat, I can also be convicted through the books and music found on my phone. Just an interesting thought.

After church I had the opportunity to FaceTime one of my families. It was an unexpected and wonderful surprise. I loved seeing my respite kid and know that he's missing me just as much as I'm missing him! I was happy to see each member of the family and catch up with them! We've decided that we're going to make it a common occurrence:)