It's a wrap

So to wrap up my experience in Cambridge here are a few pictures of the last couple of weeks...


One weekend we went to Bath which was my absolute favorite city in England. This is a picture of Stourhead Gardens where Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth on the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice. It was gorgeous.

This is me punting the Friday before we left. Unfortunately I discovered I have a natural talent for punting and love it and now I'll never use that talent again. So sad :(

To celebrate finishing our finals, Christina and I went to Cafe Nerro and got hot chocolate, some of the best I've ever had. Due to the cold weather in England I had hot chocolate almost every day.

This is a picture from our trip to London which was awesome! You can see the eye and Big Ben in the background. I also saw the Tower of London, Wicked (the play), The National Gallery, the British Museum, it was great I love London.

Yep so there's brief 411 on my last days in London. I am now back in Provo and going to start school tomorrow. Yeah kind of a let down after studying in Cambridge for two months...

Born to be 20

My shoes, the sparkling juice and four empty bottles "acquired" from the formal by men in kilts

Okay so I have been a HORRIBLE blogger the past couple weeks so please forgive me. I have so much to tell and I'm not quite sure where to start so I'll start with my Birthday that was exactly a week ago tomorrow. So I'm now 21! All the priveleges that life has to offer are practically all mine. No more looking forward to the day I can date/drive, vote, buy dry ice, or the best of all drink and gamble- haha NOT. Anyway now I am by definition an adult which is scary and exciting in of itself. All that aside though, being 20 years old rocked. I think I can say that it has been the best year of my life. Starting out with my favorite semester at BYU, living for 3 and 1/2 months in D.C., the city of my dreams, and then coming to England to study at Cambridge of all places! It's been the year of dreams come true. So the big question is what will being 21 bring? Graduation and then who knows? I can honestly say I have no idea where I'll be four months from now. Being 21 definitely started off on a wonderful note. First of all I spent it in Cambridge which was great. I had classes- which surprisingly I think this is the first time in all my years that I have been in school on my Bday. Then Christina took me out to lunch at Valerie Pattiserie and we went shopping at H&M and I found a couple of cute things and then I bummed around all day and went to formal that night. Then after formal Megan and some of my other friends got me a delicious chocolate cake from Marks and Spencer and some sparkiling juice that I was really good. And then people sang me Happy Birthday and I spent the night with friends. And then the next day they took me out to Bella Italia for a birthday dinner. I can't thank them enough. It was a wonderful day and this birthday will definitely go down in history. So all I can say for the rest of the year is bring it on!

Lost Camera and Little Miracles

Okay so to begin...I went to the temple last Saturday and lost my camera. Therefore, my posts have been lacking of pictures which is a shame because I've seen some pretty cool stuff and would love to show it to you. Things like standing on top of King's Cathedral, going to Norwich and the Coast but alas I will wait to blog about these until I borrow my friends' pictures who generously took pictures for me :) And all is well now because my camera is back! So let me tell you the story of the temple...

Last Saturday a couple of us girls were able to go to the temple with the Relief Society sisters. I had a hard time deciding to go because we weren't going to be able to do baptisms and it's an hour and half drive to the temple. I went anyway and on the ride there I got uber car sick, I was so sick it was not fun and I was slightly regretting my decision. That all changed though when we got there. The grounds the temple is on is beautiful grounds and there were a lot of families out having a picnic so we joined the rest of ladies from our ward and laid out a blanket and had a great picnic, the English sure know how to have a picnic and it's was a beautiful day. So when everyone went in for their session only Megan and I were left so we went in the temple to just see if we could see the font and they were gracious enough to let us tag on the end of the group there and do baptisms! It was such a blessing, we told the relief society ladies when we were finished and they said that never happens and they usually stop doing baptisms long before we got there so it was a little miracle. So we stayed the whole day and then we drove home and I loved conversing with the Relief Society ladies. What did we talk about you might ask? Well, and I quote "sex, violence, and drugs" oh it was such a funny conversation, they all got so animated and they were teasing each other and I have never laughed so hard. The day was completely worth it and I'm so glad I went. Of course it wasn't until we got all the way home that I discovered I had left my camera there and the temple was closed until Monday! Surprisingly I didn't panic until I had to tell my mom that I had lost their camera. However, thanks to gracious security gaurds who put up signs, my camera was found of all places in a tree! I think I left it by a bench and somebody saw it and moved it closer to the temple where it would hopefully be found. It's things like that that make you appreciate the members of the church and good, honest people and my heart swelled with gratitude. Still more miraculous, the Bishop went to the temple this week so he was able to pick it up for me, it couldn't have been more perfect. So there's my little miracle of the week. I definitely know Heavenly Father is watching out for me and if that's true then what else is there to fear? Well TTFN, ta ta for now and I promise more posts to come as soon as I get pictures.

I've finally recieved my Hogwarts letter

Christina and I about to eat the deserts that we don't know if they were alcoholic or not :) JK we were told there wasn't any alcohol but still skeptical....

Nothing like a high wasted skirt and good pair of heels... :)

Oh yes all of us with our millionare faces haha maybe one day...

Today I entered the world of Hogwarts where there are fancy dinners in great halls and amazing food appears on plates in front of you. This would otherwise be known as a formal hall held at Pembroke College and what a wonderful night it was! Formal hall is basically a very nice dinner where everyone dresses "smart," aka handsome in American English, and you are served very nice food and it's a chance to intermingle with the professors and fellows of the college. Can I just say I love this kind of thing? Having a good excuse to really dress up, eating proper and having dinner served to you. I told the people I was sitting next to that maybe I should marry a someone like a politician so I can go to fancy dinners and dress up more often, I don't know I think I'd make a good senator's wife, don't you? haha no but it was a blast. I was at the end of the table and we just had a great time taking pictures and enjoyed all our food including Cod, Chicken, and then a good apple donut and creme desert, mmmmmm.

Weekend 2 Part one

Tea at Granchester with Zina and Drew plus lots of others not featured in this picture

Fireworks for some kind of weekend festival... who knew?

Punting on the River Cam after a wonderful American BBQ, P.S. I don't like this pic of me but there you go.

This would be our Italian singer punter who also models while punting, oh gotta love it! Picture would be curtesy of Camille, Thanks Camille!

SO I've been a slacker on blogging lately so I have a lot to say as always. The weekend for me started on Thursday and besides an American BBQ, it was actually very English :) So on Thursday we had a late fourth of July party on Darwin Island in Darwin College, very beautiful. We had hamburgers and even doritos and rootbeer which the English says tastes like cough syrup and I must disagree! Thanks to good leaders we had boats to go punting in on the river Cam which runs behind all the colleges of Cambridge. So for those who don't know what punting is, because I definitely didn't before I came here, you get in little boats and then one person stands up and propells the boat with a pole so kind of like what I imagine Italy would be like. Our boat included me, Jen and Derek- the married couple- Camille, Christina, Megan and Jared so we had a really great crew. Despite loosing the pole a couple of times and running into people we had a pretty smooth ride thanks to Derek and Jared. The guy featured above would be Jared who serenaded us in Italian while he punted, it just doesn't get any better than that :) and then we went through some willow trees in which the girls all broke out in "kiss the girl" from the Little Mermaid because that's what it felt like. All in all super fun and I want to go again when there are less people on the river.

Friday was good, had a classic BYU party including card games. Afterwards we went and watched fireworks which made up for the ones I missed in the states of the fourth. Definitely a lot less grand but hey, you can't be too picky right? They were still pretty good. Saw some great things at the carnival there including a guy dressed in an astrounaut suit claiming the Martians are coming, one of the funniest things I've seen!

Saturday then was tea at Granchester. It was about a 45 minute walk away to this field that followed the river. It was great seeing people sprawled out by the river, it pretty much looked like a beach! We even saw a couple who had just been married and their reception was being set up and there were ladies in big hats and the dainty umbrellas and the whole get out which was a perfect setting because it just felt like the bride belonged there so that was cute. Then we arrived at this area where chairs and tables are set out in circles and you can buy tea and scones and cakes. It was so nice, I got a scone with apricot jam and we just sat in a circle and drank our tea and ate and enjoyed the nice afternoon. I felt very English, ahhhh so nice. There are just old traditions here that the states definitely don't have which is too bad.

Happy Birthday America! From Scotland

Fountain's Abbey

Drew, Me, Sara, And Jared in front of Edinburough Castle

View from the top of the Trussachs.

The view of Edinburough from King Arthur's Seat

The Castle

This weekend was a trip to Scotland and wow, it was amazing! I don't even know where to begin. The whole program went on a 8 hour bus ride (not too fun) up to Scotland for the weekend. On the way up we stopped in I think Richmond and saw an ancient castle that was built in the 1100's. There was only one tower still in contact and the rest is just ruins but still super cool. I felt like a child on a playground climbing the castle. It was in a charming city as well so we got to peruse the shops and I found a great little antique store and enjoyed all the cottages. The drive up was beautiful, with rolling hills and the cutest little cottages and houses. When we passed the English border, our bus driver let us get out and take pictures and there was a bagpiper next to the sign that said "Welcome to Scotland" and I knew this would be a great trip. So we arrived in Scotalnd Friday night and we hiked up King Arthur's Seat wheich gave us a beautiful view of the city and the Ocean. We looked out and it was so cool because you could see the old castle and ancient spires poking out and it was enchanting.

So Saturday was an all day trip to the Trussachs or Mini Highlands. Basically we hiked two miles in rain and mud through foilage, it wasn't even really a trail, to the top of this "mountain" to see a majestic view of the highlands and a couple lakes. No, I am not a huge fan of hiking but this was gorgeous and I'd do it again in a heart beat. There definitely is no place like that in America. Saturday night we had a fourth of July party where we did Scottish dancing and that was very amusing. Of course drinks were provided so only the BYU kids were the sober ones so it was funny to watch everyone else. Basically the dancing was like line dancing and square dancing only to Scottish music. Unfortunately there were no fireworks but we still had a blast dancing the night away. Oh and some of the guys from BYU bought full on kilts and wow was that entertaining to see :)

Sunday included running around the city almost literally. We went to St. Giles catherdral for a Presbyterian service in the morning which was really interesting. It's sad to see how misguided they are about principles and how lost it seems but it is also really neat to see that people still believe in God and have a desire to worship him. They prayed for America in the service thanking them for their ingenuity and what has come out from Scotland and then they prayed that America would use it's power wisely and properly. It was very touching. I don't think prayers are said enough like that in America. So after the service we tried to find our own church building to go to but we failed. We got five different directions and then we missed it so we just gave up. It wasn't for a loss though because I got to see a different side of the city of Edinburough which I wouldn't have gotten and then I got to see the residential side of Scotland so it was neat to see how people live. SO afterwards we came back into the city and went to the National Gallery which was beautiful, I love looking at the art and they had a lot of pieces that I had studied in my classes last year from Italy so that was cool. Then we went to the "Elephant House Cafe" where J.K. Rowling started the Harry Potter series. I can definitely see the inspiration as there's a beautiful view of the Edinburough castle through that cafe. Then we went to another museum, went to the castle, and went souvenier shopping. Finally we went back to our living quarters and I was able to change into some dry clothes and pants! It had been raining and windy off and on all day and I had been in a white flowy skirt all day....not a good combination! I basically had to hold down my skirt all day and it was drenched for most of the morning haha so pants were a beautiful thing that night. Then that night we found a kabob house and had wonderful middle eastern food and we just sat and talked for a long time. This trip was wonderful because I got to know everyone so much better.

Anyway so today (Monday) we came "home" to Cambridge. It's so cool that I can call Cambridge home! On our way home though we stopped and saw Fountain's Abbey which was like a nun/priest school. It was started in the 1100's and it's actually pretty well preserved. We had a great time climbing through all the ruins nad it's so fun to see places are that old! Anyway so in a nutshell that was my weekend. Sorry that was probably a lot more than you wanted to know but I still could write so much more! Anyway, now it's back to the books....

Today was a Fairytale

"Willy Wonka candy factory"... seriously, they were playing the music and everything!
This is part of the view from my desk window. You can see people punting down the river Cam, it's a beautiful view.
This my living room which I have in addition to my bedroom. Notice the piano :)
Me eating a FREE piece of cake and in the backgroud is King's college which is where I eat, sleep, study, all that good stuff, who ever thought I'd live in an acutal castle?
One of the many cool buildings and architecture at one of the colleges in Cambridge. This is so beautiful.


Greetings from Cambridge, England! One 9 hour plane ride, a 2 1/2 hour bus ride and a couple of layovers and a hot and sweaty ten minute walk later I finally arrived at King's College, Cambridge. I haven't seen London yet but the country here is beautiful, just like the movies. Lots of rolling hills and little cottages that Sleeping Beauty could live in. Then I arrive in this castle which is where I will be spending most of my time for the next 8 weeks. I really feel like I went to sleep and woke up in a storybook, it's awesome. So some of the wierd things, England doesn't believe in aircoditioning and they also don't believe puting the toilets with the showers. The showers are on one floor and the "toilet" is two floors down. They also, at least in Cambridge, don't believe in walking on the grass. Besides that though, Cambridge is pretty cool and I live quite high class. Everyone is super polite here and they are really good about making you feel at home and giving you everything you need. So what I've experienced so far I love and I can tell you it will be impossibly hard to go back to Provo for school. If this was closer to home, I think I would definitely go here, I love living in a fairy tale story book.