It's Official, I Am Homesick...

Homesick for...LONDON!!!
Seriously! The other day I honestly felt sick just thinking about it and how much I miss it! I never thought I would love and miss a place so much! So basically there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about London, the wonderful time I had, the many fun things there are to do there, the people I met...the list goes on. I occassionally find myself thinking of different places in London and which tube line I would use to get there and which tube stop I would get off of, lame...I know, but it shows my deep love for the city. (I also still have the London weather on my gmail homepage). So my plan is to go back, soon! How am I going to do this with no money in my bank account, well...I am not exactly sure yet but when I was accepted to go to London on the Study Abroad I looked up flights and they had last minute flights for $200, can you believe that? So next time I find that deal I am jumping on the next flight, if even for a weekend! So who is with me??? Let's Go!

So...here's to you London!

My Apology:

So I would like to quickly apologize quickly to anyone who has read my blog the past 2 months. I have been informed, my numerous sources, that the music was just TOO MUCH! That everytime they opened my blog they would hear the blaring trumpets from Michael Buble's, "Foggy Day In London Town". For this I am sorry. In my defense, the playlist of music did not work in the UK and so I was never really aware of the music, how loud it was or how annoying. So, for your convenience I have changed the song to Miley Cyrus, "Party In The USA". Though many of you may not like Miley, it seems a better altenative to the trumpets and it is applicable to me now, since I am home in the US!

Thanks for enduring these past couple of months!

-Aub

P.S. And for those of you who feel deprived of those wonderful trumpets, please, don't fret. They are still there and the second song in my playlist. Go ahead, listen to your hearts content!

My Fellow Londoners:

I copied the picture directory from online of all the people who went to London with me since not all my pictures are labeled and because I don't have a picture of everyone, so now I can remember everyone's name and what they looked like...though most of them don't look like this now. But thats besides the point.

Remembering London

So I was thinking of what I will most about London and what I will miss the least. Here is what I came up with:

MISS THE MOST:
The thing that I will miss the most is the "Kelloggs Special K Bliss Creamy Berry Crunch" Cereal. This is what got me up in the mornings when I was exhausted and just wanted more sleep and then I thought to myslef, "NO! You at least need to get up to eat that cereal". No lie, its delicious. I still have yet to find it in the states. Bummer!I just looked it up online...its a UK cereal. Sad Day. I guess I will just have to go back someday!

MISS THE LEAST:
This may seem weird and gross to you but I will miss the most is the place where I did most of my homework. The internet was horrible at the center and I could never get internet in our room. And so one time I tried sitting in the hallway right outside our bathroom and I got full bars! It was a convienent place for me to sit, I got great internet and I didn't have to leave my room. The problem...it was right in front of the bathroom...and you know what that means! This is Jess and I doing our homework and laughiing about where we were sitting and the smells. Haha, enough said.

Top 8 Places To Get Married In London:

So while I was in London I had the luck of runnning into weddings wherever I went...seriously. Whenever there was another wedding people would come grab me to take a picture of it. So here are my top 8 places to get married in London. Enjoy!

Number 8:
This is the church right down the street from where we lived. It is on Moscow road and though I didn't get a picture of the Bride and Groom, it is a wedding. It is at #8 because it is a typical and predictable place to get married.

Number 7:
This is at the Russel Hotel, which is right outside the Russel Square tube stop station. We ran into the happy couple as we were coming back from the Charles Dicken's museum. A hotel, nice...but boring.

Number 6:
This wedding took place in Grenwich (I actually got a 2 for 1 deal here). This wedding was taking place at the Queens House in the covered walkway. Pretty place but I don't like the dress, sorry.

Number 5:
This wedding was just a couple minutes later up the hill from the last wedding. It is on the hill in Grenwich, right below the place of the Prime Meridian. How romantic, right? For "time" and all eternity! (Oh, I am so clever). Pretty but weird and why are they laying down for their picture?

Number 4:
This wedding took place at Regents Park. A beautiful place and quite a beautiful dress, I approve.

Number 3:
This wedding was beautiful...and so was the bride. We were walking around the Caernarfron Castle and then the wedding party walked in and they took pictures in the middle of the grass with the castle surrounding them. Pretty Cool!

Number 2:
I loved this one. I saw this couple get married on my last day in London. They are on the bridge right in front of Big Ben and Parliament. What a pretty place for pictures and as the sun set, what could be better?

Number 1:
And the number one place to get married is the...TUBE STATION. This couple actually got married in the Queensway Tube Station. I don't care if you met there, it is dirty and gross and far from romantic. But, it is very original and that is why it wins!

The BYU London Center

I remember when I first was accepted to the study abroad I really wanted to see where I was living and what it looked like. I couldn't find any pictures except for this one blog with some pictures. Though I didn't take a lot, here are pictures for you fellow study abroader's (if that is even a word) and for my own sake to remember it.

THE DORM ROOMS:
Our room may look like a disaster but I have a few things to say in our defense. A) It was finals week so none of us were sleeping B) We were packing and so everything was out C) If you think our room is messy, you should see the other rooms. We passed all of our cleaning checks and our room was used as an example of how the room should look. So there!


MY BUNK:
My bed was on the bottom and Chelsea was on the top.

BATHROOM:
Our bathroom was nicer than all the others because it was attached to our room and it had two nice showers, two sinks and our own toilet for only 8 people. We really lucked out. The bottom picture is the funny one I got of Tiffany getting ready for bed, which she was mad about! :)

HAIR SPOT:
This is where all 8 of us did our hair. Not a very convienent spot (in front of the door) but the plugs in our bathrooms were not made for England plugs or converters, weird. But we made it work.
OUR DOOR:
Enough said, but the signs on the door are for our amazing cleaning skills and all the times we passed our cleaning checks.
STUDY/EATING/RELAXING PLACE:
This is where most of the homework would get done, where the professors and their families would eat dinner and where just about everything else happened.
SITTING ROOM:
This is where we would meet everyday at 5:15pm for devotional and where we would go over announcements and other fun stuff before dinner.
THE SERVERY:
This is where we would have dinner everynight, where we would make our daily Peanut Butter sandwhiches and where we would eat the desserts we had bought and packed in out boxes.
THE CLASSROOM:
Well...I would have taken pictures of the classroom but truthfully that is not a place I want to remember, so no picture. Haha.
ENTERANCE:
This is the enterance to where we lived. We lived in on 27 Palace Court in two flats that were in about the middle of the street. We had to put in a code each time to get in. So official!
STREET:
This is the street we lived on "Palace Court". Yay!

Hope you liked the tour!

Motto in London:

So in London we had a whiteboard where we would write down information about what we were doing that day such as plays, trips or dessert places and so people would know and they could join us.

Sometimes I would walk past it and it would have funny sayings or things written on it. One was a poll to see whether "Julius Campell or Gary Bartier would win in a fight" (from Remember the Titans). Throughout the day people voted and Julius won.

People gained a bit of weight while in London due to eating out a lot and all the desserts they had there.And so another favorite of mine was the quote that said:
"Go Big or Go Home...or GO HOME BIG". Haha.
In the London airport at one of the bathrooms we found pictures that fit this quote perfectly:
BEFORE LONDON:

AFTER LONDON:

Enjoy!

I'm Coming Home...

PREFACE: There are no pictures on this post. Why you may ask, because...I didn't take any. One, I was pictured out and secondly, my eyes were burning from no sleep and so it was a "no go" with my contacts that morning and so I wore my glasses all day. :)

As you can tell from my last post, we got up early. As in 4am early. We headed out the door at 5am (there was 11 of us all on the same delta plane to Atlanta). We had planned to take the 24 bus to the Victoria Station but when it came the bus driver said he would only take 4. Bummer. So 3 got on and the rest of us debated wheterher to wait for another bus or to take a taxi, we choose the taxi. The driver was nice enough to fit 4 of us in one. We had a nice conversation with him because he asked where we were from and after we said Utah he asked, "Are you Mormon?". It was neat to talk with him for a minute. We then got to the station and caught the 6am train to the Gatwick Airport. It took about 35 minutes to get there and then we went to check in our luggage. Before I forget, I have to talk about my packing issue. I packed all my clothes and everything in my suitcase and then planned to check a duffle bag as well with my souviners. But then I found out it cost $55 to do that, and I said, "No thank you". And so I used Chelsea's smaller duffle bag and jammed it all in there, hoping I could use it as my carry-on, along with my other huge stuffed backpack. When I got to the ticket counter I just checked on one and didn't mention my two oversized carry-on's, and so that was that. I took them both on the plane and saved myself paying $55, YAY! We got checked in just fine and got on the plane. Chelsea and I were sitting next to each other and since we knew each other better now, we spread out over the seat and tried to sleep. But sadly it didn't really happen even though I was exhausted. (I realized I had slept 14 hours over the space of 4 days!!!). We watched some good movies though. When we landed in Atlanta we jammed to "Party In The USA!" and got some great stares from the people on the plane. It felt good to be on American soil. It was so funny when we landed because everyone turned on their cell phones and freaked out when they worked and we could actually make calls. We then through customs and everything fine and then I split from the rest of the group because they were all heading to Salt Lake and I was heading to Phoenix. I slept about the whole plane ride and was excited to see my family waiting for me at the airport when I arrived.

Oh wait, I found the one picture of the day. Chelsea at the London Airport drinking a smoothie. Thanks Chels for your contribution!

My Last Day! (Tear, Tear)

I had gone to bed late the night before but Jenny and I decided we wanted to get up early the next morning and head to Westminster so we could take pictures in front of a telephone booth and big ben without the crowds.


The tube was so slow that morning but I realized it was one of my last chances to ride it and so I was ok with it. We even took pictures by our stop.
We finally got back to the center just in time for breakfast. I then started to pack my suitcases. It was so hard to pack everything away and it started to hit me that it was coming to an end. Luckily, my clothes all fit in the suitcase and my souviners fit in the duffle I brought. I then headed to Harrod's (an expensive store)to meet up with some girls.
It is a place we had heard about but we had never made it there, so we thought this was the perfect chance. It was a HUGE store and it had the coolest elevator that went that went up every little level.
The store was filled with the most expensive items imaginable. There was a toy car for $1,500 (but in pounds). They also had a section for baby clothes where they had gucci jr., prada jr. and dolce and gabana jr. (if that is how you spell any of them). So cute...but so expensive. They also had the biggest toy section ever!
There was a guy there who was demonstrating one of the toys. He was so funny and he played pictonary with us and then he made a happy birthday picture for Jenny. YAY!
After that we decided to go see some of our favorite spots in London. First stop was Traflagar Square. It was great to see it one last time and take it all in.
There are big statues of lions in the square surrounding the large monument in the middle. We decidd it would be fun to climb up the lions and take a picture. We didn't realize how tall they were. It took a little help to get us up there (this funny lady jumped in to help me up!)
The lion as tall and slippery and it scared me to death to be sitting on it. I thought I was going to fall off it and so I just wanted to take the picture quick. As you can tell from the picture below, that is how I felt about being up there.
We then decided instead of heading home that we would walk to Big Ben and Westminster. My favorite place in London. We found another great spot for pictures and I got a perfect one. Big Ben, Red Telephone Booth and Red Double Decker Bus. Check, Check, Check.
We then tried to see how many people we could fit in the telephone booth. We fit three and I am sure we could have fit more but we needed someone outside to take the picture.
We then thought about taking a boat on the Thames but then we just decided to walk around outside of Parliament and around the back.
We then walked along the Thames and saw a sight that I had failed to see the whole time I was there, which was the long side of Parliament along the Thames.


Afterwards we headed back home and got off at Notting Hill Station. Oh how I will miss that station and seeing the underground signs.
For our final dinner in London we went to this great Italian place on Bayswater called Zizzi's (I had been there before, but I liked it so much I wanted to go back). Then for our final dessert we decided to get a waffle again. So bad for you but oh so delicious. We talked about opening our own chain in the US, what do you think? YUM!
We then headed to Westminster for our final activity of the day. The LONDON EYE!!! Now, I am deathly afraid of heights and so for me to ride the largest Ferris Wheel in the world, that was a great accomplishment. Here is a view to show you how tall it is.
We went together as a group of 30 and so we could all fit in the same capsel. This is what they looked like.
It moved so slowly that they were able to open the door and we just walked right on. There was a sitting place in the middle and then room around the outer ends for you to stand and walk around. Here we are inside!
It was a great experience and an awesome view. Once we got to the vary top we could see over all of London, especially Big Ben.


I am glad to say that I survived and that it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be! I just made sure that I stayed away from the edge and that I walked slowly wherever I went. Look, its the London "EYE"!!!
The sun was just setting as we got off the Eye and so we took some really cool pictures with Big Ben at night. We were able to make it so we were as tall as the clock. We took cool ones leaning against it, kissing it and even hugging it. Here is one of my favorites.
We then headed home that night and we had a little final goodbye meeting where we had musical numbers including, "For Good" from Wicked. Definitely cried a little. We then, of course, had a huge hugging fest! I will really miss everyone. I then headed downstairs to finish packing and getting last minute things done. One of the things was signing underneath my bunkbed. Everyone from every year has signed it and so Chelsea and I thought we should too. Mine was pretty simple and hers was a saying that she always said while in London. Good memories.
That whole night we jammed out to "Party In The USA" in preparation for heading home. We stayed up until 3am and then we got up at 4am to leave on our plane. So it really wasn't sleeping, it was more of a "nap". Chelsea slept in my bed and we had funny experiences talking about naming our children, "Flemmington" and calling him "Flem" for short and telling jokes. We were so confused though when we woke up the next morning. Chelsea woke up saying, "Where am I? WHO am I?" Haha