Pictures!

Here are some pictures of my recent adventures since I last posted pictures:

Holding really old books at the Wordsworth trust

 Picturesque view at the lake  district

 Cool structure inside fountains abbey

 Cool and impossible to recreate ceiling in cathedral in York

 Happy birthday cake for doctor who!

 Boggle hole, English coast

 Chatsworth, or Pemberly from the Keira Knightley Pride and Predjudice movie

 Oxford!

 Great hall at oxford that the dining hall in Harry Potter was based off of

 In front of the Louvre

 Me with the REAL Mona Lisa

 Beautiful Sunset in Paris

 Versailles!

 Hall of Mirrors at Versailles

 My favorite piece of art at the Pompadou (modern art museum)

 Gelato in the shape of a flower! delicious and beautiful

 The view of the eiffel tower from the top of L'arc de Triumph

 I'm pinching the Eiffel tower

 Beautiful Sunset in Paris from the top of the arc

 Notre Dame

 Me in front of Notre Dame

Beautiful cathedral full of stained glass windows all depicting different Bible stories 

Happy Father's Day!

First of all Happy Father's day to my wonderful dad and to all of the other great dads out there! So there is decent internet at the hotel right now so I decided to finally get around to blogging about Paris. It is beautiful here but also dirty and I feel like it is a little more sketchy here than it is in London. I would feel safer walking down the street at night in London than I do here but I am always with my friends here when I walk out of the hotel so I don't think I have much to be worried about. I haven't been to the Eiffel tower just yet but I have seen it and the plan is to go there tomorrow. So far I have been to the Louvre, the Musee D'orsay, the Pompadou, L'arc de Triumph, L'orangerie, and Versailles. My friends and I have been eating a lot of bagettes and cheese because it is just so delicious and cheap. My favorite type of cheese is this cheese spread my friend introduced me to called Tartare. It is delicious. I also enjoyed sitting in a nice little french restaurant and eating a traditional french meal with my whole study abroad group (we had to buy out the whole restaurant basically). There is lots of delicious gelatto here just as there was in London although I have found it easier to find my favorite types of european chocolate here than I did in London. I already got my favorite Cote D'or Orange and I have been nibbling on little bits of it since we got here. I also have been to several boulangeries and patissiers and gotten various things there for meals. I find it is more difficult to find reasonable places to eat here but the traditional food here is a lot better in some ways than the traditional British food. Hmm what else to say about Paris. Well most people speak french here but they actually frequently understand some English, I guess because of the numbers of tourists. I want to use my french more but I have been a little bit nervous that I will say something really wrong since it has been so long since I took the class. Everyone on my study abroad seems to be loving it here but I think people are getting ready to head back home. I am excited to share some of the fun things I have experienced here with my parents when they come at the end. We will have a blast and maybe I can do some blogging about our adventures on here too! Going to church today was really interesting. We went into a separate english speaking room and there was a missionary speaking into a microphone in the actual chapel who was attempting to translate for us. He did a pretty decent job I guess he was just whispering quitely so it was hard to hear and then they didn't want it to be too loud so it was hard to hear but I did get some sort of an idea as to what was going on since they did have a camera showing the stand. We only stayed for sacrament meeting so as not to inconveince the ward with our large numbers and lack of understanding the french language. It was cool though to see two young boys confirmed members of the church and given the gift of the holy ghost at the beginning of sacrament meeting and then to watch the adorable primary kids sing father's day songs in french to their dads. Tonight we are doing a river cruise as a study abroad group and then we have the eiffel tower as our last thing as a group. I can't believe this study abroad is almost over but I have learned so much more from it than I could have possibly imagined at the beginning. I honestly wondered why I was going in the beginning but I can see now that there was a lot for me to learn here about my classes, about the people around me, and about myself. I am so grateful that I have had this opportunity! Well hopefully I will be back for more blogging sometime soon. TTFN!

Paris!

Hey everyone I made it to Paris but the internet is not super good at my hotel so we will have to see how much I will be able to post here. In any case, Paris is fantastic. I already started off my time here last night with cheese and bread from a nearby patisserie. It was crazy taking the metro to our hotel but the atmosphere of Paris is pretty cool. Today we are starting off by going to the Louvre and then L'Orangerie. Hopefully I will be able to post more later! TTFN!

Hiking around the Lake District

So I didn't get the chance to post yesterday because the internet is not the best at the hotel where I am currently staying but it is a nice hotel. Yesterday we got on the bus and came to the Lake District. Our big study abroad group was then split up into three groups and my group was sent on the "long hike" first. It was quite a long hike and it was also quite steep with lots of rocks that kind of made me feel like a mountain goat. The views though on the hike were beautiful and took some nice pictures which I will post below. After the hike we cleaned up quickly and then went to dinner at a restaurant near Wordsworth's cottage where we had a traditional English meal that was pretty good and we had a reading from the poet in residence at the Wordsworth cottage. After this I walked around the town for a little bit and watched the beautiful sunset by the dock of the lake before heading to bed. This morning I woke up and had a lovely breakfast and then went on the "short hike" with my group. It was an enjoyable hike and definitely not as hard as the other hike. When I got back I had some lunch that I bought at Tescos and then I spent some time doing homework and washing some of my clothes in the sink. I brought more sweaters than I needed and not enough short sleeves shirts on our traveling part because I thought it would be colder but it has hardly rained since we have been out of London. Now I've got to get some more homework done so TTFN!

 Beautiful views from the hike

 Elizabeth and I hiking!

 Beautiful view!

Pretty bridge

Shakespeare, Gardens, Hiking, Temple, etc.

So I didn't blog yesterday because I got back from a hike and I just fell asleep right away. So yesterday we started out by heading to Statford upon Avon which was the birthplace of Shakespeare. We first saw the house he was born in, then Anne Hathaway's house, and then we went to a Tudor farm where I got to hold a really big bird called an Eagle owl. It was awesome and the farm was pretty adorable too. After the farm we went back to the hotel and those of us who wanted to grabbed stuff for an eight  mile hike. I chose to go on the hike and there were lots of beautiful views which included lots of rolling hills. When I got home from the hike I was so tired that I feel asleep on top of my bed for an hour with my shoes still on and then I woke up and actually got ready for bed. Today we started out going to hidcote gardens which some pretty gardens nearby. Then we got on the bus and traveled for quite a while until we got to Preston where we did baptisms at the temple. The temple was beautiful and it is fun to add that temple to my list of temples I have been to. After this we got back on the bus and headed to our new hotel to get food and head in for the night. TTFN!

 Shakespeare's Birthplace

 Anne Hathaway's House

 Holding an eagle owl 

 Beautiful view from the hike we went on 

 Creative sign we found in the town at the end of our hike 

 In Hidcote Gardens

The Preston Temple

Church and Tintern Abbey

Today started off with packing up and leaving bath to head off to church. We visited a small ward in the area who were very friendly and happy to have us. The old British ladies in Relief society were really adorable. It was probably my favorite church in England so far if we were picking favorites. After church we got back on the bus and headed over to Wales to visit Tintern Abbey. The ruins of the Abbey were amazingly beautiful. I think it even added an extra kind of beauty to the place because it was in ruins. After we went on a little walk to an outlook point where one of the professors gave this little talk about the Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth. It was an inspirational poem and the scenery we were in was beautiful. After this we got back on the bus and went to our hotel which is near Stratford upon avon which we will be visiting tomorrow which is the home of Shakespeare. TTFN!

 Ruins of Tintern Abbey

 Aubrey enjoying the splendor of Tintern Abbey

 More Tintern Abbey

 Our infamous professors at Tintern Abbey

 Beautiful view from our little hike

Bath and Prior Park

So I didn't get much sleep last night due to the crazy drunk people in and around the hostel I was at but I got ready for the day and when I met up with our groups my professor told me that he was sorry and that we weren't supposed to be in a hostel so they moved us into a hotel and it is soo much nicer here than it was there. My bed is so cozy and clean and I don't think I have really ever appreciated a hotel room as much as I appreciate this one right now. Anyways, we started off going to the roman baths and exploring those. I tried a little bit of the water that is supposed to be "healing" and it just tasted warm and mineral-y to me. After the Baths we went and got some lunch from a nearby super market and then we explore that Abbey at Bath. Then I packed up my stuff from the hostel to move it to the new hotel and we got on a bus to Prior Park. It is another beautiful estate that has been preserved kind of like Stourhead that we went to the other day. There were lots of beautiful views and we spent a while there. After this we got back on the bus back to Bath where we got dinner and then some ice cream for dessert. After that I went to my new hotel, had a dance party with some of the girls now and now I am heading to bed. TTFN!

 The Roman Baths in Bath

 The crescent of apartments in Bath

 A house where Jane Austen stayed in Bath

 Prior Park