Sunday at King's... getting settled

Today I checked into the Pembroke-King's Programme and moved into Bodley's Court (in King's College). My suite has a bedroom and a front room and Cambridge doesn't believe in roommates so I have it all to myself. My windows overlook the lawn and the river... I feel like I'm living in a dream. It's a beautiful campus... I walk through an entrance guarded by porters just to get into my college and then I walk by buildings that are hundreds of years old, filled with stained glass windows and incredible architecture. I eat in a dining hall that looks exactly like Hogwarts (we kept looking around, expecting owls to start flying in).

This morning we went to church at the Cambridge ward. It's a great little ward with this old lady who asks questions and talks incessantly. She's great. They are really excited to have 20 new temporary members and I think we'll probably all be teaching in Relief Society or Primary or something within the next couple of weeks. A lot of the students didn't get a chance to go to church today because they were traveling so tonight the bishop came and we had a mini Sacrament meeting in my room. Our bishop spoke, introducing us to the ward and giving us a talk. I've never had the chance to take the Sacrament in a small setting like that before, especially in my apartment, but it was really powerful and very comforting to have this so far away from home. I'm so grateful for the comforting consistency of the gospel and how it brings people together.

Mom goes home tomorrow so I said goodbye to her today. It was sad to say goodbye but I'm so grateful she could be here and we could spend that time together. I'm so grateful for everything she does for me and all of the support she gives me in everything I do.

Mom and I inside the entrance to King's.

Tomorrow I have orientation, library "induction", and my first class. Oh and I'm going running in about 7 hours. I'm a little scared but I'm excited to get started.

Me sitting at my bedroom window. You can't really see it but that's the Cam River over my shoulder and the grass we're not allowed to walk on to my left.

finally... Cambridge!

This morning we packed everything up and took the underground and then the train to Cambridge. It was quite an adventure with all of our luggage and us not really knowing where we were going but we got here in one piece and then we checked in to our little bread and breakfast. For those that have seen Gilmore Girls it's exactly like the B&B they stay at when they visit Harvard... the hostess (host in our case) who talks incessantly and is very kind (he refused to let us carry any bags up the stairs to our room), flowery wallpaper where the flowers look like they're moving, stairs we sneak down to avoid a 15-minute conversation with the host... it's the whole deal.

After a short break we ventured out to explore Cambridge. It's graduation weekend so there were kids walking around in robes with their parents everywhere and the streets were packed. But we found our way around pretty well considering how crowded it was and our map only had about 1/4 of the roads on it and most of the roads are really narrow and winding. We saw King's College from the outside but it's closed to visitors and I don't have a student ID yet so we couldn't go in. But then we met up with a couple of BYU students and the BYU professor who organized the program and he gave us a little tour. He showed us around Pembroke College, Corpus Christi College, and King's College. I'll be spending most of my time in King's but Pembroke is also part of our program so we have events and things there too. I feel like I'm going to Hogwarts: the dining hall is set up the same way (long student tables with a high table for the professors in the front), the dorms are rooms that come off a spiral stone staircase, we have a "combination room" ("common room" in Harry Potter and at Oxford) for students to hang out in, we each have our own spot at the library, everything is old and made out of stone. The paintings don't talk but then again I've only seen them from a distance. I love King's College. I can't believe I'm going to be going to school here. A bridge built by Isaac Newton is about 200 feet from my dorms, E.M. Forster lived in my building, we saw the pub where Watson and Crick had their breakthrough about DNA... I love how there is history everywhere and I'm going to be living there.

After touring the campus, we went to Evensong at King's Chapel. It's an evening service that is held every evening in each chapel at Cambridge (there is one in each of the 30 colleges). The Evensong at King's is famous because the Chapel Choir sings which is a choir of college guys and little boys for sopranos and altos (dating back to when the school was an all-men school) and it's held in King's chapel which is a beautiful gigantic chapel. I didn't understand a lot of what was going on and so I'll admit I spent a lot of the service admiring the building we were in. It's huge... there are 26 huge stained glass windows depicting Christ and His apostles, the ceiling is the world's largest fan vault... basically it's incredible. I wish I understood architecture so I could describe it, but alas, I'm a science person and therefore I don't.

me at the entrance to my new school.

girl party in London

Friday we had a girl party. Okay, the whole week was a girl party but especially Friday. Friday morning we first went to the BYU London Centre and (after a little confusion because I apparently can't read numbers) we found it only to realize that the students were all at the Tower of London. My friend Melissa is there so I was hoping to see her but luckily we're only an hour or two apart so I'll see her soon. Then we went to Portobello street nearby. On Saturdays there's a huge market there. It was pretty deserted when we walked by but it's a cute part of town. Then we went to Oxford St., which is something like the longest shopping street in the world. It was pretty crazy. We had fun for awhile but it was pretty exhausting so we headed home. That night we went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. The last big fancy play I went to was Phantom of the Opera when I was 5 and I threw up several times during it. This was definitely a better experience. I loved it! Mom liked it too I think (though she still got scared whenever the flying monkeys came on stage).

We didn't take any pictures this day and so I'm already failing on my goal but we took lots the day before so we decided that counted. I loved London but I'm kind of excited that I get to start at Cambridge soon.

being tourists

On Thursday, mom and I spent the day on a double decker bus touring around London and seeing all of the big tourist sites. I felt pretty touristy but oh well. We saw Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, the London Eye, Hyde Park, Speaker's Corner, St. Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, and probably others that I don't remember. Here is the day in pictures.

Mom and I in front of Buckingham Palace

The guards at Buckingham

Parliament Building... apparently the flag means they were in session.

a real-life pirate ship

the London Eye... apparently the most visited tourist attraction. I am a little skeptical of that statistic.

We went on a boat tour and this little girl in front of us was taking a picture of the London Eye. And I thought she was just so cute.

Mom and I waiting for a bus.

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Classic pictures in London phone booths

the rest of Day 1

I'm sure you're all dying to know if we got into Wimbledon. Well here's the rest of the story. I got the ice cream and started running after where I had last seen mom. I finally found her after almost losing the ice cream cone I was carrying.


We started moving again and essentially didn't stop (except when we got yelled at for taking a picture by the security station) until we were in the Wimbledon facility. So yes we got in. Oh and this whole time we were carrying a straightener and blow dryer we had bought at a drug store because we hadn't planned on being out for very long. We figured we'd be exhausted so we weren't worried about carrying a couple of bags around for an hour or two before going back to the hotel to sleep. Apparently this was a bad guess. So we felt a little silly carrying a straightener in to Wimbledon but who cares?


We walked around for awhile trying to find a match we could actually watch. With ground tickets, you don't even have a chance to see the big matches and you essentially have to fight for any other seats. So we finally found a women's doubles match between Maria Elena Camerin/Anna Chakvetadze and Edina Gallovits/Katalin Marosi. It was a pretty close match so we watched it for awhile. We heard occasional cheering from a big, covered court behind us but I'm not sure who was playing there.


While there I decided that I want to be one of the kids who runs to get the balls at Wimbledon. They are pretty awesome. They wear sweet outfits and have to move like robots.


So I would say it was a pretty successful day. Even if we didn't get to see Roger Federer play we at least got to see his name on the board.

Day 1

The past two days have flown by but seem like one really long sleep deprived day. Probably because it was. The time difference meant we arrived here at 5 am my time but noon in England. Luckily I am blessed with the ability to sleep anywhere and got some sleep on the plane and therefore at least was able to walk around and realize I was in England. The most memorable part of the plane ride was the little 12 year old girl named Diamond I sat next to on the flight to New York. I could tell she thought she was pretty awesome and much too cool to have the "unaccompanied minor" bracelet on. After we'd talked for a little bit she asked me how old I was. I told her 20 and she looked completely shocked. She said "I thought you were 15! I thought it was kind of weird that you were studying in England all by yourself." At least she didn't tell me I sounded like I was 30. Anyways, our plane was about 5 hours late but we finally made it to our cute little hotel room that fits a bed, a desk and nothing else. But it’s right downtown so it’s perfect.

We didn’t really have any plans for the day so we decided to ride the train to Wimbledon and see what we could see, hoping we could at least see a sign for the tennis tournament or something. So we got off at Wimbledon Station, which is about a half an hour walk from the actual tennis courts. We walked through Wimbledon, shopping and looking at the pretty houses and trying our best not to get lost. We only missed one turn and even then we didn't walk too far out of our way. When we finally found the tennis courts we started following this sign:

We walked I think around the entire tennis facility before we saw a mob of people in a line (or 'queue'). Little did we know that this was the tip of the iceberg. We followed them back to a field that was filled with lines of people and just followed the people ahead of us until we were in line ourselves. (The people ahead of us in line were a bunch of little kids with their moms and the kids had the cutest accents. Okay, I know, everyone has accents but I'm still getting used to it.)

At this point we decided we'd wait a little while but had no real hope of ever getting in. The stewards had said the wait was probably about 2 hours and it was already 5:15 pm. But while we were sitting there the stewards handed us a "Queue Card" which would allow us to get in and ensure that no one "queue jumps."


I was excited to have evidence that we queued at Wimbledon and was about to suggest that we head out in 15 minutes when I got distracted by an ice cream truck (and no, ice cream trucks do not play music in England).

So I join the queue of kids in front of the ice cream truck. I was waiting patiently when suddenly I saw people moving and I realized that that was our queue. I was not going to run away from my ice cream so I proceeded in line to get my ice cream as I tried to keep track of mom in the mob of people.

I have to go, so I will finish later. I'm sorry that these entries are long, I'm keeping this as my journal and so I'm sorry for the boring details. Pick and choose what you want to read.

Arrival

I'm in an internet barber shop in London right now. My mom and I arrived a couple of hours ago... our flight was about five hours delayed. But we're here now and trying to not get too lost.

Two days!!!

I leave on Tuesday for my adventures in England. I can't believe it is already here!

This past weekend I ran the Wasatch Back with a bunch of my friends. From this experience I concluded once and for all that we are all crazy but apparently so are 9000 other people in Utah. But it was really fun. As a team of 12 runners, we ran 188 miles from Logan to Park City in 28 and a half hours. We each ran 3 legs of the relay and then ate, slept (or at least attempted to), drove and cheered each other on between runs. It was crazy and exhausting. But it was a great experience and call me crazy but I think I would maybe do it again.

I'm feeling very unprepared to up and move to another country. But I guess I'm ready. Or I will be after a lot more organizing, packing, and phone calls.

It's starting to hit me that I'm actually leaving. Today was my last Sunday in my ward and I've checked out of my apartment. It's kind of sad. But I guess England will probably be pretty cool too.