I made it!! I was super tired last night and didn't blog. My sleep felt more important! Also, I didn't have wifi...So I'm writing this while I have wifi in sacrament meeting...don't judge. Gotta do whatcha gotta do!
After being delayed in Salt Lake for 3.5 hours I got to JFK. Me and nearly half the airport missed all their connecting flights and were stuck. There were 4 students from my study abroad and the assistant director and her husband. Plus about 15 students from another study abroad. There were only 3 seats on the final 11pm flight to Heathrow. Then the plane boarded and they kept saying there were more...2 more seats...5 more seats...2 MORE seats! I was trying to be nice and let the other study abroad go all together since they didn't have a leader, but 2 girls from my group already went on and I said, "I'm going!!" I raced on with maybe 2 seats left. I original was assigned to an aisle seat, but this tall British fellow seemed annoyed that he got reassigned to a middle seat so I switched with him. The ride over wasn't bad. I slept for maybe an hour but luckily there were movies! I watched breaking dawn finally, but I didn't like it...it was very weird.
We arrived at the airport around 1:30pm London time. My bag didn't make it on the plane which I kinda expected would happen, but it's suppose to be here today. I may or may not have to go pick it up...they said they would deliver it but apparently they have a lot of bags.
Ok. So I arrived in Heathrow and traveled on the tube to Earl's Court station and the Mowbray Court Hotel (proudly a two star hotel...yes, they have a sign that says their status Haha) was right around the corner.
Then the four of us that made it took showers and then met up with one other person and just walked around the area. We only had like an hour before we were meeting for dinner, so we didn't want to go too far. Side note about the showers. We have all concluded that this use to be a hostel. There are 6 beds and a bathroom that is about the size of a cruise bathroom that we think was just added in the bathroom.
We went to what seemed like an Irish pub for dinner. I shared a BBQ burger and fish and chips with Erica. We both were so hungry; we didn't feel like branching out too much on the first night haha. After dinner Erica an I wanted to head up to Westminster...basically just trying to stay awake for a little longer.
We walked around Westminster. Saw Big Ben...Which looked really short and fat when I first walked out of the tube station. Haha we saw the Abby and took the traditional telephone booth picture :) we then headed trough a park towards Buckingham Palace.
After that we headed up to Piccadilly Circus which is very similar to times square...not as big, but similar. After walking around for 2 hours we were ready for bed...or at least I was! So we all headed back to the hotel.
The breakfast this morning consists of a lot of pastries! I will be eating cressants rice crispies or toast for breakfast until wednesday. We do a lot of walking so let's hope I don't gain any lbs!!
I'm surprised about how many Americans are in this ward. The church building is also very unique.
After church we went to Hyde Park had a little FHE where we also saw people debating on soap boxes! Well, not really soap boxes, but it was very interesting. Some old english woman was arguing at the foreigners about how they are taking over their country. Kinda funny for us to watch.
Then we headed over to The British Museum: saw some nifty things, sat outside and people watched, then went back on the tube towards Trafalgar Square. There was a festival that just ended so everything was pretty closed off, but we saw the Olympic countdown. A lot of us were craving pizza so we headed to a little hole in wall and had some pizza and spaghetti...not that we won't be having a ton of that in Italy.
We just headed back and Jay was willing to lend me his Wifi connection so I could up load this so I don't want to take too much of his time. Pictures will be posted later on my blog and on facebook when I have free wifi somewhere.
London is beautiful. It's definitely and older city, but it reminds me a lot of D.C. The architecture is beautiful and very impressive! The weather is definitely colder than we had all planned. Walking to church today was a little chilly. It's hard to plan when apparently Italy is super hot right now. Its pretty overcast...what I expected with London.
That's all for now!!
Happy Sabbath!!
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