Come on Fulham!

x

This week was one of less eventful thus far. I actually a fair amount of homework this week! So, no Mom and Dad--it's not just party abroad. Mostly, but not completely :) Although school did take up a lot of everyday, we of course found time to do some fun things around town.

While we're here, we have a "London Walking" class and guess what we do...you guessed it--we walk around London! There is so much to see here!
This week we took the theatre walk through the city of theatres. Seriously, I never realized how many shows are in London, it's ridiculous! I thought I had a long list of "must sees" before, and now it's even longer. I also got to see the famous Drury Lane! Disappointed to report, there is no muffin man, not even anywhere to get a treat on Drury Lane :( that song is so misleading. The walk was fun and it ended at Covent Garden, another outdoor market. That's something I love about London, there's always somewhere to walk and something entertaining to find wherever you end up. This is a great city!

Another fun thing we did was the Fulham futbol game. The fans here are CRAZY! I never realized what a big deal soccer is here--it is THE sport. Ever seen Harry Potter 4? The Quidditch World Cup? Yeah, think of that and what a big deal that is and times it by 10. It was unbelievably crowded and loud and crazy and definitely the most eventful sporting event I've ever been to. The Swiss team's fans were so obnoxious but somewhat fascinating, they cheered and they cheered and they cheered for 2 hours straight. They never stopped! It made me feel kind of bad for the avid Fulham fans, whose extent of cheering reaches "Come on Fulham, come on Fulham, come on Fulham, come on Fulham." Seriously, no tune, no beat, just chanting. It does sound better with a British accent, but we Americans just sounded stupid trying to fake it. It was sad and the Swiss definitely put us to shame. Our cheering couldn't have been too bad though, because we did get a group of high school boys to ask if they could add us on Facebook. One of life's better moments when a nice foreign child asks to add me :) We had to get a picture to remember that night's joke!

On Friday we went to the National Gallery for Humanities. I'm in love with that museum. I've said it before but it is so amazing to see the pictures and artists that I've been hearing about and studying my whole life. I'm so lucky to have such an incredible museum so close to me, I'm going to try and go at least every other week to see the new exhibits.

Saturday was a day dedicated to Shakespeare. Can you think of a better way to spend Saturday? I know I can't! (I hope you catch on to that hint of sarcasm :)) We got back on the bus at 9:30 in the morning. I swear a dark cloud just hangs over that vehicle, there is just something about it that right when you step on, a wave of headache and fatigue washes over you. It's the best feeling in the world. Other than the bus ride, I actually quite enjoyed the things we saw throughout the day. We started out at Mary Arden's house and worked our way to Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway's cottage in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Maybe this is common knowledge to everyone else but I found it interesting to learn that it is called Stratford-Upon-Avon because it is the town of Stratford that sits upon the Avon River. I'm sure you feel like a much better person having just learned that. Anyway, I loved the town because every little shop and cafe is named after Shakespeare or one of his characters. I actually saw a "Timpson" store and had to take a picture for Bampa :) it made me so happy! Anyway, in the center of town is Shakespeare's birthplace. It started by walking through a museum that had short movies in several rooms about his life and accomplishments, it was actually entertaining! After going through the museum, we walked through his house where we saw some of his belongings and a man dressed up in Shakespearean attire reciting sonnets, it was great. I wanted to shoot back some of my Polonius lines at him as a challenge, but I got stage fright.

After walking through his house we had a few hours to burn so we walked around for a while and eventually ended up at McDonalds (I'm still ashamed I go there so much) and did homework and talked for a few hours. That night we went to the theatre and saw "The Winter's Tale" and it was actually a decent play! Shakespeare has been somewhat redeemed, even after my awful experience at the last play. Quick embarrassing moment: I read a sign in the theatre and quickly put my Spanish to use and pronounced it all accenty as one word "mooochadoo". The more I read, I realized it said "Much Ado About Nothing." My professor was close by and I'm hoping he didn't hear me. He already loves to call on me during English class and I know it's because he finds pleasure in making me feel like an idiot. After that experience, I am more convinced that I am in fact a Shakespeare idiot.

General Conference Sunday was by far my favorite Sunday since I've been here. Watching church in your pajamas aside, there's just something so comforting about Conference and seeing all of our Church leaders and hearing them speak. With the time difference, we watched the Saturday afternoon session yesterday morning, the Sunday morning session from 5-7 and the Sunday evening session from 9-11, or in my case 11-1 due to slow internet. There were some amazing talks that I needed so badly to hear. One of my favorites was Elder Holland's, he is such a powerful speaker and gave an incredible talk that I think everyone needed to hear. So conference itself was so good, but we also got THE best meal in the world! Our professor's wife, Jaelyn is an amazing cook and she made us a ten course meal. We helped her most of the afternoon so we could learn her ways. Let me just try and name off everything we had: french toast stuffed with cream cheese and chocolate, quiche, muffins, casserole, salad, cinnamon rolls, mcmuffins, and more that I can't even remember. Confession: I ate EVERYTHING. Worse than that, I don't even regret it, it was so worth the awful stomach ache I'm now suffering from! Good food and being surrounded by great people definitely helped ease the pain of being away from home and my family on Conference Sunday. Even though I miss you, London gets better everyday!