London May 8th :)

My very first blog entry! And I must say I LOVE LONDON!!!!!!! This city is gorgeous! It's packed with personality, history and culture. Wow. It's amazing!

I flew in Yesterday. It was a grueling flight. I took some sleeping stuff but it didn't work very well so I only ended up sleeping three hours for that entire flight. Heather and I met up and flew with several other people. We played 5 crowns in the airport while we waited for our flight. Then we arrived in London. We walked about a mile to our flat which was actually a rather amusing experience. We had about 10 of us with our BYU travel study backpacks and luggage, hauling them all over London. It was fanjollytastic!

When we got to our flats, we checked in and unpacked. I realized I have forgotten several crucial things - including my phone charger. :( I will only be able to take pictures until my camera runs out of batteries. Ugh! lol Good thing we have some super picture takers in the group!!

After we unpacked, we took a walk about London with one of our professors. We realized that we live right across the street from Kensington Palace which is where Princess Diana lived as well as many other famous royalty in England. Do you remember when Princess Diana died and they had all those flowers next to the fence near her home? We live right next to it!! Crazy!! We have an amazing location. During the walkabout, we saw TK Maxx :) as well as The Gap and Pizza Hut. They glorify them quite a bit and that's pretty amusing.

Heather, Phillip and I went to the Whole Foods Market to buy some groceries for a few days. Heather and I bought porridge, berries, yogurt, milk, bread, cheese and peppermint tea. Um... cheese here is amazing!!!!! As is the bread. I love it so much!

After we went to the market, Heather, Phillip, Matt, Logan and I went to a local pub to get some fish and chips. It was delicious. We were definitely very American in the pub. :) I was the third person in our group to order my supper and when I got to the front of the line the cashier said in a very british accent, "Let me guess, are you from table 16?" (all of us Americans were sitting there) It was really cute. We all got some juice and I thought they had put vodka in mine so I returned it and asked them to not put vodka in my juice and it turned out it was just grapefruit juice :). I was a little bit embarrassed.

We went to a YSA dance for a few minutes with the locals when we got back from fish and chips. It was super fun!

Last night I had a very hard time sleeping. I went to bed at 10:30 and then woke up at 1:30 and couldn't sleep until I took a whole bunch of melatonin for sleep, then I slept until 4:00 with a girl frantically knocking on the door because her roommate had had a seizure. She's diabetic and it was just a really hard night. We called an ambulance and they took her to the emergency room last night. She's doing all right now but we were quite worried for a bit.

Today!!! I walked around London with a bunch of friends. We went to the farmer's market where I had bread with all sorts of different tasting olive oils. I also sampled tons of cheese and mushroom patte which I love! I had fish and chips again! We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abby and walked on London Bridge. Tonight we are going to listen to Mozart's Requiem by candlelight at St. Martin's. Then tomorrow we are going to go to several different church services as well as our own.

London is gorgeous and I love it!