Road Tripin'

I love England!!!!! Seiroulsy it is the most beautiful place I have ever been.  This week we want on this big roadtrip all across Northern England into York and the Lake District.  The hills were so beautiful.  It is better then what you see in the movies because the green is sooo green.  It is almost neon, I have never seen that color in the states.  There are sheep and cattle everywhere and these walls called dry stone walls that make the hills look like pieces of a puzzle. The walls are all made by staking flat rocks right on top of each other without any mortar.  When I wasn't car sick or sleeping I was in complete and utter bliss just sitting on the coach listening to my Pride and Prejudice soundtrack looking out the window.  The whole trip was a blast.  It was  really fun and I feel like I am a lot closer to all of the girls here.  Each night we stayed in these hostels and had different roommates every night. We did so much I am going to divide it up into days...

Day 1

We drove a couple hours and stopped at the Bronte Parsonage where the Bronte Sisters lived and wrote their novels. Then we drove a littel farther and went into York to see the York Minster.  It is this beautiful cathedral that we went on a tour through and then climbed to the top of the tower that had this stunning view.  We stopped for dinner at McDonald's and got Happy Meals. We eat there all the time becasue it is so cheap and you can get a whole meal ad a drink all for 2 pounds! (that is like $3.50). We wanted to take a picture so we asked this guy to take it for us.  He was all decked out in a suit and he was all tan and had earings and he jsut jumped into one of pictures and we were just like laughing about it... but the next day we were in Tesco we saw his face all over these magazines and he is some famous singer DJ guy and we had no idea! It was way funny.  When I get the picture I will post it! We got to our first hostel and there was this big TV room so we all just congregated and watched a movie and put dreadlocks into one of the girls hair... too funny.

My roommates in the first hostel...

York Minster...

Day 2

This was my favorite day since I have been here if not my favorite day of my whole life... ok that is an exageration, but it was really fabulous.  We went to this place called Fountains Abbey. It is this old rune of an Abbey.  It is set down in this little valley with all of this foliage and and a little creek running the length of the valley and ended in these beautiful water gardens.  We were there for a couple hours just talking picture and walking around.  It sounds boring but it was so unbelievably beautiful that I could of stayed all day. After fountains abbey we headed over to Lake Windermere, checked into our hostel and then had the rest of the day to explore. We stayed up on this hill and the lake was beautiful and we had the most amazing view of it from our bedroom window.

The View...

Fountains Abbey...

Day 3

We got up ate the same breakfast we had every morning (a full english breakfast of eggs, sausage, hasbrowns, cooked tomatoes, bacon, toast, and some black pudding something).  First off we headed to William Wordsworth home where he wrote all of his poems.  He was so inspired by the beauty of the land and you can really feel it in his poems.  We took a little scenic drive around some more of the lakes and then we kind of split up. I went with a group of girls and took a ferry across the lake to go to Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Cottage where she wrote all of her Peter Rabbit tales. We checked into our other hostel and it was right on the water and we had some fun hanging out in the town and sketching the sailboats sitting in the lake.

Day 4 

This was another great day.  We went to Preston and went on a guided tour of all of the church sites.  We saw the platform in the middle of the square where the first missionaries in England preached from and again years later where President Hinkley taught from. We saw where the first baptism were and the palaces where these early missionaries lived.  We started heading towards Liverpool and stopped in two more little towns significant to the church and at the Preston Temple in Chorley.  Then we headed on to Liverpool and checked into our hostel.  For diner we were in our own so we found this outdoor mall thing and I seriously felt like I was back in America.  There were all these American stores and we found this mexican food place that was just like Chipotle so we all got burritos and chips and salsa... it was soo good.  Mexican is the one type of food they don't have here and I crave it! There was this movie theater right there and the tickets were realively cheap so we decided to go see this real English movie, Dorian Gray, that isn't in America yet and we were so excited.  Lets just say that the theater empltied by about 20 girls about 20 minutes into the show. Littel did we know that the rating "15" here means "R" in the states.  They were really cool about it and gave us our money back so it was all good.

The temple...

The Docks...
The Beatles Museum...

Day 5

We got up and headed straight over to  Albert Dock which is where all of the early saints left to head to Utah.  It was a really tender experience. We sang a verse of "Come, Come Ye Saints" and these tears just welled up in my eyes thinking about the sacrifices they went through so that I could be where I am. After that we went to the Beatles museum, to pay our respects since they did start in Loverpool. And then we headed on our way back to London.  We stopped one last time at this manor house called Chatsworth. It is the current home if the Duke and Dutchess of York but it is also in the movie Pride and Prejudice as Mr. Darcey's home (Pemberly).  It was beautiful. 

Mr. Darcy from the Movie...

Chatsworth...

It was good to get back home.  It is funny being away for so long becasue now this really does feel like my home away from home. Sunday was good too.  There was only in my class so I we just went outside and I talked to him about the articles of faith. Now i'm just sitting in class writing this blog. Good times here in England!