London baby!!!

Yep, I'm finally here!! It has been an incredibly long week, it feels like we've been here forever, and yet at the same time it feels like I just barely got here. Has it really only been a week? I still can't hardly believe that I'm actually here, in London. I've kept a pretty detailed journal every day so one of these days soon I'll post more details about everything we've done, but right now it's about 11:30pm and I've been on the road pretty much all day so let's just say I'm pretty tired and not up to writing anything too in depth. Plus it doesn't help that the keyboards here are crazy and I keep mistyping everything. I guess I'll get used to it.

So I think right now I'll just write about my day today, and add in stuff from my journal from the rest of the week later. Suffice it to say that I was in Ireland until Monday morning, when we rode on quite a luxurious ferry across the Irish Sea and landed in Wales. You should all know, Wales is absolutely beautiful, at least the part that I saw, but I'll get to that later on. Right now it's just a miracle to me to have a computer and quality internet.

This morning we left our hostel in Conwy, Wales and spent about an hour at the COnwy Castle. Last night we'd wandered around the town a bit and saw the outside of the castle, but today we got to wander through it. We've seen quite a few castles by now, but I still love it. It's amazing to roam through the ruins, the crumbling and moss covered walls, climb the towers from which you can see for miles, and try to imagine what it would have been like there several hundred years ago when it was a functioning castle. It's amazing.

After seeing the castle and stopping for some souvenirs we took off on the bus and saw a couple of church history sights, I think they were called Benbow farm, where there's a pond where Wilford Woodruff baptized like hundreds of people, and then Gadfield Elm chapel, which I believe is the oldest church building outside of the states. Pretty cool. But probably the most amazing thing we saw today was when we hiked up this hill after we'd gotten into England (and I really mean hike, it was like completely uphill) and once you got to the top, it was like you were on top of the world. You could see for hundreds of miles in every direction, and the landscape was breathtaking. Plus the wind was blowing so hard I was sure it was going to blow me right off the hill. It felt like we'd stepped right into Pride and Prejudice... too bad we didn't see Mr. Darcy.

We were on the bus for so long today... probably a total of at least 7 hours, but we watched a couple of movies, Monsters vs. Aliens, which was great, and 17 again, pretty good, and that helped pass the time a bit. Otherwise I fell asleep, which I hated because I didn't want to miss anything, but I'm still adjusting my schedule, plus riding long distances just makes me sleepy. And I didn't have any motion sickness problems except for when I tried reading or writing, so I couldn't do that.

We got into London around 7 this evening, and it seemed like we were all just looking around in awe and wonder. One of the first things we saw was the house, chimney tops, and church where Mary Poppins was filmed- holy cow! Our street is so cool, apparently it's the most expensive place to live in all of Europe! Kinda funny, because the flats really aren't that great. Not bad, but just not fantastic. Kinda old, not very big. Denise and I are in a room that's kind of back at the end of the hallway, in a sort of corner where there's one other room where 2 other girls are staying and the 4 of us are sharing one bathroom. But it seems like most everyone has that many girls in a room, so I'm pretty happy with our set up. It's not a big room, but we both have a regular bed, not bunk beds (hooray for no more staying on top bunks- it's fun and better than the bottom which makes me feel chlosterphobic, but it's pretty bad when you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom) and we have the best view of anyone! Our room has a giant window that looks right out onto the street. Plus we have all this space... it's going to be amazing to have closets and drawers and shelves. I am so ready to be done living out of a suitcase. I thought I'd been doing alright, except last night I realized that I left some of my pajamas- my only pair of black capri pj pants, an old U of U shirt and a sports bra at the hostel in Dublin. So sad. I almost cried when I couldn't find them.

I'm here in the computer lab at the flats, plenty of computers, faster internet than the wireless that everyone else is using in the rooms. Sadly the adapter thing I brought to use to plug in my memory card into that plugs into the usb port doesn't work, so I don't know how I'm going to be able to get pictures onto the computer... hopefully I'll be able to figure something out. We went grocery shopping this evening, there's a pretty good grocery store about 10 minutes walk from here, which is nothing- we've been doing soooo much walking. Denise and I bought some food to share, some frozen meals and cereal and milk, pretty basic stuff, until we figure out food stuff more. There's a laundromat here but it's way ghetto and expensive, so Denise and I will probably end up doing our laundry together because we don't have that much and we need to save as much money as we can for seeing shows and souvenirs! And food, I guess that's important too.

Ok well I think that's all for now. We start class tomorrow, we already have homework due, but they were fun assignments in which we talked to natives of Ireland and talked to them about language, so it was awesome. But we have all the rest of the day tomorrow free, like after 1:00 so hopefully I'll be going exploring, and doing laundry, I have like almost no clean clothes left. Alright well, there'll be more details to come about my week in Ireland and Wales, plus regular updates about my adventures here in London, plus hopefully I'll figure out a way to post pictures! Although I've gotta say, pictures just don't come close to really capturing everything. I wish so much that you all could actually see what I see, because most of it is absolutely breathtaking. I've been taking quite a few videos the last couple days, trying to better capture the magnitude of everything. I'll be able to put those on facebook too, if I ever figure it out. Sorry this post was such a novel, but from now on they should be shorter and sweeter. By the way, I want updates from all of you as well, all the fun summer things you're doing back home- enjoy the sun for me because it's rained every day I've been here, with intermittent sunshine, but still mostly rain. I don't mind though, it makes the air feel cleaner and everything is so green. It's just beautiful! But yeah, please send me messages on facebook so I can hear all about how you all are doing too!

Ok, I really am done now. I'll talk to you all soon!

We're here!!!

It has been a very long day, or two days maybe? I'm really not sure. I left... yesterday, Monday, at 10:00 am, and now here I am in Ireland on Tuesday at 11:15 am, while it's... 4:15 am at home. I think. So confusing!! But I have arrived safely, but feeling veryyyyy tired. The last time I slept was for about 3-4 hours on Sunday night, and I've got to stay awake for another like 12 hours of something. Oh dear. I feel like I've been on an airplane nonstop forever! But it was pretty sweet, we could watch movies and TV and listen to music and play games on our own individual screens. We could even watch our own plane's flight path!

Right now we're all at the Shannon Airport, going to get some lunch here in a bit after I go exchange my money, and then we're off to the Bunratty Castle. Pictures will be coming soon! Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake long enough to take it all in! It's absolutely beautiful here- so green and humid. Of course I haven't seen much of the countryside yet- I was on an aisle seat (part of the reason sleeping on the plane was impossible) and all the windows around me were closed, so I didn't get to see Ireland until I was landed. But I got my first passport stamp, my luggage is safely with me again (whew!) and I think I am all set to go!

I miss you all already! Enjoy the sun for me, I have a feeling I won't be seeing much of it for the next few weeks. But I am still happy to be here! Although it hasn't competely set in yet that I'm actually here... but here I am. Whoa!

Talk/type to you all soon! "Love yous heaps!" :)

It's almost here!

Yep, I can hardly believe it, but after 6 months of planning, it's almost time for my first solo adventure. I leave for my study abroad in the UK in just about 3 days. I applied for this program through BYU in December, and have been preparing for it since then. Let's just say, it's felt like it was never going to get here. I'm so excited for this, to see a country that I've always wanted to see, all of the beautiful sites in Ireland, England, and Scotland. Plus I get to study something that I'm fascinated by, the history of the English language as well as all of many varieties. I just graduated from the U of U last month in Elementary Education with an ESL (English as a Second Language) Teaching minor, and since I'm hoping to be able to teach ESL in the future (someday when jobs become available again), I'm hoping that this study of English in its country of origin will better prepare me to teach it. Plus I'm going to get to play heaps! We'll fly into Shannon, Ireland and spend about a week traveling around that country then arrive in London where we'll be living for about a month, seeing the sights there and taking shorter trips around the rest of England, and then in August we'll spend about a week touring Scotland before we fly out of Edinburgh on the 12th. I can hardly wait for my adventure to begin, but at the same time I am getting so scared! This will be my first time away from my family (besides week-long EFY's in Provo and choir tours which took me as far as California), as well as my first time in a foreign country. I am going to be so lost! I'm also going to miss my family and friends sooooo much. I don't know what I'm going to do not seeing or talking to my mom and dad every day or playing with Mikayla and the boys nearly every day. To all of you whose birthdays I'll miss (Jake, Cody, Brett, and Kasey), know that I'll be thinking of you and I hope the awesome/small so they'll fit in my luggage gifts I bring home will make up for it.

Well, this whole blog thing is completely new to me, but hopefully I'll be able to figure it all out so I can keep all of you updated on a fairly regular basis during the next 6 weeks. There will be a computer lab in the flats where we're staying in London so I'll be updating this and putting all my awesome pictures on facebook as well. Thanks for everyone for being excited for me and for letting me go for a few weeks!