An Addition

To the post about Chartwell and Hever (before I post about the last few days, which were rockin'.)




This may be the greatest and best picture ever taken.

"If I were an English major I'd write a book about it. Instead I'm just here. Smelling my socks."

Okay, time to catch up because my essay on Karl Marx is going nowhere fast.
Tuesday was not as productive as Monday. I've been trying for a couple of days to get these stupid essays written, and I'm struggling. However, we did go to see a truly fabulous production of Pygmalion at the Old Vic starring a couple of people I know from my BBC miniseries fetish. Tim Piggott-Smith (the dad on North and South) was Henry Higgins, and Alfred Doolittle was a guy who was in Under the Greenwood Tree. Both were very good, as was Eliza. It was lovely to see it in London - I've stood under the pillars at Covent Garden, and I've left the opera there before.

Me, Erin and Annie with Henry Higgins

Wednesday was a day trip - a relatively chill one. We went down south to see Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill, and Hever Castle, home of Anne Boleyn. Both had beautiful grounds, but I think I liked Chartwell better. I'm getting a little tired of castles (I know, I know), and Chartwell looked completely livable. I also thoroughly enjoyed the museum, particularly the explanations about Churchill's role in WWII.

Chartwell, Churchill's modest house

Mallory and me on the steps in Churchill's garden

Hever Castle, right in front of the Portcullis

Some gnarly old tree at Hever

Apparently the Boleyn's employed Edward Scissorhands.

Cool little spot on the grounds - can you believe the size of those leaves?

I am able and adventurous, and I will not wear suitable shoes.

Pretty little spot by the moat

Going through the maze - will we every get out? (Yes. In about 10 minutes.)

We hit Kahn's after the trip last night, and then I tried to do homework again and ended up in the most hilarious late night conversation about Katie's love life, and at some point Dave Heywood utter the lines that are the title of this post. I can't really explain them. But it was funny.
Today I wrote the quiz for Shakespeare and included a question about Harry Potter's birthday. I didn't celebrate with Mallory, Erin, Annie and Kristen though, because I sincerely thought today was the day for Karl Marx. Nope. I'm about 2 paragraphs in. It's such a short essay!
Tonight we had a special lecture from a politician from our stake here, Julian Bell. He works for an MP and is the leader of the opposition in his Bourough, so he had some good stories, although I think he raised more questions for me about the government than he answered. After the meeting we walked through Hyde Park and Stephen jumped over people, and now I'm here. I think I'll go to bed, but watch this space for pictures. Someday, a finished Karl Marx essay.

"Give my regards to Joseph Smith."

A brief sum of the time since Scotland.
On Saturday, I got up early and went with David and Sara (and few others, but in the end it was the three of us) to see Karl Marx's grave and to go on the "Seats of Power" walk - both assignments for Poli Sci.
For Karl we went to Highgate Cemetery (East) where we had to pay 3 pounds to get in. I guess that a lot of famous people are buried there, and I wished we would have had more time to explore (although I did accidentally find someone . . . but that's coming.)
When we got to Karl's grave we were met with a group of students - one Chinese and two Korean - and some people who seemed to be radicals of some kind (they were - they were taking pictures with some kind of secret hand gestures later). We actually got to talk to the students, who were curious about who a group of Americans would come to visit Karl Marx. David and I got into a longish conversation with the Chinese student, who wanted to know how Marx is viewed in America and who told us that most young people in China don't care about him as much as they care about making money. David asked if he thought China would remain communist and our friend said he didn't know, but things were definitely different than they used to be. We got the feeling he was a fan of the current system, but who knows? One of the students put flowers on Marx's grave while we were there, so apparently he was a fan.

Karl's grave with his giant head. We debated about whether there were cameras in his eyes.

One of our friends paying tribute to Karl.

While we were on our way out of the cemetery I caught a glimpse of this little headstone. I did a double take and then a happy dance.

That's right. Douglas Adams, author of such influential works as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Life, the Universe and Everything.

I love accidentally finding cool people in cemeteries.
But wait! Just kidding! We didn't actually leave the cemetery then, because we were locked in (yes, locked in a very creepy cemetery) and had to wait for the sexton to come back, so we went wandering (because I overheard someone talking about George Elliot being buried there and wanted to look - no luck) and found this:

Amazing, I'm sure you will agree. It didn't say anything about who was buried there or anything else - it just stated what I thought was the obvious.

From there we went on a walk from Whitehall to Buckingham (after, I'm sorry to say, lunch at McDonald's, but it was on MacDonald Road in Archway, so that's cooler, right?), which was uber-exciting, especially since we'd already been to most of the places on it, but Sara and David and I did have a rousing political discussion, which was fun.
Saturday night I was going to try to go to a play, but there was some miscommunication about timing, so instead I stayed home and called the parentals and attempted to read John Locke. That turned into looking at bad wedding pictures and talking in the lounge, and eventually David and I read the sparknotes and referred to the book a bit until we had a good working understanding . . . and then got everyone to play Mao again. It was fabulous. Many hugs, some singing, some running, some clucking . . . I love that game.
Sunday was typically lovely and included a munch and mingle, and our fireside for the night was one of those where everyone picks a favorite hymn and says a few words about it and then you sing it. It was pretty awesome, and I don't think anyone fell asleep.
Monday was lovely and productive. After class (in which Dr. Holland introduced John Locke with a picture of John Locke from Lost and drew comparisons), Mallory and I went to Gregg's to grab sandwiches, and then took them to the Victoria Embankment Gardens to listen to some jazz music and enjoy the beautiful weather. It was absolutlely idyllic, and we got to chat with a local who asked us about Utah. ("What's it like?" "Um . . . dry? With mountains and deserts and . . . salt?")
From there we went to Chockers, where I bought an absolutely absurd pair of shoes (but they were only 7 pounds!). More about those later.
We went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery for some assignments. My favorite was the BP Portrait Awards, especially a very cool one called Chest Hair and Birthmarks. It was gross and kind of awesome.
Last night Mallory, Katie, Cami, Jacki and I went to see Wicked at last. Today's quote comes from the guy we talked to on the tube, who asked where we were from and seemed to know BYU ("Oh, you're going to have a good football team this year.") and Mormons. He said he's seen lots of BYU students and was pretty friendly, and as he was leaving he told us to enjoy London . . . and give his regards to Joseph Smith. Hahaha.
Anyway, here were are in our West End glory.

Me, Cami, Jacki, Katie and Malloy waiting for the show to start

It was pretty great. Best moments of the night though: 1) Seeing Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) in line for tickets, looking a little granola with a grungy looking boy. I couldn't think of any non creepy reason to take a picture in the box office, but I swear to you it was her. 2) After the show I was listening to some Brits behind us talking about the show . . . and the standing ovation that several people gave. Let me recreate it:
"What did you think?"
"It was pretty good."
"Have you ever seen people stand up like that?"
"For a musical? No."
"Did they stand up for Patrick Stewart in Macbeth (or possible King Lear - they seemed sketchy on this point)?"
"I don't remember . . . I'm sure they did."
"For Patrick Stewart? Oh, I'm sure . . ."

It was awesome. I wanted to turn around and say, "Hey, I can tell you exactly why they stood up, and it wasn't because it was on par with Patrick Stewart. It was because 90% of the audience was American, and they think it's rude not to, or that everything deserves it. It's a translation thing." But I didn't.So funny though.
Anyway, the show was awesome. Fiyero was very attractive and tall, and both of the leads were pretty quality, not to mention how ridiculously elaborate the set was. Wow. We did have a couple of Political Science moments though (Truth is determined by how the most people perceive it, nothing brings people together like a common enemy, etc. Dr. Holland has ruined us.), and so the evening wasn't just fluff. :)
Remember the shoes I mentioned earlier though? Yeah. I decided to wear them, because they were new and all? Not smart. They're pretty high (and blue!) and between my feet getting sweating and lots of walking and having been on hiatus from heels for a month or so, I ended up with some spiffy blisters. Serves me right for not wearing a proper pair of shoes, right Dad?

"Come back tomorrow and I'll get you good and drunk."

Alrighty (hear this in a Scottish accent please) m'wee lassies an' laddies. We beh gettin' to the heart of the matter now.
Tuesday night we arrived in Edinburgh and checked into the SmartCity hostel, a mighty nice little place just off the Royal Mile on Blackfriar (Rd? Ln? St?). Erin, Annie, Mallory and I immediately headed down to grease up our arteries at a chippy (fish and chips joint) that was ridiculously out of the way, but highly recommended by Dr. Holland. It was quite good and quite greasy - we felt the need to walk rather quickly to work it off.

I saw this street on the way down to the chippy and figured we needed a picture.

We decided to try to find another place on Dr. Holland's list o' things to do, an unknown but amazing-sounding establishment called Chocolate Soup. On our way there we ran into another bunch from our group who had gone to the address and discovered nothing but a pub (with a bartender who gave the promise that is this blog's title). They got directions to another one, which ended upbeing very close to our hostel, but closed. We joined our groups together and wandered Princes Street. Our experience is documented in pictures.

This is the absurdly huge Walter Scott monument on Princes Street. I have no idea why this man needs this much monument, but there you have it.

We were planning to find this place, but we accidentally stumbled upon it. This is the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter on a napkin or whatever. Some of our group went and ate in there - I had some fantastic gelato next door.

Not exactly sure what this building was, but it was cool.

After some good wandering through a very cool city, we headed back to the hostel to wash off the grime and frolic in the shower. (You think I'm kidding about that last bit, but the light in there was motion activated, so you had to keep moving or you were in the dark.) This was of course followed by another dramatic reading of the Georgia Nicholsen book, again by Erin, before we were lulled to sleep by a guy singing "Wonderwall" and other such classics in a pub around the corner. (I'm told that he got pretty annoying after about 2 am, but we were long gone by then.

Here's our room, already in a shambles. Pretty sure it got worse after we all bought souveigners.

We rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning (really, even me) to hike to the top of Arthur's Seat, the highest point in the city. It was beautiful up there, and the earliness and the ensuing tiredness were worth it, especially when Dr. Holland brought up the second group and we sat down to have a morning devotional about the history of the Church in England. We talked about how the influx of members from the UK helped to save the Church during the early days, and Orson Hyde prayed from the top of Arthur's Seat while he was serving as a missionary in Edinburgh. It was all very cool.

I wish I could take credit for this picture, but it was all Mallory.

This is Arthur's Seat. It doesn't look like much, but it was a nice little hike.

The crew victorious at the top.

A truly fantastic view.

Yeah, what.

After the devotional, we had just enough time to hike down and take a quick rinse off before we headed up to Edinburgh Castle for an early tour.

Castles are fun and cobblestoney.

Cool/picturesque clock tower. I think the crown jewels and the stone of destiny were in there somewhere.

The view from the castle was lovely - more so with Adreanne and me in front of it.

Same story goes for the interior of the castle.

After the castle, we started making our way down the Royal Mile, alternately checking out cool things and shopping. At some point I acquired a plaid hat, which you will see in the following pictures. Yeah, I'm cool. :)

Ah. There it is.

This is a fun picture of the little square where we ate lunch, but I was taking a picture of a store across the way (where I actually got something for my mom) called Thistle Do Nicely. Hahaha. This joke works better in Scotland where Thistles are everywhere and symbolic.

A bagpiper on the street.

The cool building 'neath whose spires we ate lunch and wrote postcards.

St. Giles Cathedral

Holyrood House, the official residence of the Queen in Scotland.

The Abbey attached to Holyrood House - definitely the best part of the tour.

Not documented in these pictures was our little side trip to a row of very cool used book stores where I bought a couple of cool things for really cheap, including my summer Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree. Hurrah.
After Holyrood House we met up with some of the other members of our group and ate Yorkshire Pudding at a pub, where they had a "World Traveller Menu," meaning that if we were staying in a hostel we got things for half price. Pretty much the best news ever.

A good close up of my hat/European look (haha) and my Yorkshire pudding.

Aw. Mallory and I drinking Chocolate Soup - amazing hot chocolate.

All of us being very tired outside of Chocolate Soup.

After our day of playing, my roomies went to bed early. I took a short nap and then went to a pub with Sarah, Caitlin, Hillary and Sara. We only stayed for a few minutes (because they wanted us to buy drinks and I didn't particularly want a ginger ale), but we caught some fun traditional music and then I went back to the hostel and enjoyed the company of my peers for a bit before going to bed.

The next morning we were leaving early, but I got up in plenty of time to try haggis!

Mmm . . . sheep entrails . . .

It's actually not that bad. It's kind of like hot dogs, in that if you don't think about what's in it, it's totally edible. We made a pact to try it, so here are some of the shots of the fulfillment.

The moment of truth.

Mallory also gives it a try . . .

And we capture the reaction. C'mon Mallory! It's not that bad!

Annie is very excited about this.

From here we went to what may be my favorite place on earth, the glorious lake district. First we hit Wordsworth's house, Dove Cottage.

I have a picture in pretty much this exact spot from last time, except I'm holding a copy of Seamus Heaney's District and Circle.
Mmm. Grasmere gingerbread.
This was the best thing ever. Danny Holland would pull up his pants and then say in a low gravelly voice, "BIG FAT GRANDMA." No idea, but hilarious.

After wandering Grasmere for a couple of hours, we went on to Ambleside, or as I like to call it, Heaven on Earth. We went swimming and kayaking, and then wandering through the town, and eventually we ended up in the hostel playing Psychiatrist and Mao. It was loverly. I don't have too many pictures of all of this - 3x5 doesn't capture the Lake District experience, and I need to track down the ones of me in Lake Windemere and by the kayaks, because I was running out of memory on my camera at this point, but here are a few.

Getting ready to go kayaking with Paige and Sara on Lake Windermere

The dock that was about 50 feet from the door of our hostel. I jumped off of it and then couldn't breathe for a few minutes. Good times.

Awesome building we found on our walk into town

David's last name is Lake, so we took a lot of funny Lake pictures, but this one was definitely the funniest.

Pretty much the most beautiful place on earth.

Friday morning we were going to rent bikes, but it didn't really work, so we just enjoyed the lake, ate some ice cream, and fed the ducks until we made our way back to London by coach - slowly, because there was a lot of traffic. I know the sign of a truly great trip - I wasn't at all anxious to get back to London and check my email (as many people were). So wonderful.

Ducks swarming around my feet while we fed them

Mallory is a woman of the people. Or ducks.

Frances came to visit me at the back of the bus. She's my buddy.

I do still hold though, that it is a wonderful thing to come home to London. Even when it's hot and humid.
Next up: my adventures visiting the grave of Karl Marx.