How the West was...fun!!

Alright, dighty! It's been a while, and I really shouldn't do this to myself, because it gets super hard to catch up! 

Here goes:

This last Wednesday morning, at the absolute crack of dawn, the 41 of us plus professors and families, ventured out to 'The West'. The bunch of us only said that because we had absolutely no idea where that actually meant. Turns out that for the first night, it meant Penzance (yes, as in the pirates of it). On the way to Penzance (which is on the western part of the cornish coast about 6+ hours away) we stopped at Stourhead (I'll explain later) and Thomas Hardy's house in some little village. 

Stourhead is a huge estate with a house and tremendous gardens. For those of you who have seen the recent Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley, you may remember the circular building where Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth the first time. That is at Stourhead. And yes, I did stand in the very place Elizabeth did :) The grounds are truly amazing--trees, the lake, bridges, ruins, water features, statues, buildings, the house, and all. Pictures soon to follow...

Next stop was Thomas Hardy's home...and honestly, I'm not a fan of Thomas Hardy, so we're just going to skip that part. It was tiny and quite uneventful. 

We finally got to Penzance around 8pm or so, got settled into the local YMCA (haha what an experience) and headed out for a night on the town. Turns out everything is closed and we ended up walking along the boardwalk and hanging out outside for a while before heading back and starting a rousing (seriously...it was intense) game of Phase 10 before going to bed. The next morning was our day on the beach. It was the most beautiful day I've seen since I got here. Zero clouds, warm to the point of being hot at times, and the sand felt amazing between my toes! It was pretty close to sand anyway, although I think it was mostly tiny shell fragments that liked to stick to my feet. Emilee fell down right as the wave came in and got her butt soaked (that was hilarious) and then Sabrina and I built a splendid sand castle that took all of two minutes to throw together. Priceless. We continued to scale the cliff next to us, took a walk through a bit of a jungle to the next bay, and sat down to hang our feet over the cliff so we could watch the amazing blue water crash against the rocks. Beautiful. 

Then it was on our way to Exeter to eat and sleep at the local hostel (which was actually very, very nice. we had a good time there partying and what not) and head back the way we came. First we saw the Exeter Cathedral, and then on the way home we stopped by Lyme (where portions of Persuasion take place). If any of you have seen it or read the book, and remember what happens to Louisa in Lyme, you know the experience that I had. Email me for more details, haha, because I'm not kidding. Lyme was beautiful, and the weather was fantastic. Emilee got a bit sunburned, if that gives you a better mental image. 

By the time we got 'home' everyone was really excited. We'd spent too much time on the bus and it had been constantly 'go go GO' that it was very nice to be back. Saturday morning I went on a walk through Hyde Park and got some homework done...which was nice. There is honestly so much to keep track of and so much to do! And you'd think that  Sunday would be a day to relax a little. WRONG-O.

It takes an hour and a half to get to church, and we had to go early this week. And stay late :) Best 8 hours of church I've ever had in my life! We left at 8:10am, got home at 4:15pm, three out of the four of us had to make dinner at 5pm, and were doing dishes until 7:30pm. Haha it was the most exhausting Sunday! Honestly though, it was great. I was assigned to be in primary, and I'm the official cue card turner for the primary program in a month. Yay for having an assignment! The kids are cute (and I'll admit a bit rowdy), but it's fun. We had a munch and mingle afterwards, and it was honestly like a feast. Some of the food looked a bit sketchy, haha, but most of it was great and the beverages were even better!!  We got an invite to institute and a singles ward dance, and got to talk to quite a few members of the ward. They are progressively getting easier to understand, and the Young Women seem like the cutest girls! It should be fun. 

Today we took a field trip to The Globe Theatre and then went to Westminster Abbey. There are no words about the Abbey. It was so amazing! On Wednesday we're going back to the Globe to see A Midsummer Nights Dream, and that should be awesome! That play cracks me up.  The rest of my down time this week may be going towards homework. With kitchen duty, school (4 days this week, ugh. haha), and homework...there goes my free time.

I'll update pictures when I get a minute. 

Everything is swell here, and I hope it's swell with you all!

Toodles.

-T