My Life as a Movie Star

This past week has been unbelievable. Good preface, eh?
So much has happened, and the places and things I've seen within the past few days are crazy!

First of all, I went to the Tower of London. It is pretty interesting. The crown jewels are absolutely gorgeous, and I had no idea how much history and wealth this country has. It constantly amazes me. The royal family has the largest and second largest diamonds in the world! They are crazy pretty and huge! The armory was really interesting too. We saw Henry VII's jousting lance, and from the picture in my slideshow, hopefully you can see how massive it is! It definitely reminded me of A Knight's Tale.

That same afternoon, a bunch of us went to the last showing of Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe Theatre. It was a hilarious performance and I am so glad I went. Once again, my feet were killing me by the time we had to walk to the tube stop and head home-and yet, it was definitely worth 5 pounds to see.

This week, starting on Tuesday, we went to the North as a program. The North being Liverpool, the Lake District, Haworth, and Chatsworth. Our first stop on the trip was to a cotton mill, where we learned all about the conversion from cotton chunks from the states to thread. Very interesting! Especially when we were watching North and South on the bus, which (in the movie at least) has loads to do with cotton mills in England. I would definitely recommend that movie to everyone! Then we went to a little village called Port Sunlight and went through the Lady Lever (as in soap) Museum. It's one of the best collections in England-kinda crazy. There were a lot of amazing paintings and sculptures there! We ended Tuesday in Liverpool with the evening left to walk the docks and check out the city. Since everything in England closes at 8pm or earlier, there weren't many options of things to explore. Our evening consisted of walking around the square that is Albert Docks, getting picked up on my drunk guys that are completely unaware of personal space, and getting stuck in the pouring rain. Haha, quite the adventure.

The next morning we were supposed to occupy ourselves for an hour before the museum opened-so we did the exact same thing again. Ha. Dumb. The museum we went to had a great emigration section, and the Titanic exhibit didn't compare at all to the traveling exhibit I saw in Denver, but it was still interesting. After browsing that, we went to the Beatles store. Personally, I'm not someone who is obsessed with the Beatles, and I don't know anyone who is, so that made it easy to keep my money in my pocket. After our Liverpool experience, we went to the Preston Temple (which is actually not in Preston). It is a beautiful temple, not surprisingly, and it is very simple. We didn't have long, but it felt so great to walk around the grounds. Temples have a way of making the day amazing. It completely lifted my spirits, and they weren't low to begin with! Following the temple, we were lead on a guided church history tour of Preston and the experiences of the 1st missionaries in Britain. That was amazing. We went to the River Ribble where the first 9 baptisms were, and to the lodgings of the missionaries where the evil spirits surrounded them. It took an imagination at times, but it was amazing to remember all they did for the church in this country. We finally ended up in the Lake District! There are no words to express how beautiful it is there. That night I relaxed with Sabrina-took a walk along the small pier, and had a chat with Dasily until it got too cold to be outside anymore.

The next morning, (Thursday) we started with a hike to our first destination of the day. The leaves are starting to change here and it is beautiful! We arrived at Dove Cottage (home to William Wordsworth) after a couple hours of hiking, toured the teeny little house, ate incredible ginger bread, and went to Hilltop Farm (home of Beatrix Potter)! It was the most quaint little house and I made my first splurge (other than my winter coat). I bought mini sized stories (1-12) written by Beatrix. So there's Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-duck, and Benjamin Bunny--all those. Very exciting. We had been going and going all day, so when everyone else was dropped off into Ambleside, the town right outside the hostel, five of us went back and ate at a little diner right next door to the hostel. The pizza was surprisingly good actually. As we ate, the weather outside got worse and worse. It started to rain and the wind started to blow really hard, and I was really tempted to just lay low for the day-but it was only 2 or 3 and we needed food for that night and the next day on the bus. So Sabrina and I ventured to the town of Ambleside in search for food. We got a recommendation to go to 'Nick's Kitchen'-so that was our first stop. We didn't really have any idea where we were going, but we found it and I had the best brownie of my life, along with some boxed cookies for the bus. We then found this cute little candy shop and get this! It had pomegranate Jelly Bellies! DE-LISH! We'd also been told that there was a grocery store type place just down the road-but we could not find it! Instead we came across the movie theatre! It started to rain again, and we thought what the heck! What else are we going to do. So we went to see the only movie that wasn't rated 15 (which is a combo from PG-13 to R...so we had no idea what the movies were actually rated), and it was Brideshead Revisited. HA! Never see that movie!! We walked out looking at each other because we had no idea what it was about! It was super weird- and yet, a HILARIOUS experience. I'm glad we went-just sad that Wall-E wasn't playing. Sad day. On our way back to the hostel, in the dark, wind, and rain, we uh...took a 'dip' in the lake. Haha--yup. I went swimming in the Lake District. Sweet, I know! That was followed up by a hot shower at the hostel. :)

The next day (Friday) we headed to the Bronte home in Haworth-definitely my favorite house (not including the palaces, of course). It was hilarious exhibit too! On one of the signs it described Charlotte as possibly being the 'B' word. HA! At a MUSEUM! Unbelievable. We ate at a cute little place-scones (as in biscuits) and hot chocolate. Yummy. Our last stop of the trip was to Chatsworth, the palace of the Duke of Devonshire, where they filmed the interior of Pemberley in the most recent PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!! (portions of The Duchess were also filmed there). Yeah. Not kidding. I went to Pemberley. That sculpture room actually exists, and so does the bust of MR. DARCY! (see the slideshow for the most amazing pictures ever!)

That was my trip to the North. Much abridged too, mind you. Haha, hard to believe, I know. I apologize for saying things so casually--I just need to get through all the things that we do! And the truth is, we don't spend enough time at these places long enough for it to actually sink in until later--I still can't even believe that I'm doing the things I am. It's CRAZY!
Midterms are coming up though, and I have loads of reading and studying to do...so I better get going. I hope life is splendid! I miss you all!

Thanks for tuning in!

-T