Food, Class, Food, a Ritziest Department Store, and Food...(April 28th)

...I went to bed at 11pm. My alarm was set for 7:30am. I woke up by myself at 6am. Now I know that I haven't really done a lot of math lately, but after being awake for close to 30 hours straight you'd think my body would want to sleep more than 7 hours.

Hello everybody! This is me playing catch up on events that have transpired while I've been here in London. So this post is everything that happen yesterday, then I'll post something else tonight about what happened today. Hopefully these posts will be a nightly thing from then on.

So yesterday, since I didn't buy anything for breakfast, started off with me trying to find something to eat. Thankfully we're in London and there are food place everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I have not seen one street yet that didn't have some sort of restaurant, cafe, or food truck. It's a foodies paradise. Anyways, a couple of us went across the street to a little cafe called the Chelsea Quarter Cafe. I bought a croissant and a pao de chocolate (a rectangular croissant with chocolate). Those were the flakiest croissants I've had. Very good.

After the baked goods were savored, a few of us decided to walk to our classroom located inside of the visitors center of the London England Temple. It's an interesting building because it's a Temple, Visitor's Center, and chapel all combined into one. It has everything a ward or 2 needs to function. Now twice a week, it becomes our classroom too.

Classes are interesting as our professors, Tom and Jeff, are essentially trying to teach 6 college level classes to 40 students (who are each taking different classes) at the same time. It's interesting to say the very least. Since I've only had one class, I can't really say what it like to be taught in this manner. That will be saved for another time. Today's class was more, going over what activities we will be seeing until the next class period and what to expect in terms of classes. We're also got our ward assignments. So how this works is the Stake President receives the names of everyone who is coming for this study abroad and then proceeds to assign them to the various wards in the stake. I, along with 2 others, got assigned to a Portuguese speaking ward. I'm so excited! I doubt I'll run into anyone I know from Brazil there but it will be great to finally come into contact with Portuguese speakers again.

After class we went to lunch. A group of us went to Nando's. It's a "Afro-Portuguese chain restaurant serving flame-grilled chicken in spicy chilli sauce." I didn't get any of the chicken but I did get a Portobella Mushroom Sandwich which was probably the best Portobella Sandwich I've had ever. The chicken also looked very good but that sandwich was great.

After that we made our way to Harrod's. The ritziest department store...ever probably. First of all the place is enormous. It has 8 floors with everything. There are clothes of every style, food, chocolate, toys, books, games, tech, motorcycles, guns, perfume, hats, and more. There are a lot of marble floors and elegant wood carving everywhere. The top floor is exclusively perfume and the walls, ceiling, and floors were made of marble. I'm pretty sure that the gold on the walls are actual gold. The main escalator is designed with Egyptian themed statues and carving. And I heard someone found out you could actually by real gold bricks and coins there. So the entire time I felt really out of place.

After leaving that, we decided to head home and have dinner. Before dinner though, we spent a good bit of time just trying to find a place to get both towels for a couple friends who forgot to bring them. We eventually found the place but it was closed by the time we got there. A lot of places here have very specific hours. There isn't a 24 hour store anywhere. Anyways, we didn't get any towels. So we went to the grocery store and got a few things we needed before heading to dinner.

At this point I was with my friends Erin and Michelle. Michelle is a vegan so getting food can be a hassle sometimes. Thankfully London has so many options and are very conscience of people's dietary needs. We went to a burger joint called Byron. Good food. We asked the waiter if he knew what was vegan on the menu and he pulled out a 'food bible' with a list of all their food and columns that showed if it was safe for vegetarians, vegans, or gluten-free people. It was quite impressive.

After that, we headed home and went to sleep...

London England Temple/Visitors Center/Chapel