Sorry but This Past Week Has Been Crazy...(April 30th - May 2nd)

Hello!

Sorry for the long hiatus but we've been getting back to our apartments/dorms/flats/closets at 10:30 or 11pm everyday this week so far, had to arrive some place super early the next day, and have assignments due...so yeah, maintaining a daily blog has not been the easiest thing to do.

So because I have missed so many days, I will try to summarize as much in a single post with pictures

--- Saturday April 30th ---

We went to a place called Hampstead Heath. It's a big park (or miniature forest depending on your view) in the heart of London. There's a little farmers market there on Saturdays so we passed through it briefly. We learned there was a viaduct somewhere so we decided to try to find it. It took us about 30 to 45 minutes due to all the hiking and the shear size of the place. There are a number of ponds scattered throughout it. Interesting Fact: There a few that one can swim in. One is the Ladies Pond, another is The Men's Pond, and last is the Mixed Pond. Ladies and Gents are only allowed in their respective ponds except for the Mixed pond where everyone can swim together. We tried to find the lily pond but were unsuccessful.

We did, however, find the Kenwood Estate in the heart of the Heath. The Kenwood Estate used to be a retreat for royalty as far back as the 1700's. It's a charming place, full of old paintings, beautiful gardens, and overlooking a pond and pasture. All of the rooms were simply amazing. It's more of  a gallery nowadays but the rooms are quite beautiful nonetheless...

Kenwood House

Dining Room

Library

Later that night we went to the Royal Albert Hall to attend the Gala of St. George, the patron Saint of Great Britain. I unfortunately fell asleep for the first half but the second half was great! It was pretty much a progression of music through the history of the country and celebrating Great Britain. The one part that caught us off guard was this banter between the conductor and the audience before the last song. The conductor wants us all to sing along with the music and stand when we get to the right parts. We did a practice and we failed quite miserably. The conductor yells "Come on! You can do better than that! It wasn't that long since your harmony lessons!" The audience, in unison, replies -"Oh yes it was!" The Conductor rebuttals -"Oh no it wasn't!" -"Oh yes it was!" -"Oh no it wasn't!" We Americans were a bit baffled by the sight to say the least.

--- Sunday May 1st ---

So this was an interesting day. I was assigned to a Portuguese speaking ward along with 2 other students, Alexis and Steven. One our first day of class, we were told by our TA's, who were told by our professors, who were told by the stake presidency that our church was to start at 11:30am. We were thinking "Great! 11:30 church is awesome!" Later that week we looked up the address for the church and we find that it claims 10am is when it starts. Something is obviously wrong here. We decided to go with what the Stake Presidency told us as that probably more accurate. Sunday comes along, we take our 40 minute bus ride to the school that houses our ward to find that Sacrament meeting does start at 11:30am but that the rest of the days meetings started at 9:30am. So in a sense the Stake Presidency was both right and wrong. At least we were there for Sacrament meeting and now we know better for the upcoming sundays.

That evening we had FHE/Ward Prayer together. I was still getting used to the time change so I wasn't conscience for most of it but everyone said it was good.

--- Monday May 2nd ---

We went to the National Gallery today, not to be confused with the National Portrait Gallery which is on the same exact block...that's not potentially confusing right? It was really cool going through all of it. Because the gallery is so big you can't really appreciate all of it in one sitting. You're best of trying to find an artist that you like or focusing on a specific style of painting. The latter is the easiest as the museum is organized by time period starting in the early Renaissance. It's the first option that can get annoying.

I had 3 piece of art that I could say are favorites from my visit. 2 of them are Monet's. One of them is the Lily Pond. I can't remember the names of the other 2 paintings off the top of my head but thankfully the Gallery allows pictures to be taken.

Night Time City-scape

 

You may notice that the pictures are rather dark. The reason is that the museum relies mostly on natural lighting. It's quite beautiful and calming in comparison to those museums that have those harsh lights on every piece.

We noticed through our little excursion around London that there is a particular coffee shop/fast food stop that is everywhere. It's called "Pret A Manger" which is french for "ready to eat" It's so common that it's like Starbucks and McDonalds had an child...only that child is french and attends a British boarding school. We decided to try it and it's now a regular stop for us. They have good food, good prices, and they boast on the fact they are "all natural - made fresh daily". They have a lot of vegetarian (called "veggie" here) options and a few vegan ones as well.

Evening: We went to see a movie called "Florence Foster Jenkins". For those of you who don't know who Florence Foster Jenkins is, she's considered the worst opera singer of all time. The movie was a great little film. It has Meryl Strepp, Hugh Grant, and Simon Helberg (who some will recognize from the show The Big Bang Theory). It's a great comedy and just a good all around film. After the film was over, we had the pleasure of having a Q&A with the screenwriter of the film and the writer of Jenkin's biography. We, the film students, ended up asking about 3/4 of the questions.

...to be continued...