Passionsspiele

What did I do this past weekend?! Oh, you know just flew over to Germany to see my parents!!!

Lisa and I left after classes on Thursday and flew to Munich. My parents meet us at the airport and thankfully we had no problem finding them. I saw mom's head bobbing up and down as she tried to find me in the long line of people trying to get through border control. She was just a little excited to see me! :)

Once we got through border control we headed to the car rental place and we were off to Garmish! Southern Germany is gorgeous with it's beautiful mountains and quaint little towns. For dinner we headed to Pizza hut.... yeah, we flew to Germany to have dinner at Pizza Hut. I must admit that it was delicious though!

Friday morning we were off to Oberammergau for the Passion Play. This play has been put on every 10 years since 1633. Have you ever sat through a 6 hour play? Have you ever sat through a 6 hour play that is all in GERMAN!!!!???? It was interesting to say the least. It was definitely an amazing experience and I so glad I had the opportunity to go. Thankfully I know the story line, which is Christ's life so it was a little easier to follow along than I expected.

Saturday we got up and headed to the castles! The first thing we saw was King Ludwig's Linderhof Palace. I've never seen so much gold in my life. Ludwig also had an artificial cave with a lake. The lake can be heated and has a wave machine. He would sit in his little gondola on his little lake in his little cave and listen to a live performance of Wagner's music. Craziness! This was made in the early 1800's!!! 

Since we were so close, we had to go see the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney based Cinderella's Castle after. It is also one of my mom's favorite places in the world. We got to go up onto Mary's Bridge that overlooks the castle. That thing is scary because every step you took, the planks moved/shook. Of course Mom would go across since it was was to scary.

After we toured the Castle we raced back to Munich in order to try and see Dachau Concentration Camp before it closed. We got there in time to see the grounds but the museum and such were already closed. Mom went there last week and took the full tour so she was able to show us around and explain some of the things that we were seeing. The affects of Hitler and the Holocaust definitely became more real for me. Since it was near closing time there were very few people there so it was kinda eerie. I still have mixed emotions about visiting Dachau. I felt as though I needed to go and see it but being there was a hard experience.

Here are some pictures of the trip.

Outside the Hotel in Garmish

Olympic Park from the 1940's

Lisa and I  outside our Graswang Hotel

I love coo-coo clocks!! They are so pretty.

Passion Play in Oberammergau.

Linderhof Castle

Grotto at Linderhof. King Ludwig built an artificial cave!

Neuschanstein Castle

My mom's favorite place in the world.

Mary's Bridge. Yeah, we walked across that.

Dachau Concentration Camp.

Germany was a blast but a short trip. Once back in London Lisa and I had to unpack, go to church then repack for Paris. We left for Paris this morning! So yeah, I'm currently in Paris right now. Oooh la la. more on Paris later!

Cheers

Corsets, Castles and Crazy Horses

Monday Sept. 14
This morning we had classes in the morning, as usual... then the fun began. A bunch of us girls headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) to do an assignment for our Jane Austen class. We got to go look at all the portrait miniatures, just like Lizzie does in Pride and Prejudice. Once the assignment was done we got to explore the museum. So we walked around and saw some of the good stuff. We went and looked at the cases of jewelry, which were all gorgeous! Then we went and saw the fashion gallery. The best dress was a dress made out of bras.....

Anne, Liz, Nikki and I then went on a hunt for the corsets. Of course we all had to try them on, and no I will not be posting pictures of this! haha. My fingers were so raw after getting three girls into a corset! That is not an easy task.


Tuesday
Once again, classes in the morning then homework ALL afternoon. I had to write my essays and get caught up on homework before I leave for Germany. After dinner, the entire study abroad group went to see the play War Horse. It was quite interesting.........ok, I hated it. It was a three hour play about this boy's obsession with his horse. The boy joined the army in WWII in order to find his horse that his dad had sold to the army. Not my idea of a fun evening.

Yeah...Grace kinda got in the way. haha

Wednesday:
Day trip day!
Everyone went to Bodiam Castle (cool castle with great ruins to take pictures in), Bateman's House (Rudyard Kipling's house), Battle Abbey (where the Battle of Hastings took place) and Monk's house (Virginia Wolf's house). It was a beautiful day outside so I got some great pictures!
Here are a few of the pics!

Bodiam Castle. Anne, Me, and Lisa

Strike a pose

on top of Bodiam Castle

Bateman's House

Battle Abbey

First London and Day Trip

Ridin' along Portobello Road, on a pilgrimage to Canterbury with St. Paul in order to be less miserable because it's Lisa Dickson's BIRTHDAY!!!!

Once again, it's been an amazing few days. Highlights: Aladdin Pants. St. Paul's Cathedral. Dover Castle. Canterbury Cathedral. St. Augustine's Abbey. Portobello Road Antique Market. Les Miserable.

Tuesday: I wore my new Aladdin Pants that I purchased at Primark. They are the greatest thing ever because they are so comfy. I love embracing European culture!

Don't make fun too much! Tuesday night the 35 girls and 2 boys gathered round to watch Notting Hill the movie. I loved seeing out neighborhood in a movie! and Hugh Grant is delicious.


Wednesday: First London field trip together!

We all went to St. Paul's Cathedral which is one large Cathedral! On our tour we got to go see the secret spiral staircase. It is were parts of Harry Potter 3 and Sherlock Holmes were filmed. After the tour of the cathedral, we ventured up the 530 stairs to the top. After huffing and puffing our way up the stairs we came out on top. It was so worth the burning in our calfs!!! London is even more beautiful and exciting from bird eye view.

St. Paul's Cathedral

Anne and I on top of St. Paul's

LONDON!

Thurday: Classes! Then....nothing....... This week I'm on kitchen duty. This means I have to up get up extra earlier to get breakfast out and quickly clean up in order to not be late to class. After classes I eat lunch then clean up lunch while everyone goes out. Then report back to the kitchen at 4:30 and stay there till 7. It's exhausting and leaves little time/energy for exploring London.




Friday: Best Day so far!!!!!
We woke up and rode the couch to Dover Castle! The tour guide took us around the secret wartime tunnels in the white cliffs of Dover. It was so cool to wander around the tunnels as they played reenactments over the speakers. I'm so glad I never have to live down there! They are so cold, damp, dark and secretive. After the tour we were set free to wander around the Medieval castle. It was so Medieval!  I climbed to the top and took a bunch of pictures. It was incredibly windy so most of the pictures did not turn out. Sad day!

Liz, Anne, Me, Nikki and Sarah at the Dover Castle

Preparing to tour the tunnels

Dover Castle in background

on top of Dover Castle

After the Castle, we went to Canterbury. The group arrived just in time for our tour of St. Augustine's Abbey only to find that is was closed?!?! The professors called around and they said they would send someone to come open it up. In the meantime we went over to St. Martin's Parish Church. This was such an amazing spiritual experience. This is the oldest church in England! We learned about the history of Christianity in the British Isles. After the cute little lady gave us a short history of the church, we sang some LDS hymns. We sang I need Thee Every hour, I am a Child of God and The Spirit of God. The acoustics in the chapel were amazing as the 40 girls and 6 boys sang. Absolutely gorgeous. The spirit was just so strong and several girls began to cry. We were the first BYU group to ever go to St. Martin's.

Graveyard in front of St. Martin's. You can kind of see it behind the tree.

Then we went back to St. Augustine's Abbey a.k.a a whole bunch of ruins. Great picture opportunity.

Canterbury Cathedral! I loved every minute I was there. If you have ever read/heard of Canterbury Tale by Chaucer.. This is the same Cathedral the pilgrims take their pilgrimage to. It is also the death place of Thomas Beckett. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, neither did I this time last week! haha I love my classes because I get to study something then go see the sights. Such as read Canterbury Tales then go to Canterbury Cathedral. Our tour guide loved us because we were so engaged and keep asking questions. I took 7 pages of notes!!! The Cathedral is gorgeous inside and out!  I am so grateful to be able to be here and go to all these amazing sights that are bursting with history.

Outside Canterbury Cathdral

This is where Thomas Beckett was martyred

Saturday: Time to Party!!
It's Lisa's birthday!!! The girls in my room and I partied all day long. We began the day by going to the world's largest antique market, Portobello Road Market. I bought a gorgeous antiqueish watch! I've never really been a watch person but since I have no phone I kinda needed one.
Then we went to the matinée of Les Miserable! GAH!!!!!! Words just can not explain the amazingness of it. I absolutely love going to the theater.

We had a yummy dinner at Nando's.

After have an long, exhausting but amazing day, I am now watching Sense and Sensibility while blogging.  YAY for another Hugh Grant movie!

Conquering London!

My first weekend in London was incredible!

Saturday was exactly what I needed. My entire side of the room slept in until 12! It was wonderful and the lack of sleep/ jet lag is now over. Thank goodness! For breakfast/lunch the girls in the room went and got waffles. Now, these are not the ordinary waffles you are thinking of. These are delicious London waffles covered in Nutella. Since it was Saturday, we decided it would be a great day to run errands and do laundry.
That night a large group of us went to a yummy restaurant called Nando's, that one of the professors suggested.

We then decided to wander around the vibrant streets of London and go to the Tower of London/Tower Bridge. It's is beautiful at night when it is all lit up.

Tower of London

Oh, you know.... Just me conquering London!

 Us and the Tower Bridge. It's huge and gorgeous.

As always, Sunday morning came all too early.
I am in the Hyde Park Stake but we did not have our ward assignments yet so those of us in the Hyde Park stake went to the Hyde Park Ward this week. We got to take a lovely stroll through Hyde Park in order to get to church. Church was a lot of fun and I love going to church in other countries. It's amazing to know that wherever you travel the church is the same. Today was fast Sunday, which means Testimony Meeting! London should be called the biggest melting pot in the world! Of those that bore their testimony, only one was actually British. The rest were from France, Slovakia, France, the Caribbean, Germany, America and Italy. The stake president informed us that in the Hyde Park Stake, 109 out of the 195 countries in the world are represented! So much diversity. (You definitely don't see that in Utah.) Overall it was a great weekend. We had a fabulous fireside by President Mathom and his wife. He is in the stake presidency of the Wansworth Stake. He is from South Africa and his wife is from Scotland.


This morning I just had classes then headed to Primark to do some shopping. Shocker, I know. Ally would be so proud. :)

Me and Nikki.

Cheers!