Stratford-upon-Avon

Saturday we ventured out to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. The actual town was really neat! It had cobblestone streets, ample pasty shops, the cutest little public library, and an awesome statue resembling our friend Touchstone from As You Like It. Just outside of town, we visited the farm of Mary Arden. Besides the thrill of milking a fake cow, I learned about a traditional meal that Mary Arden may have had while she lived there. Next, we visited to home of Anne Hathaway who was William Shakespeare's wife. I learned that the two families, the Ardens and Shakespeares, knew eachother prior to this marriage and the men of the family actually worked closely with one another. Finally, we entered the town and visited William's birthplace. The introductory video was great because it showed the expanse of Shakespeare's genius and made me realize just how much of my vocabulary i owe to him! In our free time, I walked around by the river and ended up avoiding a little rain by getting some hot chocolate in the Dirty Duck (classic pub name). To end the trip, we saw a great performance of A Winter's Tale!

Les Miserables

My parents were here visiting this weekend and it was so much fun being their tour guide around London! The highlight of our adventures was definitely a night out at Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre. This show was the best production I have EVER seen! I went in expecting it to be great, yet I was still blown away! A cast of 25 performed the most powerful and touching musical, mostly through their amazing singing and dynamic stage presence. The male lead covered the highest and lowest notes in the musical theatre community as well as played a character ranging from 20-something years old to 80-something years old. Talk about versatile! Even the set was cool! The round stage turned throughout almsot the entire production, which allowed quick changes between scenes and a really good sense of passing time. I wanted to see it again the minute it was over, and I'm pretty sure that my conversations only consisted of "wow" for about three hours after the performance.

Church History Tour

Our last two days up North, we hit Preston and Liverpool to follow the early missionaries and members as they converted and emigrated to America. In Preston we visited the Wilfred St. house that the missionaries lived in as well as the River Ribble where two men had a foot race to see who would be baptized first! I have never really studied the history of the church here in England before so I didn't realize the importance of the members here in the early days of the church. In those days, there were more members in England than in Utah and the whole pioneer trail! The apostles that came here sacrificed so much to do this work.
In Liverpool, we stood on the docks where so many converts started their long journey to the Utah Valley. It was a great experience to stand there by the statue on Albert Docks and sing "Come, Come ye Saints" as a big group. These two days really opened my eyes to the extent of work and miracles that happened here in the early days of the church.

Fountains Abbey

This is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. We walked into this long valley (a flowing river included) and there in the middle were the ruins of the Abbey. I didn't know such majestic scenery existed. This Abbey was originally created by some monks that fled to escape the corruption of the church, and was later destroyed by King Henry VIII as part of the destruction of the Monasteries, so there was a lot of significant history involved with the Abbey. It was amazing to walk around and picture monks walking through those arched corridors and hallways. There was so much height involved in the architecture! I got dizzy just looking up to the top of the tower. This along with the pointed arches gave the Abbey a very High Gothic feel. Too bad we don't build things like this anymore.

Southall

Southall was a very eye opening experience for me. I absolutely loved the Sikh temple and the people there. They were so nice and willing to share about their culture. I was surprised to learn how similar our religion is to theirs! They were such a humble people and showed such reverence to their scripture. The Hindu people were also very open to share about their religion, but unfortunately, I didn't get as much time to talk to them. Their temples were very ornate and bursting with beautiful bright colors. Southall itself seemed like a whole different world and I didn't even feel like I was still in England! It was a very different culture and it was such a neat experienced to be fully emersed in it. To top it all off, we ended the day with some delicious Indian food!

Canterbury

Canterbury was AWESOME! It was so cool to finally be on the scene of all the great things we've been learning about, such as the murder of Thomas Beckett and the signing of the disillusionment of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. The cathedral was also a visual presentation of the changing of architecture with its Roman round arches, Gothic pointed arches, and the vertical height from the Renaissance time. Many of the stained glass windows and stone statues were destroyed by the Puritans who were against such forms of art in cathedrals, but those that remain or are rebuilt are stunning!

Castle of Dover and the White Cliffs