Kate in the UK!: Eye Love London

These past three days have been incredible! But then again, that’s not unusual when you are living in London!

So Thursday was a day full of wars and battles. Literally! I went to the Churchill War Rooms, the Imperial War Museum, and saw War Horse that night! The museums were both awesome!! It was interesting to see how the British view Winston Churchill and see where he worked during the war. I can’t believe how much time he had to spend underground! The Imperial War Museum was really really good. We saw exhibits on World War 1 and 2. The WW1 exhibit was cool because they had replicas of trenches. You could walk through them to get a feel of what it might have been like. They made it very realistic. It even smelled like it would have in the war, and they had bombing and shooting sounds going on. It was scary! I can’t imagine what it really would have been like, but it was interesting to get an idea. They had a WW2 and Holocaust exhibit as well. These were very hard to walk through but very eye opening and interesting. Outside the exhibit they had a sign that said “no children 15 years and younger” and boy, I understand why they said that after walking out of it! It was very heavy. I felt extremely grateful to not have lived during these wars, and to not have gone through what so many people went through.

To follow along with the theme of the day, that night we saw the play “War Horse.” You may have heard of the movie, but it was actually a play first! It was incredible! The horse puppets were extremely impressive. After only 5 minutes of watching I was totally convinced they were real horses! So crazy. The story was really good too! I was very impressed with this play! There was also a cool violin man that would occasionally come on stage and play a little tune or two. He was my favorite part. Something else I very much enjoyed was that the horses name was Joey. Really?? A horse named Joey. Well is that silly or what! I found it quite amusing.

So yesterday was a coach day!!! Sadly, our last and final one! But guess what, this time, we didn’t have our usual caterpillar. This time, we got a double decker coach! Boo-yeah! It was one fat caterpillar. How exciting! So our original plan was to head straight to STONEHENGE. However, (note: this next part is very sad so you might want to go grab a tissue or two) during the night before this there were terrible wind and rain storms, which caused big trees to fall down onto the middle of the road. And not just any road, the road leading to Stonehenge. And tragically, these trees were big enough that not even the fat caterpillar could drive over them. So, no Stonehenge. TRAGEDY!! I will be quite honest with you, I was thoroughly bummed. I just can’t believe I will leave England without seeing Stonehenge! That’s just crazy. But I will tell you, once, on one of our other coach days we did drive by it. But that doesn’t really count as seeing it because we were driving real fast and so we only got a quick glimpse. But, I guess that’s going to have to count now! Darn wind.

So, instead of Stonehenge, we just headed to our next destination for the day, which was Blenheim Palace! Besides the fact that it was pooooouring rain, freeeeeeezing cold out side, and sooooo windy I couldn’t even open my umbrella without it pulling me violently, Blenheim Palace was really fun! It was really beautiful and had really pretty gardens surrounding it and a cricket and polo field by it too! I SO wished I could watch a match! So Blenheim Palace isn’t actually a Royal palace, but it was used by the Monarchs of Britain quite often. The reason we chose to visit it is because we are learning about Winston Churchill in class, and his great grandparents owned Blenheim! Winston himself stayed there often during his time in the British government and such. The palace is in a ton of movies, too! Probably because it looks so palace-y. Blenheim was fantastic!

Next stop: the University of Oxford! You guys. I LOVED Oxford! I mean I do love provo, but Oxford was like the coolest college town ever! We got a sweet tour from one of the nice blue badge guys and everything! Oxford is a very prestigious university. I loved seeing students everywhere! They all looked so studious. I even thought about joining them to work on my own papers and finals! (but not really.) But in fact, the students there are taking finals as we speak! Wanna hear something cool they do there? So on the first day of finals, they wear a white rose on their shirt. (They also wear cool fancy school clothes.) In the middle of their finals, they wear a pink rose. And when they take their very last final, they wear a red rose. And when they finish they are greeted with Champaign to celebrate! Cool huh! I am thinking of doing this myself at BYU. But don’t worry, I would drink Martinelli’s instead. So at Oxford we got to see all of the different colleges and basically just learn about how Oxford works and the life of a student there. It was sooooo neat!Oxford is one of the oldest Universities EVER in the world. The whole town is just so unique and old and gorgeous and fun and awesome. I loooooooved it. OH and guess what else? So there are these absolutely deliciously scrumptious cookies here in England called Ben’s Cookies. And in Oxford, is the first and original Ben’s cookies! They are soooooo yummy! I may or may not have had three. I mean, I had to make up for not seeing Stonehenge somehow right? Good ol’ Ben did the trick!

Today, Madeleine and I enjoyed our last Saturday in London with some nice fun cousin time! We went and did…. Drum roll please…. the London Eye!!! I have been so excited to do this since the moment I came. I purposely waited till the end to do it. And it was so worth it! Madeleine and I loved everything about it. It was so cool to get to the top, look out over London and be able to know everything I saw. And really know it. Because I experienced it all. And lived in it. And learned all about it. It was the BEST. I was listening to the tourists standing next to me try and pick out what everything was, and I loved being able to answer every question they had. I have truly come to know and love London, and it is such an exhilarating feeling!