A much needed weekend in LONDON

We have finally come to an end in our travels. I can't believe it but at the same time I am relieved. As great as it is to travel, it can be exhausting. We've had so much fun though! This weekend was great. We finally got to spend some time around our home. Thursday the weather was absolutely amazing! It was beautiful-sunshine ALL day long. A crew of us went and rented the bikes in the park and rode around for awhile. It was a blast! We were loving it haha.

Friday we went to Stratford upon Avon. This was Shakespeare's birthplace. We got to go inside his actual home and see where he is buried today. It was such a darling little town. Later after seeing his home we were free to do what we wanted until about seven. We walked around the town loving the great weather again. Then when seven rolled around we headed towards the theatre. We got to see King Lear. Let me just throw out there that this play was three hours long! Haha. We all got a little antsy, but luckily the end of the play was entertaining. The thing we dreaded the most was the bus ride home. We were two hours away from the centre and ended up getting home at one thirty that night! As bad as it sounds, it's those memories I will always remember. 

Saturday we all slept in! Ahh. It was wonderful haha. We all woke up feeling a little exhausted and didn't want to do much. So we all "got ready" and went out on a walk. We ended up going to borough market and down town by the tower of London. It was so much fun just hanging out and having a leisurely day. 

Then came Sunday. This Sunday was a bit more stressful because all of the main tube lines were closed. This means you have to completely re-route your way to church. That's not always fun because it just adds to your hour and half which ALSO means you have to wake up even earlier! Haha. For some reason Saturday night a random crew of us got chatting for hours... by hours I mean three in the morning. Ha it was great until we realized that it was daylight savings and that we had to be up in three hours. As we realized this we quickly went to bed. Well, Ashley and I slept through our alarms the next morning... shoot. It was chaotic! Everyone running around trying to get ready for church. Annie and I got in our first fight hahaha. Yelling at each other about the shower... SO funny. Long story short, somehow we got out the door and made it to church right on time.

This Sunday they didn't need me in the primary so I went and helped Ash and Mike in the nursery. Who knew that it would be a complete workout to help out in there. It was well worth it though because the little squirts that were in there were SOOO stinkin cute! We had Vincent, Talia, and Victoria. Victoria and Talia are sisters. They are hilarious... Talia adds a little more to the mix because she has down syndrome. Agh she is the cutest though! But holy cow. That girl won't sit still for one second. At one point I was chasing her through the church and she managed to even get outside! Ha it was a crazy two hours. But like I said, well worth it. I love little kids too much.

It's always a relief to get home from church. I honestly think that Sunday naps are better over here than they are at home. Probably because we are ten times more tired over here. But it's the first thing we all do when we get back. Hop straight into bed until dinner haha. Since it was fast Sunday everyone was starving. We all were praying that Tais would have something just somewhat decent to feed us... 

Funny joke right? Chicken, Shrimp, Mushroom stroganoff. Looking at this picture makes me want to vomit. Haha i'm not trying to complain in anyway, but i'm telling you that this is a pretty regular sight we get around here at the centre. Thanks Mom for sending those soup packets :) Annie and I will be forever grateful haha. 

After dinner one of the bishops from our stake came and talked to us about the Blitz. It was legit hearing about it from somebody who lived during that time. He was literally around for all of the bombings. He had some crazy stories. One of the better firesides we've had for sure!

Monday I don't have class so I spent most of the day in the library trying to knock out some homework. It's rough doing school over here... haha. That night everybody went to the musical Billy Elliot. I won't lie, when I heard it was about a little boy who's dream was to dance... I was not excited or looking forward to it at all! Ha. But it ended up being one of the best plays we have seen while in London; despite it's story line. It was amazing and the main little dude was unreal!

Yesterday I had class all day. For dinner we convinced our professors to just give us all five pounds instead of having dinner at the centre haha. The only reason we got away with it was because we were going to a soccer game. We got to go to the Wembley Stadium and watch England vs. Ghana! It was too legit. Getting to the game was half of the fun because it was so crazy. Everyone and their dogs were trying to get on the tube. I've never been in such a claustrophobic situation! It was nuts. It took us a good hour to finally get to the stadium. The stadium was seriously unreeeal. The game was sold out and there were 80,102 people there. It was a national game so it was much different than the league/club games but we still had an absolute riot.

It ended 1-1 with Ghana scoring in the last three minutes. I've never seen such happy fans! Haha. It was such a blast and i'm glad I got to experience it. Although it really made me miss playing.. I was antsy the whole time to just go get on the field! Haha. On the way home we somehow lucked out and got into a spacey tube car. I don't know how we pulled it off but we had seats all the way home. Although we did end up getting home pretty late. We were all glad that we didn't have anything this morning!