Dress

I haven't decided on a dress at all. I've only gone to one store to try dresses on to get an idea of what I like. However, this dress is the one that I think I liked the best. It looked good on me and I love the neckline, called Queen Anne. I'm going shopping tomorrow with the girls in the family so there'll be more pictures. This is just a preliminary suggestion. (http://www.beautifullymodest.com/store/wedding-dresses/b2025/)

So, I'm getting married!

Yes, despite all posits to the contrary, I am getting married. His name is Nathan Perry and we're planning on getting married in the Salt Lake temple on June 12, 2010. I figured I should start now to get in the habit of posting things, and I also wanted to get some feedback on wedding decisions. I'm pretty sure anyone who was reading this blog now doesn't but well, hopefully someone still does. It's a good chronicle in any case.
So here are what we are thinking the colors will be:
Comments? Suggestions?

Scots-in-the-land

Well, here I am in Scotland! I think I might enjoy it more if I wasn't so tired and burned out. We went on a bus tour the other day of some cities and up to Loch Lomond. It was beautiful, but not really exciting. I think the most striking thing is how green everything is. Our bus driver/tour guide was hilarious though. He was telling us about the kilts at one point and explained that the normal kilt is just a very large piece of fabric and then you pleat it, lay it down on the ground and sort of roll over in it so it makes a skirt on one end. The other end goes over one shoulder and can be used as a hood/cape. Then, when you go to sleep it is your blanket, you just put it flat and roll up tight in it. Then supposedly the best place to sleep is on the heather where you just lay on top of it (he says it is a strong as oak) and then shoogle (his definition was to shake or shimmy) your way down into the heather a bit so that it is both beneath and above you. That way you stay dry and warm, and goodness knows how you're supposed to get out of this cocoon. If only he could have given us a demonstration.
Edinbrough is only slightly larger than Salt Lake it seems, only more crowded and a lot dirtier. I gather that it used to be quite an industrial town and since all the buildings were made out of the local sandstone, the soot and grime just stayed on the walls. So most of the buildings look very dirty and black, especially the old churches and things. Today and tomorrow are the only days we have to be out in the city, but most of us are pretty burned out and broke, so I only spent about 2 hours out in the city. There are castles and churches and things to see, but, however much I never thought I would say this, I'm quite sick of looking at castles. Cathedrals not so much, but generally in a castle there isn't that much to see. Especially since the last few places we've gone have had lots of places in restoration and/or they were ruins. Don't get me wrong, they are amazing places. I think you just need to take them one at a time. Also, they usually involve a lot of climbing.
Overall, I'm just excited for Mom to get here. I'm tired of these beds and wierd bathrooms. Tonight is our 'farewell' banquet. I'm excited for it, but sad to see all the people that I've spent the last months with go. We've all grown quite close. I miss home some, but the prospect of going back to Provo just doesn't appeal to me. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I'll be starting school right when I get back. So much for recuperation days.

Dancing with the Stars

Sorry I've been remiss in my blogging lately. It's almost time for us to leave London and I've been trying to get everything in before we leave. That and the fact that we're having finals for our classes tomorrow and I'm rushing to get everything done. A couple of notes before I get on to the main subject: I saw Rebecca Harbuck yesterday and hung out with her. It was great to finally see her! We've been friends since kindergarten and it's always nice to meet up. Kristie - I'm glad I get to be considered one of your good friends so you blog about me! I miss you tons too and always wonder what you're up to. It is hard to keep in contact, but we shall!

Okay, so here goes. This week we went to go see Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens which is where the author met the family that gave him the inspiration to write Peter Pan. If you've seen Finding Neverland you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, it was great. Meg Ryan was there. I took this stalkerish photo of her. She was trying to keep a low profile so she was turning people away who asked for photos or autographs. I don't blame her. She was there with a little girl she adopted.

I also went to see Hamlet, the play. Guess who was in the lead? Jude Law! So we waited after the show was over and I got his autograph.

Later in the week we went to Madame Tussaud's and got photos with just about everyone else. Here I am with George Clooney:

And Hitler:

If you didn't know, Madame Tussaud's is a wax museum. Another boy on the trip and I got these passes to go to most of the attractions in London, and by that I mean like the big tourist trap places. We went to the wax museum, rode the London Eye, went to the London Dungeons and the SeaLife Aquarium. The Aquarium was my favorite I think, though they were all worth it. We also stopped into the this place called the Movieum - like movie museum - which was cool because they had original props from movies like Harry Potter and Star Wars as well as original sketches and animations from Disney movies and cartoons and the Simpsons. I could go on and on, but I was just so pround of myself getting Jude Law's autograph that I had to share and then I thought I'd go with a themed post. Missing you all!

Barthhhhhhhelona or Spain expedition number two

So, I took off to Barcelona, Spain last weekend with a few other students. It was great to be back in Spain. Me and one of the other girls were the only people who spoke Spanish, out of the seven of us, so I felt really cool translating for everyone. The first thing we notices about Barcelona was the oppressive heat! Just stepping off the plane you could feel it. Now, most people know I'm not a heat person, so you can imagine how I felt. It was really hot, but in looking back, it really wasn't so bad after the first day. You just drink a lot of water and stay in the shade when you can. Oh, and not worry about smelling worse then you ever have in your life. There were plenty of sites to see and we started right away. Most of the things there are from an architect - Gaudi. Look him up if you don't know anything about him. His work is amazing! There were also street markets and fun stores as we walked around the city. For one of our days there, four of us decided we wanted to spend some time at the beach. I didn't bring my swimming suit so I consigned myself to sit by and one of the other girls even said that she wasn't planning on getting in, so I didn't feel too bad. Well, we got there and the water looked so lovely and cool that I really couldn't resist. We went to a little clothes shop and I bought a swimming suit and something to go over it (because of course the only suits they had were skimpy bikinis) and headed into the water. IT WAS AMAZING! The water was really cool and was just the remedy we were looking for on the hot day. We played in the waves and body surfed a little. It was nice even to just stand or lay in the water. After we decided we had enough salt water up our noses, we went out to dry off on the beach. Unfortunately we hadn't brought towels so we all ended up kind of sharing one because the beach chairs they had on the beach it turns out you have to pay for. We probably laid out for an hour or so until our clothes were mostly dry. Little did we know that we would pay for it later. After getting out of the sun we started noticing that everyone was really red. We stopped to take in the damage and decided we needed some aloe. Well, suffice it to say that we were all in great pain the next few days, and I know that at least I am still in pain. I found a blister on my shoulder today. I don't know if it's been there the whole time or if it is recently formed. I'm also peeling, but apparantly pulling the skin off was not a good idea because it hurts even worse now. Oh well, there's really not much I can do but wait it out. The only real complaint I have is it makes it rather hard to sleep. And carrying around a backpack all day can be rather taxing. But don't worry about me! I'll be fine. It was completely worth it to spend the day swimming in the Mediterranean. Now I'm back in London and we really only have one and a half more weeks here before we take off. Were going to be traveling outside of London to places like Cardiff, Bath, Salisbury (home of Stonehenge) and other places this weekend. I just hope I don't get more bug bites. That would really make my day to deal with those on top of my sunburn. But I don't know what I can really do about that short of sleeping on the floor. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that the hostels are nice.

498 . . .499 . . . 500 . . . 501 . . .

I think I never want to see another stair in my life. Today was a lazy morning and I did some planning to see when we could do what in order to get all the required and elective sites for my classes done. I knew I wanted to get out at some point, so my roomie and I decided we'd go to St. Paul's Cathedral. It is one of the most beautiful places I've seen. The decorations and sculpture and architecture are all superb. As I was walking through the cathedral I saw a sign for a walk up to the dome/tower thing. Just outside of the steps was a warning the for people who have health conditions or whatever shouldn't do this. That should have been my warning. The first walk up to what they call the whispering gallery, inside the dome, wasn't so bad, but my heart was pounding by the time I got there. Of course I decided to continue, even with seeing the sign that said there were roughly 150 steps on the way up to the next stop. I thought, meh, 150 is not so bad. Well, it's not.....if you're trained to run a marathon. After that there were only 150 more steps and I figured that if I'd made it up this far already, I might as well go all the way. So I did. It was worth it. Coming back down may have been worse because it makes you dizzy, always rotating and having to look at your feet. So I tried to look up instead of down most of the time, but my legs felt like jelly by the time I made it all the way to the bottom. I started fanning myself while finishing looking around and people were looking at me strangely, but I didn't really care because I was burning up. Picture from the top of the tower included:

After that we went to the Tate Modern museum. There were some really interesting pieces, but also really good ones. They had an original cast of Rodin's The Kiss, and many other famous pieces that I enjoyed seeing. Others were just really wierd and there were actually quite a few that included nudity. But it was good in any case. I just don't know that I ever want to see a stair again.

Ghost Dreams

It's official! I have fallen back in love with Phantom of the Opera....especially since I saw it last night!!! It was so wonderful, amazing, awesome, and lovely. It made my heart so happy. My roomate here in London went together and we were both really giddy when it started and the music was coming up. It has been one of the best experiences I've had so far. As we speak I'm listening to the music. It was hard for me not to sing along. I'm sure the people around me are grateful.
That was only one thing we did yesterday. We had a busy day. We went to Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross station and got a bunch of silly pictures of us pushing the cart through the wall. Then we went to the British Library and saw one of the most amazing exhibits ever. They had a whole bunch of old manuscripts and things from all over the world. There were original Jane Austen books, a handwritten Jane Eyre, a Gutenburg bible, some pages from Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook, the Lindisfarne Gosples, original notebooks from Mozart, Handel, Ravel, and others, an original copy of the Magna Carta, and there were plenty of other things that were amazing. After that we went to the British Museum and saw other equally famous/important artifacts. Some include the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo burial, Roman, Viking, Egyptian and Assyrian scupltures and artifacts, an Easter Island statue, and the turquoise serpent from the Aztecs. There were also plenty of other amazing things and it would probably take three days to go through the whole museum completely. They had these cool hands-on exhibits where you could handle some of the artifacts, so I spent some time there and it was amazing to learn about the different things various civilizations used. We also had an experience in Leicester Square where all of the tickets for shows are sold. We were there in the afternoon so it wasn't as packed as it would have been around 6 when all the scalpers are out and everyone is trying to buy/sell at the best price.
I don't know what the plan is for today, but I do know that the weeks to come will be just as packed. Most people do different things every day and even though I know I'll have time to do most of those things, I feel left out because I want to do everything! It is all so amazing. I never knew I could come so close to so many old and important items as well as great popular culture. I LOVE LONDON!