More England

I'm sorry if this is boring for ya'll, but I have to get it documented, and maybe someone will enjoy looking at Europe with me! (Hee hee!)

When I got back to Mike and Michele's after my jaunt up to Cambridge, we decided to take another trip, and this time we went south!

Our first stop was to none other than...Brighton! (Nope, it's apparently NOT the place to find husbands, but it was pretty none-the-less). We went to the Royal Pavilion, which is A-MAZ-ING!! I felt like I had stepped into India when I saw the outside of it. (Sorry the pictures aren't that great. Mike got some really good ones). The inside was an Asian mish-mash of stunning proportions. We couldn't take pictures inside the Pavilion, but it's worth Googling and trying to find some. I've never even heard of the Royal Pavilion, but if you get the chance to go I would highly recommend it!





We then headed over to Arundel Castle, which is a castle that was founded on Christmas Day in 1067 and is still the home of the Duke of Norfolk. It was pretty incredible to see the old and the new side by side. I wouldn't mind living there! ;) Unfortunately all of the sons of the current Duke are probably younger than 10. Not going to happen...

I love the English Countryside!

Like I said, I could handle living here.

We also went over to Hampshire, turns out it really is named for the pig...


We went to Winchester Cathedral, which is where Jane Austen is buried. We also went to Salisbury Cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful!

Try and ignore the scaffolding.

The door reminded me of "LadyHawk" when he bursts through on the horse.

This is the oldest clock in the world.

We stayed at a really fun hotel in Salisbury. There are boards that were there when they built the cathedral around 1220. It's definitely the oldest place I've ever stayed!

We also went to Portsmouth and saw where the Pilgrims and the Titanic set sail.



We also saw Stonehenge! This is the second time I've seen it, but I STILL love it!

This is Glastonbury, the burial place of King Arthur. It's amazing how a legend has so many birth and burial places!

The kids got to weave...

...with this dude!

Apparently one of the most popular places in Beaconsfield is Beaconscott, which is a complete model village. It was kind of cool...but something I still don't really understand. There used to be lots of these model villages around in the day, but this one is one of the only remaining villages. I guess the English really liked to walk around small towns back then...



Saying goodbye to this face was really hard!



Thanks for a great trip! Until next time!

A Jaunt Up to Cambridge

So, a day wasn't really a day when I got to post again. But at least this post is not three months down the road!

Part 2 of England included going up to visit Dan Dan for a day! It was one of the highlights of the trip (but since the whole trip was a big highlight, that just means that it was so great!)

I took a train up from London, and when I got in Dan and I went to "breakfast" where we ate the traditional beans, sausage, and bacon English breakfast. It was great. On our way, we walked past this fun little building. Yep, this is where the idea for the Double Helix in DNA was thought up. It's just a little pub type restaurant. But it was here that the "guys" came and were talking about it all, and the idea just hit them. Or something like that...

Dan took me around a lot of the different colleges in Cambridge, and it was amazing. The colleges are each so unique, and yet somehow similar. Maybe that's because they are all about 3000 years old. Okay, not that old, but really...the University dates back to the 12 or 13 hundreds. The New World hadn't even been discovered by the European continent yet. Crazy!

Dan was really nice to take so many pictures of me!

Same bridge, opposite side.

This is the Bridge of Sighs. It's named after the bridge in Venice where legend says that prisoners would sigh as they crossed before being executed. I'm pretty sure no one was executed after crossing this bridge...but I have been known to be wrong.

This is (I think) King's College. Sorry if I'm wrong Dan. Please correct me!

I just love all of the amazing architecture. It makes me wish that I actually knew something about it...

C.S. Lewis was mostly an Oxford man, but he did spend some time up in Cambridge. This is where he would have been when he was in Cambridge, and I, of course, had to get a picture of it because it's C.S. Lewis!

One of the highlights of the Cambridge trip was getting to play croquet on one of the Greens at Pembroke College with the BYU study abroad students. It was so much fun, and seriously...who wouldn't want to play croquet in England!?

I was a total pro!

The English definitely know their gardening. The roses were amazing...just like everything else that had to do with gardens.

It's a good thing I remembered at the last second that I needed a picture with Dan Dan. That could have been bad! This is us standing in front of the oldest Bowling Green in Europe (which in my opinion probably means the entire world because, let's be honest, where else do they even have Bowling Greens?) However, we weren't allowed to even walk on it...it's only for the Fellows (teachers).

Other highlights of the Cambridge trip - in no particular order:

1. Eating in the Great Hall (AKA King's College dining hall)
2. Listening to a lecture by Sir Richard Dearlove who was head of MI6 (British spies) for a number of years, and who was a spy himself during the Cold War. It was aWeSoMe!
3. Drinking tea with Dan in the Graduate Lounge in Pembroke College
4. Listening to a high school choir sing an Evensong in one of the beautiful churches in Cambridge.
5. Sitting by the River Cam watching all of the tourists punt up and down. It was quite comical, actually!

One regret: Not punting in the River Cam. Next time I guess.

The whole trip was amazing! Thanks for a great time Dan!