saturday south of the thames

i am writing this a day late because i was so tired last night i went straight to bed instead of blogging! i am already regretting it! yesterday was a pretty packed day so i'm sure i will forgotten things already :( sad day. i did take lots of pictures though! so prepare!
just because it was saturday doesn't mean we had a day off! at 9 we started our third group walk for our 'london walks' class! this walk was called 'a walk on the wild side: south of the thames'. (see blog post title. hehe) i guess the author of the book that goes along with our walk named it this because throughout history the area that we walked through today has been known at various times for being home to whorehouses, theatres, and prisons. exciting right?! these days the south bank houses famous icons such as the globe theatre, the london eye, the clink prison museum, the tate modern (art museum), and many more fun destinations! these are the ones we focused on on our walk, however.

our 'walk' technically started at christopher wren's 'monument' which he was commissioned to build in memory of the great fire of 1666. it is the tallest free standing column in the world! 

so our first stop on our walk was the famous borough food market. WOW. thank goodness i wasn't hungry! it was like farmers market times a million. they mostly have cheese, meats, and bakery items, but there was a little of everything! luckily for poor tourists such as myself almost every stand offers free samples. i tried some pretty crazy and really amazing stuff!

 

me and jace splitting the famous grilled cheese! yum! 

melting the cheese! oh my gosh i am getting so hungry writing this 

cute sarah and her kidney and steak pie! 

goats milk ice cream! 

the day before, in class, professor christianson had warned us of the famous grilled cheese sandwich at the market. in his words, he described it as 'not for children under 16 or immature adults'. naturally we all tried one! he recommended splitting it because it was so rich, and i'm glad i did! it was amazing though! it has really strong artisan cheese on artisan bread. it also has a sort of vegetable spread on it.. i think its a mixture of celery, onions, and peppers. it. is. so. good. me and chelsea and various other peoples wandered through the market and tried all sorts of free samples.. (turkish delight is still gross by the way), and i decided to get some goats milk ice cream! hahaha. exciting right? honestly it tastes just like gelato. so yeah nothing too exciting there! after that it was time to continue on our walk!

random sights along our walk

we wandered through some side streets, past the clink museum and where the 'brothels' used to be. our next destination was the tate modern! i was actually excited to go in the tate because tim slover had talked it up a little bit, and i respect his opinion. this was probably the first art museum i have ever been excited to see! after dawdling outside for a bit we finally went in... we didn't even get to the exhibits before i got stuck at the gift shop! it had the coolest stuff!! all the designs on their souvenirs were so freaking cool. they had a lot of postcards and books and things of some of the artists they were currently showing, so it just got me more excited.

cutest childrens books i got!!

i definitely was not let down! i have to say i love the tate! i saw so many cool things! i think this was one of the first art museums that really showed me how art influences our daily lives. you can see it in the patterns we wear in our clothes, what we choose to decorate our house, the music we listen to.. it was so cool. it was kind of a mind bending experience and i was mentally exhausted afterwards!

mom this one reminded me of you.. that weird animal stuff you like

some of it is just recreations of propaganda! 

some of the art was literally scenes. for example this was a trailer with a tv running. it was just a living space!

sadly the artist i wanted to see the most, damien hirst, is an exhibit you have to buy a ticket for. it was a saturday, so everything was super packed. so i will be going back to see his stuff! i will blog about it at that point.. but just as a little teaser.. his main piece is a human skull covered in diamonds. how legit is that? totally creepy and weird, but so cool.
so chelsea and i stayed around the tate a little longer than most of the group. we were starting to get tired so we decided it was time to head down to the tube and head home. i have to say on this trip i have learned i am not so good with directions. we walked for forever before we finally found a tube stop! and it wasn't even the right one. hahahah. oh well! we found a lot of cool stuff along the way. one little street had the cutest little shops. it was straight out of barbie fairy world. all the shops were mini sized and super girly and pink. it was so cute. another place we found was similar to borough market except smaller. more free samples! i'm actually glad we got lost because it was cool to find the little things like that.

completely made out of beads! found this in a market we found

the little mini barbie lookin market! it was so cute 

 

mini borough market we found

the eye!! 

after a long and super crowded ride back to the centre we finally made it. we laid low for a while but i decided i actually wanted to go out and do something last night. so i got theatre tickets! i went to singin in the rain!! it was so good! that is one of my favorite old movies/broadway plays so i was a very happy camper.
before i left i went to this asian noodle place a lot of girls in the program love. it's called wagamama. i got vegetable dumplings and they were super good! then i was off to the palace theatre! (sounds so royal right?)

 i got there a little late so i had to ask the people to let me in.. can i just say i think germans hate me. hahaha. i had to squeeze by a german couple next to me and i'm pretty sure they started cussing at me. oh well! the show was super good! they had a really cool feature with the rain and they'd kick it out on the audience so by the end the front row was soaking wet. glad i wasn't down there! i have to say there is something about broadway though. i don't know what it is! but the west end just isn't quite broadway. still amazingg though! i am not complaining! :)

i stayed up late talking to a bunch of people down in the parlor (i feel so proper in the parlor. i will take pics of it later and post them). then i was off to bed!!


and then there was today! our second sunday! i can't believe i have already been here a week, but then again i feel like i have lived here a year! london is so great. but anyways we were off to church! it's kind of nice to take a long train ride out of the city. today was fast and testimony meeting and it was awesome. we all introduced ourselves, along with the new missionaries who are surprisingly from denmark and preston idaho! what do ya know! hahahah how funny is that? after sacrament i went to the ysa sunday school class and it was awesome. one of the senior missionary couples was in the ward today and they taught it. they are from flagstaff, AZ and they were very cool to hear from!

after our dinner which was AMAZING... we had these little quiche like things.. or maybe tarts? i don't know what to call them. they were goats cheese and cranberry. so so so so so so good. then we had a fireside with a really amazing guy named George Chittock. George is about 70 years old and actually lived in London during the blitz! he was evacuated as young boy two different times to both wales and a town about 70 miles out of london. it was so cool to hear his stories! he is a convert to the church and has served as both stake president and bishop multiple times. he was just a really legit guy, someone you could spend all day talking to. and he liked me so he gave me a mars bar! so life was pretty good:)
the night only got better from there. so i finally figured out my free travel weekend and... IM GOING TO DISNEYLAND PARIS!!!!!! i seriously could not be more excited and i am so blessed!!!!!!!!! multiple times i literally felt my eyes start to water because i am so excited. i still have butterflies in my tummy! i am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! today was a great day! a long day because i was so dang hungry. but i did get a lot of schoolwork done! only four more pages to go in twelfth night for english lit. can't wait for another amazing week! stayyyy tuned! love to you all