currently.

Hello from the UK.

sorry for the delay...classes started and I can't get enough of this amazing city.

I FINALLY made it to London after 3-4 weeks of traveling the continent, and it is good to be in one place now to call home. 

{27}

We left from Brussels Train Station to ride the chunnel over to London. You will never guess who I saw...Elder Karratti. We were all waiting with our bags to find our train when we saw two Elders walk by, and naturally as members of the Church we had to say hello. But I recognized one of them and it was a total surprise to me and him. It was fun to see someone I knew other than the people in my program, I had a nice little chat with him. 

Then it was off to the chunnel. It is a super fast train. We had to go through like 3 passport checks! The chunnel was fun, I didn't really notice where we were because there were high mounds of grass and tunnels that I had no idea where we were, but I was underwater for part of, which was neat. Once we got to the station we were off to our new home the BYU London Centre for the next two months or so. The tube is not as difficult as some people have said, it is very similar to the metro system in Paris if you remember which way you want to go. So far I have loved being a the Centre, it is great! We have great food made by an amazing cook, she is the best...we have a new dish every night, so I am excited to try new things.

Friday I was able to explore London with a few of my roommates. We went to Piccadilly Circus and walked to Trafalgar Square to see the big lion statues.

{Meritt, Paesha, Samantha, Me and Amy}

After that we went to see Big Ben, the House of Parliaments, walked across the River Thames, saw the London Eye and stumbled across this little cheese market that had delicious Moroccan Food. It was fun/daunting to explore the city because there are MILLIONS of people + tourists + cars all over the place. Might I add that here they drive on the other side of the road than in the US, so that was a little difficult to get use to but I like it!

We went back to Trafalgar Square to go to a piano concert from an Asian prodigy that has played since he was 3; he played some Beethoven and Liszt. I really enjoyed Liszt No.11. 

Later that night we went to a Symphony which was great. I thought the concert was over when the orchestra finished playing, but was I wrong. I even put my coat on and stood up ready to leave to only find out it was the intermission. Let's just say it got interesting after the intermission. There was a for real opera about clocks and a cheating wife. I will never look at clocks the same now because of that opera. 

Saturday we had the morning to do as we please, so like a good student I started to work on my homework, but only to be interrupted by a group that was heading out to do something fun. Of course I went because when is the next time I will be in such a great place?  So a couple of us went to Portobello Road to check out what it was. It was a HUGE market filled with street venders for miles selling foods, vintage clothing/accessories/items, music and more food. It was brilliant. I loved just walking around taking in the atmosphere there, even though it was filled with every tourist known to man. We didn't get to stay long because we were going to the Globe Theater to see Richard III.

{THE globe theatre}

The Globe Theater was a great place and had an amazing atmosphere that made me feel as if I were back in the Middle Ages minus disgusting smells. Our group was in the standing area at the bottom by the stage. Think about 100-150 people crammed in space standing for 3 hours. Yep that's right 3 hours of standing in the cold + we had little trickles of rain throughout the play. Overall it was wonderful experience to see a play on the last day the theater was open. Richard III was an interesting play once past trying to understand the language. It was an all male cast, giving it a very Shakespearean feel. For all my HP fans, I saw the man who played Barty Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yeah I was like 10 feet away from him, but I couldn't take a picture in there to document this. I even waited after for about 45 minutes in the cold and rain to see if he would come out the stage door entrance, but he didn't.

{Roger Lloyd Pack}

{Barty Crouch}

Sunday I went to church that is about 40 minutes away by bus. (The tube line we want is always closed on the weekends for construction.) Our bus ride takes us from Notting Hill past Marble arch, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben/House of Parliament, and the London Eye, it is a pretty scenic route and I get to see them almost everyday! I also just walked around our neighborhood to get a feel for where I will be living for the next two months.

Monday...FIRST OFFICIAL DAY OF CLASSES. It is finally great to have some structure to my days than just walking around a little city. I get the best of both worlds, I have a schedule from about 9-11 Monday through Thursday for my classes and then the rest of the time is to do as I please. I love it! I also went to the ballet! I saw Swan Lake. It was interesting to see this type of dance because I never really get to see it. I was just amazed at how much effort and skill it takes to do what they were doing and make it look like they aren't even trying at all. But it was a tad long, 3 intermissions! I didn't get back to the centre until 11:15pm and it started at 7:30pm. I can't wait until December because we are going to see another ballet, The Nutcracker, it's going to be so fun!

Tuesday I had some classes, but after those I headed to Westminster to do a walking tour of it. I was great to see all the sights and places where so much history has happened. I love our walks because we can do them whenever and we get to learn more about the city we will/are living in. Later that night after dinner I went on another walk to South Kensington which includes the Museums such as Victoria & Albert, the Science museum and the Hyde Park Chapel. I went in because I haven't been to yet and guess what? I saw another missionary I knew. It was Sister Belnap, a girl I knew from my work. It was so crazy that I have seen 2 missionaries in 1 week. The Lord's work is moving, and I love it!

Wednesday I just hung around the centre because we had a bunch for reading to do for our classes that I wanted to catch up and get ahead on so I can enjoy my free time, so nothing too exciting happened.

Thursday I went on another walk, but it was so long and I was so tired that I had to stop halfway through because I had get home for our religion class that is at 2pm. Can I just say what a random time that is, it is right in the middle of the day so I can't plan anything to do in between my previous class and this one. But later I went to institute at Hyde Park Chapel and it was packed, but it was great! Our teacher is going to be the teacher for our religion class every Thursday, so I was excited that have more lessons from him later on.

Friday I walked from Notting Hill through Kensington Gardens next to Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace then to Trafalgar Square. It was a fun walk because I got to enjoy the fall in the park with leaves allover the ground, dogs running around and the crisp fall air. At Buckingham Palace, the Queen was Home! (the flag was waving high to say she was home)They were having some party there that loads of people were coming in their tea outfits, I wanted to go in and see the Queen. Later that night I made my way to Bond Street to go Primark (really cheap clothing store that is crammed with people). I found a shirt and a sweater for a pretty good price. Also I went to Ben's Cookies...they are divine. I got milk chocolate with pralines (hazelnut). SO GOOD! The chocolate is not chocolate chips, but it is spread throughout the cookie, or should I say biscuit.

Saturday was Briana's Birthday, so we all headed to Nando's, a delicious Portuguese chicken restaurant, and then we saw Wicked! I had fourth row seats, it doesn't get better than that! And for 27.50 pounds! It was amazing!

{Kaylin, Paesha, Me, Meritt, Briana, Hillary}

Sunday we went to church and finally got our calling...primary. There are only 6 total kids, that was how big my Valiant 8 class was, so this is going to be a new and exciting experience!

Monday had one class for Music and then just walked around London. It was a pretty good day.

Tuesday after classes I went to finish one many of my London walks. After dinner I went on a whim to see Singin' in the Rain! It was AMAZING! I loved it. We seriously ran to the theater on Shaftesbury to to get good seats and we did! Third row! I was just so happy and smiley during the whole play and not to mention soaked. It literally rained in the theater, Don Lockwood splashed around kicking the water EVERYWHERE! I loved every second of it. After we walked around Piccadilly Square, the Time Square of London.

{Piccadilly Square}

Wednesday I finished another London walk by Piccadilly Square and Trafalgar Square and later that night we went to an opera in that area too, it was Julius Cesar by Handel. Let's just say it was bazaar. Men singing in falsetto, alligators and giraffe tongues. Did I mention it was 4 hours long? Yeah I left after the first intermission.

Thursday we had the Fall Ball! A fun tradition one of our directors has with their family and they wanted to keep it up. We all dressed up in silly outfits, had finger foods, danced the night away (the dance lasted 30 minutes) and had loads of fun with all my friends.

{Paesha, Samantha, Me, Briana, Amy}

{Jessica and Me with our  matching 50 pence hats}

Friday we went to Stonehenge and Stourhead which is a huge estate of 2,500 acres of beautiful gardens. That will be a post on its own, but here are a few pictures.

On Saturday I went to my favorite market filled with a bazillion tourist to get to a school to do a service project with the Hyde Park Stake. It was manual labor. Moving desks, scraping walls and taping baseboards/doorknobs for the rooms to be painted. Sadly no documentation of this event but it was fun serving others and getting to know more members in the area.

Sorry for the long winded post of catching up on the my adventures in London. I hope to be better now that I am in one place now, but we'll see.

Cheers!

xx

brussels.

We are back in Belgium!

As mentioned before we are here in Antwerp and today we visited Brussels. Brussels is a large city that we had LITTLE time to explore. Belgium is underrated and has been one of my favorite places we have visited. 

First we headed to the Atomium, which is a huge replica of an Atom that was made for the World Fair in 1958. We didn't spend much time there, really only to get a picture and head to Brussels. 

{with the tall girls sam and briana...me on my tiptoes to be as tall as them}

oh and they had letters welcoming you to Belgium, and naturally we had to get a picture with them because we love letters. (amsterdam anyone?) ps. I always think of she's the man when the principle welcomes viola to Illyria.

{Briana and I on belgium}

We got to the big city of Brussels and went to yet again another museum. This one was way weird to me, it was Rene Magritte the surrealist...not digging his style. After we just explored the city a bit more. 

{shot of the main square}

Plus I found a hidden gem in the square...JAIME OLIVER. He must have been filming a tv show or something like that. Don't worry I captured him in a few pictures. Oh and when I found out who it was I shouted "It's Jaime Oliver!" then a lady totally turned around and just stared me and put her finger to her lips...yep I'm that dumb American who spoke louder than a whisper...oh well.

{he's in the orange/brown jacket}

Tomorrow we are going to London. I am SO EXCITED! So there will be more adventures and  great fun to come. Ps. I figured out what I'm doing to Thanksgiving break, drumroll please...

Italy and Spain.

Rome and Madrid to be exact. 

So stick with me for some exciting adventures. 

xoxo

lauren.

brugge + ghent + nederlands.

Hallo from Nederlands.

We have quite a few things to catch up. I hope everyone enjoyed General Conference, I know I did with my limited internet connection. This made me appreciate how much we are blessed with the technology to see and hear our leaders talk to us half way across the world. Plus it made me thankful for the easy access at home to just turn on the tv and watch. 

After our crazy concert in Kortrijk, Belgium, we went to Brugge the next day (Friday, Oct. 5th). Brugge is known for it's Basilica of Holy Blood, supposedly they have the relic of Christ's blood. And yes I paid .50 cents (plus a 2 euro entry fee) to see a vial filled with some sand and red stuff that was suppose to look like blood. This church is the best preserved of Romanesque style. What's interesting is that the church has two different styles because one level was renovated to gothic revival. Overall it was an okay experience. Before the Basilica we went to a  museum that use to be used as a hospital in the 12th century, Sint-Jan Hospitaalmuseum. It has many pieces of art that were related to medical or anatomy things plus artifacts like old tools they used to operate on patients. We also went to the Town Hall to learn more about the town, it was great to learn about Dutch History since we hardly learn anything about it in school. 

After we finished seeing those sights we were able to explore the town and for the first time this was more enjoyable than others. The town was small and quaint, everyone was nice for the most part, and the town was just interesting with the small streets and canals winding throughout the town. There were also horses with carriages walking around the town, and I nearly got run over by one horse. It made me think of the Mini Series 10th Kingdom when Tony breaks the magic mirror and is cursed with bad luck forever. Every time when something bad is about to happen there is a sound of horses galloping, so every time I heard the click-clack of the horses hooves on the cobble stone it made me think something bad was going to happen, like getting run over by the horse.

It was a day of firsts for me, 

I had my first Belgian wafel with chocolate, it was delicious.

Later I had some great Belgian chocolates and to finish is off some hearty Belgian frites. 

{frites with mayo + ketchup}

Okay I know you are all thinking I am some fattie for eating only sweets and carbs, but let me just say that I do eat nutritional meals here not just yummy desserts. 

Paesha and I were walking back by the Sint-Jan Hospitaalmuseum and found a cute old man playing this wind organ. I gave him some coins and he waved me over, so naturally I went over and he wanted me to play the organ. I started turning the wheel and the music played, he put his little bowler hat on top of my head, it was awesome! I loved it, but let's hope I don't get lice.

{music thing I played, that's the cute little man}

Satuday Oct. 6th we went to Ghent to visit the Duke's castle and we saw the painting by the Van Eyck brothers' called The Lamb of God.  I cannot express how detailed and ornate the mantel piece was, it was unbelievable how someone could paint that. Again, we were able to walk around the city and explore. I am proud to say that I did buy some delicious fruit in this organic store, they were called kiwi berries. It is a mix of a kiwi and a gooseberry. It's great because it doesn't have the hairiness of a kiwi and whatever a gooseberry is but there were scrumptious. Also I got a nature (natural) wafel (dutch way to spell waffle). Belgian wafels are great because they are crisp and have a slight crunch (caramelization of sugar)  on the outside and a soft doughy inside that are cooked to perfection. We saw some funny looking candies called "The Nose of Ghent" it's jelly filled thing that looked like and smelled like licorice.

{kiwi berries}

{my nature wafel}

{Paesha with a "nose of ghent"}

{noses of ghent}

After wandering Ghent we were off to the Netherlands to reside in Leidendorp. Sad day though, it was our bus driver, Peter's last day. We were all sad because we have traveled with him for a week and a half. Now we have some man named William, pronounced almost like Villain but with a m at the end. He is much harder to understand so half the time I have no idea what he is talking about. Plus he smokes, which is gross because he is hawking up a lung every 5 minutes and the lingering smell of tobacco is in the air. *NOTE: once we got to the hotel, literally like 5 minutes there we heard the announcement from President Monson that the age for missionaries was changed from 19 to 18 for young men and 21 to 19 for young women. We were all freaking out, especially the girls because there are about 35 of us on this study abroad between the ages of 18-22, the previous age to serve at 21 and now 19. We were all thinking we could have been on a mission already, which is great and also crazy to think that. I have grown up thinking about going on a mission but it was always different to me that girls always went in later than boys, but with the change it totally makes rethink everything now that I will be "older" and that 21 is just a "normal" age. Sorry for the little rant but it is a huge footstep for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that it couldn't be left out.

{our bus driver Peter}

Sunday Oct 7th was a pretty chill day, we were able to Hague and visit the beach there. It was really windy and I just went off on my own to finish listening to the Saturday Sessions of Conference. It was great to take in my surroundings and listen to the words of the Lord. After the beach we went to a Modern museum. This museum had a collection of different exhibits, it had some of Rembrant's paintings, Vermeer, and Mondrian. Then there was one exhibit that I really enjoyed, it was called Happy Days: from 1947-1967. This exhibit was a compilation of the what the style, art and daily things that were happening during those times. I really enjoyed the style part of it because they had a magnificent collection of 1950s clothing. There was dress that reminded me of Lorraine Baines dress from the Enchantment under the Sea dance from the movie Back To The Future (one of my favorite movies). It was a pink tulle dress with puffy slip. I loved everything about the collection! After we went back to the hotel to try and watch the Sunday Morning Session of General Conference. It worked for the most part, it cut out a few times, but overall I enjoyed conference. Wasn't great?

{sidewalk at the Hauge beach}

{the view I had while listening to General Conference}

{george mcfly, lorraine baines, marty mcfly}

 Monday Oct 8th we woke up bright and early...8 am to go to Amsterdam. There we visited Anne Frank's House, Rijks Museum, and the Van Gogh Museum. I was really excited to visit Anne Frank's because one I have the book and two I enjoy WWII or just that time period even though it was a difficult time to live and enjoy. As any other historical site there were going to be like a bagillion people there, it wasn't too bad because we arrived early. It was way better than I thought it was going to be. It was such a great and emotional experience to see this side of the what people went through during WWII. It's was great how the museum had quotes from Anne's diary throughout the house, and Secret Annex that correlate to what happened in each room. It's sad that people had to live this way, hiding all the time and depending on others to keep their secret. Anne is just one person of millions whose story was shared with the world and I am so glad that Otto Frank published her story for everyone to have a taste of what she and her family as well many others had gone through to remain safe from the Germans during that time. This is once museum I will not forget because of it's impact it had on me.

Rijks Museum is made up of many of Rembrant's paintings and similar artists who painted around his time era. One of the best painting I saw was Night Watch, this particular painting had a greater significance to me because I had studied it in my Humanities class Freshman year, so it was great to see the real thing! Once we were finished with this museum, we made our trek across town to Van Gogh's museum. This museum also had a wing of impressionist paintings which I preferred over Van Gogh's paintings. In front of this museum was the huge  I amsterdam  letters, of course we had to get pictures of that. One thing I liked about Amsterdam was all the water canals throughout the city, they are EVERYWHERE. Almost every street has a canal weaving in and out. Also there are MILLIONS of bicycles and they are all over the streets, they have their own path for bikes which looks exactly like the sidewalk, so you can see how that played out...getting run over by bicycles every other minute and hearing bells ringing all the time, I was scared for my life, at least every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings. Anyone thing of George Bailey and Clarence? Plus scooters can ride in the bicycle lane, they are going like 30 mph, like 3-5x fasters a bicycle, not good when you can't the sidewalk from the street apart. Overall it was a good day in Amsterdam except for the bikes, but it made me want to ride a bicycle. Everyone had a bike and many people fit on one. I say a whole family on one bike, the kids were in a basket/bin in the front, the father pedaling, and the mother on the back. It was a good day in Amsterdam. 

{this is type to see bikes and canals of water}

Today Oct. 9th we head back to Belgium to go to Antwerp after visiting a few cities (Leiden and Delft) on the way. Tomorrow we visit Brussels and  the next day we FINALLY head to London on the Eurostar! I can't wait to be in the UK after about a month of traveling. I will be great to be in one place for more than 3 days at a time (perks of touring Europe right?). 

Props for hanging in there!

xoxo
Lauren

snapshots of the day.

Much anticipated pictures!

enjoy.

ps I'm in Belgium...

listening to some freaky concert outside of our hotel that goes till from 5pm to 12am!

They sure love their Dutch Rap and techno + their beer and cigarettes, they all look like they are 12 years old...pleasant site to see. NOT!

{Chartres Cathedral}

{Samantha, Kaylin, Danielle, Me and Brianna in Chartres}

{Spider at our concentration camp hotel}

{Leonardo da Vinci's house}

{A Tower at Chenonceau}At Chenonceau there was this green river that you couldn't tell there was any water under the green, but we saw little eyes peeking up from the water. They were FROGS! So as any young age student would do we got things to try and hit them. We got pretty close to hitting some frogs, but we felt bad after we hit one on the leg. 

{A view from the street in Saint Malo}

{Paesha and I on the beach}

{Our friend we met at Saint Malo, we named her Michelle Obama}

{Mont Saint Michel}

{Gun batteries in Longues}

{Battleground in Longues}

{Omaha Beach}

{Omaha Beach}

{Head stone of those not known but to God}

{American Cemetery in Normandy}

{German Cemetery}

{Water Lilies Monet painted}

{Water Lilies Monet painted}

{Claude Monet's House in Giverny}

{Battlefield of Somme}

Battle of Somme was a WWI site in France that we visited today. It was great to see the battlefield because this was the first war they started using trenches and we were able to see those trenches because they kept them so well. 

Welp the Belgians have a crazy language I can't understand, it looks like gibberish. Here is a little taste of what I have to look at for the next week or so before I head to the UK where I can at least understand the majority of what people are saying. 

"Zondag Maandag Dinsdag Woensdag donderdag

 vrijdag zaterdag"

(Those are the days of the week)

tot ziens

(that's dutch for see ya)

it's gonna be a long week, 

but at least the Belgium has really good WiFi, that's a plus. Also the town is nice to walk around when there isn't 12 year olds getting wasted listening to techno.