London, England

The 4th of July was fun, not very traditional, but it was good. We were in Preston and we got to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. It was a great experience. Afterwards we went to dinner and then on Sunday I attended the Chorley 1st ward and afterwards we took our bus on a tour of the Ribble River and the house that Pres Hinkley lived when he served here and recieved the famous letter from his father that advised him to 'Forget yourself and go to work.' We also saw the home that the first missionaries to England lived in during the 1800's.

We got to London on the 6th after spending all day on the bus. We went to Stratford Upon Avon to see Shakespear's birth place and grave, and we also stopped at the Wedgwood Factory!!! I absolutly loved that one. I really enjoyed looking throught the museum, but the best part was the shopping! I found some really good deals on a few things for my apartment and I bought a necklace that was made there which will be a really neat keepsake. It will kind of be a pain carrying it all around but it's not very heavy.

Once we were in London, we checked into our hotel, and can I just say one thing? GROSS! Apparently there was a mistake with the kennedy Center (who was in charge of booking all of our rooms), and we ended up in a really sketchy hotel... The rooms are small even by London standards, the place is super old and creaky, some of the girls had a cockroach in their room, and our bedspread is like really stained and discusting. Pretty much everyone is appaled! But since we were already here, there was nothing else we could do. But our director was upset and so this hopefully won't happen again. Me and katie aren't even sleeping in the bed. We pulled off the cover and turned the top sheet over and are sleeping on that and covering ourselves with the airline blankets that we stole from our flight here. I am so glad I took it!!! It has really saved my life.

The first night in London, the 6th, we just hung out and had dinner then we went dancing and got up the next morning and saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and then when the rest of the group went off to see more stuff, I had to go back to the hotel because I wasn't feeling better and I wanted to go to see Les Miserables that night, so I needed to sleep it off. I felt much better after a few hours napping and then rejoined the group for the play. It was amazing! I've never seen it before and I was really impressed.

Today was our last day in London and we finished up doing the touristy things after we had our meeting with GMAC's insurance executive, Ron Judd. He graduated from BYU and has been living in the UK for 9 years. He is extremely successful and a really down-to-earth guy. Our meeting was like 2 hours but I could probably sat there for another 2 hours. After that we had lunch and went to the Bank of England's museum which had a lot of really cool stuff. They had some lottery tickets from the 1700's which were interesting and it was cool to see how their notes have changed over the years. A £1(one pound) note used to be the size of half a sheet of paper! Oh, and yesterday we also went to the National Gallery and saw some Picasso's, Monet's, van Gogh, and da Vinci. Then we went to the british Museum which is full of amazing artifacts from different civilizations. I spent some time in the Egypt room and in the Persian Empire room. But back to today, after the bank museum, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, the tower bridge, and we went inside the Tower of London and saw the home of King Henry VIII. The crown jewels are also located there. They were stunning! I'd take any stone off of them and be a happy woman!

After a long day of walking, it was time for dinner and some shopping. So I ended up with two very cute tops for under £20! It's about 10:30 at night here and in the morning at about 4, we will be leaving this 'scum-of-all-the-earth'hotel and heading to the real sin city, Amsterdam. We will only be there for two nights and just long enough! Hopefully the hotel is nicer, becauseI think most of us are pretty nervouse about how trashy we have heard the city is, but I think we will do just fine! Anyways, I should get a few things done before I head to bed.

Loves,
Nicole