pictures.

I've been loading these pictures for a week and a half now! Between crappy internet and even crappier blogger, I averaged 3 pictures a day...but I finally did it.

This is where I live.

This is my street.

This is the Royal Albert Concert Hall where we went for Proms.

This is me during Proms.

This is the Tower Bridge.
This is me walking off the Tower Bridge.
This is the Bourough Market.
This is the Thames End of Summer Festival on the bridge.
This is me later that night at the festival getting strawberries and cream for dinner.
Fireworks at the Thames.
This was my view from the bridge.

This is a bejeweled moose during London Fashion Night Out that I really loved.

Vogue Fashion Night Out with Camilia and Hillary.
This is me at the Chatsworth House on our Northern Tour. I loved all the pretty wallpaper.
This is part of the garden at Chatsworth. (My favorite place.)
This is Hadrian's Wall. It was rainy, windy and cold.
This is halfway up Arthur's Seat, where I stopped to rest.
This is the top.
This is where Harry was born.
This is the greatest hot chocolate from The Elephant House, in Edinbourgh.
Here I am writing on the bathroom wall.
This is the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
This is me on the top of the Edinbourgh Castle with Fran.
This is me sitting on a rock on my Lake District hike after Courtney found a scary snake.
This is a cute picture of Emily at .... Wordsworth's house?
This is me in the garden. It was raining a lot.
I'm standing in a lake in the rain.
I love these sheep so much.
Seriously.
The greenhouses at Kew Gardens.
The only room I liked in the Saatchi Gallery. Pretty much.

my metric system

thankful for...

I'm thankful that I was able to pay BYU for this study abroad already. It's been hovering over me since January on my financial center. And I saw it every day over the summer when I was checking to see if financial aid would ever go through. I like reading, "You have no outstanding charges at this time" when I sign in. That doesn't mean that I'm off the hook. I still owe $5,637 to people and in loans, but I'm thankful that I'm here and no one is getting after me for not paying my fee.

tender mercy...

I've had terrible luck with pens the past couple weeks. I brought 2 with me, lost one, the other ran out of ink. I went to every store and no one sold pens. Not even the books store, which I thought would be a winner. I finally went to an art supply store and bought a pen for 3 pounds. Way too much. That one broke when I used it to try and get toilet paper out of this wacky machine in our last hostel. I was still using the little tube of ink from the inside of that pen though for a while, which didn't really work. The night before last I went to Tesco and bought a 6 pack for 1 pound! And they work great! ... It's pretty important to have a pen when like 80% of your grade for the whole semester is based on your journal.

made me laugh...

Blaming everything wrong in my life on the metric system and pound conversion. This glue that I bought said "Dries Instantly," but obviously instantly means 30.48 hours in the UK. Peter said I need to spend 9 hours making art each week, but I'm interpreting that as US hours since it's 9 hours in Provo. I've been wondering why I feel so overwhelmed and I realized it's because I should only be doing 5.625 hours per week. It's a little backwards but I'm 94% sure I'm right about these numbers. I'm working on a new conversion chart now.

I've learned...

• There are Way Out signs instead of Exit signs.
• It can be 60 degrees outside and 110 in the tube.
• Road signs rarely exist.
• The White Van Man is out to kill.
• Look right first when crossing the street.
• Stand to the right on the escalators unless you're running up the stairs.
• Their coins are heavier and used more often. The 2 pound coin is my favorite thing.
• I'm either a good bargainer or a liar. Either way I saved 3 pounds on my watch.
• Nothing is cheap in Notting Hill. Whether the sign says Sale or not.
• Cheese is a big deal. It's all over the place.
• No one talks on the tube. I literally saw people playing charades the other day instead of just whispering to each other.
• There is no such thing as too much PDA in Europe. I have seen many hands up shirts.
• If you don't go through the self check out at the grocery store as speedy as possible the attendant will walk over and hover over your shoulder to make you nervous and speed you up.
  
• Everyone here loves animals because they are hardly seen. Stray cats always have crowds of people around them.
• Cookies aren't good here. The best ones are called Digestives. Which says a lot.
• Nothing is open past 11, which isn't normal for a big city. Come on London.
• Being in an elevator at the tube station with 30 other people is my least favorite thing.
• The candy bar wrappers don't give you a little summary under the name of what's in there. It's always a surprise.