Loved Wales. Loves whales. But doesn't love wails. {c/o calvin olsen}

This past weekend we had our first extended trip with the group, it was our West trip. We started out the day by getting onto the coach at six in the morning. After three-four hours of driving, I woke up to Wales. 

[ the Welsh flag has a dragon on it]

Our first stop was Tintern Abbey. This has by far been my favorite church, which is hard to say because i have been to a bajillion churches. This particular church is hauntingly beautiful (that's what Karoke means in Japanese--How I Met Your Mother anyone?) Most of the church was destroyed during Henry VII's dissolution of the monasteries, Henry ruined everything. Today the church is merely ruins. Set on a hillside in the middle of the field just the walls still stand. The roof is completely gone which makes it breathtaking. Man I just used a lot of cliches. Take a look for yourself. 

[ Nave of Tintern Abbey ]

For my Brit Lit class we read William Wordsworth's poem Tintern Abbey and was given the assignment to reflect while at the abbey and write our own essay or poem after Wordsworth. I scribbled a few thoughts down while I was there, trying despartely to sound poetic and thoughtful and I'm nearly positive that I just sound like a pompous..... person. I'll eventually make it into something worth reading before its due. 

At this point I would like to tell you about Susan Howe, since she's in this picture. Susan is my english teacher. But she's more than that, for serious, not trying to sound all cheesy and cliche. I'm sure that fact that we live in the same house. Susan, and yes she told me to call her that- there is no lack of respect here, is wonderfully hilarious and well words can not describe. She's wicked smart, a well published poet and super cool. She's way friendly and always chats. I went to go see a play with her one time, and the conversation that came after it made me feel like an equal and not her student but still her student at the same time. Which is a very rare quality that college professors have. Point of the ramble- I love Susan. 

After Tintern we went to the Big Pit. Its a coal mine. I think we went there because about half our ancestors may have worked there at one point or maybe somewhere like it....maybe. 

[ The Big Pit ]

We got to put on silly hats and head lights and go down into the mines. Our tour guide was super welsh, I had to concentrate to understand him. He had worked in mines since he was 15, so he was about as hardcore as miners come. It was very informational and little bit scary. He told us pretty much all the ways we cold die down there, but its ok, the mine gets checked for safety twice a day. 

[ we're hardcore because we gone down into mines ]

After the mine we went to the museum of Welsh life. The musuem had a really lame indoor exhibit but all outside was pretty gardens and a little Welsh village and a manor house they falsely called a castle. It was nice to just wander around and look at pretty Wales. Oh and we watched a guy weave a blanket. 

[ Welsh Life ]

After all these adventures we headed out to our hotel, yes we stayed in an actual hotel and with only two people to each room. It was a pretty swag place. Most people went out on the town to eat, but us select really awesome people just ordered pizza and had a hotel party. We bunkered down in Cameron's hotel room, Me, Cam, Brit, Mary, Laura and Calvin, the six of us with five extra large pizzas. Thats about $100 worth of pizza but in pounds it doesn't sound that bad. I ate eight pieces of El Carnivoro, yes that means it was loaded with all kinds of meat. Not to be outdone by a skinny little girl each boy also ate eight pieces. The rest of the girls did their best to do the same but failed. We then had basically an entire pizza leftover which I ate for breakfast yesterday. We watched weird Welsh MTV called The Scuzz and had delightful conversation, best night ever. 

On day two we got up and ate our free breakfast and then headed back out to the coach. The day's first activity was Caerphilly Castle in Cardiff, Wales. We were let loss like bus full of little kids and we just ran around the castle having crazy fun. 

[Caerphilly Castle, it has a real moat ]

[That's me and Cameron, no not my brother.]

[That's me, I'm storming a castle, I was storming so good I made it split in two.]

   [That's not me, it's Brit, but i liked the picture anyway. ]

After the castle we went on a church history tour through a tiny bit of Wales and western England. We picked up Peter in Glouscestershire and we hit a few places that all have to do with the second mission to the UK back in the 1840s. I learned more from Peter than I actually did in my class the whole two months previous and it was all on the same subject. To say the least, Peter was a great guide. We went to an old church were the converts attended before they were converts. We went to a LDS chapel were you have to punch the answers to a little questionnaire that only Mormons would know the answer to into the keypad to get into, that was pretty cool. We went to a farm where Wilford Woodruff stayed and baptized hundreds in its pond. And we also went to the top of this huge hill called Herefordshire Beacon, no still Americans you do not pronounce each syllable, its really  Hair-fur-sure. It was a strenuous hike up to the top and once up there it was super windy. This hill is significant because the missionaries would hold meetings up there. It was pretty neat to see all these places. 

[ Hill Farm, where Wilford lived ]

That night we hopped back on the bus and four hours later we were back in London, oh and of course we stopped for dinner, at KFC. 

the final chapter.

We left off as we started walking up towards part Guell, the outdoor fiesta of a park Antonio Gaudi designed. It was quite the hike up there. Super steep and you know how I love exercise....

[ from the ground, not a doctored photo ]

I shouldn't really be complaining, half the trek up was escalators, outdoor escalators. Just before we reached the top of the hill we stopped at a cafe and got a pizza to go, we made it to the top and sat on a bench and with the view of the whole of Barcelona in our sights, we ate some park pizza. 

[ park pizza ]

After our delightful snack, we headed down to the main center of the park, with a brief break for an air dunk contest of course.

 

Gaudi loves curves and the whimsical. Nearly everything looks start out of a dream, the park kinda looks like a giant gingerbread structure, colorful tiles with white grout looks like candies in frosting. Really only pictures can describe it and I know you don't want to read it anyway. 

After the park, we ventured over to the pier. This is why I loved Barcelona, the beach, the pier, the water. It was a gorgeous day, still in the fifties, but beautifully sunny. We walked down Port Vell, which oddly has a huge shopping mall  at the very end of it. But walking out to it we saw all the sailboats docked and the waves crash. We stopped by the aquarium but no time for that, next time guys, next time. Walking back down the pier to head over to the beach we saw all these people riding these rentabikes. We wanted one. We found a rack of them but they are locked into this bike rack thing and we couldn't figure out how to get them out, there wasn't anywhere to put money or any buttons to push. We were baffled and super frustrated. Then Brit happened upon one that wasn't fully locked in and we may or may not have "borrowed it" for a little while. We rode along the sand, taking turns with the one bike. 

[ me on a stolen bike in barcelona ]

Then we played on the beach. At first we were just lounging and then we decided that hey we are on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea, we need to touch said sea. So we went closer to the waves, that was mistake one, in our shoes and socks, that was mistake two. We went up to the surf and bent down to touch it with our unclothed hands, and you guessed it, the wave was bigger than expected and we pretty much fell into it. The water just went up our legs, so we didn't get completely drenched. But at that point we gave up and just splashed around in the water for a bit. Brit and I were like small children, we ran up and down the beach chasing and be chased by the waves. After all that fun we walked back home, sockless, of course with a brief intermission for crepes, and changed our pants. 

 <3
yes I just did the girly little heart thing. Get over it.
After changing our pants we headed back out to go look at the Barcelona Cathedral. We found it after walking around for a bit, Barcelona is a pretty happening place. We passed a free concert deal with a mini orchestra with a big group doing some kind of folk dance. We stopped to check it out and then hit up the cathedral. We walked in, gorgeous of course. Kellen starts wandering around. He ends up inside the cloister just as mass is starting and gets stuck.  I think he planned it cause he was telling us about how much he has wanted to go to a mass. So Brit and I sat in the pews just outside the cloister and listening to mass. The first twenty minutes were really cool, I have never been to mass let alone a Spanish Catholic mass. Then after that it got cold and boring and I can't speak Spanish. About seventy or so minutes go by, by this point Kellen has listening, mumbled the Lord's prayer in Spanish, given money to the collection plate and received the Eucharist. He finally got out and we went across the street to eat some paella, which is saffron rice and meat and veggies all sauteed together in a huge pan and is delectable.
After that I was tired and kinda just wanted to go home but we ended wandering around going to this and seeing that they were closed and Katie was right just to get that extra hour of sleep, mind you this is still the same day after the bus from heck (censored it mom).

Saturday February 13
We woke up bright and early and headed out for a day full of adventures! ha. We started out by heading to the Las Ramblas street market. Inside the covered food market there are stands and stands of fresh fruit meat, bread, and candy. We got a bag full of mini croissants, chocolate filled ones of course and fresh fruit smoothie things. I saved mine to eat on the train. 

[ Inside the Market ]

We hopped on over to the train station and headed out to Monserat. Its north and more inland that Barcelona. It takes about an hour and a half to get there. We went there because there is a sweet mountain top monastery there. We rode a little train the winds up the side of the mountain, quite literally. It was really pretty to look down over all the mountains. Its was amazing to go from flat beach to real snow covered mountains in like thirty miles. The cathedral of the monastery reminded me of lord of the rings a little bit, especially being on top of a mountain. 

[ Building on the left is the exterior of the Cathedral ]

They have a really old relic, a Black Virgin Mary icon. She's black because she's made out of really dark wood, not trying to be racist. She's about a thousand or so years old. That was neat. We spent the afternoon wandering around, eating lunch and taking lots of pictures.

That afternoon we rode the train back and wandered through a park and along the pier again before we hopped in a cab to the airport. 

To make a very very long story short our flight was delayed four hours and then cancelled. The next available flight was Monday morning, remember this is Saturday night. After spending two days being shuffled around to and from the airport and free hotels we finally made it onto our flight, once again delayed on Monday, but only an hour, and made it back to home sweet home London. 

Don't worry, folks, that's the end of the show.

part deux

To continue...

[ Front facade, from diagonally across the street, Madrid Cathedral ]

Thursday afternoon, after basking in the sun for a bit, we went into the Madrid cathedral. Now I have been into a lot of really old churches, really cool ones too, while here in England, but no one does cathedral like Spanish Catholics. The exterior, though pretty awesome, was nothing particularly special. 

[ interior ]

The interior however was remarkable. The space was enormous and there were stained glass windows. Since there is sun in Spain light actually ran through the colored glass filling the cold stone interior with warm colors. Every chapel was filled with gold filigry covered Virgin Mary's and Crucifixes. It was nice to just sit and look.

After that we decided to walk through town down the main street la Grand Via. Its like Spain's version of London's West End or the US's Time Square, I suppose. It had a lot of shopping, a lot of food and a lot of theaters. I thought it would be pretty funny to go see something in Spanish, of course it would be something I've seen in English or even to a Disney movie. Would have been good, but we didn't have time, nor really the money. All down la Grand Via there was of course beautiful architecture. Big buildings with classical features and Spanish Baroque details lined the street. We passed the National Bank, that was pretty fancy. We of course stopped at a little restaurant to warm up and refresh. Every time we would stop it would involve food. I had some hot chocolate. Now hot chocolate in Spain is not your typical steamed milk and chocolate syrup, it is legit chocolate. If you know what sipping chocolate is, it's like that. It's pretty much a melted candy bar, you add a little sugar to it so its not so bitter. But it is rich and thick and smooth and delicious. 

Once we reached the end of the street we found a park and decided to explore.

[ Retiro Park ]

[ me falling over in Retiro Park ]

[ me recovering in Retiro Park ]

The park was really pretty. I can only imagine what it looks like in the summer time. The best part of the park was the boating pond. We walked passed this big pond  right on the edge of a huge monument thingy and it had tons of little boats on it and we all said no matter what it costs we're doing it. We walk over to the booth and it was only four euros to rent a boat for forty five minutes. We hopped on that. We got our boat just before six and the office must close at six cause we were the only ones on the pond our whole time out there. I started out as a rower but soon got demoted to picture taker. It unfortunately was all on Brit's camera so I don't have any pictures actually on the boat. We rowed around, rocked out while listening to Lonely Island's "I'm on a boat" and oh yeah we were on the news. A guy with a camera waved us over to the shore and we rowed a little closer and said we don't speak Spanish, in his broken English he tried to explain what was up and he just had us row to a certain spot and we were just sort of in the background of this little segment on Madrid's channel 6 news. I just googled it and i'm pretty sure there is no way I'm going to find it, so just trust me. 

[ boating pond ]

That night walked back towards our hostel through the park, and ended up at Plaza Mayor we we had a super fancy dinner. We asked for non smoking and we were banished to the basement, and were the only ones down there. My meal was delicious, I got two courses, well three cause I ate half of Kellen's appetizer, croquettes, then I had a steak and fancy mashed potatoes and a chocolate cake to top it off. It was divine. Oh and European Fanta which is far superior to anything in the States. 

After food, which was like nine thirty, we rushed over to the bus station and made sure Brit had a ticket, she had misplaced it. The ticket lady got mad at us because in Brit's haste she just started speaking English. She was the only person to get mad at us for not attempting to speak Spanish and she was pissed. 

Once that drama passed, I experienced one horrible night on a seven hour bus ride from hell. Cramped, smelly and just plain awful.

Friday February 12

We arrived in Barcelona at six something AM. It was dark and miserable. My mood is pretty dependent on how much sleep I get and at this point the ratio was not doing so hot. We struggled a little through the metro system but eventual found our hostel where we were told to wait till nine to check in. We wasted time on the internet and Spanish pastries and then I demanded a nap. 

After a not long enough nap we embarked on Gaudi Day. It was my favorite day, not night- I'll get there- but day was awesome. Our first stop was the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. My bestie Camille wrote a paper on this place in our architecture class so it has been much discussed in the past as well as actually studied in class. It was striking to say the least. It literally looks like a melting church, Gaudi definitely was a little surrealist. 

[ me and the North facade]

Yes this building is covered in scaffolding. It has never been finished. Gaudi started on it in 1882, then he died  a while after that, then they left it for a while and now they have been building it ever since, I don't get it build if Gaudi wanted a big gaping hole in the ceiling than he got what he wished for. 

[ South facade, on the melty side]

We didn't actually go inside. It cost too much, fifteen euros my butt. It was massive though, much bigger and yet smaller than I thought. It was big but not as tall as I imagined. But this was just the beginning of Gaudi day, and boy do people in Barcelona love Gaudi. Next we walked through town over to Casa Milla, an apartment building he designed. It was curvy and melty and also cost a ton to get inside. Once we ended our brief visit there we hiked up a treacherous hill, ok parts had escalators but not all, to Guell Park. 

bored again, to be continued.....

espana

So with the program here there is one extended weekend where we can go anywhere we want. Me, Brit and Kellen went to Spain. We were suppose to be there for four days, I'll get back to that later. 

Wednesday February 10

We flew out of the London Gatwick airport with another group of girls going to Spain, they stayed in Madrid the whole time, silly girls. We got into Spain around eightish and then headed out to find out hostal. Suprisingly we got there without much difficulty and after we checked in we headed off to explore. 

[ espana ]

Then after some exploration around some really cool plazas and seeing the Royal Palace and Cathedral all lite up we needed some sustinence. We found a place by our hostel and had pizza at 12:30 am. Best thing about Spain, everything is open till like 2 am. Worst thing about Spain, this is because of siesta which is around 3-5 pm when everything is closed. After pizza we went to bed. Brit and I shared a bed due to sketchy circumstances. 

Thursday February 11

we woke up nice and early and went down for our free breakfast at the hostel and then went around the corner to dunkin donuts. Our very first stop of the day was the Prado. 

Unlike England, in Spain you have to pay to get into museums. With our international student cards it was only three euros. I read the fine print on the back of the ticket and learned that if we had said we were from England, we would have got in free. Next time Prado, I'm working the system. 

[ that's me and my friend velazquez ]

The building itself is very spacious; huge ceilings and wide halls. The majority, and by majority I mean about 95% of the art in the Prado is all Spanish artists, which is to be assumed. Now I am an art history major, but I only really know about ten max Spanish artists. I wandered through all the rooms, gazing at giant canvases with depictions of Spanish history I know nothing about. But then every so often I would come to an artist I know, Goya, Velazquez, El Greco and other famous non Spanish guys like Ruebans or Titian, and it would be a sense of astonishment. 

There are pieces that you just have to see in person. No textbook can ever do any justice to how the sunlight streaming in a gallery hits the glimmering oil paint or the texture of the impasto as it stands out from the canvas.  The shear size of some works in person can completely change an opinion of a piece. 

This happened to me with Las Meninas. 

[ Las Meninas, Velazquez ]

This piece is studied endlessly no matter what art history curriculum you attend. Perspective, who's who, the Gaze, lighting, symbolism, technique; it's all in there. The size of the picture above is roughly the size it is ever shown in a standard textbook. Now I've seen it projected from a slide, making it about the size of a wall, but it looses a lot of quality that way. Walking up to this piece in the main hall and waiting for the Asian tourists to move out of the way, was like walking into my textbook. I was minuscule in comparison. It took up nearly the entire wall, and remember the ceilings are really high. Seeing it this big and being able to walk right up so that my face was mere inches from the canvas the detail and/or the lack thereof became quite apparent. The textures and fabrics of the piece are done with precision, but something that I had never noticed before was that the lower right hand corner, lacked a lot detail. The figures looked unfinished and fuzzy. That really surprised me. I know Velazquez's style generally has a sort of unfinished look to it but I was still taken aback when looking at Las Meninas. 

My second favorite at the Prado was Bosch's triptych. Yes I know I picked probably the two most famous pieces in the joint as my favorites, call me unoriginal but I'm going to justify it with that I have slaved over these pieces and discussed them so much that seeing them in person made them all the more real. Anywho, the triptych.

[ Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch ]  

This is generally how this piece is shown, so its easy to forget that it is a working triptych, meaning that the two side panels really to fold in. The rope around it doesn't really let you get super super close to it but when no one's looking you can lean right up into its business to see all the detail of all the figures. The title is Earthly Delights, so you can use your imagination about what the middle panel depicts....

After the Prado we went to the Reina Sophia, the modern art museum. 

[ Reina Sophia ]

Like most modern art museums there are usually a few really interesting galleries and the rest just get to weird and obscure. The visiting exhibit was from the Tate Modern and that was a little disappointing. We didn't even go look at it cause been there done that. Highlights of the museum are as follows:

The first gallery we went to there was this room with  psychedelic images projected onto the wall so we felt like clubbing.

[ Brit and I clubbing ]

Then we went to the Guernica Gallery. The one monumentous piece in this museum. Pretty much the only reason we came, was for Picasso. I know I have already talked about size but this thing was massive. 

[ Guernica, Picasso ]

There's not really much to say, it was huge, it was amazing and the screaming horse was my favorite part. 

The final part of the museum was a pleasant surprise. Heather, one of my professors, told us, when we were talking about the Bauhaus and the goings on of the art school that when she was in grad school her and some other students performed one of Schlimmer's (crazy german guy) Bauhaus Ballets. We walked into a gallery and there were old programs from the Ballets hanging on the walls and I started to recount to Brit and Kellen about how Heather and her classmates made their own costumes and performed a piece and as I was describing them Kellen pointed in the next room and said "like those ones?"

And yup there were the costumes. 

[ Bauhaus ballet costumes ]

pretty snazzy huh?

After the museums we found some lunch. I had a burger with a fried egg on it, delicious but the messiest burger ever. Then the rest of the afternoon we walked over to the Palace hoping to get a tour inside. Little did we know it was closed for official business that day. So instead we just basked outside the gates in the lovely Spanish sunshine for a little while. It may have only been in the fifties but that sunshine makes all the difference and that is one of the major faults in English weather. 

I'll continue with my adventures and a later time.... this takes forever. Meanwhile feel free to peruse the photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2318026&id=17827200&l=5f098e12fd

the Wandsworth Ward

Here all the students are divided up between ten wards, sort of like spreading the wealth :) Me, and three other girls have been assigned to the Wandsworth Ward in the Wandsworth Common Stake. Let's see if you can find it:

[ You're looking for Wandsworth ]

London is huge. Every ward is still within the city of London. While the whole yellow section is considered London it is really separated up into sub-towns, like Wandsworth. Wandsworth is a picturesque commuter town, a suburb of the city. 

Every Sunday, the girls and I are out the door by nine o'clock. We hop on the tube, we only have to make one transfer, and then we get off at the Victoria Rail Station. From there we catch the next train to Wandsworth common. Its about a ten minute train ride through the outskirts of London. I enjoy riding the train. This past week the other girls wanted to leave early, I was not awake quite yet, so I ended up venturing to church on my own. I sat on the train and read Jane Austen and felt a little bit like a cliche but still awesome at the same time. Once we get off the train it is a two minute walk to the chapel right off Nightingale Lane. 

[ The train platform at Wandsworth Common Rail Station ]

A lot of the wards in London are really diverse. There are over 100 different nationalities represented in my stake. In my ward, however, it is about 50/50. Fifty percent are English and Americans (mostly those who have married a Uk-er) and fifty percent is African, well mostly African. Now mind you that the normal attendance every Sunday is about 65 people. 

Our bishopric consists of Bishop Aideou ( I spelled that very wrong), he is from Ghana, then the first counselor is a trendy young American guy with Ray Ban glasses and the second counselor is an older  English man. As soon as we entered the building on our first Sunday we were thrust into basically taking over every single musical calling. My unofficial calling is to jump up and then the music whenever I hear a hymn, because no one else will do it. So last week I was conductor for sacrament. That is a tiring job with four hymns with four verses each. I am very proud of myself though, I did four whole verses of a 6/8 song flawlessly. 

[ Park kitty corner from the chapel ]

After this past Sunday, I decided I am really going to love this ward. There are two sets of American missionary couples who love us BYUs (I am a BYU, no need for names). I am the only one of the BYUs who gets to go to both Relief Society and Sunday School, I'll be called to something in the Relief Society soon. Sunday School has been really good. The teacher is Lindsay, she's a twenty something Brit. Her and her husband are the epitome of the idealized English couple that I have had in my head. Adorable really. But he lessons are pretty amazing. She is very energized and witty and really makes you participate. This Sunday we were divided into groups, I somehow ended up with ALL the Americans, and we discussed different parts of the Fall of Adam and Eve. My favorite point she made was that, now, after the fall we must work, especially for food. In Eden the plants cared for themselves and provided fruit to eat, she claims now we have cursed vegetation we have to work after. I thought it was pretty funny, especially in that accent. 

I think being in this ward is really going to be good. Its a whole new kind of church experience. Including last weeks munch and mingle where the Scottish Primary President gave me some hagis to eat.... it was actually kinda good.