Oh. And I went to England!

Because traveling around Italy isn’t amazing enough (hope you’re picking up on my sarcasm), I figured I should probably go see another country while I was in Europe. Tom, the BYU student who was randomly staying at my house in Bracciano with his friend Flor when I arrived home from Cinque Terre, is conveniently studying at Cambridge this summer. We had talked about travelling somewhere the first day we met, and decided to spend the weekend in England. Not too shabby, eh?

We spent the first day touring around Cambridge, which is a town most known for—obviously—its top notch university. Three London-style cheers to Tom for getting into their summer program where only a few students from Harvard, Princeton, Berkley, Hong Kong, and BYU can be accepted to! The college campus, which is basically a town in itself, is absolutely beautiful. It was founded in 1209 and made to last with some of the most impressive architecture and intricate detail. We walked up the 123 steps to the top of the tower of Great St. Mary's—which felt like nothing compared to the 320 steps to get to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica. It would have been worth the extra energy expenditure though, to see the view of Cambridge from that spot.

Going punting was definitely one of my favorite parts of the weekend. I don’t know if I was alone in this, but I definitely had no idea what punting was beforehand. Tom, however, seemed so excited about it that before he even explained it, I was getting anxious to do it as well!  Basically, when you think “Venice Gondola”, you think punting. But—rather than paying some random guy to punt (?? Not sure what adjective to use right now, you don’t row) us around, we decided to do the work ourselves. I guess a more correct statement would be that Tom did all the work—at least all the hard work. We decided to go upstream so that we could get to this beautiful spot in the park. It was a nice place to relax and rest, which was necessary because Tom was quite tired after spending 45 minutes constantly flexing his big biceps in attempt to impress me (haha, just kidding. Kind of. They are actually quite impressive). After eating some fresh fruit and discovering the tree of all trees, I punted us back—downstream—which was a lot easier, I felt okay about it though, I don’t have the biceps to show off anyway.  It was easy enough until I had to park. One thing I am really coming to terms with, after almost seven years of driving, is that I can’t park, regardless of the vehicle/mode of transportation—seriously, I must have looked ridiculous trying to get that water craft in its designated spot...

Punting Upstream

Punting Downstream :)

We met up with Tom’s new French friend—Pierre—for dinner, stopped to drop some food off to one of his sick friends and then hit the clubs—yes please! Granted, the DJ started off a little lame, playing songs like ‘Call Me Maybe’—a song I don’t pretend not to like, but one that should not ever be played in a club...the music, however, picked up quickly enough. I’m pretty sure I was by far the most modestly dressed girl in the club which, of course, did not stop me from having a blast. Everyone I met was great—incredibly nice and a lot of fun. I am beyond impressed by all of the students I have met that are going to Cambridge, and from everything I have heard from Tom about it, it is an amazing school that really challenges its’ students, and there is no doubt in my mind that those students are going places in life. It’s always nice to meet people who can give you a little bit of a different perspective on life and even challenge you, it’s motivating. I may not have been quite as impressed by the weather—it rained a good portion of the time.  But while walking home in the freezing rain late at night may numb your hands, it’s one of those memories that can warm your heart. 

Tom and I decided to spend the rest of the weekend in London—which wasn’t too shabby either.  Kind of cool that I’ve gotten to see the three most famous European cities this summer: Paris, Rome, and London! We got in a little late on Saturday, but still made our way to some of London’s most famous sites.

Harry Potter, anyone?

International train station at King's Cross

Shakespeare's Globe Theater!

St Paul's Cathedral and More!

Tower Bridge :)

Parliament and Big Ben
You can't see me b/c I'm so tan and basically just fade into the night now...

 I somehow have completely ignored the food aspect of the trip until this point, which is actually somewhat fitting considering that’s what Tom and I did the whole trip: forget to eat until pretty late in the day and then make up for it in one sitting. We ate traditional English steak and pea pie (I think I may have just made up that name, it’s like chicken pot pie, but with steak), sampled some Spanish food, had our go at an Italian restaurant in London (haha, ironic??) and ate huge American burgers on the last night (Mamma Mia, I had forgotten how good those are!).

The housing that we were hoping for fell through, so we found ourselves searching for hostels around midnight (meant with all the Love in the world, Emma, it feels slightly better/safer to be stuck in a city at night with a big guy rather than a cute girl haha;). It turns out, it’s not just the Italians that are super helpful, a guy from some random country (how do I not remember this?) told us that he had been a dip-$*%# before as well, ran to get us his computer and then left us with it while he went out to smoke a cigarette with some friends—talk about trust! We figured out a place to stay and woke up Sunday morning ready to get to church. I was actually quite excited to go to a ward that would be in English, but about five seconds after walking in the door, we found out that we had actually missed the English ward and had made it—just in time—for the Portuguese ward! I kid you not. It’s fitting, I suppose; now I can say that I attended church for three months in different languages!

We finished up our sightseeing that day and went to a not-so-cool science museum. It was more of a propaganda scheme set up by the government, if you ask me. At least I got to wear a pretty dress! Having not prepared for the English rain, I ended up covering up my pretty dress with a huge BYU jacket—courtesy of Tom. Overall, the trip was a lot of fun!  May have had to pay 4.50 pounds for one metro ticket (to put it in perspective, Rome just raised their prices to 1.50 euro. The pound is worth quite a bit more than the euro and is worth about twice as much as the American dollar). That said, can you really put a price to great memories? Five years from now, I won’t look back at the money I spent, but at the experiences I had. And, of course, the pictures I took.