London fun!

On Saturday we all had a free day, so a few of us tennis fans decided to go to Wimbledon! If you know me, you know I LOVE tennis. I love to play it, watch it...I love it all! I was super excited to go. We took the tube to Wimbledon and followed the crowds to the fields where everyone was standing in the "queue". We were then informed that we would have to wait around eight hours or so to possibly get in. I guess we chose the worst day to try to go...haha. They told us it was the busiest day of the tournament...bummer. So, we decided to get a few pictures in line, and we just enjoyed the atmosphere for a bit as we listened to this hilarious British salesman trying to sell us the official Wimbledon magazine. He had us laughing pretty hard. We all decided eight hours was a pretty large chunk of time to give away, so we decided to go another day, this Wednesday :). I think we will be pros this time around.....and I am still sooooo excited! Awesome awesome. After that we went to Portabello road and saw all of the shops there! Man, that place was sooooo crowded, and the street seriously went on forever. We didn't even get to the end of it. But it was awesome! They had this sweet street band called Ryan O'Reilly playing, street performers, music, yummy pastry shops, and this delicious looking Belgian waffles place which I will have to get sometime.

After a long morning we were all pretty tired and so we went home and tried to decide what to do next. It is seriously so hard to decide on things to do here because everyone has different ideas and there is soooo much to do! I am sure we will all get better at it though! :) In the end we decided to go to the home of this Londoner, Sir John Soane, this really rich hoarder. When he died he turned his home over to the city on the condition that they wouldn't move any of his stuff. He had all kinds of famous reliefs, statues, paintings, and things stored around his house. It was really really interesting. He had a mummy's tombs, different Egyptian reliefs and all kinds of stuff. I seriously do not know how this guy afforded all of it.


After that we wandered around the neighborhood. This was one of my favorite parts of the day. We were near the legal sector of the city, and since it was a Saturday, nobody was around. It seemed like we were the only ones walking down the street at any given time. It was sweet. We saw the Knight's Templar building, the Royal Courts, Fleet Street, Samuel Johnson's home (who wrote the English dictionary), and all kinds of cool buildings. After that we took the tube to Leicester Square (pronounced Lester square) and we got tickets to a play called "The 39 Steps". We had some time to spare before it started so we decided to get a bite at this cool little Italian restaurant. I learned that I should never get a drink when going to a restaurant here. I got water and it cost me like five pounds! Yikes. After dinner I bought a souvenir Will and Kate wedding plate..haha. I love it! We saw and participated in some cool street acts too. The play we went to was absolutely hilarious! It only had four people in it and a few of the actors played like five or six different characters. And the main actor in it totally looked like Wesley from "The Princess Bride". It was so great! I totally recommend it. After that we took the tube home and decided to stop at McDonalds. Apparently they have McFlurry flavors in Europe that they do not have in the US like Cadbury Chocolate McFlurries. YUM!

Sunday was church day. I was really excited for this! We were all split up in groups and sent to wards around London. We left pretty early but we ended up having a pretty hard time finding our way there. At one point we were taking a land train to a specific stop and when we got to our stop we all lined up at the door, expecting them to open just like the underground tube trains. Well, they didn't. We realized that we had to press a button to go out, so we did. Two of us got out of the door when it suddenly shut on the rest of the girls, haha. Luckily, each group had directions and we were able to make it there alright. Even though we got there late, we were welcomed with open arms. I absolutely LOVE my ward!! They are such kind, gracious, and strong people! It is really cool to see members that are all from so many different places: Africa, South Africa, Russia, India, New Zealand, and Scotland. They are small in number, but they are so united! I am really excited to get a calling there next week! :)