royal philharmonic, greenwich, scottsboro boys, & halloween.

wow, it's been awhile! you see, this week we went to paris. and last week we had midterms. and that took up most of my time. but since I have lots of new things to blog about {paris and the HARRY POTTER STUDIO TOUR} I might as well do a quick catch up of the couple weeks prior to Paris. 

Royal Philharmonic:

once again, why is study abroad amazing? because we go to the Royal Philharmonic as a group assignment. also... Prince Charles was there! So yes, yes I did watch a symphony concert with the prince. 

if you didn't know, I LOVE symphonies. I've played violin since I was seven and I played in our youth orchestra for almost as long {also... do you understand how great of a job teaching violin is compared to other minimum wage jobs?}. String instruments really are the best. 

The philharmonic played Beethovan's 9th symphony and it was amazing!

prince charles ^^^

Greenwich:

greenwich is this cute little part of london we went to for our day trip. we took the ferry on the Thames and stopped by the Prime Meridian! we also got to visit some amazing architecture and, most importantly, a wonderful food market.

prime meridian!

we also got to visit a couple old british war ships!

it was pretty exciting.

future ceiling in my house... pretty stoked.

I FOUND RUSSIA

let's appreciate this huge ship in a bottle, shall we?

the queens house.

mini pancakes with strawberry and nutella. seriously though.

Saturday adventures: 

we decided to try something new for our saturday so we hopped on a tube and train and headed to a DIY market we had read about. turns out the market was... different... and we spent about 5 minutes there. but then we walked around the town. it was adorable! no tourists {except us...} and not so rich? It was definitely the hipster area of London. no, not BYU wanna-be hipster stylists, I'm talking long beards and vintage everything. also... cheap cupcakes. cheap, delicious, to-die-for cupcakes. I love adventures with my two favorite Hannahs.

Halloween:

halloween... meant a Hogwarts House Cup. no, I'm not kidding. you see, we've had a bit of a pottermore frenzy the last few weeks. {see the twitter screenshot from Zoe's blog} we all took the quiz and got sorted into our houses {gryffindor, obviously} so Halloween came around and after our special holiday dinner by Thais, we split into houses and fought for the house cup! harry potter trivia and minute to win it games all night long. we then did trick-or-treating to all the professor's flats and the student's rooms. twenty year olds plus one 12 year old. it was a blast and things got a little crazy {including Matt having to go to the hospital and get his head glued back together. dance parties, ya know.}

thanks to aimee and zoe for putting it together!

because why not be british flags for halloween?

trick-or-treating!

Scottsboro Boys:

Jess and I headed out super early one morning to get day-of, front row tickets for Scottsboro Boys. WOW. it was incredible. it's an American history story told in a very unique way. the end was spectacular and so eye-opening. all I can say is that if you ever get the chance to watch this show, DO IT. especially if you can make friends with a 70 year old theater PHD professor from Texas who comes to London three times a year just to watch 20 shows per time. he was pretty cool {also, he was very good at telling us about what our political beliefs should be but whatever, we can look past it...}

right hand corner... gandolf. yep, we only hang with the best.

we stuck around after the show so we could meet some of the actors. they were awesome!

Even with all of the craziness of the week, we still managed to have some fun! Now... I should get back to reading A Tale of Two Cities or writing one of the papers due next week. Paris is the next post {once all of the above assignments are completed}

P.S. Today my best friend got married. and I couldn't be happier for her! I wish I could have been there, but oh well. I LOVE YOU KATIE!

london walks: Little Venice.

Our last London Walk was the area walk "Little Venice". Little Venice is one of the prettiest places I've seen in London. Like it's name, it reminds visitors of Venice, Italy. Little Venice is the area where Regents Canal and Grand Junction Canal meet. The canal is lined with weeping willows and town houses designed by John Nash. Along with these Nash homes, new apartment complexes go in every direction and, due to demand, living costs are very high in this area. As well as the apartments, the canal is full of houseboats of every color. {it really is picturesque!}. This area was created along with the Regents Canal in 1820 as a link from Grand Junction Canal to the Thames river. It cost 772,000 pounds and became an important method of transportation for cargo passing through London. This area is mostly unknown to tourists, but is a great place for a Sunday afternoon walk!

Little Venice has become a primary contributor to the water real estate market in London.

Regents Canal

As you can tell, the canal is wide enough to transport fairly large ships. While it is now used as real estate and leisure, it was once a key part of London trading.

Parks have been constructed along the side of the river.

Nash Town Houses

Buildings designed by John Nash line the canal.

white cliffs of dover & canterbury + more.

Last tuesday we took our day trip to Dover and Canterbury. I was really looking forward to this trip! We all know about my obsession with stained glass windows {thanks hannah} and Canterbury Cathedral has one of the biggest collection of still-existing medieval stained glass in England {thanks King Henry VIII}. Also... the WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER. c'mon. my family played guitar hero every year for 5 years. cliff of dover? it's a classic song. Dover castle was one of my favorite castles, too. It was decorated in the period style, which is a first! It's more fun walking around a decorated castle than walking around a cold, stone-walled castle.

White cliffs of Dover ^^

Dover Castle!

It was SO windy. we're talking 40 mph windy. it was insane.

awh. these girls though.

Awesome Norman church!

Other obsession: Mosaics.
Cool mosaic in the norman church!

After we spent the morning in Dover, we drove to Canterbury. We got to tour the Canterbury Cathedral. Now, before I came to England I don't think I really understood cathedrals. Now it's safe to say that I have toured at least 20, and I still love all of them. But some are better than others. And Canterbury definitely ranks next to Salisbury! I've loved learning about the importance of Canterbury in British History {Archbishop of Canterbury, anyone?} After the cathedral, we roamed the town, ate some awful crepes, and then hopped on the bus back home! 

And that was our day trip!

So, random- one problem/bonus of traveling in large groups of girls? When we take pictures, it's all on different cameras. So I don't have tons of pictures this week, but I'll insert some later!

Our london excursion for the week {yes. "london excursion" means going somewhere in london and not having class that day. win.} was going to Hampton Court, which was one of Henry VIII's houses. It was pretty cool... plus there were people dressed up walking around and you could ask them about history. or you could follow them and meet the king. which is what hannah and I did!

my goal in life is to have a personal chocolate maker.

if I'm every really, REALLY rich, I will join the hampton court tennis club.
actually I won't, because that would be the biggest waste of money, ever. but whatever.

We also tried out a new market yesterday! and along with the new market, we got the best donuts in the world. at least the best donuts I've ever had, and I'm not a huge donut fan.

And a birthday card for Prof B.

Lastly... MIDTERMS. what can I say? they're no worse than last year. except that doing homework while living in london is about 18937082756 times harder than in Provo.

I got to write a paper about Renoir's The Skiff. The best part? Writing a paper on a painting... then going to the National Gallery to see the original painting. it's the best.

And that's my week!