Day Seventy-One::British Library/HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

So I honestly questioned if St. Patrick's day is even a thing over here.  I had assumed, but there was a severely disappointing lack of green attire among the locals.  I am hoping that they admired by green instead of laughed in their minds because I was actually participating in a highly Americanized ritual of adorning oneself in green garments while honoring whatever small fraction of Irish heritage one has by proclaiming "KISS ME I'M IRISH", a saying that still does not make much sense to be.  (Update, I googled it and it all makes sense now, it has to do with the Blarney Stone, obvi).

To celebrate the occasion (there is a chance that I am a part Irish, like my dad has red hair, that has to count for something) I went to the British Library while decked out in my cute and moderately St. Patrick's-ey outfit, not entirely knowing what I would see.  But holy crap! I saw so much.  From one of the copies of the Magna Carta to sketches by Da Vinci, and Michelangelo, and Durer.  It had Lyrics written by the Beatles in their own handwriting and Tess of the u'Ubervilles written in Thomas Hardy's script and a handwritten copy of one of Sylvia Plath's poem's.  I saw so many cool things there, and when I didn't even know what to expect, it was almost overwhelming.

Continuing the non-Irish theme of this year's St. Patrick's Day (I realized that it just isn't St. Patrick's Day without green food coloring) I indulged on some Canadian poutine, created by our Canadian expert, Ryan (RYAN LOOK YOU'VE FINALLY BEEN MENTIONED ON THE BLOG)!! I enjoyed it.  That may just be saying that I am seriously desperate at this point, or maybe I am just a very open-minded person, idk.

Have a good craic,
Kelsie

Day Seventy:: Sundays are Meant for Springtime Walks in the Park

There are a few parks in my hometown and they aren't bad parks.  However, I think that I use these parks only a few times a year.  You find me at Draper Park on Draper Days, wandering around, feeling like I am stuck in high school when I only want to relive my childhood and ride the inflatable slide.

You can find me at Draper Historic Park crashing a wedding, because it's just too tempting (if you are familiar with the park, then you probably also understand, its like ten yards form the road that I drive daily and sometimes you get bored in Draper, so logically crashing a wedding is the best form of entertainment.

You can find me at Steep Mountain Park at night, because the view from there is great, we are talking the entire Salt Lake Valley (including the state prison) lit up.

London has taught me that I am doing parks wrong.  Apparently parks were not created so bored, high school students that take a full load of AP classes could do something they deem as "crazy" (crashing weddings is that crazy thing, a bit lame I was/am), they were created to walk around and have picnics and throw a frisbee and sit on the grass.  OH and smell the flowers and feel the sense of community! So magical.

These realizations came to me as I again took another walk in Hyde Park.  It was magical, and I might have taken two separate walks though the parks (again).  My favorite member of my second favorite band might have tweeted a picture of him in Hyde Park.  I might have gone out to find him.  I may have failed.

I witnessed a indie/tumblr photo shoot in the park
it was truly an experience, and I laughed

HAPPY SPRING (again),
Kelsie

Day Sixty-Nine:: Recovery/Humans are Better than Machines

Sitting on a bus for five days is exhausting.  How that is I am not sure, but I honestly think that I could sleep for then next week and still not be caught up on sleep.  However, I was also hungry and the cupboard I have claimed as my pantry was dismally low on supplies, so I had to wake up, shower, get in real clothes, and walk to Tesco to restock.

Here's the story: They love self checkouts at grocery stores here.  I will be standing in line for the normal, human operated checkout, but there will be an attendant who will urge me to go to self checkout in a forceful tone with urgent hand actions to accompany.  They don't understand that I have too many groceries for the self checkout experience to be one that lacks pain and embarrassment as the little table thing that they have for you to put your groceries on after you scan them is too small for my week's supply and it just is not good.  

But today I was not up to deal with people passionately urging me away from the normal checkout and went straight to the self checkout.  I strategically loaded by backpack with the food that I had scanned in a manner that left the heaviest things at the bottom of the bag and pressed the "Pay Now" button before inserting my coins into the coin slot.  Twenty-six pence into the payment some mechanism jammed and the machine was flashing the red light begging for the attendant to come help us out.  

The attendant has not helpful though past scanning her attendant barcode and repeatedly pushing a button that said that she had cleared the jam, when she had not.  She was confused as to why it was not working, despite her not actually fixing the problem.  In the end I had to start over again on a different machine and I had to redo the meticulous packing of my backpack, which part angered me the most of all the aspects of the prolonged exchange.

Additionally, grocery schooling sicks when you are poor and there is a plethora of Cadbury around you.

Peace out,

Kelsie

Day Sixty-Eight:: Fountains Abbey/Bronte Parsonage

I like Cathedrals, I'll admit it.  It is a common complaint that we go to too many as a group.  However I am still not tired of them, I am going strong.  But when you take our group to some abbey ruins, they love those so so much.  This observation is made after being on day five of being in this bus with all the same people and it is wearing on me.  I am going to fight the urge to vent about how rude and disrespectful a group of people here are (also I doubt that they would read this so my ranting will not make a change) and get on with the day.

I love all cathedrals, ruins or not, so again I loved our visit to Fountains Abbey, which was destroyed by Henry VIII when he was going on his round of dissolution of monasteries.  But to cathedral enthusiasts and non-cathedral enthusiasts alike, it is a blessing that happened, because sometimes you just need to climb around on the ruins in ways that would get you kicked out of heaven if you did it in an operating cathedral.  But hey why not?

FINALLY ANOTHER CEILING

I have no emotional attachment to the Bronte sisters, of female novelists of that time, so when we stopped and the Bronte Parsonage for a tour and it was freezing, I just wanted to get back on the bus and cry.  I did not, and honestly, given that I know nothing about the family I gained nothing from the visit except for a good talk with Christine, in which we let some of our feelings about the disrespectful poo-faces on our group in a highly therapeutic manner.

You can actually see the cold.

After a 4 hour drive back to London, I have honestly never been more excited to get back to my crappy bunk bed in my small and stuffy flat and sleep for probably five days and not talk to people unless necessary.

Goodnight,
Kelsie

Day Sixty-Seven:: Hadrian's Wall/Durham Cathedral/York Minster

I am still on the same bus.  I think I am going mad.

Hadrian's Wall though.  It is something that I did not know existed and I only knew about Hadrian because of art history (there are hundreds of things that I only know about because of art history though so that is not so shocking).  When we arrived and it was freezing and the visibility sucked (just saying that made me miss skiing, I am a mess), I was highly tempted to hide on the bus and not make the half a mile climb to the ruins.  But I was happy I went because when do you get a chance to walk on a wall that is nearly two thousand years old and contains such rich history! It was pretty.

WALKING ON THE WALL

For some reason, I get excited about the opposite things than the rest of the group.  So as everyone was taking millions of pictures of them and their friends at Hadrian's wall I was not.  Then when we went to Durham Cathedral I was the excited one because it was the first entirely Romanesque cathedral that we were seeing! I love Romanesque architecture, thus making happy Kelsie.  Unfortunately, I was only allowed to take pictures on the outside (why do people hate me?)

Sometimes, you just need to visit two cathedrals in one day.  Today was one of those days for me, so luckily our next stop was York Minster, where we sat through Evensong.

I had dinner at McDonald's aka heaven.  I love chicken strips and they have chicken selects there and seriously it was the best part of my day.

xoxo,
Kelsie

Day Sixty-Six:: SCOTLAND

First things first, when you hear Scottish accents from popular media, they are not exaggerated.  Scots really talk like that with. every. word. emphasized.  They can also be very hard to understand, so I did not gain much from the short guided tour we received at Edinburgh Castle.  But she was wearing plaid pants! How much more Scottish can you get?

So this is a cemetery for dogs that have served in war.  I had to fight back
tears because I MISS MY DOG.

If you out your castle on an elevated area of land it helps with protection,
it also makes for really good views when the castle later becomes a
big tourist attraction.

I was not dressed for a hike, despite that I was already wearing my "trail shoes" which I just use as my shoes every day, resulting in the tread wearing thin.  But I ended up hiking to Arthur's Seat, where Scotland was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel in 1840 by Orson Pratt and was also a place in which he would often come to pray.

I probably looked like I was dying, as I was in a sweatshirt and it was not that cold once you started climbing a mountain and so this one man thought he would need to give me some hints on my hiking techniques as he made his way down the slope.  I was embarrassed throughly.

But I made it and was not dead and I am so glad because the view from the castle was nothing compared to the view on the top of that mound.

Twas sunny, thus making the sweatshirt I was wearing a valid issue

I have been in the UK for what?.. sixty-six days now? Well I still haven't been to a pub or had fish and chips.  So, after realizing how absurd that is, I changed it and joined some super cute girls that were/are really nice and let me come with them.  Finally, I had devoured some authentic fish and chips!

#foodie status

Andrea and I both super excited for the food we are
about to devour, obviously

So apparently it is a Scottish thing to deep-fry a MARS bar.  Of course we had to try it.  Of course I liked it, I mean sugar and breading should probably be the staples of everyone's diets anyways, so combining the two is a brilliant idea.

It looks like a tempura sushi roll, but it is a MARS bar

TTYL,
Kelsie

Day Sixty-Five:: Preston Temple/The Lake District

Back to the bus we went after enjoying a continental breakfast complete with baked beans on toast and eggs that aren't cooked well enough for my personal taste and that lacked bacon (America wins on that one), and to the Preston Temple.

I am trying not to turn into a blog that is all about endorsing the church, but I need to tell you something.  The temple is an awesome place.  They all feel like home, so despite being 5,000 miles from Utah, I was home!  There was just something about seeing everyone in all white and the realization that I am with a group that can do this together and that we had men with us that could assist in the ordinances.  There is no better feeling, I promise you.  I sat in the Turner wing at the Tate Britain a month ago thinking that my life could not get better.  I was wrong.  Being at the temple today beat that indefinitely.  When I get back to Utah I need to take advantage of the blessing I have that I am literally surrounded by temples.  Like I can see the Draper Temple from the windows in my family room, what a blessing!

Also temples are super pretty.

I love Hali

I love Paige

I love all these girls (I stole this picture from someone on Facebook, thanks)

So, everything seems to come back to Turner for me, thus making me very excited for our next stop: the Lake District. What does Turner have to do with the Lake District you may ask? Well, Turner liked it up there and even made some of his landscape paintings of views that he saw there.  And after spending the rest of the day and the night there, I saw why he liked it there.  Basically it was really pretty and there were cottages that were so cute and I would never want to live in them, but still they were adorable.

Beatrix Potter's Cottage

William Wordsworth's Cottage 

Again stolen from Facebook, thank you to who I took it from.  Again I love
all these girls and they are super cool.

So, as we were in the LAKE District and the hostel that we were calling home for the night was yards away from a lake, I (with two other brave souls) took a (nearly) midnight plunge in the lake.  I regret it not, though it was pretty cold, it was okay because my body just went numb really quickly.

Bye,
Kelsie