a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

of london town!

I can't believe how great today has been. I have loved every second of it.

First, we went as a program out to Hampton Court. Henry the 8th lived there, and he was married to Kathryn there. Did you know that Henry's diet was 75% meat? He also had six wives, and he was a crazy man. We walked around all the different parts of the palace and saw where he used to live.






My favorite part was the gardens outside. There were beautiful fountains and cute triangle trees. We saw a group of young kids running around the crazy playing games. We were inspired by them, and we all held hands and spun around in circles laughing until it hurt.



On our way to the maze, we stumbled upon beautiful fields of daffodils! I love that they grow all over England. It's such a great sight to see after all the weeks of dead plants and rain. We had a little photo shoot in the daffodils after running around the maze, singing and being crazy, and getting lost.







Then we made our way back to the train station, barely missing our train by a few minutes. We walked around down for the next half hour, and I bought a new umbrella for 6 pounds. what a deal!
We got on the next train and made our way to my favorite place to eat, borough market.



I got a kangaroo burger and a big chocolate brownie. I don't think you could find a place with more yummy foods packed into one market. I couldn't find the flapjack man, so that was kind of sad. But! we found our friend, the patte mushroom man, and tried some more samples.





On the way home, rachel and I stopped at Primark. As normal, I was overwhelmed by all the people, cute clothes, and ridiculously low prices. I know some of the stuff will fall apart soon, but how could I pass up such good deals?!

Then I came home, ate dinner, practiced my song for sunday, and then went to the National Portrait gallery. Laura came with me because she wanted to go to the national gallery (they're right by each other), and we had the funniest experience on the tube ride over.
it went kind of like this...
laura pulled this disgusted/surprised face at something she saw behind me.
I looked behind me and saw nothing in particular
I was really confused and was like "laura, whats the deal?"
I did a double take
and then I saw this man with something moving around in his jacket pocket
to my horror, it was....



a ferret! (minus the hat)
The guy started coming towards us, and he sat in the seats right across from us. I politely asked if we could snap a pic of his little friend, and he said no jokingly. We asked a few questions about the ferret and then suddenly he was handing me his furry friend. I took him into my arms (what was I thinking??), and laura snapped a few pictures. To our horror, she tried to kiss both of us with her little mouth. I gave our friend back to her owner, hoped off the tube, got hand sanitizer, and laughed my head off with laura.

At the national portrait gallery, I saw a bunch of cool paintings of past and present famous people in england. While I was looking at pics of the princes, I ran into Kellen. He walked back with me to trafalgar square, where we met laura. We looked at the beautiful fountains and then headed back home. We stopped at Marks and Spencers and tesco, looking for a treat. I found some yummy british cereal that we came back and devoured, and we made our way upstairs for bed. I got distracted by my friends watching new moon in the classroom, so I had to pop in and watch the last half.

Now here I am blogging, smiling at how happy today was. It really was a beautiful day in the neighborhood (we even sang the mr. rogers song today). I love everyone here. I love every second of my time here, even if it's spent cooped up in the classroom or our tiny dorm room. I love people. I love life.

Trials will always come into our lives, but our Savior always is there with open arms, no matter what.

I'm learning that life is all about learning to love like He does.
His love can heal anything and everything.

anyone who may be reading this, have a beautiful day!