Hardwick Hall and Haddon Hall

Ruins of Old Hardwick Hall

New Hardwick Hall

Me infront of New Hardwick Hall

Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall

Sometimes it is difficult to talke pictures of yourselves....


...So you get someone to do it for you

We started at Hardwick Hall, which there is an Old Hardwick Hall and a New Hardwick Hall. The old one is all in ruins and it looks so awesome. It is amazing to picture what it must have been like. The New Hardwick Hall had the most windows of its time. It is hard to imaging though, when going through the house because they have a lot of the windows covered so the light won't damage all of the tapestries. We then went to Haddon Hall. This is a really old building. A lot of movies were filmed here such as Jane Eyre and some parts in Princess Bride. The grounds were really pretty and I loved the glass windows, which are unique to the house. Instead of being straight they kind of go in and out.

Pictures of Wilton House

Having cloudy lemonade and pastries befor going into the Wilton House


Bridge over the stream at Wilton House


Wilton House

Wilton House and Salisbury Cathedral

Fountain at Salisbury Cathedral


Tower


Inside the Cathedral


Us on the outside of the Cathedral

Today we got up and met at 7:20 this morning. We had to catch a train to Salisbury. Once there, we went to the Wilton House. It is owned by the Earl of Pembroke. His father died a few years ago and had recently inherited the estate. He is single and only 29 so all of the girls were hoping to see him. Actually, he came down to eat at the restaurant that is on the estate and a few of us saw him. I only saw his profile from a little distance. The house was amazing. It has a huge collection of statues, artwork, and furniture. Everything was so amazing. Then you walk out onto the grounds and are just blown away. A lot of the gardens are made to look like they just grew naturally there. The estate used to consist of 49,000 acres, but now only consists of 14,000 acres, just a small parcel -- ha. I would love to live there.

We then went the the Salisbury Cathedral. It is very unique. We first went on a tour of the main cathedral. There they house one of the 4 original copies of the Magna Carta. That was neat to see. We then had a guided tour into the attic and tower. One of the most amazing things I have seen so far. The cathedral was built around the 1200's and the ingenuity was amazing. Walking up into the tower was so cool, and a bit scary. The steps were spiral staircases and very small and steep. The bells rang several times while we were in the tower, scaring several people. We got to walk out on this little walk way before the steeple actually starts and you could see for miles, it was so beautiful and hard to describe.

After the cathedral we went to a French restaurant. It was some of the best food I have had since I have been here. I had a chicken and spinach salad. It was so nice to eat fresh food. It was definitely worth the £10. It was Cassie's B-day today. #21! So we all celebrated with her and it was fun. Hope you all are doing fantastic. Toodles! -- Pictures will hopefully come tomorrow.

Monday

Stairwell in the Design Museum


Stained glass windows from a Cathedral



This man was playing the organ. It was so cool sounding. It was like dreary church music.


If you look closely, you can see Winnie sleeping with her head down inside the cafe.

Today we went to the design museum. It is pretty small and one out of the three exhibits was closed, the one we were coming to see of course so it only took us 20 minutes to walk through. We then went to the Tate Modern. It is this old factory that now holds modern art. A little too modern for me. We left quite soon. There were a few pieces that were cool. A couple of us came back to our hostel and took naps. I really needed it because I have been so tired. Still a bit jet lagged. Also in the morning we start our day at 7:20. The weather today was nice. It was more on the cool side. It is so humid it almost feels like it is raining. If it is hot (and I get hot easily) it is so oppressive and you get all sticky. The prices are so expensive. We try to go really cheap and so I usually spend £2-5 on lunch and from £5-12 on dinners. If you convert that to dollars, you double it! And that is going cheap. Plus, none of the food is very good so it is frustrating. There are so many people, especially on the weekends and on the tubes. They are so crowded and so hot. No air conditioning on these! No one waits for you; if you hesitate at all someone will barge in front of you. The city is beautiful but it is really hard to find a bathroom, garbage cans, and you will never find a drinking fountain. We have only found 2, one in a museum and one at church. We have become experts at getting around on the tube. By day 2 and 3 I got it and could get around easily. The maps are easy once you know what they mean and it is cheap transportation. Just don't loose your pass! Our hostel is interesting. Our room has 3 sets of bunk beds and we are lucky enough to have a bathroom in our bedroom and not one shared between several rooms. We are lucky enough to be between two tube stops so they are only 3-5 minute walk and you can get almost anywhere on the tube and by walking. Cheers!

Fun pictures

These are my very black feet from walking all day in London. In person they were much blacker.


Me in a classic red telephone booth.

Sunday

Portuguese Hymnal

This is London City Hall. To me, it looks like some one sliced an egg, then carefully slid it over.


Tower Bridge



Tower of London


Me in front of St. Paul's

On Sunday we went to Sacrament Meeting at 9:00. Some people were late showing up and the trains were slow so we all missed sacrament. There were so many people from Utah in the ward and visiting. Some of the girls knew some of the guys there. Then we went to the science museum. There are museums everywhere. We went to the play center and played with the kids, it was fun. We then went back to church so we could take sacrament. So we went to the Spanish and Portuguese speaking ward. It was so cool because some were singing in Spanish and some in Portuguese and the expected us to sing in those languages as well. We stayed for sacrament then left. We walked through some of Hyde Park. It is a humongous park. There was a memorial to Princes Diana which was basically this small oval canal. Actually it was very long and everyone puts their feet in the water. It was so nice because I was so hot! We then walked, and walked, and walked some more until we found a tube (subway) we then went back to Primart because yesterday the lines were so long, that they didn't want to wait, so I stood in line while they went and got their stuff. We then decided to see the Tower of London. We kind of got lost until a man in a Cathedral gave us directions. We saw the London Bridge, which is really nothing special except it fell down and they had to rebuild it. We walked down to and over the tower bridge which is the only working drawbridge in London. We went to the Tower of London but we didn't want to pay 16 pounds to actually go in so we just saw the outside and watched a video. We then walked and walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Since it was Sunday you couldn't tour it but you could go to the sermon, so we did. We looked around a bit then sat down and sketched. The sermon was very interesting. It wasn't on the commandments or how you should act but on these two guys and there lyrics they wrote. I couldn't see a moral or a point to it really. They died as martyrs and the priest suggested we have as much fervour in our faith as them. Very interesting. We ate dinner at a French restaurant. It was the first time I hadn't been dying of heat. The restaurant was fully air conditioned which is sometimes hard to find. The other girls I was with were freezing but I loved it. I had onion soup, it was good, but I couldn't finish all of it. We then really walked and walked and walked. They are doing engineering work on the tube system and a lot of the tube stops were closed. We had to walk quite a way until we found one that was open. It was a little tricky getting around this weekend because so many lines were down that you had to transfer tubes several times to get where you were going.

Saturday = Shopping

Saturday and Sunday we had on our own. On Saturday a bunch of us went shopping down Portobello Street and Oxford Street. Portobello was a bunch of small shops down a long street. They had a clothing/jewellery section leading on to antiques and then the food market. We then headed over the Oxford Street which had more modern stores. The Primart was the most insane store I have ever been in. I have never seen so many people in a store. Imagine if Wal-Mart put everything 70% off at Christmas time and then you would begin to have a sense of the people. And these people aren't polite. They push and shove past you and it is so crazy. They had some really good prices (basically what would expect to normally pay in the U.S. once you convert it to dollars, but they are excellent deals for London.) I didn't find anything, but several girls went to try things on but there was a 6 article MINIMUM, yes minimum. You could not go into the dressing room unless you had 6 items. So they gave them 4-5 items just randomly to take into the dressing room. So weird.