all roads lead to rome

paris was awesome! im in an internet cafe right now and the keyboqrd is totqlly different. and it*s really hard to type, so im sorry if you cant read this, haha. were gettin on a train to rome tonight, yay!!! ok this is too hard to type, see you later!!!

paris

(phone post again) hey everyone. i've been in london for the last couple days. heidi, michelle and i took a 5:25 train to paris this morning. weare now in our hostel waiting to get into our room. it's in a pretty part of town it feels pretty good so far. i probably won't get around to posting any pics for a couple weeks, sorry. but i'll let you know where i am :) BONJOUR...ps: i don't speak a lick of french, oh boy!!!

I'm in Scotland!!!

Fair warning, im typing this on my phone so i may use abbrreviations and the grammer will be terrible. i just wanted to give everyone an update that im in scotland and i absolutely LOVE it here. it beats out england in every respect!!! the people here are sooo friendly and love talking to us and finding why we are here. in nurse i went around with today is one of the nicest ladies i've ever met! the scenery here is breathtaking. no nessie sighting yet, but we did look for her yesterday :) we went to a castle that was down on the loch and it was beautiful. i only have wonderful things to say about scotland!!!! we have been in Inverness for a couple days and tomro we are going to do some touristy stuff and go to erin's sister's house in blackford for the weekend before heading to london for a couple days and then off to paris!!! i can't believe that this stidy abroad is coming to a close so soon. i have learned so much. today was the last nursing day and now we are on holiday!!! well, my hand hurts from typing on this tiny keyboard, so i'm heading off, but best wishes to all from SCOTLAND!!!! cheers

April showers bring May FLOWERS

This weekend's trip I was on a flower kick. I took a lot of pictures of flowers. These are quick, easy uploads and don't require explanation so I decided to put these up. I don't update the blog too often because I'm too busy having fun and I don't want to spend the time putting pictures up and writing captions. Don't worry, you'll see them all eventually!!

Cheers from England!!

Fast Forward Fountains Abbey

It started off as a beautiful calm morning, but it soon turned into a crazy day. If something could go wrong, it did. I probably shouldn't say that, more could have happened, but it was a day of surprises! Some of these details you might not care about, but I just wanted to get the whole experience down. The link for the pictures are at the end.

The morning bus comes to the dorms at 8:20, but the train out of town to get to Fountains Abbey was too close to when the bus would drop us off. We decided to catch an earlier bus up the road. When we got there in the morning, the schedule that was posted was different than what we found online, so we had missed it. As we were checking the schedule, the University bus that we normally take drove down the road to the dorms. We needed to be on that bus, but there was NO way to get back up to the dorms in time to catch it. So we stood on the side of the road and flagged it down as it was coming down. I've never felt like such an idiot in my life. The bus driver was going to stop, but then he did like 20 feet passed us. He was mad.

We got to the train station and looked at the board. The train for Leeds was leaving in 2 minutes on the platform on the farthest end of the station. We ran and hopped on with maybe 30 seconds to spare. As we open the train time table, we realized that we had just gotten onto the train that stopped at every station between Huddersfield and Leeds. It got us there 20 minutes later than the straight through train that would have left 10 minutes later at Huddersfield. Oops.

We get to Leeds and talk to friendly person behind the counter to see what the fastest way to Fountains Abbey was. We had looked it up online the night before, but we wanted to check. She was no help and wasn't even making any sense. She was really friendly, but didn't know what she was talking about. She was telling us that the first available bus to take us to Fountains Abbey got there at 3:30, and the last bus out was at 2:30. So we would have to leave before we got there? What? Ok, so we stick to the original ''plan.''

We get a bus from Leeds (a really nice double decker) to Rippon. It was a beautiful sceneic drive and I'm glad I stayed awake for it. Some of the other girls slept, we'd been up since 6am to catch the early bus that didn't exist. Once in Rippon, we mosied around the town for 2 hours, ate lunch in a pub, and got rained on.

Once the shuttle bus FINALLY came to take us to Fountains Abbey at about 2:00, we were so ready to just GET THERE!!! The bus driver took the most crazy route to get there. We passed at least 3 signs that said FOUTAINS ABBEY ---> 2 miles, and we went <---. I guess that was the route that she was supposed to take, and we only picked up one other person on the way there. It was a little bus; she was driving SOOO fast down these one lane back country roads. It still took us an HOUR to get there though.

Enter Fountains Abbey. Commence rain. To read more about the history CLICK HERE. We ran through the park, because we only had an hour and half until the last bus out of Fountains Abbey left. We were literally running at points in the park. I really wish we could have spent more time there, but it was BEAUTIFUL!

We get back on the bus to go back to Rippon, and it's only an 8 minute bus ride. We all got off the bus were so miffed. We should have just walked there instead of waiting around town for 2 hours, we could have walked there in a half hour. The bus ride home was uneventful, but we were exhausted at the end of the day from sitting around on buses and trains all day.

Here are the pictures, proof I was there :)

More England-ism and Randomness

Last night we were having devotional, peacefully in my room. We were in the middle of 2 Nephi 25:26 when there is POUNDING at our door. We all freeze and get really scared. They then start yelling, ''Boothroyd D!'' and yelling and pounding on the door. It was funny and scary at the same time. We called security to come and we watched from the kitchen window as the security guys went into Boothroyd B! We were waving out the window for them to come over to our apt but they didn't see us. Mean while the drunken men at our door eventually left saying, ''we just want to be your friends!'' Yeah right.

Tonight we were invited to the Bishop's home for dinner and it was SOOOO good!!! One of the things that she made that was ''English'' is Yorkshire pudding. It was a bread/roll thing that was sweet and it was really good.

We also had apple sponge with ice cream for dessert. You lay sliced apples in the bottom of the pan and then pour the sponge cake batter over the top and bake it. It was a very delicious meal :)

More Englandisms

English people put the annunciation on different parts of words here and it takes a split second to register what they might be saying. The prime example of this, is my name. Here's the pronunciation: can-DEES.

Remember how I said that they put an ''R'' sound at the end of words that end with a soft ''A.'' Here are some of the words I've heard in the last few days that this happens to: law, Daniella, Jessica, idea, America.

Road signs here are a crack up. I don't know what half of them mean! I will do a whole photo album of all the signs that we've taken pictures of but here's a preview.

Portion sizes here are much smaller. When you first get your plate it's kind of like, ''what? that's it?'' But them you realize, that's really all I should be eating anyways.

Rubbish bin = trash can

Pram = stroller

Trolley = cart/shopping cart

Toilets = the restroom...going to use the lue (I don't even know how you would spell it)

Napkins = serviettes. Don't ask for napkins.

Fag = slang for a cigarette ... I hate that word

A stone = 14 lbs

Mobile phone = cell phone

There are no drinking fountains here. Water is scarce and I have yet to find a place to refill a water bottle anywhere.

There are no cinnamon rolls :( I wanted to make monkey bread as a treat and we asked a lady at the grocery store and she had no idea what we were talking about. She said try to explain what it is and I'll tell you if we have something like it. Nope.

The KitKat bars here are my favorite. They are my favorite at home too, but the chocolate they make them with here is different and it is SO much better. I'm addicted.

The words that English people use for adjectives like, COOL, AWESOME, PRETTY, NICE, GOOD IDEA. I haven't heard any of these. Instead I've heard:

Brill! ...short for brilliant

Fab! ...short for fabulous

Gen! ...short for genius

Posh!

Capital!

Lovely! They use this one for EVERYTHING. (New York was lovely when we went on holiday. This food tastes lovely. The movie was lovely. The lesson today was lovely. Lovely job.)

Last but not least, I've put up some random pictures from the last couple weeks of nothing particular. CLICK ME

CHEERS!

Forgot these!

Here is a video I forgot to post with York yesterday. It's just showing you how narrow and cramped the staircase was!