First off I want to apologize for my blog being messed up. I don’t know why but it won’t let you blow up the pictures. I’ll upload them as larger pictures so maybe you can see them better. Sorry.
Anyway, Today we started out the day by meeting at 6:40 at the train station for a trip to Wilton House.
Linds, Ali, and I had to get out morning pick me up with an apple muffin and hot chocolate. The weather is crazy! One second you can look out the window and see the sun shining. Then we walk down the stairs and its pouring outside. Really bizarre. Anyway we were on the bus and I smiled at the little old lady sitting next to me and she got all excited and started talking to me. She was so sweet. I’ve met some very sweet British people while we’ve been here. Anyway, she was very excited for us to see Wilton House. We went to the stables, which has been converted into a visitors center and we watched to introduction video.
The video shows a ghost nun talking about the home’s history. It was a very poorly done video and very funny. The Wilton house is the home of the Earl of Pembroke. The earl that lives there now is the 18th and is very attractive, but recently got engaged. Too bad. After the movie we had the most adorable older tour guide names Joce(I think that’s how she spelled it). She gave us a tour around the home and then into the gardens. She took us over the bridge that was designed by the same man who designed the Rialto bridge in Venice. We then made our way back to the restaurant where they had pastries and lemonade waiting for us. I had an nice warm cinnamon roll. I was happy with that conclusion to the visit. We then went to the Salisbury Cathedral.
We took a tour with a man who was very excited to tell us all about his funny stories of the Cathedral, and also throw in a little casual swear every now and then. And then we went above the church into the rafters. I’m scared of heights and the fact that this church was built in the 1200’s makes me even more nervous about being in the ceiling of the church. But it is really amazing that they did such an amazing job of building it that it still stands today and they were able to build it in 38 years. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
But the stairs up to the base of the spire just about killed me. I they were so narrow, small, and high, I just about freaked out. We got to the top and there was a nice view of the town but I needed to have a good grasp on something to get near the edge (Ali is worse than I am so that made me feel better about being a baby about it ha). Anyway the spire is the tallest in the UK and just 4 feet short of one in Germany. After that we hiked back down and took some taxis to Stonehenge. It was weird because we were driving on a road in the country and you come over a little hill and it was right there, just next to the road.
Anyway it was fun to see it. We had an audio guided tour explaining logical and not so logical theories about how and why it is there. More logical: they rolled them on logs then hoisted them with levers and pulleys and had scaffolding. Not so logical: The devil came to an old poor woman who had the stones in her backyard. He made a deal with her that he would give her as much money as she could count while he moved the rocks. She knew that it would take a long time and she would become a very rich woman. But the devil scooped up the rocks and flew away leaving her with nothing. So it was a fun busy day!
We met at the train station at 7:20 and were off to the Burghley house in Stamford. The Burghley house has been filmed in movies such as The Di Vinci Code, Pride and Prejudice, and Young Victoria. As we pulled into the parking lot we notice deer prancing around the yard. 
They weren’t shy at all. I didn’t pet them but everyone else did. They were cute. We made our way in and had another private tour before the home opened to the public. Our tour guide gave us some funny stories about the artist in the house and the people who were painted. It was funny. We then went down to the restaurant where Darrin had told us we needed to try cream and tea. Which has nothing to do with tea at all, it is actually a biscuit with clotted cream. Sounds gross but it was really good. 
Ali and I decided to also try a Victoria Cake. Which wasn’t worth the money at all. I was starving at this point to I went to get something else too. I wanted to get soup because of the frigidness and rain. The lady let me try the soup it was carrot and orange. It wasn’t too bad but I figured it wouldn’t fill me up so I got a mango chicken sandwich instead. We met back at the bus and made our way to a little town called Stamford. 
There were a lot of little shops but it was really wet and cold. I think had it been sunny we would have enjoyed it a lot more. But I did find the most adorable little shirt for my niece. We stopped at a bakery to get some more treats, because the biscuit and clotted cream, and cake weren’t enough sugar for the day. I got a gingerbread cookie and they were really yummy. We went back to the bus and got on the train and then stayed at the flat for the rest of the night. 
We started another early day at the train station at 7:50. First we went to Blenheim Palace. We took a double decker bus for the first time, so that was pretty fun. Anyway we got to the palace and walked in. We took an audio guided tour(which I don’t recommend). 
They had set up random weird scenes such as one of the king’s wife’s having an affair with someone else. They had it set up where a plastic woman was sitting up in bed with sheets covering certain body parts and looking scared. Her lover was in the wardrobe and her husband was knocking at the door trying to get in. Ha it was weird. We then went around the rest of the home. This home was where Winston Churchill was born. The home has always been in the Churchill family. Winston is the cousin of the Earl of Blenheim. Anyway, after that we took a stroll around the secret gardens. 
The gardens were very pretty and the lawn was huge! Bruce would love this place because of the seclusion. We then had the rest of the day to ourselves. We went into town, Oxford, and got some lunch. I got a turkey, brie, and cranberry Panini.
It was SO good, and it kind of reminded me of Paradise Bakery. We then we on the hunt for a hoodless Oxford sweatshirt for Ali and Brady. We found a hoodie at a store and Ali asked the people if they knew where she could find a hoodless one and the lady said that there weren’t any anywhere. So ally bought the hoodie and we walked out the door to the next store and the first thing she sees is a hoodless sweatshirt. It was funny. But she ended up with what she wanted so all was good! We made it to the train station and got on the train and I fell right asleep. Then we got back to the flat. Lindsey and Kaitlyn went to the Tesco to get treats. I ate both candy bars within 5 minutes of each other. Ha I’m such a fat kid this trip. But they have some really great candy bars here that I’m trying to get enough of before we leave. Anyway, I have been complaining to everyone about how uncomfortable it is to climb my bed and how hot it is up there so they decided to climb up with me and they agree that it sucks. 
Today we got to sleep in again. We had breakfast and then relaxed for a while. Church started at 2:30 so we finally got ready and left at 2:00. We found the church without any problems. It’s only about a 10 minute walk from out flat. I’m really glad we went. We haven’t been able to go for 3 weeks so this was really nice to do. 
All the talks were great and it was a pretty big young single adult ward. We went to Sunday school where this really happy British woman gave the lesson. She did a visual lesson where she had two people stand up and do some stuff and she gave one of the guys a huge chocolate bar. He was so nice and shared his chocolate with everyone. Haha if I would have gotten it I would have kept it. But then to top it off she also gave us all Bounty bars, which are almond joys without the almond. I want to come to church here every week.
It was fantastic! We came back to the loft and everyone helped me make dinner. We made chicken parmigiana and it was pretty good. Again, we had to improvise but I think it turned out really well considering that we had to make our own bread crumbs and the stove and oven sucks! 
I didn’t find anything at the tents that I really wanted but there was a little mall that we went into and we found a sale. I ended up getting four shirts for L30.00. I love them! Across the street there was a little Mexican restaurant. We have been wanted Mexican for a long time so we went over there to eat. Inside it was way smokey from the grill but we ordered anyway and sat down. 
It really wasn’t that great but we were happy with it just because it was Mexican food. I smelled like smoke the rest of the day. We went back to our flat and ate dinner. Then we went to the movie theater to see The Proposal. Unfortunately it was super expensive because this theater didn’t give a student discount. But the movie was funny. So it was a fun night. 
soccer games so the girls finally decided to get ready at about 7:30 to get some food. We left at about 8:30. Darrin had told us about an Italian restaurant around the corner from our flat. So we went over there and asked if they could seat the four of us. 
The guy looked at us and looked around the room and said, “No room.” And walked away. Ha! I was so surprised. I’ve never been turned away like that before. It wasn’t even, “Sorry. No room. Come back in 30 minutes.” Just no. haha. So then we tried to go to a burger place and that was full. So we went to another Italian restaurant. It was a mediocre meal. I got the ravioli. It was basically pasta stuffed with ground beef and then ground beef piled on top. On the menu it said beef with pancetta so Kaitlyn asked what pancetta was and the guy looked around and responded with, “Umm, it’s something Italian I’m sure.” Haha. We’re pretty sure he had just 
walked in there and put and apron on. It was funny. We ordered cheesecake after that. That was the best part of the meal. We headed back after that. It was kind of a boring day but it was nice to be able to just relax.
The pictures just show our flat and also us not getting ready for the entire day! Note the glass door looking into our room. We tried to hang out towels up to block it. But I don’t know how well that works. Also, there are some sample pictures of the Ferraris we see parked outside our neighborhood every day along with the Rolls Royce’s, Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus’, and Range Rovers. No problem. 
We had to be at the train station at 7:00 in the morning and after having such a long day before we were all a little worn-out and tired. We got on the train heading to Cambridge. Once we arrived we walked two miles to get to our tour. Our group split into two and my half of the group ended up with the most adorable tour guide. She was a little old British lady named Sally.
She was so sweet and cute and my attitude changed as soon as she started on all of her little fun facts about the places we visited. The first place we visited was a little courtyard called the Eagle Pub where there is a restaurant where Watson came running in yelling that he found the meaning of life after he found DNA. It was also a place where American Soldiers came to eat and drink during the war. One soldier decided that he wanted to write his name on the ceiling that put wax over it and then thousands of soldiers after him did the same thing and it is still on the ceiling of the pub. We went around the campus and saw all the different colleges including King’s college, and the King’s college chapel (very pretty chapel). 
We went around town for a little bit. We found a street called “Jesus Lane”. Then Sally dropped us off at the pub to have a 2 hour lunch. Since we are in England we all got fish and chips(except Ali, she hates fish, Kait doesn’t like it either but we got her to order it). It was a full fillet of pure deep fried goodness. 
We got Ali to try it and she decided that she still hates fish. But Kait decided that it wasn’t that bad. She said, “I like it because it’s one more fish that is dead.” Ha. We met up with Sally again at the Fitz William Museum. Sally showed us the key points that she thought were worth talking about. We made our way outside of the museum just as it started raining and just as we were going to go to the canal to go punting. Punting is basically a gondola in the canal. After that we made our way back to the train station for the ride back. It was a long two days but worth it. 
