Christmas in London!

So I've been home a week now, but there are still some things I wanted to post. Most importantly, the festive nature of London. I was obsessed with all the Christmas decorations around. There's just no where in Utah, maybe Temple Square, that could put me in a serious Christmas mood. But leave it to England to deck every town out with Christmas cheer! Bath, Stratford, London- everywhere was all a sparkle. I loved it.

Trafalgar Square. The tree there is donated by Norway every year. A thank you for Great Britain's help during WWII.

Regents Street. Loved it. These lights go down the whole street, for many a couple miles!

Gingerbread milk steamer. Tasted like Christmas.

Huge chocolate Santa in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Harrods is amazing!

Lego Harry inside Harrods! They have a whole Harry Potter section. The employees were dressed up like Gryffindor students!

Merry Christmas from the UK!

Canterbury Cathedral

During our last week in London we took a trip to Canterbury. No one really wanted to go, seeing as it was our last week, but oh well. We went to the Cathedral which is pretty significant because the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Anglican Church (Well technically its the king or queen, but in reality it's the Archbishop that runs the church). Canterbury Cathedral is also famous because Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered inside the cathedral. It has become a place of pilgrimage, but who knows how many people come to actually worship his place of death. His death was also controversial because the king, inadvertently, ordered it. Apparently King Henry II said off hand "who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" And his knights took it literally. They surely didn't want to do it in the actual cathedral, but Becket ran away, knelt to pray in the cathedral, and the knights came in and slaughtered him. During evensong, meaning people were totally around, listening to the choir sing. Crazy.

Here's a memorial for him. Seems kind of morbid to me.

Our tour guide, he was a character.

Christmas nativity!

Bunkmates!

This is my bunkmate Lauren, and she's one of my favorites. We decided to have a photo-shoot because we're best bunkies and have matching Oxford sweatshirts!

Love her!

The Orangerie

On Friday, in-between finals, we went to high tea at the Orangerie as a group. It was so nice! The Orangerie is part of Kensington Palace, and is just a hop, skip and jump away from the London Centre. They served us finger sandwiches, orange scones with clotted cream and jam, and an orange tart that was to die for. Oh, and peppermint tea. It was a sunny day and the rays were shining beautifully through the tall windows. It may have gotten a little hot in there, but it was worth it.

Kensington Palace. Where Harry and William grew up with Diana. Also, William and Kate visit here on the weekends. It's not he most aesthetically pleasing of the palaces, but still nice.

Walking up to the Orangerie

Baby orange trees at each table!

The whole group. The one and only group picture.

Random Art

Well I've been to a lot of museums here and everywhere. And I started this post and now I don't like it. But I'm posting it anyway. Here's some random museum-ing.

Richard Hamilton at Tate Britain

Look who else I saw at the Tate Britain- Kevin from 'The Proposal!'

Rosetta Stone at British Museum

Gallery of Modern Art: Edinburgh. Saw the best Tony Cragg show here

Freize Art Fair at Regents Park. Crazy gathering of galleries from all over the world. The super bowl of the art world. Lots of all-star artists of the contemporary art world had their work there. Saw Rosario Dawson there, 99.9% sure. My mom said after, "Did you buy anything?" I had to tell her that at one of the gallery spots (a gallery from New York) I heard a woman say that the Chuck Close painting was $5,000,000 and another painting that I can't remember was 250,000 pounds. So no, I didn't.

Peter talking at the Courtauld Gallery. This was one of my favorites. It's small and managable and has some good art. It's a private collection.

Cy Twombly room at the Tate Modern

Some friends at the British Museum

I'll miss being able to go to free museums with great art anytime I want.

Glittertastic

Yay for holiday sparkle Ke$ha nails!

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving was such a great day. I started out by going to a "Thanksgiving Celebration for the American Community in London" at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was so cool! So many American accents! It was actually quite religious. Different pastors gave lessons or sermons. One pastor was really funny and talked about different ways to cook a turkey "and god bless em, somewhere in the south, someone is deep frying a turkey," the feud of cranberry sauce "I can feel the tension here right now. I personally love the fake jelly stuff, with the rings from the can," and "heavily padded, hard hitting American football." A choir sang some anthems and songs, with the congregation joining in on 'For the Beauty of the Earth' and 'America the Beautiful.' It was really cool to see two men in uniform carrying an American flag down the aisle of St. Paul's. I'm glad we can be such friendly neighbors with England!

On a side note- the protesters are still living outside the Cathedral. I read in the paper this week that the police have had to install needle bins for all the hypodermic needles that are lying around from all the drug use. And they've turned an alley by the cathedral into their bathroom. How can you demand money for doing nothing, and then show that you'll just spend it on drugs. Good one.

Thanksgiving dinner! It was so so good. We all pitched in on Wednesday and Thursday to make lots of cheese balls, 22 pies, turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Peter made delicious green beans with a pesto-y flavor and good sweet potatoes with marsh mallows and walnuts. Thankfully they also had cranberry sauce. My favorite!

We were in heaven!

Pumpkin pie made from scratch. No cans here in London apparently. We had to roast the squash to make the pies.

Then that night I went to Wicked! Got 90 pound tickets for 27! Seriously our seats were so good. Front section in the middle. It was amazing. I'd go again in a heartbeat.