"Blame the Queen"

I don't even know where to begin; this is honestly going to be tough to describe all that has happened this weekend. First I will explain my quote of the week as my title. When shopping in Covent Garden, I again looked like a complete dumb American trying to count all their dumb change for about twenty minutes. I was trying to get rid of some change, because my wallet now weighs 5 lbs, and while looking for the correct amount I complained to the street vendor how retarded it is to have dollar bills as change, the man looked straight at me and in the most English accent ever stated, "Yea well, don't get angry at me, blame the queen!" It might have been the most classic English statement thus far on my trip.

Well anyway, over the weekend we took our first get-away vacation and traveled to Bath and Salisbury. I had no idea where I was going, I just got on the bus. When Emily asked me what was in bath I replied, "I don't know...a bunch of tubs?" However, to my surprise, Bath was the cutest little town ever as well as a fashion capital. We only spent one day there, and literally we had to close our eyes to stop seeing all the adorable shops so we could fit in all the sights. So yes, there are huge tubs in Bath, but beyond that there is this quaint town with again the cobblestone alleys and avenues, but it was so lushly green. A river ran straight through the city, filled with swans and weeping willow trees; it was too picture perfect.   

It is said that after you drink the water from the famous Bath, you will become a goddess. Gavin(also known as Gav, Gavatron, Bob, Robert, Bobby, Robby, and Fix It) and I found our inner goddess and had a photoshoot.

This is a view where you can see the Bath Abbey as well as the river that ran through the city, I wanted to go ask everyone in the town if they understood how beautiful this city was. I hope they wake up every morning knowing that the Provo River, does not exactly compare to this.

Also, a quick add, people outside of London are a lot nicer than the stuck up locals of South Kensington..these people smiled! We met the cutest little eleven year old Tessa. Her father pretty much pushed her in this picture, but we were okay with it because she was honestly precious...oh and just a side note, we have all not showered in this picture for about two days so excuse the fact we look like we have been hit by a bus. And speaking of bus, I am surprised I am alive to even write this blog. Our drive to these cities was about 2 hours, and for two hours I gripped the side of my seat praying not to die. Sean, our driver, was weaving in and out of traffic, and considering I have not seen one speed limit sign, I do not know if he was technically speeding, however he was driving too fast for conditions. He would randomly stop, cursing other cars stating that no one knows how to drive in this town, and I am not exaggerating when I say that he literally almost hit a baby when he was dropping us off. The guy was nuts...anyways. We stayed the night in a hostel, which was an exciting first experience. We shared the room with this 86 year old lady that had an extreme snoring problem...but as for creepiness, the hostel was really not bad! It was cool to see all the different type of people sleeping in one small area, all backpacking and traveling through the world. 

(P.S. on Bath) There was this Labyrinth maze randomly in the city. Picture a hedge maze without the hedge...this is us attempting to find the way out, like fifteen minutes later we were out ahah.

I am going to right now apologize for two things, first that I can no longer care if this is written well, I barely have time to add a picture, so I am sorry if this is an inadequate description. And second, even if it is written poorly, they will all be long blog posts. Hopefully you all get bored enough to read it ahah.

Anyway, the next day we went to Salisbury. The drive there I almost died. I wanted so bad to punch the crazy driver in the face and make him pull over; this drive was the epitome of rolling hills. I was singing, "The Hills ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUUSSSICC..." the entire day. It was green pastures, fields of yellow flowers draping across from every side, sheep laying side by side to their mothers. All I wanted to do was run through these fields in a white sun dress. At Salisbury there was a town sitting right at the feet of a  GIANT cathedral, to be honest I didn't really care much about it. I was freezing my butt off. It was raining and my socks kept slipping off my ankle, that might be my biggest pet peeve ever. After attempting to look at the giant cathedral, we hopped back into the death mobile to drive to Stonehenge. I had never seen Stonehenge, because if you recall me explaining that 18 hour nap Jen and I took, well during that we missed our chance to also see Stonehenge.

 On our way there, we stopped at this old Castle, this is where I unleashed my voice on England. We ran through the abandoned walls of this castle, jumping off everything and rolling on the ground to my  profesional opera voice.

And although I was freezing, I was down for a good fifteen minute look at this thing. It is hard describing how I felt looking at it beforehand, because after in the gift shop I looked at this book that ruined it all. It was like giving a kid a full on Christmas celebration, opening presents from Santa and everything, and then right at the end showing them a picture of Santa taking off his beard and it is your Bishop....the book RUINED everything. I cannot explain its contents because I won't be the one to ruin Santa for anyone, so just pretend I didn't mention anything at all and look at this lovely picture of my outside Stonehenge ahah.

I know that this is the longest post ever, but there is one more thing I have to fit in. The only reason I am going to add this in, was because through all the monument, statues, and city markets; this was the coolest thing I have done in my travels. It was the last day of the football regular season on Sunday and although I wish I could have gotten a ticket to the real game, it was 200 pounds, so instead, I got all dressed up and just visited outside the arena during the game. I was freeeaking out, everyone was saying that I was more excited to be outside this building than to go to Buckingham Palace, which was true. I was practically, no actually I was, skipping and shouting down the street. To see all the street vendors with Arsenal gear, wearing my Arsenal jersey(thank you to Jordan for giving it to me!), hearing the crowd clapping and screaming; it was the best day of my life.

Haha...like I said, I was too excited. Well, it is really late here and I have class early tomorrow. I kept my promise to my mom that I would wait a week until I started jogging, but tomorrow that promise is invalid. I will start my regular jog through Hyde Park after class, hopefully my spleen will not burst or else you are getting my next post from the Hospital. Ahaha that probably wasn't funny to my mom, but hey at least I am taking my vitamins! Well Goodnight Family, I love and miss you all very much.
Love Always,
       Kels.