Copenhagen

No, I haven't changed cities. We went and saw the play Copenhagen tonight. BRILLIANT ON SO MANY LEVELS. We all loved it. My 4 adjectives for it: brilliant, terrifying, mind-boggling, and inspiring.

I don't have time to write a full post tonight though because I need to pack for when we leave in the morning. Tomorrow we head out to Balmaha and Rowardennan so I'm not sure if we'll have internet access. Possibly. Probably not. I was looking forward to divorcing myself from technology, and being free from a cellphone is nice, but my luggage kinda forced me to use the internet to keep in touch with the parentals.

Today was full of class, chocolate soup, a bookshop, the National Gallery and Monet, and shopping. And Copenhagen. Hooray. So awesome. I love thinking deep thoughts. From our hostel we can see the fires from a Pagan festival, Beltane, which worships the Green Man and spring and such. It's really cool until you actually think about the meaning behind what they're doing and then it's very disturbing and creepy and scary.

Love you all. I bought some postcards today that I'm hopefully sending out soon, but I didn't buy stamps so we'll see what happens.

Full Day #2

Todays highlights: We started the day with breakfast and a brief lit class where we talked about Copenhagen, a play we're singing tomorrow night, and Twelfth Night. Then we hiked to the castle, and explored there. And then for lunch we went to ELEPHANT HOUSE!!!! AHHHH! HARRY POTTER!!!! JK ROWLING!!!! My favorite place. So good. Food=excellent. And Harry Potter goodness. Sigh. Life is great. Then we hiked Arthur's Seat (Don't worry Tracy, we're on a hiking tour, of course we're going to climb Arthur's Seat) and explored some ruins and sat by a swan pond. I helped make dinner and then we walked clear across town (we've done so much walking today. It's been so exhausting. Just being on our feet. I don't even know how far we've walked) to a Scottish Family's home that Bentley knew and we heard highland folk tales and bagpipes and learned Scottish songs and dances. We sang a couple hymns for them (they're not LDS) and it was just a great way to start the trip, there sharing our culture with them and becoming a family with each other and them. The people here are all great. We got lost on the way to this house (it was seriously like an hour walk) and so we asked a very sweet old lady for directions who asked us what we were doing and Jamie and Isabell were so nice.

TOmorrow's kind of a free day full of museums. Check out the group blog www.beowulf2virginiawoolf.blogspot.com It's pretty sweet. Now it's off to shower and go to bed!

btw, my suitcase came today. HOORAY FOR CLEAN CLOTHES!

EDINBURGH!

I now have a new favorite place. This city is so beautiful. I could just spend hours wandering the city. Luckily we have a few days, but I think it won't be enough. Seriously. Everything about it...it's so green, there are little parks everywhere, the history, the buildings. It just makes me so happy. Here's a brief overview of what we've done so far:

I slept in because I forgot to turn on my alarm, but that's okay. I wandered around trying to find my busstop and eventually found it and got on. Rode a double-decker bus for the second time (hooray!). Met John at the hostel; he and Lauren were the only ones there at first. SLowly everyone else got there. We went exploring--found a really good, cheap place to eat where we got pasties. So good. Wandered around the National Gallery. Wrote in my journal. CLimbed to the top of the Scott Monument. It's a huge pointy tower in the middle of Edinburgh, a memorial to Sir Walter Scott. 287 stairs of clausterphobia. I mean, tight spaces usually don't bug me, but spiral staircases where one person can barely squeeze through was a littl emuch. BUt it was totally worth it as well. The view were amazing. I keep thinking that one day I'll wake up and be like, "Oh, so this isn't really all that pretty" or that I'll turn a corner and it'll all disappear, but nope. It never ceases to amaze me. Then we walked to and to the top of Calton Hill. Also beautiful. A guy advertized to us about the Pagan Festival that'll be held on the hill on May Day. We'll be able to see the fire from our hostel, but we won't be allowed to go, for obvious reasons involving much drunkeness and much nakedness. But you know...hahaha. I don't really think any of us want to go. :) Now we're back at the hostel waiting for dinner.

Tomorrow's plans: hike to Edinburgh Castle. Wander some more. CHeck out the bookshop right by our hostel that is only open Wednesday-Saturday so we couldn't go today. Get my luggage (yes, it got lost, and hopefully it'll be here tomorrow). Have some more fun. And just be awesome. Also, we're going to the place where JK ROwling wrote the first Harry POtter book. SO excited.

BUt I have to go...my internet is almost up. I have 50 seconds before it logs me off. Love you all!

Wow.

I haven't updated this thing in AGES. Sorry about that, friends. The current England countdown: 9 DAYS! That's only fingers! So excited! There's still so much to do though.

So right now I'm kind of an honorary Maid of Honor for one of my best friends, Camille Burgess. She's getting married June 6th, while I'm in England so I can't actually be there, but I'm helping her plan everything that I can. I'm basically the chauffer and honest opinion. We tried on lots of dresses together and today I drove her to pick up the final choice (which I actually hadn't seen yet)! She is so beautiful! Her fiance is also adorable. Together they're perfect. Oh, love just makes me so happy. I've realized it's a good thing I won't be at the wedding though. I'd be bawling my eyes out because she'd be so beautiful and such and then she'd start crying. We talked about this today. Haha, we also went to get her ring cleaned and to pick up her free pearls (her bridals are tomorrow) so when we were are the jewelery store she made me try on some rings. Haha. They were HUGE! You would know I was just playing around because they were definately not me. She just wanted me to put some on, so I humored her. We've had so much fun. It makes me want to get married. But don't worry. I can definately wait a while. One day she'll come with me to try on all these ridiculous dresses. That's just such a weird thought. So yep. Wow number 1: I have three friends getting married while I'm in England, one of them who's been one of my best friends for 8 and a half years! Hooray for the soon-to-be Mrs. von Nieda!

Wow number 2: in 9 days I'll be in Scotland! Holy smokes! I have SO much shopping to do! And it's just crazy crazy crazy! AHHHHH!

Wow number 3: It's been almost 2 years since I graduated from high school. It's been 2 years since my last Jive Show, as I've been reminded of by the fact that the show is this weekend and I can't go. I miss Jive. I guess they had a slide show/videos of Jive over the last 10 years and I was in it a couple times. My mom texted me. She misses me singing really loudly in the kitchen late at night. Who knew? :)

Wow number 4: In a year, most of my boys will be just about to come home from their missions (give or take a couple months. Some will already be home, some won't be back until the end of the summer). And in a year I could be putting in my mission papers. I probably will be, but we'll see what happens. A year is a long time. And yet, hardly any time at all. A year ago today doesn't seem like long ago at all.

Wow number 5: LIFE IS JUST AWESOME!

So enough of the wows. I bought myself flowers yesterday; just because. I LOVE flowers. I want someone to give me some. But I'll just have to wait. I'm taking Floral Design in the fall though, so I'm very excited about that! I also picked up my Study Abroad backpack and watched the life-changing movie Bride and Prejudice. Yay Bollywood. So life is generally good. :) Sigh (of contentment).

England is Calling

The longer I read these novels and plays for 333 and Shakespeare, and the more I stare at the pictures and read the history in my book for my Study Abroad prep course, the more I just want to go to England. It's less than 6 weeks now. And that scares me because I'm no where near ready, but at the same time...wow. I'm so excited. I don't want to leave and I haven't even gotten there yet.

Then there comes my blogging dilemma. Whenever I think, "Oh, I should write in my blog!" one of two scenarios occurs: 1) I don't have anything to say really. Like tonight. Right now I'm just avoiding Deutsch because I'd much rather be sleeping, but I can't go to bed until I do it and I just don't really want to write this at all. or 2) I have all these deep thoughts and feelings to pour out onto the screen but I'm not by a computer and I'm too lazy to write them down on paper or I don't have time or some sort of variation. I need to start writing in my journal-journal again, but before I do that I need to start getting back into a regular scripture study schedule and I need to start regularly working out and I need to get on a normal, healthy sleep schedule that doesn't involve me blogging at 1 a.m. putting off homework that's due in 8 hours. Which means that I need to be all caught up on homework and stop wasting as much time during the day. I'm just so far behind that I feel it's impossible to catch up, and yet I know I will eventually--meaning the very end of the semester--because that's what always happens, and yet no matter how long I spend actually being productive, I feel like I never actually get closer to being caught up.

It Might as Well be Spring...

...or I wish it would be, anyway. The past few weeks were so nice. I wasn't fooled because the ridiculousness that is winter always comes back until the end of April, sometimes later. This nice week of perfect weather always happens, both here and in Twin, at the end of February and then goes back to the gray and the snow. Yet it was longer and warmer this year. I LOVED IT! And now, after a few days of snow that quickly melted (aka wet snow that was on the ground in the morning and gone when I got out of classes a few hours later) and then being slightly warmer than usual winter temperatures (but still cold, mind you), it is back to snowing, and sticking. Hard. Ugh. All I did was take a nap in the library, down in Periodicals. When I woke up, I turn around and glance out the window and BAM. Snow is falling all around, on the rooftops, on the ground. Luckily it's not falling on my eyes, and hands, and nose yet, since I haven't left the library. I might not leave. Maybe they'll let me just stay here over night and that way I don't have to go out into the cold. It's just so gray and depressing outside and it doesn't show signs of stopping. It doens't help that the warm weather was so wonderful and I could walk around in shorts and flip-flops and a t-shirt without a jacket. And now we're back to this. I knew the cold was coming back, but that doesn't make it any better. I've also had the State Fair song "It Might As Well Be Spring" stuck in my head. Spring fever is coming. Well, it's been here for a while, but is in ever more full-fledge now.

Since we're talking about spring...7 weeks from today I will be in Scotland! Every few days I'll think about it and pull out my phone and count the days. We're under 50 now! Hooray! I'm so excited, I cannot even tell you. I'm one of the piano players for our trip, so I get to help put together the musical firesides that we're doing, and since there's 2 of us, I'll get to switch off and sing some too! And we started our prep course and there is so much that is just getting me so excited for it. 49 days until ENGLAND!

On a deeper, more serious note, whenever I'm in the library at this time, I can always hear the Star-Spangled Banner play as the ROTC takes down the flag, since the flag is within a 30-second walk from me (that is, if the wall of windows and the bushes that divide me from it weren't there). I'm so glad to live in this great country of ours.

Idaho update: I'm going home to Twin the last weekend in March. It's pretty final now. It'll be my 3 day Spring Break that doesn't take me any place warm, doesn't get me out of school, and probably just makes me more behind, but my time management is horrible during the weekends anyway, so I don't feel too badly. Plus it'll just be nice to go up and see my family and Lindsey.

That's about all my thoughts for right now. Well, okay, it's nowhere near all my thoughts. I've been thinking a lot about all these questions I've had for Novel lately, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to know those. :)

Homesick

For some reason, the past few days I have just been longing to go back home to Twin Falls. I don't know if it's I just want to get out of Provo or what, but I MISS TWIN!

I just want to drive across the Perrine Bridge and be in awe of the beauty of the canyon. I want to go down to the falls. I want to watch the beautiful sunsets. I want to see Rock Creek out my window; I want to sit on the canyon and think. I want to drive really fast down the country roads, and just lay on my lawn or sit on my porch swing and stare up at the stars--the whole billions of stars that you can't see in Provo because of all the light. I want to hear the wind howling so loud outside of my bedroom windows that I feel like it's going to blow my house down, and yet feel secure at the same time because it's almost like the wind is holding the house up. I want to hear the creek rushing below, even from as high up as I am, and hear the coyotes howling. (Okay, so lots of these things can only happen in the summer, but I don't care. I miss them anyway). I want to see the temple spire rising up from almost anywhere in town, and I want to walk around the beautiful temple grounds. I want to walk along the canyon edge and take odd pictures with the statues. I want to wander around the halls of TFHS, being grateful that I'm no longer in high school, and yet missing Mrs. High and choirs and seminary stuff all the same. I want to just drive around town, knowing where everything is and how to get anywhere. I want to go to a drive-in movie. I want to wander around CSI and play on the Harrison playground and just wander around the dinky little mall. I want to hike around in Rock Creek canyon and sit on the ledge I used to at our old house. I want to see my family. I want to see Lindsey and Chip. And yet, right now the people are only secondary to me. I mostly just want to see Idaho. In fact, I'm thinking about going home two weekends from now--when my family won't be there. Just to spend time in Idaho.

I remember how ugly I thought Twin was when I first moved there. Oh, I was wrong. Lots of people think southern Idaho is ugly. Whatever. It's one of the most beautiful places ever. It's a different type of beauty though. It doesn't have majestic mountains like the Wasatch front, or lots of green trees. And I will admit that I still think Idaho on some winter days is ugly--the sky the same color gray as all the ground showing and everything else white and tan. Yet even that has it's own appeal. And right now I just want to drive up to Twin Falls and spend a lovely spring day there. Sigh. If only I didn't have class tomorrow, I'd leave right now.