week 3 (a week late. whoops)

HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS WEEK:


on monday, we went to sara (one of my favorite stores of all time) and i bought the most posh coat i've ever seen! and it was on sale! BAM. this was also the day that i went to nando's… and as everyone says, it's heavenly. my favorite part is the unlimited diet coke refills. haha and apparently a lot of famous british people eat there all the time, so one of these days, we're just going to camp out there for like a week straight until we meet someone cool. haha

on tuesday, we saw billy elliot at the victoria palace theatre! i love how everything is so last minute here. we were all sitting in our room doing homework and all of a sudden, these boys posted on the Facebook wall that they were going to go see billy elliot that night, so we bought tickets right then and there and left an hour later! haha but it was AMAZING. i was so impressed with the fact that most of the cast was under the age of 12 and they were all so talented! it made me want to force my boys to take ballet as soon as they can walk, but maybe i'll put more thought into that idea before i act on it. haha

i just thought this was awesome. hahaha it's like a huge billboard. of an angry cat. cool.

on wednesday, we had an AWESOME london walk! we started just walking around the business district and we eventually made our way to st. paul's cathedral! st. paul's is one of my favorite places on earth. the ceilings were the most breathtaking sight i've ever seen. we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so you'll just have to see it for yourself! but the coolest part about the ceilings is that they are covered in mosaics of broken glass. like they aren't flat, but literally sticking our towards you. the sharp edges are what gives it its sparkly look! i NEVER WANTED TO LEAVE. for most of the tour, i'm pretty sure my head was just up the wholeeee time. i want to go back. there was also a cool section where they have a stained glass window that honors each of the united states with a separate piece of glass for each state with a little symbol on it to represent the state. the first one our tour guide pointed out was the texas state glass! duh. because it's the best! it was just a beautiful piece of glass with a lone star on it. i love texas oh so much. after our tour of the church and after we went through the crypt, we had the chance to climb over 500 stairs to go to the top of the cathedral and look over london. it was kind of scary because the stairs were kind of steep, but the view was so worth it! and i totally picked the right day to wear my neon tennis shoes ;)

halfway up with jenna!

 

after st. paul's cathedral, we stopped by the museum of london. and this is the only picture that i feel is necessary to post from the museum. i'm determined to #womancrushwednesday this at some point on instagram

the next day, the only exciting thing we did was get cupcakes from hummingbird bakery, so here you go :) you're welcome.

#selfie with my cupcake

friday was our day off this week! so we took this day to sleep in, get brunch, and go shopping! or at least window shopping. haha we went to primark which is like forever 21 on steroids. it's HUGE and it is always super busy with a million people everywhere. it gave me a lot of anxiety. i don't do well with huge crowds in stores. haha but i had to go just to say that i went! and i got some pretty snazzy socks and grocery bags! so it was worth it. and this was the first day on this trip that i rode a double decker bus! #exciting


on saturday, we had a loooooooooong and super fun field trip! we started by going to bodiam castle. and yes, that is where part of monty python and the holy grail was filmed. cool, huh? real castles are the coolest things ever. i felt like a princess! i'm excited that we get to go to more castles in the future! it's so fun to run around them and climb to the top and pretend that an army is coming to attack your castle. haha you bet we were all yelling and pretending to bring up the bridge over the moat so no one could invade ;) we're childish, but it's fun :)

this robin hood dude was legit

little madie being all cute

#selfie with cute lindsey & jenna

#selfie with ashlyn & audreyyyyy

my homegirls

after our stop at bodiam castle, we went to st. augustine's abbey! it was cool to see some of the remains of this site! we also went to the canterbury cathedral and had an audio tour there! PS i'm obsessed with audio tours. they're my new favorite thing. anyway, it was beautiful- just as every cathedral is here. haha sorry, you're probably getting sick of all of my cathedral/stained glass/ceiling pictures, but they're all slightly different! haha i won't say too much about this cathedral except for one more thing: when we were there, there was a choir rehearsing handle's messiah, so it was incredible to sit in the cathedral and listen to the beautiful music. that's like a once in a lifetime event right there. so cool.

this guy was AMAZING. i wish i could have sat down and listened to him alllll day <3

look! me, christine, ashlyn, tyler, and morgan chillin

for some reason, i really wanted one of these. hahah

that night, we walked around canterbury (except for when it was hailing. haha) and we ate at a cute british pub and we ate…. can you guess? FISH AND CHIPS. this place was kind of sketchy though because christine had multiple bones in her fish. yikes.

also this was a big night for me. this was the night i fell in LOVE with cath kidston. like it's one of the most adorable stores i've ever been in in my whole life. i've decided if anyone ever gets me ANYTHING from cath kidston, i will love them forever. and i'm not joking. it's that easy. haha

on our way home, our bus got stuck in MAJOR traffic, so it took about four hours to get home instead of the two it was supposed to take. so that was rough. and we got home super late. but hey, at least church the next day started at 1:00 :) on that note….


our second sunday was a lot less stressful than the first one was! ali and i taught our first lesson, and it was so fun!!!!! i am seriously obsessed with our sunbeams. they are all perfect. and so sweet! i was kind of irritated on our way to church because it just takes forever to get there, but as soon as i saw kayla, alden, and tazmin, i just didn't care what it took to get there because i love them sooooo much! another highlight of our sunday was that all of the missionaries gave talks. haha don't worry, i'm over my missionary stage (because most of them are younger than me now), but we are totally planning on ali marrying one of them. haha i'll keep you updated on that development :)



so that was my week! oh last note. my roommates love me. or at least they think i'm really funny. haha they made a twitter account where they tweet all of the funny things i say. haha i'm really not that funny though. we're just always so sleep deprived that everything seems hilarious. ANYWAY. peace.


from london with love,
pep xoxox



PS i finally bought a curling wand this week! hallelujah. now i don't hate my hair everyday. i'm a firm believer in the following: CURLS= CONFIDENCE