Middle Temple, Mosque, Portobello

Thursday 2/18

Field trip – we all went to Middle Temple Hall, a famous old English bar of law something or other. It was built in the 1500s and survived the bombing blitz of WWII. We had a funny tour guide who talked a bit too much (we only stayed in the Grand Hall area), and then I ate the fanciest lunch of my life. We got to eat at the High Table, which is pretty famous. Queen Elizabeth (of the 1500s) had a huge tree floated down the Thames and built as the huge High Table, as Temple Hall was being built. It's never left the building (too big to remove). Over the last 500 years many famous people, royal people, celebrities, etc have dined at the High Table. It felt pretty cool.

Lunch was pretty good but rather fancy for my taste buds. The waiters wore white gloves and put napkins on our laps for us and there was too much silverware for me to figure out what went with what. And because I like blogging about food I’ll go into further detail. Delicious bread – I think a sundried tomato roll. The first course was weird – a tart with mushrooms, leeks, tomatoes, and hollandaise. I (and a few other people) mostly just ate the tart. :) The main course was delicious – pork, green peppercorn sauce, and (get this!) bubble and squeak. That’s what the menu said, no further description. Bubble and squeak appeared to be mashed potatoes and a green mystery vegetable (cabbage?). Dessert was great – apple and sultana crumble with lemon sorbet (random). We had fruit tea last. It was a lovely meal. And expensive (paid for in our program). Here's the Middle Temple Chapel next door..

We went to Charles Dickens' house after... kind of interesting.
Afterwards Ali and I went to Primark where i bought a red cardigan that i love. I can picture a grandpa wearing it haha. it is cute though. Dinner was on us so we had centre leftovers, Tesco pasta (for the 30th time), and chocolate. I miss digestives! Haven't bought any in awhile..

Friday 2/19
Field trip again (after class) we went to a Mosque - the Islamic London Centre - for our Culture/Community class. It was interesting, I'd never been in a mosque before. We had a young guide named Omar who told us about Islam and his culture here. We watched the men say prayer (we sat awkwardly in the back) and heard the scripture chanting, then we were shown around the mosque library.
     For dinner about 8 of us went to Khan's (Indian food), then to Whiteley's where I couldn't resist (haven't yet) a bag of chocolate-covered nuts. The BEST are cinnamon-dusted chocolate covered almonds and hazelnuts. yum. Stopped at H&M and continued on to Frog's frozen yogurt which i don't really like here and i ended up buying a chocolate bar to mix in because it tasted sugar-deprived.

Saturday 2/20
Today we went to Portobello Road Market! I love that place. So many cool things, and so much good food. The market gets more and more crowded as it gets warmer (very slowly) and as it gets closer to summer/tourist season. I miss warm sunlight. Mmm well the first thing i got was an apple tart (yum), then a strawberry-chocolate crepe (YUM!), then the amazing hot chocolate (yum, cheap!), and i finally found a coat for spring! Aka something not black. I have 3 dark coats (2 black) so I wear black pretty much every day. Sometimes it gets a little depressing. My new one is beige! Pretty cheap too. But it's still too cold to wear it. Haha afterwards I finally exchanged the last of my American dollars for pounds. I kept finding dollars in my closet but now I'm pretty sure it's all gone.

    Tonight nearly half the centre went out to Zizzi's (Italian) for dinner to celebrate Sarah's 20th birthday! Lots of fun. Sarah makes me laugh. We have a thing for giving each other awkward hugs. I seem to have a talent for that, which I share with lots of lucky people. Brooke tried giving me hugging lessons a couple years ago but I guess my bad hugs are back haha. (It's because I miss you and your hugs mom).
Back at the Centre we had cake and then I attempted homework, writing a church talk, preparing for my (first) lesson in Young Womens, and watching Ever After. That didn't work so well. Went to bed too late (..again..)

Sunday 2/21
Haha today I slept in til 7:55, and we usually leave for church right after 8. Nice. I get to church, with a little 2ish minute talk prepared, and when i walk in a counselor pulls me aside to tell me that today's theme is prophets and he hopes I will speak 5-10 minutes. So in my effort to ramble and stretch my talk out a bit, I gave what I am sure was the worst, least-coherent, unorganized church talk of my life. What a way to introduce myself to the ward haha. The Young Womens lesson went ok... I taught it with Leslie (BYU student) there with me, and the girls weren't disrespectful or rowdy.

In the early afternoon Ali and I went to Leicester Square/Chinatown and Trafalgaar Square to see the Chinese New Year celebrations. First we stopped at Covent Garden to see the British Orange Awards (like the Oscars?) and saw a mostly empty red carpet, and I was eager to see Chinese New Year so we left. Well, the celebrations were a bit of a bust. Very crowded and not much to see, other then 2 dragons going door-to-door in Chinatown to "eat" something hanging on the door frame. It would be much cooler to see it in China! I did like Chinatown's decorations though.
After dinner we had a great fireside by young President Phillips. I am so tired and I still miss digestives. I try to make up for it with extra nutella though.

London's chinese new year