Wales: Day 39 Best Day Of My Life - Part 2

I left you when Anna, Anders and Zoe took off to get food and meet everyone else for Wicked. They asked me about a hundred times if I would be ok by myself, if I knew where I was going, how to get there, not to talk to strangers, etc. etc. I'll admit, I was a little nervous. London is really big, and if I got lost and missed Phantom I'd have to throw myself in front of a tube train, so maybe it was best for me to just go sit outside the theatre until it started. But no. I was feeling independent and adventurous, and wanted to see Leicester Gardens and Piccadilly Circus on my own time.

I bid them farewell, plugged in my headphones and set about looking for something to catch my interest. There is so much to see that it really isn't hard to get completely wrapped up in a matter of seconds. I checked out touristy little shops (I got a pair of London Underground boxers, suckas!), used book stores, little art galleries and any other stores or attractions that caught my eye. I loved it. I was in a huge city, on my own, 20 years old and completely confident in my ability to function and enjoy myself.



Around 6:15 I walked down to Her Majesty's Theatre to pick up my ticket. I couldn't be risking anything here. You guys know how important this is to me. Once I had it in hand, I realized how hungry I was, and walked down to Piccadilly Circus to hit the Tesco Metro. I got a Diet Coke and some dried mangoes, because nothing else looked good. I honestly think I was giving myself crazy anticipation anxiety about Phantom. I was so jittery. I think I checked my bag for my ticket every 30 seconds. Once I had my food I went and hung out in the square on the steps of the Statue of Eros. Legend has it that if you stay at the fountain for at least 1 hour you are guaranteed to see someone you know. We also heard that since Eros is the god of love, throwing coins in the fountain would bring you true love or something cliched and gay like that. Anyways. I hung out here people watching and getting progressively pumped up for Phantom for half an hour or so.



Around 7 I headed back to the theatre to try to catch Talia & Kelsey, or Kayla and her mom who were all going to be in the same showing as me. By 7:15 I hadn't seen them, so I headed in. I HEADED IN. Finally. To be seated. To see Phantom. The only thing I've ever really wanted to do before I died. It was surreal. I bought a program and a shirt (completely unashamed of my nerdiness at this point) and by the time I made it to my seat I was STRAIGHT TRIPPIN.

Seriously, I can't remember ever feeling like that. Who knows if I'll ever feel it again? I was jumpy and fidgety, which is not like me at all. My entire being seemed oriented towards the the stage, every cell in my body was yearning to hear the first notes of the overture. My seat was actually really good. I paid a little more for it, but obviously it's worth it to me. I had a seat just off center on the first balcony, and my view was great. (The last photo is dark but you can barely see the stage and the chandelier covered in a canvas.)


The lights went dim. Instantly my heart started to pound. I felt the adrenaline dump in my system and my heart battered away at my rib cage, to the point that I almost couldn't sit any longer. As the first notes rose out of the pit, I honestly felt my heart and soul kind of seize up. I really was losing control of my body. The first scene, the auction, is very quiet, but when the chandelier lights up and the orchestra starts blaring the theme I completely fell to pieces. I was CRYING. Crying you guys. I could barely breathe. I have never been so emotionally moved in my life. I highly doubt the ability of anything else to ever do that for me again. This really nice lady sitting next to me I'm sure thought I was crazy. Before it started we'd been chatting (she's a Kiwi - a person from New Zealand), and I communicated to her how much Phantom meant to me and how crazy I was about it. So maybe she got it. I don't know.


Phantom was amazing. I mean, the music speaks (sings?) for itself. One thing the movie can never duplicate though is the fantastic use of props and scenery. The decor for the underground lair, the boats and candles, was breathtaking. I often felt like I didn't know where to look because there was just so much that I wanted to drink in.


My heart didn't stop pounding the entire time. Masquerade and Music of the Night were way better Broadway-style. Each person was perfect for their role. The orchestra sounded fantastic. The props, as mentioned, were elaborate and fascinating. The entire experience filled me, lifted me, raised the dead in me. It was honestly one of the high points of my life. As I walked out of the theatre, elated, I had a sad moment of wonder.

Will I ever top this? What else do I have to live for? I guess that remains to be seen.


I quickly jogged down to the tube station, hopped on the train to Paddington Station (again, by myself. Loving it.), and caught the train with minutes to spare. I was delirious. Everything I've ever wanted came true that day. Anyone who knew me in 9th grade has a very good perception of what it meant to me. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Even the anxiety of late night tube riding by myself, with the risk of missing the train back to Cardiff couldn't keep the bounce out of my step. I was exhausted on the train ride home, dozing in and out of Phantom dreams. Unfortunately we had to walk home at 1 in the morning, with plenty of "hen parties" and gross drunk Cardiff men downtown, but when I crashed into bed around 2 am in my Phantom t-shirt, I was content knowing that Phantom had exceeded my expectations and breathed new life into me.

Wales: Day 39 Best Day of My Life - Part 1

The big day finally came. Wednesday, August 11, I woke up bright and early at 6 am, already crazy excited. We walked to Cathays station (about 20 minutes away, and in a quite ghetto part of Cardiff. Which is saying something.), and caught the 7:15ish train to Cardiff Central. A quick breakfast and then we boarded the 8:25 train to LONDON!!!! I love train rides. They're so smooth, quiet and comfortable compared with cars and especially huge packed vans. Gillian and I listened to some Dane Cook standup, which was delightfully entertaining to our tired and excited minds. Then we slept for the rest of the ride. That's really why train rides are the best - sleep.

We arrived in London around 10:30, got our tube passes and then ventured out into the city! Our group of about 8 or 9 went to Leicester (the theater district. All of the big Broadway signs line the building facades) so most people could get their Wicked tickets (I already bought my ticket to Phantom. I was too excited to wait or chance it.) then we grabbed some pizza from a little street vendor. Probably the weirdest pizza I've ever had, but I was starving and it was decent. Anna, Anders & Zoe were interested in seeing Les Miserables, so clearly I jumped on that bandwagon. We walked down to that theater and got tickets for the matinee. I was straight trippin' at this point. Two legit world-renown musicals. In London. One Day. Couldn't have been more excited.




We had about an hour until showtime, so Jessica, Gill, Sam and I walked around Leicester and Piccadilly Circus (kind of the downtown of London) in search of sights and a delicious treat. Come on. We get ice cream in every city as a tradition. Piccadilly Circus is my favorite area of London. I just ate it up. We walked down to Trafalgar Square which is one of the coolest areas of London without being too touristy. The architecture there is fantastic. We grabbed some chocolate ice cream outside the National Gallery and hung out people-watching for a while.



I love that people just hang out in the square. Such a cool vibe. I wish we did that here.



Jess, Gill and Sam went into the National Gallery, but I had to be back for Les Mis, so I bid farewell to them and headed to the Queen's Theatre. I was slightly nervous about walking back to Leicester from Trafalgar by myself, but I was happy to see that I knew where I was and where I was going, and hopefully I didn't look like too much of a tourist! haha.

Les Miserables was INCREDIBLE. I loved it. I'd heard the music before, but never read the book or seen the musical anywhere. I fell in love with it. I was completely captivated. The actors were so talented, stage effects and props were awesome, and it was all-around amazing. I'm so glad I finally got to see it, and in London, no less.


After Les Mis, we walked through Leicester Gardens (seriously this is the coolest area of London. People who focus on Big Ben, Parliament and all the touristy stuff don't know what they're missing out on), saw some pretty good break-dancing street performers, Anna got hit on, and then Anders, Anna and Zoe headed off to get food and go to Wicked.



You may be thinking, "Wow. That day sounds awesome. Borderline perfect." And you're absolutely right. It was. But it got even better. From this point (approximately 4 pm) onward, this day was 100% perfect for Danica Budge. Everything I could want or need. I knew that I would have a lot to say about my evening, and that Phantom deserved a much more thorough treatment, so stay tuned for another epic, emotional, exciting chapter in the London adventure.

Wales: Day 38 Am Iddo Beidio, Jessica!

Tuesday, August 10 we woke up and took the "final," which was essentially just providing feedback for the program, and only took about 20 minutes. I worked on my textbook, did some dongling (if I haven't mentioned it before, the USB stick that provides our internet is called a "dongle," so we fondly turned that into a verb for convenience), and then took a short nap.

In the afternoon, we headed off for Jessica Sloan's surprise birthday party! Sam and Gill got TONS of cake and ice cream, and 57 was decorated with balloons (shaped like crinkle fries!), streamers and posters. We quietly snuck out, and Jessica headed over later thinking she was meeting her cohort to work on their group project. The surprise was flawless and awesome.

Such a great party. The camaraderie was just fantastic. I remember looking around the party as we ate our Tesco cake and ice cream, thinking "I can't believe that a month ago I barely knew or cared about these girls. Now I know most of them very well, and I am good friends will all of them." We had inside jokes, great memories, positive influence and feelings of protection over one another.

One of the biggest things I learned from this study abroad was that I don't really know anything. I would say 80% of these girls wouldn't have received more than a passing glance, maybe a polite, friendly smile for me if we had passed on campus or had a class together. Even if they had been in my ward or my roommates, I would not have really tried to get to know them or develop a relationship with them. I make friends easily, so I tend to not seek them out. I don't exert myself to get to know people, especially if I make instantaneous judgments about their personality or character (which I do. All the time).

And you know what? Where have those prejudices got me? Sure, I've never really had any adverse consequences, but how much have I been missing out on? I'll never know. These girls are awesome. At least one element of personality, character or just plain coolness in each individual girl stood out to me. Usually more, but at least one thing, and I really feel I learned from all of those "one things." I lived and loved more in that two months than I did the entire year leading up to the trip. It's something I'm still learning from. I'm trying hard to be more open and loving, more accepting of other people and more friendly.

After the party we came back and worked on our crap, had dinner and hung out. Around 9:30 Anders came and picked us up to play "smurf"at 57. "Smurf" is a game where you choose one person to be "it." They leave the room and then everyone picks a verb to replace with "smurf." The "it" person comes back and asks questions about "smurfing" to determine what verb is behind "smurf." For example if you chose "brushing your teeth" for "smurf," the person could ask questions like "Do you smurf by yourself?" "Do you smurf every day?" etc, until they have a good idea of what it could be. The ensuing conversations are hilarious.

We played until about 12 and then Anders brought us home to get ready for our London trip!!!!! I could barely sleep I was so excited. Great day.

Wales: Day 37 Communist Cardiff

Monday, August 9, 2010 was a nice lazy day. We woke up to another random 2let2 employee walking into our house (2let2 is the company that lets - leases - our housing). I guess because we were leaving soon and they needed to find some new people to move in, and they were taking pictures and showing our house. They just walk in without knocking all the time. And they're super sketchy.

So besides our free day in London on Wednesday and then traveling home on the weekend, we had nothing to do all week. We were expected to use the time to work on our big project - the textbook. We were expected to create a textbook on ten major periods, including information from our expository text and brochures from locations, as well as pictures we took when we traveled around. It's a pretty hefty project. Everyone was actually really pissed about it, because it's essentially regurgitating our huge textbook and inserting pictures with formatting. We also needed to finish our 2 books by the end of the week, so we had plenty to do. After some breakfast I set about reading "Princesses of Wales" which was actually really, really cool.

I walked down to the business district to get lunch and groceries. My favorite sandwich shop that is only a couple streets from Penylan is called "The Sandwich Story." I get the hummus & salad (lettuce, carrots, corn, diced tomatoes, etc.) baguette with potato wedges and sweet Thai chili sauce. So delicious. It's my favorite. So I go walking down there (it's a Monday around 2 in the afternoon, mind you), only to find that it's CLOSED. CLOSED! What the? Completely unacceptable. Prime lunch hours and you're closed? No sign, no explanation, no holiday, nothing. I walk to another juice and sandwich shop down the street. I walk in to see them wiping down counters and putting away chairs. Surely they wouldn't be closing, right? I turn to look at the menu board and the waitress walks up to me before I reach the counter with a "Sorry!"

Me - bewildered, hungry expression.

Waitress - "Sorry."

Me - still bewildered. Brow furrowed. Confused.

Waitress - "We close at 2:30 today. Sorry."

Me - open mouth gaping. Nod. Turn on my heel and walk out.

Problems with this situation:

1. Really? You close at 2:30? Isn't that kind of arbitrary? Why not 3:17? 12:42? Why would any restaurant close at 2:30?
2. Ok. You close at 2:30. Well. It's approximately 2:10 at this point. Is making me a sandwich going to take you over 20 minutes? Because my clock and my stomach both hate you right now.
3. Is this Communist Russia? Do businesses just randomly close whenever they feel like it on a random Monday? Did they run out of bread? They just felt like taking a vacation day? Who says you can do that? God bless America.

Hungry and pissed, I walked down to the Tesco Metro to get a replacement lunch and some groceries and then came back to catch up on my blog and email. After showering and reading some more I fell asleep for a few hours. I love the liberty of that. Some of my roommates were surprised that I'd walk through Cardiff by myself. I really liked it. It took me until my last week to feel 100% comfortable with the city, and though it'd be another thing entirely to be walking it in the dark, an afternoon food-and-groceries run was fully within the boundaries of my comfort zone. It was really cool. I felt like an actual adult. Weird, I know.

We made chicken noodle soup for dinner, hung out and complained about our textbook assignment and then trudged back to our rooms to work on them. We needed to email the textbook assignment to Tom the following Monday, and at that point I had 2 1/2 of the 10 chapters done. So almost done, right?

.... Sure.

My motivation for this SUCKED. Seriously. I was the Michael Jordan of finding things to distract me and I spent so much time just daydreaming about going to London and then going home at the end of the week. I think I did almost nothing that day. I kept thinking "Well I have tomorrow, Thursday and Friday to work on it, plus my long layover in Minnesota will be boring so I'll probably work on it then too...."

Well. This story has a somewhat-happy ending, so stay tuned.

Wales: Day 36 Last Sabbath

Sunday, August 8, I woke up exhausted, again. Relieved to be home with good internet access again, I had stayed up far too late on Saturday night. If it wasn't our last Sunday in Cardiff I don't know if I would have been able to get up and endure 3 hours of bizarre church, not to mention the 25 minute walk in the rain. This Sunday we only repeated 1 hymn, which was a record low. Despite the craziness of the Coleg Glan Hafren ward, I had grown to love it. It was eccentric, loud, unorthodox and just random, but it was still the Church. Those members had more dedication and stronger testimonies than I do, and it was really poignant for me to realize that. How often do I cop out of Church and more especially Relief Society simply because I don't feel like it? Or I'm tired, have homework, don't like it, a million other reasons. It's so easy to find reasons NOT to do the right things. The only reason you really need to do the right things is that the Gospel is real and was restored, right? And it's high time for my life to reflect that.

After church I crashed. I slept for over 4 hours. Just passed out. I woke up, made dinner with the girls, updated my blog and hung out for a while before heading over to 57 for the evening. We played Mafia, which I had never played before. Everyone draws a card, and your draw indicates your role in the game.

• Kings/Queens - Mafia. You decide who to kill.
• Jacks/Jokers - Detectives. You find out who is the Mafia and kill them off.
• Aces - Angels. You can intervene and keep Mafia from killing others.
• Numbers - Townspeople. You are basically innocent and just hang out and enjoy the game.

The narrator controls the pace of the game and makes everyone close their eyes and then activate to decide who to accuse, kill, save, etc. We played like 6 rounds (several hours) and it was AWESOME. I loved it. Its very mental and analytical, and plenty of opportunity for argument and trash-talking. Clearly the game for me.

Anders took us home around 1 am and I chatted online with friends until about 2 and then headed to bed. Such a great last Sunday for us.

Wales: Day 35 Pres(ton) Forward Saints

Saturday, August 7 might have been the worst day on record for the Welsh 2010 study abroad. But it was still pretty good. Possibly the most ridiculous day we had, so naturally tons of great jokes came out of the day's journey.

First of all, we woke up exhausted. Probably the most tired I'd been on the trip. We'd been sleeping in hostels for a week, walking and running around like crazy, and even though we didn't have Tom's hyperactive structure, we really ended up walking, running and dealing with more stress in general because we didn't have him. Peeling myself out of that uncomfortable little bunk was a challenge, but I told myself "Ok. I just have to get through my tour of Preston and soon we'll be 'home' and I can finally get some rest."

Now, I'll admit. I was not in the best of spirits and attitudes this morning. I am usually very positive, regardless of my situation. I was extremely tired, injured, sick of driving around in a cramped van (even more cramped because we had to pile everyone's luggage in around us, see?), sick of being with people 24/7 (I need to have my private room. Really.), and feeling sick from eating nothing but Tesco food.



And embarrassing confession. I actually have human feelings. This whole time I hadn't really MISSED people. I was having a great time, the time of my life even. I was making great friends, laughing and loving every day. I missed my friends and family in the sense that I'd get excited thinking about seeing them again, but I never really got an aching, MISSING feeling before. Well. I woke up MISSING. The travel and hostel situation had made it difficult for me to stay as current as I had been on internet communication, and there were developing situations that were unduly concerning me. My baby sister was moving out soon and I started to feel weird about that. I was only going to have a couple weeks with one of my best friends when I got home. But the strangest was that someone I thought I wouldn't see until September was actually in Provo at the time. To stay, I hoped, but I wasn't sure. I had been totally solid, prepared for September, but here I was, tired, nothing left but a free week in Cardiff, realizing this person was home and soon I would be too. A lot of my patience and resolve crumbled to leave me once again excited, but now also anxious to get home.

We were supposed to leave at 8, but half of the van thought we were leaving at 9, so we started off on a good note. Irritated and running late, we finally hit the road. Sick of the front seat, I transferred to the back of the van so I could listen to my ipod and brood in privacy. Turns out. There's more than one "Preston" on our Gypsy. Translation: We spent over an hour driving around the Yorkshire countryside aimlessly. Now that is some beautiful countryside, and if I have a windowseat and my ipod I actually really love long drives. But not when all any of us wanted was to get "home."

The rest of the day was an equal mess. By the time we reached Preston, everyone was stir crazy and we all had to use the bathroom, so we pulled into Tesco. After using the bathrooms, we reluctantly stuffed ourselves back into the vans and ended up driving around the city, looking for who knows what. We finally park on this crowded, winding street and walk a ways to a park. We split into our cohorts and that's where we gave our tour presentations. That took approximately 3 minutes and then one of our adult leaders, Susan, jumped in with her plethora of British Church history knowledge, which was great because I was completely underprepared. Whatever, I was just trying to get it over with, and it was fairly painless. It went like this "Wilford Woodruff and Dan Jones were both AWESOME and the Church is true."

A couple people expressed interest in seeing the River Ribble, where Heber C. Kimball baptized the early converts in Great Britain. Of course most of us were hoping to skip this step and just get food and go home, but the adults felt bad that we hadn't actually seen anything in Preston, so we went. After driving around for half an hour or so, we found a random dead end to park in (I could write a blog post dedicated solely to our parking practices) and walked a mile or so to the River. There was all this construction, so we couldn't even get to the bridge that the Church built. We walked through mud clear down to this park where some clowns were putting on a puppet show for kids (which was the best part of the day, incidentally), and then turned around and walked back. At this point we were starving. But we were so sick of eating the pre-packaged sandwiches, crackers and sodas from convenience stores, so we were begging to go somewhere with a food court or restaurants. Unfortunately Preston has no such thing, so we found ourselves once again at Tesco.

Anders was very cautious parking the van because it is HUGE, so he'd always park away from cars to have more room. The parking lot wasn't very full, but Anders parked really far away from the nearest car, and as a result we were almost in the parking lot for the building next door. Everyone was tired, irritated, hungry and sick of meaningless transportation. We pull in, stop and no one even moves. Then suddenly, from the back of the van, a deadpan voice blurts out -

"Let's park further awayyyyyyyyy....." - Jessica Sloan

I laughed harder, longer, and more intensely than I have in a long, LONG time. Tears streaming down my face, I struggled to catch my breath. When we all finally composed ourselves, we clambered out of the van and walked the 2 miles of parking lot into Tesco. I went with my standard baguette, hummus, Dairy Milk chocolate and crappy Diet Coke. Feeling a little better we hung out and ate raspberries off the bushes in the parking lot (Our best idea? Probably not. We can't be held accountable for the decisions we made that day.) and tried to flush the bad experiences and irritation of the day.

Once again we were taunted with the prospect of finally heading home. We were only 15 minutes away from the Preston Chorley Temple, never mind it was 15 minutes out of the way. I really didn't mind though, because I love temples and it's a good opportunity to see one. Unfortunately the grounds were closed, but we got to see pretty close anyways.



Finally we hit the road. This ended up being one of my favorite van rides ever. Everyone was bugged and tired, so we all crashed. I almost never slept in the van (well, at all, really. I was known for being the one who was perpetually awake), but I just passed out for half the drive. Once everyone had napped, we were all up and going. We took off the headrests and all of the fun people in the back with us congregated and talked. We played the A-Z movie game where you have to name as many movies that start with the letter A and then move on through the alphabet. We swapped our favorite sound bites and catchphrases from the trip and lamented that this would be our last real day of touring and van-riding.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Penny Lane. But I was. Instead of going to bed, I stayed up super late talking with everyone online. In one week I'd be in transit to Salt Lake City! I was mildly sad about my study abroad experience basically being over, but I finally felt ready to come home.

Wales: Day 34 Men in Kilts

Friday, August 6 was an early, early morning. We caught the 7:27 am train from York to Edinburgh, but not without some difficulty. My room woke up late, so we had to sprint to catch up with the group as they walked to the train station about a mile away. Still injured from theatrics at Beaumaris, it was almost too much for my leg to handle, but I made it. The train ride was about 2.5 hours, and I should have used the time to prepare my Preston tour (everyone was assigned a cohort and a city within the cohort for them to be the expert on) or to read my "Princesses of Wales" book (we were required to read 2 books while in the UK that were either topically or historically relevant to our program. I read Jane Eyre and Princesses of Wales.), but instead I just listened to my ipod and enjoyed the ride. Riding trains is the best. It's super smooth and relaxing for me. Normally I just pass out and sleep great on our train rides, but this one was far too beautiful. We rode along the coast almost the entire way, and the sun coming up over the water, the lush green countryside and the excitement were too intoxicating.

If I had to pick one word to describe the north..... FRESH.

Edinburgh Castle is built on an extinct volcano, overlooking the city and the coast. Oh, and it's still functional. There are offices, the Crown Jewels and even a pet cemetery. Doesn't get much better than that.





A true Scot gave us a tour, but I was far too distracted by the awesome (sexy) accent to pay much attention to the information. Plus it was a madhouse there. The Scottish Military Tattoo was in town - I heard it described as the Superbowl of Bagpipes and Scottish culture. It was hard to tear myself from the castle wall and its spectacular view.





After the castle, we were off to the hipster side of town. Edinburgh is really into the rockabilly-vintage-indie-eclectic vibe. Street after street was full of vintage stores, and they were COOL. I've never been a huge thrift or vintage store shopper, but the cool vibes were undeniable. I resisted the urge to buy handfuls of cool sunglasses, and was instead intrigued for hours by masks and vintage jewelery. I ended up buying this cropped long sleeve jacket with huge pointy shoulders - true Lady Gaga style, thinking it'd make a great Halloween costume addition. Also it was only a pound. I couldn't turn that down!


The Royal Mile is the main shopping district. Tons of souvenir shops and plenty of kilted men. It was a total party. Comedy troupes and musical groups were performing and promoting EVERYWHERE, so the possibilities for entertainment were endless. It reminded me of Vegas the way everyone was trying to give us fliers, stickers and stuff. We found this a capella group of college boys that performed Backstreet Boys "in honor of the beautiful American girls," true Glee style. We LOVED them and they LOVED us.



Other performing acts included naked comedians (yikes), acrobats, fire-eating axe-jugglers (he was from America and we talked to him for half an hour or so until he started hitting on us), and some awful rock groups. Clearly we had plenty of material for humor and entertainment all day long.



Ok I know you've been dying to ask. And yes. I did have haggis (sheep heart, lungs and stuff...) It was gross. But I tried it. At a little pastry shop in downtown Edinburgh. That's pretty legit. Kayla, Jessica and I stopped along the main street performer line and got a caricature. I had never had one done before and I was really nervous that it would just crush me. That I'd look awful. That it would haunt me forever. But I actually loved the way it turned out! Quite the experience. {I'm in the middle, if you couldn't tell....} We also encouraged the foul-mouthed artist next to us to reconsider his life choices and look into the Church after he spilled a long, sad story about his recent unfortunate history. Haha guess we should have taken some pass-along cards, eh?

There were some tents with cool jewelery on our way out of the city and near the train station, so I spent half an hour and several pounds there. You guys know I'm a sucker for jewelery. We grabbed some food and boarded the train for the 2.5 hour trip back, crashing into bed really late and very tired. But ultimately pleased with our trip to Scotland. :)