Daily Details: August 2

Early in the morning, Laura, Whitney, and I headed to back to the V&A Museum to see what we had not had time to see on our first visit there. As I grabbed a map of the museum, this old gentleman that worked there started asking all of these questions about what we had seen. Every exhibit that he asked if we had seen, we hadn’t and he explained them in great detail and told us the ones we should not miss out on. I appreciated how friendly and helpful he was, because many of the exhibits he pointed out were ones I didn’t know were there or hadn’t planned on seeing. The theatre and arts section was my favorite. In it, they had some FABULOUS costumes from anything from ballets to rock concerts. I got to see some GORGEOUS tutus from Swan Lake that famous ballerinas have danced in, and then on the opposite spectrum, costumes Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) and Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones) have worn in their concerts. I also saw antique marionettes, set models, etc…I LOVED that exhibit!

From the V&A, we headed across the street to attend church at the Single’s Ward in Hyde Park. Once inside, we were welcomed by the sweetest British guy ever—his name was Andrew. He started asking us where we were from and when we said Utah, he said, “Oh, do you guys go to BYU?” I think it’s hilarious that all LDS people outside of Utah think you must automatically go there. Thank heavens I don’t! Anyway, then he introduced us to some of his friends. I felt so welcomed. It was fast and testimony meeting that day, so it was very nice to be able to hear everyone’s testimonies. Again, I was amazed that so many people had American accents. The bishop had everyone stand up at the end of the meeting who has been there 1 year or less (even if it was your first time coming). The large majority of the ward has been there under a year or are visitors like I did. His point in doing this was to encourage us to talk to each other and not feel like we’re the only “new kids on the block”. We just stayed for Sacrament Meeting, and on our way out, we saw some missionaries that my friend Laura had met a few days previous on the tube. We stopped to say hi and chatted for a bit. They were so sweet!

After going home and eating some lunch, we were headed to Hyde Park to just take a leisurely stroll through it. Hyde Park is the Central Park of London. It was absolutely beautiful! In addition to all of the beautiful flowers, they have this man-made canal that runs through it and you can rent paddle boats and go out on the water if you wish. They had these INCREDIBLE trees whose branches grow downward in such a way that if you walk in between the branches you’re in this covered canopy of leaves. It was AWESOME! We saw the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and a Peter Pan sculpture. Londoners are BIG on Peter Pan stuff. I don’t really know much about Peter Pan so I’ll have to check that out and see what all the hype is about.
Our last stop of the day was to Covent Garden. The area is known for its shopping mostly, but we went there to see the street performers that it is also well-known for. The first street performer we saw was similar to one we saw in Rome, except this guy kept taking of his clothes until he was down to a Speedo and making rather crude innuendos. Oddly enough, my friend Laura predicted exactly what he was going to do—she went to London 5 years ago and it was the same guy performing the same act! Suffice it to say, we left pretty quickly once we saw the direction the show was headed in. We strolled through the shopping mall and found ourselves on the opposite end of the square where this cute guy was singing GREAT songs like “Apologize”, “When A Man Loves A Woman”, and music from artists like U2 and Coldplay. The three of us started listening to him and found ourselves glued to the cobblestone street—his voice was that incredible! Laura had done her research on Covent Garden and learned that the street performers that perform in Covent Garden have to actually audition and be accepted to perform there. Crazy, eh?

We were all so content as we left Covent Garden and headed home. The rest of the night (and really, into the wee hours of the morning), Laura, Whitney, and I sat and chatted as we snacked, blogged and sketched. It was a great low-key day and I enjoyed every bit of time that I spent with my friends.