We started the week by going to the Ham House, which is apparently haunted by a duchess and her dog.
I was looking forward to busting some ghosts but the only bust I saw was of this dude.
Creepy? Absolutely! I'm thankful he didn't hitchhike his way into my dune buggy and follow me home.
My favorite part of the Ham House trip was walking along the bank of the River Thames; it's about a mile or so walk. The scenery is beautiful with rowboats, flowers and trees along the path. I could walk this trail everyday and never get sick of it.
It's a good thing I'm walking a lot because I am addicted to the candy bars out here. Seriously, this is a problem. I don't have Brian -- my personal trainer -- to stop me from indulging in these super fatty, sugary gifts from the heavens. Since you're not here, I'm blaming you Brian.
Behold, my babies. They are all so good. I particularly like the Twirl, Guylian, and Bueno.
We went to the Tate Britain and saw many modern art thingys. There were some really great paintings, especially from William Turner. I loved looking at his compositions; his subjects usually inhabit the lower area of the canvas with a lot of headroom/landscape occupying the majority of the canvas. Additionally, when it's more common to have the foreground to be brighter than the background, Turner typically inverses the lighting and works in flat space. It's interesting to look at paintings and try and connect styles to filmmakers. In relation to Turner, Jeff Parkin and I talked about the similarities and differences between aesthetic approaches from Wes Anderson to Stanley Kubrick, as well as Peter Jackson.
And then there's this nightmare.
We thought we were so clever with this one. From front to back: Alexis, Caitlin, Malori, Neeko, Amy, Peter, and me I guess.
One of my favorite things about London are the street musicians. They're not always great, and some are really bizarre, but I love it. Here's a couple samples.
We went to the National Theatre once again to preview a new production of Medea, starring Helen McCrory (aka Mrs. Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies). She knocked it out of the park and gave one of the most impressive performances I've ever seen. The play is a modern retelling of a Greek tragedy about the horrors of revenge. The play was only about an hour and a half with no intermission. I loved that it was so short. I feel that most plays/movies are usually longer than they need to be. Remember how Gravity was only 90 minutes? Perfect length.
The highlight of the week was our group excursion to the Lake District. I have never seen anything as beautiful as this place. Seriously, I felt like I was in the Shire. We took a 6 hour bus ride to get there and stopped by the Preston Temple on the way. We had fallen behind schedule so we missed the opportunity to do an endowment session but we were able to do baptisms. It's a beautiful temple. One of the temple workers gave a brief talk before we began. He asked the question: "Why are you in the temple today?" No one answered. He asked again, "This shouldn't be a difficult question. Why are you in the temple today?" A few classmates gave answers that more or less included: doing work for those can't do it for themselves. The worker acknowledged the importance of that aspect of temple work but highlighted perhaps a greater reason. He said in addition for temples being a place where work is done for the dead, temples are even more important for the living. He said, "we come to the temple to feel the Spirit."
I love this insight. It's so simple, maybe even too simple that we may disregard it initially. It's rather profound that we can go to a place and expect to feel the Spirit to comfort, cleanse, and counsel us. As much as I love London, there's no denying that it's a very noisy atmosphere, and is frequently a very worldly place. I appreciated the contrast of the temple atmosphere. Feeling the Spirit is a really important thing and I'm grateful for feeling it in the temple that day. When you consistently find ways to feel the Spirit, life seems to just work out the way it should.
We arrived at the Lake District Thursday evening and left back to London Saturday afternoon. Honestly, I wish we could have spent a few more days here. It's no exaggeration that it is the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It's so green and the lakes are breathtaking. The first night we arrived we all went to a nearby lake/park and ate pizza, played games, and walked around the lake, skipping stones and the like.
A group of us played Ninja and I'm proud to say I went undefeated 4/4. I may have lost all my friends by the end of that last game. They wanted to defeat me so bad....but they didn't. I AM A NINJA FIEND!
We stayed in this Hostel for a couple nights and I didn't sleep because one of my roommates was a snorer. I've come down with a small cold because of it I think -- from a lack of sleep, not the snoring. Unless you can catch a cold from snoring?
On Friday we went to Dove Cottage where William Wordsworth lived. It was great learning more about him.
After reading some of his poems and seeing the amazing gardens here, part of me is interested in picking up gardening....someday. That sort of intimidates me because I don't know the first thing about gardening. It must be rewarding though. Maybe therapeutic? I'll have to start small, you know, like Chia Pet small.
I had my heart set on having second breakfast, but alas, Biblo's Cafe was closed. Dream: crushed.
We all went on a neat little boat ride seeing the landscape of the Lake District and on Saturday morning we hiked up a short trail that overlooks Windermere of the Lake District and it was one of the most incredible views I've ever seen in my life. The Lake District in general has got to be the closest you can get to heaven. Pictures don't do it justice.
Fellow travelers (left to right): Peter, Drew, Ethan, Frodo, Hannah, Amy.
Thanks for reading.
Love William Turner. And I'm so jealous of your trip. :)
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