Skip to main content

Finally Catching Up: My LAST London Post!

    First of all, I am eternally grateful to everyone who made it possible for me to spend the best seven weeks of my life travelling around Europe and living in London. I will cherish the experiences I have had and the friends I have made forever! Anyways, enough with the sappiness and onto my last few experiences abroad!
    After our last Monday of classes, my friends Daniel, Olivia, and I ventured to Leicester Square to try and get tickets to Phantom of the Opera for that evening. The prices were a little outrageous, so we ended up booking for Tuesday night instead! We ended up just walking around for an hour and a half trying to find these book stores I wanted to go back to. Though we were ultimately unsuccessful, I love just walking around the different parts of London! The city is breathtakingly beautiful. On Tuesday, we were able to go to the London Temple! It was so neat to travel there as a group and be in the temple together! That evening Daniel, Olivia, Sarah, and I went and saw Phantom of the Opera, after a bit of a late exit from the Centre which forced us to RUN from the Piccadilly Circus tube stop to the theater and make it just in time! The performance was INCREDIBLE. I hadn't been planning on seeing Phantom, but I'm so glad I did! I told myself I would only go see two shows but I saw four. Don't mention it.
    The next day, we took a day trip to Blenheim Palace and Oxford! Blenheim had the most incredible gardens and was situated right by a lake. Before touring the palace, we explored the beautiful rose gardens and the path that ran along the lake. Out of all of the many palaces and castles we visited, this one was probably one of my favorites! Oxford was incredible. It's so different from universities in America. Each college has a completely different building spread throughout the town. The town itself is so charming and I absolutely loved it. I'm probably going to transfer. BYU just isn't as pretty, or as green! As we explored the town, we noticed that the the students were all dressed in robes, and we saw one who was covered from head to toe in confetti. We found out later that the students dress up for their exams, and then people wait at the gates as they leave and throw confetti at them! The whole time we were there, I was thinking about how BYU should take some notes! How great would it be to walk out of the Testing Center during finals and have people throwing confetti at you?
     The next evening after a day of exploring markets and a few other places we hadn't been yet, I FINALLY got to see Les Mis at the West End! Other than some technical difficulties in the middle that forced a ten minute pause in the show and the actor playing the bishop having a horrendous singing voice, it was INCREDIBLE! I pretty much cried through the entire second act. Les Mis has always been one of my very favorite musicals! The music is amazing and the story is beautiful! It was so special to get to see it with my wonderful new friends my last week in London!
      The following day we visited St. Paul's Cathedral and hiked up about 1,000 stairs to a panoramic view of London. Even though I thought I was going to fall and die on the spiral staircases, the view was SO worth the terror! Looking out over the beautiful view just made me feel so lucky to have lived in such an incredible city!
      Saturday of that week was our very last market day. One of the things I miss the most about London is exploring the incredible markets and eating delicious street food! Our last night there was pretty fantastic! After one last dinner at the Centre (pizza from Dominoes, keepin it classy), we had a little party as a group. One of the girls asked me to sing at it, and my super talented friend Daniel put together a medley of songs from Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis that we sang together! It was SO much fun! Then, my friend Olivia and I spontaneously decided that we couldn't leave without visiting the iconic Abbey Road, where the Beatles took their classic album cover picture. We snapped the classic picture, and then Olivia got hit on by a creepy drunk guy in a tube station, leading to us sprinting through the station to find another line we could take! A classic London adventure!
       Studying abroad was everything I dreamed it to be and more. Seeing London, Paris, Scotland, and so many other parts of England only increased my itch to travel and see even more of the world! It was truly the adventure of a lifetime, and I can't wait to see what new adventures the next few years have in store for me!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Birthday Shoutout to my Favorite Missionary Cousin!

What better way to return from my unintentional blogging hiatus, than to write a birthday blog in honor of my favorite cousin? Whenever I describe Matthew to my friends I refer to him as, "my cousin who's kind of more like my brother." In honor of his birthday, this weekend I was reading through some of our e-mails that we've written to each other while he's been on his mission and selected my top 10 favorite quotes that encapsulate ten of my favorite things about Matthew. 1. He will forever be a matchmaker.  "So a guy in my ward sent you a message on Facebook. He was going to say that he's single and looking for a girl to take to the temple. I said that would probably be a little strange." Side note: He sent it to the wrong Sarah Freeman, so I never got it.  2. He appreciates good television.  "So I've been e-mailing Michael Scott. I thought you would appreciate that he's been working in the mission office. Please think about th...

Shipps on a Ship Part 1

        It truly feels like just yesterday my grandparents gathered our family in the living room of our rented beach house and told us that they were taking us on a Disney Cruise. In reality, it was a year and a half ago and at the time it seemed like November 2014 would never come. It still almost felt like a dream even as we boarded our plane to Orlando last Saturday after MUCH airport turmoil, i.e. Michael forgetting his carry on at security, Jonathan getting a bloody nose, and me almost losing my debit card. Against all odds, the Shipp cousins made it to Orlando in one piece. I always get teary-eyed when I see my family after a few months away, and this time was no exception! Just as we were getting settled into our hotel room, we found out that our toilet was broken, so we had to move rooms! Once we were finally settled, Uncle Dave was kind enough to take as many cousins as could pile into his van for a McDonald's run. We spent Sunday in Downtown Disney, visiti...

Life Changes and New Adventures

          I thought that I had the next couple of years of my life all figured out. I am a prime example of a chronic over-thinker, and the queen of the pro/con list. I had carefully thought out every recent decision I had made. I was settled at the school where I had been working, I had a good apartment and ward, and I had just been accepted to a 2 year long Master's of Education program, which would fulfill one of my long term goals. Yet something still felt off. Despite the fact that I thought I had a good direction in my life, I felt confused and unsettled. It felt like I was trapped inside a box. I would walk in one direction, hit the wall of the box only to turn in another direction and hit another wall.          The problem was, I just could not figure out what it was that wasn't right. I started taking the long way driving home from work each day and praying about my concerns. It took a couple of weeks of this before seemingly o...