Greetings from Dublin! So I'm just at the airport at our group's designated meeting spot and I figured I'd make use of my time (and the great wifi) to update this blog! Alrighty, let's do a recap of what went down this past week! So last Saturday morning we left the pirates behind in cold, rainy Penzance and journeyed to some biomes, known as the "Eden Project". They had a tropical biome and a Mediterranean one! It kind of looked like some sort of alien colony from the outside but inside it was so warm and the plants were beautiful!!

They had a fake waterfall :)

So beautiful! And poky! After the Eden Project we traveled to Stourhead where we walked through gorgeous gardens. This was the place where they filmed some of the scenes in the new 'Pride and Prejudice' film (specifically when Mr. Darcy tells Elizabeth that he loves her and it's raining and they are standing by those Roman columns!)

That there's the place! Then that night Ashley and I found the SUPER TESCO!! We walked through cold pouring rain just to get there, but we made it! It's our favorite grocery store here! We like to get strawberries, raspberries, and of course chocolate here.

Church was good on Sunday. We had Ward Conference so someone from the Stake taught Young Women's. Though the ward is much smaller here, the church is still the same, even halfway around the world. It's always a comfort to know that. On Monday we had class, and I decided to go on a London Walk with a small group of my classmates. I wanted it to end at the British Library, but that didn't quite work out...nevertheless we did complete most of the walk successfully! The British Library was really neat! It had original Shakespeare texts, Beatles sheet music, Jane Austen originals, and something I was blown away by- fragments of the original New Testament writings of St. John! Craziness!! I saw his handwriting!! That night I went with a group to go see the new Spiderman movie at a theatre down the street. I decided to see it here because we get a student discount, so it's cheaper to see in London than the U.S.! It was very well done and I quite enjoyed it! Oh and it was in an old theatre built around 1914, so that made it even cooler! Tuesday we went to Hampton Court Palace, which had a beautiful inside and a classic, well-manicured garden outside.

Disregard the random man on the side, and it's a great picture!!

They had onions in the kitchen, and we got to dress up in robes! My inner child was being nourished!

This was one of the statues outside the palace. I thought it looked epic. Then yesterday was a jam-packed day trip! We traveled on bus to Oxfordshire and went to Oxford University! We visited the Ashmolean Museum and let me tell you, it is by far my favorite museum of all time!!! Why? Because it contains sculptures from Rodin, paintings by Van Dyke, Tintoretto, Van Gogh, Manet, AND HAS THE MESSIAH STRAD VIOLIN! I about died. We barely had time to scrape the surface of it, so I need to find time to go back. We also went to a Charles Dickens exhibit at the Bodlean Library at Oxford and also went to the 'Harry Potter hospital wing' used for the movie. After I had purchased my much coveted Oxford sweatshirt, we traveled to Blenhiem Palace where Winston Churchill was born. This has been my favorite palace so far. Our tour guide was great too-she barked for us. Oh and this palace had more rugged gardens, so it had more of a 'Hyde Park' feel, plus sheep and a fun electric fence. After we left Oxfordshire, we came back to London, grabbed dinner at Waggamama's, and saw a chamber concert at a Catholic church. It featured a clarinet soloist and ensemble playing Mozart and Brahms. It was beautiful! I love just closing my eyes and getting lost in the music. It really made me want to play my violin! Now it's today, Thursday and I'm still at the airport, waiting for the group to arrive. I'm starting to get a little worried because they should be here by now, but who knows, maybe their flight got delayed. I can already tell a difference in atmosphere here in Dublin- the people are much more outgoing! I cut it pretty close with the flight this morning (due to the fact that the Gatwick express train DID NOT leave 15 minutes early like I thought it would), so I was sweating it at security when I had 5 minutes to be at my gate and they were slowly re-checking my bag. I lost my contact solution and face wash because I didn't think ahead about the liquid regulations. Oh well, you live and learn! I'm excited to see what Ireland brings! Enjoy some more pictures!

The Messiah STRADIVARIUS :D

Hospital Wing-Unfortunatley we didn't time travel :( Guess I needed Dumbledore's assistance...

Beautiful Blenheim Palace (note the clouds!). We weren't allowed to walk on the gravel because the Duke has it raked....

Gardens outside the palace

Caught this picture while riding a train home. Maybe I'll find the pot of gold here in Ireland!