Mind the Gap: Wales, Wales, Wales What Do We Have Here

Once again, I wish I had time to really give the full glory of what occurred over the missing week of my life. This was our week abroad - abroad outside of London - and it was pretty intense. We had already chosen a code word for times when we felt grumpy and we were prepared to enjoy ourselves and emerge friends at the end of six days on a bus together. I am pleased to tell you we were successful. No friendships were broken and we only had one dead body.

So what all did we do my goodness! Okay well my favorite was the Lake District. It was beautiful. I just stared out onto the lakes and the mountains and wanted to dance and sing and write poetry - can't really do much of any of those... Hahaha. So I just breathed it in. Everything is so beautiful and peaceful there. God clearly is here living and full of love for his children. How can you look at so much beauty and not feel that God wants nothing more than our happiness? He certainly soothed my tired and perhaps grumpy feathers after some difficult times. Being with BYU students also is the best because we all share a unique understanding of God's love. Thus the video is a recording of our spontaneous outbreak of hymns while we sat on the dock. So I loved it all so much. Our hostel was directly in front of one of the lakes so we definitely ran out and jumped off the dock to swim in the frigid water. We also saw Dove Cottage (home to Wordsworth). I was so excited. I think I died a couple of times being there myself. It was wonderful. English major freak out for sure. (Shout out to my mom for raising me the way every girl should be raised - loving English.)

Cardiff Castle
Llandaff Cathedral
National Museum in Wales (where I saw Monets and the Blue Lady and other random masterpieces --- Masterpiece anyone?)
Big Pit Coal Mine
Trip up to Snowdon (we were literally surrounded by fog and I've never felt more like Jane Eyre in my whole life)
Conway Castle
Time spent in Chester - we went to a cathedral, Chester Rows, and wandered around in general. Everything closes super early here in the UK so there came a point when there wasn't much to do.
Some pretty crazy girl nights and movie nights
Traumatic Slavery Exhibit in Liverpool. It was not very organized to begin with and then it was brutally honest in a really... horrifying way.
We spent a good hour or so getting on and off the bus to look at church history sites... that weren't there... so that was fun. Lol. "Imagine what this would have looked like!" "We don't know if this is the right street or where the building would have been, but get off the bus and let's look around!" We were all pretty darn tired for that kind of trip.
More church history sites throughout Preston - we actually got a really fun tour from an LDS Englishman!
LAKE DISTRICT AND DOVE COTTAGE
Morton House - it was this random stop we made and none of us knew why we were
We eventually ended up at the Potteries... they were... It was our last day and we were all exhausted. It was just a museum and had no gift shop or anything so it was a bit of a bust. Suffice it to say that nowadays you're asked, "on a scale from the Potteries to Dove Cottage how was--?" Or when we're angry we'll tell someone to "go to the potteries." It's basically the biggest joke here.

That's all I can think of for now. It was an incredible trip though. I can't even describe how much fun I had. There were also some crazy things that went down and my friends here were unbelievably supportive. They laughed and joked and just made me feel better if ever I was feeling down. We also have dubbed the professor's wives Mama Wood and Mama Benfell. They fill in as mothers for us when we miss our own - though no one can beat my real mother. So it was just bonding and wonderful and a dream every day.

"For oft, when on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude; / And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils." - "I wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by Wordsworth