Sunday, April 6, 2014

So We Went to Europe: England Part 2

After leaving them we took the train back to London.  When we got there we found a place to leave our luggage for the day, taking the bare minimum for what we thought we would need at the temple.  We hopped on the train and headed out again.  I might have forgotten what stop we were supposed to get off on though...and the train ride was considerably longer than we had anticipated.

I got pretty nervous towards the end of the ride.  Turns out, the very last stop happened to be the right one.  I can't remember now how we knew to get off there.  Anyways.  Luckily Brea talked me into getting a cab instead of walking, and a few miles later we got to the temple accommodations.

Turns out it's not really so much like a hotel.  I had expected there to be towels and stuff at least.  Nope.  So we had no towels, no soap, nothing.  The sheets were folded on the end of the bed that we had to make ourselves.  But it was only thirty or forty pounds which was cheaper than we would have found elsewhere I'm sure.  That night we walked to a pub/restaurant where I got the huge half chicken in what they called Yorkshire pudding covered in gravy.  It was alright, though not as amazing as it could have been.

But the temple session was great at least.  We happened to be there with a stake from France, so we were the ones that had to were the headphones.  It was a really nice spiritual moment in the middle of the vacation.  It definitely made me appreciate the proximity of temples in the US.  I had certainly never had to plan a temple stay to visit a temple before, and these French saints had to travel hours longer than we had.  I am always impressed with the sacrifice of so many church members.

After our session we headed back to London where we walked around and visited some of the famous sites: Buckingham Palace,  Big Ben, Parliament, and a few of the cathedrals around.  Stopped at a little cafe for lunch/dinner and the jumped on the train for our few hour long ride underneath the English Channel to Paris!




Though it wasn't bad, it unfortunately wasn't as delicious as I wanted.
 
Where all the workers live I think.
Our little room after we made the bed.
But they do include this helpful reminder.


Buckingham Palace


The English person on the other end of the line
was getting very worked up.