London Bridge is Falling Down...

My apologies for the lack of updates these past few days! I have two excuses: first, for some reason I've been falling asleep around 8:00 pm and have therefore lost precious blogging time. And second, a couple of negative things happened this past week (one hilarious after the fact and the other decidedly NOT) and it has taken me a little time to get my emotions back under control. In an effort not to offend anyone, I won't go into any more detail than that here. Just know that I am okay and that Heavenly Father has everything well in hand. (I noticed in church how certain other experiences this past week had been directly leading up the the larger one and that I had been well prepared to handle it when the time came. And immediately after realizing this, we had a Sunday School lesson on how sometimes our trials are meant to prepare us and so we just have to have faith because we never know what Heavenly Father will be able to use to teach us later on. It was a good Sunday.) So! Where was I last? Saturday? Not much to say there. We went to the National Portrait Gallery and learned a lot about English history. I will say that it is interesting to look at things like the Revolutionary War and the World Wars from another country's perspective. It amuses me how solemn and matter-of-fact the British are about the "American Declaration of Independence" when in the States we're decidedly more enthusiastic about our country's birth. We had other plans for Saturday that were unfortunately thwarted by circumstances beyond our control, so we finished off the week with a grocery store visit. As mentioned above, Church on Sunday was amazing, though there were easily as many local Americans there as there were English. We had a leisurely day that mostly involved walking up to and around Kensington Gardens. It's beautiful! Kind of reminds me of the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. We saw Kesington Palace, a lake filled with swans, a double rainbow, dogs of all shapes and sizes, beautiful flowers, some Italian-style fountains, some gorgeous views, and a statue of Peter Pan. All in all, it was quite serene and enjoyable. That leaves us with today, I suppose! Classes, as usual, followed by a visit to the Imperial War Museum. I think I can say with certainty now that I don't much care for War Museums, though I understand why we have them. I just don't think that I need the constant reminders of how horrible people can be to each other. There was an extensive and thorough Holocaust exhibit that you couldn't go through if you were under 14. It was a very heavy visit, to say the least, and we all felt the need to lighten things up when we left. ...So we flagged down a doubledecker and hopped a ride to the Millennium Bridge. This was our first time on a doubledecker, and we got seats at the top right in front. I have decided that I very much like public transportation in London. When you're not being crowded by people, the tube and the buses all feel a little bit like Disneyland rides. (Random side note: the tube is expecting a million extra passengers per day during the Olympics. Sheesh!) Now, the Millennium Bridge. It's the pedestrian bridge that the death eaters destroy in the Half-Blood Prince movie. And it's awesome. From there we walked to London Bridge and too more pictures, then took the tube to Big Ben for a friend who hadn't seen it yet. I also got a few London postcards. Here's a recommendation to everyone to check out the trailer for Rise of the Guardians. It's Dreamworks's next movie, coming out in November. I think it's going to be amazing, but my interest could stem from Jack Frost's design and dialogue reminding me a lot of Hiccup. Go watch!