English Fall

Cambridge is beautiful right now. All the trees are shedding their leaves sprinkling the ground with the colors of fall. The only color the leaves are missing is orange. A few of the collages have vines growing up the sides of the wall that have turned red. The colors are stunning.

In front of Kings College Cathedral.

I a great opportunity to go to London and visit Parliament and the Churchill War museum. There is a group I discovered for new comers so visiting faculty and families of students. They have weekly meetings and many groups and activities to get involved with. Parliament is amazing. The architecture is fantastic. The buildings are all done in the neo-gothic style. Pugen was the architect for rebuilding parliament after it was burnt down. The entrance is the oldest standing building. It has been around since before Henry VIII. There has been a building on Parliament's site for a thousand years. The decor is fantastic. I was amazed. The two main places on our were the royal robing room, the house of Lords. There are three colors used in Parliament: blue for the royalty, red for the lords, and green for the commoners. When the Queen comes to visit once a year they have to carpet the whole building in blue. The House of Lords is completely red. All of the carpet, furniture, etc. The House of Commons is all green. Yesterday the House of Commons was having elections but we did not get to see the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Being a political science major I was loving it. The Churchill War Museum was interesting as well. The museum is where the Churchill War Rooms are. Its where Churchill's head quarters were during WWII. Most of what was there during WWII is still there. The museum also had a exhibit devoted to Churchill. You could probably spend a month and still not get through all the information on Churchill. 

Halloween went by without to many festivities. The British do not really celebrate Halloween. Lyndon and I carved some pumpkins and we were going to put them out on the front porch and our wardens asked us not to so not to offend anyone. Later we found out they do not celebrate Halloween. We kept the pumpkins in our room until they started to mold. We did not realize they were molding. They molded quickly too. We carved them on Monday and had to throw them out on Thursday. Our ward put on a murder mystery dinner for Halloween. It was really well done and the food was great too. We also went to Halloween formal at St. Edmund's College. Every weekend the colleges have formals which are just fancy three course meals. Everyone dresses up and it is a good way to make contacts. The formal was held in the great hall of the college and since most of them look like castles it felt more Halloweenish. I had fun at all of our Halloween activities but I miss the American way of celebrating it. I went to this lecture and this person tried to say that Halloween is not an American holiday. Yes originally the Halloween tradition was in Ireland and Scotland but America has taken the holiday and modified it. Lyndon and I agree it is an American holiday.

Our awesome pumpkins. Lyndon's is on the left and mine is on the right.

Lyndon's supervisor is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin. He is pretty excited about that. They are going to discuss the creation some time. His supervisor's office is located in Trinity College. If anyone is familiar with the movie Chariots of Fire the epic race that took place in the beginning of the film took place at Trinity College in the square where Lyndon's supervisor has his office. That film is one of my parent's favorites so I enjoyed seeing the square. 

I went to the World Premiere of Harry Potter last week in London with a couple of friends. It was a lot of fun. We stood outside in the cold for ten hours waiting to see Harry Potter. It paid off because I got to see the wizard himself, Harry Potter! Plus his side kicks Hermione and Ron. And his arch nemesis Draco Malfoy. I also saw Kingsley Shackelbolt, Arthur Weasley, and Dean Thomas.  I got to hear interviews with most of the characters from the film. The entire Weasley family was at the premiere. Voldermort showed his face as well. When they announced Voldemort was in the house everyone cheered. I booed because he is pure evil! J.K. Rowling was there  too. Lyndon and I need to go see the movie now. We have to watch the sixth one again before we the Deathly Hallows. 

At Leicester Square in London waiting to see Harry Potter.

We got a calling. We are the Faith in God teachers for the primary kids age 8-11. We meet twice a month and work on different activities with them. Our first activity was this week. The activity we planned was on setting a budget and tithing. The kids are rowdy but at the end I believe they took away something from our lesson. Some of the rowdy ones at least answered the questions correctly. Our ward is really great and we are happy to become involved.