New York Day: 6

Today was the hardest to get up.  But We had to pack and be out of our rooms by 9am.  One thing I have learned on this trip is that it really doesn’t take me that long to get ready.  We got all our stuff put in the room and went to Jamba again for breakfast and then headed to the fashion district to shop for fabric.  We went to 3 different stores that sold spandex to find material to make swimsuits for our class.  Finally we found some we liked at a store but it took forever to try to figure it out.  We then decided to go to 5^th avenue and go to the nice stores down there.  It was actually really fun to stop in to some of the stores.  We went to Steve Madden and probably could have spent the whole day there.  I loved looking at the shoes.  They didn’t have the ones I liked in my size, but I got flip-flops for mom and I.  We were probably just sitting in there for an hour an they brought us whatever we asked, it was so nice!  On our way down the street we stopped into Urban Outfitters and H&M.  We also passed by Abercrombie and Fitch, which is funny because there is a line out the door.  They have live models inside with their shirts off and stuff, pretty crazy.  Hollister is awesome because the front of their store is a huge TV screen of the surfers at Huntington Beach.  They also have live models.  We also stopped into Sephora, which was awesome because of how it was designed with balconies and everything.  Our last stop was Henry Bendel, we felt weird walking in because it was so nice but we went in and it was awesome!!  Its an old mansion that they have turned into a store.  A girl wanted to show us hair stuff so she did our hair.  She just re-curled Desi’s hair and straightened/curled mine, except she didn’t do the back.  So I had wavy hair in the front and curly hair in the back.  We decided we were hungry so we stopped to eat at the Plaza Hotel (like in Home Alone, Eloise and Bride wars).  We just got sandwiches from a cheese shop (they had like different food sections).  I got an Italian grilled cheese that was way too cheesy…I couldn’t eat the whole thing.  I forgot my metro card so we walked back to the hotel, but it only took us like 30 minutes so we had time to kill.  We went to Time Square and just sat at a table and chilled.  After we got to the hotel and put our purchases in our luggage we were waiting in the lobby and the fire alarm went off.  It was funny because no one moved or did anything and then they announced it was a false alarm.  Our bus came and we watched them load our luggage before getting on.  As we were standing there a weird guy dressed up as Elvis came right up to Desi and stood there staring at her till she noticed, it was way weird!  We hurried onto the bus.  It took us 2 hours on the bus to get to the airport because of rush hour, which meant we had a little over an hour to check in and go through security.  We got special treatment checking in and ran to the security line.  Everyone was split up and trying to figure out what to do.  I got in the security line and realized something had to be done because we weren’t moving and our flight was boarding in 20 minutes.  I went up to the guy and told him the situation and everyone in our group joined me.  So I told him we had a class that needed to get through security fast.  He let us through!  I have never done anything like that before.  It was still a long wait though because they only had one guy checking tickets and two scanner things.  We ran to the gate only to find out we had to take a shuttle to our gate.  Everyone started getting together and then we realized Desi was the only one missing, so we were calling her like crazy.  Two girls went running to find her just as the shuttle was loading, thankfully they did and we all got on the shuttle with 20 minutes till our flight was supposed to leave.  We got to the gate just in time an got on the plane.  I mean I doubt they would have left with 20 people missing, but it was a crazy experience.  So now I am on the plane and we are supposed to arrive around 11pm.  I am planning on opening my mission call around midnight.  So that will be crazy!!  I’ve been freaking out about it.  I want to open it, but I don’t.  It kind of makes me feel stressed and scared and like throwing up, but I am sure it’ll be okay once I open it.

New York Day: 5

So I guess last night Desi woke up and our faces were an inch apart.  Yep a little awkward, don’t worry she rolled over so her back was to me.  Oh the joys of sharing a bed.  We slept in a little longer than our alarm today but still made it in time for breakfast!  We got Jamba juice and it was fantastic!! 

Our first appointment was at the Anna Sui Boutique.  It was sooo cute!!  When I open a boutique I want furniture like she had!  Her store felt more like home than a store and had lots of really cute things!  I thought it was so funny because they were talking about make up and how everyone wants their eyebrows to be pointy and then she pointed to me and said like yours!  I just laughed to myself because I had just plucked my eyebrows the night before; I couldn’t stand them anymore and it totally paid off!! Hahaha

On our way to our next appointment we stopped in Chinatown.  Yes of course I bought a few things.  I got a cute new purse and a I <3 NY sweatshirt.  Desi and I decided to shop there instead of eat so we didn’t get lunch before our next appointment at Macy’s.  We got to take a tour of Macy’s and then shop for a little.  It was the first Macy’s ever built and the first store with escalators; they were wood!! I learned a lot of cool things, like that they put food stores in each section according to the age group that they are selling to. 

Our next appointment was Anne Klein Suiting.  They talked to us about sales and also designing suits.  We got to take a tour of it too and it looked like it would be way cool!  We then walked through central park, where a bird almost pooped on me and a guy spit and it almost went on my feet.  Gross!!  We went to the Metropolitan Museum and saw a cool Egyptian temple and the picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware!!  It was probably my favorite!  I looked at it forever; it ws huge!!  Desi and I then figured out a bus to take to the fashion district.  We were going to go to a fabric store to buy swimsuit material but it was closed when we got there, so we decided to go eat.  Which was good because I was exhausted!  We went to Shake Shack!  It is supposedly the best burgers and shakes in New York!  It was way good!!  A guy we sat by talked to us about New York and plays and actually the Book of Mormon play.  He said that it didn’t really disrespect Mormons and that it actually made him like Mormons even more, so that’s good to hear from a random guy.  Then we were going to shop but couldn’t find the store we wanted to go to.

New York Day: 3

Desi and I had a late wake up.  I was sleeping so beautifully and then she tapped me and said it was 8:36am.  We were supposed to meet at 9:15.  I didn’t jump out of bed though to get ready; I just put my make up on in bed.  We actually got ready in time but didn’t have time for breakfast.  Good thing I am used to not eating breakfast.  We met up with everyone and went to our first appointment, which was the Tobe Report.  It is like fashion forecasting for companies.  We saw a power point and learned all about what they do there, it sounded way awesome!! 

New York Day: 2

Well to start out a great day our clock/radio went off at 12:30am.  We couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so we just unplugged it.  The real wake up call was at 7am.  Which meant I slept in ten more minutes.  Somehow I got ready way fast so I just kind of chilled on the bed.  We met in the lobby at 8:15 and walked to the subway.  Desi and I figured it out pretty quick since we had used the tube so much in London.  I had no idea where we were going for church but then I saw a big white building with an angel Moroni on top!  We had church in the Manhattan Temple!!  So cool! 

It was a way pretty morning rainy morning, but I loved it because it smelled fresh and everything seemed cleaner than yesterday.  Desi and I decided there was no better place to fill up our water than the temple drinking fountains, that water has to be clean.

There was this cute little boy on the row in front of us and he was showing me his key and quarter.  Then is mom asked if he wanted to see his friends and as they were walking away he called back to me, “I’ll be right back!”  It was way funny and cute.  Sacrament meeting was really good.  Two of the speakers talked about the scriptures and the word of God and a family sang the As Sisters in Zion/Army of Helaman medley.  They we were really good.  Austin Boaz was the concluding speaker.  The whole time I thought he looked familiar and then he got up and talked about himself and then I knew!  I talked to him after; of course he didn’t remember me because I was a little tike when he was friends with Ryan.  But I just said I was from Murrieta and Ryan was my brother.  I gave him the scoop on what’s going on with Ryan and then headed off for Sunday school and Relief Society.

After church we met with our tour guide and took the Subway/walked to the ferry.  On the ferry we went past the Statue of Liberty, which is on Liberty Island, and headed for Ellis Island.  We went into the museum at Ellis Island; before we looked around we went to the cafeteria to eat lunch.  I tried to order a turkey burger (I don’t really know why I didn’t just go for a normal one, maybe I was trying to be healthy), but instead of getting a turkey burger I ended up with a veggie burger.  I didn’t realize until after I bite into it.   Pretty disgusting!  They gave me vegetables to put on the veggie burger (I don’t know why you would need more veggies on veggies, but oh well) I had to finish my burger by eating French fries with every bite.  I was telling the girls I was sitting with that I had never had a veggie burger before and would never order one because I don’t even like vegetables that much.  But I had to eat it or I would get hungry later.  After lunch we looked around the museum.  It was pretty cool.  I tried to find the book of names to find my ancestors but couldn’t.  Thank goodness for the gift shop though because they had a book of names and I found mine!  I also did this interactive game there were you choose a character and immigrate.  I was a little 6-year-old named Alice (yes the game was for kids) and I was coming from the UK.  I had to label stuff and everything and sadly I got deported.  I didn’t pass the mental test because I couldn’t rotate and place different size rectangles in a square in 30 seconds.  I could see how to do it, it just took me a little to figure out how to rotate them.  Dr. Baugh said that I need not worry since I go to BYU I definitely would have passed the test.  Then Dr. Burnham was like well…. hahahaha I love Dr. Baugh and Dr. Burnham; they are so funny, especially together.  We got back on the ferry and then went to the 9/11 memorials.  It was 2 huge pools of water/fountains that were the size of the towers and deep too.  They had all the names of the people who died on the walls.  It was way pretty and calm.  Since it was way rainy we decided to be done sightseeing for the day, which was okay with me.  I was dressed pretty warm and wearing boots, but I didn’t bring an umbrella so sometimes I shared with Desi.  So I was pretty wet, but the rain made my hair curlier than it has ever been!  After the subway ride home we went up to our room to chill a little/dry off before dinner.  I just laid on the bed trying to decide if I should change.  I didn’t really bring any clothes besides business clothes and 1 pair of jeans (which may be getting a lot more wear than I thought).  Also I forgot to pack socks besides long socks and tights.  Ooops.  That is why it is important to not pack the night before.  I guess I have a little shopping to do tomorrow. 

Well we changed and headed out into the rain again for John’s Pizzeria.  Our tour guide told us it was the best in New York.  It was like a way nice restaurant selling pizza, which I like!  Hahaha The pizza really was way good!  I was skeptical at first but you can taste a difference in a well-made fresh pizza vs. others.  I liked it a lot.  The guy tried to convince us to eat dessert and not go out in the rain but we didn’t.  Now we are back at the hotel getting ready for bed and chilling.  Going to bed early tonight since we have a busy day tomorrow, well everyday is busy. 

New York Day: 1

Today began yet another adventure.  I woke up at 4am so that I could get to the airport at 6:30 and leave for New York.  Aaron and Caz came and got me around 4:45am.  We then set off for our wonderful drive.  We dropped Matt off at his house in South Jordan and saw were Aaron lives and headed for the airport.  I got there a few minutes early and checked in and everything.  I pretty much slept on the whole flight there, which was weird because usually I can’t sleep on airplanes.  My head didn’t do the fall forward thing!!  We got there and found our tour guide then headed out of the airport.  First thing I learned when walking out the doors is not to expect to smell fresh air.  It was gross.  We loaded all our stuff on the bus and headed to our Hotel in Manhattan.  We got there and got into our rooms and everything then tried to figure out what to do the rest of the day.  I was glad because it wasn’t raining!!  We went on a tour of the area around our hotel with our guide and got an idea of the things around us.  Since it was such good weather Desi and I decided to go to the Empire State building.  We walked to the building and found it okay but couldn’t figure out what entrance to use.  Finally some guards pointed us to the right doors and we went in.  We had to go through security and the guy only made me take my sweater off because he had made Desi take hers off, but the thing didn’t even go off when I walked through.  We took an elevator up to the 80^th floor!  It took like 2 minutes for the elevator to get up there!  I was a little scared.  It only showed the floors by tens.  Once on the 80^th floor instead of waiting in line for another elevator we just walked up 6 flights of stairs.  It was crazy being up there!  It was way high up and you could see things from so far away!  It was way fun!!  We had to get up early for church so we went to bed early.

Pink Day!

While going through and reading my dad's mail as part of my job I learned that today is indeed National Pink Day!  I didn't even know that one existed!!  This could potentially be on my list as one of the best days of the year!  Since I realized it was Pink day I decided that a good way to celebrate is posting the pictures of everything Pink I saw in London.

 Flowers in Hyde Park

 

 Door on the way to Portobello

 Random sign on Portobello

 I completely agree

 I need one of these!

 This is by far my favorite!! Not only is the car pink but the seats, phone, and sunglasses!

Delightful Dover

Well I can definitely say we have accomplished drving all over England.  The driving did not end yet though.  Today we drive to Dover and stopped at a little gas station store for breakfast.  No complimentery breakfast today.  I missed having a big breakfast.  We got to see the white cliffs as we drove up to Dover Castle.  It rained all day today and was way windy up on the castle.  I loved feeling the wind blow my face and hair.  It is almost as if weather like that gives me more energy.  We first went to the war time tunnels and saw what it would have been like to be in them in WW2.  The set up was really cool.  They made it like you were a soldier there and learning about the plans, wars and weapons.  They had projectors that made it seem like real life people were there.  I would definitely recomend seeing that.  We went to the hospital/dressing rooms tunnel next but I didn't think it was as good as the other one.  It made me slightly nervous because they said it would have similar smells to when it was used and it did.  It had hospital smells and then in the kitchen it had food smells.  My favorite part was the great tower.  We took a spiral staircase that kept going up and up but had branches of stairs off the sides.  It was pretty much like a maze with stairs and rooms.  When you got to the top there was a chimney and one of the rooms had a fire in it so it smelled like fire.  It was so cool to be up there with the wind, looking over at the water and the village, and smelling the fire.  We also saw the museum ther and found out our ancestors lived there.  We are related to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who married King Henry 2 of England and the King of France.  She was the mother of King Richard the Lion Heart.  Knowing that made the castle even better.  Technically I should live there!  Pretty much I have learned in the last few days that I need to live in a castle and have a farm.  We spent a lot of time at the castle so we had to rush to Canterbury to see that.  We didn't really know what was there to see but we found it.  There was Cathedral there and it had some ruins around it.  The village is pretty cute.  We got to look around in the cathedral.  We stopped at Pret Manger for dinner and got yummy sandwiches, crisps and cookies.  It was delicious!   We still had time so we went to the London Temple.  We took some pictures then went in the visitors center and talked to a lovely missionary sister in there.  She told us what church to go to on Sunday and just chatted.  Since it still wasn't very late and we learned from her not to go to Brighton on Sunday due to  London to Brighton bike ride, we headed for Brighton.  We pretty much drove around for a little and then decided we needed some ice cream.  We found a Tesco so dad waited in the car while mom and I ran in to get some Magnum bars.  Best ice cream bars ever!  Wehn we got back dad asked if we heard the girl singing in the pub across from the car.  We said no and he said he thought it was a boy.  The singer was wearing an open back long dress, evening elbow gloves, necklace and had red curly hair.  When we got a better view and heard it singing it was definitely a boy.  Then we noticed it was all men in there, so we assumed it had to be a gay bar.  To top it all off the guy thing was singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow!"  Pretty much the gayest thing I have ever experienced.  Well I noticed plenty other gay bars on our way out.  They aren't hard to miss with rainbow lights and such.  Interesting place Brighton is... at night.  We got back to our hotel and a guy held the elevator for us.  Now this is sad because he had pushed the third floor and we got off on the first floor but he followed us off and walked down the hall.  We went the wrong way at first but turned around.  We were unsure our room number but I was pretty sure I remembered it.  We finally figured out our room and saw the guy walk back down the hall after he figured out he was on th wrong floor.  Once we got to our door, our key card wouldn't work; we tried it in the surrounding doors with no luck.  Well it was time to be embarrassed and ask the guy at the front desk what our room was.  He told us it was the room number we had thought so we informed him of the defective key card we had.  He tried to get it to work but ended up giving us a new one.  I was just glad it was the card and that not all three of us are stupid.  Sure enough the new card worked.  It was nice to sit on my queen bed and relax.  We watched a western movie on the TV for a little bit.  It was interesting and funny.  I am excited for tomorrow!  I am going to get the bag I have wanted ever since I have been here and we are going to the Romeo and Juliet ballet!!