Europe, part IV: United Kingdom (the end)

I guess by the time we got to England I was starting to feel a little worn. We were 5 days in, had been running on adrenaline, and I suddenly seemed to remember that I was 6 months pregnant.

We landed in London around 7 pm. We flew into London City Airport, which is really close to downtown, so it was about 10 minutes from the airport to our hotel. We stayed right in Trafalgar Square. We checked in real quick and then decided to see as much of London as we could at twilight. I must say...London was my very least favorite part of our entire trip, but at least we got to see it at night because it's way more pretty than during the day. We walked down to the river, saw Big Ben/Parliament, the London Eye, and even the National Gallery, which happened to look incredible with the sky the color it was. Then, for the first time, we ate at a McDonald's and went to bed. (We had gotten used to nice restaurants.) I was exhausted and I knew we had a busy day ahead.




The next morning (Thursday) we got up, ate our continental breakfast in the hotel and headed off to find the hop-on/hop-off tour buses. We paid, jumped on, and then quickly got off at Parliament. This was when I kinda started regretting going to London. It just wasn't nearly as neat as I thought it would be. The sights weren't anything like I thought. I was so disappointed! Spencer felt the same way but didn't want me to feel bad so we still tried to make the most of it. We rode around on the bus for a while and got off at St. Paul's Cathedral (where Charles and Diana were married). I am SO glad we paid the million bucks to go inside because it turned out to be one of the highlights of the day. The place was incredible! And huge! We climbed the 500 stairs to the "Whisper Dome," and then I sat there while Spencer climbed another 500 to the observation tower. This was a place where picture-taking was prohibited, but I had spent a lot of money to go in and I was sick of people telling me not to take pictures, so I got one (very discreetly) of part of the dome. It really was incredible. And I didn't use the flash. And I had time to kill while I waited for Spencer to make his way back down. No harm done, right?



We got back on the bus and made our way to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

We didn't care to pay to go inside what used to be a pretty gruesome torture chamber so we went inside the shop instead and got a couple "prizes." We bought Tyler a red double decker bus (and after we gave it to him he held it in his little hands for almost a week straight). Then, we loaded onto the river cruise and floated back up the dirty Thames toward Westminster. The only other places I really cared about (or so I thought) were Buckingham Palace and Harrod's, so off we went. In fact, we saw two helicopters come and land at Buckingham Palace while we were there. They didn't do the changing of the guard the day we were there (big whoop) but the flowers were gorgeous and I remember making a video of us for the kids and sending it from right there. (Have I mentioned how much I loved having Spencer's Blackberry - on "global" mode - with us so we could email the kids??)


We caught the bus to Harrod's and quickly realized that place was a little out of our price range. But, we were starving and got amazing sandwiches/wraps from there, which were not too expensive, and then I found the ice cream bar that changed my life. I know everyone is sick of hearing about Magnum ice cream...but it was MINT! Oh man, the mint crunchy bits were in the shell, and I sat outside on the ground and devoured it. I got lots of looks, either for sitting on the sidewalk outside of Harrod's or for snarfing ice cream, but I didn't care one bit.


We had about an hour left to check out and get to our rental car place so the bus should have gotten us back in plenty of time. Well, the driver decided to take a break and we were stranded for about 20 minutes in the freezing cold. We got off a few stops early and RAN to the hotel, had them call us a cab, and made it to the rental car place before it closed. We bid farewell (more like good riddance) to London, and then got accustomed to sitting on the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road. Thankfully, it all came back to Spencer from 10 years ago and after a few minor scares, he was right at home on those scary round-abouts.


We got outside of London and stayed in a nice little hotel. The next morning (Friday), we drove up north and saw a few areas from his mission. This is in Warrington Square; he served here at the beginning of his mission, and has this same picture in his mission scrapbook. I don't know the full story about the Alice in Wonderland display...


We went to Liverpool, got rained on, walked around, went in a couple museums, and took a couple of pictures at Albert Dock, where hundreds of thousands of people boarded ships to America. I wish I knew more about my family history...I'm sure I have a few ancestors who were part of this. (And I can't blame them - I would have left England too!)


Then it was time for our last stop - North Wales. Spencer spent the biggest chunk of time on his mission here, and specifically in Rhyl and Prestatyn, and he hasn't been back since he left. After coming with him, I'm pretty sure a piece of his heart will always be here. The drive was beautiful - green rolling hills with TONS of sheep (Spencer: "There are more sheep than people in Wales."). We were staying in the house of a family he knew (they were out of town) and it was nice to be able to do laundry, even if they didn't have a dryer. I think we went to bed early that night. Seriously, all our travels were really (finally) catching up with me.

Here is a waterfall in Dyserth that was much prettier than I imagined...


When Spencer served in Wales, for 9 months, a full 10 years ago (!!), there was a guy in the ward who was a Priest. Spencer took him on exchanges 3-4 times a week. I guess they were good buds. Well, Lee still lives here with his wife Becky and two kids. On Saturday he and his wife took us down the Welsh coast to 4 different castles (ruins). It was so fun to be with them, and it was so fun for him and Spencer to catch up. We hit Conwy Castle...

(I know, we look weird)

Caenarfon Castle... (where the Prince of Wales is crowned)


The smallest house in Great Britain (not saying much as far as I'm concerned)...


Cricceth Castle...



And Harlech Castle.


We drove home through Snowdonia National Park. Lee and Becky went to collect their boys and we geared up for a night with some other mission people.

When Spencer got to Wales 10 years ago, he taught and baptized a family pretty early on. One of the sons was only 6 at the time, but I guess they became "family" to Spencer. He has kept in touch with them through facebook. We had dinner with them; one of the sons lost a baby daughter two months ago (pre-mature) so we were able to have a conversation about that. This family isn't active right now but I could see the love and admiration they had for Spencer. I could also tell that they will be back. As I sat next to Spencer with this family he loves so much that has gone through a lot, I just felt so much peace. I have always known how incredible Spencer is, but this just reinforced it. As the family was leaving (and we knew we wouldn't see them again), the wife hugged me for a long time and told me what a good man I have. That night was a highlight.

On our last day, we got to go to church in Wales. It absolutely shocked me how many people there remembered Spencer. I can't remember Elders we had two years ago, let alone TEN years ago! But he was there a really long time, and it goes to show me just what an impact he had on so many people. It was Testimony Meeting and he stood up to speak for just a minute. It was really nice.

At the very end of the meeting, one of the boys from the family from the night before (who had come to church that day) stood up to speak. I won't write what he said but it had us in tears. I know it made Spencer's day, and he has recommitted himself to keeping in touch with the family and especially with that teenage boy. After the meeting we had plans to leave and finally got out of there after an hour of talking in the hallway. :) What wonderful, humble, simple people.

I was ready to fly home right then as it seemed like the perfect end to our trip, but our flights weren't until the next morning. Spencer had two more places he wanted to take me - the Preston Temple (which was totally gated up!) and Downham. Downham is where Heber C. Kimball came on his mission in the 1800s. I guess he had great success here and all the Saints came to the river to say goodbye when it was time for him to leave. The story goes that they had to wash the tears from their eyes in the Ribble River (and the church has donated a nice bench to the town, which now sits along the river). I wonder if Spencer had a similar impact on the people of Wales, after having been there. Anyway, Downham was one of Spencer's favorite places as a missionary. Funny enough, we overheard a man talking when we were there. He said, "The Queen Mother said Downham is the most beautiful place in all of Lancashire County." Unfortunately, it was really cold when we were there and like I said, I was DONE and wasn't that interested in walking around. From there we drove along a beautiful road to the highway (passing lots and lots of sheep), and made our way to the Manchester airport Hilton.

Downham


The next morning we were up at 3:30 a.m. to catch our flight to Amsterdam, and then our flight to the U.S. We got in at 2 p.m. (bedtime to our bodies) and were just so excited to be home. 14,000 travel miles (by air and by car) later, it was time to be with our kids again. And boy, we were ready.

But man, we will NEVER do anything quite like this again, and I am so thankful everything worked out so could have the time of our lives before our lives get a little more crazy this summer.