Home Sweet Home..

Well I have been home from England for a full week now and I miss it every day. I wish that I would've been more diligent about writing on the blog the last couple of weeks of my trip but sadly I was so busy with studying for finals and trying to squeeze everything into my agenda before having to come home. The only bummer is that I am terrified of forgetting things for this study abroad so i wish i would've been better! While I was away I was gone 8 1/2 weeks, visited 5 countries, took 3 classes and made 7 of the best new friends that I could even imagine. The most important, and fun part about this entire journey was the girls that I met and how much they all mean to me.I seriously cannot even imagine my life without them and they have only been in it a couple of months. But to say that I am grateful would be an understatement. Although it was so weird staying behind as all my friends went back home I was so excited to have my mom, grandma and sister come and visit me. We spent a week going to all of the main tourist attractions as well as fitting in some things that I was unable to see which I was stoked about. And did I mention that we saw the Queen of FREAKING England. That was pretty dang cool, we were also able to tour the inside of Buckingham Palace which just made me want to be royal. I need to live that life I just don't know how to make it possible yet.. any suggestions??

Coming home has been so nice, it's fun to see my family and friends again. The not so fun part was moving out right away and starting school this week, but I love it none the less, well not the school part!

Here is to another semester, I hope I can survive it!

Kenz

Annecy, France

At this very moment I'm on a bus headed back to Geneva to catch my flight back home to London and I am pretty close to tears to be honest. I want to move to The South of France and never leave again. We stayed at a best western again which was such an amazing hotel. Something I've learned that I think is so valuable while independently traveling through different countries is to always stay in an American based hotel that you've heard of before. And if you want to stay in a bed and breakfast really do your research. It is so nice to stay somewhere that you just know what to expect and to be able to speak to people who know enough English to help you at least get on your way. Anyways, Annecy. It's this very old town that has canals running through the most colorful buildings with flower boxes and shutters over the windows. I feel almost bad because there really isn't anyway for me to describe the beauty. The water in the canals is turquoise and completely clear. I have been to Paris and it is all in all pretty dirty so I'm not sure I expected the rest of France to be much different but I was wrong. It is so clean just like Switzerland. Each street has these bridges where you can look back and see the old town and I promise you we stopped on every single one each time we passed just to stare at the beautiful scenery. Over the passed week and a half I have been in 5 different countries and it is the easiest thing in the world for me to say that Annecy, France is my favorite. It's the most incredible and beautiful thing in the whole wide world and I have never laid my eyes on anything better. Which is why leaving today is so sad :( I cannot wait to come back here, hopefully one day soon. They also have this lake at the base of these French alps that's just called "Lake Annecy" that again had water that makes you think you are in the Grand Cayman or something. Certainly different than what you would expect from lake water. We spent a good amount of time on land exploring all of Annecy but for the remainder of the two days we had here  we really just relaxed and did lake things. Something I felt like I was giving up this summer to come here (I know what you're thinking you're not giving anything up you're in Europe) was my summer of swimming and being tan and all of that. So it was so nice to just relax. We kept saying it's so quiet and nice and we can hear the birds! I got sunburned yesterday and I was so happy. I kind of let myself get burned on purpose because I was so desperate for color! The food was amazing (mostly) as expected from France. We had so many crepes and waffles and things filled with Nutella every single day not to mention a good amount of ham and cheese baguettes. It was heaven. Also, I've never been to Italy but I'm a little scared because of how much gelato I've eaten while I've been here is any indication I'm sure I'll eat my body weight over there. One night we sat down for fondue because it is a very Swiss meal and we didn't have a chance to eat that while we were over in Switzerland and my friend candance and I were going to share that with friends and also get what we thought would be fish and chips to share. In reality they were deep fired little baby fish with eyes included and we didn't eat one bite. In fact I had to get up and leave and I was gagging. Some of them still had their cute puckered fish faces and I couldn't even considering plopping one into my moth.

I know this is all redundant but the best thing we did was rent stand up paddle boards. It was so fun to get out and look back at the town of Annecy! And it was so relaxing to paddle out there jump off and swim (or in my case fall off) and to just get some vitamin c. I said this on my Instagram and I meant it whole heartedly I haven't ever been somewhere more beautiful than Annecy. No matter in the states or abroad I haven't been somewhere that I love as much as this place. I know this is kind of a stupid thing to say but it's a place that you could just fall so in love with life and just be so happy which is why I'll need to go back one day! 

Geneva, Switzerland

Oh hi Geneva! We had some free travel days available this week and somehow my friends and I decided on Geneva, Switzerland and Annecy, France. I know that it is pretty random but that's exactly what I love about it. They are both the most uncommon untouristy place in Europe I swear and we have been having such an amazing experience. Tuesday evening right after class we headed on down to Heathrow and boarded a plane to Geneva. I still can't believe I'm old enough to have done even that by myself. And once we got here we got in a cab and headed down to the hotel. It didn't take long to realize hat we had made hotel reservations in maybe one of the more sketchy parts of town that was kind of far from everything. We ended up getting rooms at the Best Western Strasbourgh which is right down town and staying there. BEST. DECISION. EVER. it made things more expensive and complicated but in the end we were at walking distance to everything in a safe neighborhood and super happy with it all.  We only had one full day in Switzerland and two nights and so with that limited amount of time we really wanted to make the most of our time and see everything. The next morning we walked over to the Tourist Information offices and planed our whole day out. The sweetest guy ever gave us all these tips and directions and helped us sign up for a Segway tour of the city. You heard me right. We rode SEGWAYS through Switzerland. Who does that!! You would not believe the amount of strange looks we got or the amount of Asian tourists that stopped to take our picturs on every corner. But all in all we saw every square inch of the city and had so many fun laughs. There was really only one incident too which I would consider a win. I thought by the end of this we would have all crashed. We were going through this lake side carnival when I see Maddie just heading straight for a car so naturally I start screaming "MMMMAAADDDIIIIEE WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and then I see her hand just shoot out and push off of the car to propel herself forward. The next thing you know Maddie is jumping backwards off the machine and the Segway is headed straight for a man and his carnival booth!! Everything and everyone was fine but between the loud crash and maddies shocked crying face I have never laughed so hard. The rest of the tour she was so freaked out and having an asthma attack and an adrenaline rush and it just made for so many memories. The tour guides took us for like a drink break during the tour as that was part of what we paid for. They were both sitting there smoking and drinking and one by one we all are like "hi I will have a coca lite" and then when we got talking to them about how we don't drink they go "are you Mormons?" Yes yes we are and were here with BYU and they are just like "oooohhhhh" it's funny because in every country everyone knows about BYU and everyone knows at least one person from Provo which is incredibly random. We also wandered around "Old town" while we were there and it was the most picturesque and idealic European town. It looks exactly how you imagine it would. It's worth mentioning that I have never been anywhere so clean in my life. Like I think I would be more likely to eat off the street in Switzerland then in my own backyard. We saw people like hopping off their bikes to pick up trash and I just respect them so much for how well they take care of their country. Definitely one of my favorite things about Switzerland is the fact that they have little water wells that you can fill up your water bottle up straight from the Swiss alps. The water comes out freezing and so amazing and it is seriously the best. I was hydrated all day for once, haha (it's so hard to keep up on water in Europe for some reason!) Pretty much Geneva, Switzerland is exactly what you would imagine that it would be. The chocolate is unreal. It's literally unlike anything I've ever tasted the people are sweet and it's beautiful. Today we are en route to Annecy, France before we head back to London to prepare for finals! In other news my parents bought a new puppy, Charlie yesterday and if you know anything about me you know that I love dogs with all my heart so I cannot wait to go love that little squishy boy! When I woke up to the text from my parents that said they got him o started just jumping on the hotel bed and screaming and crying! I think everyone here is creeped out by how much I love dogs! Sorry! Haha!

Hame Is Where The Hairt Is

The past week we headed out for a week long journey.. and holy crap I am EXHAUSTED.

 The first place that we went to was Preston, England. I can't even really begin to describe the feeling that I had when we pulled up to the temple. It was like coming home and even just typing this post makes me cry because being there was such a beautiful moment.We have seen what feels like a million castles since being in Europe this summer, and every single one of them is amazing but after seeing this temple and remembering what the church offers us this is the real castle, and guess what we can get married inside these just like a real princess, It also made me realize how incredibly lucky I am to live between 3-30 minutes away from 6 temples in Utah. We have it so good. We also toured around the city of Preston and went to some of the church history sites, it was honestly such a fun little excursion.

The next stop was Ambleside, England which is in the Lake District. There really aren't any words for how beautiful it was there. It was kind of an unreal moment for me to be standing there and I genuinely want to live there for the rest of my life. It was the most picturesque and quaint little story book town. We stayed there two nights and during our time there we went to The Wordsworth Trust and did some hiking through the country side.

Doing as the locals do and getting a pint (but of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Instead)

Next stop, Scotland. We went right up to Stirling Scotland and went to the Castle before going to our destination in Edinburgh for the next couple of days. Scotland is pretty much exactly what you would imagine that it would be. It is the most beautiful and lush green place that I have ever seen. It was quite cold and so we were happy to all buy matching sweatshirts (it seems to be a theme, plus we like to look as much like tourists as possible) But Edinburgh is a lot like England, just an less modernized, older and smaller version of London and I honestly loved my time there. Good food suuupppppeeerrr nice people and a million and one laughs as usual with my best gals.

How Scottish is this sign, i kind of wish i would've bought it

The last stop on our trip was to Cambridge. I just want everyone to know that when I walked into the hotel room to see my very own queen sized bed I about cried. One of things I miss very most about home is my bed and doTERRA diffuser... ridiculous I know. But anyways, we were only there for one night and a few hours today. It was such a fun little town that I am glad we were able to see but by that point I was exhausted and overwhelmed by the amount of things that I needed to get done back home in London.

When we pulled back into London this afternoon I just felt so happy and SO at home. I missed being here in our cute centre with my friends in this place that has become just like home. But this week was seriously filled with so many amazing memories and great times that I wouldn't trade for anything!