More from Jaley in England

Hello everyone!How are you all? I hope this e-mail finds you welland in good spirits! This weekend was a good one, butit left me really tired. I am glad that I have Sundayto get over it. Friday we had a mandatory field tripto London. They drove us up in a bus and dropped usoff with a list of art work to go see and then we hadto meet back at St. Paul's Cathedral for a group tour. The paintings were amazing. I had already seen all ofthe ones on our list, but it was nice to see more inthe galleries. I did get to see Van Gough'sSunflowers. That was amazing. They had a few of hisworks on display. The only other work of his I wouldlike to see is Starry Nights. I don't know where itis located, but someday...I'll find it.St. Paul's is AMAZING! The art work in there is themost amazing thing. You all just need to go theresometime. It was built to rival St. Peter's Basilicain Rome. I'll be headed there in a few weeks so I'lltell you how well it did in the reveling. I climbedto the top of the dome though. It's over 450 steps andI made it all the way up for the most impressive viewof London since the London Eye. ...and for those ofyou who don't want to climb 1 million and a half stepssimply for a view...the London Eye is the way to go!After that I went to go see Woman in White with a fewfriends. The theatre there was so old is was raininghistory on us. I could only see Victorian Ladies intheir large gowns and men being oh so pleasant intheir tails. It was so rich with history. TheVictorians just haunt the place. It was AMAZING! Theshow was good too. They did an interesting thing withcomputers and projecting for the scenes...for thosewho are interested, I'll fill you in later.The musicians were so so and the plot was your averageAndrew Lloyd Webber plot, but it was a great show. After that I went to the place where the bus wassupposed to pick us up. There were 50 of us thereincluding 8 faculty members and the president of theuniversity and his wife. We waited for an hour and ahalf for our bus to come. It finally rolled in about1:00. From numerous phone calls between the pres andthe bus driver we found out that the bus was havingproblems starting and when it finally did start, therewas no battery left. I took shelter with three of myfriends on the steps of a church across the alley fromeveryone else. As we lay/sit there freezing, a groupof people walked by and asked us if we needed anychange. Yeah, he thought we were homeless.... But wefinally made it home around 3:30. I took a shower andat 8:00am I had to be back on the bus for anothertrip!Today we went to Cadbury World. It's the closest thingto Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory I've ever been tooand it was heaven! So much chocolate! It was divine. I couldn't imagine bringing my children there. Theybasically give you a life time supply of chocolatejust in samples while you are walking through. I wasgetting hyper a bit so I stopped but there werechildren there so wound up I thought at any momenttheir heads were going to fly off their shoulders. After that we headed to the Bullring. That's rightladies...the biggest shopping center in all of Europe.26 football fields long and 5 billion dollars tobuild. It's huge. I was excited for a whole hourabout it and then my exhaustion sat in. So, a girl andI got a while chocolate mocha from Starbucks (praiseGod for those!) and was just drank coffee for an houruntil our bus came. But, it was a good trip. Wednesday I leave for Paris! I can't wait. I loveyou all and I can't wait to see you again. Keep meposted on your lives! Much love,~Jaley