Bath

Dane got these British rail passes that we had for three days. The special thing about those tickets is that you can go anywhere with those tickets on the trains. 

The Royal Crescent 

The Royal Crescent is named due to the shape of the buildings. They were built between 1767 and 1774.  We got to go into one of Georgian Town homes and see how the wealthy and the servants would have lived in the 18th century.  I really liked going to that. Dane and I went to George Washington's home and to a Louisiana plantation. All which were made at similar times it is really neat to see the difference because of location and status. 

We went to the Fashion Museum. That had a collection of different time period clothing. They also let you try on a lot of different clothes for free. 

In Bath we went to the Jane Austen Centre. Jane lived in Bath twice in her life so they had a museum there for her. I enjoyed the centre. 

 This is a picture of what they think Jane Austen looked like. They only had a sketch made my her sister to have any idea of what she looked like .

 

Dane looks miserable in this picture but he actually isn't he just tried to make a straight face for the picture and ended up looking unhappy. Dane is a pretty happy camper it takes a lot to upset him. 

Bath took a lot longer than we expected so we never went to Oxford. 

London

We then flew from Iceland to England. It was a little stressful getting to our hotel because we had to take a few trains and subways to get to our hotel and it was pretty late when we arrived. We had to walk in the dark. Coming from Reykjavik and going to London was a very big change  in population. We probably should have started from London and traveled upwards to have less people.

Our hotel was really nice but if I was to do it again I would have a different hotel each night in places where we would be in London. London is so big. We only took backpacks so taking with us all day wouldn't be a big deal. I am glad we only took one backpack each that worked out well.

We had breakfast each day at the hotel it was super yummy. I especially loved the Pain au chocolat. (croissant type bread with chocolate in the middle.)  The main reason I am focusing a little more on food on this trip is because in Germany I had these really good breakfasts but have no idea what they were called and now if I go back I will have a harder time finding them again.

 That black chunk of food is called black pudding. A very interesting dish.

The first day in London we went to the British Museum. It is a really neat museum that has so much stuff to see. We ended up staying there nearly all day. We then went to the Tower of London. The Tower of London I thought was magnificent. It was so incredible to see a whole town with old buildings still in tact. It was super super crowded though. We got there kind of late and didn't have enough time. I wonder if you get there right when it opens if that would help the crowds, but somehow I don't think that would help there are just so many people in London.

 The next day we went to Bath, England. 

Iceland

My Grandma told me to take a lot of pictures and write things because you will forget a lot. So here is my attempt to write about our trip so I can look back later.

We flew from Las Vegas to Toronto and then from there to Iceland. Getting off the plane in Iceland was pretty weird we had to walk outside to the airport and it was very cold the sun was still out and it was midnight so coming from Las Vegas it was a completely new world.  It was also pretty strange to me because before this trip I never  really thought about ever going to Iceland.  I had thought about Denmark and Sweden because of my ancestors but never thought of Iceland. We ended up going to Iceland because it was the same price of just going to England. I am really happy we went to Iceland I want to visit more Scandinavian countries.

This church behind Dane is Hallgrimskirkja

We tried fermented shark at Cafe Loki we didn't really like it. I did really like the herring. The traditional meal that I got had rye bread with smashed fish and herring. And rye bread ice cream. 

(not my picture got off Pinterest but what I ordered) 

We went to the National Museum of Iceland and really liked that. It had a lot of old viking stuff. We a went to the Settlement Exhibition next. The settlement exhibition is based on a excavation that showed evidence of oldest human settlement in Iceland. I wish we made it to the Saga Museum. 

Horseback riding in Iceland I think was the highlight of our trip. The Icelandic horse is a shorter breed but is not considered a pony. We got to go on a pretty long trail ride. We could trot and gallop. They gave us food at the end of out ride. Both my horse and Dane's horse was named Stjornu which means star in Icelandic. 

They had a wall of pictures of famous people that came to their ranch. Viggo Mortensen came! My 8th grade heart is so happy ;) 

We also got to see a few pretty amazing waterfalls. 

 We got to see some neat geysers

 There were a lot of trolls around. Our bus driver made sure to let us know that Frozen was wrong in portraying trolls as nice fun loving creatures because everybody knows that trolls want to eat people:) I forgot to get a picture of a an elf house but a lot of people had little houses in front of their houses for elves to live in. I thought they were really cute.

 This is the Skalholt Cathedral.

 This was next to the Skalholt Catherdral. Dane really wants to have a house like this.

We stayed at a guest house in Reykjavik. We were pretty happy with it. We shared a bathroom with three other rooms and everybody was pretty busy so there was no issue at all. The guest house did have a fridge which no other place we stayed at had so that was really nice.

Looking back now I think we would have rented a car in Iceland. We took a tour bus to the waterfalls and did not have enough time at any place. However, the tour buses gave us a lot of valuable information we would have not gotten other wise. 

spring break 2015

It's Spring Break and I finally have a little bit time to think! 17 credits was way too many credits to take my last semester. Now that I have a little bit of time I have to figure out what to do when I graduate. Decision after decision was hard picking a major but now even harder figuring out what to do next. I'm basically assuming that I won't make it into Vet school so I'm trying figure out my other options. I took an animal reproduction class and really loved it and have considered going into a Masters program with it. Or I've considered PA school. I think I would be really happy doing that if I got in. The trouble is I can't work toward both because they are completely different paths. I wish there was a fertility clinic I could work at that would help with the reproduction side and the patient side for the PA school.  People keep asking me if I'm excited to graduate I just got to figure out next step so I can relax. We have student housing and I will no longer be a student so I will have to get out of there. After I know a little bit more I will be super excited!

Dane bought tickets to go to Iceland, England and Scotland in June! If it was just me it probably never would have happened. My Grandma told me to do things before I have kids because if you wait until they are grownup and gone you will be older and won't be up to all you would have been. So here it goes. Dane bought the tickets and hotels we've been told there is public transportation everywhere so hopefully we will be okay.

Spring break has been fun. Dane came home and we have another week together. We went up to Torrey and saw his family. It was fun we went on hikes, played games and talked.

I just finished up a skiing class that I took through USU. I am glad I did it. I have wanted to know how to ski my whole life.  It took courage to try to do it. I'm very uncoordinated and I know that I am slower than everybody when learning to do things like that. My instructor told me that normally people get past the kiddy slope onto the lift the first day. It took me three days... So I still was as bad as I thought but I did improve which is all that matters right? I'm doing wedge christie's so not quite parallel but I'm almost there. The main reason I wanted to be able to ski was so I could take my kids at a young age, is that bad reasoning? Now I have to learn how to ice skate and roller blade.

The Grand Canyon

A few weeks ago my sister, my dad, my dad's friend Jake, and I hiked part of the Grand Canyon. It was a lot of fun and I am glad I did it but we made  a lot of mistakes.

The biggest mistake was probably doing it  in one day. At least for me, I was the one that was in the worst shape. They all prepared to go on this hike and I was asked to go at the last minute.  So that was probably my biggest struggle. Also I had a sinus infection and a bad knee. But I made it so I think most people can. There were a lot of signs saying not to go to the river and back up in one day. If I was to do it again I would probably want to camp somewhere in the grand canyon instead of on top. I would probably camp at Phantoms ranch or Indian Garden (If I took Bright Angel Trail).

 We went down the Grand Canyon on the South Kaibab trail and then came up on the Bright Angel Trail. That was about 16 miles altogether. I liked going down and up a different trail. It was a nice change of scenery. The south Kaibab had really great views and then the Bright Angel trail was more of a canyon with very pretty landscape. Bright Angel trail had a creek that you could cool off at too. Which we needed more going up vs. going down.

The river was by far the best part. The Colorado river was so beautiful. We ended up staying there for about four hours since it was so hot. When we got down the River it was about 113 degrees fahrenheit. That was another mistake. If I was to do it again I would go earlier in May or go in October. I know some parts are closed during certain seasons so you have to make sure they are open.

We ended up taking a lot longer than intended. We got to  the Mather Campground after 7pm the day before so we had to wait to check in when they opened up at 8 so we didn't get hiking until about 9. I think leaving at 9 instead of 6 sort of worked out since we got to the river at around 12 when it was staring to get pretty hot. Staying at the river for so long slowed us down. I am glad we did it though it made the hike a lot more enjoyable. We got to eat, cool down and relax for a while.

We got back when it was late and dark. The shuttles had all stopped so Jake my dad's friend ran to our car. We didn't think we would be so slow to miss the shuttles but if I was to do it again, just to be safe I would park the car near where we would be coming up instead of where we came down.

When hiking in the dark, we had one headlamp and one flashlight. I would make sure we had more headlamps next time.

I thought Mather campground was nice. It had shade and a good bathroom and shower.

Even if we had struggles It was still fun.

 My sister in the Colorado River.