LONDON!

I made it to London!

After my long journey back to Nantes, Vanessa meeting me on the platform and then jumping on my next train within minutes of it departing, I finally arrived in Paris again this time with my passport!  I took the metro to the Paris Nord station where the Eurostar leaves from to go to London.  While on the metro 2 guy with long dark trenchcoats got onboard and stood with their arms crossed and legs firmly planted on the floor.  They kept making eye contact and I started to get nervous that something bad was going to happen! Haha. I am always so cautious whilst travelling alone.  Lucky for me…nothing happened and I was happy when I was able to sit down and enjoy a meal before my train the London left. 

There was a nice newlywed couple on the Eurostar, and after some small talk, I found out that they were on the their honeymoon…travelling the world! Apparently they were taking about 6 months to do it all. I thought that was absolutely brilliant.

Due to some intense winds, the bridge was shut down and Karen was unable to pick me up from the train station, so Martin’s mum and dad picked me up which was really kind of them. They were lovely to talk with.  I even enjoyed some hot milk with a dessert with custard in it! Mmmmmm….custard.  It took poor Karen 4 hours to take the normal 30 minute drive to pick me up because of the traffic.  I felt terrible that she had to endure that just to come get me. We arrived home late and it sure felt nice relax and enjoy a soft bed. I think the bed I slept in was the softest bed I have slept in.  Needless to say, I slept better at their house than I have in months and months. I needed that.  Friday Martin and Karen took me to lunch at a lovely restaurant called the Magic Mushroom…lovely restaurant…weird name!

We have a really tasty 3 course meal…except I was so full I only had 2 courses, and then soon after I found myself sitting at an Italian restaurant with Karen and Charlotte eating ANOTHER 3 course meal…The food was good and I couldn’t believe how much I was eating.  The funniest thing happened at the end of our meal when it was time to pay, Karen was paying with her credit card and the waitress just came right out and said to Karen, “The machine is asking for a gratuity.” Charlotte and I looked at eachother and I was like really! Did she just say that…then she asked Karen how much instead of letting her punch it in with privacy!  I have never in my 25 years of living seen any waitress ask someone how much they are tipping them!! We couldn’t believe it.  She must get great tips cause people feel bad telling her a small amount!! Haha.

HIL & CHARLOTTE!

It was so great to be in London again…I just love England so much.  Everything about it feels like a second home to me.  It also helps that the Nicholls are like family to me as well.  Being with them and being in my favourite place just couldn’t get any better.  Karen, Charlotte and I went to the musical WICKED.  “Best Musical of the Decade??”  Not sure about that one, because I still think Les Mis is my all time favourite.  It was, however, really really good and I loved it.  I missed my mom and sisters and Scott (yes, Scott loves musicals!!) a lot because I knew they would have really enjoyed it as well.

We drove home after and saw the parliament buildings, the London eye, big ben, and everything all lit up and it was beautiful.  Just felt really peaceful being there.  England will always be in my heart.

The next morning Karen and I drove to the London Temple and did a session there.  There was only 1 man and 5 women…It was the smallest session I have been in!! But, regardless of the amount of people, the temple was good.  It’s a wonderful place of peace and I always can feel the love that Heavenly Father has for me when I am there.  It’s a gorgeous temple. 

LONDON ENGLAND TEMPLE
for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Karen and I asked a women afterwards if she wouldn’t mind taking a photo of us in front of the temple and she said sure! Let me just finish this text…well, she finished it all right. We were laughing to ourselves because a few minutes later she finished her text, told us a long story about the text she was writing and then didn’t even stand or take the picture where we asked.  We thought it was funny. I was going to tell her not to worry about taking our picture because she really seemed involved in other things, but she never stopped talking long enough for me to say anything.  Karen and I had a laugh over it.

Karen & Hilary

That night was the Stake Roadshow where each ward puts on a skit and then they are all judged and a winner is determined. It was entertaining to see the ideas that everyone came up with.  I really enjoyed Martin doing the moonwalk as well!

We got home, and I decided to check one of my older email accounts that I don’t use that much anymore…and to my utter shock, I found that PayPal had charged approximately $1,000.00 to an ebay purchase in 3 separate payments.  The date of the transactions…Nov 13.  I was really upset and I immediately got in touch with PayPal and after some discussion, a hold put on my account to protect it from further unauthorized transactions from taking place, I was feeling A LOT calmer about the whole thing.   Sometimes when these kinda of things happen I just get so stressed out over it and worry to death. Good thing Martin and Karen were there to help me through it without getting upset.  It’s under investigation at the moment thankgoodness.  Looks as though I will be calling my credit card company tomorrow.  Luckily, the person didn’t use my credit card yet…that we know of. I have absolutely NO IDEA how this happened!!!!!  While sitting there on hold, I decided that I would, in fact, write the book my mom has encouraged me to write since my teenages years titled, “Drama, yesterday, today and forever.”  The book should be out next fall for anyone interested. Haha.

THANK- YOU TO KAREN, MARTIN & SWEET CHAR for a wonderful weekend. I love you guys!! It was great to see you and spend some time with you!!!

Karen & Hilary

Hilary & "Uncle Marty"

On my flight from London to Paris, I had to put my "liquid belongings in the plastic bag" and I forgot - haha. And this lady got so angry with me.  Then she gave me a bag and started going through my luggage just ranting at me...and then I asked for a second bag after she walked off, from a different employee cause I couldn't get my perfume and the other stuff in the same cheap 5 pence plastic bag...and he looked at me like I was an idiot.  And said, "YOU WANT ANOTHER BAG?!!  You have to go all the way back out and buy one!" I looked at him and was like- you are telling me that I have to go out and buy one of these cheap plastic bags...buy one??  What are they worth like 2 cents?  And he got so mad and said, "Where did you get the first one!"And I said the lady gave it to me and he snickered and said, "Well you are lucky then!"the black lady came back and was all in my face and he was telling her, "Can you believe it! She asked for another bag!" They wanted to strangle me. I was so close to saying..."you don't have to be such jerks about it...gosh.  But, I was already in a rush to catch my flight after being delayed there so I figured it would be better not to lip off.  They were acting like I asked one of them for a kidney transplant.  They were pyscho.  So note to self...ALWAYS have "plastic bags"  because if you don't you pretty much have to GIVE YOUR KIDNEY to have one!
Now I am just in Paris waiting once again for a train to take me back to Nantes so I can get back to uni on Monday and back to FRENCH! oh...and the best weekend of this trip is soon to come....

Bisous! xx.