Greg's Study Abroad Blog: First Two Weeks in England

I originally had intended to have this blog up and running within the first couple of days after arriving to England, but have had all sorts of Internet connectivity difficulties. But, I have found myself a secure connection and will now attempt to catch up on my previous two weeks.

Since this is my first blog post, I also need to include a disclaimer.Many who are reading this know of my visual disability and some of you know that I do my typing using speech to text recognition software. Because of this, sometimes the words you read might not have been the words I said and so you need to play Mad Gabs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Gab) and sound out and try to guess what I'm saying. I will also do very little editing due to the difficulty of rereading what I've written.

This has two advantages:
One, it can be a game for you to try and guess what I'm saying
Two, I can blame whatever weird thing I say on the software

Okay, here we go.

I flew out on Monday and arrived in Manchester England on Tuesday. The person I was going to stay with in Manchester had an unexpected visitor and was no longer able to keep me at his house, so he found a place for me to stay downtown Manchester. It was a super nice hotel called, "the palace." That day, I connected with the local missionaries and spent about three or four hours with them.. They just got a new five-story building built downtown for the young single adult Ward because there is a big university downtown and a growing young latter-day St. community. We would walk about 100 yards from the church to the nearest road and just talk to students and show them the building and ask if they wanted to go see a tour. I was able to participate in to church doors. Both people said they would come to church this next Sunday and both said they would be interested in meeting with the missionaries again.
That night and the next morning I spent trying to get my phone working. I got sent from phone shop to phone shop eventually spending about 15 pounds and still not having a phone that work. Apparently, Verizon locks your phone and so I had to get it unlocked which ended up costing another 20 pounds and it still doesn't work so great.

Wednesday I took a late morning train to Chesterfield to meet up with my dad's friend David and his wife Olive. They are an older couple, but still full of enough energy to take me around for a couple of days. In Chesterfield, I was able to see the downtown and its famous twisted church spire as well as the historic market and local museum. David took me on some great rides to the countryside through old small English villages and to see royalties lands whose estates seemed to be as big as the villages themselves.

Saturday morning I left to go to David's niece Joan's house who lives in Poole.I had written more about Poole and London, but it somehow just got erased, but to be very brief. I saw the harbor, which is the 2nd largest in the world after Sydney Australia, went on some hikes, and to the Poole Museum. In London, I stayed with David's great Nephew Eddie. I saw Westminster, Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and gardens, and a couple other really nice parks.
I enjoyed the sights at both of these places, but also enjoyed getting to know the people I stayed with as well.

Now, I am in Oxford. We did a little tour last night, joined a Christian Rally against Human Trafficking, and went to Evensong in one of the college chapels. This morning we went to another Church of England service at "Christ Church." It was awesome. The choirs here are amazing. Then we all took a bus up the road a little to the LDS church and about doubled the size of the typical congregation.

Okay, here are some pictures, though they are in reverse order.