everything is illuminated

I've been meaning to write this post for a while:

A Collection of Stained Glass Windows from Cathedrals in Europe.

Downham, England

York Minister, York, England and the town hall of Dundee, Scotland

Les Jacobins Monastery, Toulouse, France

St. Maire Eglise, Normandy, France

Amboise, France

St. Etienne Cathedral, Toulouse, France

The crown jewel of all stained glass windows, in my opinion: St. Chapelle. 

It's a tiny cathedral not far from Notre Dame in Paris. You walk upstairs and into the chapel, and it's like being inside of a kaleidoscope. Every wall in the entire cathedral looks like the photo, telling a ton of Old Testament stories, panel by panel, and then something about the relics of the chapel (?).  It is awe inspiring. So beautiful!

bienvenue! and creepy old statues.

 

 

Yesterday was our last day in England. We performed in South Port, near Liverpool on Tuesday night (I danced the theater arts routine for Allie who had to leave for Miss Utah! So fun! So scary!), after having toured the Beatles Museum that morning. Wednesday I flew in France. I'll post more photos and things about all this later. 

But first, let me explain the above photos. There's this tomb of some guy high up in the Anglican church in the York Minster. The angel babies are supposed to be crying over his death. But we decided that it was really an ode to a pedophile with him lying in this somewhat provocative pose and children turning away crying. 

Funny thing is, that's the exact pose the boys in the cha cha started out in in our show Saturday night (we get bored doing the same show night after night after night, so sometimes we..uh...change...things slightly).

Anyway. Today we shall explore Paris, the city of light! Woo!!!

last show, best show

Wow, I can't believe that tomorrow tour's over. We had a show in York on Saturday night, and Becky and I had the opportunity to stay with this adorable Scottish couple (they're with me in the picture). It was such a fun weekend! They taught us some Scottish phrases including:

head banger: someone who's stupid and annoying and doesn't know it

hen: term of endearment for a female

jimmy: generic name for a guy. If you were trying to get a stranger's attention on the street, you could yell, "Hey Jimmy!"

so...I have no idea how to spell this one so I'll just do it like it sounds...geysa wee swally: give me a drink!

The other photos are from downtown York-the minster or cathedral (which is beautiful! I just love cathedrals here), and down a snickleway or alley (there are hundreds of them in York). On Sunday night the bishop of one of the two York wards took us on a "mystery tour" of the city and showed us Clifford's Tower where a bunch of Jews were massacred (and the rocks bleed because of their iron content), snickleways where people were murdered, the devil statue across from one of the pubs, half destroyed abbeys, and other creepy things. It was sweet. Just as we came out of one of the snickleways, there was a group of maybe 20 year old guys drinking and smoking outside a pub. They saw our BYU jackets and said, "BYU? You're from Utah?" We couldn't believe they'd heard of the university. We told them we were a ballroom dance team which prompted the request that we dance for them. So Chelsie and Brent started doing some lindy. They thought it was really cool and as we were leaving they held up their glasses and drank to BYU. How ironic.

Today and last night we've been in Liverpool. Liverpudlians have a crazy thick, sing-song English accent, so we had a lot of fun trying to decipher what everyone was saying to us. Alissa and I stayed with a family who'd be terrified by a demon in the house they lived in up the street from their current house. "It used to chase the missionaries down the street, but don't worry, it can't get us here!" Um...yeah...

Tonight's the last show! We have the first decent stage to dance on since Blackpool, and we're all on a high with the thought of being free to do whatever we want with our days again. I'll be in Paris with my mom, brother, and sister by this time tomorrow! Woo!!!

And thus episode two of this summer of Europe shall commence. :)

jolly good!

(So this post is sort of a combination of three posts I've been writing since we got to the SLC airport yesterday morning at 7:00 AM)

Greetings from Blackpool, England!

Our flights went smoothly from SLC to JFK to Manchester and

then taking a "coach" (that's a bus for all of you Yanks) to Blackpool.

I learned that I do not like rye bread, airplane dinners are pretty good (or I was too tired and hungry to care), I can handle jet lag pretty well thanks to a semester of chem 391 (no sleep for weeks), free wifi is too much to expect from most of the world (except for the SLC airport and the bed and breakfast we're staying at), Delta's biscoff cookies are so delicious, fish and chips is tolerable (I ate fish!! This is momentous!), and what Pugeot and Renault symbols look like on cars.

stormy English countryside...our first view of the country!

confusing pence pieces at the fish and chips shop, huzzah for English currency!

eating fish and chips! yum!

And now...I just got back to the hotel from watching the team match competition.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Dream come true. The top couples in standard and latin in USA, Europe, Great Britain, and Asia going head to head, dancing. We watched Eugene and Maria, Riccardo and Yulia, Michael and Joanna, Franco and Oxana, Victor and Anastasia, and Arunas and Katusha. Wow, wow, wow. Another cool thing we got to see was Eugene and Maria announcing their retirement (they're retiring! I can't believe it! They were the ones who choreographed our latin medley and have been working on it with us).

the beautiful Spanish Hall where we got to rehearse today (standard team's in the photo)

watching the team match competition!

team match! so many incredible dancers!

Tomorrow we're off to Preston to see some church history sites. It should be really cool.

Until then...hope your Sundays are great!