Did I not bid thee meet me in the park and bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

So Sunday I didn't have church until two o'clock, which was fabulous.  It was fast Sunday, so there wasn't any breakfast, which meant that I slept in until at least nine thirty.  It was so fantastic.  I'm really glad that I'm on an earlier sleep schedule here.  Everyone else in the center left for church in the morning, so it was just the three of us going to the Spanish branch left in the center.  Oh, and Sydnee, who stayed home feeling really sick.  But us Spanish branch people decided to get one of our walks out of the way, so we got ready for church and headed out at about eleven o'clock to do the Central Parks walk.

I was the leader on this walk, which meant that I operated the map and decided where we should go.  It was actually really simple though and there was only one time that I wasn't sure where to go (and in my defense that was because we had to take a detour around part of the park where it was fenced off.  I'm not sure if it was Royal Wedding clean up or something else).

I really enjoyed the walk.  We went through Hyde Park and then through a park called Green Park, and then we strolled past Buckingham Palace and off through St. James' Park, and then down to Parliament and the Tube.  All of the parks were so beautiful, and full of great big trees.  It was really nice, excepting the fact that it was really windy and absolutely wrecked my hair, which I had down because we were going to church.  Luckily we got to church fifty minutes early, so I spent ten minutes in the bathroom combing out the tangles in my hair.  I was very glad that I had decided at the last minute to throw my hairbrush into my bag.

Here I am at this bridge in St. James' Park.  I'm not sure if you can see, but the London Eye is in the background in addition to the beautiful water that we decided (after we rounded the next bend) belongs in a Disney princess movie like Snow White.

I don't have a picture of the whole group because it was a case of another one of those somebody else took the picture on their camera things, but it was all of us Spanish branch people (yup, all four of us.)  

We went to church afterwards, and really there's only one word to describe the experience: exhausting.  It was fast Sunday and church went all the way until five fifteen thanks to Relief Society running over.  It's very hard to pay such very close attention and focus so very carefully on what everyone says when you go to church in a ward with a different language.  

Especially because some people spoke Portuguese and they were all from different countries, so it'd be like trying to go to English as a second language with Americans, Brits, Scots, and Irish people all in the same room.  Plus maybe a few Australians.  Except they were all South American and Spanish and Brazilian and such.  

Actually it was interesting because in Relief Society somebody made a comment and several women reacted strongly and started talking about how you should never use that word because in South America it's very offensive.  The women told them that in Spain it was fine and meant whatever it was that it meant, but all of the ladies just nodded sagely and told her again that she should never ever use that word around a South American.  I didn't actually catch what the word was, but at least I understood the jist of the conversation, right?

No calling yet.  We tried to find the branch president after church, but after fifteen minutes we decided that we needed to get going back to the Center or else we would completely miss dinner.  And we very nearly did.  They had just started putting food away when we got back, so we quickly grabbed some hamburgers and a bowl of salad so that we could break our fasts.  

This is our nice dining room at the center.  Isn't the fireplace cool?

Well, that's all for Sunday.  I did a walk Monday and Tuesday as well, so you'll be getting more stroll through London stories.  Hooray!