Travel Itinerary

Here is the itinerary of our Grand Tour of Europe on the cheap.

Salt Lake City to New York City 11:00 pm flight
JFK airport to Central Park via the Sky Train, and the A train.
Most of the day spent in:

-Central park (cool authentic Egyptian obelisk, kids playing baseball, hundreds of dogs, street performers, gardens and trees, a huge castle)

-The Metropolitan Museum of Art (you can pay as little as 25 cents for admission and they have truly amazing collections of about every kind of art)

-Church in the building which also holds the Manhattan Temple right across the street from the Lincoln Center and the Julliard School.

Subway back to the airport for the red eye flight to London with a stopover in Iceland.

We arrived in Iceland in the middle of the night and were surprised by how tight the security was. We had to go through security right off the plane and get our passport stamped twice.

Arrived in London, exchanged money (the airport rates were terrible) bought an invaluable Oyster Card, and rode on the easy to navigate Tube to downtown London.
Right next to the very boisterous and fun Piccadilly Circus (think Times Square) we picked up our Britrail passes and our Great British Heritage passes, saving a bundle on shipping.

We started with the fabulous National Gallary which is a free and spectacular art museum right next to Piccadilly Circus. We saw the Arnolfini Marriage by Van Eyck and a lot of other very famous works.

We raced down towards Westminster Abbey before realizing that our watches were set an hour off (Big Ben rang and we trusted it over our own timepieces). We slowed down a bit and took a picture in one of those characteristic red London telephone boothes, and saw the Horse Gaurd House, Scotland Yard, and #10 Downing Street.

We arrived just a little bit too late to get into Westminster Abbey for a tour, and it was really expensive anyway, so we were a little bit depressed and planned on coming back to for Evensong.

We walked down the street (past some pro-PKK protesters by the houses of parliament) and arrived at the Tate Britain gallary. I think that it was free too, and it was really awesome. The painings by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were my favorite.

We left our bags in the cloakroom and ran back to the Abbey for Evensong, which was really great except we had to send our brother Paul back to the Tate to get our bags because we would not have enough time to worship and return in time. The service was very reverent and inspirational, with some of the greatest music ever from the young choir boys and organ. We took a quick peek at Shakespeare's Poet's Corner and went out to meet Paul.

We strolled around and took the Tube (which was very posh: clean, colorful, quiet, and comfortable with plushly padded seats) to our hostel, the Torquay house.

We went out that evening for some good food and wound up paying a fortune for some very good Indian food a couple of blocks away from our hostel.

In the morning we ate a bunch of delicious toast and cereal as part of our free breakfast while watching some interesting British TV about some "republicans" who wanted to do away with the monarchy and have an elected executive branch.

We flew with bmi (British midland international) which was very comfortable and offered really good in-flight food to us as we tried hard to sleep in the middle of the night.

We arrived in Tel Aviv at 4 am local time after very little sleep and we all felt terrible. We rented a car there from Eldan and drove to the BYU Jerusalem Center as the sun rose to the west behind us. The security gaurds asked us if we were LDS and told us that we could not go in until right before church started. We had planned to go and see the Dome of the Rock, but we were so tired, that we just slept in the car for a couple of hours.

We had a great time at church which was on Saturday of course, and felt just like a little BYU ward except with a much better view. It was fast and testimony meeting.

Cheap Travel Tips

Here are some of the top tips for Cheap travel:

Stay in a hostel and not in a hotel. Book in advance with no booking fee through hostels.com or hostelworld.com or similar cites.

Get standing tickets. The Globe Theater in London and the Theater in Stratford-Upon-Avon both offer 5 pound standing tickets for Shakespeare plays, and the State Opera House in Vienna sells 3 Euro tickets for concerts and operas. They were both amazing deals.

Bring a student ID card and ask for a student discount everywhere. Some will try to tell you that most places only accept the official student discount card, but they always take an official student ID with an expiration date.

Visit local grocery stores instead of eating out. Food money could be your #1 expense, or you could save a bundle and eat fresh, authentic, local cuisine for pennies on the restaurant dollar.

Be your own tour guide instead of paying for organized tours that don't go at your own pace and cram you onto a bus. Researching the places that you will visit is half the fun, and free at the library or on the Internet.

Do the math on transportation. Everyone scouts around for cheap airplane tickets, but you should look at train, bus, ferry, and taxi options just as closely. We saved a lot with the Eurail Youth Pass in Europe that included a free ferry ride from Greece to Italy, and the Britrail pass that paid for itself several times over in England.

Finally, look into attractions passes. The Great British Heritage Pass will get you into many of the best sights in Britain for a lot less, and the Paris Museum Pass lets you skip lines and see more for less.

A Hiku about how I turned in my Creative Writing final late

Fall dew on a leaf's
Underside. Diamond pinpoints
Vanishing with dawn.

Exercise: page 276

So here are the list of event in my story:
Jason goes to summer camp
He becomes friendly with Katie
He begins to idealize her
They go on a hike together
They reach the peak where Katie gets philosophical and Jason just throws rocks until Katie tells him to knock it off
They race down the canyon
They are both really sweaty
They go to a dance
Jason refuses to dance with a different girl
He refuses to dance with Katie


Jason tossed a small rock of the boulder that was parched on the edge of the cliff. He and Katie looked down to the valley at the beautiful red rock vista below.
"Its peaceful up hear," Katie said
"yeah," Jason replied
They had met at a youth leadership camp and were participating in one of the planned hikes. Jason really liked Katie, but was too shy to show it. He threw a slightly bigger rock off the boulder.
"Knock it off. What if you hit somebody?" Katie said
"Sorry," Jason said.


Jason was already walking away.
"No, I have to go to the bathroom right now," he said.
"Come on, there are only a couple of dances left," Katie said.
"That's right, there is no time now, plus I have to go"
"Get back here right now!"
"I have to go to the bathroom," Jason said defiantly, and he walked off.
Katie gave up.


Running downhill. This is dangerous, Jason thought. It was blazing hot, and they were not only trying to keep their balance on the steep, rocky, and uneven trail, but also avoiding all kinds of people coming up and down. Jason ran just fast enough to keep up with Katie, but he did not leave her in the dust. He could have. He might have if it had been his friends from scouts, but this was different. There was something interesting and exciting about running down the hill next to Katie.

A Story in a List Form

Bear Sterns

Power suits
Wall street parking pass
Cadillac SUV, black of course
Blackberry with links to online tickers
Several thousand dollar gift baskets
Martinis with venture capitalists
Hedge fund conventions
Frowns at the closing bell
Angry investors
Subpoena
Signed, witnessed statements
Sworn testimony
Exhibit C
The Jury's verdict
A plea bargain in the works
A returned appeal form
Sentence- 15 years
The road to the prison
The bridge over the Potomac river
"Suicide is Painless" written in the dust of the Cadillac's hood
No Body

Ekphrastic Poem- Sorry its late

Pink Moonrise
-From Breton Legend (or The Legend of Brittainy)


In a forest of dolmens
A pink-orange moon rises, or sets?
Bats fly in blurry twilight.
"Hush poppet," the noble demon woman lilts.
Her elf-shoes grow like tubers in a nest
Of silken roots and thorny brambles.
Legions of red-robed, horned devils
Come from one burst of green-white
Light to another.
"Our friends are here!" wrapped
In black-spotted white fir.
Brittain's elaborate headdress
Flips up as she recoils
Pools of moss, an overhang pressing down
Dolmens
Ready to tip over.
Simple black dress,
Opal ring, gold embroidery,
Horn-like buns,
Jeweled hair piece,
Massive golden frame.

Free Choice: A Free-Verse Poem

I
Am
Normal, unique
Special, regular, interesting,
Boring, easygoing, uptight, depressed,
Happy, active, passive
Young, old,
You

Exercise 3.6

Sally McMullen is a 9-year old girl who loves adventure. She loves to check out old black-and -white adventure movies from the library like Tarzan and The Swiss Family Robinson. She first got in trouble for her adventuring when she was four years old. She crawled inside the dryer at her house and had her big brother turn it on for a second. She was not hurt, but her mother had never been madder at her brother, and later, her brother had never been madder at her. She was smart in her adventuring, and would always read up on a scheme in the encyclopedia before going out to try it. When she was 8, her family went to Africa where she made a pet of a dung beetle, and persuaded her brother to jump out of their tour bus with her to get a closeup look at a wildebeest. Now that she is 9, she has plans to build an underground fortress out behind the backyard shed.

Short story post

The End from the Beginning

The old man turned his head and died.

He did not have any more strength left after the grueling hike to the peak of Baekdusan, in the kingdom of Corea. He had started his ascent over two weeks earlier, but he never would have made it without the help of Young Gi. The mountain was steep and rocky. It was a struggle for even a healthy young climber without any pack, but after the first day Young Gi was forced to carry the old man on his back, and the climb became almost imposible. Young Gi had to stop and rest every few hundred lis, and a climb that would take others only five days had stretched on to what seemed to be forever.

All the time the old man kept repeating the same instruction; “Don’t look down, don’t look back until we reach the top. If you look now you will spoil the view from the peak. It is a view that the Emperors of the Middle Kingdom and the Shoguns from the land of the Rising Sun and thirsted to see. They have waged wars, launched fleets of ships, and entered into treaties and alliances to own this mountain, so they can greaedily guzzle down the wondrous view from the peak. The mountain has never bowed to them. It stands majestic, protected by the god of heaven until the oceans go dry.

Two days before they reached the peak they came to the tree-line where even the hearty pines had given up in their ascent into heaven. But Young Gi and the old man had not stopped. Many times the lose slate rock had shifted beneath Young Gi’s feet, and the weight of the old man on his back had almost sent them both tumbling down the mountainside like the pebbles his feet dislodged.

But even then the old man would not let them turn back. “You must respect my age and status,” he had said. “In the right way of things taught to us by the great teacher we must defer to those above us. Isn’t that what your parents and teachers had taught you? Isn’t that the right order of things?”

“Yes teacher, that is right,” Young Gi had replied.

That steep, sheer section of the mountain had been the hardest to scale. Young Gi’s heart pounded so hard in his chest that he thought it might burst. He muttered to himself under his breath as he climbed. “Oh, it’s so hard. I’m sweating so hard I’ll die. I’m so tired I’ll die. So hot I’ll die.” But his pessimism was not too serious. They were reaching the top now, they had traveled past the crater lake to where nothing bur short tough grasses could brave the wind where the roof of the Earth met the basement of heaven.

The wind was cold and strong at this part of the climb. Even though Young Gi was sweating from exertion, the wind froze his fingers, nose, feet, ears. He shivered. “We must be almost there now,” the old man said. “Keep going, but don’t look down. Save the view. The end of our journey is close. We will be there soon. We are almost to the top. Don’t look back yet. Don’t rest now, we are almost there.”

Even after reaching what seemed to be the peak, there was still a long, but mostly gentle journey along the ridge to the Gokdegi, or highest point.

Finally, they reached the pinnacle. Young Gi eased the old man off of his back on onto a large boulder where he taught thought there would be a good view. But he wanted the old man to look down before he did. As he looked at the old man’s face, he could see that his eyes were closed. The old man spoke to him.

“Grandson,” the old man said, using a tender tone for the first time, “I have waited all the days for my life to see this sight. As I have grown older, I thought that my body was too old and weak to make this journey. You have become my legs. You have made it possible for me to come where we only dream to go, and see what we cannot see even in our night-visions. Come. Come to my side. You have not looked down yet have you? Good, good. We will look down together.”

He finally opened his eyes and motioned for Young Gi to look down and see the Earth lying on its back, staring up at them. Young Gi had climbed many mountains and had seen many great sights, but the vista below him took his breath away. It was a clear day, and he could see all the way to the ocean to the west, and the great capital city to the east. The setting sun shone on the lake in blinding majesty. The fall colors flamed across the mountain below them and broke up the undulating currents of pine-green that covered smaller mountains stretching all around them. In every valley he could see the checkered squares of the rice-paddies, and the small brown dots of plaster houses and rice-stalk thatch. He saw a pair of eagles circling far below him and wondered how he had become exalted over the birds of heaven, the messengers of the god of heaven. Joy broke across his face like a sunrise.

He turned back to look at the old man, his father’s father. To his surprise the man was not lapping up the glorious view, but staring intently at his grandson’s face. “Why does not Grandfather look down at the beauty he has climbed so far to see? He has the chance to see what kings and emperors have never beheld,” Young Gi said, perplexed.

The old man smiled as he replied.“Who knows, but what a great man will conquer this land and scale this mountain? Who know but what he will build a road to the peak and allow all the world to come and see this sight? Who knows but what a fire will scorch the mountains as far as the eye can see and leave this sight black and ugly? But what no king can conquer, no fire can destroy is a man’s joy in seeing the joy of his son. In looking on your happy face I have seen a sight that will keep my soul at peace throughout the generations.”

“Nevertheless, it is a beautiful sight Grandfather. Won’t you share it with me?”

The old man nodded as he wiped tears from his eyes with an embarrassed smile. “A man should only weep three times in his life: when he is born, when his parents die, and when his country is defeated. I weep now for joy.” He turned his head to drink in the rich, red rays of sunset for a moment, and died.

Free Choice: Half of an Italian sonnet

A gentle night has fallen on the sky,
The cool air whispers, telling us to pause
In meditation, wonder at the cause
Of that celestial motion, great and high.
The marble moon invites the question, why
Do planets, shooting starts, and dancing lights
Appear most vivid only in the night
When sun, and even silver moonlight dies?

Free Choice: Accord

I walk beneath the blue-bright skies
And look up at the leafy trees,
The backlit leaves like emerald eyes
Glow green against where sparrows fly.

I sit beside a dark, clear pool,
And watch the water-skitters glide
Above the surface tension: light
Like music touching six small points,
And dancing gently through my soul.

I live atop the green-blue world
That effortlessly speeds through space,
And clouds of ether, angel choirs
Part ways to let us through: the world
And me. We touch each other, this
Is barely felt at six small points,
And yet, like music sends its waves
Reverberating to the core.

I run along this rural path
And feel the breeze that I create,
And by connecting elevate,
Like music lifting to a higher state.

Free Choice: A Children's Story- if you have suggestions, please comment!

Sally McMullen and the Dung Beetle

Two weeks before her family left for Africa, Sally McMullen’s mother took her to the library to research different kinds of African animals. Sally did her own research by checking out an old movie where two teams of adventurers race to find a chest of gold, buried in an Elephant graveyard. “After all, this trip will be an adventure, not just a ‘highly educational experience’ like Mom and Dad say,” Sally thought. Her father was going to Africa for business, and Sally had convinced him to take her and her Mom along.

On the plane ride to Africa, Sally’s father quizzed her on the scientific names of animals.

“Elephantidae?” he asked.

“That’s easy, elephant,” she said.

“How about Panthera leo,” he asked.

“Um…Lion,” she said. Sally was more excited to have adventures with animals than to learn their scientific names.

After their plane landed, Sally’s family checked into their hotel, and got on their tour bus to go and see the savanna. Even on the bus ride Sally’s parents were trying to get her to read a book about the ancient Egyptians who lived in Africa almost 5,000 years ago.

Sally was sure that she was missing a great adventure, like a stampede of wildebeests, or a charging rhinoceros, but she looked down at the book about Egypt that her mother was showing her.

The bus finally arrived at the visitor’s center of the Serengeti National Park, where everyone got off the bus to fill up their canteens before beginning their tour of the savanna.

Sally’s parents said that she could look around while they filled up their water bottles, as long as she did not get too far away from the bus.

“At last, the start of real adventures!” Sally thought as she put on put her pith helmet, took out her binoculars, and marched away from the bus.

She had not gone 20 steps before she froze at the sight of the biggest beetle she had ever seen. The beetle was as big as her hand and was walking backwards while rolling a dirty ball that was even bigger than it was. Even though the beetle was mostly black, when the sunlight caught it just right it gleamed with a green glow like an emerald.

Sally leaned down to look at the beetle up close. It was moving along fast, and she didn’t want to let it get away so she pulled off her helmet and put it over the beetle and its ball. It somehow looked familiar. She ran back to the bus to get some of the books she had been reading.

She grabbed the whole stack of books and ran back to where her hat was.

“I’m sure I saw a picture of this bug in one of these books,” She said, flipping through the book about ancient Egypt.

“Aha!” she said, stopping on a page with a picture of a beetle rolling the sun behind it. It said that the ancient Egyptians called it a scarab and thought that it rolled the sun across the sky each day.

“But the beetle under my hat wasn’t rolling the sun,” Sally thought. “I wonder what its big ball is made of.” She opened up the scientific book about animals, searching until she found a page about “Scarabaeoidea- the dung beetle.”

“Dung beetle! Ewww!” Sally said, and closed the book.

She picked up her hat to look under it at the beetle and its ball of dung, but it was gone.

“How did it escape?” Sally wondered.

“A big beetle and its huge ball of dung can’t just disappear.”

She flopped back down on the ground, but remembered her animal book.

“Maybe I can find a clue in here.”

The book said that the dung beetle rolls its ball of dung to a safe place, and then buries it in the ground and lays its eggs inside. When the eggs hatch, the baby beetles eat the dung and come up out of the ground.

“That’s it!” Sally said, “The beetle must have buried itself under my helmet.” When she looked closely she could see a mound where the beetle had been, and Sally knew that the beetle was down there laying its eggs. It was almost like knowing that someone was burying treasure.

Sally went back to the bus just as her parents were coming back with their full water bottles. She quickly set her books down so her parents wouldn’t know she had used them as part of her adventure.

“So you just stayed here in the bus?” her mother asked, but Sally was not listening. She had already pulled out her binoculars to look for the next adventure.

Free Choice: Haiku

June rain, tiny drops
Barely wet hair, but under
Trees big drops pierce clothes.

Free Choice: A Scene

Abioye crouched low on her haunches, trembling from excitement, but trying to stay completely silent. This was her first hunt of large game. The savanna grasses matched the tan color of her hide and hid her from the eyes of the baby wildebeest which was wandering too far from its mother. Abioye felt an inkling of kinship with that wildebeest for she too was young and frightened without her mother near. She had only just begun losing the long tufts of sandy brown hair that was the mark of a lion cub. Her sides sweat from having her legs tensed and held so close to her body as she struggled to be invisible. "A calm mind and body is best for the hunt" her mother had often told her, but Abioye was having trouble putting that counsel into action.

Free Choice: a poem

Enlightened

"I am the life and the light of the world"
The scripture says that Jesus lights all things
For He is in and through and of and by
all that was made. Shineth forth in Darkness
which comprehendeth not His blessed light.
How can I comprehend? How can His love
Make me to value other's lives before my own?

The Beginning of a personal Essay modeled after Kincaid's

I was not even five years old when I went to Dance for the first time. The room that I danced in was not in the Richards Building, where it was every Friday for the next ten years, or taught by Miss Becky, who was with few exceptions my teacher every time I went to Dance with BYU's children's 'creative' dance program, The Young Dancemakers. Dance was creative from the start. It was all about making up movements on the spot, no set steps or patterns out side of an occasional 'skip' or 'gallop.' For most of my growing up years going to Dance was a significant part of my life: a special treat, a fun time to see my friends, a time of adventure as I roamed the Richard's Building when we were there early, and eventually a time to be embarrassed of. On that first day we ran around, played tag, and froze in interesting shapes. If the teacher's son made a shape low to the ground, so did everyone else. If he made a high shape, we all followed suite. The teacher told us to make our own shapes, and I tried to do the opposite of what everyone else seemed to be doing, but I was never very good at it. And I suppose that's been my pattern in life ever since.

Free choice post- story ideas

I want to write a story about lions living in the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania. I am reading "Things Fall Apart" right now and I have had this idea in mind ever since I saw an episode of PBS's Nature about the lions. The show told the story of one lion pride that had almost been wiped out by sickness in the 1960s and had suffered the effects of inbreeding ever since, being more susepable to disease. They were also threatened by hyena competition and most of all competition from another pride of lions. This other pride was coming in to take over their territory. I have done a little research on the lions, and I am wanting to write maybe a tragedy from the perspective of the aging patriarch of the pride. He gradually loses his hold on the pride until he is driven off by the rival males so that they can mate with his females. He goes off injured to wander until he finally dies from hunger. I am not sure how to organize this kind of story. I don't just want to rip off what I saw on "Nature," but I am interested in the story and the themes that it shows of pride, fate, power, and the pain that comes with necessary change. I don't know if it could fit into a short story, or fill up a novel, or if I should work on some kind of an epic poem.

Sight- Final version

Sight

Blinking, rubbing, but unable to behold clearly
Back-lit leaves glistening green on a blaze blue sky: Breathtaking.
I look fast
The brothers bloodied, eying wounds, filled with flies before they die
They tell in age the king ignores the wife of his youth
But where can I evade it?
Love wishes their welfare before its own
Stomach falls when I glimpse her but can't recall the name
Short, smart, shy, and quixotic

Sight- Original version

Sight

Short, smart, shy, and quixotic
Squinting, straining, but unable to see clearly
Stomach drops when I see her but forget the name
Back-lit leaves glowing green on a blaze blue sky: Blinding
Love is wishing their welfare before your own
I run fast
But where can I escape it?
Towards the scripture, towards the hymnal, towards my knees
They say, in age the king forgets the wife of his youth
the brothers beaten, licking wounds, blown by flies before they're dead.

Falling off My Grampa's Lap: a photograph

Our whole family is wearing blue. Blue is my favorite color and my grandmother's favorite color, but we always called her Gram. Gram and Grampa's house was a magical place for me when I was young. It still is, come to think of it. And part of that magic is this old. family portrait hanging on the living room wall. We are all wearing blue jeans and blue shirts. The kids also have blue sweaters. We are out behind my grandparents' house by the orange trees and the fig tree that I always loved to climb. Some of the adults are on chairs and stools. My Mom is standing in the back row holding my little sister and laughing. My Mom has never looked bad in a picture in her life; she says that it is from practice smiling as a high school pom-pom captain. My Grampa does not have that much lap in this picture (he has lost a lot of weight since then) and I can't seem to stay up on it, so I'm falling off.

FACTS: Stools, chairs, orange trees, family members, blue shirts.