First day of work = first work party!

Yep, first day of work meant the first work party. We took our clothes to work so we could just change after. 

I got to work and my supervisor said he didn't need me, so I'm sitting at a desk with 3 girls, 2 of which are getting married. One this september, the other is next september. Arianna (this september) bought her shoes today for her wedding ... Louis Vuitton ... 300+ pounds. That's $600+. yikes! And she's getting married in Italy where she's from. These girls are so laid back though, very very relaxed about everything, makes for a comfortable environment. We're allowed to wear jeans, flip flops, whatever we want except for client meetings, then we dress to their attire. 

I got introduced to some people and areas of the building and started doing little stuff like setting up my email, phone, etc. I mailed some packages, looked up some videos for a campaign right now online. People can submit tips on how to make their lives easier - like freezing left overs for food for the week, or different ways of styling hair fast (obviously these are women's magazine sites) but tips need videos to accompany them. So I searched on youtube and googlevideo to find some "how to's" to match the tips people had submitted. 

We went out for lunch, grabbed a good sandwich and came back to work. A car picked us up (the 4 interns at Bauer - Morgan, Stew, Blake, and me) and took us to the hotel where the CTBF (Cinema and TV Benevolent Fund Party) was held last night. We filled some gift bags, decorated a few tables and then got changed and ready for the big event.

There were over 300 people there. Everyone from little film studios to Universal, WB and Turner. Since it was a film party, a lot of people cam dressed up as people from movies. They gave out best dressed and best dressed table prizes too, so I guess it was a slight competition. Everyone got served a 3 course meal. Tomato, parma ham and tomato with basil salad first, then a lamb chop or shank? with veggies and a dessert that was fab! It was super fresh orange sorbet on top of chocolate mousse cake with a graham cracker crust.. it also had this really decorative caramel sugar thing on it (pictures will be posted of my dessert). It was the best meal I've had since...... spring break when mom and dad cooked for me!

We helped with an auction - my table bid 21K (pounds) on some media package - INSANE. and then other prizes like tickets to a premier, dinner for 2 somewhere, nights stays in hotels, other random stuff. Len Goodman from Dancing with the Stars was there with another girl from the show. They did a few dances and then their first dance of the night was auctioned off to the highest bidder. keep in mind all of this money goes back into the CTBF fund for movie and film making. So they both got auctioned off for the first dance for 600 pounds... $1200! I wish a dance with me was worth that much.. haha.

After that we got to drink, dance and have fun!! It was great. Our lead supervisor at Bauer - Denise - kept making sure we had enough to drink and asked us where our drinks were when our hands were empty. She told Blake right away to just put it on her tab and she'd take care of it. I love my internship!!  We got to take a goody bag with us at the end of the night, it has in it: I am Legend DVD, Enchanted DVD, Seraphim Falls DVD, a beanie like the one Will Smith wears in Hancock, a Leatherheads t-shirt and lipgloss! How amazing is that? They just had left overs... no big deal.

So today I started to realize that not having 1 person to report to is not the best thing in the world. They tell me to come in to work whenever, but I kind of feel like they should be telling me when to come in, instead of asking. Also, I have to ask 5 different people for something to do when the few girls around me don't have anything, so I think if I don't have one set supervisor by Monday or Tuesday I'm going to talk with our team leader, and with IE. 

Other than that, we went to a pub/club tonight. some guys that were old enough to be our dads started chatting and joined our table. They did buy us a bottle of wine, but the one next to Morgan smelled prettttty nasty.. poor Morgan. Kaylin's 2 guy friends are in town this weekend.. we're doing touristy stuff tomorrow with them and then they are making us all dinner! sooo, that's pretty nice, I'm excited for a good home cooked meal. 

Blake talked to our head team leader and he was a bit tipsy/smashed but he was telling Blake how many connections he has. We can pretty much do anything this summer. He said we pay so much money - and honestly get a bit ripped off - so they make up for it with all of the stuff we get to do!!

That's the gist of my internship so far, hopefully I'll start working on some more substantial stuff and have 1 person to actually report to. We can take our lunch in every day. A lot of people have cereal at their desks because Bauer stocks the fridges on each floor with milk for us. They also have tea bags, hot chocolate packets and instant coffee =)) 

I'm starting to get a sore throat which isn't good. The London paper said that pollen counts are going to be out of control this weekend so that might be it... I'm hoping at least. I didn't get too much sleep last night since we got home pretty late from the party, but I reallllly don't want to be sick! I'm heading to bed very shortly. 

Goodnight!

BBC and Parliament

We started today with a tour of Parliament. It was gorgeous inside, very intricate. it reminded me of the inside of the Vatican, but not as tall and not as large. A small scale Vatican. We had a talk by one guy - he was soo monotonous it was awful, especially at 8:30 in the morning. After that we got to walk around and see the house of Lords and the house of Commons and the chair where the Queen sits when she's there - it's made of 22 karat gold - I've never seen so much gold in my life. its not like its just gold on the chair .. its gold on practically the entire end of one room, it's crazy. It was stunning. Then we went to the BBC tube stop, got off and ate lunch at a local pub. I had an awesome chicken and bacon melt with "chips" but while I was eating, the headline news came on and announced bird flu was found in chickens in Oxfordshire - pretty close to London. It's not the strain most deadly to humans, but still - it's the bird flu. They contained the area and said all food is still okay to eat, so hopefully my sandwich won't kill me.

We went to he BBC and went on a tour. We saw a lot of really cool rooms. The weather studio has 30+ reporters who use the room, so all they have to do is go in and touch their name on the touch screen and the camera automatically goes to their height, the lights automatically adjust to their skin tone and the microphone adjusts to their voice.. how cool is that? It's all perfectly ready for each person with the touch of a button.  Then we went to our own studio room and did our own game show. Me and 2 other girls (Caroline and Christy) were picked to be contestants and Carl was a newsperson. I won the contest =) and got a BBC Breakfast coffee mug! the perfect gift since I collect mugs =)

After that we came back, I fell asleep watching a movie and then Kaylin and Megan and I went to Da Marios (spelling?). It's a famous pizza place where Princess Diana always took her William and Harry to get pizza. It was fantastic! I want to go back. But pizza's cost 8+ pounds, and you don't have left overs. But I mean, for delicious pizza in London, I guess that's worth it. Everything else is outrageously priced, I'm slowly getting used to it. 

Not much else new, I start my internship tomorrow so I'm very excited and anxious for that, maybe I'll have time to ask  a few questions tomorrow, and then of course tomorrow night is the big party! Hopefully we'll only have to volunteer for the first half, or something, so we can meet people. 

I'm off to bed... goodnight!

Our first afternoon tea

The roommates, + Danna, decided to get high tea today at Kensington Palace - where Princess Diana lived, and once had high tea herself. It was raining today, but we all wore dresses anyway. I wore flip flops to match my new white dress - mistake. I got home and dirty water had splattered all over my dress from my flip flops flipping it up.. very upsetting. Luckily, someone from last semester left us stain remover.. so I used that and it worked pretty well, thankfully!

The room was so pretty though.

After that we stopped at the grocery store and then came home, made dinner and watched Sweeney Todd.

Sweeney Todd is a disgusting movie.. I'm not a fan. Yes, it's a love story which is cute, and it has a very cute little boy in it .. but there is way too much blood, and throat slitting. 

We have  a long - EARLY - day tomorrow, so I'm going to sleep.

The big scary Interview

So.. big and scary? not quite. Morgan and I both went around with the same woman today, Denise. Instead of asking typical questions like, "Why should we hire you?" or "What are your weaknesses?" It went more along the lines of, "Here's your desk, oh and here are the latest issues of all of our top magazines."

 

It was great! We got introduced to a ton of important people who all seemed really laid back and friendly. Most people were drinking tea.. Others had bottles of Pimms on their desks (liquor) - that was a little surprising. Almost everyone was in jeans and looked super cute, so I'll be going casual most of the summer! =)

We seriously had NO time to even ask a single question. I'm looking forward to Thursday - we work 9-4 and then go to the party where we volunteer for a while and then hopefully get to mingle! I'm anxious to see who shows up - I'm still not exactly sure what the party is for... might want to figure that out soon.

We had another British Life and Culture lecture today - I didn't hear a single word the guy said.. seriously. And our professors were all dozing off in the back of the room, it was obviously very intriguing.

Tonight, we had a guest speaker in GK's class. He worked for the Press Complaints Committee. In Britain they don't have a written constitution, so everything is just kind of unspoken, agreed upon, tradition - things are just the way they are. So, when it comes to media regulations a bunch of editors and publishers got together in 1950 to create this code of ethics. It was a code, or way of doing things without disrespecting people, their privacy, or accuracy (in a nut shell). In order to regulate this code that all journalists agreed to uphold, the PCC was created. anyone can write in and complain if the press prints a false or misleading or libelous story about them and the PCC looks into whether or not the press violated the code. 

Our guest speaker tonight, Will Gore, worked for the PCC. He was great! He was so interesting - it helped that the subject matter was entertaining though. He got us involved in a discussion, something GK doesn't do. and he made me want to go to Law school! I think I'd really enjoy doing media law - but I would definitely not enjoy doing the 3 years of schooling to get there. 

Other than that, we went to a local pub tonight to just relax, it was fun! Tomorrow we have all day off, so we're going to do something fun, possibly afternoon tea at one of the nice places, most likely get dressed up =)

Nothing else new.. I'm just super excited to get my internship started! I want to get in the routine, feel like I'm learning something new about the ad industry!

PS - Dad, I think you'll really need to have a stress free vacation after Honduras. There isn't malaria here, or people with worms. Let's take a poll shall we? Anyone who agrees my dad should come visit his lovely daughter in LONDON say "I"!

They shut down the tube system...

So, in London it is totally legal to have open containers on the tube, train, etc ...  at least until last night at midnight. The new mayor came in and changed the rules of the tube. No more drinking. So, the papers reported that 10,000 people were predicted to do the Circle Line Challenge - the circle line is one tube line. the challenge is to get off at every stop and go to a local pub, either drink a pint or just watch. either way, it's supposed to be really fun! So, a few of us joined the last night. We made it to the first tube... I have a feeling a lot more than 10,000 people did the challenge - more like 20,000. The tube was packed, people were cheering when it came into the station.. it was a blast. So we got off at the first stop, walked around, and then tried to get back on. We waited for like 35 minutes, just talking to locals, and I went to as a security guard where the bathroom was and if I had time before the next tube and he goes - there aren't any more tubes. They stopped the cirlce line. So the circle line challenge was ended at 10:00 last night when the tube normally doesn't shut down until midnight. Then they started shutting down entire stations. There are about 5 tube lines all over london, some stations shut down had connections to 3 of them.. so people were probably not too happy. This meant we had to take a bus home later that night - which was fun to figure out. We had to switch busses half way, odd. Then, a drunk guy got on the bus and started spraying beer on everyone, so someone kicked him off, at our stop of course, and one guy broke a beer bottle over his head. It was a bit frightening - we walked the opposite way of where we were supposed to go to avoid all of that. 

We went to a club last night to meet up with one of the roommates friends, it was an experience. 10 pounds just to get in, so that was fun, and it was at the end of the night so no one really drank. At least we know it's a fun place to go back to one night and stay all night.

Before all of the night's events took place, we all went to Portabello Road in the morning. We started with an amazing banana and nutella crepe. Delicious. Then we took our time shopping around. I'd compare it to Canal Street - but instead of all of the fake bags there were antiques and vintage shops. There were a ton of clothing places too. I got 3 reallllly cute dresses, a necklace, a clutch - and met the designer - a new wallet, and 2 scarves. I was very excited about my purchases! I can't wait to wear my dresses! if it ever gets warm enough here to wear them that is.

We came back, ate lunch, showered and got ready to go out. It was a good day! 

I think we all needed to catch up on some sleep today - I've been pretty lazy. We're making a good dinner tonight though - after our french toast this morning =) that's what sundays are for! I'll be researching and preparing for my "interview" tomorrow.. I'd say wish me luck - but we've all been invited to a party on thursday, and our interviews are monday, so I doubt they'll be turning any of us down as long as we don't butcher the interviews. I've been told my supervisor is totally laid back and chill, so I'm looking forward to meeting him!

pictures

are updated =)

Sex and the City

After a joyous class today with a guest speaker who might have been slightly more interesting than GK, but JUST slightly, Kaylin and I did laundry. Being used to having my own washer and dryer, the 5 pounds for 1 load of just washing my clothes was a bit shocking. (that's $10 just to WASH!) Then, an additional 2+ pounds to dry! Insane right? I spent $14.50 doing laundry today.. one load of laundry. Lets just say I'll be wearing my clothes a lot before I wash them from now on =) maybe wash them in the sink? haha

We went to see Sex and the City this afternoon.. all of the roommates minus Emily, who is in Paris!

It was good! I don't really follow the seasons, I've seen a few episodes randomly here and there, but I still knew what was going on, and enjoyed it! Total chick flick, obviously. We felt bad for the guy in front of us whose girlfriend clearly dragged him to the theatre.. poor guy. It's so much more fun to see movies like that with girls!

After the movie we stopped at Sainbury's (the grocery store) and got ingredients for French Martinis and, being the bartender that I am (or once was), I was able to make delicious martinis without ways of measuring - we don't have measuring cups. We started watching Cloverfield and just hung out and talked. It was fun.

Tomorrow we're going to Portabello Road to do some market shopping! We're all really excited... 

So today was pretty uneventful. There's a creepy guy who lives in a building near ours who's always staring out of his window... not necessarily at us since I think we're at an angle so that he can't see in our window, still creepy. 

The girls downstairs have cockroaches and mice - we're trying to be SUPER clean so we don't have any unwanted friends!

Oh yes, the weird moaning/groaning/grunting sound is possibly a pigeon - one of the roommates came to that conclusion. Whatever it is, it's annoying and moans/groans/grunts at hours we'd rather be sleeping instead of listening to it. 

All of the interviewees for Bauer Advertising got invited to the London Cinema and TV Fund Party on thursday night! It's little black dress attire and there are 4 of us interviewing, so we're all going! How exciting... our first invite to a London event!!!  I think I'm going to like this company.

         The 4 are me (account), Morgan (account/PR), Stew and Blake (both creative).

I saw a really pretty long haired dachshund today! SO CUTE.. I miss Malc and Franks, and Jazzy Bear! Oh, and all of the people I love too, not just the animals. =)

Okay... late to bed, early to rise --> might mean a nap tomorrow.

Cheers

Internship placements

We started with class today after a late night because of our excursion.

After class we wasted time outside in the sun waiting for our internship meetings. At 12:55 I found out my internship... I'm working under a man named Wayne Iles, an Account Executive at Bauer Advertising (formerly EMap).

My duties include:

- liaising with management

- research

- client relations

- brainstorming ideas

- formulating strategies

- finding reasons to visit with the client

- making pitches

- attending meetings

- seeing projects through from start to finish

- schematics - budgets, time tables, costs of promotions

I'm really excited about it, it's pretty much exactly what I wanted... actually, all of the roommates got pretty much what they wanted! We're all happy with our placements, so, good job IE!

After our placements we came back and made lunch and just hung out, relaxed, researched our companies, I painted my nails. Then we got ready and all went out to celebrate! Megan wasn't feeling well though =( 

We went to Tiger Tiger - a club we'd heard many good things about... but I think all of the good things we heard raised our expectations a bit higher than they should've been. There were barely any people there our age - if any at all. And we were told it was ladies night but the club was full of guys... I guess they were all looking for the ladies that weren't there. It was fun for the most part.. I wanted to dance more, but maybe somewhere else next time. 

Overall, I'm very pleased with my internship and anxious to start. My interview is monday at 10am.. They tell us the interview is "very important" and we aren't guaranteed our position, but I'm pretty sure if we don't totally screw up the interview, we have the spot. Plus, I'm not competing with anyone so I'm not that nervous.

I'm tired though, and we have class early tomorrow, so, goodnight!

PS - I'm homesick. I love London and I love being here, but there are some little things that make me miss home and the people I don't like being away from.

A day of Shakespeare

We did an excursion today - 8am-1am. Long day.  I have pictures of everything, they'll be up sometime tomorrow or Friday Mom - since I know you'll be asking. 

We started at Warwick Castle. It's one of the best preserved castles in England, or the UK, whichever - I'll get the difference figured out eventually. They set up the castle as if people were still living there, and they had actual people, well, wax people, but they looked 100% real. It was pretty creepy at first, I was waiting for one of them to blink because they looked so real. Then it just got cool to see how they set up people in every room doing whatever they would've been doing back then, all dressed up and everything. The Castle's rooms were awesome, very intricately decorated, plush.

There was a garden outside of the castle - the perfect place for a small wedding - Morgan is looking into it.

We also saw the dungeon. They had cages hanging from the ceiling and a small "claustrophobic" room, very disturbing. 

We stopped by Anne Hathaway's cabin (aka Mrs. Shakes) - SO cute, quaint (but not small), and cottage-like. Outside there was a very large garden with flowers everywhere. Most of the furniture inside was actually from when she lived there and some of the original flooring was left so I can officially say that I stood where Shakespeare once did.

We learned the meaning of sleep tight - their form of mattresses were set on top of ropes that criss crossed the bed frame. when they got lose, a "key" was placed on the ropes and they were tightened - hence, sleep tight.

we also learned the meaning of upper crust. When they baked bread in their brick ovens, the bottom got burnt and gross. they gave that part to the servants and the better part, the upper crust, to those of higher status in the house.

Curfew is another word we learned today - when people would light fires they had to be very careful not to let them get too big to burn the house, or too small that they'd go out. So someone had to constantly watch the fire. This is tedious, so at 11 every night (I think) a bell tower would ring it's bell telling people it was time to put out their fires, and again at 6am every morning letting them know they could start them up again. 

We saw where Shakes was born - though apparently didn't live or die. I was also told, by a few of the girls, that the story that he died in a pub in Stratford upon Avon is not true - at least the locals have never heard that story. So yeah, his house was interesting.. I didn't stop to listen to any of the guides speak though because it was so crowded, so I'm not sure if any of the stuff in the house was even real or used by him.. I'm going to guess at least half of it wasn't. oh well, still cool to say I was there.

After that, we had 4 hours to spend in Stratford, but of course, it was POURING down rain. Not just the sprinkle kind, the kind that no matter how great of an umbrella you have, your pants still end up soaked.  So we went to the local Fish and Chips place - highly recommended by our tour guide - and had fish and chips. After that we went to a pub and sat around until the play.

Tonight we saw Taming of the Shrew, by Shakespeare. I've never read the original play or watched the movie, so I didn't have anything to compare tonight's performance to but this was definitely a modern version. There were way too many unnecessary sexual acts - not the actual acts, but the motions with clothes on. It was just excessive and not really something I wanted to watch. In the end, the girl, who started out as a crazy, psycho person, ended up being insanely obedient to her husband, succumbing to him in every way, listening to every command. She gave this speech that every woman should obey her husband because he is her master, blah blah, blah... whatever Shakespeare - I disagree.

Tomorrow I find out my INTERNSHIP!! That'd be exciting if I had the energy to be excited right now.. I'm exhausted.. so hopefully good news to report tomorrow.. until then, goodnight!

A day of extra GK

So, not only do we have to sit in class and listen to this man lecture on and on about subjects people might care about if they were remotely interestingly presented, but they aren't, we get to read an article written by him tonight! Isn't that exciting? I think the main problem I have paying attention in this class is because not once has the word advertising been mentioned, and I don't care about the news. I mean, I do, I just don't care about how it's written or who is writing it. Is that such a bad thing? I'm Ad for a reason, we don't have to write the news.

I did take a big step today on keeping myself up to date on worldly happenings though... I subscribed to a free CNN podcast and a free Ad Age podcast. I'm assuming there will be a new "episode" each day that will update me with headlines and major events happening in the real world and in the advertising world. Minimal effort (besides updating my ipod each morning) with maximum effectiveness. Isn't that what we're taught in certain classes?

Anyway.. after class we walked around the campus area and went back for our "Internship Orientation". We were reminded that we have to dress properly, keep the gum at home, prepare questions, and research the company. Things I've never been told before.. it was a really helpful hour. We were also told that we should remember it is an internship, and to look at the bigger picture -- the whole London experience. I think it was their way of saying, "Half of you will hate your internship, you'll get the shaft work and won't have anything to show for it, but who cares, you're in London!" Well, little do they know, that won't fly with our group. I am really concerned they think we're all here to just have fun in London, maybe have a reputable company name on our resume, but just enjoy our time and spend our money. I am definitely here to have fun and immerse myself in a new culture and learn from it, but I also want to have solid work to show from my internship. I'm pretty scared I won't get as much experience as I was hoping to get, but I guess that'll just make me look forward to MOJO in the fall. We find out our internship placements on Thursday... It'll be an (cross my fingers) exciting day.

Tomorrow we're taking an all day excursion.. going to Stratford to see Shake's birthplace and a play in the evening. That's what they call Shakespeare here, like he's an old friend. 

Other than that, Kaylin and I went to the grocery store today, we stocked up on food and I was surprised that my bill was only 25 pounds! I got actual food too. I tried to find everything to make spaghetti sauce, but for some reason they didn't have just plain tomato sauce. They did have a mixture though - tomato paste, sauce, onion and garlic. So that was easier. I got ground beef and mixed it with the already prepared sauce and froze most of it for later. I'm going to start eating better, I can't live on angel hair with parm and ham and cheese sandwiches alone, I need some variety.

I'm going to finish my paper now, I have to make sure it's a good summary since GK wrote it himself. I did improve my grades on all 3 papers now, so that's exciting! I actually got a "good one" at the end of my last paper he handed back. I was so proud.

Oh yes.. PICTURES ARE UPDATED (mom)

I'm sorry it takes me a while - our internet decides to be incredibly slow at times, as in a dead standstill, so that makes it a little difficult to upload pictures. 

Goodnight!

Nevermind the invites

Well, I was going to invite specific people to read my blog and not let just anyone read it, but I decided against that. So, sorry about the invitation emails, just delete them. I figured if people are reading my blog, they want to know about my life and every part of my summer.. so enjoy reading about my life and the people in it =)

A weekend with the Scots

Wow - Edinburgh is incredible!

I'll start by describing the town.. when you exit the train station you can see the architecture everywhere. The buildings are all old, brownish in color and beautiful. The streets are lined with shops and pubs of course, and cafes. That part is similar to parts of London, except most of the roads in Edinburgh are bricks (like some streets in columbia) and on one side the sidewalk has steps down to the street. The streets are hills - you're either constantly walking uphill or down. Our legs got quite the workout this weekend.

Friday:

We got to Edinburgh around 6, a 4 and a half hour train ride with guys sitting by us playing drinking games - a good idea I will remember for next time. We passed through the original York - I'm assuming it's a bit better than the York in PA. We passed fields of sheep, flowers and farmland. Some of the scenery reminded me of PA, but a little prettier.

We dropped our stuff off at our hostel - Castle Rock Hostel - one of Scotland's top hostels, so not as scary as I expected. We met a girl from Harrisburg, PA. She went to school where Kaylin's dad went to school, his name is on the wall. haha. We were in the opposites room, my bed was named Ebony/Ivory. A creative way of assigning beds.

When you walk out of the hostel door you look right up to the castle - it's awesome. I have pictures to post eventually. We walked to nearby pubs - turns out they were Irish pubs, but oh well. Everywhere we went all weekend there were bachelor and bachelorette parties, but they call them Stags and Hens, so we were obviously in the fun part of town!

After 3 pubs we called it a night - Stew got turned down from one pub for "being too drunk" when really he wasn't that bad, I'm sure there were plenty of Scottish people much drunker than he was but oh well.

Saturday:

We ended up waking up early since girls in the room (there were 10 of us) woke up early. We started our day with a chocolate croissant and walked around the Royal Mile - the main road. I bought a pretty ring from a stand on the sidewalk, it's blue and according to Kaylin - "very me". We wandered up to the castle, hoping to walk around inside but it cost 9 pounds (18 dollars) thats a bit pricey so we took pictures outside and left. 

We went into a Whiskey tour place - We got a free glass and a free shot, learned how to taste it properly (it was gross) and then we learned lots of interesting facts about the making of whiskey and went on a ride - kind of like the ride at chocolate world. 

Then we walked downhill to the opposite end of the Royal Mile (connects the castle and the palace) and we saw the Palace where the Queen stays in Scotland in the summer. This was the palace where she spent two weeks after Princess Diana died and really pissed London off. After we had lunch (steak and ale pie which was pretty good) we walked back uphill and booked our excursion for Sunday. We walked past the Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling dreamt up Harry Potter. We also heard American music everywhere we went. Two guys were sitting on the street singing Rehab, by Amy Winehouse. I hate that song. 

Then we grabbed dinner, really good pizza - yes, Italian in Scotland, but we weren't very big fans of their authentic food, especially the Haggis. After dinner we went on a Ghost and Ghouls Tour. We stopped at various places on the Royal Mile and heard ghost stories that were pretty creepy, but then we went down to the vaults. They were rooms under a bridge that were meant for merchants' workshops, but got taken over by the poor and other strange people who mostly died down there. Their spirits stayed down there and we got to hear about a lot of friendly and not so friendly ghosts that are still there. One couple took a picture of a corner just to see if something would show up - a face showed up on the wall! Clear as day, a face --- totally creepy!!! 

Sunday:

We got on a bus at 8am and drove for hours to the Highlands. We drove through the Highlands for a while and it was absolutely beautiful. If anyone ever wants to take an outdoorsy vacation, go to the Scotland Highlands. There are allll kinds of rivers, lakes (or Lochs as they call them) and mountains, hills, grassy fields. It's so simple and relaxing and peaceful. There are fields of sheep - everywhere! Little ones with mom and dad, they were so cute! We saw Ben Nevis, Britain's largest mountain.

We stopped for lunch and I fed a Hamish - a weird looking cow with horns and really long hair. It was in it's own pasture but came right up to the gate when we bought lettuce and carrots inside to feed to it. It was nice! Then we got to Loch Ness where we took a cruise around the lake. It was very pretty. We went past a castle that was completely ruined but still kind of standing. (pictures to come) We unfortunately did not see Nessie - he/she wasn't feeling like coming out I guess. But the castle we saw is where most sightings have occurred. Some are skeptical, I can't figure out if I believe or not, but the lake is 23 miles long and 1000 feet deep, so a creature could definitely hide. We got home and went to a pub of course. We saw live music, the band was good even though we couldn't understand a word they were saying.

We came home today, caught an 11:30 train and listened to two incredibly obnoxious girls the whole way back - we wanted to tell them that American's have the stereotype of being loud for a reason, and to shut up but they eventually went to sleep after 3 hours of talking about boys and clubs - stuff no one wanted to hear. I started reading Kite Runner, it's good so far.

We had PERFECT weather all weekend. Barely any clouds in the sky and not freezing cold. 

I've spent the rest of my night writing another pointless paper for my pointless class and catching up with important people. 

That was my weekend! I reallllly enjoyed Scotland, didn't mind the hostel, loved the Highlands, and found a new drink - cider and black currant, delicious.

Back to class tomorrow, I'm overwhelmed with excitement .... yeah, that's a lie.

Cheers!

Day 6

Today started out as the past few have - boring class. Although we talked about the Amish so that was a topic I felt comfortable with! Morgan and I both looked at each other.. (if you haven't read her blog, she's from around Lancaster) After class we went to Hyde Park and walked around. We passed Round Pond, a popular place in the middle of the park with ducks and pretty swans and chairs that are positioned around the pond to just sit and relax. We got a little scoop of really good ice cream and saw Princess Diana's house/castle. I wasn't impressed, I figured it'd be bigger but it was cool to think that we stood where she once lived. The gift shop was full of crown souvenirs. 

Then we came back and Kaylin and I went to STA - the student travel place. We get discounts through them and they know the good / cheap hostels, flights, train tickets, etc for travel. We looked into our little backpacking excursion for August 10th-19th. We're excited! Prelim plans are London --> Vienna --> Venice --> Tuscany and Florence --> Paris --> London. All of our travel and hostels will cost us less than $1000!!! How crazy is that!? 

Since then we've been sitting in our flat working on stupid homework and travel plans. I finally uploaded my pictures, which took a while, but they're all updated! 

While we were at STA, some guy walked in and asked where some place was, turns out it was their competitor. the girl helping us looked at him and goes, "that's rude to come in here and ask that, it's down the street." It was blunt and great. But really, who does that?

It's going to be 60's and raining one day in Edinburgh this weekend, so chilly, but we'll have fun! I hope Stu is prepared to spend the weekend with me and Kaylin. I'm not so sure I'm prepared to stay in a hostel with 12 girls to a room. It will be an experience to say the least. We might go see the Lock Ness monster!! He exists apparently and we can go see him. 

Side note - we've been told in London that you're never 10 feet away from a rat. That is disgusting. We've been told to be really careful wrapping up food and taking our trash out very frequently because our flat is the most prone to rats. I find that odd since we're on the top floor, but either way, I'm definitely freaked out about it. Last night Ally, Emily and Megan heard something crawling in the walls. They said it sounded huge. I'm not quite sure what I'll do if I see a rat.. I REALLY don't want to find out!!

And - We think we might have a ghost!! or just a really weird person who lives under us. If we get too close to our wall we hear a man doing something in between moaning/grunting/groaning/heaving - totally weird and I told Kay to listen to it today and she screamed and ran out of the room. oops, she has to sleep in there tonight! So, many comforting things about our place, we all really love living here. 

I miss everyone! I hope all is well at home and the weather is more summery than it is here. On a positive note, the rain has stayed away so far! It's supposed to start tomorrow though, but we'll be leaving for the weekend.

We'll chat more tomorrow! Cheers

pictures updated!

FINALLY! Heath is a genius and suggested a better way to get my pictures uploaded - So all of the pictures I currently have are up! enjoy!  a full day's post will be up later!

GOOOO CHELSEA

I'm going to start by apologizing for any typos or spelling errors that result from me writing my blog entry after watching the Chelsea vs. Manchester game in Chelsea - I've had a few drinks and am blaming all errors on the alcohol. 

Just to clarify for mom - I was NOT late my first day of class, I arrived right on time. Others were late, but it was the first time we walked to campus by ourselves (it's 20 min away) and George Kennedy (later referred to as GK) took it all out on those of us who got there on time, but not at all to those who were actually late. Oh well. He likes to hear himself talk and tell us how poorly we wrote our papers. He was "depressed" after he read them. Please note, we wrote a one page summary on an 18 page article that was a huge bore to everyone who "read" it, so he's lucky he was only depressed and not suicidal.

We had our third day of class today - boring again, but SHORT which was a huge plus. After that we came back and did our next paper for tomorrow. We all put more effort into it because I think we all got Cs on our first one. Luckily, since GK was so "depressed", he didn't count these grades. =)  We'll improve them for next time. However, we've all realized that this summer class is not as blow off as we all hoped. (Yes mom and dad, I'll do better on my papers from now on, no worries.)

After our British Life and Culture lecture later in the afternoon today we came back, made a little pasta (angel hair with parm and butter), got ready and hopped on the tube to Chelsea to watch the football (soccer) game! The game was Chelsea vs. Manchester (for those of you who don't know - I wouldn't if I was in the States) they are both British teams. This game was the championship of all UK - amazing! We REALLY wanted Chelsea to win, and it came down to penalties (penalty kicks) or PKs. Manchester was expected to win, and sadly they did. We went to a pub in Chelsea and it was ridiculously packed! This game was a MUCH bigger deal to the British than the Superbowl is to us Americans - pretty big deal. So, everyone was drunk and singing, and yelling and cheering. Trust me, you haven't seen a "packed" bar / pub until you go to the biggest soccer game of the year in England - we didn't have room to move. People were smashed into each other but it was so worth it.

We met a guy who owns Silver Stone raceway - apparently a HUGE racetrack where they have major horse races (mom do you know anything about this?). He also owns property on Michigan Avenue in Chicago and all over the rest of the UK and US - sounded like he was loaded and proud of it. He was pretty open about owning a ton of property. 

Then we met two guys from Burmingham, one was married at 25.. he's been with his girl for 5 years - kind of reminded me of my relationship =)  minus the married part.

There was another group of gentlemen who were very drunk, and way too friendly. They kept saying, "Americans think we have agendas, we don't have agendas we're just friendly." But I wasn't convinced. You have to be really careful here because you never know what certain people will expect, especially if they offer to buy you a drink, etc. It's not like college bars where you can get a drink out of any random guy.. people here say they don't look for anything, but a lot are lying and it's more obvious than they think.

Other than that, we didn't do much today. The area of Kings Road was fun and very posh. There are a TON of cute stores, so we decided we'll not eat out for 3 weeks at the end of the trip and go shop! 

I made popcorn when I got back. 1 of the 3 bags I actually brought with me. I thought they'd sell it here, I was wrong. Which is a HUGE problem since it's kind of my addiction. It burnt =( stupid UK microwaves!

Oh yeah - Morgan fell down the stairs of the tube tonight - very very funny. She doesn't do well in flip flops we've realized. She tripped about 10 times today walking on the uneven sidewalks, or pavement as they call it here. The guy walking behind her was like, "are you okay?" It was hilarious! I'm sure she'll love me for talking about this on here tomorrow =)

I've been taking a ton of great pictures, but for some reason Picasa is being retarded and SUPER slow so I haven't been able to upload them! I'll work on that tomorrow. We have the day off tomorrow after class is over at 12:30 so I think we're going to come back, grab lunch and go to Hyde Park. I'm pretty excited about that. It's supposed to be 60s-70s tomorrow too so it'll be gorgeous! I'm sad, yet glad we're missing the hottest time of the summer. But VERY glad we're missing the $4.00+/gallon gas prices! 

Ok, I've blabbed on long enough. I'll be working on the picture situation, since more pictures of the roomies have been requested. 

night!!

Day 4

First full day of class - I'm not quite sure what to say about that. Our prof seems great, packed full of knowledge and opinions but all of topics that terribly bore me. Several people fell asleep today, I was almost one of them. I wish we could talk about advertising! 

After class we took the train to the area around the Museum of London. We had lunch at a great sandwich place - I had a chicken and roasted mushroom sandwich on some kind of reallllly good bread. 

After that we found a cute shop - I got a bracelet. 

Then we went to the Museum of London, it was not impressive and very small. We walked around after that and found a pub with Pimms! It is some kind of alcohol (the Pimms part) with carbonated lemonade, fresh oranges, limes, lemons and cucumber. It is delicious!! Then we went to the Tate Modern Collection - modern art. It was pretty cool!

After that we came home and ate and relaxed. We do SO much walking here, plus our 6 flights of stairs to our flat, my legs get very sore. It's all worth it though! We've seen so many great parts of London. 

So not much interesting to say and report on today. I'm watching last night's One Tree Hill, so that's exciting!

I'm exhausted though - still. Night!

Day 3

Today started way too early, but GOOD news, I just found a mac charger someone left behind and it works in my laptop!!! No more stupid charger problems.

Okay so today.... 

We had orientation at 8am and learned about a lot of things I can't remember because it was 8am. We talked about travel - apparently there is a bank holiday on monday, meaning no one works, meaning no class for us, meaning 3 day weekend to travel! So we looked into traveling and came to the conclusion that Edinburgh, Scotland was the best choice for the time and money this weekend. We booked our hostel - 12 random girls per room which is not something I'm looking forward to, but at least it's all separated sexes, so no random, creepy guys will be sleeping the same place I am. Then we bought our train tickets and a student train card that gets us 30% discounts on all train tickets, pretty good deal.

After all of that we made dinner - angel hair with butter and parm cheese - it's the cheap diet I am going to become a very big fan of. Today, I ordered a chicken and bacon sandwich thinking I'd get chicken and bacon on bread. I even said, please no mayo or tomato or anything like that, and the lady said, "oh no, just chicken and bacon."  Yeah, it was a chicken, bacon and mayo soup - disgusting!!! I HATE mayo and it hurts my stomach but I didn't feel like buying something else so I had to eat it... I'll know better next time I guess.

We had our first day of class today and got our first assignment - an 18 page article. So that'll be fun to skim =)

We have to write a one page summary on the main points of the article, so I have a feeling it doesn't require in depth reading. 

I just want to say a big GOOD JOB to my parents today who both got on Skype and talked to me and realized how incredibly awesome it was! Now I just have to get my brother on there to say hi.

The travel plans for the rest of the summer include Barcelona, Dublin, maybe Berlin, Prague, a day trip to Wales, and then Paris, Venice and Nice at the end of the summer with my mom and Kaylin. I'm pretty excited about it - we just have to plan it and make sure we have the money to pay for it all.

Just a tid bit about Imperial College. This is where we're taking classes, taught by MU profs, but I guess Imperial is the host school for our study abroad program. Imperial is the second most prestigious college in the WORLD. Cambridge is first, then Imperial, then Oxford. Imperial is the MIT of Europe - but they much prefer MIT as the Imperial of the States, since Imperial was build first. That's pretty exciting, and intimidating. It is a science and medicine college. 

Also - we're staying in Earl's Court (I'm not sure if I covered this the first day) and it is, along with Chelsea, the wealthiest part of London. How we got flats here baffles me. There are more Porsches than maybe any other "nice" car here. Mercedes are everywhere too, and Mini coopers, but Porsches are EVERYWHERE. Aston Martins aren't rare in this part of London either. 

Well, that pretty much covers my day, I need to get to my homework - obviously my priorities are in line ... 

Until tomorrow - Goodnight!

Day 2

Let's see how much of my day I can get through before I fall asleep.. jet lag is no fun.

We started our day out bright and early with a bus tour of London. Our tour guide was one who has a special license I guess to show she's extra good at what she does. She was awesome. Her name was Trudy and she had the best accent and vocabulary I've ever heard. I want to talk like her by the time I move back to Missouri. We took the bus around and learned a lot about the history of different parts of London. We only got out to take pictures at St. Paul's Cathedral, so the rest of my pictures are from on the bus. We ended up in Picadilly Circus, which we assume means "plaza". It was a HUGE shopping district. We walked a LOT and went in to a ton of super cute stores.. we'll definitely be going back.

I bought a blanket because our flats are 175 years old and at times very chilly because it hasn't been past 65 degrees yet. I also got a cardigan and a zip up sweater... the zip up was 6 pounds, and the cardigan was 16... awesome purchases! The blanket was 4 pounds. 

We got our oyster cards today so that we can ride the tube. Apparently it costs 4 pounds one way without the card, and with the card it costs 1.50 pounds each way and it works like a pay as you go card, it's great and will save us tons of money! 

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street tonight, everything we need is in walking distance, it's prefect. I had pizza - it was really good! But we had to pay for the water (tap water) and the bread - we each got one roll. Definitely not an Americanized Italian restaurant! We asked for olive oil to dip the bread in and our server said it'd cost 2.95 pounds .. $6 for olive oil?? no thank you!  I'm sure we'll get used to the fact that things are not included with meals here and that everything, everything, everything costs money, and a lot of it. Although our meals were pretty cheap tonight.

We got to see a lot more of the city today while in Picadilly Circus. I'm in love with the way the buildings are structured and how they line the streets. Every street has small cafes, coffeshops, and pubs on them. The way of life here is obviously centered on pleasure and enjoyment and relaxation - unlike the US where we're all go, go, go. Our tour guide said please about 50 times today. She mentioned that they always say please here. I'm glad that's a habit of mine, but I'm going to pay special attention to say it every single time so that I'm not labeled a rude American. Ally got asked for directions today by other tourists.. so at least we don't look the part.. even though we knew no more than the person asking did. 

Picadilly Circus is like a MUCH classier Time's Square. there is ONE building with moving advertisements, the rest are older buildings with shops lining the streets. We went in to Primark today, the "walmart" of London, but for clothes. They have SUPER cheap fashion but since it was Sunday, it felt like our walmart at Christmas time. It was crazy! People love their shopping here.

I can't figure out how to get pictures on this site, but I can post a link to my Picasa online album, it is 

picasaweb.google.com/girlsthatdrinkpintsarebutch/TheSites

I posted a lot of pictures from today with captions so that you can understand what you're look at and some of the history that I remembered from the tour to go with the places.

I can't think of much else to talk about from today. We have orientation tomorrow morning and start classes for 2 weeks on tuesday. We STILL don't know for sure what our internships are! It's killing me, I'm really scared, I hope everything works out and I gain valuable knowledge about advertising, not just tea!

Everyone calls everyone "love" here. I heard one guy say it to another today, it was quite strange. It has no affectionate connotation, so on that note.....

Goodnight loves!

Day 1 in London

So it all began with an 8 hour flight on Air India from Chicago friday night at 8:40. We got served some kind of curried chicken and rice (not good). We got to London and boarded coach busses with our massive International Enrichment group and drove about 30 minutes to our flats in South Kensington. Our street (Hogarth) is lined with tall, white buildings. every entrance has a front porch with steps.. it's very cute. 

There are 5 flats in our building, and of course we got the one on the fifth floor. my suitcases weighed 45 and 55 lbs... my legs and arms were SO sore after carrying both of those up 6 flights of stairs. I say 6 instead of 5 because the door to our flat opens to yet another set of stairs. It's a hike. We have 2 bedrooms, 1 with 2 bunk beds, the other with just 1, a very small bathroom and kitchen with a half fridge. We have a pretty decent common room with a table and a desktop computer and a TV that may be slightly more than 8 inches. 

After we painfully dragged our suitcases upstairs we went on a walking tour of Kensington. We had the traditional fish and chips (fries) and it wasn't that great. We have lots of restaurants close to our flat though, and a grocery store with good food.

Tonight we went on a pub crawl! It was pretty fun - I had cider that wasn't very good - pretty dry. Then I had Fruli, a strawberry beer and it was delicious! Now we're just relaxing - it's been a long day but it was worth it.

This area of London has tons of really tucked in pubs, stores and restaurants. You can turn down any alley and find a street lined with shops. The whole atmosphere is just quiet and relaxing. The pubs are quiet too - you can actually have a real conversation in them without yelling, it's great. It is weird to see American beers though - there are Budweiser ads everywhere. 

It was rainy and cold today - not exactly what I expected my summer weather to entail, but it's okay, it can snow and I'd still be happy because I'm in LONDON!

Oh yeah, I should explain the name of my blog.  Tonight on the pub crawl one of the locals was talking to another guy and he said, "girls that drink pints are butch, girls should only drink 1/2 pints." Hence the name of my blog. Of course we were all drinking pints at the time, so I guess we'll learn to do as Londoners do as we go along. 

I'll eventually learn how to post pictures so that I have pictures to go with my stories, but until then it's just writing...  

Cheers!