A Day at the Regatta, and then some.

It's July! The pace at which this trip has been going is unbelievable to me. I suppose that's what happens when you are spending a casual summer abroad, living every day in a place like London with Europe just a few hours away.

The only time I stood at The Globe

Thursday, the last day of June, I took in a show at Shakespeare's Globe theatre. My seat was a little off to the corner which was fine, despite being told the "traditional" way to see a show was by standing in the center, I wasn't about to do that for three hours. Although I stood for longer during the Harry Potter premiere...priorities...but we will get to that in another post! I saw All's Well That Ends Well for the first time. I liked the humour, it was a little different from Shakespeare's normal style. I think it ended pretty well.
Kate and I went to Henley-on-Thames Friday for the summer crew event of the season: The Henley-Royal Regatta. So posh, so privileged, so English, the Regatta features junior and adult crew clubs from Eton to Harvard - ladies, nevermind the frat stars, this is the perfect place to find yourself a future husband.

Another day at the Regatta

We spent the afternoon sipping on Pimm's, the summer drink here, with refreshing mint and orange, and watched the muscles flex as they went by. A note for next year though, the "in" thing to wear, not fascinators and blazers but maxi dresses. Who would've known?!
That Saturday I went zip lining by Leeds Castle. It was a definite testament to my lack of any upper body strength whatsoever, I mean really, I was struggling on the "Tarzan" nets which involved you falling from the platform in the tree in to a net and then having to scale the net to get to the next platform. Not pretty. A lot of obscenities were thrown around that day. But it was beautiful scenery and some exercise I was in dire need of after spending weeks living off of sandwiches and Marks & Spencer's pre-made dinners.

Getting some much needed exercise in Leeds

Sunday, unfortunately, was entirely spent finishing my 5,000 word research paper that is due July 13. Despite the complaining, I did enjoy writing it. My research was done on the North-South divide of England, how the varying accents and dialects of the regions had shaped their cultures and, as a result, perpetuated the stereotypes and prejudices between "Northerners" and "Southerners." For a case study I used the 90s Britpop battle between Oasis (from Manchester) and Blur (from London). I loved listening to their albums and hearing their different accents as part of my "research." Not to be bias or anything but I'd have to say overall I'm an Oasis fan. I hope Londoners aren't reading this...

Americans in Paris

Outside the Old Vic!

The weekend of June 24 Kate and I were graced with the presence of Lauren Rogers and Loren Wilson in London! Oh yeah and J.Clark - great photos on Facebook by the way J. Clark, you look like a really, really good dancer.
Anyway they arrived Thursday night and Kate and I met them after seeing Richard III with Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic. A few things on that - 1.) I use the term "seeing" loosely because our seat were literally perpendicular to the stage, we could see half of it maybe and that was only when we were leaning over the railing. 2.) There is a GREAT Indian place around the theater, I think it's called Spices of India? Delicious, great nan and great sag paneer.
Once we got the whole gang together we went over to a pub in Covent Garden, I will not say which one though because this part isn't exactly good PR. We all ordered Pimm's, because I don't know it seems like the summer English drink of choice. It was awful, Pimm's has I think seven or nine version, gin-based, vodka-based  etc. and there are variations for the seasons, winter Pimm's, summer Pimm's, and so on. But this, I don't know what this was, licorice with a splash of lemonade maybe?

Spices of India = Yummm

Friday we met early at Waterloo station to catch a train to Hampton Court, a summer favorite of Henry VIII I think - we all know who he is. The lauren/lorens and josh got pastys for breakfast, and for those of you with naughty minds nooo it is not something you stick on your breast, if I could describe it it would be the product of a calzone and hot pocket, with various fillings like cheese and onion (I think it's better than it sounds).
At Hampton, we had the option of putting on cloaks, maybe that's what the 10 pound cover was for, dry cleaning and so on. And of course we opted for them! We all chose green, team Slytherin.
After a day of discovering how much royalty don't really believe in the sanctity of marriage - I mean NO ONE was faithful, ever - and frolicking in our cloaks we hopped on a train back to good ol' London.
The day was not over yet though so we decided to go down to Southbank and ride the London Eye! The eye was literally the one thing I absolutely had to do while here, no exceptions, and it was amazing! Got some great pics of Benny from afar. Afterwards, we trekked over to Trafalgar Square, where currently thousands of HP fanatics are camping out for the premiere, taking place tomorrow, to go to Texas Embassy Cantina! Apparently, when the good ol' Lone Star state was a country the embassy was in Trafalgar. Today, just down the street from the old embassy building some Texans set up shop to bring the flavors of Tex-Mex to our Bangers and Mash comrades. If you show your Texas I.D. you get a free margarita. Gob Bless Texas.

Ladies of the Cloak

The next day we did a hop-on hop-off tour like I did in Dublin. We went to the Tower of London which was awesome, and creepy, we all sat in the church where two of Henry's wives he beheaded were buried...disturbing and fascinating at the same time. You hear the story of Ann Boleyn so much you think it's just a fairytale gone bad, but then you see her tomb. The crown jewels, housed in the Tower, were beautiful of course. Also reminded me the scope of Great Britain's power, the had a crown with jewels the size of my fist for India - literally the "Crown of India" or something, I thought to myself, "When do they wear that one?"
London, unfortunately is much, much bigger than Dublin. Although we got to see the Tower and a lot of the City of London (different from Greater London) we weren't able to go see Parliament or Westminster which had also been on the day's agenda. I've been in London for over a month and, even with these last few weeks booked with stuff to do, I feel like there is so much I still haven't seen...a good excuse to come back across the pond I suppose. Maybe visit Kate at Oxford :)

Ye, Me, and Julie!

My dearest, athletic, tan friend Julie Thompson came in to town on June 16! She's been to London many a time and, with a free plane ticket, found the perfect excuse to come back and see my pretty face! (insert huge cheesy smile here).
the second she landed we hit the ground running, going to Covent Garden for dinner with my fried Lauren and taking telephone booth pictures - surprisingly the first I've had since being here. We stopped by the Nag's Head (I know very appealing sounding) outside of Covent after dinner for a pint and to make a game plan for the rest of the night. I should note here that Julie kept joking how she was going to run me ragged while she was in town, disclaimer: she was NOT JOKING! In the middle of planning our game, an interesting, wobbling, businessman asked to take a seat at our booth; couldn't really say no...could we? This escalated in to a few more of his friends joining and chatting about life in London etc. etc. To make a long, awkward story slightly less long but just as awkward, this gentleman wanted us to join him to a club "where Prince Harry would be," you see they were sort of friends...but just in case we actually ran in to him we weren't supposed to say he said they were friends...riiiiggghhhhttttt. Dodged that bullet thankfully and instead when to a recommended club that turned in to an American hot spot, because, well, it was American themed. The big give away was the Harley Davidson in the middle of the bar. After dancing to the familiar sounds of Rihanna and JT we ventured our way back to the hotel and called it a night. A few hours later we were up and off to Dublin!
After a sleepy train ride and a ferry-that-looked-like-cruise-ship ride we were in Guinness country. Unbeknownst to Julie and I a huge English, pop, boy band called Take That was in town for the weekend and every hotel/hostel was booked to capacity. Except of course the one we booked which was, according to many a taxi driver, in a drug infested neighborhood of Dublin. With 10 other girls. Bathrooms not connected. Score. We had gotten lost for two hours walking up and down O'Connell Street and were a little flustered by everything so we hopped in a cab and went down to a popular area called Temple Bar to find Julie's sanctuary: Hard Rock.

Julie and I in the beautiful Irish countryside!

After a decent cocktail and burger, and a really funny/sassy waiter, two hours of iPad searching and phone calls to Julie's parents found us a hotel off of Portobello Road - a nice area, not drug-infested. A comfy, unquestionable bed to share, and a tub. Score!
Saturday was spent with Joe, our lovely tour guide to Glendalough and Kilkenny (think P.S. I love you, yeah that's right!). The Irish country side is beautiful! Absolutely stunning, the only draw back would be the excessive amounts of cyclists...yeeaaahhhhh.
That night we met up with some friends of friends, as anyone who know Julie knows that she manages to make friends from every country and continent. We had a great time with them and it was nice not to worry about where to go and not go, just follow the Irish leader!
Sunday morning was painful, we had been going to sleep past midnight every night and waking up before eight every morning for several days - we were running on E. What to do? Grab an Irish breakfast of course!
Irish Breakfast:
baked beans
grilled tomatoes
Irish black and white pudding (did NOT eat that)
Bacon (aka good ham, they wouldn't dare eat American bacon - its supposed to be from a bad part of the cow or something?...still would eat it, just saying)
eggs
toast
After a quick stop at Starbucks around the corner, my favorite Chai latte ok - none can compare - we were reenergized and ready for our final day in Dublin. A hop-on hop-off tour was a God send, we managed to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time and got to do the thing I really came to Dublin for - the Guinness brewery! Beautiful, elegant, informative, a free pint, it was wonderful.
As we headed for the ferry around 8, little did we know our real adventure of the weekend was just beginning.

Guinness = Irish water

Let me preface this adventure, the man behind the counter at the train station asked if I wanted to take the night train, I said what were the time? He said the ferry left Dublin at 9 p.m. and the train go in to Euston at 5 a.m. I was like ok that'd be a long night but we could sleep on the train and have a whole extra day in Dublin we otherwise wouldn't. WRONG. We reached Wales at midnight, where we were informed the train to London in fact did not LEAVE the station till 5. Score. After trying every position of sleeping in the book and probably inventing a few new ones 5 a.m. creeped a long. Luckily because I think we were beginning to contract pneumonia. We arrived back at my house close to 9 a.m. Thirty minutes later I was off to work. Starbucks run? YES.

First Week on the Payroll (not really)

After joining in the celebration of her majesty's official birthday I went to work Monday ready to give a full week of unpaid labour! Love being a student intern :) And by a full week I mean Monday to Wednesday from around 10 a.m. to around 6 p.m. with an hour lunch break. My office is close to Oxford Circus which is a huge shopping area and has about a million and one cafes and restaurants within a block or two. Soho park is also a stroll away but the pigeons here, as I said before, are mutated demon pigeons and I prefer my life as well as my Pret sandwich to be intact coming back to the office. Schön! (the magazine I work for) is revamping their website and I am basically in charge of uploading content to that website. I've put the latest issue up, created introductions for the spreads in the magazine, and made tags for the designer and photographers featured. I also create summaries for the home page of the site and thumbnails to each spread. It's pretty interesting and, thanks to my blog work at The Alcalde, (Texas Exes shout out, woohoo!) I basically know what I'm doing. As much as I hate to admit it the era of the newspaper, or paper in general really, is being outsourced to the web. You have to know how to work with multimedia in journalism to stay connected and reach as many people as possible and I'm really glad I have that opportunity here. My friendly Londoner friend at work is Neesha (I'm not sure if that's the proper spelling but that's how you say it). She is very outgoing and very spunky, always comes out with me to lunch and we end up roaming the streets up and down trying to decide what to eat, then figuring out where the office is again.  

Amnesia and a Birthday

Well it's been awhile since my last entry, the past two weeks I kept telling myself, "oh hey I'll just write for a few days when I get the chance," no big deal right? WRONG. I don't really remember much of the weekend of June 10, not necessarily because I was out all night but because time really flies by here. Even the day just seems to be in fast forward mode. So the quaint little details I would have for whoever reads this for that weekend are, well, lost to me now. I'm sorry! But I'm sure it was a great weekend because if it wasn't I'd probably remember that...

Coffee = life

Oh good grief what was I thinking! The Queen's Jubilee was that weekend! Yes I believe it was Saturday June 10 and I was exhausted from the night before trying to get home from Soho! The Queen's Jubilee is basically an official celebration of her birthday (her real birthday is in April) and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh turned 90 a few days before that. I watched an interview of him on BBC, he's very witty, had plenty of little quips for the interviewer. Anyways, we, meaning myself, Kate, Lauren, Katie, and Janel, got up at the crack of about half past 9 (9:30) and headed over to the underground. We were struggling by the time we got out of the tube, it has a tendency to dehydrate you to the point of fainting, so we made a be-line to the nearest coffee stand and grabbed some lattes and crescents.
The actual procession at Buckingham was short and difficult to really see anything because we were on the opposite side of the entry gates. We did it a small glimpse of her majesty (I feel other worldly using that term) and Camila and Kate Middleton I THINK. I'm basing this off of the color of their hats so don't get too giddy about it just yet.

The Royal Mews making an entrance.

The real excitement was when one of the horses in the Royal Mews - the mews or stables of the Royal family - became spooked or agitated and could not stay in line with the other probably 100 horses. He would flare up and kick and the audience would gasp. His poor rider did his best but there was one point where he was basically bucked and the horse came down on top of him. However his training, stemming from hundreds of years of training, served him well. He got back up and a fellow officer helped him mount the horse again. There was a moderate applause from the crowd, people were unsure whether or not to do so, I guess so the officer could maintain face. The uniforms of the Royal Mews are something to behold as well. Ornate and regal, their helmets come to a point in the center of their heads with red tassels hanging down, I don't know what purpose that once served but I'd be interested to find out.

WORKin' hard every night and day

So my first day of work was yesterday! I was very excited to get started but still a little nervous. Although we technically speak the same language English culture and mannerisms, particularly in the workplace, are very different from the familiar American counterpart. People socialize in and out of work a lot more here, they go to the pub at lunch break even! It's not to say that I don't like it (I love it) it's just a new experience I'm looking forward to understanding better as the weeks progress.
I arrived at 58-60 Berners street a few minutes before 10 a.m. yesterday. My editor, Raoul, who is currently in the states for an exhibit, gave me specific instructions not to arrive earlier than 10 a.m. For the first day, I wasn't sure of how serious he was being so I walked down the street, grabbed a coffee, and leisurely walked back. On my leisure walk I looked around at the other businesses and buildings on Berners. There is a GUESS headquarters (random but ok I'll go with it) and an exclusive boutique called Lilly something (not Pulitzer ladies, put down the pink floral print). I say it was exclusive because it appeared you needed to be buzzed in from the outside and because the vibe coming off of the window displays made you feel like you didn't want to disturb them inside unless you had an appointment.
I finally made it to the office AT 10. I had to be buzzed in, which gave me a sense of satisfaction. There are several companies that operate in the building where the magazine headquarters. Above the offices of Schön! is a designing office for a company that produces garments for retailers around the globe. There are desks lined up with MACs and rows of clothes on the walls as well as sketches covering every inch of that office, I love walking through it.
When I reached the magazine's offices I was greeted by the assistant ed chief, Zohra. Another intern, a real Londoner, came in for her first day (I remember her name but don't have a clue as how to spell it) a few minutes after me and then we started our day. Me and the other newbie went through every issue of the magazine since it started 2 years ago. Zohra wanted us to take note of the style of the mag, how it was layed out, what they like to cover in editorials, and what designers they like to feature in the photo spreads.
It was nice to have time to familiarize myself with the magazine but after 7 hours with a rainy lunch break in between I though my eyes were going to start to bleed. Luckily we were let off a little early. I said goodbye to my new peers and ran to the tube. I had only an hour before my class and I really, really wanted to change - besides I had endured looking overdressed at work all day and could endure it no longer.
A little after 6 and I was out of breath but in the classroom for my first day of "Diversity in the British Workplace" or something along those lines. The class title is a little misleading, as the professor said, but based on the first day the class seems to examine the development of the British workplace from earlier centuries to what it is today and what aspects of (to put it broadly) culture shaped it. It's very discussion-oriented which I like because people can then offer up their own opinions of their work experience here as we move along in to the summer.
A little before 8 the professors decided to let us out early and call it a day. I think I will too on this entry, also I'm really hungry...chicken pot pie sounds good. 

A Catch Up



Second floor of The Pembrooke

After my interview I went back to Thoresby on the tube (and figured out how all by myself). I changed, had lunch then walked over to City University where I'd be taking some classes. The interns in the program all gathered for a kind of orientation then we split up for a scavenger hunt across the city. I teamed up with some girls from Lehigh, Lauren and Katie, who also live at Thoresby. Their friend Michael and a girl named Dominique later joined the group. From there we covered the hot spots - St. Paul's Cathedral (across the street is the Millenium bridge from HP!), Covent Gardens, a great market place where we had some delicious ice cream at this kind of fetish styled shop called "The Icecreamists" (the servers wore leather military hats and tights), Charing Cross, where we browsed through the halls of the National Gallery, Westminster and finally Parliament Square, home of the Houses of Parliament (Big Ben too) and across the street to the London Eye.
My feet were killing me and I was exhausted (still sniffling) but Katie, Lauren and I headed back to Thoresby to clean up then go down to our local pub, The Eagle. Where we also spent our first night trying out the different beers (none of which I had ever heard of before except Guiness). Michael came down from Earl's Court to join us, he's a hoot is all I can say.
The next day came with a short meeting then lunch at Dabucka, a Lebanese restaurant, that was dimly lit with blue sashes covering the ceilings and walls. Lunch was followed by more sightseeing and later more drinking, this time at a club on Shoreditch (an area right next to Hackney with bars and clubs). It was a 10 pound cover to get in to "Favela Chic" but the cocktails were good and the music was even better - lots of reggae tone/infusion style with a few random American songs thrown in.