Our group left K-M yesterday morning around 8:30 to take the first organized program day trip, to Stonehenge and Bath. Kate and I grabbed a seat toward the front and enjoyed the views of London from the bus...a nice change from the constant walking! We were all pretty exhausted, however, and I was asleep soon after we left the limits of the city, although not before watching a bit of the English countryside roll by and realizing that it could literally be Minnesota countryside...I guess farmland is farmland anywhere in the world you go! It made me a bit homesick though...reminded me of the drive to the cabin and I got a bit nostalgic.
Turns out Stonehenge is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, right off the side of a highway...it was so weird to all of a sudden hear Kris, one of our rectors, say, "If you look out the front of the bus it's right in front of us," and to look and just see it there. We disembarked to a frigid 2-degree Celsius (about 34 degrees Fahrenheit, but it felt so much colder in the countryside!) day of more brilliant sunlight. Surrounded by fields of grazing sheep and with a few wisps of cloud in the sky, it was definitely picturesque, but there is literally nothing there except the henges themselves (haha), a small café and a gift shop (of course). After a small snafu regarding where we actually got our passes to enter the site, we were handed our oh-so-ubiquitous audio guides and were off!
I hate to say this and sound disinterested, but after a while Stonehenge was a bit more underwhelming than I thought. It was sort of surreal to actually see it after having seen so many pictures and documentaries and images of it growing up, but the weird thing is that in person, it's exactly like it is in pictures...a big circle of rocks that nobody knows the what, why and how about. That was REALLY frustrating...the whole audio guide just kept stressing over and over again that nobody knows what Stonehenge is for sure, why it was built, who built it or how it was erected. Theories include that it was an ancient sun calendar (reinforced by the position of sunlight coming through the arches each month and a few other rocks' positions), a site of worship, a demonstration of some leader's power...nobody knows though and after a while I got really sick of hearing about that! Not to mention it was SO cold...Stonehenge is at the pinnacle of a hill and we were exposed to all the wind for miles, and England had gotten a light dusting of snow the night before that made walking an icy, mucky mess. Needless to say, we were all excited when our hour and a half at Stonehenge ended and we departed for Bath.
After another hour on the bus to Bath, we hopped off the bus and immediately walked to the site of the Roman Baths, the archaeological excavation of a Roman temple and bathhouse that made Bath itself famous. Weirdly, we were given a random hour to explore Bath itself, so a group of six of us (five girls and Colin!) headed to "The Circus" and "The Royal Crescent," which had been touted to us as the best example of Georgian architecture you could find anywhere in the English countryside. Apparently both sites had been featured in Jane Austen movies and were very well-known. We had a good time at both sites for a bit (the Crescent had an amazing terraced field that would have been perfect for a picnic if it would have been about 20 degrees warmer), and then went off to find a pub to get Anne, our birthday girl, a drink on her 21st! On the way, we happened upon the Jane Austen Centre, and I flipped shit and got really excited before I realized that it cost mega-pounds to go in for what would have been only about 20 more minutes.
Instead, we went to an O'Neills, one of the British chain pubs that ND kids love love, and had a pint (or two, or a few) before heading back to the Baths for our audio-guided (of course) tour. The place was surprisingly cool, although very done-up for tourists...they had people dressed up like ancient Romans walking around the perimeter of the largest of the baths, which was a little weird but interesting, I guess. I really enjoyed it because I'm a nerd and love history and that sort of thing, and there was a lot about the Roman occupation of England back when it was Britannia, one of the outposts of the Roman Empire. I wish we would have had more time to stay, learn, and explore, but we had to be back at the buses to depart by 4:15. Colin and I grabbed a pint of Ben&Jerry's (he had been craving ice cream all day) and made it back to the bus...most popular kids on the trip home, mostly because everybody was jealous of our ingenuity.
The trip back took what felt like FOREVER, mostly because we were all tired, hungry and a little bit travel-worn, and wanted to get back to the flats. It's so weird that coming back to K-M now really does feel like coming home in a sense, especially after a long day trip like that one! We ate a quick dinner and got ready to go out for Anne's birthday...after a GREAT chocolate cake and some cider/wine, we headed to the Charterhouse Bar, right down the street and around the corner from the flats. I spent most of my night conversing (in French!) with Peter's new French friends, Claire and Aurore, who were visiting from Paris for the weekend. Aurore speaks very good English so she and I spent much of the night speaking Franglais, with her speaking English and me speaking French back. It was a mutually beneficial night of language practice (and fun!) for both of us! I really enjoyed meeting them and hope to see more of them over the trip...it was very cool to be able to converse fluently with "real French people" :)
Enough about yesterday, though, today looks like another promising day of sunshine and I am really excited to go explore some more of this gorgeous, enormous, fascinating city I call home for the next few months. I'll update more later, maybe throw some pictures up as well, but London awaits!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
ancient adventures and a night of birthday fun!
Friday, January 29, 2010
submarines, sunsets, and spaghetti carbonara :)
Well, although I said today was a gray day in London, I turned out to be proven wrong! The sun popped through the clouds around 1pm, and Charlie was gracious enough to invite me to join a group on an excursion to the Imperial War Museum. As skeptical as I was initially (a museum about war?...really, guys?!), it turned out to be a great idea, a great adventure, and a great day.
We left K-M about 2pm and headed toward the Thames in blinding, brilliant sunlight...so pretty, although it was very windy! From our crossing point of the Thames, the view was STUNNING! We could see all the way down to Whitehall/Parliament and the London Eye looking one way, and way up toward Tower Bridge from the other. I was so excited that I just kept exclaiming "Oh my gosh, it's so PRETTY!" like a crazy tourist. The walk to the War Museum was a bit far, but through a very picturesque part of London, a bit more removed from the hustle and bustle of our zone.
The War Museum itself was really cool, although the main section of it was not totally up my alley. It was housed in a beautiful facility that I mistook for a church at first sight (oops), and upon entry the first thing I noticed was the ceiling, hung with real airplanes from World War II...I got very excited, it was...you guessed it...SO PRETTY! :) The ground floor was absolutely littered with tanks, bombs, boats, submarines, etc. I was interested at first, but after a while all tanks are really just tanks, so I went to play in the submarine interactive exhibit that was intended for 12 and unders. Don't judge. I had waaaaaay too much fun in there for an almost-21-year-old!
After the boys had exhausted the ground floor tanks and stuff, we spent a long time in an exhibit I really enjoyed, about "The Children's War," World War II from the perspective of British kids and teens. They talked a lot about the evacuated children who were moved into foster homes to get out of London, and even had a real-size example of a typical country English home of the time...I really enjoyed it. The anecdotes and stories of the children looking back, however, were my favorite...there was such a range of opinion, so many different perspectives and attitudes and stories to be told...I love that. I absolutely love learning about what people thought and did and felt, especially at such a turbulent and difficult time as World War II. What an era to come of age in!
We left the War Museum around 4pm to walk home, and quickly got distracted by the absolutely BEAUTIFUL sunset over the Thames. I'm not kidding, it was radiant. Colin and I stopped and took about 20 pictures each over the Thames with Whitehall, the Eye, and the bank of the river in the background, silhouetted against an absolutely flaming-ly gorgeous sky. So amazing...I will probably never get over the beauty of this place!
Then it was time for the second of (hopefully) many Minerva Flat 3/4 dinners. Tom was our chef this time and, after a complicated miscommunication where nobody actually bought stuff to cook, made the most. delicious. ever. spaghetti carbonara...noodles with eggy, buttery delicious sauce, covered in fresh-grated Parmesan cheese with bacon, peppers, salt and pepper and all manner of deliciousness. I shamelessly chowed down and had seconds too. Sticky toffee pudding with ice cream, and two three-liters of Strongbow Cider completed the meal, and much great conversation was had along the way. What a great night with great people! It's our turn to cook next time and I think Nicole's going to whip out a recipe for shrimp gumbo...my taste buds anxiously await :)
After dinner we headed down to our favorite local pub, The City Pride, for karaoke night. It was a huge Domer-Bomb, as at least 50 of us took over the establishment to sing ND classics like Taylor Swift's "Love Story," Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer," Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," and most importantly Billy Joel's "Piano Man." Anne's 21st was at the stroke of midnight and Isaac decided to request that the DJ play Happy Birthday...but we instead got this super weird version of a birthday song for Martin Luther King Jr. all about world peace and harmony...it was absolutely hilarious, and none of us could stop laughing!
Tomorrow is a really big day though...our group is off to Stonehenge and Bath for a day trip! I'm sure I will have much to blog about and a lot to say after the fact but for now, goodnight dear world. Sweet dreams all!
heels that make you feel like a bad-ass in the morning...
...make you feel like a dumb-ass at night. Lesson learned!
Yesterday was a BBDO day for me, after my awesome Opera in London class! We spent the session wrapping up our study of "The Rake's Progress," before we go see it next week, then discussed Mozart and Wagner briefly. We got to listen to a few excerpts from Mozart's "Don Giovanni" (very fast, very bright, very much sung in Italian!) and Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" (the orchestration was SO evocative and beautiful!). Then it was off to BBDO for the day!
Uneventful day at work. I finished up Sarbanes-Oxley testing with Tom, then went on to get my lesson in PSA tax documentation with Stephan, who is quickly becoming a friend as well as a co-worker :) The PSA is a document that tracks the whole company's expense claims and determines what is taxable, for how much, and who should pay that tax. Since BBDO is a company that deals with so many different people and countries, it's fascinating and complex to consider some of the tax issues the company encounters. This will be my primary project for the rest of the semester, as the tax season in England ends in early April!
Here comes the part where I make poor life choices...ready? Brace yourselves...
Yesterday morning I woke up and it was a beautiful sunny (for England) day, so I decided I would be fine without carrying my umbrella. Mistake #1. As I had to intern, I needed to dress up a bit, so I grabbed out black pants only to realize that I would need to wear heels with them so the cuffs didn't drag on the sidewalk and get ruined...so I grabbed my "sensible," "comfortable" heels out of my tiny little wardrobe and set off for class! As the sun was shining and the day was beautiful, there were a lot of people out and about and I was feeling pretty on top of the world...funny how a little sunshine can do that to ya...I was even asked to give directions for the first time, and I was able to do it!! (Granted, they were directions to the British Museum, which was only about three blocks away from where we were at the time, but STILL. And it was an English woman who asked me, which just made it better!) It was so temperate and nice that I was able to take off my heavy coat and walk to class in just my blazer and blouse, and my feet were doing fine at that point...at that point. I was in love with the world and having a really great day, Trafalgar Square is gorgeous in the sun, and everything was going right.
After work, Katie, an ND intern with BBDO's finance team, was planning to walk to Tottenham Court Road to meet a friend from elsewhere who was also in London. As my Oyster Card (tube pass) was really low on funds, I decided now would be a good time to learn the walk back to the flats from BBDO. MISTAKE #2, PEOPLE. Let's take a minute to analyze the flaws with this rhetoric:
1. I have heels on, and am challenged at walking even on a normal day in heels.
2. For those of you not familiar with the streets of central London, Tottenham Court Road is NOWHERE near the flats and involves walking almost all the way back to the London Centre, then doubling back to get to Kamen-Minerva.
3. I have heels on. Yes, that is such a poor life choice it gets mentioned twice.
So we walked, and I was doing fine at first...we were walking through a really affluent part of town then turned onto BAKER STREET, as in Sherlock Holmes :) which made me very excited and happy, and then onto Oxford Street, the big shopping one. It started to rain as soon as we passed Selfridges, though, and I started slipping...London sidewalks are notorious for loose paving-stones, grates, and uneven brickwork. Oh dear. The combination of heels that quickly became painful at the end of the day, rain that started as a drizzle and turned into a deluge, and only having a moderate sense of where I was going quickly turned this happy camper into that kid who just wants to go home.
Long story short, we left BBDO at 5:30 sharp, and I didn't get back to the flats until 7PM! Katie got to Tottenham Court Road okay, I had to walk about another half-mile further after that to double back, and even speed-walking in an attempt to get home quickly and get out of the rain, a 4-mile walk (yes, folks...FOUR miles) in heels is never fun. Lesson learned. I will never again walk home from work (or anywhere, for that matter) in heels. Gah.
Having said that, we did decide to go out last night and visit a bar we'd been to last Thursday, The Rocket. It's a very cool, relaxed bar with awesome music and pool tables (!) that lots of students from all over the world frequent. I ended up getting into a pool match with a new British friend, Martin, and he kicked my ass...British pool is really different from American pool, played on much smaller tables with a very short cue and some really odd quirky rules! I also met a girl from UNC, Ellie, and we exchanged numbers so hopefully I'll be seeing both of them again!
Now it's a gray Friday and I'm debating whether I want to subject my blistery feet to more walking or give them a bit of a break...maybe down to the Caffé Nero for some homework and hot chocolate? :) More news to come later, I'm sure...
Ciao for now, lovelies!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
alone in the flat and in a bloggy mood :)
Good morning! It's currently 11:00 on Thursday a.m. and I am so happy this morning...everything is sort of going my way right now. Classes are shockingly easy compared to the ND equivalents I would be taking...probably means I'm in for a bitch of a senior year, but that's fine and it is totally worth it to be here. I'm starting to figure things out around here and this place is really starting to feel like "home," which is so weird because up until now it's kind of felt like a very odd vacation.
The primary reason I'm so happy? Last night a group of us started preliminary planning for our SPRING BREAK, and all I can say is that it is going to be absolutely, unbelievably epic. Thanks to a series of weird and fortunate coincidences, we started off with one plan (which, yes, would have been awesome) and ended up with a totally different, totally awesome plan. Peter, one of the three guys in our group of six, happens to have a former teacher with a villa in Tuscany (here's where you pause, breathe in, breathe out and read that sentence again. A VILLA. In TUSCANY.), which we would be able to get for one of the weekends of our break. We'll be starting our travels there, flying into Pisa, Italy (as in, Leaning Tower of!) and traveling to Lucca, the location of our villa for the weekend. From Lucca we can conveniently day-trip to Florence (about an hour), Pisa (about 1/2 an hour) and Cinque Terre, not to mention the gorgeous Tuscan countryside...we're in the heart of Chianti Country and does that ever sound good!
After several days in Tuscany, we were looking into going to Nice, France (near Cannes, Monaco, etc), but then we discovered that it is pretty much impossible to get anywhere from Nice for a reasonable price...so we started frantic-searching for somewhere to go from Pisa. I'll admit there were more than a few moments of panic, and my stress level came somewhere near going through the roof, but with the help of a little 1.50 pound wine and some ingenuity on RyanAir, I happened on a flight from Pisa to Barcelona, Spain...for only 22 euro per person!! (For those of you unfamiliar with the costs/intricacies of flying around Europe: it CAN be done cheaply, but Barcelona has...until now...seemed to be one of those places that are impossible to get to for a reasonable price.) I immediately started freaking out; it seemed too good to be true but fortunately it WAS true, and we will be spending the next three days of our spring break on the beautiful streets and beaches of Barcelona!! I can't wait to see the place, everybody I've talked to has said it's beautiful.
After the three days in Barcelona, we will be finishing up our journey in what I personally think is the best most wonderful amazing possible way imaginable...with four days in........
PARIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I found us flights from Barcelona to Paris for 10 euro apiece. I seriously almost had a heart attack with excitement. One thing that I had been really worried about was seeing everything I want to see in Paris with only a weekend to do it. Now it seems like that will be totally possible...four complete days in the city I've been obsessed with seeing for...hmm, I don't know, most of my adolescent and young-adult LIFE?! I can't wait to sit down and spend some quality time with Google planning this leg of the trip!
As I said, though, this is all preliminary, and needs way better/more thorough planning. Thankfully, I think we've got a really solid travel group with pretty similar interests and desires re: how we want to spend our time in these amazing cities, so I have a feeling that once we can sit down and really hammer out details, everything will come together beautifully. :) I am honest-to-goodness SO excited and thrilled about this that I can hardly articulate it. The best part is that it's looking like we will be able to do this trip so cheaply from the standpoint of traveling and living arrangements that I will be able to add a weekend trip somewhere I wanted to go but didn't think was fiscally possible, so I'm really excited to start looking into travel to Prague, Germany, or Austria. This spring break brings the list of places I will be going to:
-Pisa, Italy
-Florence, Italy
-Tuscany/Cinque Terre, Italy
-Venice, Italy
-Rome, Italy
-Paris, France
-Barcelona, Spain
And that's only over Spring Break and Easter!! :) I definitely want to make it to somewhere like Prague or Germany or Austria to get a taste of somewhere NOT Romance-Language-speaking, Westerny, etc. Aaah. Life is molto bene, très bien, muy bueno, VERY good.
I do have to leave for class in about half an hour though, so I am going to go make myself a sandwich and some carrots and a banana or something for a quick lunch before leaving the flats. Have a lovely day (once you all wake up, haha!) and remember to mind the gap. :)
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A bit of jiggery-pokery at BBDO
Hi all, sorry it's been a few days but life got CRAZY yesterday! Mondays are my longest day at BBDO so far (in from 9:30-1:30), and in honor of that, Tom Krailing, the accountant who is chiefly in charge of ethics compliance and internal controls, started me off on my first assignment with teeth: performing the 4th-quarter Sarbanes-Oxley compliance audits for the company!! Needless to say, it has been a pretty crazy 48 hours between that, my PriceWaterhouse class, and regular class on top of it all.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
I walked 6.5 miles today and it's only 3:30pm...
So last night we were all so tired that we had a very quiet, laid-back night...I was in bed relatively early and got a lot of sleep, which was nice. Today we decided to go to Speaker's Corner, this public forum every Sunday in Hyde Park where anybody can stand on a ladder or soapbox and talk about anything he or she wants to...and more importantly (and amusingly, and at times scarily!), anybody observing can argue with, heckle or rain verbal abuse upon anybody speaking! It sounded like it was sure to be an interesting deal, so we decided to check it out.
Charlie, Coleen, Michael and I, however, didn't really know how to get straight to Hyde Park, so we took a really circuitous route to get there! First, we walked to Trafalgar Square (1.7 miles). Then we crossed and headed down to Buckingham Palace, right in time to see the Changing of the Guard happen (.9 miles)...the Changing of the Guard was really cool, their band played ABBA and the Olympic theme, which was random, but it was fun. Then we walked along the Buckingham Palace Gardens to get to Hyde Park...tons of runners, people walking dogs, and small children, very cute (1.5 miles). We were finally there!
At first I was disappointed because I was expecting a lot more speakers and a lot more crowd interaction, but it picked up once we Americans got thrown in the mix! Michael was out for blood and loved arguing with the speakers, especially this radical Muslim guy who hated the U.S. and blamed all earthly ills in the Middle East on the U.S. and Hitler (??) being on a quest to rob them of their oil and natural resources. Michael got right up in his face and pissed some people off pretty badly, which was my cue to make an exit with Coleen. We went to listen to another guy who turned out to be totally pornographic, talking about a bunch of really awkward and uncomfortable stuff...so we tried to make a quick exit from there as well. Instead, Jamie (another ND student) and I ended up talking to this 71-year old guy about sex, love, friendship, and...the economy?...for about twenty minutes.
At this point I had had enough of Speaker's Corner and all of the insanity people were spouting off, so Coleen and I crossed the street to one of the 234872265917245572 Pret à Manger cafés in London. Prets are like the Starbucks of the UK...all organic, fresh-made sandwiches, soups, and pastries/bakery items with fair-trade coffee drinks to go with it. Being on the budget we're on, Coleen got a 1.30 coffee and I got a can of "organic grapeseed and elderflower sparkling beverage"
for 99pence, and we ate our own, pre-packed lunches. Mmm!
Then Charlie came and met us, and we began the walk BACK to the flats...right through the heart of one of London's shopping districts, Oxford Street. Temptation was strong, but apart from a little window-shopping in cool British stores (and the FOUR h&m's we saw on the way!), we managed to refrain from any shopping...I think Charlie was grateful. Before we knew it we were back on the route we usually take to school, and were soon home (2.4 miles). Now I'm sipping tea and finishing up some reading for class (well, actually I'm not reading, I'm writing this, but I WILL be reading soon!), before hopefully cooking something yummy for dinner...who knows? :)
Long post short: Speaker's Corner was a kind of scary radical deal that was not what I was expecting. Pret à Manger is ubiquitous and looks delicious. And I walked really far today. Woo!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
a day-trip adventure!
Hello! Sorry for the lack of recent updates...after a very tiring Thursday day (and night), my first class-free Friday was spent hiding from the rain in cafés and doing lots of homework to free up my weekend for...
WINDSOR CASTLE!!
That's right folks, my first day trip was to visit the one-and-only Windsor. Aaah I was so excited, especially after a brief but incredibly amazing visit over senior year with the LSHS Band. This time, we traveled in a group of 5 instead of 50, which helped sooo much. An early, early morning saw me and the rest of our adventurers (Peter, Coleen, Charlie and Colin!) leaving Kamen-Minerva and taking my internship tube route to Paddington Station (as in Paddington Bear, Paddington Station...so cute!). I was stressed we weren't going to find our train in such a huge place, but we got it fine and it was seriously nicer inside than most airplanes. A transfer at Slough put us at Windsor by 11:00 after only a half-hour by train and only 8 pounds! Best deal ever.
We immediately warmed up with coffee at the ubiquitous Caffé Nero and hustled over to the Lower Ward just in time for the Changing of the Guard...there was a lot of pomp, circumstance and bagpiping, but the whole deal lasted only about five minutes. Still, it was really cool to see it there, and I can't wait to go watch it at Buckingham, where I've heard it's a much bigger production. Then we purchased our tickets and witnessed the Domer-bombing (ND takeover) of Windsor...apart from our group of five we saw at least two other groups of 4-6 and a huge group of about 10-12. Still, we kept to ourselves and had a guided tour of the exterior of the castle, including all the gardens and a ton of the history of the castle's evolution. It was right up my alley, being the history nerd and Anglophile that I am...everything fascinated me so much! I wish I had the time, energy and inclination to write about all the awesome little factoids and stories we learned, but there was literally just so much covered that it would take its own post to do it justice. The history of the Order of the Garter, the stories of the castle's defense strategies and sieges, tales of QE II's state entertaining and banquets, and so much talk about the 1992 fire that destroyed many of the State Departments were just a few topics that were touched upon!
Then we went in the actual castle and started off with Queen Mary's ridiculous dollhouse (doll PALACE, more like it), which has running water, working electricity, real wine in the wine cellar and to-scale replicas of many pieces of art, furniture and decoration actually in Windsor Castle. I'm not even kidding, I could have spent hours looking at that alone. Then we saw Queen Elizabeth's childhood dolls, France and Marianne...gifts from the royal family of France. No big deal or anything, they just had Cartier jewelry and couture clothing by all the major designers of the time. (Jealous? Oh yeah. My American Girl doll collection looks so insignificant now...ha!) After dolls of all kinds, we saw a selection of Queen Liz's china services...she has 48 sets apparently, each with over EIGHT HUNDRED pieces. No joke. And all of them are so intricate, so gold-covered and 100% hand-painted and made. Really makes our flats' Ikea dinnerware look classy! ;)
The next stop was the "grand foyer," which was decorated with hundreds of ornamental weapons and dozens of suits of armor and prizes from various countries in the former British Empire. After that it all starts to blur into this epic progression of rooms that were so grandiose...the chandeliers! The carved ceilings! The stained-glass windows! The priceless art! The gilded furniture! Every room was so ornate and massive that it seriously just floored me. I've never felt so insignificant in my life...or so American! Highlights:
-the Waterloo room, which commemorates the victory over Napoleon with a portrait series of every major mover or shaker involved in his defeat. Enormous.
-the room (I forget the name) with Hans Holbein the Younger's portraits of all the Tudors...Henry VIII, Edward, Mary and most awesomely, the portrait of 13-year old Elizabeth I that I've always loved. My heart seriously almost stopped!
-the musical clock specially designed to play selections from Handel while a coach-and-six rotates around the top. Absolute genius engineering and craftsmanship!
-the King's bedroom, where one of the Napoleonic descendants and his wife stayed...
-the room with all the solid silver furniture. Yes...SOLID silver furniture.
-Murals commissioned by Charles II on the ceilings of his private dining chamber and his wife's receiving gallery. Aaah...I got a crick in my neck from staring up for so long and marveling.
-The Grand Gallery or whatever where all the shields of every member EVER of the Order of the Garter hang. There have been 1,001 members to date, including every monarch of Britain...the most recent member is HRH Prince William (yum!). The room was completely destroyed by the Fire of 1992, but the restoration is 100% authentic and used the techniques that were used by the original medieval masons and woodcarvers. All the shields of disgraced or dishonored knights have been replaced by plain white shields instead...a lot of those from the Tudor era! The room itself is just such an enormous, impressive spectacle...we spent a good 45 minutes in there alone just talking to one of the wardens of Windsor Castle...she told us some amazing stories about some of the characters whose shields hang there!
-The room where the fire actually started...it's all stone now, and contains one of QE II's state thrones, as well as a suit of armor belonging to Henry VIII...fat old bastard ;)
-Speaking of Henry VIII, there was a special exhibit on to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his ascendancy to the throne...featuring artwork by all the great masters of his time. I saw works by DaVinci, Canaletto, Rubens, Holbein...I can't even remember all of them, but it was just flooring to be face to face with a real DaVinci especially...he was SUCH a genius!!
-St. George's Chapel. It's played host to a lot of royal weddings, funerals and every Order of the Garter ceremony from its completion in the 1500s onward. Entombed within were six or seven of the monarchs of England, including Henry VIII (one of my faves!) and Jane Seymour, Charles I (with his head stitched back on after being beheaded in the 1600s!), and the Queen Mother and King George. It was such a humbling and impressive place...organ music absolutely thundering out of the most beautiful and ornate organ I think I've ever seen, and tombs in the floor dating back as far as Henry VIII's reign...I accidentally stepped on Charles Brandon's tomb. Aaaaaaah Charles Brandon. As in, Henry VIII's best friend and the husband of his sister Princess Mary. (I'm not obsessed or anything.)
-Getting the requisite English picture with a Royal Guard!!! :D
We concluded our epic adventure (literally, four hours in the castle and then some more time in St. George's Chapel!) with our first fish and chips of the semester! I hate to say it, but I wasn't impressed...although the chips part was really good. Mushy peas, on the other hand, are slightly more appetizing than they look. Slightly.
Now after another quick train/tube trip back, I'm curled up at home on our tartan plaid couch nursing some sore and tired feet! We got a really cool book about the castle for 5 pounds (1 pound each from the 5 of us!) and I think I'm going to go continue my nerd-out and read that...lol. All in all, an EXCELLENT adventure and great way to start our travels outside London! Cheerio good friends!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
revising plans
Good morning!
Well after a very frustrating night of trying to plan international trips, I'm coming to realize I was way too ambitious in making that previous list...all those supposed "cheap" airlines? Yep, not cheap. I looked up Rome flights last night and it was close to $150 (about 120 pounds) for a round trip. And that's just one weekend!
Now I'm sitting here after a lusciously long night of sleep (first one yet!) trying to narrow down where I want to travel. Paris is still top of my list (duh), and I really do want to go to the South of France at some point too because I've heard it's beautiful. As far as Italy, thanks to my awesomely flexible schedule in Holy Week, I can get to Venice on Holy Thursday, which just leaves Florence in that country that I really want to see, along with any other exploring I can do. Amsterdam I can take or leave, despite how amazing everybody has said it is...the idea of legal marijuana, which is apparently its main attraction, just doesn't do it for me. Spain is still high on my list, as is Prague, but I just don't know if I'll make it to Germany or Ireland on this schedule and budget. Gahhh. I think there will be much more UK touristing for this on-a-budget collegiate...
On that note, time to get ready for a morning at the British Museum, followed by my Opera in London class and another exciting afternoon at BBDO. Let me know if there's anywhere you think I should absolutely not miss!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
ten things i miss
1. my bed.
-The beds here are the worst I've ever slept on. The pillows are about three inches thick and harder than rocks, and the mattress is worn so thin that every spring stabs through and pokes you while you sleep. Not to mention we don't actually have a flat sheet, just a fitted sheet and duvet, sans cover. Ew. I am seriously going to go to Ikea and get a nicer pillow and maybe cheap sheets this weekend.
2. water pressure.
-Actually, good, American showers in general. It's like a comedy every morning as I try to avoid getting scalded, then frozen...wash the suds out of my hair (it takes literally five whole minutes, no joke)...and get clean. The water is more a trickle than a spray...sadness. lol, I miss my big shower and the consistent water temperature.
3. 50-minute classes.
-Today I had two three-hour classes back-to-back. Ew. Granted, they meet once a week, but still...the marathon is so unpleasant.
4. texting.
-We have phones without the full keyboard, and I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to typing all my texts like that until we had to start using t9 again...oh brutal adjustment!
5. my mom and dad.
-Don't know what the deal is today...I'm just super tired and I want my mom and dad. I really hope they get over here to visit, it sounds like everybody else's parents are and I don't think I can go 4 months without seeing them... :/
6. the convenience of the dining hall.
-Today, a group of us walked a half hour from class (which ended at 5) to Sainsbury's, the grocery store, then another half hour back to the flats. Then we had to wait like another hour while we got everything ready and cooked. I was SO. FAMISHED. After all the walking we've been doing, I'm always starving at mealtime and it always takes forever. As much as we complain about it, SDH was sooooo convenient.
7. normal peanut butter.
-the peanut butter here is reallyreallyREALLY salty. It's gross.
8. quiet.
-Our flats front right on a very busy street, and it is no joke 24/7 traffic noise. I'm sure I'll get used to it but right now it's very grating.
9. "The Bachelor."
-don't you dare judge.
10. downtime.
-It's constantly go-go-go here, which on the one hand I really like because we can do and see so much and there just simply IS so much to see...but I am legitimately on the move from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed. I'd love a night to just sit down with a good book and relax...hmm.
Lol, sorry to be a downer-whiner, but I've been ruminating on this stuff for the past couple days on the endless walks back and forth between K-M and the London Centre...and to be honest, the only reason I made a "ten things i miss" list is because the "things i love" list would be too long for a blog post. :)
Tonight, we're going to sit down and hammer out our international travel plans! The pow-wow is happening soon and my ideas are:
-Paris!!!! (duh.)
-Southern France (Nice, Marseille)
-Northern France (the Loire castle region)
-Spain (Barcelona, Seville)
-Edinborough, Scotland
-Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice)
-Austria (to see Philip M. Black, another duh.)
-Prague (because every single European I've talked to has said "Visit Prague" first of anything...)
-Germany (Munich? I really don't know. Germany's lower on my list because I'd rather go to Austria.)
That's all I'm thinking for international right now. I think I want to spend spring break somewhere unique, but I also think I want to spend a lot of time in France, Spain and Italy, which is tough because a spring break would be the perfect time to go more in-depth on those countries. And that's not even counting the weekend trips I want to do around the UK...I really want to go to Jane Austen's house, the Lake District, and maybe a weekend somewhere in Ireland. And of course, Scotland is technically a bus trip away only. Gah! So many decisions!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
business as usual, literally...
Two days of class and interning down, and there is much to tell about my wild and crazy life here! I finally have time to sit down with some yummy yummy Twinings tea (totally addicted) and catch up on cleaning, email and Facebook, and...of course...blogging.
First, BBDO. Aaaaah, BBDO. I'm still somewhat intimidated by the fact that I'm having my first internship with THE largest international marketing corporation in the world...at their European headquarters, moreover. Thankfully, everybody has been working to ease me in with baby steps...today I got to stick labels on envelopes and do some filing...ooh, glamorous, right? More significantly, however, I also got to register invoices for hundreds of thousands of Euro and pounds...help with investigating a top exec's suspiciously expensive travel account (apparently she had been flying home to Germany lots and lots, and using business class when she was only allowed to use her corporate account on economy seats)...and celebrate the CFO's birthday.
My boss scares the shit out of me, to put it lightly...she is VERY much the epitome of the "stiff upper lip," prim and proper, reserved Brit we all see portrayed on TV shows, and I really truly think she doesn't much like me, but fortunately everybody else in the office is absolutely wonderful. My cubicle mate and...well, for lack of a better word, handler, Stephen Claridge, is SUCH a gem...he's only a bit older than us and has been with BBDO for a year...he lives right in our borough so he knows all the fun bars, pubs and restaurants, and would rather chat my ear off than get any work done. I also have another ND intern in our cubicle, so that will be fun and make the atmosphere a bit more social. All the male employees are ridiculously adorable, look like they stepped out of a Polo ad, and love to stop by the intern cubicle and chat about our experiences. And the ladies!! All the BBDO girls are Tinkerbell-sized, have the shiniest most perfect hair I've ever seen, and dress like a fashion spread from the latest French Vogue. I'm craving some black ankle boots, big thick-knit cardigans, and cute shirtdresses...aaah it's like the uniform de jour there.
I'll be spending one full day and two half-days every week at BBDO until spring break. After that it ramps up a bit to two full days and a half-day as needed, as they are entering their tax season, a nightmare for an international company of BBDO's size! I'm enjoying it so far as much as I can be expected to on the first few headachy days, and I know I'm going to learn, see, and do a lot there.
The other business-y thing I have of note is my Accountancy in the UK class, which met for the first of six times last night. It's run in conjunction with and under the supervision of PriceWaterhouseCoopersUK, and our class sessions are all at their London headquarters. Located about 45 minutes from Trafalgar and the London Centre, the place is SO posh. Aaaaaah like...SO posh. No words. I want to move in and just sleep in the conference room under the table and never come home. Anyway, Paul and Lawson are our two teachers, and are also responsible for training 4000 of the 15000 PwC employees in Europe. Not intimidating or anything. :/ Thankfully they are both fantastic...Paul has the most gorgeous Scottish accent, Lawson is from Chicago, and they interact so sarcastically that the class won't be bad at all. The best part? They gave us free alcohol. Lots and LOTS of free alcohol, in fact, as the majority of our first day was a drinks/snacks reception. One major discovery that the men of the program were really excited about was meat-flavored potato chips...I seriously think that was the primary topic of conversation for a good six or seven minutes of cocktail hour. It's going to be an awesome networking opportunity and a really good way to get to know some of the accounting majors better, as it's a very groups-based class.
Long post short: I am an intern-slash-office bitch. I have mad labeling and filing skills. And PriceWaterhouseCoopers is awesome. And young British businessmen/women are my new favorite people ever. :) Now my tea is getting cold and I have a fun night ahead of me, so cheerio loves and I will get in touch soon...assuming my feet ever touch the ground and I come down to Earth again!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
the weekend update: issue #1
**WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.**
My last blog was Friday afternoon, so I'll start with what happened after that: registering for classes! I'm taking fifteen of what will probably (hopefully?) be the easiest credits ever...if not, oh well! My internship counts as a class, and then I am taking macroeconomics, Philosophy of Law, Images of Britain Through The Arts (a required course for every student here!), and Accountancy in the UK, which is a five-session program run by PriceWaterhouseCooper Britain. So excited! After registering I went exploring a bit between our classroom centre and our flats, got groceries with the roommates, and we made grilled cheese and couscous (very gourmet) for dinner. Friday night was Ember night...Ember is a bar that is actually really close to where we live, although we got so lost trying to find it that you would never have known! Best mojitos I've ever had, and we accidentally crashed a private party in the basement that was being thrown by Jay-Sean's sister...random.
Saturday was another day of acclimation and preparation for the semester. It was pouring rain all day, and freezing cold (by London standards, NOT Minnesota or South Bend!), so we spent as much of the day as possible trying to stay dry and warm. Highlights:
-The British Museum!! It's imposingly enormous and utterly beautiful...it takes up an entire city block and has exhibits on every major ancient region and society, from Egypt to Greece and Rome to China and Japan and everything in between. We only spent about an hour and a half there, and covered maybe a tenth of the museum, seeing lots of amazing things...the mummies (of humans and animals, weird) were super cool but creeped me out a bit.
-Lunch in Chinatown: London's Chinatown district is on our way to school and has a huge variety of very CHEAP restaurants (our favorite). I had chicken and fried rice that was amazing, and we learned that restaurants in Europe don't bring your check until you ask for it...after about an hour of waiting for it!
-Covent Garden: We got really lost coming home from Chinatown and stumbled upon the Covent Garden Market on the way. It was a huge partially-indoor market of art, fruit and vegetables, clothing and accessories, etc. with live music and street performers. So lively and exciting! We watched a street performer whose schtick was that she could juggle butcher knives while hanging upside down from a trapeze...I almost died of fright/awe.
-WE FOUND DRURY LANE. I know where the Muffin Man lives. He's done well for himself.
-The first Minerva 3/4 dinner party! The lovely gentlemen who live across the hall from us in Minerva 3 offered to pay for the groceries it would take to make a "family" dinner, if the ladies of Minerva 4 would cook it. We made amazing sweet-chili chicken and vegetable stir-fry, and had some wine and cheese before dinner. Highlight was the amazing sticky-toffee pudding cakes we had for dessert...and Katie eating an entire one all by herself. Definitely a tradition we will be continuing!
-Lexington Bar: our first real London bar experience. Much more mixing with the locals and tasting of more unique ales and lagers. The bar itself was like clubbing in your grandma's living room...weird but very pretty/cool.
Today: EPIC TOURISTING!
We got up to find that the temperature had gone WAY up and the sun was shining beautifully...the perfect day to do the cliché tourist stuff.
-We went to Trafalgar Square and explored the environs that will be our between-class playplace...SO pretty, especially with the sunshine streaming down.
-Then we walked down the National Mall from Trafalgar to Buckingham Palace!! So pretty and an excellent route to run, which will be happening this semester for sure. The Mall is where a lot of high-powered people live, including Prince Charles and Camilla. Buckingham was sooo gorgeous in the sun with all the gold trimming on the gates and fountain. We took pictures and generally made touristy fools out of ourselves, especially jumping in for random photos with the bicycle emergency response crews :)
-After Buckingham, off to BIG BEN and Parliament! Right on the Thames...perfect day to do it. The walk there is through a beautiful, historic, government and military district, and we passed so many places I'd read about in my nerdy historical-fiction books...Whitehall Palace is stunning. Big Ben is...well, big. And gold. And incredibly exhilarating. I took about 139847287564 pictures...Parliament is also beautiful...the building is just so imposing and impressive, fronting right on the river; I just stood there thinking WOW for about five minutes before I even started looking around.
-The obligatory phone-booth photoshoot totally happened today. Don't judge me.
-Mass at the oldest continuously-existing Catholic church in London...very old, very pretty, very comforting. Our program chaplain is the cutest old man, every time I see him I just get the urge to hug him.
-Got epically lost with Isaac in the LEGAL district...it was totally deserted and creepy but I am going to go back when it's light out (and populated!) to see it in action, it looked really expansive and interesting.
-Pub dinner at Knights Templar...great traditional British food and the coolest bathrooms ever, no joke.
-Vikings-Cowboys game at The City Pride, which I think is rapidly becoming our local pub. I was the only Vikes fan in a large group of Cowboys-lovers, and we taught the Brits in attendance all about the intricacies of each team, including the epic saga of Brett Favre. They all thought he was "a tosser" for being so flip-floppy. I laughed.
That's all for now folks, you may officially breathe a sigh of relief. If you made it through this epic blogathon, you deserve a pat on the back :) I'm absolutely exhausted and have to get some sleep before I start my internship (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) tomorrow...I promise I'll update sooner and more concisely next time! Goodnight! :)
Friday, January 15, 2010
[insert tourist moment here]
I had lunch in a cemetery today.
Not a literal cemetery, to be fair...after our extensive morning session of orientation, rules-and-regulations review (now that we're all awake), and preparation for the semester from heaven, a group of us went to lunch at "The Crypt at St. Martin of the Field." At the recommendation of the lovely program librarian, Miss Alice, we decided to check it out in lieu of a more conservative option like Pret à Manger (which is like a D'amico and Sons). Turns out it is literally a CRYPT...a subterranean chamber where they buried people a few centuries ago. You pass this beautiful old church, St. Martin's, and then go into a very modern glass-and steel sphere that spirals down underground. We stepped out expecting more modernity and it was like we had entered a different world...vaulted stone-and brick ceilings that looked like something you would see in "Shakespeare in Love," a ten-degree temperature drop, and...when you looked down...laid-in gravestones dating back at least 150-200 years. I was a little bit weirded out by the thought of eating my innocent, modern lunch above a bunch of dead people, but I guess it was just the epitome of everything I'm so fascinated with about London...the juxtaposition of the old and new.
I'm nerding out hardcore over all the amazing old architecture and the landmarks that I've read about in books and seen briefly from the tour bus senior year...but then there's all this stunning, avant-garde new construction, not to mention post-WWII concrete-block towers crammed in right next to the charming tippy-looking old buildings...it's just a dream for anybody as attracted to the aesthetically unique as I am.
I also had my first true tourist moment spaz this morning: four of us, Joanie, Chelsea, Kelly and myself, were SO desperate for caffeine as true jet lag started to set in, so we decided to get coffee at Caffé Nero (the Italian version of Starbucks!) somewhere near the London Centre. First off, we took a wrong turn on the way to the Centre, so we ended up coming out totally unexpectedly RIGHT into Trafalgar Square just as the sun oh-so-poetically popped out of a few clouds and came shining down...we absolutely froze and all of a sudden I saw Big Ben and the Parliament building, sparkling in the distance on the horizon between a few buildings. I immediately did the most American, touristy thing possible: literally started jumping up and down like a child and pointed and blurted out at the top of my lungs: "OHMYGODYOUGUYSLOOKIT'SBIGBEN!" in a totally unintelligible jibberish top-speed gush. We all proceeded to start like...jumping up and down together and hugging and twirling and being all like "Omg. We're actually here. LONDON AAAAAAAH!" :)
It was one of those moments that you could have taken as a snapshot in your mind...and kept forever...my first real quintessential moment of bone-deep, heart-pounding utter contentment and excitement about what the next four months holds. I guess it was just then at that very moment that I realized that this is my HOME now and that I am going to do and see so much here. I know I sound like such a broken record, but this place and this experience and everything I'm doing is just such an enormous adventure that I still have barely wrapped my head around it.
Pictures will come in a post soon...I can't find my camera cord in the mélange of stuff I have still got to find a place for...Now it's time to go grocery-shop with the flatmates. I'm sure that me, cooking, will prompt a hilarious/embarrassing plethora of stories for me to publish!! Til then, lots of love from your very own international adventurer! ;)
Thursday, January 14, 2010
"this is the beginning of a GREAT adventure."
Okay, to preface this post, I am so jet-lagged right now I can hardly see straight, so if something in here doesn't make sense, cut me a little slack :)
LONDON!!! I'm here! I can't even believe it, to be honest it's still so surreal that I catch myself doing double-takes every time something catches my eye, ear, or nose ;) I left MSP yesterday at 2:30 after arriving far too early and ditching to go to the Mall of America with Mom and Dad. Thankfully the flight went according to plan, because my layover in Chicago turned out to be much shorter than I thought it was! Before I knew it we were boarding and I was sitting in a window seat (!!) next to a 30-something Bon Jovi lookalike (that's a good thing) who was telling me about his career as one of the corporate pilots for the Saudi royal family (this is just the tip of the randomness iceberg, folks). After a restless night of attempted sleep and a viewing of "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Cars," we finally landed at Heathrow at 7am as scheduled! Funny story: the pilot pulled the plane up to where he was supposed to but for some reason the landing crew couldn't seem to get the deplaning gate to line up where it was supposed to. A comedy of errors ensued for the next half hour while we weary travelers all waited (not-so) patiently (in my case anyway) to get the show on the road. Finally we were off, through Customs very painlessly, and entering a pouring-rain soggy London morning! I had forgotten how crazy the drivers were and how disorienting the switched-road thing is...I was a nervous Nellie the whole time we were en route to the flats.
They're really very nice, actually, considering that they're located very centrally in London! I'm in a flat with four other girls...my direct roommate is Kelly, while Joanie and Nicole share the other double bedroom and Ellen is in the middle in a single room. We have a darling little kitchen and some VERY classy tartan plaid couches. The sink drips and one of the toilets seems to be a little funky, but this will be a great home base for the next four months!!
After some unpacking adventures (Mom, thank you SO much for making me pack less, I still have almost too much!), we all departed for the 40-minute walk to the London Centre, where Notre Dame's London branch is housed. The walk, which I will be making every day, takes us through a major theater district as well as past Piccadilly Circus, through Chinatown, and by some majorly beautiful scenery. The Centre itself is a 1907-built BEAUTIFUL building full of big windows, high crown moldings and vaulted ceilings, but it's like a maze trying to get around there! It will definitely be an adventure.
We all dozed off (and fought valiantly against real sleep) in the afternoon info session...I can honestly say I don't remember a single thing they covered, although the sensation of my head nodding and jerking as I tried not to fall asleep will be unforgettable. All the interns had their first session of info after afternoon session and I'm really looking forward to starting with BBDO next week! Then we got our ghetto little early-00's cell phones (haha) and had an epic adventure navigating home without using a map (we made it, thanks to our landmarking by pubs, theaters and cute restaurants!).
By this point, we were so tired we just wanted to collapse and die, but it was only about 6pm, so we headed out for some nosh at a pub down the street from our flats. Called "The City Pride," it was so adorable and cliché British...we all had pints of Strongbow Cider and some really yummy pub food...burgers and fish and chips (SUCH good chips!). After a really fun game of trivia, we headed back and now I'm sitting in bed trying to synthesize such a long and awesomely full, crazy day. Some thoughts/lessons so far:
-Having a passport in your hand makes you feel so adult and at the same time so young. I love the sense of power and sophistication...passports are so legit.
-When offered the choice between chicken and vegetarian pasta on a trans-atlantic flight, NEVER pick the chicken. NEVER.
-Ambien or Lunesta or something might have seriously helped alleviate the "it's impossible to sleep on planes" curse.
-Landmarking based on notable bars, pubs and cafés is an excellent life practice.
-Cider is stronger than it tastes.
-Digestive biscuits are not in fact meant to help digestively-challenged people...digest. They're really quite delicious actually.
-Always check that the tops of nail polish bottles are screwed on tightly before tossing them in with shower supplies.
-Make sure you know important things like how to lock your flat, the access code to your flat complex, and where the fire exits are located at all times.
-If your goal is to blend in, it's best not to walk the streets exclaiming "Oh my god...that's so cute!" and "Oh my god, look at that!" every thirty seconds.
More to follow...this sleepy-eyed girl is going to call it a night! Cheerio :)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
thinking about walruses.
With less than twelve hours until I leave for MSP to fly to ORD to fly to HEATHROW...I'm chasing around my room like a chicken with its head cut off, utterly and completely worrying myself into a frenzy.
I'm worrying about exchange rates and direct deposits. I'm worrying about getting germs or something at hostels and having to cook and not being able to remember French. And missing home/ND and forgetting my stuffed bunny and losing my passport. And sucking at my internship and getting robbed and getting lost. And missing the Sunday night curfew and registering for classes and not spending too much...
I didn't realize what a variety of things there were to spaz utterly about when leaving the country for four months. Eep. So here I am sitting on iChat (for like the last time in four months if it doesn't work in Europe, heh) spazzing to my wonderful friend Brian the Trumpet Player, and he tells me to think about walruses if I start freaking out. Naturally, my response was "walruses...what???" He explained (partially facetiously) that walruses were "BEST ANIMAL EVER" with "their big goofy tusks" so I Googled walruses and it made me smile.
I know I'm being ridiculous. I won't lose my passport (if I'm careful) or spend too much (if I stay away from Harrod's) or forget French (if I think before speaking) or starve (if I find friends who CAN cook) or suck at my internship (if I work my ass off) or get lost (if I ever learn how to read a map). I'm a capable person, and I'm going to London for the best experience of my life.
I can do this, and in my heart of hearts I know that...so I need to just take a chill pill, drink some water, watch some shallow TV and go to bed. Tomorrow will be the beginning of the biggest adventure I've ever had, and I AM ready. My passport and visa letter are packed, I have an adapter-thing for the plugs, my camera and iPod and laptop are all charged, I got a great new backpack, and I seriously have a few minute, non-crucial things to do tomorrow. On that note, the chill pills are calling and there's a Season 2 episode of "Gossip Girl" with my name on it waiting. Next time I write it will be from the UK!!! Can't wait :)
Monday, January 11, 2010
two days...
...and it still doesn't feel quite real. I'm sitting in my room surrounded by piles of t-shirts, and all I can think is that I'm packing for four months that will probably be some of the best months of my life...four months that don't feel like they should be here already! I'm so excited when I think about all the awesome experiences I'm going to have, but I'm also completely panic-stricken contemplating everything that could go WRONG, even just in the next 72 hours. What if I lose an important travel document? What if my flight gets delayed? What if my luggage doesn't get there? What if I get lost? Aaah...the possibilities for a worrywart like me are endless, which is stressful.
More stressful, at least now, is trying to get PACKED! For being as sartorially obsessed as I am, trying to fit four months of fashion into two suitcases is going to take a Herculean effort. Especially considering that London and other places I'm planning to visit (cough...France!!!...) are known for being major fashion capitals. Now I know that nobody expects a college student studying abroad to be the last word in style, but I like to dress well...and studying in Europe won't change that ;) Right now it's sifting through t-shirts, and soon it will be getting internship-worthy outfits put together. I'm sure I'll overpack...but such is life.
I'm also getting together all the important things...my health insurance card, official visa (!!!!), letters for border-crossing, all the internship information I've received...and it's finally sort of kind of starting to feel real. I just got the biggest anticipatory knot in my stomach...EEEEP. After a whole YEAR of waiting for this, and preparing for this, and getting everything as ready to go as I could...it's just around the corner. I CAN'T WAIT!!
