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!