I have just had two of the best days I've had yet in this program, and weirdly enough they were both "school" days...
I got really weirdly homesick on Sunday coming back from Petticoat Lane Market. The market is up by Brick Lane, an area that used to be the Jewish ghetto and is now famous for its amazing Indian food. I went with Nicole and I don't really know what I was expecting, but it was overwhelmingly cheap, foreign, huge and...well...foreign to me. I'm really used to (and I really love) shopping in malls, for clothes that have a set price and you can't haggle for, and that you know aren't stolen or black-market. I don't really have much to say about it except that I am glad I went to see it, but don't know if I'll be going back or not. Oxford Street, although MUCH pricier, is more my venue, and until I return Stateside, I'll have to content myself with windowshopping there :) But anyway, I got on the Tube by myself to go home after Nicolle met up with a grade-school friend, and I just felt so isolated that it overwhelmed me for a minute. I spent the rest of the day in a coffee-shop doing reading and homework and perked up by the time I went to (very early) bed.
Anyway, Monday! It was my first full 8-hour day as a working girl at BBDO. I got there in time for free breakfast (free EVERYTHING there, it seems) and had some yummy strawberry jam toast and coffee. Spent the morning working on the PSA again, and actually got it all the way up to date! Stephan was pleased, a bit surprised I think that I got it done as quickly as i did. The best part of the day was being surprised by Georgina (yes, the Georgina who kind of scares the shit out of me) when she sent me and the guys in my department out for a "Welcome Lizzie Lunch!" Although I had been there for two weeks, this was the first time the entire controllers' department had been in the office at one time, and it was a wonderful surprise.
I was a little skeptical when I was informed that we would be eating at a fish and chips place after my experience at Windsor...but I was SO wrong. The five guys (Stephan, Dale, Tom, Adam, and Tom) and I headed out and walked down Marylebone (said "Mar-lee-bone") High Street, another very posh shopping district, until we reached The Golden Hind, a tiny-little-itty-bitty hole in the wall that has been passed down from generation to generation of families and makes literally only fish, chips, and the necessary side dishes to fish and chips (mushy peas!). I ordered "small cod," with chips and the essential mushy peas, and sat back while all the guys got adventurous...rockfish, plaice, salmon, haddock, and perch for each of them, all with chips (duh) and mushy peas (also duh). They served us up and I immediately knew this was going to be better...the fish were CRISPY and absolutely sizzling hot, the chips were golden-fried, smoking-hot perfection, and the mushy peas were the best combination of sweet, salty and...well, mushy...possible. I CHOWED. First time I've been full during the day for a LONG time. We ambled slowly back to the office and Tom K showed me around on the walk, filling me in on a bit of the history of the area and recommending other fun places to walk around and check out.
The afternoon consisted of me doing some filing, me doing some invoicing, and me doing some AWESOME transfer-price analysis of Sabine (crazy German lady I blogged about a while back with weird corporate spending) and her expenses all across Europe. She works in the UK, lives in Germany, and spends money in about every possible currency in the whole world, so her paychecks and expense claim reimbursements aren't always consistent with the actual value of what she earned/spent. My job now is to figure out what she actually deserves/should get, and make sure that is annotated correctly. So I did that all afternoon, and Stephan gave me the best compliment ever (well, it just made me happy!): "You're really much quicker than other interns we've had...brighter. Impressive, really." I smiled on the inside for the rest of the day, and went home to a quiet night of talking to my mom, TRYING to do British laundry (SO difficult), and getting to bed WAY later than I should have (boo).
Today I had Images, Opera in London (my first opera is tomorrow YAY!), and went to intern. I got to work on variance analyses for Mars, the candy company...it was a mouthwatering afternoon. The best part of the day comes AFTER work, though...a group of us met up at Lincoln's Inn Fields and went to the John Soane Museum for a special "candlelight night:" once a month, the museum is opened after hours by candlelight and shown the way Sir John Soane himself lived in it when he was a resident! The museum is literally his house: throughout his life, Sir John was a gifted and renowned architect with a passion for collecting art and antiquities, and upon his death he turned his house into a museum that was to be kept free and preserved as he left it for students and artists to visit.
The place was unbelievably cool...there were gorgeous sculptures, moldings, carvings, etc. from Greek and Roman temples all over the place, a mummy, a skeleton, a table made entirely of bones, a funeral ring containing a lock of Napoleon's hair...every wall was hung with paintings from floor to ceiling, and there was even a room that had walls that opened out...TWICE...to allow for more paintings to be hung, displayed, and flipped through like a trippy, oversize picture book of Hogarths and Canalettos and Turners. It was honestly the most ridiculously amazing thing I'd ever seen. I could have spent hours in there just staring at everything, and I am totally planning on going back by daylight. SO amazing!
Now, however, I am completely worn-out after a bad and short night of sleep last night, so I am going to go read for a tiny little bit and turn in...thank heaven I have a later-start day tomorrow and can sleep in a little! Goodnight and cheerio to all of you, hope your Monday and Tuesday have been as lovely as mine! :)
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
"monday, tuesday, happy days!"
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