yesterday...

...was an utterly insane day in every possible way!

Started work early, got in in time for free BBDO breakfast, which is amazing.  I had a peanut-butter and Nutella sandwich, a mocha, and some fresh grapes and strawberries...they were to-die-for, a little taste of home.  I could live on purple grapes (never green) in the summer.  I seriously eat them by the bucketload.

I also heard my first-ever legitimate utterance of "Bloody hell!" in the BBDO lobby.  A guy was wrestling with his umbrella, carrying coffee, trying to get his passcard to buzz him in, and holding his plate of breakfast as well.  I buzzed him in and he thanked me, then absolutely SHOUTED the "bloody hell!" as his umbrella got caught in the doorway.  I cracked up and felt all happy inside for about twenty minutes after the fact.

Yesterday was also the first day that the new BBDO Europe CEO was in-office in London!  To welcome him, we had a special Eurovision session to review BBDO's Superbowl ads and how they stacked up compared to other agencies' work.  Just in case you're dying to know, BBDO was responsible for Monster's "Fiddling Beaver" ad and the Snickers "You play like Betty White!" ad, which was rated the #1 Superbowl commercial by Nielsen, the American ratings company.  It was SO cool to see the teams that had worked so hard on these ads get recognized...they were so proud!  

Anyway, Jack, our Notre Dame-grad BBDO CFO, ordered about twenty Pizza Hut pizzas (Pizza Hut is considered a "classier" lunch option in Europe, and they eat their pizza with a knife and fork!) for our Eurovision meeting, and since half the skinny-minnie girls in the creative department don't eat lunch (ever) there was a ton left over...the new CEO was appalled and kept trying to get them to eat it, which was super funny.  He is super nice, down-to-earth, and spent a long time chatting with us lowly interns.  

I was a little bit stunned by how surreal the experience was after the fact...I mean, how many times in your life can you say you sat down to a pizza lunch with the CEO of a multinational company who actually spent over a half hour of his time talking directly TO you, about you, on his FIRST day in the office?!  I was so excited.  This job is ridiculously wonderful. 

Last night, Coleen and I were going to make chicken parmigiana for dinner...she had all the ingredients and a recipe handy and wanted to be creative, so I offered up my flat for the cooking of the dinner.  BIG MISTAKE.  When we turned our oven on to bake the chicken, about two to three minutes later we opened it and smoke started billowing out!  Our whole flat was quickly filled and I. Freaked. Out.  Like, Grade-A Lizzie Schwegman Freak-Out.  Coleen evacuated the chicken to her flat upstairs (of course, this was our first concern), and I flapped towels at our smoke detector like a madwoman (it still went off, though thankfully just in-room and not the whole building!).  Turns out there is most likely something stuck in our oven's fan that is blocking it while simultaneously burning and causing it to smoke like a chimney.  I was very scared and frazzled...but the chicken parmigiana was delicious and in the end I guess that's all that really matters ;)  Oh, flat dinners, how I love thee.  

Signing off for now as this is getting long and it's almost time for Tuesday Library Tea, one of my FAVORITE things about the London Centre!