I love my job, officially!

This week has been amazing! It started out with going to the wax museum on Tuesday. Normally, it costs about $40, but since it was inauguration day Americans got in free. I took some pictures with wax figures such as Tiger Woods, the Beatles and all sorts of movie stars. I then had a relaxing lunch with my friend Hayley, after which we walked up and down Oxford Street peering into the stores we couldn't afford. At about 4 we went to the pub at Imperial because they were projecting the inauguration. Then we had class and crashed pretty early because Wednesday was......

STONEHENGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me + Stonehenge

Me and Lauren =)

Jumping for joy

After we spent about an hour there, we headed to the beautiful town of Bath. It was so cute and quaint, but we were mainly there to see the Roman baths, which were these huge pools of water that people used to sit in all day because they thought the waters were magical. And in some way, they are. The water self heats by going down to the Earths core and then rising back up. It was all very complicated, I am sure our tour guide explained it better... I have a hard time staying focused on confusing information for more than 5 minutes. Here are some pics!

Me at the Roman bath

Bath again with the Bath Abbey in the background

After that, we drove 2 and a half hours back home to London and prepared for our first day at work. Thursday was a good day for me to start because Retail Jeweller had just gone to press on Wednesday, so me and my 3 other co-workers had an editorial meeting to discuss the March issue. It should be exciting because they have me helping out with some of the shorter stories in the issue! So Thursday I mainly helped organize our desk space since it was getting out of control, as well as wrote a small piece on a retailing program in London. I got to look up some pictures for our website and edit them a little, which was a good experience.

Then, at about 5, Fran (the deputy editor) told me to come to the main area for some wine and chips. I was a bit confused, but decided to go anyways. Apparently, at the Emap corporation, they have a "star of the month." People nominate their coworkers who have worked hard that month, and for some reason someone decides to service lots of wine while the president reads off the nominees. After having some wine, I realized it was time to go since I needed to get on the tube before rush hour.

Today (Friday) was a bit slower than yesterday. I mainly checked emails for the company and forwarded them to the corresponding person. I booked my train ticket to Birmingham for next Tuesday, Feb. 3rd because Sarah (editor in chief) invited me to come up for the day to help them with Spring Fair. It is a huge fair show where all sorts of companies meet for the week and show off their new collections. I am very excited to have this opportunity, and for free! 

Lastly, today I was looking through the email and spotted an art gallery that was hosting some exclusive cocktail party next Wednesday. None of my coworkers could go, so they decided to send me! I am continually shocked at all the amazing opportunities I am getting. I RSVPed and am currently in the process of selected what I will be wearing. I RSVPed "me plus one" and my plus one is the gorgeous Lauren Johnson. Champagne and good friends =)

Tomorrow is our tour at St. Pauls Cathedral. We arent allowed to take pictures inside, but after the official tour, our guide said he will take us to climb the 400 steps to the top! I am sure it will be an amazing view.

 

Interning at retail jeweller :)

Today I had my interview for Retail Jeweller at 11am. I dont even know if I would call it an interview, though. Sarah, my supervisor walked me up to the giant work floor and started introducing me as their new intern. She asked me about what I could bring to the magazine and how familiar I was with the big names in jewelry. We then talked about my daily duties, which would include writing, researching, attending PR events and even assisting on fashion shoots in cities all across the UK! Needless to say, I am already in love. Retail Jeweller is a part of emap, which is a huge company that houses several magazines. It is perfect because many other Mizzou students will be working literally a desk away from me! 

Back-tracking a bit, this past weekend was a blast. Saturday I met up with some friends at around noon and then we took about a 3 hour bus tour around London. I sat on the top, obviously, and froze. Here are some of the pictures!

Brr.. we are cold!

Another gorgeous building

Policemen, aka "Bobbys" hard at work

Beautiful quatrefoil fountain

Big Ben and the London Eye

I found a Jayhawk in London!!!!!!!!!!

The tower bridge and moi!

Thames River

Japanese dinner, I swear it was good

Me in front of Buckingham Palace

My favorite picture in the world

Changing of the guards, here comes the Queens posse 

More of the Queens posse

More pictures!!!!

I took a million but I am only putting the best ones on here :) And yes, our Internet is still slow as a snail...

Pretty building=)

40 Hogarth road

The street I look at every morning..

Tube rides

Covent gardens

Pretty flowers at covent gardens

NOTTING HILL

Covent Gardens.. Plus me

Everything here is beautiful, I wish the pictures would do this city half its justice. Everything is grand, shiny and is incredibly detailed. Every building is unique and Covent Gardens is my new favorite place. This weekend I have a lot planned, hopefully my camera can keep up!

More tourist-y things...

The past few days have been busy, but a ton of fun! Monday we had school orientation from about 745 to 9 in the morning. Then we split up into groups and took the tour of Imperial College, where we will all be studying. Its a pretty amazing place! It ranks second in the best school of the UK. After that we sat around the student union, had some coffee and then browsed around the bookstore. 

After that we had lunch at the student union pub. It was a great meal, although I wasnt sure what it was. There was a folded pita bread, chicken and some mexican sauce. I grabbed a side of potatoes and beans... all for 2 pounds. Nothing like cheap student food! It turned out to be my most interesting meal so far. My friends and I sat with some Germans who were studying at the school, so it was definitely interesting to talk to them about how they see Americans and what they think of us. For instance, we told them how it would never be allowed for students to be drinking pints of beer at noon in the college and they laughed at us, saying the State's drinking age law is a crime in itself. He also talked about how everyone in America seems too uptight about work. In Europe, people take as much time off as they want for holidays or just for whenever they need to relax. 

Then we had a social orientation from 2-430 at the school, where we had travel agents come and talk to us about their deals for students! Ill definitely be checking out some trips to take...

Monday night was our first International Reporting class from 6-9pm. It was interesting, I should probably be doing my homework right now for that class! All in all though, Im interested to see how British media works in comparison to our system.

Tuesday we FINALLY got to sleep in, and I did so until 11am. I feel like Im finally over my jet lag. We had some lunch at the flat and then went to the National Museum of Portraits. It was amazing. All the museums in London are free, which is good for me because I could go to them all. Hopefully sometime soon Ill go to the Tate Museum, which is all Modern Art. But anyways, after we were at the museum for a few hours, the 5 of us girls grabbed some italian, caught the tube and went to our class at 6pm. 

Today was a long day. We went to the Museum of London, which we had to go to for class. Every Wednesday our group of about 85 students goes site seeing. Next week is Stonehedge! Anyways, after that we went to the Natural History Museum and spent hours in there. I loved it because it was so interactive; it simply never got boring! 

Oh, and I still havent had any tea! I need to really get on that....

Pictures

I figured it out! I think...

Making an important phone call-not!

Buckingham Palace

St. Pauls Cathedral

(where Princess Di and Prince Charles got married)

Me and my boyfriend Ben

Westminster Abbey

London Eye

(This is a HUGE ferris wheel where they stick 15 people in a huge glass capsule. It takes about 40 minutes to go all the way around. On a clear day, you can see a spectacular view of London and beyond)

Sight seeing :)

Today was fantastic! We all woke up at about 745 so we could catch a bus that would take us on a sight seeing tour around London. We went to a bunch of amazing places like Westminister Abby, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Big Ben, St. Paul's Cathedral and Piccadilly Circus (which is like the Times Square of London). I am trying to upload pictures but it isnt working out very well. Our wireless Internet is terrible so I will try and figure out some sort of way to show all of my pictures later.

After our tour at about 1, me and some girls stopped at a cafe to eat lunch. It was a little strange that in London, they charge you more if you decide to eat at the actual cafe. You can take it to-go and it will be cheaper. 

Then after lunch we took our first tube ride home. Let me tell you all, the tube is EXTRAORDINARILY easier to navigate than the stupid metro in New York. We did not get lost once. It was amazing. 

Since we hadnt bought any food yet, we went to Sainsburys, the local grocery store/Wal-Mart. It is HUGE and extremely busy. People here are brutal with their shopping carts. Some lady ran over my foot.... that was the low point of my day (not too shabby!) Anyways, grocery shopping was annoying because everything is expensive AND Europe hasnt caught on to the joys of preservatives. About 95% of grocery items expire within 2 days of the day you buy them. Locals have been telling us that most people shop every few days here. I wasnt going to do that! Instead I found the cheapest food that somehow had expiration dates of later in the week. However, it wasnt too bad of a meal, all we had to add was some pepper. My total for the week for grocery shopping was about $24!! Granted, I bought kids shampoo for 50 cents and $1 rice cakes... I figure I can have good meals when I go out to eat, I dont need a gourmet meal in my flat.

In other news, our flat finally has hot water and we figured out how to work things around our new place. :) 

Now Lauren and I are watching Dancing on Ice, the British version of Dancing with the Stars, except on Ice. It is hilarious! Tomorrow is academics from 8am-9pm, so Ill be updating again in a few days! 

First day in London!!!

WOW! It has sure been a crazy ride getting here. Right now I am typing this on the couch in the living room of my flat. My hands are freezing, but thats expected from this cold cold weather. 

Flying to London wasnt as bad as I thought. We departed from Chicago at about 9:15 pm, just barely missing the crazy snow storm that was about to go through. United fed us some nasty beef entree, but I ate it anyways because I was starving. I watched some TV shows and then attempted to try and sleep.  Im not sure if I actually got any sleep, but I tried and its the effort that counts. 

After landing our group did a lot of mundane things like go through customs, get our bags, exchange currency etc. etc. Then off to our LOVELY flats in Kensington :) Im living in a room with 2 other girls, we are right next door to a room of 3 more girls, and the 6 of us share a living room, kitchen and bathroom. We have no hot water as of now, the power isnt working in the kitchen at all so we cant buy groceries yet AND our window is cracked so all the cold, London air is blowing in.... BUT nevertheless it is cute and quaint.

The group went to a few pubs tonight and it was so fun to see how different they all are. Tomorrow we have a 1/2 day of sightseeing then we are on our own to explore! Monday is academic orientation and probably more sightseeing. My goal for tomorrow is to have some tea and crumpets, London style. Oh, and meet the Queen! Miss you all!