Adventures at MSN!

I have officially joined the business world of London. No longer a tourist 4 days a week, I have gotten a security badge, laptop, desk, e-mail account and calendar, therefore officially making me part of the MSN team, working in the “glass palace,” as my journalism professor calls the Microsoft building. On Thursday, the interns have all been assigned to work a big VIP presentation, so if we’re lucky maybe Bill Gates himself will attend, although I doubt it.

MSN has added a lot of training sessions for all their employees recently, so the interns have been attending those as well. I have been to 4 in the last 2 days. At the one Monday, pizza was served for lunch. Pizza doesn’t sound like any big deal, but at MSN it is. It was not just any pizza; it was pizza from a fancy Italian restaurant near where I live. The assortments of topping varied from just plain cheese to pizza with shrimp and mussels on top of it. I began talking to one of the very nice editors about how this kind of pizza would never have been served in the US, and she simply shrugged and said, “Well, it is Microsoft.”

There are many perks to being an employee at MSN. For one: free drinks. Not just coffee and tea, but juice, and not just any juice, orange, apple and grape juice and milk. And soft drinks: Coke, Diet Coke, Diet Coke Zero, caffeine-free Diet Coke, Sprite, Diet Spring, Dr. Pepper, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper, Fanta Orange, Fanta Lemon, sparkling water, still water, hot water. I know this is a lot of drinks to name, and you’re probably thinking I’m pretty crazy at this point, but free stuff is a big deal to us poor college students, and a plethora of free beverages, especially in this quantity, is a big deal. There are other perks to working at MSN, which I suppose I will name later as my time goes on. The biggest perk, of course, is the wonderful experience I will get after 4 months on the team.

Anyway, I am very much enjoying my time at the glass palace. I’ve gotten to know the Entertainment Team and they are all really cool. I’ve learned how to use most of their software and have completed many assignments, so it’s been a great opportunity so far. It is also funny how much the MSN employees use Instant Messenger. I frequently am encouraged to message people sitting directly next to me opposed to having an actual conversation with them, which is cool in many ways, but weird in others.

I am a Mac owner and have a Google mail account, therefore supporting Microsoft’s competition, which I have yet to share with any of the colleagues, so broadening horizons is always a good thing. I even pitched a story yesterday that my editor liked and said I can see through from start to finish, so I am happy about that. All in all, I think this is going to be a very good internship and learning experience. I’ve already learned more about music in 4 days than I have in 20 years.

Settling into a routine is nice, but it also means settling into a morning and evening routine with my flatmates. I really like my flat, which is much better than our travel agency made it sound in October. However, it is very close quarters. Let me just say: 6 girls, one bathroom. In the morning, there is barely time to brush your teeth before someone needs to get in there. The first and last hour we are awake you can pretty much guarantee the blow dryer and straighter will never be turned off. We do have a fairly spacious common area, so our surroundings are rather quaint and nice, and liking my flatmates is a big plus, so its been interesting, but its all worked out.

Anyway, today was a pretty big day for me. One of my flatmates and I got up early and headed over to Notting Hill Gate to go to Portobello Market. Like the last time we went, it rained all morning, but we still went. The Portobello Market website promised us a bustling crowd and plenty of vendors, however on this rainy Wednesday morning there were only a few fruit vendors out and not many stores open. Cold and wet, we decided to hunt for something I particularly had been wanting to eat since I got to London: a traditional English breakfast. As fate would have it right across the street from where we stood was a quaint café that served breakfast. We both ordered a traditional English breakfast, which included things I knew I wouldn’t like, but I didn’t care. For the record, a full English breakfast includes: eggs over easy, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans and toast. It was quite good despite the fact that I have discovered I don’t like sausage or mushrooms or tomatoes or beans. The whole breakfast was really delicious though, and only for 4 pounds ($6)!

Feeling quite satisfied, we walked out to discover more stores open and a slightly busier marketplace. We walked around and went in some adorable shops. We then stumbled upon something rather dangerous: a cupcake bakery with the cutest, most reasonably priced cupcakes you’ve ever seen! We each bought one to save for later and it was delicious, despite the fact that most of my family would not approve of the flavor I picked out (all vanilla!). The place is called Hummingbird Bakery if you’re ever in the Notting Hill area.

Our morning ended shortly when we had to show up for our British Life and Culture field trip to Tate Britain in the late morning. The museum was pretty nice. It has all British artists in it, which is kind of cool. I’m kind of art-museum-ed out because I’ve been to so many in the past few weeks, but it was still cool to see the paintings there.

The day came to a close due to the forces of homework drawing me back to my flat to write my weekly British Life paper and first journalism paper. This weekend, a few friends and I are going on a somewhat spontaneous trip to the Isle of Wight for a night. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what is there, but we’re going with a student travel agency that has the entire weekend planned so we’re pretty excited about it. I’m excited to get out of the city and see more of the English countryside. Tomorrow night, I’m going to see the Lion King with the program that organized the trip, so I’m really looking forward to that. My time in London is going by so fast that I am trying to get lots of planning done for the shows I want to see and cities I want to go to. It’s been very exciting so far, with much more exciting things to come I’m sure. Hope everyone has a good weekend and sorry this blog post is so long!

Lazy Days

To be honest, I haven’t been up to much in the past few days now that work has started and I actually have a life outside of being a tourist. Work is going very well. All the interns were invited out to a pub for drinks after work on Friday, which was a lot of fun. Pub life is very culturally important in London and the workforce, so going there with my new colleagues was a fun way to get to know them better outside the office. Work has been going well so far. I'm just starting to learn all the programs and how their system works, so it's been good so far. Everyone is very welcoming and eager for us to become part of the "team" as they are fond of calling it. I may get to tag along on a particular celebrity interview on Tuesday, but it's not a sure thing, so I don't want to jinx it until I know more. 

On Saturday, some of my flatmmates and I woke up at the crack of dawn (literally) to head over for a tour of St. Paul’s cathedral. It was really pretty from the inside with beautiful mosaics on the ceilings. We had the option of climbing up to the very top, but I’m sure it’s of no surprise to you that I opted out of climbing the over 400 stairs to the top. The cathedral was beautiful and interesting, but our tour guide droned on for a while, so I became uninterested after a few hours.

Overwhelmed by homework and our long tour, we went back to the flat and spent the remainder of the afternoon catching up on papers and reading. We then went to Covent Garden for dinner. I have never, even during rush hour, seen the Tube so packed as it was on a Saturday night. People were literally standing on top of each other. It was ridiculous. But we did eventually make it to Covent Garden, which I really love. It’s like an escape from the city even though it’s within the city. It’s also a place that is very unique to England. So we went to a really cute Italian place there, which had okay food, but the atmosphere made it worth it. We were seated in the hidden basement of the restaurant, which had all brick walls and low ceilings and a waiter that predominantly spoke Italian. It was a very quaint restaurant, which made the experience that much more fun.

It has been a very lazy Sunday today. After days of waking up early, we all slept past 11 and spent so far this afternoon continuing to do homework. We’re about to go out, but we don’t know where yet. It has been a very peaceful weekend. I am starting to think about travel on the weekends and for Spring break (which is coming up much quicker than I would like) so I will update you when I know more. London has been quite an adventure so far and I am looking forward to getting to know the city better.

PS. I really would appreciate if whoever reads this blog would occasionally comment on it so I don’t feel like I am writing to myself every few days. 

Rocks, Water...and MSN!

These have been quite a few interesting days. Yesterday, our British Life and Culture class took its Wednesday field trip to Stonehenge and Bath. We woke up really early and drove the 2 hours there with our very friendly tour guide, Tony. It was such a perfect day. Not too cold, with blue skies. It only started to rain as our day was ending and we made the voyage home.

We first stopped at Stonehenge, which I really loved. I was in a really good mood when we were at Stonehenge, which may have contributed to my love of it so I’m not sure how much I actually liked of it, but it was a beautiful place. We received a long lecture on the archeological significance of Stonehenge, but that did not at all do justice to how cool Stonehenge was. Yeah, you could look at it as being a bunch of rocks, but I thought it was so much more than that.

I cannot say the same about the Roman Baths however. We went to the town of Bath, which I am sad to say I did not have more than a half hour to explore. I wish we could have had more time in the town, which was a little commercial, but also had independent shops that were really cool. The main point of us going there was to get into the history of England, so we spent the majority of our afternoon there seeing the unnecessarily long museum leading us into the Roman Baths.

This may be naïve of me to say, and potentially insulting to religious people, but I did not see the point in the Baths. It was just a big pool of green, steaming water to me. I do not want to offend anyone, but I saw no importance to it whatsoever. Although, you could say the same about Stonehenge being just a bunch of rocks, but Bath to me was just a pool of water. I didn’t mind seeing the Baths, just very disappointed that I didn’t get enough time to explore the cute town and its surroundings.

Anyway, it was a pretty fun day. Today, however, I started my internship with MSN working in the Entertainment section, which was incredibly intimidating and nerve racking at the beginning of the day.

However, by the end of the day I was pretty comfortable with my surroundings and somewhat confident with what I was doing. I’m kind of just doing orientation stuff and learning all the programs right now, so it’ll take a few days to get adjusted, but MSN seems pretty awesome and I think I’m in for a good semester. All the people are really cool too, and I got to watch the Oscar nomination announcement with the team, as they put it, so that was definitely a highlight.

Of course, the best part of the day was when I got home (at about 6:20) and knew that the reality of my living situation was that I needed to do laundry...badly. I was not looking forward to it, despite the fact that there's a laundromat on the same street as my flat. It ended up being fine, but the machines are really different than the ones in the U.S. Not to mention much more expensive. Four pounds ($6) for ONE load of laundry in the smallest machine I'd ever seen and 20 pence (30 cents) for every 3 minutes in the dryer. Thankfully, I was able to figure out how everything worked, so I survived the experience, but it was quite interesting. 

Anyway, the last two days have been fun and I’m looking forward to learning more about MSN tomorrow and getting into a real routine for the next few months. Hope everyone has a good and relaxing weekend! 

Obamamania!

I had an interesting day today. Looking back on it, it really was a packed day revolved around Obamamania. First, let me say that I am still really upset I was not in the states for his inauguration. I really wish I could have been in the country for Obama’s inauguration.

That said, I really enjoyed my inauguration experience today, but let me start at the beginning of my day, which had absolutely nothing to do with Obama getting sworn in. I woke up before dawn for my interview with MSN, the Entertainment section. It went pretty well, and as far as I know I'm starting on Thursday as a full time intern at MSN doing some video work, but also producing content, and other stuff I am not really sure about. Therefore, I will definitely not be updating this blog as often as I have been since most of my days probably will not be noteworthy and I will actually be busier than I currently am. The Microsoft building is incredibly modern and intimidating right on Victoria St. across the street from where Billy Elliot is playing. It’s very cool, but very intimidating. I’ll write more once I actually start and know what I’m doing.

Anyway, so then I came back to the flat at the more reasonable hour of 10 and me and my flatmates headed to Madame Tussaud’s, which is a museum of wax figures. In honor the inauguration and their brand new Obama wax figure, all people who could prove they were American citizens could get in free! Madame Tussaud’s is, in my opinion, very overpriced for what you actually see (around $30) so I was convinced that this was a hoax until I got that ticket in my hand and realized it was not. We got the see the whole museum for free! Finally, being an American in London actually paid off! Literally.

The museum was okay. Very cheesy and many of the celebrities looked very little like their human counterparts. It was worth going for free, but I definitely would not have paid for it. I also stood in the long line just to get a snap shot of the wax Obama, so that was cool. It was a fun thing to do, but definitely not a must-see.

The inauguration was scheduled for 5 PM London time, so with class tonight at 6:00 we were all very worried about watching the whole thing. Our program people convinced the pub on Imperial’s campus to air the coverage of it, so with a pint in hand, me and a ton of other American students watched our new president get sworn in from 3000 miles away, although there were some English students there as well. It was quite exciting to watch it in a pub packed to its limit with people. Our journalism professor was there too and we asked him if it was okay to be late to lecture if Obama’s speech went long. He only answered our question by saying that he was not leaving the pub until the inauguration ended, so we assumed we were safe. However, his speech did not last longer than imagined and we did make it to class on time.

It is actually kind of fun to be over here for this early part of Obama's presidential career. English media are definitely talking a lot more about Obama than our media ever talk about Gordon Brown. I made the comment earlier that I really do doubt that the majority of Americans can name England’s prime minister, when it would certainly be impossible not to know who Obama is in the U.K. Anyway, it was a very interesting day with a nice international perspective on an American event. I hope everyone had time to watch the inauguration and enjoyed it. 

Running out of Time

Unfortunately, our touristy days are quickly running out. I have an interview for my tentative internship placement tomorrow morning and then I might start work late this week. We still have regular classes at night though, which are easy to forget about, but still in existence.

Yesterday, we all woke up early and made our way to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. I have to say that I was slightly disappointed after the big deal everyone makes of it. I thought it was a bit overrated, but I still had a fun time. It was freezing, but it was cool to hear and see the royal marching band play and see all the bobbies (their term for policemen) patrolling. It was really crowded, so we were standing outside for a while, so it was cold, but I was glad I did it. I, personally, don’t think it’s a must-see though.

We then took the Tube over to Trafalgar Square where we grabbed lunch at a really cute chain café. As many of you know, I am a bit of a picky eater, so a few people (you know who you are ::cough, cough:: Aunt Donna and Uncle Jeff) are very curious as to what I am eating over here in England. I am still a bit upset that turkey is nearly non-existent here, but sandwiches are much more popular here than they are in the U.S. in terms of where they are sold and in varying forms. There are the café sandwiches, a ton of places sell pre-packaged pick-up sandwiches for real cheap, and sit-down places like in the U.S.

There are many American places here. There is almost always a Starbucks or McDonald’s nearby, although I try not to frequent those. Pub food is delicious—you can almost never go wrong with fried fish or breaded chicken and chips. And I love Italian food, which is everywhere here, so that’s good. The grocery stores have the equivalent of microwave meals and cereals, so there is no need to worry about my eating—I am doing just fine, despite my pickiness.

Anyway, we had sandwiches at a cute café and then decided to take further advantage of our tour pass from the day before by going on a walking tour of the history of the Beatles. I’m not a huge Beatles fan, but I really enjoyed the walk, which took us to Soho and on back streets I probably never would have found. If you’re a big Beatles fan I would recommend the tour, it was an interesting perspective on the music world in the ‘60s.

After that, I broke off from our group and went back to the Buckingham Palace area to walk around the park right next to it. I walked through it and walked up to some of the statues a famous landmark that I forgot the name of, but was very cool to see. I then headed back to the flat and ate Italian food for dinner, so it was another touristy, but enjoyable, day.

Today, my flatmates had their interviews in the morning, so I got the luxury of sleeping late before we headed out for the day. We decided it would be a fun idea to walk around Kensington Gardens some more and see the parts of it we didn’t see the other day. The park is over 200 acres, so there is quite a bit to see. Almost the moment after we left the flat, it started pouring rain. With no Plan B, we decided that maybe we could check out the National Gallery of Art in Trafalgar Square, which we didn’t get to explore the other day.

The National Gallery was really cool. They had a lot of Monet’s and Manet’s works, but they had Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, which was incredibly cool to see in person. Those were their most modern works, so I meandered through some of the older stuff, much of which was very religious based. I’m beginning to notice that many of the museums here look huge and intimidating from the outside and inside they really do not have as much stuff as they appear to have. The National Gallery is huge and it looks like it would take days to get through all that art, but in reality the inside of the museum is nothing you couldn’t see in an afternoon or a few hours, or in one hour if you’re a very fast viewer like me. 

We ate a late lunch/early dinner in the museum café and delighted in very delicious, but slightly expensive, pastries afterwards. Then, unfortunately, it was off to International Issues in Journalism class. It was interesting tonight, but it does make the day seem shorter.

I’m very excited for the inauguration tomorrow, and kind of sad that I won’t be in the states for one of the most important days in American history. The Imperial College Pub is going to have it on TV, but much of it will probably take place when I have class so I’m very worried about missing it and having to watch it after the fact. It’ll be interesting to see how it is viewed internationally, which I will definitely blog about later. 

A Tourist in London

I have been doing a lot of touristy these days. It’s nice to have this week and most of next week having nothing planned. Once we start our internships, I have a feeling I will not be seeing a whole lot of London, so I’m trying to see everything that we’re not doing during the group field trips now.

Yesterday we went to Covent Garden, which was a lot of fun. I would really recommend it. There were a lot of street performers and a ton of shopping—both cheap and high end stores so there was stuff for everyone. Therefore, I did not mind the shopping part. The stores were all really cute and there were a few toy stores, which were really interesting to see how they compared to the U.S. Of course, there was the Disney Store and other American places, but most of the stores were local. They also had a market place that had a lot of the touristy stuff as well as locals selling some really cool things. And, they had some amazing looking food there, however we had eaten earlier, so I did not get the opportunity to take advantage of that, but when I go back, I definitely will.

It is London, therefore, it was rainy and damp so we didn’t feel like walking around much longer. Lost for what to do, we went back to the Tube where chaos reigned because the line back to our flat was “severely delayed” because of a signal failure or something like that. Still lost of what to do, we decided to take the other line to Notting Hill for no other reason than the fact that we had all seen the movie and it sounded fun. So, we got off the Tube in Notting Hill and were still completely lost of where to go, so we decided to try and find the Blue Door from the movie “Notting Hill.” We asked a few people who all probably thought we were crazy American tourists—which I suppose we were. It wasn’t until the last person we asked on our long trek that said that that building had been sold and the door was shipped back to the U.S. Oh, the irony. So, wet and cold we gave up and headed back to our flat.

I then did some serious planning for what we were going to do over the weekend and next week. There’s a lot I want to do, but I think I can fit it all in. Earlier today, I went on an optional tour of Westminster Abbey. I woke up very concerned because it was pouring rain once again. I was worried that would put a damper on the tour, however it was not that bad when the tour started.

The tour was pretty early in the morning, but it was really interesting. We had a really nice tour guide who was very informative. The only downside was that he was a little too talkative and long-winded, so the tour sometimes got boring. But it’s really cool all the famous people buried or have monuments in the abbey—basically every famous English person has something.

After we walked out of the Abbey, it was miraculously sunny with blue skies! I do not think I’ve seen such a clear day since I’ve been here. It was somewhat cold, but not terrible, so we decided to make use of the day and take a very touristy bus tour around London. We felt kind of jipped after our last tour, so we decided to do another one, which came with a boat tour. The top level of the double decker bus was really cool, although a little scary at first. We saw a lot more of London than we did on the first tour. The boat tour on the River of Thames was pretty cool too. We were going to go on the London Eye too, but by that point in the day the coldness and cloudiness of the city had returned so we’ll save that for another day.

It’s been fun to be a tourist in the city that I’m living in, at least until we finally get a regular schedule sometime next week. Until then, it’ll be all museums and tourist destinations for me!

Settled In

I’ve been in London nearly a week now, so I’m finally settling in and figuring things out.  We think we’ve figured out the quirkiness of the hot water heater. I don’t think we ever worked out how the radiators work, but it’s not that cold to begin with so that’s okay. I’ve bought a month-long Tube pass and finally got a local cell phone. I am also beginning to learn the street names and how to get from place to place so I feel as if I have learned a lot in six days.

Our British Life field trip was yesterday and we went the Museum of London, which was kind of far away from our flat. It was incredibly disappointing! I expected it to be huge and full of the history of London, as its name suggests. However, there were only a few exhibits one of the London Fire in the 1600s, which has many similarities to the Chicago Fire, and a few rooms on more ancient times. It was hard to spend the required two hours in there.

After that, my flatmates and I felt a little disappointed, but didn’t want to waste a museum day, so we grabbed a quick (and delicious!) sandwich at a local café and took the Tube to the Natural History Museum. It is in the most beautiful building I think I have seen in London so far. It looks like a grand, royal castle with engravings all around and meticulous carvings. It is actually kind of deceptively large because the museum was also cool but did not take a huge amount of time to go through. Another tip for travelers—all museums in London are FREE! They often charge for special exhibits, but student rates are usually available. I think it is almost expected that patrons donate at least a few pounds to the museum, but being a poor college student, I have yet to do that.

Anyway, as most people know, I am not a huge fan of natural history, so I skipped the dinosaur and bug rooms and wondered around other parts of the museum that were interesting. I stumbled across a special exhibit featuring the 2008 Wildlife Photographer Winners. I debated about paying the 4 pounds to go, but I love wildlife and environmental photography so I decided to pay and go on in. It was the best 4 pounds I have spent all week! It was absolutely amazing. There were probably 100 photographs that were the best of the best and they were all so stunning and wonderful. I would highly recommend that to anyone with any slight interest in photography. That was definitely the highlight of the day.

After a long day of walking through museums, we were ready to return to the flat where my other flatmates were planning to host a big group dinner that we attended. There were at least 10 other people in the flat, so I’m surprised that it held all of us and we cooked dinner, so that was a pretty fun night.

Today, we unfortunately had our first internship orientation right smack in the middle of the day, which did not leave much time for us to do a whole lot of things. Afterwards, we went to a mall a few Tube stops away where we were told there was a cheap shop for clothes and stuff. As most of you know, I do not like shopping. That is an understatement I hate shopping, it is my least favorite thing to do ever. However…my first English shopping mall experience was quite interesting. In the mall, they had a One Pound store, which is the equivalent to our Dollar Store, so that was amusing. We went to a store that was a lot like Old Navy, except really, really cheap. I did not buy anything, although I did not bring enough long sleeve shirts that are not sweaters, so that may become a problem. Sorry Mom, but you were incorrect on this one. Don’t worry though, you were right on most other things. But I should have brought more long sleeve shirts that weren’t sweaters.

Afterwards, we had not eaten a whole lot during the day, so we went to a local pub near our flat that we went to before on our pub-crawl. I ate chicken kiev with chips (fries), which was very good. I was happy to eat in the pub, since pub culture is a big thing here. In our internship orientation, they said that it was not at all uncommon for workers to drink a pint and ask you to join them at lunchtime. It is interesting the different customs and commonalities between here and the U.S. that come up every day.

Anyway, I’m really enjoying London, although I am looking very forward to seeing the English countryside. We are going to Bath and Stonehenge next Wednesday for our BLC field trip, so I’m really excited for that. Other than that, I will probably find out my internship placement and start within the next week, so I’ll keep you posted on that. Hope all is well with everyone and talk to you soon!

Lots of Culture!

The program I am attending in London is largely an internship program where us journalism students are placed at various publications throughout London. However, since we don’t for sure know what those placements are yet, I have been doing many touristy things all over London. I’m excited that we have much of the next week free because I know we will be insanely busy once we start working daily.

Yesterday was the first day since we got here where we did not have anything scheduled until the evening. Therefore, we did the obvious college-student thing to do—slept in late. It was very nice. I can safely say I am over my jet lag now. Me and a few of my flatmates got up and went to Piccadilly Circus because we didn’t get to fully explore there the other day. We ended up walking over the National Gallery building, which was simply gorgeous and went to the Portraits Gallery right next door. It was a nice thing to do since we only had about an hour to see it. The day went by very fast because by the time we woke up (really, really late), got our Tube passes for the month, navigated the Tube, and walked to where we were supposed to be it was nearly 3:00 in the afternoon.

I really liked the Portraits Gallery. They had some interesting modern stuff and the portraits of all the monarchs from centuries ago where are really cool to see. There were also paintings of Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, people who I actually knew some stuff about. The Princess Di stuff was kind of heartbreaking to view though.

We then ate dinner at a really cute, quaint Italian restaurant near the museum. They had really good food, although we were so hungry it probably wouldn’t have mattered what we ate. One tip for travelers—soft drinks in Europe do not come with free refills. I knew this when I came here, however I quickly forgot when at this restaurant.

Then we navigated the Tube again to get to Imperial College for our first British Life and Culture (BLC) lecture. We got a little lost after we got off the Tube at what we thought was the closest stop to Imperial, but I’m not convinced it was. The first lecture was pretty interesting. We had a local college professor speak about just general history, culture and politics in the UK. She was really interesting and spoke about everything from Obama, to terrorism, and history.

We talked a little about how journalism has drastically influenced how much Europeans like Obama. The press apparently chose very early to support Obama and the media was not very balanced about how much they covered McCain compared to Obama, which I thought was very interesting. The press here differs from the US in terms of the basic rules they follow—like balance and transparency, which were all emphasized very heavily in journalism class, although that is not necessarily true for all media outlets.

There are also a lot of cultural differences in the UK: most policemen don’t carry guns, citizens are not required to carry around identification even their driver’s license when driving a car, most Europeans view themselves as working class, where middle class is seen as an insult, but it is the exact opposite in the US. It was all very interesting.

Europe in general is also much more food and environmentally conscious then the US is. The portion sizes are a lot smaller than the in the US and many of the grocery food labels have tips for staying healthy or advertise why the food you are buying is healthy. The food also has almost no preservatives, which makes stuff expire very quickly. It is somewhat annoying that I will probably have to go to the store a few times a week when I don’t want to eat out, but at the same time, it is probably much healthier for you. Going to the grocery store was quite an experience. You do have to package your own groceries, which for me seems to be the most significant difference. Besides that, the grocery stores are not hugely different. They have larger take out foods, and obviously have different brands, although many familiar brands appeared but with different flavors.

According to our speaker for BLC, I am living in one of the wealthiest areas in London, which I guess is good. I suppose the fact that this flat is relatively small and has its quirks should not surprise me because I am in London, but I was surprised to know that this is one of the most cosmopolitan areas considering that.

London is also much more environmentally friendly than the US. The German students I met yesterday kind of had the attitude that it is our responsibility to take care of where we live, which is very true but I suppose the US hasn’t caught on to that yet. Recycling and conserving energy is taken to an extreme here compared to the US, although it is easy to adapt to in this environment. I will definitely continue what I’ve learned at home.

Anyway, sorry this blog entry is so long. I want this to be culturally informative as well as telling you about things I’ve done, so I hope you find it interesting. Tomorrow I'm going on the BLC field trip to the Museum of London, which should be fun. More blogging to come!

Various Scenes

It has really been a long, but short, few days here in London. It seems like I’ve been here forever, not just a few days, but at the same time the days go by pretty quickly. Yesterday, which seems like forever ago, we went on a sightseeing tour of London in the morning. There was a bit of a mix up with our tour guide people, so the bus driver, Debbie, ended up driving and talking, so I felt bad that she had to do both but she did a pretty good job. We saw the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and stuff like that.

We then picked up quick sandwiches and did some essential errands. Later that night, I went out with my friend Allie from back home, which was a lot of fun. I got to see her flat (which is a lot bigger than ours) and meet her very nice friends. I then went to a pub with them and saw other study abroad students there. It was a pretty exciting night! I then slept very well because I am trying to catch up on my sleep from the jet lag…

However, that did not go very well because we all had to be up early to walk over to Imperial College for our day of orientations. It was okay. We ate lunch at the local pub on campus, DaVinci’s. My flatmates and I then met some Germans who went to Imperial. It was a very interesting because they thought some of our laws in America were absurd, as we think of some European customs. They did not like the fact that Americans are so fast paced and they did not understand why it was illegal to drink before we were 21. Pubs do seem to be a huge part of cultural life here, not even for the alcohol part, but just for socializing in general.

We also walked around Imperial more and South Kensington where Imperial is. We then walked to Hyde Park and around Kensington Gardens to see Princess Diana’s Memorial. Despite the fact that is was raining and somewhat cold, which I know is not rare for London so I should get used to it, the Garden was really pretty. Unfortunately, we got to the Memorial 10 minutes after it had closed, so we observed it from afar. We then picked up a quick bite to eat at the student union at Imperial and went to our first day of class.

We have class every Monday night for International Issues in Journalism. My teacher has had an incredible career. It is a career that most journalists would fantasize about. He has worked in over 50 countries and most major cities in the US. He taught at Mizzou for a while before retiring, although he is still teaching here in London and working for the European Union, so he seems to still be quite active. So that class seems to be interesting and it is not a huge amount of work so I may actually get to see things while I am here in Europe.

So that is what has gone on the last few days. Tomorrow is pretty much a free day besides class tomorrow night. I am going to finally buy a European cell phone and Tube pass, and possibly get to do other exciting touristy things as well, so hopefully the weather will cooperate. 

Finally Here!!!

So, Day One in London! I finally made it here. It seems like a lot has happened since I arrived here just this morning. The flight was okay. It was delayed a little because of the snow in Chicago but we ended up getting into London almost on time. I slept on the flight as much as I could, but that still wasn’t long, so tonight will be my first night in a bed in what seems like a lot longer than just one night.

I am living in central London, which is very exciting! The buildings our beautiful all over the small part of England I’ve seen, but besides that a lot of England seems to be Americanized. The group of people on this trip is much larger than I expected. There are about 90 people from colleges all over Missouri! So we, and all our luggage, finally got the flats we were staying in. The worst part of the day was having to drag all our luggage to our rooms. I was hungry and sleep deprived but somehow managed to drag all my luggage up 4 steep and narrow flights of stairs. There is no lift in our flats, but I didn't expect one. I am in a room smaller than my single dorm room with 2 other girls, with another triple next door. The six of us share the common area, which is actually a nice size, bathroom and mini-kitchen. It is close quarters, but I don’t plan on being in the flat that much, and all my roommates are really nice, so I am not too worried.

So, after we got to London and put our stuff in our rooms, we walked over to Imperial College, our host, and ate our only free meal—Fish ‘n Chips! It was actually not that bad. I ate about half of the fish because I got sick of it after awhile and the chips part was just fries so that’s always good. We got a safety lecture about certain culture things in London and met the International Enrichment (the agency sponsoring the trip) staff. We walked home and ran into protesters opposing the war in Gaza, so it was a very well-rounded day. 

We were told that it was a particularly cool day in London, which didn’t bother me much because it felt just as cold as Chicago when I left. However, it is noticeable when we moved throughout Imperial College that for some odd reason the rooms indoor were cool as well. We kept our heavy coats on the entire time we were inside and out. Now back at my flat, I see that my mom was once again right because I am freezing and wearing long underwear under flannel pajamas. I’m sure I’ll pile on more layers once I go to bed, which will hopefully be pretty soon because I am exhausted.

I also experimented blindly with Skype and think I’m pretty confident about how to work it now. I have learned a lot for only being in London less than 12 hours. Tomorrow we are going on a bus tour in the morning and then we’re exploring London for ourselves after that. Hopefully by tomorrow night I will have more groceries and a cell phone. 

SNOW!!!!

So the big day is finally here! The day I leave for Europe. I have to say that the fact that I am actually going to Europe has not quite hit me until now, so I am very excited and in a little bit of disbelief that I am actually going today.

However, I do not want to jinx myself, because it you’re reading this from Chicago then you can look out your window and see that is snowing very hard. It is only 9 in the morning and you cannot see the street and everything is covered in fresh snow. It is beautiful, but today it is much less beautiful because it is supposed to snow all day, so I do not know what that means for my flight, or the traffic even getting to O’Hare. Anyway, with my flight 12 hours away I am hoping that the snow will stop and our plane will take off as scheduled. Wish me luck!

Welcome!

First of all, I’d really like to thank you for visiting my blog. I suppose I should warn all of you that outside of journalism class I have never blogged before, therefore, I cannot guarantee that this blog will be any good, contain any useful information or be of any interest to anyone. Although I hope it will.

That said…I am leaving for London this Friday evening at precisely 9:05 at night to spend the semester theoretically studying about journalism and different cultures. I plan, and hope, to travel around Europe as well, and want to get as much out of this trip as possible, hence Hayley's European Journey.

This past semester has been a whirlwind of excitement trying to get ready for this trip. I jumped through the Missouri Journalism School’s numerous hoops to get into the program, which they themselves admit anyone can get into if they have the correct requirements. Still, I submitted my resume, application, essays and letters of recommendation, and completed two interviews. I attended both seminars about what to expect about my abroad experience and paid the bill (which was by far the most painful part), so maybe finally getting to the finish line of actually going on the trip may just be the easy part.

I also got my passport stuff in order, got a visa (which is the hardest, most grueling, and most completed application process I have ever completed), signed my life away to Mizzou and the program setting up the trip, got international health insurance, a bank account that will work all over the world and then finally got a plane ticket! Thanks to my wonderful mom, I also shopped for lots of things that I will supposedly need in Europe, but am not sure I will actually use. 

So, this week I will just be attempting to fit everything I own into one checked luggage under 50 pounds and a few carry-ons (wish me luck). Any of you that have had the unpleasant experience of traveling with me or watching me prepare to travel know that I am a very nervous traveler. Therefore, flying internationally will probably not make me any less calm, but if that is what it takes to get to Europe then it can’t be that bad.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and has a good semester back at school. Keep me updated on what you’re up to! I will try to blog later this week and definitely when I get to London on Saturday. I'll try to keep this updated at least a few times each week.