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!