Another weekend in London (elle)

Last week went by really fast.

Work went really well. I got a little frustrated being on the computer all day on Tuesday, but Wednesday made it all better. Two co-workers and I took a traditional London black cab (first cab experience here actually) across the city to a client's office to create media kits for an event they are having this coming fall. We put various gifts, press release, save the date sheet etc in these media kits. It took a few hours to get all of this organized and the commute back to work took about an hour. It was so nice to get out of the office.

p.s. I would be more specific about who the client is etc but I'm not sure if that's something I'm supposed to do?
To back track a little I have a funny story about that morning. I was told to meet two guys from our office at a store about 10 minutes from our office first thing Tuesday morning to pick up the boxes for the media kits. So, I got there at 8:55 like I was told and waited till 9:25....no one showed up!! I talked to three workers in that store to make sure I was in the right spot etc. To top it off my phone wouldn't make outgoing calls for some unknown reason. So, I decided to leave and head to work. When I walked into the office the two guys I was supposed to meet were sitting at their desks!! They said hello and acted completely normal, so I did too of course. It's typical for me to act like nothing happened. Then one asked "waitttt how did you know we weren't meeting?" I was like ahhh shoot luckily I forgot! They laughed and said that's pretty lucky....then told me we were going to do that errand in 20 minutes. I immediately started worrying one or all of the three workers at the store would say something about me being there haha! Luckily, everything went smoothly and we talked to the one person about our delivery that I hadn't talked to earlier. What a morning.

Friday- Brittian, Mary Marg, Jessica and I went to Windsor, England which is the home of Windsor Castle (the Queen's official home). Apparently, Buckingham Palace is basically her "office."  It was the most beautiful place! I want to move there of course. The castle was being set up for a prestigious event called the "Order of the Garter" that is being held tomorrow. My favorite part was seeing Queen Mary's dollhouse collection and the almost football field long wooden table made for Queen Victoria. Football field may be an exaggeration but it was HUGEEE. We had a delicious lunch in Windsor then headed home for a night out.

                                                 We found Mama G's husband in Windsor!

 Needless to say, Friday night was funnn. Saturday morning was a struggle...BUT we rallied and went to Covent Garden, The British Musuem, Roadhouse Bar (very cool place) then had a delicious dinner at Hamilton Hall. I went to bed early and I needed it. Covent Garden was one of my favorite areas so far. It has a precious piazza where there are pubs, restaurants, market, ice cream shops etc. The area surrounding it is filled with street performers.

Today the girls went to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels, Bloody Tower, Traitor's Gate (above) Martin Tower, etc. The crown jewels really are phenomenal.

Kara has been in Dublin and I'm sure she will post about her travels! I miss her!
I hope this week goes by reallllllly fast because we are going to SPAIN next!!

Amsterdam (Kara)

Last week our entire group booked a trip to Amsterdam. At first I was not too excited about this trip. I just assumed Amsterdam would be filled with grungy hippies and tourists. A dirty city that smelled like smoke was the last place on my mind to go, but I did not want to be left behind in London. As the day of our flight started approaching I grew more excited looking up tours, museums, and things to do in the city.

Friday came way too early. We had to leave Nido (the name of our flats) at 5:45 am to make our flight, which was at 9:30 (or so we thought). Our group was flying from the Gatwick airport and consequently it is the furthest and most expensive airport to get transportation to. We took the tube to the train station at 6 a.m. then the express train to the airport to get there around 7:30 am. Security here does not take nearly as long as it does at the Atlanta airport so we had plenty of time to spare (which was nice considering most of us got only a few hours of sleep). Going through security in Atlanta normally I put my shampoo, conditioner, face wash, and body wash in a plastic bag but that is about it; in London they put EVERYTHING that is a questionable liquid in plastic bags. I tried my best to sort out everything from lip-gloss and mascara to shampoo and face medicine. We all checked in and began to go through security. Where they would normally ask for ID and boarding passes at the Atlanta airport, the employees only asked me for my boarding pass and let me proceed without checking any form of identification; this obviously made me a little nervous considering I could have been anyone. Then, we go through the scanners and I learn there is NO need whatsoever to be nervous to fly from this airport. Security made Atlanta’s security look like a complete and utter joke. They scanned all bags. Jessica, Brittain, and I went through the same line of security and all three of our bags got pulled aside. They searched our bags from top to bottom, pulling out every trash wrapper. All I had to do was put my solid deodorant and toothpaste into my liquid bag. It was an intense security check, but the airport employees were all surprisingly friendly.

The flight took off, drinks were passed out, and it landed; possibly the quickest flight I had ever been on. We then had to figure out how to get to our hostel, which was a more complicated process than we thought due to the language barrier. Unfortunately, no one in our group spoke Dutch. We finally arrived to the hostel. It was not the best hostel to say the least. Thank goodness Mary Margaret, Elle, Brittain, and I had a private room. I might have cried if we were in the public one. The beds were at least comfy, but just one example of how “cheap” (in terms of facility not price—we definitely overpaid in my opinion) the hostel was can be taken from the shower curtain, which looked as if it was cut into thirds so it barely blocked the spray from the shower head so it definitely did not cover one body. Again, this reinforces how happy I was to have a private room (including private bathroom) with 4 girls. Next, we just went exploring and walking through the city. We ended up at a square filled with fun restaurants. We ate at a little Italian place outside because the weather was gorgeous! We then decided just to talk around and find different pubs to go into. Walking was interesting because we did not know the sidewalks had “bike lanes” and those bikers are not afraid to hit you so people probably knew we were coming a mile away from the screaming and jumping taking place. We ended up at a pub filled with people and we made lots of friends. There were tons of
“stag” parties (aka bachelor parties) taking place and in Europe the trend is to dress up the stag in a “sexy” women’s outfit—HILARIOUS. Everyone in the pub loved us and chanted “USA, USA…” throughout the afternoon. Then we went to a pub-crawl. It went to 6 bars throughout the red light district (which was just weird and made me feel sad for those girls). After 3 half of us decided to go home; it had been a long day.

Saturday we woke up and went to a pancake house for lunch/breakfast. For some reason I decided to get a hamburger, don’t ask me why. Elle, Brittain, Mary Margaret and I then rented a paddleboat for an hour and paddled around the canals. It was SO great to be on the water and the canals in Amsterdam are beautiful. Next we met up with the rest of the group at Bloenmmarkt (sp?), the famous flower market. I loved looking at all the types of flowers from Holland. Then, we walked to the edge of Vondelpark where the I AMSTERDAM sign is to wait for our bike tour. This bike tour was AMAZING and definitely my favorite part of the entire trip. Our guide took us all around Amsterdam. We went to Anne Frank’s house, saw the leaning houses, tried raw herring (their delicacy), and even went all the way to the only windmill in Amsterdam where a brewery (famous for brewing delicious and cheapest beer in Amsterdam). It was a blast and we literally saw the entire city of Amsterdam on bike. We then went to ANOTHER Italian restaurant. We went there because we found out every single item on the menu was 5 Euros and could not pass up that deal. It ended up being such a long day we were all exhausted by the end and wanted a relaxing and enjoyable night. So, we decided to go to a funky jazz bar. The jazz bar was filled with mostly older folks, but it was really fun for a bit, until it put all of us to sleep and we went home. OH! We also made a Swedish friend in our hostel who just packed up and left home one day. His name was Bjorn and he was the most optimistic 19 year old I had ever met with such a neat story.

Sunday we all woke up and went to breakfast. We decided the last thing we all should do is go to the Heineken brewery. It was so fun and interactive. I learned a lot how beer is brewed and now love Heineken (Dad would be so proud!).  Elle, Mary Margaret, Brittain, Nick, Jessica, and my flight was not until 9:40 p.m. so we wandered ate some lunch and headed back toward the airport to get there around 7. Once we got there we found out our flight had been delayed an hour…We were suppose to land in London at 9:45 p.m. and did not land until 11, getting home at 1:15 a.m. Needless to say, I am exhausted today and cannot wait to get a great nights sleep and shower in my own shower!

All in all Amsterdam was AMAZING and could very well be my favorite place in Europe, which is a surprise to me! This week is back to work and hopefully they will give me more things to do then they did last week (but maybe not too much J).

Hope all is well in the States!!

Xoxo

-Kara

WEEKEND (Elle)

Our second week of work has already come and gone.

Last weekend when Barcelona won the champions league final was amazing for me. I wish I could have been in Spain celebrating on the streets. The Duke of Wellington is where we watched the game here and it so happened to be the Barcelona fan club home base haha. We went out after the game to a club called Zebrano and had the besttt time.

I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as the National History Museum. Both were really cooool. I particularly loved the V&A because of the fancy dresses and jewelry on display.

My work days were filled with research and calls to journalists....needless to say I am ready for the weekend! Luckily it's here. There's a group of about 25 going to Amsterdam tomorrow morning till Sunday night. We are going on a bike tour of the city as well as visiting the Heineken museum or another brewery Kara found. I am really excited for a quick vacation.

I can't think of any other updates. Kara & I will have stories to share after this weekend!!

Days are slow, but time is flying (Kara)

Wow, it is hard to keep a blog updated...not enough time in the day even though the days are soooo long. I don't know how I will work in the real world.


Well Monday we started our internships. Let me say I was not too fond of my "busy-work" jobs at first but I have grown a positive attitude and began to appreciate them. I work at 9 PR. It is a media corporation agency that does PR for musicians. I am actually helping do a press release and press schedule for Nona Hendryx (who was a member of LaBelle who sang the original "Lady Marmalade"). Other than that I basically do busy work such as cutting and gluing, copying and pasting documents, and organizing. Tuesday I had to organize their magazines (which had piled up since 2008) and filled up 5 huge trash bags of old magazines to recycle, so yes, it is VERY boring. Finally today is Thursday though and we have a free 3 days!!!


This weekend we were all planning on going on a trip, but we waited way too long and now because of the volcano ash cloud all flights have been canceled. I am happy though because there is still so much of London I want to see and have not gotten to see since work started. Also, the big champions cup soccer game is this weekend so I think we are making a good choice.


Two nights ago my friend Laura Haines (I met her over spring break because Grace's friend Carson, who also goes to Pepperdine and is from Memphis, came to London last summer and met Laura, so Laura, and another Londoner Emma, were in L.A. as well) drove me around in her convertible P.T. Cruiser so I could see London at night. It was so cool! We drove over the London bridge, saw Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, and I got to ride on the left side of the car and road...which was not as weird of a sensation as I thought it would be. She is so sweet! She even made me "An Ultimate Guide to London" that included historic sites to see, shopping, where to go out, the tube station for each stop, the price, and the price of cabs so the drivers would not rip us foreigners off. I cannot wait to see her again, she may be one of the sweetest girls I have met!


I was even more impressed with how adorable and sweet Laura is yesterday because I had a major culture shock. People here do not know manners. I was so proud to be from America, especially the South, after my tube experience yesterday. I was bumped into multiple times during rush hour and no one EVER says excuse me. Finally, after the 8th time being bumped into I looked at the grown woman who did it and said "Excuse you!" I was over it. Then, while waiting on the tube as it was pulling up, the doors opened and grown men in business suits (so they should obviously know manners) cut me off to the point that I missed that tube and it took me 40 minutes to get home from work (which is only 3 stops away). Everyone was so rude that I was almost to the point of tears since I was not used to the attitudes. Our teacher said this would probably happen and you just have to remember we don't have the same cultural values. I understand now and just view this as an outsider, but I am still SO happy I live in America!


Tonight we are going to a club called Fabric. I have never heard of it, but apparently it is fun. It is weird how the clubs are here, almost like a movie. I even get a headache because of the blinking lights sometimes! I think it will be fun though since it is something we don't do normally in the U.S.


Hope all is well at home!! Until next time...
Love,
Kara

continue to love london (elle)

I just found out the Barcelona football (soccer) team has landed in London. Twitter even released where they are staying....bad choice. Of course, I am DYING to stalk them at their hotel. If I met Messi I would die happy.

I am trying my best to fit in as a Londoner. Step one is to master listening to your ipod and pretending like the 10000000 people on the tube with you aren't there.

So, I made a tube riding mix: http://8tracks.com/elllllleee/tube-mix-blending-in

Day two at work was amazing. I love routine and they definitely kept me busy! I did research, errands, and a lot of phone talking. They asked me to try to get sneaky information from journalists (we all know journalists think PR people are sketchy....common misconception). They assigned me this job because they figured the "sweet american girl" would have better luck haha.

I was so happy to skype my family (including boomer), julie, twebb and clementine. Ready for tomorrow!

love,
elle

Day One at Braben PR (elle)

I am interning for a PR company called Braben. They do PR for media, entertainment, sports, brand licensing, etc. Today was my first day and I loved it. I got to work 15 minutes early and sat in a precious park beside our building. It was a really pleasant start to ze day! I didn't have that many tasks yet, but I think it's because they were letting me get acclimated.

The office is one decently sized room with like 10ish desks and 10ish people working. I have my own desk with two computer screens that my mouse can go back and forth between. For the first couple of hours I researched the company and past campaigns they worked on. I read through emails with clients and got a feel for how everything worked. At one point, everyone went into a meeting and I was left to man the phone. I was sweating because I was nervous someone would call. Luckily, they didn't haha. I have to get over that fear asap.

My one mistake was never eating lunch because I was too shy/nervous. It was the WORST decision. I was famished from 11 to 5:30.

I sat in on "my teams" meeting to hear about the progress with each of our clients. That lasts a couple of hours. Then I did some work on excel then I was free to go. It doesn't sound like much but I liked being able to get used to the atmosphere. I am exhausted though!! Kara's birthday is today, so after work Brittain ran around getting things together for her! I hope she had a great day. I'm sure she will blog about it later.

Sleep timeee!

My Feet, My Feet, My Feet are on Fire

Elle told everyone about what we did Friday and I couldn't have done it better than that. Harrods was literally the most amazing department store I have every been to. It was a FAO Shwartz for anything you could ever want on steroids. We saw all sorts of things from million pound checks to a free magic show in the toy department. I will be going back because we did not even see half of the store and that took us 3 hours alone. I also tried the Lebanese food for lunch! It was really good. We took our lunch and sat in Hyde Park! The animals are VERY human friendly...a squirrel climbed up Brittain's leg all the way to her knee. It would have climbed further, but considering the fact a rodent was climbing up her leg she understandably kicked it off so it would attack her face! It was unreal! That night we went to Ministry of Sound, which is a record label's club. It had five different rooms with five different DJs. Never had I ever been in a strobe light for that long! It was very different night scene than we have experienced since we had arrived. Everyone that went had a blast and we will be going back at some point!

Saturday could have quite possibly been our longest most packed in day of all! 8:45 am came a bit early considering we went to a club the night before! Surprisingly, every single person in our group made it on time. We first got a tour of Westminster Abbey! It was really cool to see it in person, but the tour guide...he was another story. He talked more than I do. He was flamboyant and LOVED London history. The tour was suppose to take 30 minutes and it lasted 2 hours. The loss of interest was blatantly obvious. We then took an amazing cruise on the river Thames to Greenwich village. There we saw where part of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed and there was a great ethnic market! I ate a Mediterranean lamb wrap and it was delicious! We were so hungry and tired by this point we could not even stay to look around. Consequently, Greenwich is still on my list to visit again!

Today, Sunday, is the best day to visit and shop around at all the markets! There is one right outside our flat called The Old Spitalfield Market and I think it is by far the best market I have EVER been to! I already found presents for people and of course for myself! Zach, Brittain, Chandler, Elle, Gabi, and I then ventured to another market called Camden Market. This was the market in What a Girl Wants (with Amanda Bynes). When we hopped off the tube I was a little scared/disappointed I left Spitalfield because it just looked like the tourist area of Chinatown in NYC with cheesy souvenirs, t-shirts, etc. We kept walking down the road and found the market I had in mind! It was right on the water and every store looked like a little hut. I was craving some fruits or veggies and found one stand that made juices! I of course could not pass it up and got the carrot, ginger, apple, and orange drink! Needless to say if I ever am feeling tired and/or craving something super healthy you can find me back at that juice hut; it was amazing! Getting back home from Camden market was an experience. First, the tube stop was closed so we decided to take the bus. Then, we walked for an hour trying to find the bus stop. Next, the bus was one of the more overcrowded transportation vehicles I have ever witnessed. Finally, almost 2 hours later we arrived home where I am sitting now writing this post!

These past few days have been BUSY and my feet are thanking me for how much they ache from all the walking. No wonder America is the most obese country; I have walked three times more than I walk at home. Tomorrow is the first day of work so tonight we all will be getting a good nights sleep! It is a bit nerve-racking. Hope all is well on the home-front!
-Kar