Best Week of My Life

This is been the most amazing week, and not just because I'm in London (but that is the majority of the reason :) ). I think I have experienced more incredible things in this week than the past year, maybe two, combined! I love it here. I would happily be able to live here. There's always something to do, someone to meet and places to discover.

Last time I wrote on this thing I had had a tour of select parts of the city. Well since then I have explored the depths of some other areas of the city. On Wednesday I had my interview. It couldn't have gone better!!! It really wasn't an interview to be honest, more like a show around and introduce you to everyone meeting. There are only two concerns that I have with they job, and they aren't necessarily about the job themself but about how it will fulfill requirements. For the job I need to gain experience through writing and presenting my work in 5 or 6 samples to my advisor and teacher rep for the class. As far as I'm informed, this job will be more about observing and doing minimal work within the company. More like scanning and errands than writing. I will inform them that I need to write, but I'm worried that I won't be able to provide enough samples. I don't want to have this experience and do well at it and not get the credit I deserve!

Although that would happen to me, if anyone...

The errands seem, not daunting, but time consuming. It's Devil Wears Prada Type stuff. There will be 2 other interns, english interns, that will help with the workload though, so hopefull that will help. But with the writing samples I think it might hurt me. They have been taught the proper UK way of writing things and therefore, might get the opportunities more than I will. I think I can make myself seem more appealing in that aspect though. I hope!

Other than that, I'm excited!!! I hope I meet someone famous.

After the interview, I met up with Michael and Brittany and we walked to Hyde Park as part of an academic scavenger hunt. We had to find certain monuments or locations and write small papers about them. We decided on the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park and black telephone booths and then a bridge I had already taken a picture of. Hyde Park was BEAUTIFUL!!!! It was like Central Park but bigger and better. And possibly with more birds. There was an INSANE amount of birds in this place. At one point we had to walk through a mob of birds and I thought I was going to get attacked by a goose.

Now, people laugh when I think that's going to happen, but let me tell you, it HAS happened before. There was a park behind a movie theatre and there were insane swans that semi-lived back there. One time my family decided to visit that place and someone, possibly me or my brother, provoked these things into a psychotic frenzy and they just chased people down! So don't laugh when I saw swans and geese will attack!!!

Anyways, the Peter Pan statue was amazing. I love peter pan, I even tried to fly like him once. That ended badly. And there was this little boy wandering around the statue, he just fit in so well to the story of Peter it was kind of magical to see.

On Friday, I had my first business class seminar at the French Institute. It was typical of any business class. Interesting in some parts and boring in most. Luckily, the speaker knew the information he would be sharing was going to be lost if he didn't keep us awake and had little tricks to help, so it wasn't that bad. After the 2 hour class we had to go to a cultural event, in this case the National Portrait Gallery.

Don't get me wrong, the art and portraits in that place are incredibly done and probably very important. But with the exception of a few older paintings and the contemporary art, I was bored out of my mind there. All the older tudor style and revolutionary paintings looked EXACTLY the same. Old men and women, with their families posing in weird positions, with white hair and not smiling. The only good moment that came out of seeing those paintings was when my other friends Ashley, one of the sweetest and most good-natured and pure person EVER, said "I wish I lived back then, when it was seen as posh to be white and fat!"

Classic.

The portraits of Diana and her sons were so sweet. It was a moving reminder of that history.

On Saturday, I attended the Queen's birthday parade and watched the World Cup. The Queen's birthday parades was actually kind of cool! I thought I would be bored out of my mind, but the people watching was very interesting. So many different tourists from all over the world. Although, some of them were incredibly rude, but that just made it a little more interesting to see people's reactions to them. We were only three people back in the crowd so we got great views of everything! I say we, because I was there with some other friends in the EUSA program. Lea, so cool and very social (and she played polo, which I find awesome), Brooke, so sweet! she is so genuine too, Sarah, she is like my kindred spirit in the way that we both have energy and no need to please anyone and Marjorie, she's a little quiet but when she says something, it's something you like to hear. Anyways, the parade was slightly repetitive but always fun to watch just because I like the guards so much!

If it wasn't illegal for me to try and jump over the fences and make them laugh while on horseback I totally would have. But, alas, it is. Basically the parade was guards marching, band guards marching, guards on horseback, guards on horseback with instruments and playing and then PRINCE WILLIAM (so pretty and charming and pretty looking) and Camilla. Then MORE guards (SHOCKER) and then the Queen!!

I. Saw. The. Queen.

She didn't look happy to be there though. I think it's cause she didn't know I was there. I should've made myself more visible. hmmm. I'll work on that.

That was fun, but that night was much more fun. The World Cup. I am not a soccer fan, and really don't expect to ever be a soccer fan, but the culture that comes with soccer here is mind blowing. These people are truly insane. But it's so fun to see. And it took us FOREVER to find a pub that was showing the Cup and let us in without reservations, but we did and it was so fun. I got three free drinks!!! Even though we tied them, which made me think I'd get attacked haha

After the World Cup we went out to more bars. I'll write blog on the bars later, I'm sure I'll have plenty to say!! This one has been too long for my taste though. Plus, I got my first day in the real world tomorrow. Wouldn't want to be too tired for that!

Have a good night London and world!

Meredith