This is It~

This week was our last week together here in London. It was bittersweet. My friends and I went out every night with the other people in our program. Oh, we also had our farewell dinner/dance cruise last Thursday. At first I was thinking, "four hours stuck on a boat might get old fast." But luckily, it turned out to be a great night and it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun. Too bad they waited till the end of the program to get us all in a club/bar atmosphere for 4 hours! It was a real bonding experience as at least half the people were quite drunk.

Today for my last day of work, the main editors took me and the other intern out for lunch. It was both our last days so they took us to this nice Italian restaurant down the street. It was good and nice of them. A lot of the other kids got the same thing, some even got bottles of champagne, lol. Also, it seemed like most of them got Thurs and Fri off. I asked to come in at noon the last 3 days so I could go out with everyone at night and get some stuff done in the mornings. That really helped.

Now it is Friday night. Checkout is tomorrow and I leave here at 1pm to go to my hotel for the night. One of my friends is also leaving Sunday, so she is staying with me and splitting the cost. Im looking forward to tomorrow. I plan on enjoying the pool they have, then taking a shower in a nice, clean, non-dorm shower, and then sleeping in the comfy special beds you get at Sheraton Hotels. It will be a much needed mini vacation before the craziness that will be New York the following day. A day that will begin at about 6am. ( Posting 2 months later, we did not spend any time by the pool, as we did not really have time and decided to go to sleep instead)


I'm finally at the tail end of this big adventure that was/is my summer. I now know what the result of months of planning, preparations, stressing, excitement, and anticipation have led to. It's nearly all behind me now, and what a great, amazing whirlwind it has been. And although looking back at this moment I wouldn't want to do it all again, it is something I will look back on and be so so grateful that I was able to do it this once.
Looking forward to the reunion in Vegas baby! (Seriously though, there's going to be a reunion in Vegas lol)

Last Weekends

Last Sunday was also a nice day. I started by going to mass with a few other girls at Westminister Abbey. Its one of the largest, nicest churches here in England. Normally one has to pay to enter/tour it, but because we were going to the service, we got to go in for free. Quite a deal if you ask me. It was lovely and I even snuck a few pics of the inside. Oh and something was surprising was we got there just as it was starting and we still got a really good seat. I was worried it would be packed.

Later in the afternoon I got a few other girls to go with me to Abbey Road! It was crucial that I fulfill my Beatles' obligations. So we hopped on the Tube and made our way to St. John's Wood, which is where Abbey Road is. We waited our turn to take our picture walking across the road, as there were quite a few other people doing the same thing lol. Right there is Abbey Road Studios too where the Beatles did most of their recording. Not far from there was Paul McCartney's home where he lived with Linda and raised Stella. We of course took a few pics although we couldn't really see his house over the huge wood gate. It was funny because there were no tourists there as that location is more secret. There were however writings on the wall so apparently it's not a total secret. I can't imagine how often the new home owners have to repaint. So that was Sunday!

This past weekend was fun too. It was our second free weekend so a lot of people were gone, but Katie and I hung out and did some cool stuff. We went to more new clubs and we also went sightseeing during the days. Sat we went to St. James Park, which was gorgeous, and Buckingham Palace and later got some good Mexican food for dinner. Sunday we went to an the Impressionist art museum here which had a few really famous pieces.

Brighton Beach was Beautiful<3

Last Saturday was so much fun! Saturday morning our program left for Brighton Beach, which is on the south coast of England. We arrived about 11:30 am, and immediately began our walk towards the water, and would not be detoured by the shops or food. We got to the beach and it was beautiful. There were restaurants and bars on one side of the street, and then the pebbles leading up to the water on the other side.

I was hungry so I bought some fish and chips and a 1/2 pint of Strongbow Cider, which I took down to the beach with me. There were about 6 of us in our group on the beach and we just laid out in the pebbles for almost 2 hours talking, eating, tanning, reading, etc. It was really nice. The water was pretty icy, but I hadn't brought my suit anyway, so I just stuck my feet in a bit. After that some of the other girls were hungry so we went to a cafe and they got fish and chips while me and another girl got smoothies.

After that we rode a Marry-go-Round on the beach and it was so fun and beautiful. Then we made our way to the Royal Pavillions which we had heard about. On our way there we walked up this main road that had musicians and shops and people selling stuff in the street. There were people doing massages, hair weaving, henna tatoos, and palm and tarot card readings. Well my friends and I all kinda wanted to get our fortunes read, so we waited around there a while to get our turn. It was pretty intense. One of my friends was told she would be getting engaged soon, and one of my other friends started crying during hers because of how accurate it was. Both of them, along with me, went to two readers just because we wanted to see if they would say the same type of things.

Now I'm sure you're dying to hear what my future holds, so I won't delay your agony any longer, lol. Both my readers said I wouldn't have to worry about finances because I would be taken care of. They both said that I will be successful and satisfied with my career. They basically both said I will have to choose between a younger guy and a wiser, wealthy guy. Oi vey. They said I have a good heart and was put on this earth to enjoy life. Oh and Mom, the first thing the second lady said was, "I feel a lot of love from your mother." Thanks for the love! ( :

After that craziness we continued on the the Royal Pavillions. They were gorgeous! The buildings looked like a mini Taj Mahall and there were beautiful grassy gardens with flowers all around. It reminded me so much of Golden Gate Park, except smaller and with Indian looking buildings. There were people sitting in the grass all around and there was a band playing too. It was so pretty.

After that, the 5 of us headed to the amusement park on the end of the pier! I'm told its very similar to Coney Island. It was a long walk down the pier, past lots of food booths and an arcade room, etc. and the pier was lined with a white iron fence and white benches. At the end was all the rides and games. We only went on one ride because it was pretty expensive. It was this roller coaster with a loop. It was pretty fun but also really jerky and too short! After that two of our friends wanted to go on this really crazy ride that held you out over the ocean and flipped you all the way around to the other side and upside down and everything. It was crazy but they had fun and the rest of us had plenty of fun watching.

Now that the rides were out of the way, we could eat! We all ended up getting soft serve ice cream, and about half of us got a crepe to go along with it. So I had a chocolate bannana crepe with ice cream. It was good, but really complicated and messy to eat. It was such a nice day though. We were all in love with Brighton Beach and sad to leave. However, we now walked back along the beach and through the town back to the train station. We arrived back in London about 9:30pm. We were all pretty tired and sticky feeling, so we decided we didn't really want to go out. Instead me and two of my friends just went to the park down the street and hung out. It was a good Saturday.

Just a normal week in London( :

This weekend was the first "free" weekend we've

had so far. That being the case, most of the kids took off for other countries for the weekend. I however decided to stay in London either because people were going places I wasn't interested in, it wouldn't be worth the money to just go a couple of days, and because there was so much I still needed to see and do in London. Working full time everyday leaves no time to see or do much since everything closes. So I stayed in London while my friends traveled to their various destinations.



Friday after work I headed to the Tate Modern art museum. It was a bit of a journey, but totally worth it. The museum is free and it had some of the greatest pieces of art; pieces I have studied and seen numerous times in books and such, but was finally seeing up close in real life. Most notably they had Matisse, Pallock, Rothko, Monet, Picasso, Miro. The museum itself was huge with 7 floors, with a beautiful restaurant at the top overlooking the River Themes, the Millennium Bridge, and St. James?? I hung out and looked at the art till about 9pm and then made my way back to the dorms. I got back around 10 and was going to go out with some people but it didn't end up happening so I just stayed in and wrote the Paris blog.

Saturday I spent the day outside at Portobello Road. Portobello Road is a street in Notting Hill that is bustling with people, vendors, stores, booths, etc. on Friday's and Saturday's. It is one of those must-go places. It was pretty amazing actually, must bigger and better than the largest open market in America, and I would know since it is in Portland.
I set off by myself, but luckily I ran into some people I know from my program so we all stuck together until they left; I wanted to stay longer. There were vintage clothing stores and antique stores lining the streets. In front of the stores were booths people had set up for the day selling more clothes and antiques, as well as scarves, souvenirs, fresh fruits and veggies, pastries, candy, flowers, and so on. There were also crepe stands, ice cream stands, hot dogs, and some ethnic foods like German, Indian, and Thai. I had some Indian food, (I think) I got peanut sauce chicken with rice, it was good. I also bought some nectarines, a cinnamon apple danish, and a red velvet cupcake from one of the best bakeries in London, Hummingbird Cafe. Don’t worry, I bought some non-food related things too lol. Everything began closing down around 5pm and I made my way back to the Tube station home. I ended up staying home that night as well and just talked to my friends back home on AIM (instant messenger chat) and got some sleep.

Sunday I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to get some more sights in. My first thing was to find some breakfast though and also try to find someone to go with since I was a bit socially deprived with all my friends being gone. I found this guy Nick, from New Jersey, who is on the floor above me. So we went down the street to a popular coffee shop, Coffee Republic. He got a bagel with ham & cheese and I got a croissant with ham, cheese, and egg. It was delicious. I also had an iced chi, but they do it different here. They blend it so its kinda weird but not bad. They also have a huge shake menu there, and really good ones too. For example I'm planning on getting the Forrero Rosche shake one of these days.
After that Nick went with one of his friends site seeing and I did laundry. When that was done I managed to find this girl Devon to go to the National Portrait museum with me in Trafalgar Square. We had a great day. We went to the square, took pictures with the lions, and then walked through the museum. After we wanted to do more, so we walked to the river so we could see Big Ben up close. So after a bit of walking and picking up a few souvenirs for friends, we turn a corner, and it is right there. It was huge and I was so happy because I love Big Ben. We took pictures and then took some pictures of the river and the London Eye Ferris wheel. Now we were hungry and we decided it would be fun to go to the Texas Embassy for lunch. So fun fact, listen up Norman, the Texas Embassy was really Texas' Embassy in London at one point when Texas really was its own country! Apparently them Texans were always very prideful lol. However, after Texas decided to let go of their superiority complex and join the rest of the United States, the building was turned into a TexMex restaurant! haha. And it turned out to be a tasty one too. I had a chicken quesadilla and Devon had chicken enchiladas. Afterwards on our way to the bus station we stopped at a waffle stand and split a chocolate waffle that was also delish. We arrived back at the dorms about 7pm full and satisfied with a fun day full of sights. It was another night in for me and I actually went to bed pretty early (10:45). Next day, back to work.

Work is going pretty well; some days are slow and kind of boring and some I'm really busy and barely have time for lunch and leave work past 6. I get an hour for lunch generally which is nice. There are a few good places around here that are affordable, as in Subway, McDonalds, a few cafes, and a pub that is pretty good. There are also lots of sandwich shops everywhere where you just go buy a pre-packaged sandwich and drink or whatever. I'll do that sometimes and then go sit in the park and eat when the weather is nice. There are always people everywhere, lots of fancy people too. Another big thing is that last week they got a new intern. Her name is Chow and she is from North China. She's been going to school here in London though and will be in her last year. She sits right next to me in the office and we often go to lunch together. So it's really nice having a friend in the office who is on my same level. So yeah, work is pretty good. I've done stuff for 4 different magazines now: the main one, Quintessentially I've done quite a bit with, I did the main fashion layout for Harrods Estates, I converted every page from the past 4 issues of Spear's Wealth Management into PDF's for a company who bought it to publish in Russia, and I spent quite a bit of time transcribing interviews recorded on tape, word for word, onto word documents! And I've done a few spreads for Private Sea magazine. The only thing I can hope is that they will remember to list my name in at least half of those.

Oh and two more cool things I must mention. Last Monday my friend Katie (the one with all the amazing job hook-ups) and I saw the band Death Cab for Cutie (really big in the US) at this really cool venue that looks like an old fashioned theater!! Not only that, but since Katie works at a PR company her boss was able to get us on the guest list… as VIPs!!!! It was spectacular! Not only did we bypass the huge line, but we were escorted in to a private balcony area on the side of the stage to watch the show, complete with a whole drink table. Naturally I went for the champagne and then the Vitamin water. And the show itself was amazing too, I loove Death Cab. Second cool thing, tonight (now last Mon) Katie got us on the guest list for this swanky club Dolce: www.dolcelondon.com
Yeah, Paris Hilton and rock stars hang out there. We were excited! Turns out it wasn't really our scene though. We hung out for maybe 2 hours, saw the rapper NEYO who rented out the VIP section for the night, and then we headed out to see what else we could find. Well knowing us, and knowing London, we found a lot. We ended up at 3 different bar/pubs and met three diff groups of people at each. The first place we met 3 American guys who were actually really excited to find American girls. Apparently Brit girls just don't compare lol. Then at the next place we met this guy from Verona, Italy who is now a cook/chef? at an Italian restaurant in London and invited us for a free meal sometime. Then at the third place we met 3 guys from Paris. We went to the American bar Cheers with them, and I danced a bunch with one of the crazy French guys, it was funny but fun. We did like swing-style dancing. After that our feet hurt so bad and Katie and I headed home. It was a Monday night after all.

Paris! Paris!

My trip to Paris begins at 5:45 when I wake up, get dressed, eat a granola bar, and meet the other 76 people outside who are in the first group to Paris. We then walk to the nearest tube station and ride one stop to the National Train Station. Our train, the Eurostar, leaves at 7:30 and we board and leave pretty quick. Much, much easier than travelling by plane. I sit by my friend Liz and we chat for awhile and then she sleeps and I do my version of sleeping which is about as close to actually falling asleep as I can manage. I was fine though because I had made sure to get 6 hours of sleep the night before (don't worry, I usually aim for 9, yeah life is good).
About 2 hours later we arrive in Paris! As we walk out of the train station it immediately looks so Parisian! We don't look right though, as to avoid seeing a McDonald's. From there we board a nice, big tour bus to take us on an hour tour of Paris and then to our lunch spot right across from the Louvre. We have a few minutes before our reservation so we all take off to take pictures in front of the Louvre. We then have a lunch we were quite impressed with. For starters we had a baked crissont filled with cheese, maybe brie, along with a small salad. Then we had baskets of bread. Then we had chicken stuffed with seasoned pork or something with mushrooms in a wine sauce, and hash browns. Finally we got this white chocolate custard bar which was also delicious. It was a good first lunch in Paris.
From there we loaded back on the bus and stopped by a lookout point for the Eiffle Tower. We all took a bunch of pictures and watched some guys with a boom box dance and act, it was pretty entertaining. From there, we were taken to our hotel, just 2 blocks from the Eiffle Tower, we could see it out our window if we got right up against the edge lol. So we got all checked in. I was assigned a room with 3 other girls, 2 whom I knew, one of which was Liz who I was pretty good friends with. All of us got along great, but I wasn;t worried considering we weren’t really going to be in our hotel room much anyway. Liz and I didn’t want to waste anytime in there in fact, so we got right to getting ready to go out for the night. We both put on some cute dresses and then met up with her other good friend Mary Jane.
It was about 4pm now and we made our way on the Metro to the Champs d’ Elysses. For those who don’t know, this is the main shopping and dining street in Paris and it culminates at the Arc d’ Triumph. It was great. We walked, and shopped, and ate. Yes, we actually found a store on the Champs d Elysses, Promad, where we could afford what they were selling! In fact, they were having such a huge sale of cute clothes, that I nearly had the whole store in my arms as I walked into the dressing room. I ended up buying about 6 really nice tops and a dress for under 70 euro! Yay. Oh and before that Mare Jane and I split a grand marnier (sp?) chocolate and almond crepe, flambé style! Yum.
So after shopping Liz was really hungry because she hadn’t eaten in a while and she was really set on having a big, fancy French dinner. We found this nice place with tons of outdoor seating under read canopies and we had dinner there. Liz had a this weird rabbit thing with a pickle herb jello salad for a starter. Then she had fish, and then crème brulee for dessert, which we all ate a bit of. MJ and I both had this really good chicken, mine with fries and hers with pasta. By then it had finally gotten dark enough for us to go to the top of the Arc d’ Triumph and look over the city. Sadly, by the time we got there it was 10:35, 5 minutes past the last time to go up!! We didn’t even realize it was that late since the sun had just set about 45 mins ago. So we were all rather bummed, but it was pretty cool just being there, underneath it all lit up.
After a little bit there we went back to the hotel to drop off our bags, grab a bottle of champagne, and then headed to the Eiffle Tower!! It was gorgeous! Seriously, it looked like it was a video game animation or something. It was so big and it was this weird blue color. Also, every hour for about 10 minutes the whole thing lit up with blinking lights because on Monday it was going to be Bastille Day (their independence day). So the 3 of us kinda just sat/lied there in the grass in front of the Eiffle Tower for almost an hour. We got back to our room about 2 am and went to sleep.
The next morning Liz left early to go to the Lourve and I got up about 9:30. I had breakfast downstairs with my two other roommates and after that I went swimming at the indoor pool at our hotel. I had really been looking forward to that, I've been missing swimming this summer. Then I got ready for my day in Paris, not knowing who or what I would find. Luckily, in the hotel lobby as I was checking out I found some stragglers like myself checking out. So I ended up joining them in their picnic at the Eiffle Tower. I took off for a little while and left my extremely heavy backpack with them as I walked along the river a ways.
When I got back to the people from my group and my bag I had to go to meet Katie who was done doing her shopping stuff that I didn't want to do. So we decided to meet at the station where we had to go to take the Eurostar back to London because it was already getting late and I was soo tired of walking with my heavy bag and getting lost that I wanted to just get to my final destination and not have to worry about it anymore. So when I finally got to the station I was quite relieved and quite hungry. We walked a ways to this random place with some outdoor seating that had crepes on the menu. Katie and I split a ham, cheese, and egg crepe and split a chocolate nut crepe for dessert. Both delicious.
After we had finished I needed to get to the station to meet up with the other 70 kids to get back to London. But first, I had to use some of my extra euro on yummy French pastries! I bought a chocolate éclair that wasn't creme in the middle, but was like chocolate pudding! I got a choc chip crissont, a strawberry tart, a doughnut puff, and a bar of chocolate. Hmm, I think I was ready for my trip back, haha.