“It Doesn’t Mean You Have to Come Fully Suited and Booted, You Just Have to Dress Smart” – Andrea Lynch

I know, I skipped a day. Sorry, loves, I bet you were just dying with out your three page Devon ramble of nonsense to see you through the day. But no worries! We can always play catch up!

Wednesday, which is consequentially my favorite day of the week, was another wonderful day in London with only a few minor hiccups. We didn’t meet up till 2, so this meant I got to sleep in and still have time to go shopping. This time for school supplies, which is one of my favorite things about going back to school. Interesting thing about London is that their paper is not the same size as American paper. It’s a bit longer and skinnier which means that if I had brought American folders as I originally anticipated, there would have been that half an inch bit of paper sticking out of the top (which I hate. It looks sloppy and the paper gets ruined!). So I had to buy all new paper and folders, (which are harder to find for some reason; apparently they really want you to buy binders. Too bad I hate binders.) but get this, here, folders are not called folders, they are called ‘Document Wallets’. I also bought some of that sticky foam stuff to hang my ‘art’ that I bought at Windsor and thumbtacks for my poster board to make my room look more livable. Can you believe that I came all this way to London without a single pen? I know I started out with one, but I think I left it on the plane with my sudoku puzzle. All I know, is that I’m constantly being handed forms to sign and looking around at people so I can bum their pen from them for a couple minutes. It’s sad. So yes, I bought pens as well!

We met at Westminster Tube stop where Haskett had arranged for us to have a walking tour along the Southbank of the Thames with Kim the tour guide. Since London is very much a walking city, there are tour guides out there who do walks for just about anything. Beatle walks, Harry Potter Walks (so doing that), Shakespeare, Dickens, you name it and there will be someone lining up to take your money and walk you around a bit. But Kim was quite handy. She was full of all this wonderful knowledge about British government and history as well as relevant information to us as to what’s cheap, and where to eat and shop. Have I mentioned my love for the Southbank yet? The part right across from Parliament and Big Ben is quite touristy (it’s where the London Eye and all the street performers who go to live off tourists are), but the farther along you get, the more original the little shops and pubs are. It’s just so green!

Since London is all about it’s pedestrians, we kept running into these bikes that the city provides and that you can rent out. Turns out the first 30 minutes are free! So guess who’s finally going to learn to ride a bike before her 21^st birthday like she wanted? MEEEE. Jeni promised to teach me, so this time, we’re going to make it happen. In 30 minute intervals. We also found this really cool skate park full of graffiti. It looks like the coolest place to photograph. I didn’t really do it justice here since it literally was a ‘walking’ tour but you can see, the place is just covered in it.

We finished up at the Globe and then this is the part of the day that makes me just a tiny bit sad. While everyone got to go explore Harrod’s, I had yet another meeting I had to attend and there just wasn’t enough time to make it fit. NOOOooooo. I just had to buy myself an ice cream on the way home to make myself feel better. Oh well, I’m just telling myself that Harrod’s is more of a full day thing and this way I can go and spend the correct amount of time that should be allotted. I mean, you can’t rush a thing like Harrod’s, can you?

This time, the meeting was for all the kids with Internships. I finally got to meet Andrea Lynch who was my saving grace this summer! After all the paperwork I went through at TCU and after all the drama with my visa you can just imagine how thrilled I was to have even more complications with being placed at a company. Turns out anyplace in London that does production work just wants post people. So yay for you Sammy and Pledger, you will always have a job. It was August and I still hadn’t been placed. So Andrea had to go out side of the companies the school usually affiliates with to find different companies. The whole time she was personally calling me and asking me what I wanted and truly doing her best to place me somewhere I’d be happy. The woman is dedicated and I for one am incredibly thankful for it. I finally got placed at a company the week before I left the states, and they. sound. amazing. Their an International company called Eyeworks that produces TV shows and some small films. So guess what I’ll be doing at my internship? Creating TV shows. Hahaha, I love it! I have my in-person interview with Ben and Matt on Friday, so I’m a little nervous about that, but very much looking forward to it as well. Did I mention how we spent a good 10 minutes at the beginning of my phone interview talking about British TV? I think I already love them.

We reconvened for dinner at Pizza Express in Chelsea for our last meal with Haskett, who leaves today. Chelsea, the posh side of town, is the area where the other half of the group lives at their IES dorm so they were extremely happy that they weren’t the ones who had to travel for 20sih minutes to get home that night. I was expecting the night to feel someone bittersweet since it was our last dinner together, but it didn’t. Maybe because I knew that I’d still see these people around quite frequently. Still, it’s sad to think that was our last free TCU meal for quite some time. *Sniff* Now I have to really pay for my food. There goes eating out.

Love,

An-on-the-search-for-a-good-grocery-store-Devon

“I’m Going to See These Guys On, I Just Have to go to the Loo First” – Marc, the Boat Man at the Pier

What started out as what promised to be a wonderful day turned into the biggest roller coaster of emotions I’ve yet to face in London, and I for one am so glad the day is almost finished. I woke up at nine, and began the search for wifi in my room. I had my one-on-one meeting about my schedule later today, so I had to look up classes that I might want to switch out, send e-mails, look at a map of where I was going and such. Since everyone’s schedules are out of sync this week due to different appointments and times, meeting as a group has become rather difficult. Myself and three other people had later appointments (around 4 and 5) but Daryia had hers at 11. So, instead of meeting up earlier in the day and letting Daryia meet up with us, we decided to meet up after her appointment. This sounded like a good idea in theory, but being a realist, I knew exactly how it was going to go, and I’m sorry to say I was right. This gives me no satisfaction.

The plan was to meet at the Tower Bridge Tube stop at 12, get on a ferry to Greenwich and then come back around 3, enough time for me to get to my appointment. These appointments are ‘compulsory’ by the way, so you can’t be late, change times or skip them. You simply have to show up at your given time. (Personally, I think the compulsory sounds so much harsher than mandatory. Why so menacing Britain?) Well J, Matt, Laura, Jeni, Trang and I show up on time. Tom is about 10 minutes late. And Daryia, why by 12:15 she still hasn’t shown. Haskett of course has other things he wanted to show us around the area before we got on the ferry, so I convinced him to start showing us around and Daryia could just catch up with us before we got on the boat. I should also take this time to mention that by deciding to go to Greenwich I was missing out on another one of my ‘meetings’.

At the student orientation, in yet another effort to get us to mingle, Westminster had devised a sort of scavenger hunt around the city of London. They brake you up into groups of four or five (six in my case), hand you a two page paper packet filled with questions that can be answered only by going to different areas of the city, and tell you to turn it in before Thursday. The prize is an amazing day trip somewhere abouts the city. Sounds fun right? Well when my group first got together two of the girls clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with it and said they were busy the rest of the day. One girl was from Germany and seemed a bit lost as to what was going on, one guy seemed up for whatever and the other was super keen on winning this trip. Naturally, they picked 12 as our time to meet up the next day in Leicester Square, handing me the paperwork and all agreeing that we’d see each other tomorrow. Later on in the evening when Haskett said that we’d be meeting up at 12 I knew this wasn’t going to go so hot. I didn’t know anybody’s name in our group, I didn’t have their phone numbers, I had the paperwork and I sure as hell didn’t want to be ‘that girl’. I'm never that girl. I hate that girl. She never shows up and does her part. Fanfreakingtastic. But my hands are tied, what can I do? I have absolutely no way of contacting these people, my choices are Greenwich or disappointing people I just met, half of whom didn’t even seem amused by the idea. I mean, in a school of 20,000+ what are the odds that I’ll see these people again? At least the scavenger hunt isn’t compulsory.

By 12:30 Daryia finally shows up and Haskett showed us the Roman Wall, and gave a quick walking and pointing tour of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We buy tickets for the ferry that supposed to come at 12:52. I’m thinking get there around 1:15, take some pictures at the Meridian, grab a quick bite and still be able to leave at 3. An hour and a halfish, no problem. Well silly me, I’m forgot what happens when you have to rely on other people to make stuff happen. I should take this time to mention that these boats stop at the dock only long enough to load people on and take off immediately again. I’m talking 45 seconds to a minute at the dock max. These sailors are on a schedule people! So we’re standing at the Pier with our boat guy, Marc. He seems pretty cool, joking with us and all, but he keeps mentioning how bad he has to go to the loo. He kept saying that he was just going to ‘see us on’ and then go to bathroom, but I guess he just couldn’t hold it any longer and splits. (I think you can see where this is going.) While he’s gone, the ferry comes. We tried to get on, but since there was no little boat guy around, the man refuses to let us on and takes off again. Joy. The next ferry is in 20 minutes. Did I mention my meeting is at 4:20?

I’m listening to my iPod with Laura, trying not to stress out and Marc comes back. “Oh sorry, mates, sorry. The next one will be here soon, I’ll see you on. I’ll see you on.” No thank you Marc, I do not want you to see me on. I want to you to be fired from your job! The British man behind us didn’t seem to have a care in the world, “oh no drama mate, no drama.” Gahhhhhh! We get on the next ferry and get to Greenwich by 12:35. The place is absolutely breathtaking! I’d say it’s probably one of my favorite places we’ve been so far. It figures. I love it and I can’t even stay to enjoy it. The scenery was soo green! It was just perfectly picturesque, looked like a scene straight out of a period piece. I was so sad I didn’t get all of the pictures I wanted to of the hill and of the Queen’s little Roman pillars she had going on. (There is one particular shot I had in mind that I am still very sad I didn’t get. Phooey!) I just kept imagining how nice it would be to picnic here. And you know how I love to picnic. In Greenwich. Can you imagine? Mmmmm…

Somehow we manage to get to the top of the hill by 2 and 20 minutes later, the majority of us had already taken all the pictures we really wanted and were hungry for some lunch. I say majority because Daryia is kinda strolling along, taking pictures of this and that, getting in line to take pictures at the Meridian at the very last possible moment, and then wanting just ‘one more’ with all these different people. Gah! I couldn’t do it today! I’m sorry I just couldn’t. My patience was dwindling. I hadn’t eaten since a breakfast bar at like 10 and I needed to keep going. So finally she’s finished, we start down the hill and find our selves among many restaurants by 2:40. I’m still thinking I can make it all happen! Haskett was talking about getting fish and chips so I figured I could at least get chips or something and get to the train station by 3. But of course, this doesn’t happen. Instead we decide to sit down at this French bistro. Restaurants in Europe are not at all like restaurants in America. They take their time here and can sit you and not come ‘greet’ you for a good 5 minutes, and sometimes it can take as long as 10 just to get your drinks. I knew as soon as we went in that this wasn’t going to work. I mean, I already was going to be leaving the group early, but to not even get my free meal in? This was too much. I got my menu, saw all the mouthwatering options I could have had, and politely excused myself from the table wishing everyone a good meal. Trang also had her meeting at 4:30, so she came with me.

Now Trang is a very nice girl. She’s sweet, but a little lost at all this big city metro thing. I have learned my way around the tube pretty well, but here we are in Greenwich, and I have no earthly clue how to get back to the city other than Haskett’s advice of “get on this train”. Bloody brilliant. I’m stressed, I feel guilty about abandoning my scavenger hunt group, I’m hungry, I’m sad I had to leave my TCU group and I’m more than a little pissed that we had to work our whole day around Daryia’s schedule but Trang, J (his meeting was at 5:30) and I had to just make it work. Not cool. We get turned around on the way to the train station, but end up finding it within just a few minutes. This whole time Trang is looking over my shoulder asking me every few minutes if I know what I’m doing. As if I’m not trying to make sure of that myself. We get on the train, check. That part was easier than I thought. But we get off at a station and now have to connect to the Underground. Sure, this part should be easier, right? I know the underground, I can do the tube, I’m not at all worried about this part. Bahahahahaha. Shouldn’t I have known how this day was going?

You get off at the little station and I’m following the signs pointing to the Jubilee line. Hmm, that’s interesting, these signs look like they’re pointing out of the station into this shopping mall it’s attached to. Hmmm. I see more concrete across the mall, perhaps it’s through there? I start walking and Trang is kinda flipping out. We can’t leave the station! Surely the connection is at the station! We spend a good five minutes looking like idiots going to a bunch of different platforms before I convince her that I was right, and the only way out is through the mall. Turns out you have to walk through the mall, all the way outside and across the street. It is in no way connected to the train station AT ALL. Cheers Trang.

At this point, all I’m thinking is that I’m so glad I paid to replace my iPod before this trip. We have like a 15/20 minute tube ride and my music is the only thing keeping me sane right now. We get off at Oxford and of course, the place where we have our one-on-ones is in a completely different place than where we met yesterday. I have my map, and we make it there with 10 minutes to spare. Thank the Lord. As I’m sitting there, waiting for my meeting, who walks in but the German girl from my scavenger hunt group. SHIT. And guess what she’s here to get? Another scavenger hunt paper packet. What the hell is happening to my day? So I’m sitting there in my chair, trying my best to become as small as possible and hide my face with my hands, bangs, papers, anything and Veronica calls me forward. Now you know how good I am at hiding my emotions, my face is the most readable thing on the planet. I sit down at the little computer desk thing and Veronica immediately asks what’s wrong. How do you say I just want to get done with your stupid meeting and go home, politely? You can’t. So I’m trying to shrug her off and say I’m just tired, but she keeps pushing it and suddenly two other Study Abroad people are interested in ‘wanting me to settle in comfortably’ and are ‘worried about me’. How the hell am I supposed to explain everything that’s happened? It’s just too much. I finally somehow convince her to get back to the schedule talk the whole time just doing my best to not have a mental break down.

This wonderful meeting that caused so much drama is done in five minutes. 5 freaking minutes. I simply have no words. I walk out the door to the nearest sandwich shop and enjoy my first meal of the day at 4:45. At this point I want nothing more than to go to bed. I stopped to buy a diet coke and some oreos (I think I deserved them!), told myself I was just going to figure out the internet situation, take a shower and sleep. The worst is over, right? Hahaha, as if!

When I walk in the lady behind the desk was just about to get off at work as was just plain rude. “Wait till my partner gets here.” Fine. I mill around the lobby for about 10 minutes till he comes and then, when I finally ask him, all he says is “Have you checked the notice board? Go look at that. It’s all on there. Go!” Such a nice man. I want him to be fired, too. So ok, I read it, figure out how to sign up for the service, ok. After EVERYTHING that happened today, surely I can fill out a few blanks and get my internet up, right? Wrong. You have to fill out all these blanks, and I’m stuck on the ‘county’ of London and the screen won’t let me go any further till I fill it in. What. The. Hell. How am I supposed to know that? I can’t check on the internet, that’s what this stupid form is for and it’s not in any of our papers (why on earth would they mention the county in a Welcome packet anyways Devon?) You just didn’t want to make this easy for me, did you Westminster? At that point I lost it. I just started crying. Uncontrollable sobs. This day could not get any worse. I finally just put ‘UK’ thinking they’ll just think I’m a stupid American who thought it said country instead of county and change it themselves. Whatever. I could care less at this point.

But my internet now works! Skype on! I uploaded pictures, went back and added some pictures and video to some of my past blogs, so if you’ve managed to read this far (hahahha, sorry) you should go check that out. I then realized that internet meant TV once more! This made me feel much better. I’m sure the carbonation and sugar helped a bit too. A shower and two IT Crowd episodes later and I feel loads better. Tomorrow is going to be another interesting schedule shuffle but at least it’s all in the city and I KNOW where I’m going. Let’s hope…

Love,

A-thoroughly-physically-and-emotionally-drained-Devon

“Have You Heard of Human Raffling? Don’t Worry, it’s Not at All Like Human Trafficking.” –Robin Law

My phone went off at 7:30 am. This is the earliest I have yet to get up in London and I wasn’t at all a happy camper about it. The best bit is that since the campus is now officially ‘open’ to all students, and since my windows open out onto the courtyard between the Marylebone school and the Marylebone dorm, I got to hear all those students! Till 2 am. Yay 5 hours of sleep! It’s like I’m still living on my summer schedule. Cheers.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Cheers? Come now, who do you think you are?’ Well I’d say I think I’m exactly the type of girl who’s trying to blend. My Orientation leader today used that phrase several times when she was collecting our papers this morning, so ha! (That whole last bit was mostly directed towards my sister who will no doubt have something to say about this.) Her name was Veronica and she’s a native New Yorker who moved to London about 10 years ago. She has this funky half British half American accent going on. She seemed helpful enough, but I got the impression that she didn’t exactly want to help us, even though it’s her job! I’m sure you’ve met the type. She particularly didn’t like questions. I could just see the “Oh my god you stupid American’s, just let me finish this pointless and in no way helpful to you slide show presentation” look on her face the whole time. Turns out, she’s also my adviser and I have a one on one appointment with her tomorrow about my schedule. Cheers Veronica, I know you’re looking forward to it.

The part I found somewhat interesting was when they took put all of us together in one giant lecture room. All the little Study Abroad Education Team people got up and said a thing or two about a certain aspect dealing with living on campus; travel, safety, health, etc. (Mom, you’ll be happy to know that I’m covered in the UK for emergency circumstances. SO if I do end up breaking my leg, the British government will foot the entire bill. *phew*). The only male on the entire team (who looked like a skinnier, poor man’s version of Huge Grant) got up and said his piece about how the University is encouraging Study Abroad Students to make video diaries and that you can sign up for this little program and get a little flip camera, keep a log, and be entered to win a contest! Hmmm, umm yes? Would any of you who are reading this care to come along on my adventures via video? Besides, I think we all know who would have the best diary, the film major, hello! Oh dear god, I take that back, the bar has been set too high! Now there are expectations! Forget I said anything about being a film major! I’ve never made a movie in my life- in fact I’m not sure I even know how to really work a camera! But seriously in all serious seriousness, I shall do some investigating into this camera deal…

A representative from the Student Union, well actually the president, excuse me (or is he the Prime Minister here?) came in and explained about all the events going on in the next two weeks for us ‘Freshers’. (“I guess it comes from the American word, Freshman? I don’t know, but that’s what we call you new first years. I didn’t come up with it”). One of the events is Human Raffling, not to be confused with Human Trafficking. This is where everyone gets a raffle ticket and you’re supposed to find the person who corresponds to your ticket. You’re then basically handcuffed to them for the next couple of hours or so and forced to mingle. This. Sounds. Like. Torture. Can you imagine? Not exactly my cup of tea, but that’s the British idea of ‘social programming’ for ya. You crazy little Brits. And I say that affectionately.

Once they released us, I took advantage of my spare time to do a little shopping. Naturally, sweaters (oh come now, you know me and my affinity for sweaters) and tights were my first real clothing purchases in London. And oh my lanta, these tights are the BEST tights I have ever worn in my life! They’re even better than my ballet tights (which I sometimes like to pass off under skirts when I’m lazy, shhh). These things are thick, yet soft, comfy and the best part… a whopping £2. Psh, yeah! Definitely going to stock up on those puppies before gong back to the states. When I got home, it was soo nice to see that there are people actually reading and enjoying my blog! Yay, shout out to you all! You make me feel like it’s worth keeping track of this craziness so thank you, thank you, thank you for reading!!!!

I finally met some of the other people on my floor other than my next door Coloradan (shout out to Sammy!) neighbor, Nick. But check. This. Out. The man is like 45! No joke. I'm living down the hall from a 45 year old British man who tried to get me to give him money to buy things for the kitchen! Umm, no, excuse me Richard, I am not going to 'chip in just a few quid' so you can have a plate. I'm going on a journey to Ikea, the Mecca of all cheap kitchen supplies, buying my own plates and pans, and putting them in my own little cupboards that have locks on them. (Locks that the University supplied for this very purpose, I'm not that crazy paranoid people!) Rumor has it that you can buy almost everything for your kitchen for under £10 from Ikea. Yeah, I know. I don't believe it, but Nick showed me his receipt and now I'm determined to go for myself. I dunno, I'm sure Richard the 45 year old was just trying to be nice and all, but I find it unnerving. He may even be worse than Alyssa, (never a good name for a girl. You know she's going to be a B just by her name, no?) my other next door neighbor from Connecticut who is too stuck up to even pretend to have a real conversation with me. And I don't even know who the other two mysterious people we share a kitchen with are. Cheers Level 7.

We met up with Haskett around 7:30 to go see the theatrical version of “The 39 Steps” which was hilllarious! It’s a play done entirely by four people; three men and a woman. These two men in particular play almost every other character in the play and were simply brilliant! It was worth watching just to see them pull of an entire play practically by themselves. And my little Hitchcock heart just got all up and excited about the little references. I did see the strangest thing on the tube on the way over to the show though. At first glance, it looked like a small bear, but was actually a giant St. Bernard sheep looking dog!

There was a man just walking him (no leash) through the tube like it was no big deal, turning around to say, “Come on now Liam, we’re going to be late! Come on now! Let’s go, let’s go!” every few minutes or so. Liam didn’t seem to be having it. Doodie doodie doodie do. He was just kinda cruzing along at his own speed. Poor Liam, I don’t think he liked the tube. I wanted to just go up and give him a hug. His owner saw me taking a picture of him and said “Well he’s better looking from the front, isn’t he? Come now, you have to get a proper picture.” So I got to take a picture of Liam. From the front.

I wanted to take one with him, but I didn’t know if his owner would have been ok with that. Oh well, your memory has been nonetheless preserved, Liam.

When we got back to Marylebone, Tom, Daryia and I decided to check out the much talked about bar in the basement of the building. Bar my ass, it’s more like it’s own little happening nightclub! We didn’t stay to drink, we were all a little too tired and ready for bed, but it definitely seems like something to check out and go to some other night. At least you don’t have to worry about getting home from there (my dorm is literally right next to it. I just have to trek up 8 flights of stairs is all). I finally uploaded and fixed all my pictures to my computer. My internet is too slow to actually upload them anywhere where y’all could see them, but fixing the internet is certainly on my agenda for tomorrow. Along with a trip to Greenwich! Can’t wait to stand on that golden line!

Love,

A-sad-she-can’t-watch-the-IT-crowd-because-of-her-slow-internet-even-though-channel-4-is-accessable-here-Devon