Business Time

Week two of work and classes began today.  I’m still not really in the swing of things, mainly because I haven’t had a really good day to devote to exploring the city or get my bearings since I’ve been sick, but I think I’ll be able to boast being up to speed after this week.  I plan on taking a lot of pictures Wednesday of a few Londontown adventures, and hopefully I’ll be able to upload all of them that evening or the next morning.  Also, I should be able to post some pictures of the Bath v. Saracens rugby match which I’ll be attending on Sunday, so all of you who are dying to see London through my non-impressive KodaknotworththemoneyIhadtospend lens will no longer be disappointed in your waif of a friend.  

As far as business goes, classes over here are so much better than American classes in both academic philosophy, structure and content.  I have my corporate communications course on Wednesdays from 10 to 13 with a 15-20 minute break in the vicinity of the middle.  We watch documentaries, have numerous guest lecturers, have both objective and subjective discussions every class, and know exactly what both of our assignments for the entire semester entail.  The same is true for my specialist PR course, except it runs on Fridays from 11 to 16 with a 45 minute allowance in the vicinity of the middle for lunch and different professional and peer presentations every week as well as coming up with our own PR campaign within 10 minutes every time we meet.  It’s nice to be in an environment that relies upon me doing my own thinking and my own research to keep up with the course.  It’s a very “big girl pants” friendly environment.  :)

My internship is a lot of research and theory and not a lot of ideas coming into fruition at the moment, unfortunately.  The only person other than myself is my boss and he’s currently attempting to pitch the idea of the company to different potential clients to fill the Blue Current repertoire with campaign examples that will shed a little light and glory upon the firm and it’s reputation.  It’s an extremely new company, so the process is trying, but I have confidence that we’ll land at least one of the five major accounts we’re pitching this month.  

Other than that, I’ve just been walking about the suburbs of London and sitting about my flat attempting to kick the tail end of this illness.  I think that I’m finally getting better (knock on wood and/or any material substitute).  I’ve been drinking all fruit smoothies (available in plentiful supply in every convenience store and grocer) everyday to get some vitamins fighting for the cause, and I’ve been balancing fresh air and bed rest (along with a bit of fun and nocturnal adventure) as much as possible to aid in the healing process.  Hopefully I’ll be able to cheer with the rest of the crazy rugby fans this weekend.  We’ll see.

I'm mildly drunk from my cough syrup.

I previously mentioned that my mattress was less than comfortable, what I didn’t mention was that I’m fairly certain that it can be used as both a prison bed and a coffee table.  I dread having to sleep at night.  I’ve been literally dreaming of my body pillow for the past week.

I had to buy a duvet and pillows for my bed last week because they’re not supplied by the university.  Luckily I brought my own sheets since I’m a bit of a sheet snob and refuse to lay upon anything less than 400 thread count, but I digress.  I bought a “bed in a bag” which included a duvet, a mattress cover, and two pillows.  I knew that the duvet would have an outer texture likened to sandpaper, so I bought a cover for it.  I didn’t, however, realize that the pillows were each only one inch thick upon full expansion.  Apparently its perfectly permissible to market a cotton-ball in a sleeve as a pillow in the UK.  I was unaware of this, and was therefore forced to shove both pillows in one pillow case.  This would have been fine if I wasn’t a little princess with a history of shoulder and lower back problems that I’ve been dealing with since swim season of my junior year of high school, but alas, I am.  

Usually, in my own bed, I maneuver with a pillow for my knees and still have a pillow for my head.  Since the fine people of Primark left the interesting little tidbit about their joke of a product off of the label, I have had nothing but my dreams of my body pillow-awaiting me atop my bed- which I won’t be able to cuddle until almost September.  

Since that thought was far too depressing (and bitterly painful in a quite literal sense), I bought a new pillow.  I real pillow.  A fantastic, real new pillow.

In other words, I did nothing today except lug a $6.00 pillow around London for about 4 hours while I was walking to Victoria only to come home to another drunken night of questionable cough syrup.  Oh yeah, and I picked up a camera.  I’m trying to upload pictures, but UK internet hates me.  You’ll have to settle for a description of my accommodations until I can figure out how this “8 gigabytes/month” business works.  This country has a habit of being obnoxiously vague.

My flat is about four times bigger than 97ish% of the flats on any of the Westminster campuses, which I suppose makes up for how far away it is from all of the excitement of central London.  I can walk to the tube, but I can also hear it running constantly (especially since I keep my window open and use the sill as a makeshift fridge since it’s so bloody cold outside).  

The WC is tiny.  The shower head has confidence issues and refuses to distribute water to any location other than the wall or the corner which makes showering every night a challenging feat, but I’m learning.

I can’t find a place that carries hangers, thus my clothing resting upon the wardrobe floor.  I guess I’m going to have to find a way to make the slightly-wrinkled motif appear chic. 

Ethernet Cords are Expensive

This past week has been insane.  By insane, I mostly mean filled with rising hopes and giant let downs, but I’m in London, so I’ll refrain from complaining.  I’ll attempt to catch you up to speed since it’s been awhile (and I know Melissa is just dying to know every juicy detail of my life as a Londoner).

Jan 1-3:  I took the train from München to Köln, and I;m pretty sure that the conductor was a transvestite.  I’m no detective, but “her” hands were the size of André the Giant’s and “her Adam’s apple was about the size of a grapefruit.  She had very nice fake nails, though.  Very well kept.  

There was also a flouncey Frenchwoman who wouldn’t stop staring at me and kept muttering to her daughter who was situated beside her.  She wasn’t very good at being French, though - her fashion sense was appalling. 

The train from Köln arrived in Bruxelles and I had to sit around and wait for the Eurostar to arrive.  My Belgian café was closed. so I was forced to sit and twiddle my thumbs to a Havnevik rhythm as these two Emo/gangster (I get headaches just thinking about how they pulled that off) Americans from California who couldn’t let go of each other or come up for air for more than 17 seconds.  I was luckily not forced to sit next to them on the train.

I got into London at an almost reasonable hour and called Uwe, Uncle Matt’s friend from Germany who not lives right outside of London.  I made it over to their train station where they met me and helped me back to their house.  We had a nice chat and a lovely next day shopping before we headed to a Spanish tapas restaurant which we misinterpreted as Italian and then headed to the musical production of Lord of the Rings which was by far the most amazing show that I have ever seen, not to mention the fact that I was in the Theater Royale on Drury Lane which was featured in Closer.

The next morning I headed to my orientation hotel, smiled at the guy at the front desk who decided that I would get to check-in early although we were not permitted to check in until after 15:00.  Around 16:30, my hotel roommate, Cait, joined me in the room, and we headed to Wagamama’s for an evening of wine and noodles on CIEE.  Cait and I met a fellow by the name of Dareus while we were at dinner, and the three of us formed a sort of trifecta.

Jan 4-9:  The second half of the week has been filled with interviews, orientations, registrations, moving, and shopping for essentials.  Basic breakdown without losing the attention of too many (hopefully):

My bed is über uncomfortable, my WC is miniscule, I’m 35 minutes outside of central London on a good day, I’m still sick, I’ve missed the bus services back to my far-away residence twice (once due to misunderstanding, once due to clubbing with locals although I was horrendously underdressed for said activity), the best pubs we’ve found so far are Gloucester Arms and O’Neill’s, Boots is the best pharmacy, Sainsbury’s is the best market, mentally multiplying every amount of money spent by two due to the exchange rate is optimally depressing, English peanut butter sucks, NBC.com doesn’t stream to the UK, and even the British can’t decide whether they buy into the whole “walk/bike/drive on the opposite side thing, which is confusing until you lose the will to be bothered at all.

Jan 10: I had my interview with Fleishman Hillard today which turned into an interview with the company’s new affiliate office, Blue Current PR.  Due to rearrangements in departments at Fleishman Hillard, I’ll be interning at Blue Current instead, which I’m very excited about.  I’ll be able to work with both companies but be able to gain far more experience in the field and will be able to have far more involvement in the projects which we will be taking to the clients.  My first day interning is Monday.  I’ll be there about 20 hours per week and I’ll be in class all day Wednesday and Friday.  I did get into the courses that I wanted, so I’m a happy camper academically.  

After my interview today, I ran to pick up some medicine, and I came back to my flat and downloaded season 1 & 2 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  Yes, it’s my new obsession since I’m ill and need to spend a couple of days recovering and not exposing myself to the soggy English climate.  (Thanks, Mel).  I hope this medicine works.  I bought some cough syrup a couple of days ago, but I’m pretty sure that it’s composed of pure alcohol.  I took it at 7:30 a couple of mornings ago and was tanked by 8:15.  Needless to say, it was a rough morning and afternoon.  

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I think the shifty-accented guy on the Eurostar stole my camera, so until I get a new one, no vicarious living.  Sorry :(