Wonderful weekend in the sun

This weekend was our long weekend off from school. We had Friday off and we get Monday off to do what ever we please. 

On Thursday I worked all day and it was not a very fun day. My building houses several publications all that belong to the EMAP publishing company and 35 people were fired on Thursday. They are all going to be put into a pool and then interviewed for only a couple of jobs. The saddest part of it all is that one of the girls on our 5 people staff at Professional Beauty was let go, Sara McCorquedole. She is so cute and nice and such a great writer. My editor and assistant editor Jenni and Laura were sad all day because they had to call and tell Sara. To top it all off it was her birthday :(. So now on staff at Professional Beauty publishing a 100 page monthly with few advertisements is Jenni the editor, Laura the assitant editor and Shandi and I, the interns... anyone else see a problem with that. Well, to say the least it is going to increase Shandi and I's work load. Poor Sara :(

On a lighter note, Thursday night me and the girls of Flat 2 got our groove on at ON ANON. We decided to venture outside of Leicester square to get away from the creeper clubs and we wound up trying to get into a club called Cuckoo in Oxford Circus. Linden's friend Shelby was here and she had some connections but unfortunately a group of 7 Americans is not traditionally welcome in exclusive London clubs. So Claire Hanan's bladder led us to a random club called On Anon... there were indeed less creepers but it still smelled like curry and B.O. That did not stop us from get jiggy with it. We danced the night away and when our feet could not take it anymore, we jumped on the night bus and headed home. When we arrived back at the flat we heard the news about Michael Jackson... and then we went to bed. 

The next morning we slept in a bit and then decided to try our luck with queuing at Wimbledon. We took the tube to Wimbledon and were shocked when we saw the hoards of people lined up for MILES.. you might think I am exaggerating but I am not. There were tents set up and everything. We didn't care though, we were determined to get in, even if it meant spending the day lounging in a field... which is what we did. We laid around in the sunny weather for 3 1/2 hours and then finally were allowed to go in. We got to watch a really fun mixed doubles match and explore everywhere else. Our tickets were general admission so we didn't get to see all of the courts but it was totally worth it. We popped into the Wimbledon gift shop before heading home. Once home, we all gathered around my computer and had some girl time bonding while watching the Sex and the City movie. 

On Saturday, Shandi, Kristin, Claire and I got on the train and headed to Brighton Beach. It was a gorgeous day at the beach and so much fun. We spent the day lounging on the pebble beach, reading, drinking some Pimms and dipping our feet in the icy cold Atlantic. After a sufficient day of sun burning, we grabbed some fish and chips and Coronas at a little beach restaurant. Delicious and picturesque. It was a great day, but I went home looking a little

bit more like a lobster than I had before. 

Today was a lazy day in London. Claire and I got up to do laundry which was a fiasco because of broken dryers and such at our launderette, but it all got done. Then the flat was quiet all afternoon while we busy bees worked on our BLC papers that are due Friday. After a hard days work we took in some food at the Portuguese restaurant Nandos. It was amazing and had FREE REFILLS!!!!!!! it was awesome. I had four glasses of diet coke and ice. It was like heaven in a cup. Now we are all hanging out at the flat, making some finishing touches on our homework and mapping out a game plan for our adventure tomorrow... meeting Johnny Depp. AHHHHHHH!!!! 

Planning for weekends ahead

Not much has been happening here in London. Work is slow, we haven't really had to do much except that we have to think up a blog topic and write and blog. Shandi and I both have to do this and whoever has the best one gets published on the website... So we will see how that goes. 

Last night, Linden, Shandi, Claire and I went to Hype Park and saw the Peter Pan statue and the Diana Fountain and we walked forever in the park! It was a gorgeous night and we played with lots of the geese and ducks and it was very fun. Other than work and going to the park, we have been playing some weekend trips. We were going to go to Ireland this weekend but the trip was all booked so we are going to go on a different weekend. On Friday we are going to try and go to Wimbeldon. We heard if we queue at 4:00 we might be able to get some tickets for the day. Then on Saturday we are going to go to Brighton Beach and Sunday is undetermined. Then for the big news... drum roll please..... Johnny Depp, my life's true love, will be here with Christian Bail on Monday for the Public Enemies premiere... be still my heart. I will keep you all posted on Johnny and I's fateful meeting. 

Lovely Weekend With the Rents

This was a very fun and cram-packed weekend. Thursday morning at 7:00 am (1:00 am in Missouri) I picked my parents up at Earls Court Tube Station. I brought them back to show them my flat and drop their luggage off and then we set out to find a traditional English breakfast which includes ham, eggs, baked beans, bread, and a mushroom. A pub in my neighborhood serves all day English breakfast so we grabbed some eats, very delicious, and decided to go tour the Globe Theater. Our goal for the day was to keep my parents up as long as they could possibly keep their eyes open. During the globe tour, which was pretty cool but kind of boring considering that the globe we were touring was built in the 90s (I am all about the originals), my parents began their descent into sleepiness. After the globe, we walked across Millennium Bridge and then headed to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Sherlock Holmes lived on 221b Baker Street in London so some devout fans recreated his house and set up some trinkets for those Holmes lovers to look at. When we left the Holmes House, we decided to walk up to Oxford street. By that time, my parents were fading fast... we did some more grueling walking and took a few tube lines and then I dropped the rents off at their hotel to take a nap. After a much needed nap, my parents came back to my house and we went and ate at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, a very delicious burger joint down the street. Then the whole flat and my parents went and saw the Hangover... it was hilarious. 

On Friday after my class, mom, dad and I went to do some shopping. We went to Harrods which was amazing and awesome and overwhelming. We perused the diamonds and the shoes (two of my favorite things) and then shopped a little at Top Shop. We then met my flat mates at Ping Pong for a lovely dinner which was followed by a loud, long viewing of Transformers 2 at the Odeon Theater in Leicester square. The theater was huge and had an amazingly powerful sound system. We all left with headaches but were still happy we got to see the movie. 

On Saturday I took mom and dad to Portobello Market in Notting Hill. My mom and I had a great time spending money, dad (although he says he had fun) did a lot of people watching while we shopped. It was a fun day and we had lots of great finds at the market. That night mom, dad and I went to O'neils for some food and then walked to Kensington Park (which I previously thought was Hyde Park but is indeed Kensington) before heading over to the Royal Albert Hall where we saw the King and I. The Royal Albert Hall was phenomenal, and we had GREAT seats, 6 rows from the front! Not only was the show great, but the part of the King was played by Daniel Dae Kim. For those of you who have brilliant taste in television, Daniel Dae Kim plays Jin Kwon on LOST!!!! It was so much fun and then mom dad and I strolled home on the streets of London enjoying the lovely summer night. 

Sunday arrived too quickly and mom, dad and I did as much as we could to delay our farewell. We woke up early and went back to Harrods where we spent most of the day. Dad bought my mom, my sisters, my brother, and me all a little something but I can not say what due to the fact that my siblings have not received their gifts yet and therefore cannot find out from this blog. Around 2:00 we had afternoon tea at Harrods and it was so tasty! We all felt so English with our pinkies out and our scones in hand. Claire, my flat mate, had had tea with her parents when they were there so she accompanied us and showed us how it was done. After tea we shopped some more and then came back to my flat. My street was having the annual Earl's Court festival so we looked around there for a while and then headed off for dinner and Fruilis (a strawberry beer drink that is amazing) at King's Head. After dinner, my parents and I walked to Kensington Gardens, took in the beautiful view of the swans playing at the (what I like to call it anyway) Swan Lake and then went looking for the Peter Pan statue in the gardens. It was a beautiful night and a very great moment to spend with my mom and dad. When the sun began to set finally, we decided to head back to mom and dads hotel room for ice cream and a movie on the portable DVD player. We snuggled up together for our last evening and watched New in Town (horrible film don't watch it). Mom and Dad walked me home and we said our good byes :(. I was very sad to see them go, we had a lot of fun this weekend. 

Today I worked and had class, then had a social with free food. I believe my parents are still traveling at this point in time but hopefully I will hear from them soon to confirm their safe travel home. 

Preparing for the Parents!

The past two days have been pretty uneventful. 

On Tuesday, Shandi and I went to work and had to do Vox Pops. We had to walk all over London, mainly down Oxford street and the Ritzy shopping areas, and interview people on the street. We had to ask them if they knew what a MediSpa is (which no one did so don't feel bad if you are reading this and don't know. I didn't know before I was assigned this either). It is a spa that includes non-invasive procedures such as botox and lip fillers and things like that, but also gives massages and other spa related treatments. So we had to get people's thoughts on these spas and not many people wanted to talk to us. If you don't know what something is then why would you want to talk about it, let alone give a person your name, age, occupation and a head-shot. This was a very trying experience. I hate this sort of thing and I just had to make myself do it! I just wanted to convey to all of the people I was trying to talk to that I didn’t want to have to ask them these questions! It was just as painful to me as it was to them, but of course I could not say that. It was so frustrating and I really had to gear myself up to fling my body in front of someone and pray that they stopped to listen to what I was saying. It was a learning experience and I will NEVER say no if someone asks me to talk to them for a magazine article on the street. Sometimes you just have ot walk in the other guys shoes…

Today I worked without Shandi, in preparation for my parents coming tomorrow! YAY! I wanted Thursday off so I worked on Wednesday alone. I did nothing pretty much all day. Jenni and Laura were both off at a spa day so Sara and Agatha were working with me and they didn't have anything for me to do, so I did my homework, googled a few things, did some searching about film school (random I know but I was just curious to see the admission process for a top film school), and stalked some celebrities. Then I got on the tube and came home, just to turn around and go to class. I am actually in class right now writing this blog! 

I don't know what the plans are for this evening, but I am cleaning my room to prepare for my rents to see it when they get here tomorrow! I am picking them up tomorrow at Earl's Court tube stationed and I have a fun filled weekend planned for us all! I am super excited. 

Before I go I should tell you about an experience I had this weekend that I forgot to tell the readers: This weekend, I was eating some pizza. I didn’t have ranch dressing to dip it in so I was going to try Ceaser dressing. There was a small bottle in the fridge that had been there for a while. It was kind of liquidy looking so I shook it up. I started to unscrew the lid and it began to fizz out of the cap like it was a carbonated drink… I was perplexed. So I took it over to the sink and tried to open it slowly as not to cause a mess. My flat mates were all talking amongst themselves in the kitchen when suddenly… POP!!! The lid FLEW across the room and the contents of the dressing bottle rocketed out of the container!!!! It went EVERYWHERE! It splattered across the wall, it went all over my flat mates’ hair, clothes, etc. It exploded all over my face and body. It sounded like someone had been shot and we all screamed…. It was absolutely hysterical. I laughed so hard, it was something straight out of a movie.

 Thats all... can't wait to see my mommy and daddy!

Shia your breath is so sweet...Transformers Premiere in London

Ok... before I get to the most exciting stuff I will discuss my adventures from yesterday.

Yesterday, the flat mates and I got up early and headed to Hampton Court Palace, one of Henry VIII's most beloved castles... (his son Edward was born there, Anne Bolyen lived there for a while, Katherine of Aragon was sent here.) I was super excited to go and it was very pretty, especially the gardens. I was a bit disappointed due to the lack of Henry VIII history. I figured that since it was one of his favorite places, the castle would be set up to highlight his reign. Well, much of the

 palace burned in a big fire and a lot was rebuilt in the 1700s, so 

much of the rooms were King George's and other Royals from that time. It was still wonderful and I am so glad we got to go. After that, we came home and just chilled at the flat. 

Today, Shandi and I had to go to work until noon and then class from 1-4. That all went fine... we were just really anxious to get out of there because tonight was the London Premiere of Transformers 2. We hopped on the tube and arrived in Leicester square around 4:45. Most of the celebs started filing in around 6:15. Shia LaBeouf was the first to arrive. Many are astonished by this young mans charming demeanor and hot bod considering he got his big break on a Disney tv show playing an uber nerd named Lewis Stevens on Even Stevens. He then went on to play Stanley Yelnats in Holes and now he is the hunky

hunky heartthrob star of Transformers... I literally could smell him.... he was so close and it was amazing. Then Josh Duhmel arrived... back in my younger days a date with Tad Hamilton is all I wanted. Now that the young stud is married off to Fergie Ferge I suppose I will take being insanely close to him at the premiere... Ladies he is just as beautiful in person. Then of course the Diva Megan Fox showed up looking as beautiful as ever. She did not come to our section. It started raining and they hustled the stars in... but we did also get to see Michael Bay the director which was super cool. And I know my brother, the autograph junkie, will be upset to hear that I DID indeed have pen and paper with me, however.. it got trampled in the massive crowd and I was unable to reach it at the appropriate moment... they all totally would have signed though...bummer. It was awesome and amazing and you will be hearing all about the Harry Potter Premiere later in the summer when my flat mates and I attend!

Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth!

Today is the Queen's official birthday... she has two, an official one and an unofficial one. Of course she has two, she is the Queen of England. Anyway, in honor of her Shandi, Kristen and I traveled to Windsor Castle, her favorite castle and the place she resides most often. We had to take the tube to paddington station and then catch a train to Windsor. It was about a 30 minute train ride and we had to switch trains at one stop. The sight of the castle was beautiful as our train approached the station. It was exactly how every little girl's fantasy fairy tale might look. Big castle walls, motes, beautiful towers... it was breathtaking, not to mention it was a beautiful day outside (we haven't been having very nice weather here) so the brilliant blue sky made the backdrop of the castle even more picturesque. We had a bit of bad luck and good luck while we were there, good luck was that we arrived just as the Queen was arriving and they were raising her flag right when we got there, bad luck was that because of this, all of the state apartments were closed and we could not go inside the castle :(. St. George's church (where King Henry VIII is buried) was closed as well. So that was sad, but we did get to go inside the castle walls, and we saw Queen Mary's doll house which was pretty incredible. It was a nice little day trip and then we boarded the train to head back home.

Let me back track a little bit and fill in the past couple of days. Thursday, Shandi and I had the day off since we worked Wednesday and we pretty much relaxed all day with Kristen while the other girls were at work. We did laundry and lounged around most of the day. Then we went to O'neils for a beer and some steak and guinness pie... well I didn't eat the pie but Shandi did. We stayed there most of the night and chatted with some other interns who live in the other building. Then we came home and went to bed. On Friday, we had class from 10-1 and the subject of the class was fashion. Although this did perk my interest more than the past topics, it is hard to stay focused on one subject for three hours. After that our class went to the Victoria and Albert Museum to check out the fashion exhibit. Then we came back to the flat and planned our evening. We decided to go to Abbey Road and take some photos in honor of the Beatles. After that we went to dinner and a trendy chinese restaurant called Ping Pong in Oxford Circus. It was amazing! We had a few cocktails and a great meal and then decided to go to a club in Leicester Square called Metra. It seemed cool when we first arrived, but there was a large amount of foreigners, and not the good kind. We could not even go on the dance floor without having twenty grouping men around us. It was terrible. The only redeeming factor was the very attractive security guard I kept my eye on all night. Although the club was creepy, we still had a fun night... we just can't seem to find where all the attractive brits are hanging out...

I will let you know when that happens ;)

Tube Strike = Armageddon

The past couple of days have been a little bit crazy, especially at work.

 Today at work was our press day, so everything had to be done. Shandi and I were on a roll yesterday, calling to ask last minute questions, doing small interviews with salons for our feature about Most Desirable Salons, searching for pictures to put next to names, and finding a replacement for our Reader Panel, but then the power went out in our whole building! It was chaos considering that a lot of the magazines in our building were going to press the same day as us. We sat around trying to do things without a computer, which proved to be quite difficult. Eventually, our editors decided to give up and figured they could do a lot of their work from home. But they left us measly little interns to stand guard and call if the power returned. We literally had to sit around a deserted dark building and stare at our computers hoping they would switch back on. Around 3:00, one of the head honchos of the building came around and told us that the power was not coming back and that if the fire alarms were not working we had to go home anyway because it was a fire hazard to stay. He didn’t have to say this to many people being as Shandi and I were pretty much the only ones there. So we called Jenni, our editor, and told her the situation. She let us go home at which point we had to begin working. We worked until 6:30 and it was way more exhausting than being at the office. We had none of the resources we usually have and we were communicating with Jenni via e-mail. We phoned reader panels, wrote little blurbs to go with our feature, and figured the final order of our top 50 salons before calling it quits. It was a very long day!

Today was not any less chaotic. As of 19:00 last night, the city of London's tube Union workers went on strike. All tube stations have been shut down for 48 hours. For millions of people who commute to work everyday via the tube (including myself), this is the equivalent of Armageddon.  The tube ride to our work usual takes about 40 minutes, so walking the whole way was out of the question. We had to figure bus routes to work, which was exactly what everyone else in the city did. We ended up waiting for a bus for 30 minutes, pushing our way onto a crammed Baker Street bus, we took that bus for about 40 minutes, and then couldn't find another bus that was empty enough to get on. We had to walk (partially blind due to the fact we had no idea where we were) for 45 min. The cherry on the sundae was it started raining (no umbrella). We finally arrived at the office 40 minutes late (we left 2 hours early, too). Once we got there it was straight to business. We had to edit every single page, look up new statistics, call for product prices and find two new people who we could interview and get pictures from for Reader Panel. We had to leave early from work to try and get to class by bus. We got most of our stuff done at work, hopped on a bus, got lost, walked 20 minutes and got to class about 10 minutes late :)

Good news is since we worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.. we don't have to work until next Monday! Yay!

Now Presenting Empress Claire Constant - she shall rule supreme over all world citizens

Bon Jour!

    Sorry dear avid readers for the blog absence. I have been in the land of lovers (Paris) all weekend and have not had a chance to fill you in on my exciting adventures! This should make up for all those 

hours of sleep you lost wondering what I was doing with my life :) just kidding. But in al

l truthfulness I shall try and make this as thorough as possible.

OK - on Friday, June 5 Lind

en, Shandi, Amanda, Kristin, and I all packed up our luggage for our fun filled weekend to Paris! Before we could leave we had to go to class which was mind-numbingly boring, but this was probably because I couldn't stop thinking of all things Parisian (Men, Fries, Shoes) the usual. After class, we rushed back to the flat, took turns emptying our bladders, grabbed our duffels and ran out the door. The tube ride to the airport is about 45 minutes long, so we left around 1 to get there by 2. Our flight left at 4:00 pm. The flight to Paris was smooth, except for the unnerving fact that we were flying Air France... but we managed to survive. The flight on the way home was a different story... we will get to that part later. We arrived in France and tried to gather our bearings as everything around us had suddenly turned to French, and I am not just talking about the culture, but the language as well. Luckily, Linden has had some training in the French language and did a very good job trying to navigate us out of the airport. She also gave us some key phrases to remember... Je ne sais pas means I don't know and Je voudrais is I would like. We grabbed a taxi, which was a bit of a hassle because none of the taxis are big enough to fit 5 people. It was about a 40 minute cab ride that cost an arm and a leg (65 euros to be exact) but we arrived safely at 

our hostel in CaulainCourt Square.

We checked into our hostel and lucky for us the guy manning the front desk not only spoke English, but he was from Washington,D.C.! We were also pleased to find that we had a private room in the hostel with our own bathroom! We had been told that we would have a random roommate and a public bathroom so that was exciting! The hostel was much cleaner than anticipated as well! It was a small room with two sets of bunk beds and one single. I was fortunate enough to get the top bunk on the middle bed. It was a very small, small mattress with no side rails and extremely high off the ground... you can imagine what was going through my mind when this became my alloted sleeping space... uh huh. yeah. We all had a good

chuckle on the first night when my legs were dangling off both sides of the bed. 

Once all of our luggage was stowed away and we had thoroughly thumbed through my guidebook that I brought along (Mom - 25 best things to do in Pairs was a lifesaver.. glad we got it) we journeyed down to the metro. The metro is a bit different from the tube in London, plus everything is in French so we tried asking the information desk - Par lez-vous anglais? (do you speak English). He said no. Luckily the electronic ticket stand had an English option!!! We got our tickets, figured out our route and headed out to our first destination.

We found a cheap (well at least not as expensive as everywhere else) French restaurant called Le Petite St. Benoit. The menu was hand written in French, but the atmosphere was simply magnifique!! There was an accordion playing and red and white table cloths! It was brilliant and delicious!!! Our waiter was kind enough to tell us what everything was in English. We drank wine and ate steak and soaked in the moment. After dinner we strolled around Paris, walked around the Seine, enjoyed the beautiful weather, saw a man peeing under the bridge, walked to the Notre Dame to see it illuminated and then headed back to the hostel. It was a lovely first night in Paris!

We woke up Saturday morning very early and set out to be touristy. We had purchased passes through STA travel for a hop on, hop off b

us tour. The bus would drop you off at key points in Paris and then you could hop on the next bus when you were done taking photos or looking around. We didn't know where the first stop was but we knew the Louvre was on the list so

 we tried there first. We took the metro and got to the Louvre. It was very cool, but we didn't go in. Fodor (author of guidebook) let us know that the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month and luckily thats when we were there! How convenient. The same applied to the Musse´ D´orsay (a museum of modern artists). So we walked outside of the Louvre to try and find the bus. Our search was not helped by the weather in Paris. It was rainy and cold and none of us came prepared for that sort of weather. But we would not surrender to the rain! We were determined to see EVERYTHING we could in two days. So we walked and searched. We finally saw a bus drive by that had the name of our tour on it. The driver acknowledged us, slowed to let people on, we were running towards him, and he freakin drove away! WE WERE STANDING IN THE RAIN AND HE DROVE AWAY! I was not happy. Then we decided to walk over to Musee D orsay to see if there was a stop around there. There was a sign for our bus, but we decided to go get a cup of coffee to warm up and have a bite to eat. We found a little cafe´, where everything was in English, out of the cold weather. 

We ate and then we boarded the tour bus. We were given headphones to listen to a guide speaking in English and a ticket to get on and off the bus. We also found from the ticket that it was valid for two days!! The bus was a double-decker open top, unfortunately it was a bit too wet for the top deck. The first stop was the Palais Garnier - the French Opera House. It was so beautiful!! Pictures could not express the beauty of this building. We paid 4 Euros to enter and it was so worth it. This opera house was the inspiration for the Phantom of the Opera. It has two driveways leading to the front doors and this was so that Napoleon's horses could drive right up. It was so cool. After that, we hoped back on the bus and headed to the next stop. On our drive we passed the spot where Marie Antoinette lost her head and the bridge where Princess Diana died. We stopped at the Arc de Triomphe. It is huge. SOOO much bigger than I expected! But it was beautiful, too. We went over and looked at the tomb for the unknown soldier under the arc. 

Our next stop was Trocodero Square. From this square is a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower. It was my first time seeing the tower and it didn't matter how drenched and cold I was, the tower lit up my afternoon. I had always heard that the tower was a bit disappointing but I have to most extremely disagree! It was amazing. The bus also took us to the base of the Eiffel Tower and that was extraordinary as well. After the Tower, the bus took us to Notre Dame and we went inside. It was gorgeous. 

Exhausted and wet, we all decided it would be a good idea to chill at the hostel for a while and plan our evening. We went back, relaxed, took a little power nap, and then headed back on the town. We decided to go to a restaurant by Socre Cour (the famous cathedral) but when we got there they didn't start serving food for another half hour so we tried finding somewhere else. We looked around and found a moderately priced restaurant that none of us remember the name of but I know how to get there! It was absolutely delicious. After dinner we took the metro to Trocodero Square to watch the Eiffel Tower light show. On the way there, we saw a puppet show on the metro -  the show was a singing mouse with a sombrero singing Speedy Gonzalez... it was a very peculiar choice of show for a French metro, but we went with it. 

That night we watched the Eiffel Tower light show, got some cotton candy and lounged on the lawn below the Tower. It was an amazing night, beautiful clear skies after a rainy afternoon and the perfect end to our Saturday in Paris.

Sunday morning, we rose early once again to get in the Louvre and the Musee Dorsay before leaving for our flight. We grabbed the metro to the Louvre and began our eager voyage to find the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and Napoleon's Apartments. We found the apartments first and they were intense! Some of the rooms were EXACTLY as they were when Napoleon lived there. It was soo crazy and insanely beautiful! Ugh history... you are so cool. Then we squeezed through masses of people to snap photos of the Mona Lisa as well as the Venus de Milo. After successfully spotting all of our major points in the Louvre, we ate at the cafe´and then wondered outside into the gardens. The Tuileries gardens are filled with statues, a large fountain and lots of hedge walls. It was beautiful and the weather was nice and it was a perfect French moment. On this excursion, the girls and I decided that I would take over the world someday and become Empress Claire Constant. We would have our portraits painted and have the ability to teleport. Of course I appointed them as Duchesses of all the continents, I am a very good delegator. :) 

After the Louvre we journeyed to the Musee Dorsay and looked at Monet and Renoir and wonderful painters such as that. Then we decided since it was a beautiful day we would jump back on the bus and ride up top this time! That was magical. Seeing the city and all its glory was a truly wonderful experience. Too bad after about ten minutes of that the clouds rolled in, the sun ran away, it started sprinkling and became very cold. But we braved the situation and remained on the bus. We got off at the Eiffel Tower and then headed back to the hostel to call a taxi for the airport. This took a while once again due to us having 5 passengers. We ended up waiting in the hostel for about one hour, listening to the French front desk guy trying to get us a cab. THe cab finally arrived and we got to the airport around 6:15 pm. We were flying Air France home once again but apparently Air France has about 50 terminals and you have to know which one your flight is on, which we didn't. It took us a while but we finally found it, went through customs and security and then waited for our plane. By this point all of us were sick of hearing French, we craved English, and London, and even our crappy flat on Hogarth Road. We wanted to be home. 

Our flight left at 8:00 pm and it takes about 35 minutes to get to London. We arrived at Heathrow but unfortunately could not land and had to fly around through the clouds for 40 minutes. We were all frustrated and just wanted to get on the ground. It was dark and rainy outside and the turbulence was ridiculous. Then suddenly a large flash filled the plane and the aircraft shook. Everyone looked around curiously and the pilot said something over the loudspeaker in French. You can imagine the thoughts racing through our minds after the recent Air France plane crash that was struck by lightening. It was terrifying and a group of loud, obnoxious English teenage rugby players did not help the situation. Fortunately, we landed at Heathrow a short while later and we were all happy to be on the ground! We got on the tube as fast as possible and headed back to Hogarth. It was a glorious feeling seeing our home again...

A weekend in Paris is an absolute MUST but it felt so good to be back in London... I love this city :).

Would you like a lesson in buttrucking?

Today was the first day that I actually slept in! For those of you who know me well, sleeping in is one of my favorite past times. I slept until 11:00! It was glorious. Then I did some homework and then I went to class! Class was alright. Wrote another novel for Reuben. After class we had our first class social! We went to O'Neils pub and we had a few pints while watching some rugby. Go Lions!

Claire, one of the flat mates, used to play rugby so she gave us some lessons on rucking. She told us about the person who comes from behind, and he is called the buttrucker. That was my lesson learned from the day. It was fun. Now we are hanging out at the flat, wishing we had a dvd player to watch a movie on our 3" tv screen. I have a full day of work tomorrow and then we are going out!! YAY!

Pretty Boring Day...

Nothing too exciting today. Went to work this morning. Called about 50 salons to dog on them about not taking our Most Desirable Salons of 2009 survey. Edited some things. Typed up a story that my editor had written on the train... it was very, very hard to read and took about 15 minutes for a very short story. Came home. Watched the MTV Movie awards. Made cookies with Claire. Well, watched as Claire made cookies. And now I am getting ready to read Harry Potter and go to bed! It was a long day at work and I am pooped. But tomorrow I don't have to work! So I think I am going to take myself down to Hyde park and relax for the day. 

Interesting Moment today: On my way home from work, I was in the elevator in the tube and I accidentally pushed the emergency alert button. A loud alarm started ringing, and a voice over told us to remain calm, help was on the way. Well, Shandi and I (and everyone else who was on the elevator) got out of there before help arrived... Don't worry though, I graciously reassured the people entering the elevator that there was no emergency. yikes. Embarrassing moment. 

Another hard day at work...

Today was my second day of work. It was a half day because Shandi and I had to get to class at 1:00 pm. We worked on the 50 Most Desirable Salon survey for 2009, it has kind of become our baby. We were also given things to do for tomorrow as well because our assistant editor is going to Thailand and our editor won't be in all day. So it will just be me, Shandi, and Sarah. But hopefully with all of the work we have to get done, the 9-5 work day will go by quickly.

During class today we went over our projects that were due and then watched a video on war correspondence. It actually wasn't that boring of a class! After class, the flat lounged for a while and then Claire and I went with her friend Abby and Abby's roommate to try and find Parliamentary Hill. It is supposed to have a spectacular view of the sunset. After taking the northern line on the tube all the way up to Hampstead and climbing for a while, we reached a hill, it wasn't Parliamentary Hill from what we could tell, but the view was pretty and there were paths to walk. We went exploring in the woods and saw like 500 bunnies, I am not even joking... 500.  We found some fresh jasmine too.. it was beautiful. Then we started getting sweaty, and eaten by skeeters, and we decided to head home. 

Interesting moment of the day: A girl on the tube showed Claire and I a picture of her boyfriends penis on her cell phone... aww London... what will you introduce me to next...