Me and Big Ben

This week flew by. I worked M/T/TH/F from 9-4. On Friday I got to go out on a shoot for the Today Show. NBC had an interview with fashion designer Oswald Boateng, who has dressed the likes of Will Smith and Jamie Fox for the Oscars. He was super chill and a bit silly. I learned alot from the two staff guys I went with and overall it was a great experience.
On Wednesday, my class went to Dover Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. This castle was plain mean looking, which was the point of it. It was a defensive castle built in the 1100s I believe, and was used even in WWII. It is one of the two castles that have always been under English rule. The other is Windsor. Canterbury Cathedral was plain goregeous. It is the head church of the Church of England. Yes, even more important than Westminster Abbey. It was another long day, but definitely a good trip.
My trip to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam with PJ is officially booked...what a relief! I think we did the best we could regarding prices and it should be a really fun time.
Well, I've been here a month. I can't believe it. One whole month. Part of me feels like a got here yesterday, and part of me feels like I've been here forever. It's odd. I want time to sloooow doooown sooo thaaaat I haaave moooore tiiiiime heeeeere. I'm headed to Wales on Friday with my roomies. It will be my first trip out of London without BLC. I still don't particularly feel like a Londoner, but as I've learned, London is soo diverse. Londoners, and Brits at large, don't fit into a cookie cutter or a jello mold, but rather a crock pot with beef, chicken, salmon and ham stew. Good analogy, I know. Thanks.
Side note: People here do not walk on a particular side of the sidewalk. On the whole, in the US, you walk on the right side. Here however, they just walk straight. It's the one thing I don't like about London. I have to dodge shopping bags, duck away from umbrellas and shuffle around cigarettes. It's terribly stupid!

Thursday and Friday I worked from 4-10pm. So nothing exciting there. However, Saturday was the longest day ever. I was up by 8:30 am to be ready to leave by 10 am for Leeds Castle in Kent. It took an hour just to get out of London and another 45 minutes to get to Kent. It was a miserable bus ride, weaving in and out, up and down the streets of London. I fell asleep before we even got out of town.
We were allowed 4 hours at Leeds Castle, which was one too many. Ashley and I stuck together all day. First to the hedge maze, which took only 5 minutes! (The one at Hampton Court Palace took Aubrey and I 10 minutes!) Then we headed down into the grotto and then to lunch. I got fish cakes, chips and peas off of the kids menu. In American, that means fish cakes, fries and baked beans. Different, I know. But it was good and super filling for a kids meal! We all know how much I eat...
We played with the hundreds of geese, ducks and black swans, yes black swans. They were very pretty. There were about 5 pond/lakes on the property and a moat still filled with water. It was very picturesque...so much so in fact, Ashley wants to get married there! Part of the actual castle was closed because it is still used for conferences by important delegates and whatnot. The castle itself was mildly impressive, but not my favorite.
Leeds castle was builit in 1119 by the Normands. It was renovated time and time again, and for quite some time was a royal castle, housing Henry VIII, I believe. Lady Baillie was the last to own it until her death in 1974. Her youngest daughter, however, lived in the Maiden's Tower until her death in 2001! It is now owned by the Leeds Castle Foundation that Lady Baillie founded. Today, the castle is undergoing restoration which ruined the natural beauty of it all.
After all this, we still had an hour to kill. So we made videos in honour of Steve Irwin, getting up close and personal with nature and the swans.
We arrived home at 6 pm. I grabbed a shower and a bite to eat and headed out with Ashley, Whitney, Sahara, Erin, Allie and Jules. We went to a club in Covent Gardens called Roadhouse. It cost 5 GBP to get in and there wasn't one drink for less than 3.10 GBP. Needless to say, I didn't drink last night! We stayed and danced for awhile. A live band, the Bears, played some well-known songs. But we all lost interest fast and decided to head home. Not to mention, 5 of us had heels on and our feet were killing us. Mind you, that was only the 4th time I've worn heels in London!
I was tucked in bed by 11:30...what a good girl I am. However, it was still a looong day.
Side note: There are no skyscrapers in London. OK, maybe a few. But for the most part, not really. The Marriott and Holiday Inn are the two tallest buildings within a few miles of my flat! Once you get in downtown London by Parliament and Scotland Yard (the police department) there are taller buildings...many made of glass. This fact makes London seem smaller than it really is. Good thing or bad, you decide.

Let's see...where did I leave off. Friday we went shopping, surprise surprise. But I did well. I only bought 2 hats, really cute hats, for 4 GBP each. The rest of the weekend was quite boring with work and my roomies gone to Amsterdam, Wales and Germany.
Monday at work I got to go out on a shoot for a book. Not like a book signing or anything cool, Mike took about 5 minutes of tape of a really old book that will be in some reporter's story about terrorism or something. It was really boring, but at least I didn't have to do silly rundowns and verbates!
Tuesday night, a few of us girls headed out to Sports Cafe for a fun night of dancing and one pound pints. It started out fun, but toward the end of the night I stepped on a broken piece of glass. It went through my shoe and pricked my skin. I started bleeding and it kind of hurt. I'm ok now though. My foot hasn't turned green and fallen off yet. I'll keep you posted.
Yesterday we went to Tate Britain for BLC. The workers were on strike so half of the museum was closed! But we got a very long, extensive tour by Jane. Tate Britain is an art gallery for any art produced by England dating back to 1535 or so.
Last night we went up to the Union. As we approached, a boy yelled, "I smell Americans." We had no reply. We just walked by and went inside. Now, I don't know if he doesn't like Americans or if he was just being silly. Later on, one of my friends said we should have replied with, "I smell an asshole." That would have been very clever. At the Union, there was a bouncy inflatable boxing rink. Jamie and I boxed each other...it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Ashley doesn't know how to work a camera, so I didn't get any pics or video of us boxing. Once the Union closed, Sahara and I headed off to another pub/club called Opal with some of the footballers. It was only about a 5 minute walk which was nice. The inside was like a cave...it was really cool. We'll have to go back again.
Side note: Here's some more subtle differences I picked up on:
1) When we say "I go to college," they say "I go to university" or "I go to uni" for short.
2) Their "ground floor" is our first floor and their first floor is our second floor.
3) Boys can tell we are American at pubs because we have perfect teeth! This happened at the Sports Cafe.
4) University in London is silly cheap...like $8,000 GBP for 3 years (which is the normal length of time).

On Wednesday, we went to Warwick Castle and Stratford. It was about a 2 hour bus ride which I luckily slept most of. Warwick Castle was inbetween Windsor and Hampton in terms of elegance and impressiveness. There was alot of remodeling and additions in the 1600s and 1800s. The last time anyone lived there was in 1971. One of the employees there told me that the Grenville family who lived there since the 1600s or so, just couldn't afford it anymore in the 70s. So they sold it off and was opened as an exhibition in the early 80s. Countess Daisy was responsible for much of its splendor. She was the lady of the house in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Also, I was told that Prince Charles' great great grandfather lived in that house, and that his mistress was Princess Camilla's great grandmother...interesting!
We then went over to Stratford, which is the home of William Shakespeare. He was born there, met his wife, Anne Halloway there, and his family lived there. We got to see his house and Anne Hathaway's cottage where she grew up. Ashley, Jamie, Aubrey, Tomoko and Haeli and I ate in a 500 year old pub. The fish and chips (and peas) were quite good I must say.
I wonder how much the organization makes off of tourists going through Shakespeare's homes. That is the question!
Side note: umm I don't have one today. Sorry.

Today i went into work, ready for my second full day. Well, right when i got there, Brian, a cameraman, grabbed me and asked for my help. For the next 3 hours I helped him and Chris, the sound technician, set up and watch 2 interviews for The Today Show. We interviewed two men regarding the trial of the accused men of the failed 7/21/05 underground/bus bombings in London. It was very interesting because I had only heard of the successful bombings on 7/7/05. So I not only learned alot about this topic, but I also learned alot about lighting. Brian was really cool and used alot of technical terms like "f***" and "shit." I was barely able to understand! Honestly though, he gave me lots of info today and that was great.
We also learned about the Library. The Library handles all archiving and retrieving past video. It also calls papers to try and buy their photos if NBC wants them. Plus, they do basic editing to help out editors and producers. So, today was a very interesting day.
Oh and... how could I forget. We do verbates, which means to watch an interview and write down exactly what they say, verbatim. Today, I did a verbate for an interview with a Dr. in the Middle East. I think she's Iraqi, but definitely Arab. I don't know her profession, but she had very strong opinions against Bush. She said that the Iraqi people want the US out of Iraq. She believes Bush is incompetent and should resign now. Very strong opinions.
Side note: Computer keyboards are laid out differently here than US keyboards. The left side shift key is about 1/3 the side of ours and the right side enter key is shorter but 2 rows tall. It was screwing me up today. Watch out!