Monday. Here we go again...

I can't sleep, so I'm posting this!! My work week starts again tomorrow and I'm not into it.  Any of you who know me know my work ethic, so yeah. At least I have a specific task that I'm working on (the cell phone user guide in a bunch of languages).  And I haven't fallen asleep at my computer, which apparently one of their MSU interns has done before--haha!

Had lots of fun with Daniel. The silly boy booked his train back for Sunday morning, so we really only had Friday night and Saturday to do stuff.  We ended up going back to this one bar/club that I'd been to before that didn't have cool music. But this time it did! It was like classic 80's, soundtrack hits, and rap (think Flashdance, Ton Loc, Pet Shop Boys). We danced until we were drenched and we went up on stage! It was awesome!

The next day we were being kind of lazy. It was yucky and cold out, so we went to Border's and looked at some books. I know, I know--BORDER'S?? But there was really no alternative. I got the book Slumdog Millionaire (the movie looks great too, and the plot is actually really interesting).  It's about this kid from the streets of Mumbai who answers game show questions right to win a million rupees or something, but then gets thrown in jail under suspicion of cheating, because the police don't believe a kid from the hood could know these things. So the book is him telling the events in his life that led him to know the answer to each question. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it, nerdy as that is.  

I had told Daniel about Camden Market, and we both agreed it's the kind of place our Austin friends would love. So I had to show it to him--it was just as cool the second time.  We got these warm, hand-rolled cinnamon sugar donuts from a little booth, then walked around trying not to get caught taking pictures of all the bizarre people. Here are some visuals, as promised!

                              the whole Camden High Street is filled with 

                              shops and booths that sprawl onto the street.

                              There's also a little canal that runs along it.

                              But the real show is in the intricate maze of 

                              covered stalls:

                              There are hundreds of vendors, and even

                              though you're technically outside the whole 

                              time you feel like you're inside because of  

                              the awnings. Here's an intersection of several

                              aisles of stalls, with a mini food court: 

                                            

                              The foods are usually ethnic, and people yell

                              at you and try to get you to sample them.

                              Check out this bloke's dreadlocks. NEON!!

                               There's a bizarre store called Cyberdog where

                               the mannequins are robots, the outfits are only

                               wearable in a Marilyn Manson-meets-Jetsons 

                               music video, and the whole store has black lights.  

                               Here I am examining some rockin' neon wrist

                               spikes made out of rubber:

                     

                                  and here is a crucified teddy bear... 

                                  on a hat... yeah.

I'm not sure if this video will work or not, but it's a brief clip of Camden Town from early morning, through the set up of stalls, and into the shopping hours...

It's pretty much EXACTLY like that!

Shannon and Abby met some American guys who are neighbors of ours and went out with them that night, but we didn't think it was a good idea to push it since Daniel had a train in the morning.  We're trying to plan a trip to Amsterdam, maybe, plus more stuff in London.

I just found out they have a Museum of Design and a textiles museum, including the national collection of wallpaper (??). So I'm looking forward to checking those out, and I'm trying real hard to convince Daniel to see Phantom of the Opera with me at Her Majesty's Royal Theatre. It's expensive, but c'mon--it's Phantom! It's London!

This Friday Abby, Shannon, and I are going to WALES for the weekend! Yay! At first I wasn't too sure about spending the money, but the pictures look amazing. It kind of reminds me of Ireland in terms of its beautiful countryside and the fact that Welsh signs look kind of like Gaelic.  We'll be staying Cardiff, a bay city in the South of Wales, and then journeying inland to visit Caerphilly Castle (I wonder if it's pronounced 'carefully.' that would be pretty funny). Take a gander:

                                   above: Cardiff Bay & shots of the city

                                   below: Caerphilly Castle, complete with mote

                                                  and medieval warfare devices!

Hope you guys like the playlist.  It's pretty eclectic...just like my own iTunes.  The artists are all British if not from London.  I tried to pick songs that were either about London or had noticeable London singing accents, because I get a kick out of that.  People like Kate Nash and Lily Allen are Indie/Pop, and they along with Estelle (R&B) are some of the newest artists to come out of England and gain popularity in America.  The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Jam were part of the British punk wave (which originated in Camden Town!).  They along with the Pet Shop Boys are noted for singing with their British accents, in order to make a statement during a time when other artists emulated American accents. The Thompson Twins and Flock of Seagulls were major imports in the 'Second British Invasion' of music in America. There are a couple of extremely old songs in there, too. Ask if you have a question about an artist or the relevance/origin of a song and I'll try to answer it. Because I'm just that much of a dork!

I'll keep you updated, as usual. Miss you all!

Daniel's Coming!

Daniel is coming tomorrow from Leeds! I don't know what we're going to do, but hopefully we'll plan some sweet trips.  He kind of surprised me by being on the ball. I called to see what he decided for this weekend and he informed me that his train arrived at 5:30 tomorrow, haha!

There's so much I want to do, I can't even make up my mind.  My roommates and I are trying to plan trips to a couple of different countries, since the dumb CAPA ones were full. We're actually finding it to be cheaper. But I'm not sure if it's worth it to go to A) Scotland again or B) Wales, which looks exactly like Scotland.... We are thinking about Oslo, though.

The last couple days I've been working on copying over instructions in like 5 different languages for a cell phone user's guide. It's hard to explain, haha, but it's better than doing image searches. 

Daniel and I should have a lot of fun, I really want to go to Madam Tussaud's among several museums...and the London Eye.... Hopefully he'll put up with me, since he's already been here!! I'll let you know how it goes.  Cheers until next time.

(WE MISS YOU BRITTNEE!!)

Proud to be an American

Nothing too exciting to report at this time, but luckily I'm halfway through the work week! Yay!

I just wanted to write a post congratulating Obama after today's inauguration.  I'm wholeheartedly relieved that he's our President now.  I wish I could have seen the live inauguration, but we didn't have a TV at work. I'll have to catch later footage. But I was 'watching' via the livefeed of commentary on The Times's website.  It was funny, kind of like watching a baseball game online when it keeps updating every few minutes.  I thought it odd that when I mentioned it to my coworkers, saying how it was moving for those of us who supported Obama, they were like "Oh is it?"  ("Is it" is how they say "Oh, really?")  I thought it was odd because Britons in general are so much more politically conscious. They didn't offer to let me leave early and watch it or anything, haha.

So today I did a website review for a company.  I went to their site and took screenshots of every page, then made notes about what worked and what didn't, from a user standpoint.  I didn't think I would ever use the user feedback analyses we did for Darcy's web design class, but, lo and behold, I had to do it just a month later.  Thank God I just happened to take that (not required) class or I would have had NO clue what I was doing.  I diagrammed the site in a flowchart and added that with the formatted screenshots and notes with a cover page. Then a couple of the guys took it to their presentation. I think they were helping the client with something else and also proposing a website redesign, and needed documented notes on why it wasn't working the way it was...so I was basically glad I didn't screw it up.  

I did some 'artworking' today, too. It's NOT what it sounds like, and I'm not exactly clear on what the all-encompassing term means, but essentially I took existing templates of business cards and altered them for specific clients.  I helped Siu cut up a bunch of proofs for a client, then helped edit ("did the amends" for)some of his other docs for them.  He's making a board game with cards for--get this-- an anti-terrorist agency in the States.  It was pretty crazy.  There are good guys and bad guys or something, and they take a training course and then play the game, where they have 'missions' (whether they are the bomber or the U.S. agent, I guess) that result in a fail or success. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to go into it more but it was definitely weird.

I tried prawn cocktail potato chips today.  I remember the stores having them in Ireland but I thought the idea of shrimp flavored chips was disgusting.  Turns out they're flavored like the cocktail sauce you serve shrimp with, and not like shrimp themselves.  So not as gross as they could be, but I probably wouldn't get them intentionally again...   It's weird, because they were kind of tangy salty, like salt and vinegar, and they also have worcestershire sauce-flavored ones that are popular. Then, today, one of my coworkers was eating beans in something called "HP" sauce, which smelled vinegary. I looked it up and apparently it's a malt-vinegar-based brown sauce that has been popular in England for hundreds of years. They apparently sell different varieties in the U.S. and Canada, but I've never seen it.  Oddly enough, there's a similar condiment called HB sauce, with the same basic ingredients.  HP stood for "Houses of Parliament" and HB stood for "Henry Baines."  So it occurred to me that I have no idea which one Andy was eating.  I just know that I can't handle vinegar flavors nearly as much as the Brits.

Speaking of flavor, Doug livened things up a bit by playing Eminem in the office towards the end of the day. ("He's rather offensive, you know, but brilliant.")  He also tried to pull the "what do you get if you take the word 'best' and remove the three letters closest to the beginning of the alphabet?" thing.....and I didn't fall for it this time!! HA!  But I made the tea anyway.

Daniel might come up this weekend! Or maybe I'll go to Leeds. We'll see. 

Anyway I should probably get going, but I'll give a final shout-out to Jenny, who is 'stalking' me on this blog, and to Barack Obama, who rocks in general and for whom I have very high hopes.

g'night!

"We only show affection to dogs and horses."

Note: I wrote this last night but my internet wasn't working, so I'm posting it now....

I SAW THIS MAN IN PERSON:

Now, that being said, sorry I've been MIA this week.

First of all, my job is pretty cool. I'm working at a graphic design firm, and everyone there is really talented. It's still a bit stressful--and exhausting--working a 9-6 day, but the people are very nice. Most of the people working there are guys, except for Jo and me, and I feel bad because I can't understand what they say all the time. From what I can tell, London accents are faster and harder to understand than other accents around England. I can usually understand Doug, the Creative Director, and Danny and Jo, who take care of clients and accounts. Siu and Andy (designers) are hard to understand though, and so is Mark (I think he's from Sussex). Basically all the younger guys talk fast and cut words off, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

So far this week I've done a lot of image sourcing, which is surfing around for appropriate pictures that clients want as part of their materials. I found and cropped a few banners for a law firm's website, and then I worked on a few logos for The Kennel Club. Tuesday was cool, because I got to go deliver a package to The Kennel Club during the work day. I took the tube to Green Park to drop it off, and since it was lunchtime I walked around the area and grabbed some food. It's so beautiful down there--and extremely rich. I ate lunch in Green Park, and I could see the Ritz Hotel on my left and Buckingham Palace through the trees on my right. I really felt like a Londoner! The design firm's office is pretty cool, too. It's just an open plan office and everyone has their own Mac they work on (even me!). They play funky music while they work--which varies greatly depending on who picks it--and there's a downstairs with a kitchen, bathrooms, recording studio, and a table shaped kind of like an ink splotch where we have our 9 am meetings.

I've made tea a few times now. They drink it SO...MUCH...! Basically if one person wants tea, they have to go around and ask everyone else if they want tea or coffee as well (since they're putting the 'kettle'--an electric water heater--on). It's rude not to, AND you have to remember how everyone takes it (how many spoonfuls of sugar, milk or no milk, etc.). I think I'm getting the hang of it, but I'm always nervous carrying them up the stairs. And sometimes it sucks to be a naive American. Example:
_____________________________________________________
DOUG: "Siu, what is the letter between S and U in the alphabet?"
(a grunt from Siu)
DOUG: "Andy? The letter between S and U? It's Q, R, S...."
ANDY: "V."
DOUG: "What about that American actor from that 70s TV show? He was black and had like a mohawk. Mr.....Mr...."
MAREN: "T?"
DOUG: "YES PLEASE, TWO SUGARS!"
_____________________________________________________

*Sigh* I think they like 'taking the piss' out of me....

So the week was pretty good, and my walk in the morning is nice. It's about a 25-minute walk, but it's around 8:30 when everyone is walking to work and I get to see the city waking up. There's lots of construction, traffic sounds, and people spilling out of the tube stops. The area I work in, in Hackney, is very artsy and trendy, and when I leave at night people are already hitting the pubs. On Monday we checked out the Oxford shopping area, which is mostly way too rich for our blood, and I got to go to TopShop. I've heard about it and read about it and I've always wanted to go. It's supposed to be the largest store (size-wise) in Europe. It's very girly and hip, and although I didn't really have money to buy clothes, I did get some cool nail polishes. Tights are apparently huge over here, too, because they had a whole wall of every imaginable color of opaque tights and leggings. Most of the girls we see around wear short dresses with colored tights and boots. Even to work!

I went for a pint (which turned into three...) with my coworkers Siu and Danny after work on Thursday. It was cool to see them outside of work--Siu is crazy with a few beers in him, although I could understand what he was saying even less. When they had to go home, my roommates Shannon and Abby met up with me and we began to search for another pub. A few guys who had just gotten back from playing a 'football' match were standing outside the pub, and insisted on showing us to this other bar. It was pretty cool, and there was a live band playing for a while. When it closed at midnight we called it quits, because we had plans the next night, too.

Abby had some friends living in Essex that she'd met on Spring break the previous year, so they came on Friday. Luckily I could understand Luke and Paul a lot better, even when they talked fast. We went out to a couple more bars and I FOUND FRULI!!! My absolute faaaaavorite beer in the world, it's really light and strawberry flavored and Belgian. It's not like Lindemann's though, it's different, and you can't imagine the frothy amazingness until you've tried it! It made me think of all my study abroad friends from Dublin, since it was our favorite drink to have at the Porterhouse.

When we got up Saturday morning, the five of us headed to Camden Market. We thought it was a bit closer than it really was, so we actually walked on the way there and took the subway on the way back... but when we arrived it was so worth it. It's this whole amazing culturally rich area with punk and goth people and funky shops everywhere. Seriously, every other person to walk past you was either pierced or had multiple hair colors. Brittnee and Jarrad would have loved it SO much. We went into this covered maze of stalls and there were jewelry and clothing booths, food vendors, ridiculous music playing, head shops, and stores I was too afraid to even go into, haha! I had some amazing vegetarian curry and a samosa from a little Indian food stand. It was my first Indian food in Britain and it did not disappoint! Now I need to try one of the kebab places! :)

So that brings us to Leonardo DiCaprio. Shannon found out earlier this week that Revolutionary Road was premiering in London today, and we figured we'd head to Leicester Square to see what we could see. Amazingly enough, after standing in the cold for about an hour, they showed up at around 6. It was the only time I've ever seen a red carpet rolled out before, so it was cool. Besides Kate and Leo, Kathy Bates was there, and It was pretty ridiculous how hysterical everyone got when they showed up, and we got smashed between the people in front of us and the people behind us. I started cracking up because I could barely breathe....and yeah, I'll admit, I was pretty excited too. Ol' Leo is still one of my favorite actors. It's sad how obsessed I was with him and with Hanson back in fifth grade, and then I didn't get to see either of them until college, when I'd practically forgotten about my infatuation. At this rate I'll probably run into JTT while I'm here. Sigh......

Anyway, after the premier we walked around London's Chinatown for a bit (it was right around the corner). It was so colorful, and it smelled amazing...but it wasn't exactly cheap, so we passed on eating there for the time being. I might be able to add pictures of Chinatown and Leo later. Abby and Shannon managed to take a few when we were there, but my camera battery died earlier this week and I forgot my charger at home. I'm definitely going to have to find a replacement one this week, because we're going on the Jack the Ripper tour this weekend and I really want to take pictures of the area.

It's getting late now, so I'd better get to bed. Working grown-up hours is lame!

Love y'all.

All My Pictures!

Here's the link to use for all my London pictures this semester:

http://marenslondonpictures.shutterfly.com/

God Save My Toes (it's cold.)

CAUTION: LONG ENTRY!! But hopefully it will catch you up on everything I’ve done thus far. (Let’s see if my entries start to reflect my time here by using more ‘English’ language as they go on…)

I was the first one up out of my roommates today—shocking, I know. I awoke naturally at 8:30, fixed myself a cuppa (2 tsp milk, 1 tsp sugar) in the adorable tea cup Brittnee bought me, and had a Scotch egg for breakfast. Scotch eggs are hard-boiled eggs wrapped in breaded sausage. And yeah, they sound kind of weird, but I thought they were good when I had them in Scotland and decided it would be a good, cheap source of protein. Friday we had our orientation with CAPA, the people who hooked us up with our internships. Apparently it’s not technically a sure thing. We all have interviews on Monday (YIKES!), which are more of a formality, but theoretically if they hated us they’d turn us down. Mine’s at 2:30 on Monday, and I’m nervous.  :( 

CAPA has a lot of good resources though, such as pamphlets on cheap eats and cheap shopping for essentials. They also have some excursions planned for between $50 and $350 that go on weekend trips to places like Amsterdam/Bruges (definitely going), Scotland (really wanna go again—is it worth going someplace I’ve already been if I loved it?), Paris (might go, but might just spend one day there when roommate goes with friends), and Wales (want to go, but the excursion itself doesn’t sound like there’s anything interesting there). My friend Daniel is in Leeds, up north, so we plan on hooking up sometime this semester and traveling together or just visiting each other’s cities.

Yesterday we did a little searching and found cell phones and groceries. Apparently people text message a lot here, and it's always free to receive calls and texts (it just costs to SEND them--including for local ones!). We also managed to find the London Bridge. Okay, I know it’s huge, but it’s so hard to find places here. The street signs are like, on the sides of buildings--OCCASIONALLY--but are not on any free-standing signs. It was a little less than impressive, mostly because it smelled bad from all the steamers’ exhaust. And it wasn’t falling down:(I'm standing on the London Bridge there, looking towards the Tower Bridge in the distance.) We did accidentally stumble across one of the coolest food markets I’ve ever seen. My Mom would have LOVED it. We walked into this whole covered area with a dome over it, kind of like how I’d imagined Covent Garden to be, and were overwhelmed by the smells of baking bread, apple cider, smoking meats, and seafood from the fish market. There were gourmet cheese and wine stands, and people were walking around eating samples of stuff. It was like an outdoor Whole Foods with even nicer smells and British accents.

Thoroughly hungry by then, we took the tube back uptown, went shopping at a Tesco, and lugged our groceries home (I forgot how much this sucked from my time in Ireland, although I think we were a bit closer to the store in Dublin). When I got home, my bags had FINALLY been delivered, and I was pretty ecstatic about this, so I unpacked. Then we tried out our phones, made some dinner, and watched the first episode of Celebrity Big Brother. Oh lord, we were warned, but we didn’t anticipate how ridiculous/addictive Big Brother was. It’s HUGE over here, even though it never took off much in the U.S., and people like Coolio and LaToya Jackson are on this one. British Big Brother always makes me think of Ricky Gervais on Extras, when his character freaked out on the show.  Here are some pictures of my flat, showing the bathroom, bedroom, living space, and close up of our kitchen amenities:

So, back to today. We made it out of here by 10 and took the tube downtown to Charing Cross, from whence we walked down the Mall road to Buckingham (pron: Buck-ing-um) Palace, to see the Changing of the Guard! Here’re a few pictures of the guards coming out of the fort area, turning the corner, and finally making their way through the gates near Buckingham Palace. It's cold out, so they were wearing gray wool coats and you can't see their red uniforms well:

Traffic had to stop for the entire (almost hour-long) procession. Pretty ridiculous. Also, it’s FREEZING here and our hands go numb when we try to take pictures. So bear that in mind when noting the blurriness. It’s cold enough to snow, and I keep seeing random crystals flying past, but it hasn’t come down at all. My new wool coat is definitely keeping me warm. It’s mostly my face and toes that suffer. Here’s a picture of me in front of the fountain at Buckingham Palace:

When the big procession was mostly over and we decided we were sick of trying to hold our cameras over the crowd’s heads to get a shot, we walked back up the Mall and through the beautiful Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square. The National Gallery is the big building in the background, which I’m definitely going to visit sometime.

That’s me up there with a Trafalgar lion, and then me in a phone booth with an extremely heavy door and porn on the back wall. It was so cool to stand in front of stuff I’d only seen animated versions of when finding clues…thank you, Eagle Eye Mysteries in London! Here’s a pic of my two roommates, Shannon (left) and Abby, walking down into the tube station:

After all that, we took the tube to Gloucester (pron: Gloss-ter) station to find some lunch. The tube is amazingly easy to use, by the way. I love it and it makes me feel like a real Londoner—plus I don’t get sick to my stomach on it, unlike those double-decker buses. The hallways are filled with movie posters, theater advertisements, and people playing instruments for money. The only scary part is that the doors don’t have a sensor on them, so we once saw a man trying to squeeze in at the last minute, and the back of his coat was hanging out of the doors when they closed. Bit dodgy, that!

We ate lunch at a delicious little French patisserie called Paul, which is actually a chain…but it must be a somewhat authentic chain, because we could barely understand what the people were saying to us. I had a chevre and red-and-green-tomato sandwich chaud, and then bought a mocha so that I could get a free mini macaroon. I was SO excited, since it was my first from a real patisserie. It was a pretty pink one, raspberry, and delicious. Damn Martha Stewart and her faulty recipes.
We headed back uptown to the station nearest our flat, Angel (nearest being at least a 15 minute walk). We went to Boots, which is their glorified version of a CVS. I bought curly hair gel stuff since we’ve all decided that our hair is a completely hopeless situation as far as straightening goes. Even though the weather is unseasonably cold, it’s freaking humid and I’m mad about it. Ah well. At least I managed to resist the temptation of British nail polish…..for now. 

After Boots, we went to a mall across the street, which was funny (the woman who directed us there to find hangers called it a ‘market’, and I remember the Irish calling them shopping centres). It was outdoors and two stories, and you went inside each of the little stores. Or, you could cross all the way under and come ‘round the block again to where you started. We also saw another open-air market, this time with things like scarves and bags and jewelry. I’ll check those out sometime when it’s not freezing.

Sooo, then we finally came back home, where I’m typing this. We didn't find hangers, and we really need them. My feet hurt from doing a huge amount of walking. :( Tonight we may check out a local pub, and/or probably will watch a DVD that one of us brought (hopefully one that’s set in England!).

Cheers,

Maren

I'm in England!

Third day here, and hopefully my (delayed) bags will be delivered soon. Today I'm walking with Shannon and Abby (my roommates and fellow program participants) to get 'mo-bile' phones, find our places of work, and shop for groceries.