LONDON: Days 7-11

Well I've been keeping busy!  So much going on.  Going to pubs/clubs, exploring different neighborhoods, etc.  For the first time in a really long time, I truly feel like I have no real down time.  Today was the first time I took a nap in about a week (and I had weird dreams about living in a hotel that was in a grocery store and both my mom and grandma were dying) and I don't even have time to paint my nails or pluck my eyebrows anymore!  I'm just going to be a hairy un-polished mess by the time I get back to the states!  OH NO!!!!!

SOME THINGS FROM THIS WEEK
Portobello Road:
Portobello Road is in Notting hill.  It's a street lines with hundreds of adorable little shops but on the weekend it is a full on flea market.  We were supposed to wake up early to go but ended up sleeping an extra 3 hours than we were supposed to.  It was way too crowded at that time of day and it also started to rain only about 20 minutes after we got there.  But they sold a whole bunch of delicious foods and cool trinkets.  We're definitely going to try and go back sometime soon.

Brick Lane:
(First of all, on our way there we bumped into what we believe was the set of the new X-Men movie.  My friend's Justin and Zack spent an entire day earlier this week trying to find the set and never really found it and we just found it by accident!  So good.)  Brick Lane was rumored in one of our guidebooks to have delicious Jewish "beigels".  The guidebook made these bagels sound like the most amazing things ever but when we went and got them, they really tasted like normal bagels.  But the nice thing was that a beigel with cream cheese and smoked salmon was only about £2 and most bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon sold in NYC cost about $10.  Brick Lane itself was lovely.  Full of vintage shops and Indian restaurants.  It reminded me a lot of Williamsburg, BK.  We looked at a few vintage markets/shops (pretty expensive) and were harassed by some Indian restaurant employees.  I will DEFINITELY be re-visiting Brick Lane sometime soon. 


Speaker's Corner:
Woke up early on sunday to walk through Hyde Park to where we thought Speaker's Corner (a place where "people come to exercise their Democratic right to free speech."  Basically a place for crazy people to scream about crazy things.) was located.  Turns out, we don't know where the real Speaker's corner is.  Instead we wandered to Marble Arch, an area with a large arch based off of the arch of Constantine.  My guidebook said that the area we were sitting in had been a place where people were often executed up until the year 1739.  CRAZY!  It really is weird to be in a place that has a documented history that is so much older than the US.

Jedward:
My favorite TV here is definitely the reality kind.  And my favorite show is called Jedward Let's Loose.  It is actually the greatest show of all time.  Jedward is/are a set of twins with pineapple heads who won the UK X Factor.  As far as I can tell, they don't actually sing or dance or do anything.  But they are so much fun to watch because they are like giant gay babies who aren't actually gay (yeah right! and they do everything together and talk like idiots and eat bowls of jelly beans for dinner every night.  They even have a body guard who is more like a babysitter.  The whole thing reminds me a lot of Very Mary Kate.

Mayor's Festival:
The Mayor's Festival is located on the Thames river.  It's this amazing huge festival full of food stands, goods for sale, live music, parades, performances, and FIREWORKS!  Crazy amounts of amazing fireworks over the river with double decker buses and German tourists occasionally obscuring your view.

 (Lauren, Chris Fish, Wiggle, Garbage McCann)

Internship:
The most exciting part of my week involves my job.  IT IS AMAZING!!!  I LOVE MY INTERNSHIP!!!!!!!!!  BEST EVER!  Before I even got there I was expecting a fancy office with people in suits and a lot of modern Ikea furniture.  But when I walked into the office I was greeted with a spacious loft full of light and a bunch of hipster-y dudes wearing flannels and skinny jeans.  I am basically the personal programme assistant of this guy named Tom.  And I spend my day (9:30am-6pm) watching short films and responding to emails.  It is THE BEST.  The company is called Future Shorts and is a short film distribution company as well as an organizer of short film festivals.  The first day I watched compilation DVDs of 3 of their festivals so I could get a better idea of what level of content they were looking for.  The second day I took notes and watched the short films that people sent in and had to reject all the ones which were not up to the company's standards.  It's a long day's worth of work, but totally fun.
 
After my first day my boss asked me if I wanted to join him and the other co-workers for a pint (we were all warned that if asked to do this, you DO this because it is a social necessity).  So I went out to the pub and had all my drinks paid for by my co-workers and I met the girl who I am replacing at the company and we had drinks in honor of her leaving the company.  Everyone was SO NICE!  And my boss is particularly awesome.  Just really easy to talk to and super friendly.  He looks/acts like Simon Amstel.  He really liked my enthusiasm and attitude and only ever asked one other intern out for drinks before and that he had a good feeling about me and my work ethic.  WOO HOO!


(Some of the short films/music videos I watched during work: Luv Deluxe, Heart Breaker, Midnight EP Trilogy, The Lost Tribes of New York etc.)