Thursday, October 21, 2010

If I am only allowed to learn one thing from this semester, it has to be that I know I can not handle doing research for a living.

Wednesday 20 October 2010
Wednesdays I spend at the office in Canary Wharf. The tube was pretty slow again, so I was a little late to work. It's not really a big deal here since so many people use it. Monday, when I was 45 minutes late due to a power failure, several hundred people had to WALK through the dark tunnels of the tube because the trains would not move. Some people were trapped for two hours. That is crazy! It was in the papers here but if something like that happened in America all hell would break lose. Americans would not tolerate that.

Also, at one of the downtown campus dorms, one of the elevators has been broken since we got here. The dorm is like 20 floors! Everytime I walk in there I just laugh to myself because of the difference in culture. In America, people want things to be extremely easy and quick. We have no patience compared to people here. For example, on Tuesday when Christine and I ate that "delicious" (Joke.) meal we waited for 15 minutes for our waiter to come back to our table. They had a large party of about 15 people and were paying attention to no one else in the restaurant. They only had two waiters, which was definitely under staffed. Anyway, we just figured out an estimation of the price of our food and left money on the table. It was ridiculous. We were not satisfied. It's just how the culture is here. Just quite different.

Work was bleh yesterday. I worked more on research companies which was less than entertaining. I finally, finished, truly finished the list. At least I think I did. Hopefully next week my bosses will decide which companies to target for the next campaign based on the information I researched. That would make me feel like all that time was actually worth something to them. After I finished that, I worked on editing the brief for the Chairman's Club meeting in early Novemeber. I was researching (shocker!) the biographies of VERY imporatnt people who will be at this meeting. The attendees are the CEO of Think London, President and Chairman of LOCOG (London Organizing Committee of Olympic Games...basically the two people in charge of making the Olympics happen), and CEO's of other companies like Visa, Kraft Foods, Panasonic and several other global companies. I really hope I get to attend this meeting, or at least work more on it. I have already amended my work schedule for this week so that I can be there for it. (And, another reason I amended it was so that I could go to Spain, but that's another story.) We'll see.

After work, I just came back to the dorm. It was a long day and I just wanted to relax, do a little bit of homework and sleep early. I got to do all of those things which was great!

I don't think I have been updating the blog with future trips around Europe. Here are the tickets I have already bought! So excited for every weekend!

Saturday 23 Oct - Birmingham, UK - Cadbury World, the inspiratior for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Sunday 24 Oct - Stonehenge, UK - to see the famous remains from thousands of years ago

Friday 29 October - Sunday 31 October - Porto, Portugal with Sorority sister, Meredith. We are meeting for the weekend

Monday 1 November - Wednesday 3 November - Madrid, Spain to meet other sorority sister, Maggy who is studying in a nearby city for the semester.

Friday 26 November - Sunday 28 November - Geneva, Switzerland. I will be Meredith for this weekend as well. One of my classmates is from a small town outside Geneva and I have already asked her for tips of what we can do there. It's supposedly gorgeous!

Friday 3 December - Sunday 5 December - Katowice, Poland. I am meeting Meredith and her friends. We will be going to Auschwitz for a tour.

Mid December - potential for a trip to Paris with my friend, Elizabeth. Her family is coming to visit and I may be joining them for a weekend in Paris. Why not, right??

It's been very frustrating to plan trips with friends who are studying here in London. It is quite expensive and people just don't want to committ to much or spend the money. I decided I am just going to start doing things I want to do and not wait on them because I would hate to leave feeling like I didn't get the chance to travel.

Still, I can not believe this is actually happening. It's awesome. I'm so thankful for this opportunity. It's truly an amazing experience! Thanks Mom, Dad and Nana for making my wildest dreams come true!

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