Sunday 21 November 2010
Meredith left about 9am and I chose to stay in bed and continue sleeping. It was well worth it because I felt refreshed when I woke up. I slept in until almost noon, but after a long weekend I was absolutely exhausted. After I woke up I showered, had lunch and left for Hillsong.
I love going to HIllsong. I’ve never actually looked forward to going to church until now. It’s less about being ‘churchy’ and more about knowing that Jesus saved and loving people and your community. I love that. I just feel so welcome whenever I walk in the doors. It’s really cool to me, how I walk into The Dominion Theatre and I immediately feel revived and relaxed. I absolutely love it. The music is incredible; the singers are so talented and it’s like being at a concert during worship. The lights are shining different colors and people are jumping in unison to the rythym (not me usually, I’m typically always off beat…not shocking if you really know me) and the singers are bouncing around on stage. I always thought our music at Indian Creek was phenomenal but after going to Hillsong I’m not sure anything will compare. I will be quite, quite sad when I leave my last service at Hillsong in a couple weeks. It probably sounds crazy, but I have been seriously considering applying for an internship in NYC next summer so I can continue going to church there. They have a branch in New York and I would love to be a part of it. The ‘parent’ branch is in Syndey and hopefully someday I will get to go to a service there as well. We’ll see. I think it will happen if I really want it to. Just writing about this is getting me excited about being at Hillsong. That is crazy. I’ve never experience church like this before and I don’t think I ever want it to stop.
After church, I had made plans to meet my roommate from freshmen year at Butler, Caitlin, and her sorority sister Nicole. They are both studying in Limerick, Ireland and were in London for the weekend for the Harry Potter premiere. I decided to show them Covent Garden. It’s an area in Central that has lots of shops and restaurants. It’s a bit touristy but a lot of locals hang here as well. Covent Garden was decorated for Christmas which was beautiful. Huge candy apple red decorative ornaments hung from the ceiling. We briefly walked around and soon decided to eat dinner at an Indian place in the lower part of the shopping center. There was a mini orchestra playing and the music drew us to the restaurant. Nice public relations event, huh? I got a chicken and rice meal that was pretty good. I don’t think I had ever had real, authentic Indian food before. It was decent but nothing to write home about. It was really nice to get to chat with friends about Butler and hear stories of their study abroad experience. I enjoyed the evening. Afterward Caitlin and Nicole headed back to their hostel and I went back to Harrow.
Monday 22 November 2010
When I arrived at work, I received an email from Lucette saying she was working from home and she emailed me tasks to do. I had to dedupe two email lists and manually delete the multiples. Once I finished, I continued my efforts of researching all of the Olympic sponsors and creating a briefing on each one. I am almost halfway done now. Can’t wait to be finished with this project!
After I got home from work, Elizabeth and I walked to Tesco (grocery store) and did a speed shop. I only had a couple hours to shop and get back to my flat because Christine and I arranged to get drinks later than night. I love grocery shopping, especially since I know where everything is in the store now and I can do it quickly and efficiently. I have finally graduated from eating sandwiches literally EVERY meal so going to the grocery is also much more exciting. I’ve “learned” how to make pasta. Meaning, I know to boil water and dump the noodles in for ten minutes. Elizabeth and I also found this really delicious pasta sauce that you just heat up and add to the noodles. So good. I’ve still got a ton to learn about how to actually cook but I am happy to eat something other than a sandwich. I have been content with them because they are fast and always tasty.
When I got home and fixed some pasta (yum time) and then changed out of my work clothes and hopped on the tube to meet Christine and Baker Street. We left shortly after to go to Zoo Bar in Leicester Square. It’s student nights on Monday and if you are on the guest list you can get in free. Sounds glamorous, but all you have to do to get on the “guest list” is email them. Haha. We emailed them and it was great.
We met these two men that work in advertising in London. They seemed really nice and told a about what they do since that it's a field Christine and I are both interested in. Christine is a communications major. We stayed a few hours at the bar talking to them. The atmosphere was cool and it was a fun night.
Tuesday 23 November 2010
I had class Branding class in the morning. I was feel a little sick all day so after class I took it easy and just rested in my room. I worked on homework and tried to catch up on the blog. Pretty boring day, but I guess not every day in London has to be incredible. Normal days are expected sometimes.
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Today was another day on the job at Canary Wharf. My boss was with clients all day so I was given work via email. I had to compare two GIANT email lists and delete the name of clients who were on both lists. I just feel like there has to be software to do that for us…I don’t see how that was a valuable use of my time to spend 4 hours on that. It’s done. One list was clients who have RSVPed to an event in a couple weeks and the other multiple lists (several hundred names in all) were of people we invited but have not RSVPed. We are sending a reminder email and don’t want to send it again to the people who have already committed. Felt like a waste of time, but Lucette said it needed to be done, so I did it. After that, I had to add a piece of data to nearly 150 Chinese companies in our database. What a joy that was.
After work, I headed back to Harrow and spent the rest of the evening at Harrow blogging, doing some homework and Skyping with the fam.
Thursday 25 November 2010
I had class all day for DesignComm and I finally have got my act together for that class. We had group tutorials with Colin, the module leader (the word professor doesn’t exist here) and discussed ideas for the final project. It was really helpful for me. I had two ideas for my project: one about the tube (pictures were posted a couple days ago) and one about how people eat meals in a certain order. For example, Elizabeth and I were at McDonald’s a couple weeks ago and she ate her hamburger around the outside, leaving the middle and then consumed all her fries. So weird to me. Anyway, that gave me an idea for this “Journey” project. I ended up choosing the tube project mostly and had already taken 120+ pictures for it. I started working on it yesterday afternoon. I probably spent almost 3 hours on it. But this morning, when I went to class, I was thinking about my assignments and realized I never took my flashdrive out of the computer. I saved all my work on that flashdrive and I’m pretty sure it’s gone forever. So annoyed at myself. I had already left Harrow when I realized and wouldn’t be returning until Sunday. I texted my friend Hannah and asked if she could check. She did and couldn’t find it. So, basically I just wasted 3 hours of London time for absolutely nothing. It’s fine. I’ll redo it, but still so mad at myself. I was hurrying to leave the computer lab to Skype and just wasn’t thinking about it. Maybe it will turn up, maybe.
For dinner I experience my first Thanksgiving in an English pub and it was strange. We had a planned dinner with our IFSA group at Smollensky’s near Trafalgar Square in an area called “The Strand”. It was a really nice area of town with lots of people about. This area has lots of hotels, restaurants and a few theatres. We asked a police officer for directions (because Elizabeth’s sense of direction isn’t great, and she loves leading the pack). The police officer told us one way and a guy he was talking to said another and the homeless man on the side of the street started cussing out the police officer. All at the same time. I love London. We figured it out and made it to the restaurant about 15 minutes late. It didn’t matter because late doesn’t really exist here even though people say it does. Let’s just say we sat at our table for about an hour and a half before we were served. Granted, there were over 60 people in our group, but why in the world would you tell us to get there at 5:30pm if the food isn’t going to be ready until well after 7pm. The delicious food made up for the wait, though! Or, maybe we were just way to hungry. Not sure. I had spicy black bean soup which was so good. When I ordered it, I figured it would actually have beans in it, no. It had the consistency of a thick broth but it was quite tasty. I also ordered steak which was absolutely delicious! I was nervous because my Dad warned that typically English steak is very well done and I probably wouldn’t like it since I order mine, medium rare. I was delightfully surprised when the steak had a warm, pink center. It was so filling. The steak was served with chips (fries) and cooked Portobello mushroom and tomato. Very good. I’m so glad I didn’t order the turkey, I knew it would not be what I think of as turkey. I don’t think people outside of America can imitate American food. Elizabeth was disappointed with her turkey. I knew she would be. For dessert, I had the most amazing peanut butter cheesecake. So much delicious on that plate. I’d never had it before but it was amazing! I’ll for sure have to get it again!
After the three hour meal, I returned back to Harrow to watch Love Actually with Elizabeth and her friend Katrina who was visiting from the States. I can’t believe I fell asleep but I guess I was really tired. I had been looking forward to watching it all semester since it takes place in London, but I just could not keep my eyes open. Oh well, it will still be the same movie when I get home and I'll still recognize all the scenes from London. I just love watching movies knowing you have been to the place it was filmed. It’s almost like you are a part of the movie since you have seen it and experienced that place in real life.
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