Living in London.

Well if you read my last post you know this is the second of the two I'm posting today... the last one was a catch up of my trip to Ireland... so this one starts nearly 2 weeks ago...

... Which was a week of visits and birthdays!  It was a pretty exciting week that started with getting to see Lissa for dinner on  Monday!  She, Dean, Caitlin and I had dinner in the Piccadilly area for Lissa's last evening in London.  It was wonderful catching up and sharing stories from our study abroad experiences.  

The next night was Megan's Birthday, she was turning 21 so we went to a nice dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant followed by cute cocktail bar called Adventure.

It also was Lucy's 20th birthday that weekend, so the first thing we did in celebration was go to Singing in the Rain at Palace Theater.  It was a cute play!  The theater was neat too but terrifying because the balcony was a really steep angle.  But I loved the play anyways!  Especially when it actually rained on stage, wasn't expecting that!

The next night we continued Lucy's celebration by going on the Camden pub crawl!  It was really nice having a map of different pubs and bars all planned out, we got to see 5 in 5 hours!  But some of them I wish we could have stayed at longer.  I would definitely do something like that again!

The pub crawl was just part of my weekend of touring!  That weekend I was all over London, since it was my first weekend in London for the past few weeks.  I went to the Tate Modern Art museum, which was decent and worth going since its free, but compared to the one in Paris it was nothing.  But it also had a bit different of modern art, less abstract objects and a lot more abstract paintings/drawing/photographs, or 2D works.  

After the museum a few of us went for afternoon tea at that adorable tea shop I found by tower bridge.  Afternoon tea is absolutely amazing, with my sweet tooth it is the perfect early dinner! I got my favorite vanilla black tea and the afternoon tea included a scone, biscuit like cookie, brownies, lemon bars, homemade strawberry jam, this cream butter stuff, and finger sandwiches with salmon and cucumber... I bet your hungry now!

That weekend I also did some touring by myself in Kensington.  It was refreshing doing something completely on my own, deciding what I wanted to do, how long I would stay, and taking my own time.  Kind of reminded me of my touring time in Boston. When I first got off the tube I saw 3 museums all next to each other, the natural history one was the reason I came but the line was so long I decided to check out the Victoria and Albert first.  And I was so glad I did!  Its a fabulous museum, and not one that you think of right away and I don' understand why. It has a little bit of everything from clothing to sculptures to books to modern things... like an apple computer... that made me feel old, because I used the color one in school in 4th grade and thought they were the coolest things ever! 

I also checked out Harrods, which is definitely over rated but at the same time very impressive.  And looped back around to the natural history, which no longer had a line.  I walk in and thought I was in the Smithsonian at first.  Unfortunately that raised my expectations and this museum didn't even come close!  Don't get me wrong its a very good museum with nice exhibits, one was particular neat it was the development of the earth and how it changes form.  But overall it does not match up to the DC Smithsonian. 

I was kind of done with museums for awhile so I went home and ran into some people going to see Iron Lady at the movie theater to see if it would help learn about British politics for our class, so I figured why not it has Meryl Streep in it so it will be good.  It was actually really good, I don't know if it helped much with our class but did give some understanding to the parliamentary system.

Speaking of class... they're going well.  I obviously don't like my UK political science one since I don't like politics in the US but I'm getting through it.  I really like my two marketing classes though.  Its nice because one of my marketing courses is more about strategy and brand management while the other is more about consumer insights and segmentation so it is a good combination.  Its funny that we've already had 4 full weeks of classes, sometimes it feels like we just started.  But now we have papers and projects starting up.  One thing I'm really missing is my study places from IU.  I tried to study at a Starbucks here but is was a big fail... primarily because the internet didn't work.  But there really isn't any great and convenient places to do work that I've found yet.  

Work is also going alright.  While often I run out of work to do, the stuff I am working on is interesting.  I've gotten to do a lot of client research.  Both for target segments and digital media.  I've also gotten to work on some branding for Aqueduct.

But I often look forward to the weekends!  This weekend I was particularly looking forward to the day trip to Oxford.  It was sponsored by Arcadia so it was convenient and easy.  I boarded a bus at 9am and arrived in Oxford before 11.  The bus ride was really nice because I got to see the landscape.  It's always nice to leave the city and see grass and trees and country side.  

When we got to Oxford we had a tour guide who took us on a walking tour through the schools.  We learned what a bunch of the building are and some of the history.  And of course saw another Bridge of Sighs... I've decided there's one everywhere here... even though that's not true I have now seen three!  Which is actually kind of neat!

After the tour, a group of us went to Truff Tavern, which is where Bill Clinton used to go when he was at Oxford apparently.  It was an absolutely delicious lunch!  Following lunch we checked out the Historic Science Museum on the way to Christ Church College.

Christ Church College is where part of Harry Potter was filmed.  So when you walk into the coridor you actually feel like your in Howgrads... its crazy!  Part of the outside was made there as well.  And the great dinning hall inspired the great hall in Harry Potter also!  Check out these pics... you'll feel like your there:

On a side note, the college is also where Alice in Wonderland was started as well.  So there are several contribution to the book in the college as well. 

When we left the college is started to downpour so we took shelter in a bookstore.  I haven't just looked around a bookstore in so long!  It was really nice.  I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before or is just different in the UK, but books are published with neat covers.  I thought maybe that was because of the new competition of e readers.  Trying to change the packaging.  But who knows!  It was just really cool.

That was the end of our trip, so we headed back to the coach and to London and were back in an hour!

 

Other than Oxford it was just a really relaxing weekend.  I did some shopping and bought a few things at a totally American place... Forever 21 but I needed some clothing that was not sweaters since that's all I packed and believe it or not it is getting warmer! While I was shopping I found a delicious cookie shop called Ben's cookies, its a chain but I got an orange chocolate cookie that was awesome. 

And I did some homework this weekend, getting into the school work. Since the semester is now half through.  I cannot believe its exactly halfway now.  But I feel as though I have done a lot in these 7 weeks though, excited for the next 7 as well!