Tonight at 11...

After week one of the internship (and a request for information from AJ), I decided it was high time that it make an appearance in the blog. So here goes:

Instead of taking a fifth class this semester, I am interning at the London Bureau of NBC News. I know, pretty cool, right? It is definitely an amazing opportunity. I'll be working Mondays from 9:30-4 and Wednesday nights from 4-10. There are three other interns. I've met two of them and they are really nice, so it will definitely be fun getting to know them, as well as all the other people in the office. There are British, American, and Spanish people working at NBC, so I'll be meeting all sorts of new people. It's great to get out of the Notre Dame bubble twice a week. Even though I'm in London, we only take classes and live with ND people, so an internship is the perfect way to branch out. And while I'm branching out, I will be learning a whole lot. Because my first week basically taught me that I am a little bit out of my element in the broadcast journalism world, ha, ha.
My limited experience with broadcast journalism was taking a class of the same name during the spring semester of my sophomore year with Gary Sieber, former news director and current Saturday meteorologist at WNDU in South Bend. I really enjoyed the class and thank goodness I took good notes or else I would not know what half of the people in the office were saying to me. Here's a little vocab lesson, NBC style:

vox pops=man on the street interview (don't ask me how they got that one...)

logging=transcribing an interview

paps= still haven't figured that one out yet, although I've heard it several times throughout the day. But who knows? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the accent...

There is a lot of down time at the internship, but also some exciting moments. I got to test the headset and microphone for the correspondent appearing on the Today Show on Monday. I talked to the producer in New York, who gave me the terribly difficult task of counting to ten and then counting backwards from ten. I also astounded everyone by being able to use a typewriter, which is apparently a very rare skill among college kids these days. And on Wednesday night we went to the theatre where Mamma Mia is playing to ask people about why they are ABBA fans. Apparently something is going to run on the Today Show about ABBA World, the new ABBA museum that just opened here in London and they needed some shots of fans. It was really cool to be out on the street with a camerman! People definitely looked at us as they walked by, trying to figure out if we were famous or important reporters or something. But instead of Brian Williams or Anne Thompson, they just saw Maura and Kristin, the lowly interns. But maybe some of the footage will end up on the Today Show. Keep an eye out for it!

Bon appetit!

Kelly and I made our second attempt at cooking tonight and it was a rousing success! No smoke alarm issues this time, haha.

I'm sure most of you reading this are shocked that I didn't burn down the flat or accidentally chop off a limb while we cooked, but dinner actually tasted pretty good. Kelly found a recipe for this delicious garlicy, lemon butter sauce for chicken and we also made green beans and potatoes with sundried tomatoes. It was a great team effort. We struggled a little bit with the conversions to liters and grams and all that, so it was a good thing her boyfriend Dan was there to help us out :) Here are some pictures of the proud cooks and our cute little table.

It was really fun to cook together and definitely made me feel pretty grown up. More so than popping something in the microwave every night, as I did when I lived in an apartment this summer for my internship. I'm definitely looking forward to finding some more recipes and experimenting in the kitchen!

Covent Garden

My new favorite place in the city is Covent Garden, one of the many amazing markets that London has to offer. Kaitlin and Megan and I went on Sunday. I almost stayed behind to do some reading, but I figured that I better go out and take in all that London has to offer while I have the chance...so that reading still has yet to be done. But Covent Garden was more than worth it!

I crossed over Drury Lane on the way there, but sadly enough, did not have an sitings of the Muffin Man, ;)

The market itself was bustling, full of shops and resturants and street performers. We heard two amazing opera singers and an awesome string band that played some great classical songs. All the shops were great, but I had a few favorites: all of the stands with beautiful scarves, one that had hand-carved wooden pens, one that had beautiful London prints for sale (I'm definitely going back to get one for my room!), and some of the cutesy, girly stores in the center of the market. I also stopped in Candycakes, a cupcake place, and pretty much decided that if I die and go to heaven, it will look like that store. The walls were mint green and the lighting was pink. And the display cases were filled with cupcakes with glittery frosting, cookies, cakes, and there was also ice cream and milkshakes. We stopped and and had tea at a cute little place called Ella's, too. And we also made plans to go back and get Nutella crepes from Creme de la Crepe, another of the really cute shops there.
The name of that store pretty much sums up the entire place: a little cutesy, but also wonderful (and probably delicious, in the case of the crepes). And a cutesy and wonderful combo is right up my alley!

A Castle Better than at Disney World

Saturday was an early morning for Dan, Kaitlin, Megan, Kelly, and I, because we were off to Windsor to see the Queen's Castle in this cute little town about an hour from London. Windsor is known as the summer palace for the Queen, but also the place that she most likes to spend her time when she doesn't have to be doing official business at Buckingham Palace. We had to walk for about an hour to get to the bus station, but walking through London is always enjoyable because there is so much to see and take in. And on this cloudy Saturday, the scenery we were lucky enough to see was none other than Buckingham Palace.
After a bit of a nap on the ride there, we got off the bus literally steps away from a beautiful, picturesque, 900-year-old castle. It was amazing. Even better than Cinderella Castle at Disney World, formerly my ideal image of a castle. And it pains me to say that as a lifelong Disney lover, but its true. See for yourself.
Windsor was absolutely amazing. It sits on a hill overlooking the rest of the town, including Eton College, where the famous Princes William and Harry attended school.The decorations and paintings inside were spectacular. There were a few too many rooms decorated solely with weapons (Tim, you totally would have loved it) for my taste, but the rest of it was absolutely beautiful. All the decorating was so ornate and detailed, even on the ceilings! I also really liked this portrait of Queen Elizabeth I as a young girl; it was something about the vibrant colors and the sweet, yet confident, expression on her face that drew me to it. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so here is the best version I could find online.
We also saw the beautiful Saint George's Chapel, where Henry VIII and several other kings and queens were buried. It is so crazy that I am getting to see all this stuff; Kelly and I were saying that we have to almost pinch ourselves and remind ourselves that it's real, it actually is Henry VIII's tomb (or insert other amazing European landmark here).
And one of the cutest parts of the day? Sitting and eating our packed lunches on a bench in a little courtyard of one of the man buildings and turrets of this beautiful castle.

When in Rome

ROME, here we come!!

Thanks to some spectacular research and planning by Dan, aka Yikes, we have flights and a hostel for our trip to Rome for Easter. Needless to say, we are pretty excited! Dan, Kaitlin, Megan, Kelly, and I are flying over to Rome together after class on Holy Thursday and then Dan, Kaitlin, Megan, and I got rooms in a hostel for the three nights we will be there. Luckily, we got private rooms for a pretty decent price, so we won't have to worry about any creepers or weirdos while we are there. It is called Hostel Beautiful (hopefully they equate cleanliness with beauty) and is about an hour's walk from the Vatican. But it is also close to the famous Trevi Fountain, where I MUST go and toss in a coin and make a wish. I've seen too many chick flicks where girls get to do that to pass it up (Lizzie McGuire, Sabrina, and another wonderful Olsen twins film that may or may not have supplied the title to this blog post...). Oh, and I think we get to see the pope too. No big deal or anything. ;)

A Perfect Day in London

So I think that our day on Friday should be submitted to one of those "Day Trips in London" travel guides that tells people how to spend a perfect day in London. Because it was pretty wonderful.
My day started with my Portrayal of Royalty class, one of my electives for the required Images of Britain Through the Arts class, and it was my favorite class of the week. My professor is the cutest little British woman who works as a museum curator. She gave a lecture on portraits of the royal family in the 1500s for the first half of the class--I never knew you could learn so much from a painting! And the best part is that during the second half of class, we went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and actually saw the paintings we had just heard about IN PERSON. Can you tell I was a little excited? (yes, that's probably an understatement...) I just felt so lucky that ND's classroom building is so close to such amazing museums and really gives us the opportunity for our learning to come alive, as cheesy as that sounds. Where else can you hear a lecture about something and then actually go and see it? Some of the highlights of the visit were portraits of the infamous King Henry the VIII and his many (yes, six) wives by Hans Holbein the Younger.

After eating some lunch and buying our tickets for our trip to Windsor on Saturday, Dan, Dan, Kaitlin, Megan, Kelly, and I headed out to Camden Market, via the famous Tube, London's subway system. It was a simple, 11 minute ride, the perfect way to ease into using the Tube. After riding the Tube, I don't think I ever want to go on the T again. It was clean, efficient, and even had comfy seats. On the escalators, I had a little trouble remembering that you stand on the right side and walk up on the right. Except by walk, they mean race, and I almost got trampled a time or two (is anyone else noticing that me almost being run over is becoming all too common?).

Camden Market is a great market to go to during the week in London. It had clothes, leather goods, some crafts, touristy stuff, and then lots of other random stuff. Part of it was in what used to be a stable, which was really cool. I was grateful that it didn't still smell like a stable though...And of course, we got some goofy pictures with the horses.

Then we took the Tube back into the city to take a gamble on tickets to Legally Blonde. A lot of the theatres do last minute ticket lotteries the night of a show and you can get them for reduced prices. We waited in line with about 30 other people to get our lottery numbers at 5:30 and then anxiously awaited the drawing at 6 pm for the 7:30 show. They drew several names and we were starting to get nervous when they drew my name! They faked us out by drawing another person named Megan, but then our Megan was picked next. By some miracle, we had our four tickets to the show! For some strange reason, the Dans didn't mind heading off to the pub instead of going to the show (ha, ha). One of the women in line near us even said that she had never seen that many people at a ticket lottery, so we really lucked out. Because we were in a rush to make it to the show, we grabbed a classy dinner at Pizza Hut--how American of us. Although, the Pizza Huts here are a lot nicer than the ones I remember in the U.S. However, I think we are planning more cultured meals from now on.

Our luck continued when we got back to the theatre and Kaitlin and I realized our tickets were in the FRONT ROW. It was absolutely amazing to see a show from the front row. We saw every wink and smile and expression on the actors' faces--the girl who played Elle Woods was phenomenal and we could see she was actually crying during one of the really emotional scenes in the show (no spoilers here, because I'm sure Julie is reading this and doesn't want me to give away the ending!). I was really amazed at how well all the British actors did American accents--they were all so talented and had amazing voices. The show itself was great, so fast-paced and upbeat. I was smiling the whole time!

London is a pretty amazing city, that we can do all of that in one day! And yes, if Frommers or one of those other guidebook people call, we would be willing to share our fabulous adventure planning skills. For a price, of course. ;)

Mopeds look cooler in the movies

So I've never really liked crossing the street. Even in little, suburban Weymouth, Massachusetts. It just makes me nervous. I'm not really sure where this fear comes from, except maybe that one time when my sister Julie, my mom, and I almost got hit by a car picking up pizza from the Venetian on a Friday night. Apparently it has left me scarred for life, though, because crossing the street in a busy city is probably somewhere up there on my greatest fears list (but well beneath snakes and wearing my ND headband with the logo upside down). So naturally, I don't like crossing the street in Boston, home to the world's worst drivers. Or so I thought.

Crossing the street in London is like taking your life in your hands. Like tightrope walking without a net. This morning while walking to school I had the lovely experience of almost being run over by a moped. Actually, a fleet of little mopeds in what might have been a triangular shape. But I was too busy running away to take note. (It reminded me a little too much of the time I covered Bike Week, the motorcycle fest in NH, for the Concord Monitor...).
Yes, the very same mode of transportation often used by handsome European men to wisk away Hollywood starlets in plenty of chick flicks becomes an instrument of near death in London. Apparently the British guys who ride mopeds missed that memo, because they find it more fun to accelerate at poor innocent people as they cross the street.

Not to mention the cars driving at a million miles per hour on the wrong side of the road. Or the giant double decker red buses. And the bike riders, who are almost more dangerous than the mopeds. The near death incident with the bikes was the other day, so I'm sure I'll be running from a bus or a car any day now. But don't they say the best way to conquer your fears is to face them?

But that doesn't mean I'll be wearing the ND headband upside down any time soon. ;)

Cheers

Since my last post lacked any original material from me, I figure its about time I recap the past couple of days. So here goes, hopefully I don't forget anything!

Sunday was a calmer day. I walked to the London Centre and got all my books for my classes on loan from the library, which was amazing. A zero pound total for all my books this semester, although I'm sure it will more than even out with the whole groceries and providing my own food thing. A nice Mass and dinner at a pub with the whole program rounded out the evening, and then I headed back to the flat to try and get organized. There are just so many little things to do and errands to remember to run, especially at the beginning as I am adjusting to life across the pond. I am definitely going to be more independent and on top of things when I get home (Good news for all of you who have to deal with my constant freak outs! ha, ha).

Monday was the first day of classes for everyone else, but since I will normally be doing my internship that day, I had a nice, easy day. I practiced walking to my internship, which luckily for this directionally-challenged girl is a very easy 20 minute walk from my flat. And it is through a very safe neighborhood full of shops and stores (yes, that part was for you, Mom).

Monday's grocery trip was definitely an arm workout. Two six-packs of water (on sale!) and a jumbo box of laundry detergent was a little much for me to handle. I guess Michele and I should have been lifting weights that were more than five pounds during all our workouts last semester...
On Monday afternoon, Kaitlin and I went to an AMAZING exhibit at the National Gallery, which is right next to where we go to school. Which is pretty fabulous, in my opinion. The Notre Dame London Center is right off of Trafalgar Square, one of the most famous squares in London. It was named for the naval Battle of Trafalgar, which the British won (if you hadn't already guessed that). Here it is, although slightly zoomed out to capture all there is to see in the square.
But enough bragging about the Notre Dame London Centre, back to the exhibit. It's called "The Sacred Made Real" and is only at the National Gallery until the end of the week, so we had to take advantage ofquickly.
The exhibit focused on Spanish Catholic art from 1600-1700, a time when the artists were trying to make their work more realistic so that the people would feel closer to God. And let me tell you, these paintings and sculptures looked like they were about to come to life right in front of me. There were rooms focused on the saints, including a particularly life-like, gruesome sculpture of John the Baptist's head (post-beheading, of course) that made me feel a little bit squeamish. The rest of the rooms featured art that depicted different scenes from the Passion, with the last room being death. The last room was a little bit of a downer, but also fitting because the tone of the exhibit was so somber. It was just an incredibly moving experience; I'm so thrilled we got to see it before the exhibit ended.

My roommate Kelly and I cooked in our flat for the first time on Monday night. And naturally, we set of the smoke alarm. Oops. Blame it on the strange, thick British bacon we were cooking, not the cooks.

And Monday night finished off with a night at the Sir John Oldcastle pub up the street with the Dans, Kaitlin, Kelly, and Megan, for their Monday night drink specials. Cheers!

Because my description of Nation just didn't do it justice...

...here's a link to a promo video for the play.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/45462/home/nt-live-homepage.html

Hello from London!

I've arrived safely (and with both suitcases!) to jolly old England! The first few days have been a whirlwind, but also really exciting, despite the jet lag. There is so much to see and do here in London, and in all of Europe, that I'm glad I have four months to fit it all in! I'm going to try and get it all down here, which probably means this post will be far too long. But if its any incentive to keep reading, there will be several photos to go with the info. :)

The flight from DC to London went smoothly and I even slept a bit, which was nice, because we had a full day ahead of us once we arrived in England. Traffic meant that it took over an hour to get to the flats in Clerkenwell, where we had some time to unpack before going on our first walk to the London Centre, our classroom building. It's about a 45 minute walk and let me tell you, crossing the street here is an adventure in itself. At every crosswalk, there are directions written on the ground so that confused pedestrians like myself know which way to look and (hopefully) don't get run over by the cars driving on the wrong side of the street.


Orientation for 130 jet-lagged college students probably isn't the best idea, but it was definitely exciting to hear about all the cool places we are going to go this semester. And it doesn't hurt that most of the people involved in the London Program either have a fabulous British accent or are very witty, or both.

And on Friday night, Dan, Dan, Kaitlin and I went to our first British pub of the semester, The Horseshoe. It was a really cool local place, just a few minutes' walk from the flat. I tried John Smith's Ale (or something like that...see Dan's blog for any and all brew related accuracies...http://londanblog.blogspot.com/). A perfect end to my first day in London.

Friday's orientation was equally sleep-inducing, but I registered for classes and luckily got everything I wanted (more to come in a future post). Dinner was an adventure for those of us who no longer have a dining hall to depend on. Dan and Kaitlin and I went to Tesco's, the grocery store down the street to grab a pizza to cook. If only we knew how to turn the oven on. After almost an hour, several failed attempts, and Dan almost resorting to microwaving the pizza, we successfully turned the oven on. We're still not sure how we did it.
But luckily enough, we had thought to buy some french bread and nutella (thanks Dan!), which is basically chocolate peanut butter and the most wonderful thing in the world, so we devoured that while waiting for some pizza. And then it was time to hit the pub, because that's what the Brits do. Tonight's drink of choice was pear cider at a pub called The Peasant.

Saturday was a day for adventure. And a lot of walking. I don't think my feet have recovered yet. I'm thinking I will be in excellent shape before the semester is through. At least I hope so. Gotta counteract all that nutella somehow...
The Dans (that one's for you Michele!), Kaitlin, Kelly, Megan, and I got up early and braved a walk through the rain to Leicester Square, where we got half-price tickets to the theatre (imagine me saying this in a British accent). We picked the cheapest one, because we're poor college students in the most expensive city in the world (which is fabulous, if you couldn't tell yet). It was called Nation and we were expecting it to be something regal, about royalty wearing wigs. But more on that later.
We browsed in the National Gallery, where I saw actual Van Gogh and Picasso paintings. The colors were so beautiful! After stopping at the London Centre for a quick lunch and Googlemap's confirmation that we knew where we were going, we headed towards the River Thames. No, not the Thames River, but the River Thames. Because we are British now, after all. Walking across one of the many bridges over the river, we got a great view of the London Eye and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Then a walk along the river to Borough Market, where there is basically everything you could imagine: fruits, veggies, fish, ment, cheese, cheesecake, candy, meat. Even a couple birds for sale with the feathers still on them. I kept walking. Quickly.
We stopped in a beautiful church on the way out, where they claim that Shakespeare once worshipped. And then of course there was St. Paul's Cathedral, which was so tall and beautiful. Our feet were too tired to climb the more than 600 stairs to the top, so we decided to save that for another day.

Dinner was at another pub up the street, and its name is now escaping me (Again, refer to Dan, haha). However, it is definitely my new favorite and I think the Saturday Exploring gang may head back tomorrow night for their Monday Night drink specials. And then it was across the river again to see Nation.

And no, there were no gray wigs or queens or kings. Instead Nation was a crazy, trippy story of an English girl stranded on an island with the natives after a tsunami. But that's not all. Throw in a rotating stage with really cool sets, the devil, a parrot, a god named Emo, some random singing in what was not supposed to be a musical, and dancing and swearing that did not fit the advertisement that said "family entertainment." There was far to much plot and it was just a little weird. And despite a line or two that assumed the audience was too dense to realize that the rotating stage represented a globe, we still LOVED it. That just seems like the type of thing to do when you are abroad, get tickets to a random show that you can never see anywhere else. And lucky for us, it turned out to be great.

So I'd say that part one of the adventure is going pretty well so far. :)
More to come as the adventures come my way!

Adventures

Yes, this blog is named after the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie. It's a cinematic gem and if you haven't seen it, you should. It's everything I want my semester abroad to be and more. British lords, sword fights in the Globe theater, plaid pants, attempts to make the Buckingham Palace guards laugh with silly jokes, and trumpet music playing in the background the whole time. If this means nothing to you and you have ten minutes and thirty seconds to spare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB1i9MUg7Nw&feature=related.

Ok, so maybe this was my vision of a semester abroad when I was about ten years old. At 21, I've got bigger plans for my European adventure (and hopefully cuter pants). There are places to see, people to learn about, and a completely new culture to immerse myself in. Although I suppose I wouldn't complain if there was a cool trumpet soundtrack playing in the background.

I'm thinking that my motto for this semester will be "Go with the flow." I'm not really sure what to expect, but whatever comes my way, I'm ready. And open. What better way to have an adventure?

Although, at the moment, my adventure is the pile of clothes on my bed that somehow needs to fit in my suitcases by Wednesday morning, when I head across the pond!