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. ;)