switching jobs, travelling and making memories!

I just realized how far behind I am on my blog and decided I am going to get caught up here and now. So all those times before when I said I would keep it short- this time you can count on it because I am writing the blog from work and I don’t have any of my little reminder notes with me. (Yes I write little reminder notes- with so much happening I want to be able to look back and remember it all!)

The biggest thing that has happened since I last wrote is that I have switched jobs. Instead of working at the small family-owned shoe store I am now working at the giant multinational Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). I am now officially on the Business Management team for Debt Capital Markets and Risk Solutions (quite a mouthful I know!) The decision to switch internships was an extremely difficult and well thought out one. It was really hard to leave Rufus, but in the end it came down to the fact that I feel qualified to walk into a small family-owned business and ask to work for an interns wage- I don’t know that I would have the same luck walking into Bank of America. I decided that I needed to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Mountbatten Institute, and I truly believe that the process switching has taught me more than I ever could have learned just working one internship. Although still waiting for more tasks I am adjusting well to RBS and taking advantage of a lot of the online seminars they offer. I have made friends with the guys who sit around me and I have had to rearrange my budget because I find myself going out to lunch with them quite often.

And in a quick picture summary of what else has happened since I last blogged-

-        My best friend from when I was little (who is still one of my best friends today) came to visit! I hadn’t seen her in years and it was great to catch up!

-        Halloween weekend was a blast. Went to a big club Saturday night and the followed up on Sunday by going to “Church”- a costume bar in London that is open from 12-4pm on Sunday afternoon!

-        We had a fun leadership weekend in the English countryside town of Dorset where we rock climbed stunning cliffs over the English channel and scaled a high rise ropes course. It was a ton of fun and I did things I never thought I would- like make it further on the high rings than anyone else in my group!  (and will never do again- walking off a little ledge from way way high up can now be checked off my bucket list forever )

-        A group of 16 of us rented a mansion in a small town 2 hours outside London named Kingslynn. We had a great time, made a giant pasta dinner for everyone, and even got to visit Britain’s biggest beer store!

-        I took Thanksgiving off of work and cooked a full dinner for 9 of my friends. My mom sent me stuffing mix and I ordered Lime Jello online and it was great to have a little bit of America over in London- even if it did make me a bit homesick!

-        The first weekend of December 10 of us ventured to Marrakesh, Morocco and had the time of our lives. We got harassed by small children, ate delicious food (pastilla is my absolute favourite- it is the same sweet and savory pie I had at Anissa’s and I was thrilled at the opportunity to order it every time we ate out!), hung out on a rooftop bar, took at horse drawn carriage through the town, saw monkeys and cobras, wandered through endless markets with the most beautiful array of smells and colors, went to a hammam spa and rode camels! Have to say- absolutely loved my first trip to Africa!

-        One of my favourite events to date was SantaCon (short for Santa Conference). I’m not quite sure who organized it, but literally 1000’s of people dressed up in Santa costumes and went all over London! (I have heard that similar events happened in New York and Boston- hopefully it will spread to Boise by next year!)

-        





























I got to spend Christmas in sunny California at my Grandparent’s house surrounded by all of my mom’s side of the family. It was so great to see everyone and to get to enjoy some well-missed sunshine- nothing quite like Ice-Skating on an outdoor rink in downtown LA to counteract the gloom of a London winter!

-        After some last minute rearranging and digging deep into my pocketbook I was able to tack a trip to Boise onto the end of my Christmas vacation. Getting to see home, and my friends and pets and car was a much needed piece of heaven. Had a great few days and a wonderful New Years before flying at bright and early on January 1^st!

-        After a short first week back in London I jetted off to Switzerland to stay with my friends Anissa and Heather. Heather’s family has a beautiful apartment near the lake in the little town of Bouveret about an hour and a half outside of Geneva. I went skiing the Swiss and French Alps (after not having skied since I was 9!) for half day and spent an afternoon wandering a quaint village in the Alps before relaxing at an outdoor hot springs nestle in the snowy mountains!

Aside from that I am getting on well. I have fallen in love with the Zumba class at my gym and thoroughly look forward to making a fool of myself every Wednesday evening. I am happy to say that it is officially light outside when I walk to work and that everyday it is getting closer to being light when I head home. I am very much looking forward to longer days and warmer weather! Alright I did it! All caught up and ready to be a better blogger in 2012!!! 

je suis désolée je ne parle pas français

 Ok- so I'm not really sure how I got to be 2.5 months behind on this blog. Time is both flying and crawling at the same time! I cannot believe I get to go Stateside in a week! SO EXCITED. Its pretty much all I think about. Definitely going to bring my carry-on and one of my giant suitcases just so I can stuff it with fruit snacks, wheat thins, deodorant, candy canes and shoot, I know there is more but I can't remember. I keep telling myself I should write those things down! Alright so now I am going to try to get you all caught up on the last couple of months of my life in London- there have been some pretty big changes! I'm going to follow the wisdom of Maka Chee however and just write a whole bunch of smaller entries so I actually finish them because finding the time to do it all at once is proving impossible!

So when I last wrote I got all the way up through the end of September.  On to October!

First big adventure of October (and the topic of this blog!) was my trip to THE SOUTH OF FRANCE to visit my friend Anissa with my roommate Emily!

The adventure started early on the morning we were leaving for France because I knew I couldn't go to France without a camera (and remember that mine got stolen/lost) so I spent the morning following Googles wrong directions to the BestBuy equivalent so I could buy a camera and then I went on the wrong train to work... nothing like being 30 minutes late when you are already scheduled to leave a few hours early!

The next bump was that there was a mixed up and I ended up with 2 return boarding passes and no boarding pass from London to France. No normally this wouldn't be a big deal, you could print the pass at the airport and board your flight like a civilized person. But no.  We were flying RyanAir- which has amazingly low prices, but then screws you over by charging an arm and a leg for other trivial things- like printing a boarding pass. So after we had waited in line to get our passes stamped (that person apparently doesn't even look at the pass because they stamped it just fine) and waited in the security line we found out I had the wrong boarding passes and, after desperately trying to negotiate with the lady at the desk, I had to pay £40 (roughly $65) to get the pass reprinted. Keep in mind the price of the whole roundtrip ticket was only £60. Needless to say I was in tears, we were now running late and my roommate at just glared at the lady and asked "how can you stand working for a place that does this." Anyway- we took of sprinting through the airport and then RyanAir struck again. As we were sprinting through the airport a guy stops me and says he has to weigh my bag (because RyanAir also charges you about the price of the ticket if your bag is more than 10kg). He gets to randomly select which bags he weighs- so I was pretty pissed that he picked the only two people sprinting through the airport. Just not nice. But we ended up getting there just fine and then had the MOST amazing weekend.

We landed in Marseille and drove down to where Anissa goes to school in Aix en Provence and stayed in her apartment. Then the next morning we wandered around X (that's the nickname for Aix en Provence) and it was SUCH a quintessential French town.

Anissa and I in X

- After a morning in X (which included some of the best pizza ever from Pizza Capri) we drove about 20 minutes down to Marseille- which is on the water and was so gorgeous and SO windy. After walking around the harbor a bit we drove up to a church called Notre Dame (not the Notre Dame) at the very top of the tallest point in the city. It was hands down the windiest place I have ever been in my life. At one point I was trying to film a video of Emily and Anissa blowing in the wind and I had to stop to help an old lady because she couldn't get back to the railing. But it had the most amazing views of the water and the town. Absolutely incredible!

Me in front of Notre Dame Church

Me Emily and Anissa at a French Cafe in Marseille 

The incredible view from the Notre Dame Church

 

Welcome to the windiest place on earth!

-being in France made me realized I had never been to a country where I didn't speak the language (I had only ever been to English and Spanish speaking countries) and it was really daunting. I definitely recommend learning at least a few words before going somewhere. I made Anissa teach me how to say je suis désolée je ne parle pas français (I'm sorry I don't speak French) but it took me a while to remember how to say it.  At one point a man asked if I spoke English and I responded by saying Si- everyone got a riot outta that one :-). Haha it was confusing, but I definitely learned my lesson!

After Marseille we drove down to Anissa's hometown- La Ciotat- to stay at her parents house. Anissa's family is incredible- so kind and hospitable even through the slight language barrier. When we arrived we went to the supermarket with Anissa and her mom and her mom tried to buy the whole store for Emily and I. And of course cheese was a big part of it - learned that Camembert is my favorite type of cheese!!!)

Nightly "after dinner" cheese platter :-)

In the morning we headed up to a beautiful medieval village named Le Castellet and hung about a bit before going back to La Ciotat for Anissa's little sister's dance recital and checking out some of the landmarks there- including her parent's restaurant where we had a really good drink made out of some red syrup and water. Then we headed back to Anissa's for a crepe making lesson (I now have every intention of buying a crepe maker and perfecting the fine- and surprisingly difficult- art of crepe making)

Le Castellet

La Ciotat!

In front of  the Bec de l'Aigle (the eagle's beak)

My attempt at making crepes!

The next morning we headed to the local weekend market down by where the biggest yacht fixing yard is.  Then we headed back to Anissa's parents house for lunch and had a delicious DELICIOUS Moroccan pie called Pastilla.  Its an incredible savory sweet pie with chicken and what is kind of like a baklava crust and it is topped with powered sugar. Loved it to bits. And to top it off Anissa's mom hand made a raspberry tiramisu. (and the Salmon and spinach lasagna and lamp chops from the other nights were delish as well) Then we packed up, struggled through a "family photoshoot" using the timer function and headed off to the airport. 

PASTILLA!!!

Hand made raspberry tiramisu

My wonderful French Family!

All and all this weekend was one on of the best of my life. Surrounded by wonderful people, delicious home-cooked family meals, beautiful scenery. I'll definitely remember it for the rest of my life! Can't wait to go back in the spring/summer!

Autumn Awesomeness

I thought I was on par to update my blog once a month- just realized its now November and my last post only covered until mid-September! Ooops!

So, where were we? Ah yes- mid-September. Grandpa had just left London. That seems like SO long ago! That Thursday I joined everyone for "Thursday-Night-Drinks." Its a pretty big thing for everyone to go to drinks on Thursday and most of the interns in the program have done a great job adopting that customs. Its hard for me though because most people's jobs are concentrated in an area of London called "The City" (a big financial district) an my work is pretty far away. But this particular Thursday I decided I was going to go. It took me an hour and a half to find the place they were at- but it was worth it. Made it just in time to catch the end of happy hour and then we switched to another bar called Amber. Amber is a pretty interesting place. When you walk in you head down some stairs and it seems like a pretty normal bar. I was excited to go because I had heard that there was a roller-skating rink inside. And there is- sorta. Haha. What it really is is a raised dance floor with different colored light-up panels and a few girls dancing around on roller-skates where far to little clothing... But as the night progresses everyone ends up getting on the "roller-rink" and dancing to great oldies. It was a ton of fun!

None of my pictures did Amber bar's "RollerRink" justice so I had to get a stock photo. Now just imagine a few girls on roller-skates dressed in sports bras and booty shorts skating around with a bunch of British bankers and American interns... :-)

That weekend a group of us went to one of London's many spectacular markets- Borough Market (http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk). Its pretty much dedicated to delicious food (which is why we went there) and it has a lot of it. I thought before we went that there would be more vendors selling ready to eat food (and there might have been and we just didn't find them) but mostly we saw vendors selling tons of other delicious things- jams in every flavor you can imagine (all of which you can sample!), honeys, cheeses, chorizo, cookies, etc.etc. etc. I ended up getting a delicious burger with aged cheddar cheese (which seemed awfully blue-chessey) and grilled onions (cause I like onions now!) and a brownie. I don't have any pictures from this little outing though because my camera got stolen during my next adventure. (don't worry I have since bought a new one)

That night we went to a bar called Zoo Bar in Covent Garden- it was packed and a lot of fun (and we got in for half price) but it also proved to be a trying night on people's belongings.  My friend Jessica's wallet went missing and, even though the bartenders later found it, all the cash was gone. I am pretty sure this night is when I lost my camera, and one other girl lost her whole wallet that night. Not a highlight of the trip- but since it explains why my camera disappeared it needed to be included so that all of you who love to make fun of me for losing things can't. :-)

The following Tuesday my roommate and I skipped out of work early to go to Buckingham Palace before it closed for season. It is only open 10 weeks out of the year and we really wanted to go during this opening because Kate Middleton's wedding dress was on display! And the tickets are good for reentry for a whole year so we will be able to go again next year when it opens too! The palace was really really cool. Only some of the state rooms were opening for viewing- but thats ok because it would have taken forever to see all 775 rooms! (and 78 bathrooms!) 

They don't let you take any pictures inside the palace (and my camera was gone anyway) so this is another stock photo- but this room is really cool because the two long mirrors in the back are "trap-doors" and swing around to open into the next room!

My roommate Emily and I in front of the back of Buckingham Palace!

    Seeing Kate Middleton's dress was actually a lot cooler than I expected. I had no idea how much thought went into the design. It was perfectly weighted so that if the train of the dress was picked up it would fall back into perfect position! And all the lace was hand-sewn and in the shape of the four flowers of Great Britain (English Rose, Scottish Thistle, Welsh Daffodil and Irish Shamrock). Her shoes also had the same beautiful hand-sewn lace stitched onto them and the cake (which was something like 17 little cakes with 900 sugar flowers on it) also incorporated a ton of ornate flowers.

Ok and to round out September-  and this one is important- ANISSA'S VISIT FROM FRANCE!!! Anissa had a pretty good idea of the things she wanted to see while she was here and I think we did a good job getting to most of them. 

- Primark- a super cheap department type store in London that topped Anissa's list (haha) 

-We got super lost trying to find Notting Hill and walked around 3/4 of the perimeter of Hyde Park, found and walked around Notting Hill, saw an adorable antiques market and had cream tea

The scone, clotted cream (which is way way better than it sounds) and jam that comes with cream tea

- Camden Market - a giant market that has nearly everything you could ever want. It seems to go on forever. It has a lot of hippie type things, and then a lot of ready to eat food from all over the world and paintings and sculptures and its just giant. Anissa and I got a little fish pedicure (little fishes eat the skin off your feet and it tickles like crazy!) while we were there!

Anissa and I trying to smile through the tickle of our fish pedicure!

@ Camden Market!

- we spent a bunch of time trying to figure out my phone situation which was really annoying! But in the end I switched to a new phone provider and got a special plan that lets me call my mom and brother for free and provides me with an american number that links to my British phone so anyone can call me without worrying about international fees!!! (let me know if you want the number! I love getting calls!)

- we attempted to go to the top of the Tate Modern tower but it turns out that isn't really an obvious option so we decided to go get fish and chips from the Anchor (the same restaurant that Grandpa had wanted to eat at!)

- we each got a proper English breakfast (well we each got at least some of the main parts - baked beans, eggs, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, toast) from a little cafe near my apartment.

- oh and we had to deal with this CRAZY lady who lives in the building next to me. She normally doesn't bother me because my apartment doesn't face the other building, but we were hanging out in my friends apartment which its really close to hers. This woman hates Americans and deals with it by screaming bloody murder from her window while she is topless. She threw a chair and a lamp out the window proclaiming it to be America's electric chair, she yelled at my friend to close her window because she was ugly- she literally screamed for hours- on more than one night. Its crazy.

- oh and the best part of Anissa's trip is the following picture. Anissa has never been so proud of an idea in her whole life. It took her about 10 minute to get up the courage to ask someone to take the photo- but in the end she loves it to bits so it is worth it!

Note- Anissa is in the phone booth at the back, I am in the phone booth at the front and Big Ben fills out the picture nicely on the other side. Its a little blurry here because I had to make it big enough so you could tell what it is (not going to say I told you so Anissa)- but the idea really is great.

Well folks that rounds out September and my night of blogging! I'll try to get October updated ASAP and I'll even give you all a little teaser! Next months blog will include- my trip to the south of france, a Mountbatten led weekend to the English Countryside, my first weekend of class and Halloween! (wow that doesn't seem like much, maybe I'll just start a new blog right after this one and see if I can get all caught up!)

Some of September

I knew keeping up with this blog would be hard. There is just so much going on which means there is so much to write about but so little time to do so and it just gets tricky. But I have devoted tonight to filling all you loyal and devoted fans (shout out to JWalk) in on the enthralling events that have taken place in the last month :-)

Lucky for all of you, even though I haven't been writing blogs, I have been using those cute little computer Post-its to take notes of what to include when I do finally get around to writing so nothing important will be left out! So first thing on the list? (oh man- its a longer list than I thought! SO much has happened this month!)

Alrighty, so the second weekend of September the March intake of Mountbatten interns organized a boat tour. Sounds awesome right? Well it was for most people, I on the other hand spent the night maybe a little too drunk and severely seasick. I actually took to sleeping on the deck to pass some of the 4 hours. During an easy spell I did get a chance to steer the boat though! And the London Eye at night is pretty awesome!

That same weekend Mountbatten put on a Sept 11th Memorial Concert and there was a firework display on the Thames for the annual Thames River Festival. After having spent the morning in search of a burger (the first place was out and the second only had a Sunday menu of three items, but the third spot- a more classy than usual sit down kebab shop- served us up a great burger for a great price) and then lounging around watching Remember the Titans it was a bit hard to get going for the Concert. And once we finally did we ran into some roadblocks. The bus stop we went too wasn't in use, the Tube was closed and it started raining. After some luck and Iphone usage we found another bus stop and were on our way. Til traffic won and realized that sitting on the bus just wasn't worth it anymore. We got off and started walking which actually worked out well because we got to see a bit of the Thames River Festival parade (I personally wish we had gotten to see more of it, but we had to go to the concert). By now we were already late and had missed the snacks so we figured that we should just eat quickly and make it in time for the second half of the event. We found a Subway that was out of nearly everything and made two people sick and then were on our way. The concert was nice, in a beautiful modern but still old- feeling cathedral. It was a very interesting juxtaposition of traditional marble pillars and flat screen TVs.  (there is actually a lot of interesting juxtapositions like that- centuries old churches dwarfed by the erection of giant skyscrapers (Kind of a neat visual timeline). After the concert we headed over to the river to get a good spot for the fireworks. They ended up starting about half an hour late and we kept thinking that we were in the wrong spot, but in the end it was worth it. I was secretly expecting a little bit more, but I guess that's just because I have been spoiled with Boise's awesome Fourth of July show.

Also around the beginning of September I went on a few dates. Normally this wouldn't make the blog, but one of the guys was just so crazy that he has earned a spot. Blake Charles (if thats even really his name) is a ridiculously hot Australian that I met at a bar on my birthday. He seemed relatively normal and when he asked me to go get a drink the next week I didn't see any harm in it. Little did I know! Luckily he said that I should bring a friend because his buddy was coming along- because otherwise I don't think I would have made it. This kid was unbelievable. Unable to abide by a single social norm. He was yelling racial slurs, harassing the waitress (he bet himself he could get her number, was incredibly rude to her, followed her to other tables while she was trying to work and then made a scene of ripping up the number she gave him because she was "ugly") blatantly pouring whiskey into his coke and scratching the table with his fork. He tried to walk out on the bill and the night ended when he walked up and bounced my boobs. Honestly unbelievable. Don't really know what else to say about that one!

I guess now would be a good time to give a little update on my life as an intern at Sanders Lifestyle Footwear. I finally met Aunt Pauline (my boss's aunt who works Mondays at the store). She is a lovely lady- bubbly and loves to chitchat. Aside from that I have mostly spent the last month processing deliveries. Before we could finish one delivery the next would arrive- pretty frustrating. Because there is no free time from the day-to-day operations at the store I can't implement any of the things I would like to as an intern. Oh I forgot about a good work story! So the day that Grandpa arrive (more on that visit later) Rufus had to leave early. Within minutes of him leaving the phone rang and a man named Mr. Boyce was on the other end. Mr. Boyce told me that he had come in on Monday and ordered a pair of shoes and was wondering if they had been ordered and when they could be expected to arrive. I didn't know the answer so I told him that "the person in charge of deliveries had left for the day" and asked if I could take a message. Mr Boyce responded by saying "take a message! did you NOT just listen to what I said! I ordered shoes on Monday and want to know if they have been ordered and when they will arrive!" I was really thrown off by this, but kept my cool and apologized and asked if I could get a phone number so that Rufus could call him back in the morning. He sternly told me that I had taken his number when I wrote down his order on Monday and that since I had taken the order I should be able to tell him the information he wanted. I pointed out that I did not have the order book in front of me and although I might have taken the details I was not actually in charge of placing the orders. This is when Mr. Boyce really let loose. "This is London not America you brat. Stop being such a brat." I was so confused about what had made him so angry and apologized again, saying that I did not understand what I had done to offend him. He again called me a brat and I realized it was time to end the conversation because it was going nowhere. I told him that Rufus would be in contact with him the next day, goodbye. He quickly retorted that all he wanted was for someone to call him the next day with the information he wanted. Seeing as that was what I had been arranging the whole time I just said Ok, Bye. I was SO mad by the end of this, but there were customers to deal with so I just had to move on. I told Rufus the story right away and he was great about it. He called Mr. Boyce and told him that he could get his shoes elsewhere because he wouldn't stand for him mistreating his employees! It was pretty awesome to have my boss stand up for me like that.


Well that ended up being a long than anticipated story (as per my norm :-) ). Onto Grandpa's visit! So Grandpa arrived on Thursday the 15th and stayed through the 19th. He came straight to the store from the airport and hung out while I dealt with Mr. Boyce and a delivery. Then we closed up (with more than a few issues) and headed back to the hotel. We had a great dinner at the Barbican (the hotel he stayed at that is about a block from my apartment- the one I stayed at for the first week) and tucked in early. Because Rufus had left early and whatnot- he had told me that I could come in around 3:30pm for work. So Grandpa and I got up early, enjoying the wonderful hotel brunch and headed over to Sigmund Freud's house! It was a cute little house in a typically London neighborhood. It was extra interesting because Grandpa had been to Freud's house in Austria and therefore had a wealth of knowledge to share (as per most usual with Gpop!). Then we got a real treat- Rufus called and said that I didn't need to come in at all! So Grandpa and I boarded the train to Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum. Upon arriving after the 30-45 minute ride we were greeting with wonderfully crispy, cloudless weather that was truly in the best of early fall (autumn as they say here) weather. We had delicious and huge burgers topped with pulled pork at an adorable outside restaurant and then headed over to the museum. Unfortunately we arrived about 10 minutes before closing and were only able to see a few ship models. (Grandpa knew something about almost all of them.) We missed getting to go to the gift shop (Grandpa's favorite part of any excursion) so we stopped at a little nautical shop in town to buy some gifts.  The next morning we woke up and went to the science museum (which is awesome!) and then went and watched the Tempest at the Royal Haymarket Theatre. After that we walked around and saw some of the old places that Grandpa hung out at when he studied abroad in the 1953!!! Seriously how cool is that that he studied here way back then! He had a lot of great stories about it and it was so interested to hear him explain how it had changed. He really wanted to eat at the Anchor pub on the Thames (an old haunting ground) but unfortunately they were all booked for the evening. We found another place he used to frequent and had a great meal there, so it all worked out. The next day we quickly checked out the Victoria and Albert Museum (mostly the bookstore and cafe :-)) and then headed out to Heathrow so Gramps could catch his flight!

Grandpa and I eating dinner at the Thistle Barbican hotel

Grandpa in front of Freud's house

Ok, so that brings us half way through September. I think most of you have probably had your fill of my life stories for now, and I tired of writing, so the rest of the month is just going to have to wait! Hope everything in everyone's lives is going well and that you are all planning trips to come visit!

London Life!!!

Its blog time! I'm adjusting pretty well to life across the pond. There are still some culture shock and homesickness times, but hey- that's to be expected! I'm finally getting more settled into my apartment, got pictures posted and all my clothes unpacked and a bunch of kitchen stuff bought. I still need to get a duvet cover (the blue plaid they provide us with just isn't going to cut it for a year) and a hamper, but its finally starting to feel like "my room." I share my room with a girl named Emily from Wisconsin and we get along really well. Our room is one of the biggest in the program and it is set up so that our dressers kind of divide the room in two and we each get our own little space.

This is the view of my room when you walk in the bedroom door (Emily's side)

Dressers/Room Dividers

This is my half of the room!

My bed is right up against the window (on the 6th floor) and its really cool because I can see a little futbol pitch from my window! One annoying thing is that we can only open the windows (and balcony doors) 10cm. Its some dumb British rule because we don't have a technical "head of household." It can be quite a nuisance when we want to cool the room off and it makes for weird air flow so sometimes the windows and bedroom door with bang open and closed unexpectedly.

Its hard to tell with the glare but you can almost see the little futbol pitch in the middle left of the picture

My roommate and I have a bathroom in our room and our flatmates share one in the hallway. Its a really nice bathroom and its great because it gets cleaned once a week, but the shower has some issues. Mainly it has a serious design flaw and its really easy to get water all over the floor and then there isn't good/any ventilation so we are having some mold issues...

Showers should have walls- the water goes everywhere.
The little glass part is actually a door that opens so water can get under that too...

Here are some more pictures of the flat.

The view as you enter. The door on the right is the boys bathroom and the one straight ahead is their bedroom.
To the left is the living room and to the right is my room.

The living room. We got lucky and have one of the biggest apartments and more couches!

The kitchen at the back end of the living room

Our Washer/Dryer combo machine located under the sink. Haha

The weekend of Aug. 28-29 was what is called a "Bank Holiday" weekend over here. Basically like Labor Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend, expect all of them are called bank holidays. In addition to getting Monday off work this particular bank holiday coincides with the Notting Hill Carnival, which is the biggest carnival/festival in Europe with around 1million people attending. It is a Caribbean themed event and it was basically a gigantic (10blocks ish) club outside - music, dancing and drinking in the streets- mixed with a parade with awesome costumes and traditional Caribbean Food- think jerk chicken, rice, fried plantains! There were SO many people and everyone just left trash everywhere- lots of it was in neat piles, but still, so much garbage! 

People as far as you can see

Creative trashcan

My favorite parts of the two days we went to the festival were 1. the costumes and parade- we didn't get to see them the first day and I was really excited when we found them on the second day, although my camera died literally as soon as we saw the first float. My second favorite thing was when this girl climbed a tree next to one of the outdoor dance parties and the DJ stopped and started yelling for her to get out of the tree. She was really drunk and wouldn't get out of the tree and before long the whole crowd was chanting "1.2.3. monkey outta the tree" and the DJ was yelling "what country  you fink dis is?!?." It got scary when someone threw a beer can at her, but after almost 10 minutes someone was able to safely push her out of the tree. It was weird but definitely memorable!

On Thursday I had a work assignment to go around to other shoe stores and find out if they stock the brand my store specializing in, and to check out their customer service and prices. All in all it was an ok adventure. Did a lot of fake shopping by myself, including in overwhelming Harrods and Selfridges, but it was a good experience and a beautiful day so I was glad to be out of the office. I turned in the write up on my "market research" today and my boss really liked it so that was good too. Oh I also got registered for the National Healthcare System so that if I get sick I can see a doctor for free!

The next major thing was my 23rd birthday! We went out Thursday night to a local bar and that was really fun, Friday (my actual birthday) my roommate brought me a double chocolate cake and gummies, my friend made me nutella frosted cupcakes and we all went to dinner at this ADORABLE rooftop Italian restaurant! I had delicious delicious bruschetta and it was great- they even brought out a giant piece of tiramisu with a candle and sang happy birthday!

Birthday Presents!

Delicious Birthday Dinner- Bruschetta, cheese, olives, veggies etc!

Adorable rooftop restaurant where we went for my birthday dinner. 

Halfway through the giant piece of birthday tiramisu!

Lets see- what else has happened? Oh booked a hostel in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day! Pretty excited about that- there is a big group of us going and it should be really fun!

My friends and I have a favorite bar called B@1. Its great and we have decided that we want to become regulars and have the bartenders know us by name. It is the perfect blend of bar and club- you can stand or sit or dance or talk- the music is great (think chumbawamba, oldies like twist and shout, etc) and its just so fun!

 

Grocery shopping here is what makes me the most homesick. Its really not that different from home, but for some reason all the little differences about it really add up. For example most everything comes wrapped. Individual cucumbers, packages of 2 bell pepers etc. I miss big bins where you can just pick the produce that you want. Also, if you go on Sunday like I did there is a good chance that they will be out of nearly everything. Also all the stores have different deals and it is hard to remember where it is best to get what. And it is really a killer when you start converting pounds to dollars and you realize how much money you are spending! The end result is that I basically go shopping for a few things every other day (which is also needed because you have to carry everything home and it gets heavy) and then eat the same thing for a few days and switch. Its really not that bad, but since differences exist I feel like I might as well acknowledge them!

And the last thing for today's blog post is the story of my bus ride this morning! Got to the bus like normal, excited to be making it to work on time, but then, halfwayish through the journey, traffic is at a standstill. No idea why- there were just about 6-8 buses stopped in front of us. We literally did not move for 15 minutes. I was texting my boss to keep him updated but I still felt horrible because I was so late to work. I never saw what caused the delay because my bus ended up turning. I didn't even think about the fact that public transportation could make me late to work! Luckily my boss was super understanding about it!

Alright, well thats enough for now! Hope everything is going well for everyone! 

bus stoppage