Sunday, May 22, 2011

Exhausting.

I want to apologize to all of my loyal fans (mom and dad...) for not updating lately. I've been on a conquering spree since the pressure is on to complete all of my London activities before I leave in less than a week. Isn't that crazy?! It's starting to hit now that I may not be able to squeeze everything in... but I will not be defeated that easily. A conqueror appreciates a challenge sometimes.

In addition to Londontown happenings, I've been super busy with preparing for my two upcoming internships, getting everything set to move to Milan, practicing my Italian, and learning how to use Twitter and Tumblr (which is required for my College Fashionista internship). It sounds silly, but social media is like a full time job. It takes a lot of time and effort to constantly post interesting material on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, my blog, and Pinterest, in addition to how I check my e-mail accounts every five minutes. Hopefully it's just because I'm still mildly stupid when it comes to these new pages. I can totally understand why people want Twitter on their phones now though, because it's so much easier if I could just do this throughout the day on-the-go instead of trying to entertain readers during my hours at home.

But, I digress. Let's go in sequential order, as it is the most logical way to approach my recent events.

Jordan left on Thursday, the 19th. This was probably the hardest goodbye I will have to make, because I feel like Jordan was definitely one of the best, if not the best, friend I had here. We had gone to Trafik for a little get together with Cori, Kim, Kristen, Mike, Sam, Izabela, Paloma, and Nadia, because it was the last time we could see Jordan and Mike. Jordan had a cab scheduled for 6:30 in the morning, and he didn't want to fall asleep because of how early he had to leave, so I agreed to stay up all night with him. However, after he visited with Amanda to say goodbye and I went back to meet up with him again, he fell asleep. Well, I was not going to let him leave without saying goodbye, so I woke up at 6:20 to see him before the cab took him away. Now, I was looking like a complete hot mess (but not really hot at all). I had gone on a blackhead popping spree the night before so my skin looked like I was recovering from chicken pox, I had my glasses on, you could see my underwear lines through my yoga pants, and if America drilled into my scalp they could solve the oil crisis. Jordan was so flustered handling his bags and last minute things, so I offered to take the cab with him to King's Cross (he was just taking a cab there to avoid the transfer through the tube station with his bags) to help him. So, you know how much Jordan means to me if I went out in public like that. I got to get him on his train, see him off, and finally get back in my bed by 7:30.

When I finally got up again, I was supposed to go out with Sam but he ended up having to study instead. I tried to find this secondhand book market underneath Waterloo Bridge, but failed abismally. I did find a discount book store though and was able to pick up The Picture of Dorian Gray, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/ Through the Looking Glass, and Heart of Darkness all for 5 pounds though. Definitely a wise purchase. Then I went to TopShop to waste time walking around and depressing myself. I was trying on shoes, and then left to go to the ISA office... and realized halfway that I left my books by the shoes. I ran back, and luckily they were still sitting there. Apparently I get really distracted by cotton candy and shoes (please refer back to my pickpocket panic at the boat race when I left my wallet at a cotton candy stand). That night, Carnaby Street was having a 20% off shopping party in all the stores in the Carnaby area. Amazing. I bought a pair of neon orange heels for work, and some hot pink lipstick and liner. I even got a few glasses of free champagne outside different stores, and a free makeup consultation (which resulted in the purchase of the lipstick and liner).

The next day, Friday the 20th, was our ISA Farewell event. What a sad occasion! There are so many awesome people in that group that I know I won't ever see again realistically. It's hard to see someone and know it will be the last time, even if you aren't close to them. We went to Olympic Park, where they are building the stadium for the Olympics next summer. It looks (and smells) like shit now, but they will definitely make it awesome in the next year. Then we went up to Greenwich briefly before getting a delicious three course Mediterranean dinner. Afterward, we went back to London Bridge via river cruise. On this boat ride, a group of at least 15 guys, Australians and Kiwis, kept calling me Daisy (because of my sunflower hairband). They were asking me all about myself, telling me I was beautiful, and making me (and everyone else on the boat who had to watch) uncomfortable. They were trying to trip me up when I pointed out Tower Bridge to someone, saying "No, that's London Bridge," thinking that because I have an American accent there's no way I'm from around here. I retorted, "No, gentlemen, that is Tower Bridge. London Bridge is the shitty one behind it, and the Millennium Bridge is behind that which links St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre. I live here, thank you." They were impressed. Then they kissed me on the cheek, I made a really unhappy face, and finally was able to get out of there.  Kristen, Jojo, her friend, and I went out for a drink with (younger) Maria, our ISA adviser after, which was really fun. She's coming to New Jersey in November and promises that we can get a drink together then. At night, Kristen came over and we watched Anchorman together, which she hadn't seen (which is just a sin to me).

Wow, I really didn't think I had this much to share. If you're still reading, you're an angel (a really bored angel, I'm sure).

Yesterday, Saturday the 21st, I went to Borough Market with Sam, Kristen, Kim, Cori, and a new friend named Kay (leave it to me to finally make a British friend a week before leaving). We decided to all get different things at the market and make a huge, fabulous lunch in my kitchen. We had pasta with some delicious pesto sauce, three different breads, hummus, asparagus for the pasta, cheese, salamis, blackberries, grapes, olives (well, we would have if I didn't eat them all), and I made strawberry bruschetta. It was so good, and I got to keep the leftovers for dinner! Afterward, I went into extreme housewife mode and cleaned every dish, including the ones we didn't even use. We've been out of dish soap for a couple days and they all just felt dirty and not up to my standard of clean, so I spent about 45 minutes washing dishes. This exhausted me, so I took a nap before Kristen came over and we watched another movie (this time, Stepbrothers).

Now, as for today, Sunday the 22nd, I had some trouble getting activities done. In fact, the success rate of my activities went: success, failure, failure, success, failure, success. This is ironic, because it fits very well with the wives of Henry VIII (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived... if you consider that the ones who divorced or survived are successes as they got away from him). First was finally seeing Changing of the Guard. What a cool procession! It was so crowded though, it's unbelievable that so many people turn out for it daily. The second event, a failure, was going to the Chelsea Gardens with Kim, Kristen, and Cori. I had dressed for a summer day when it was actually rather cold today, so I wanted to go back and change but I knew Kristen would be calling me. I waited about 20 minutes without a phone call, and since I can't call her because I have no money on my phone, I just went back and decided to cross off other stuff on my list instead. The third event, another failure, was the Fashion and Textile Museum. I got there fine, had a cream tea (my favorite thing to get in a cafe in London... a scone with clotted cream and jam, and a pot of Earl Grey tea), and then saw that the museum is actually closed on Mondays. Well, that figures. The fourth activity, instead of this museum, was the Tate Britain. This was a success, as I was able to get there okay and it wasn't closed! Hooray! I didn't particularly like the museum compared to some others I have been to here, but it wasn't the worst by far. I'm still glad I went. Next was evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral. Remember back in January (of course you don't) when I said I would never get used to military time? I was right. Apparently 15:15 is not 5:15, as you actually don't just take off the 1 in front of the time. So, while I thought I was a half hour early, I was really two hours late. So, I went to St. James Park instead as my sixth event, which is another royal park off my list. It was still early in the evening, so I walked from Buckingham Palace through St. James Park to Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall Road to Big Ben and Parliament, along the Westminster Bridge to the Waterloo Pier, and then finally went back home with sore feet and a 50% success rate for the day.

That was exhausting to just type about. I really need to update more frequently again to avoid long-winded entries.

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