the beginning of my BLOG :)

I am so excited to be doing this. & I am making a promise to myself to stay on top this ..especially while I am in London because I am doing a lot of "blog-worthy" things. haha. Anyways today is the end of day #17 in London! I cannot believe how fast my summer is going, boo. But I am making sure that I take FULL advantage of my time in this beautiful country :) ..So since this is already day 17, I will give you a speedy catch-up on what I have done so far ..

Saturday, June 13th - I arrived. Went out for my 1st beer in London and CRASHED. planes are NOT comfortable (either is my tiny twin bed w/ rough sheets) but I was overly-exhausted.

----> 1st beer ..dont let the glass deceive you, its a heineken!! (out of the beer I wanted)

Sunday, June 14th - this is the day I wandered around Picadilly Circus w/ Amanda & Kelly trying to find their offices. haha. It was quite the adventure but we are all now comfortable giving "tourists" directions around that area. We know it pretty well. Trial & error, getting lost helps.

----> the well-known land mark of Picadilly Circus.

Monday, June 15 - Lucky me .. I search all over Farringdon for my office building only to find it (an hour later) and have my boss tell me "I didn't think you started til tomorrow". So I gladly went exploring while everyone else had their 1st day of work. I ventured to Hyde Park and the Hark Rock Cafe so I could contribute to my dad's collection of Hard Rock "stuff".

-----> me @ Hyde Park in their Rose Gardens ..soo gorgeous & smells wonderful.

Tuesday, June 16th & Wednesday, June 17th - were spent @ Blazinstar Experiential ..my internship. I mostly did research on the company, the concept (experiential marketing), & their competitors. & of course became acquainted w/ my coworkers.

Thursday, June 18th - I attended my FIRST "Broadway" show ..WICKED ..ahhhh so amazing!! I officially am going to become a theatre buff. Then the girls & I head to our local pub down the street.. Millers!!

-----> The girls & I in front of Wicked.




Friday, June 19th - We woke up ..& had a lovely tour of the East End of London. (lovely minus the fact that I would NEVER go there again). & Friday night we headed to the "hottest club in London" ..Cafe de Paris. Yes it was fun. Yes it was expensive. Yes people did things they would later regret on the 1st wknd of our trip. BUT NOT ME. I safely got everyone back to our building & got the title "mom".



---> The girls in the VIP area @ Cafe de Paris.
(Jenny, Meghan, Rachelle, Allison, Me, Gillian, Amanda, Jen Chen, & Amanda)




Saturday, June 20 - So what seemed like very early the next morning (after the night @ Cafe de Paris) ..around 10:30 AM, we all boarded the double decker bus for our official tour of London. I can't begin to tell you how excited I was. I absolutely loved the bus tour!! We saw the best of London and from that added many more items to our "To Do List". We also stopped and ate lunch at the ORIGINAL Hard Rock Cafe and we enjoyed our 1st delicious "reminding us of home" comfort food ..a cheeseburger! The double decker bus tour ..a "must-do" when visiting London!!

----> The girls in our seats on the bus :)



-----> my FAVORITE thing we saw during our tour, parliament from across the river. GORGEOUS.


Sunday, June 21st - We all firmly believe we should not waste a second of our time while we are here ..so if it seems as though we are constantly on the go, its because we are! When I got here I thought "oh my gosh 2 months is such a long time, what am I going to do," but the fact that week 3 is HERE ..& tomorrow is "hump day" of wk 3 ..I now know 2 months is NOT that long. Anywho, this day was spent walking around Buckingham Palace. And the queen was somewhere inside because the flag was up!! We plan on going back in August to take a tour of the INSIDE of Buckingham Palace. (The queen goes to her palace in Scotland during the month of August and opens up Buckingham for tours. You can see all 600 rooms, minus the 22 that are the queen's). So we decided to take a tour of the Royal Mews, this is what I would call a stable. It has all the horses, the "carriages", and the royal cars. It was very interesting w/ lots of neat things to see!

---> this is ME ..by the "Gold Stage Coach". This coach has been used for the coronation of the British monarch since George IV, which includes the current Queen.



Tuesday, June 23rd - Today was our tour of the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It is not the original. The original does not exist, but it is an exact replica (minus the concrete floors surrounding the stage ..in Shakespeare's days it was dirt, but the company did not believe people would now-a-days purchase tickets to stand in dirt & mud). On Friday, July 3rd we are going to see the play "As You Like It" at the theatre! Then later at night all of us girls headed to the "Absolut Ice Bar" in Picadilly. £12.50 = 45 mins in the ice bar, 1 drink, & you get to wear a nifty thermal poncho. My favorite thing may have been the glasses we drank out of ..made of ice!



----> Gillian, Meghan, & I ..see my glass made of ice :)


So I am going to end here for now ..this clearly does not bring you up to date YET. But It will soon. READ MY BLOG. I will update it daily (or try my best to) depending on whether I do something "blog-worthy" that day or not.