So they tell you that London is the rainy city. You buy the umbrella, the raincoat, and the rain boots and mentally prepare yourself for the fact that it is going to be more wet than you are used to. But the truth of the matter is, no amount of mental preparation can truly get you ready for all the rain, rain and more rain. Apparently August and September have been the rainiest months Londoners have experienced in years – well that’s is just GREAT! I came from a state where people are rushing to take five-minute showers because of the immense drought to a city that has enough rain to flood a nation. I think we can solve North Carolina’s problem by finding a way to take the rain falling every two minutes in this city and transport it over to NC. Someone should invent a way to do that, if not for the crops, than at least for me and sanity J. Looks like I am going to have find a way to embrace the rain for all of its wondrous wetness, but as of right now, I am damp and cranky.
This morning we awoke to the sound of….rain….but still feeling even a little more rested than the day before. I had some cheerios and we got ready with our new mirror that Laura and I bought for our room so we were not blow drying our hair blindly like yesterday. Then all the girls set out on our own to get the tube and meet the rest of the gang at the Anglo-American building where we will be having our classes. 8 tube stops later (and one changeover at Oxford Circus) we arrived, walked a couple of blocks and found ourselves in this charming little sector of London. There is a small playground and courtyard outside of the building, which I am sure I will observe quite intimately while sitting in class ;) and it is a nice area, again a little a part from the hustle and bustle of the main city. We then met Lisa Thompson who is the Elon faculty coordinator over here, and she spoke with us for about three hours about safety and security in London (meaning all the ways we could avoid being robbed, knifed and what to do in the event of a terrorist attack – add this to the rain and it was quite an uplifting morning ;) as well as classroom protocol and other orientation topics. We then broke for lunch and with umbrellas launched we went searching in the rain for a close place to eat. We ended up at this little pub and it seemed decent enough so some of us went in. I ordered a veggie sandwich which ended up being really quite disgusting (do you like my addition of the word “quite…” see I am catching on) and so I gave it back and had to order fish and chips (which are French fries, by the way), which was actually pretty decent – it reminded me of the fish sticks my mom used to make for me when I was a kid. After dropping quite a few pounds for a simple lunch and probably gaining quite a few pounds eating it, we went back to the classroom for the internship orientation. After hearing a long explanation of internships, we broke off and got our starting date and directions to our individual sites. I am interning with Kelly Management, a casting agency that works with pairing aspiring performers (their clients) to casting agents. This will include press junkets, casting calls, talent scouting and a lot of great aspects of the entertainment industry that really seem thrilling, so I am very excited to get started – which happens on Monday at 12:30pm (usually my days will be from 10:30am on, but Monday is an exception because they have a bank meeting in the morning). This is good because it will give me a lot of time to find it and get situated. The one downside to all of this is that Gordon, my supervisor, is planning on leaving for “holiday” (when I read this I naturally thought of the film and smiled…. I think I might watch that soon ;) FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS, only two days after I start working. This is a little scary, but could be a great way to leap feet first into the position and again, be rewarded with some cool responsibilities. I just hope I can do it all – and I hope I get internship credit for it in my communications major- another hurdle I have to jump through, but that is not worth discussing. So it sounds promising and I am looking forward to getting into a routine, figuring out time to work out, when to eat out and when to eat in, what the eat, where to buy good food – ah this brings me to our next challenge of the day.
So after the classroom day, which ended around 4pm, Laura and I went to Sainsbury, a grocery store. Upon surfing the aisles, we found ourselves a little overwhelmed – brands we didn’t recognize, products that we didn’t think looked too enticing, and home favorites missing from the shelves. Again, they tell you the food is not great, but when you see a frozen dinner of lamb liver and mash, you realize they were not kidding. The quality of the food is just worlds different. Even the bread kind of crumbles in our mouth, but perhaps that was because we had a long tube ride back before we got it home…but something is telling me that was not it. I am simply hoping we can find some good staples and figure out what actually tastes good (AND is healthy- which p.s. is really hard to do here, which I find very interesting since they claim that America is such an obese country, and yet here there are very few healthy options we came across) without wasting too much money (such as my lunch fiasco).
I keep telling myself that it will all fall into place once I get familiar and get in a routine. Travel is also very overwhelming. We need to start booking our fall break and plan everything out, but it is so overwhelming – do we take a train or a plane? Do we go here or there? And how do we do it all on a budget? It’s a lot to take in. Sunday we are planning on sitting down and making some plans, so I guess I will set that aside until then – I welcome any suggestions :) – Lynn how did you go about this while you were in Italy?
Once we got back to the flat, we unpacked our groceries and did a bunch of tasks, like set up the printer, send out emails and load cell phone numbers into our phones – not so exciting.
Before we knew it, it was 8pm, so we had some cereal and a chocolate muffin for a quick dinner we could guarantee would taste like home, and now I am sitting in bed about to shower, watch a friends episode and go to sleep. We have to be up tomorrow at 7am to be outside our flats at 8am for a very long sight seeing day – we are going to Stonehenge and Bath(e)? which should be fun.
Here is hoping the weather behaves J miss you all, expect another update Sunday because I think tomorrow night we return late. And if you are reading, please comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.
Love, Jenny
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