Whirlwind weekend with the Primack clan and some other favorite people :)

Fair warning: this is going to be a massively long post. The past couple of days have been some of the most fun, yet most eventful and busy of the entire trip.

Wednesday began as a normal day – went into Parliament and did some work, and then Amanda and I met up with the Primack clan to go to dinner in Covent Garden. When we finished dinner we met up with Mara (yay!) and her sister Elisheva, who were in London on the first stop of an amazing six-week Euro trip through England, Ireland, Spain, France, and Switzerland (I’m jealous!). Mara and Elisheva wanted to go on the London Eye that night, so Amanda and I decided to walk over with them from Covent Garden. However we ended up taking a detour (aka we got kinda lost) and ended up just taking a walk through the West End instead for a couple of hours. They missed the London Eye unfortunately, but it was still lots of fun because I had the chance to hear about Mara’s adventures in Israel and catch up with them.

Thursday morning began in the best of ways…with McDonalds breakfast. Call me crazy, but the egg mcmuffins are infinitely better over here than they are in the US (this is saying a lot, because I despise McDonalds breakfast in the US). The mcmuffins here are more similar to the bobcats that they served in the UCSD dining halls, with fresh over-hard eggs, cheese, and an English muffin instead of a nasty burger bun. The class then went to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) whose job is to monitor the British media and act as a judiciary body to make sure that the print media does not write libel or slander. In my opinion this was by far one of the most interesting presentations I have seen thus far on the program.

Later that afternoon, I met up with Mara, Elisheva, and my family and went out to visit Windsor Castle. Windsor is just outside of London, and it is still used by the royal family as both a place to live and to conduct official royal business. It was incredibly beautiful, and seriously was exactly like a castle out of a fairy tale. Also at Windsor there was a small exhibit on the history of the current royal family, with a display of pictures and other artifacts. Because I do not stalk the royal family like some other people on the program (cough cough Jennings cough cough) this helped me understand who is who and how they fit in to current politics, which was awesome.



Of course, the day didn’t stop there. Since our class had Friday off as a travel day, everyone in the program wanted to go out that night. We found a place called Los Locos, which was Mexican themed. I obviously was excited because I love Mexican everything, and have definitely missed it since moving to the UK. Later at night Los Locos turns into a bar/club type scene, but we were the only people there so we decided to leave and return to our beloved Zoo Bar that we went to on one of the first weekends here. Again, we were bored and went to a place called Tiger Tiger, which didn’t prove to be that fun either. However, I was still having fun because Mara and Elisheva came along, so I was happy just to hang out with them.

The next morning, Amanda and I woke up at 6am by some miracle, and made our way over to my family’s hotel room to go on a bus tour to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath. Lucky for Amanda and I all of the bus trips were quite lengthy, so we were able to take multiple power naps in order to be awake enough to enjoy all of our stops. I had driven past Stonehenge within the first couple of days of arriving here on the way to Cornwall, but it was cool to actually get off the bus and walk around. We were also entertained at Stonehenge because someone from our program had lost his keys there the previous weekend, so we were also looking around for his keys. We didn’t find his, but luckily we still left with ours! :)



Next stop was Salisbury, where there was a beautiful cathedral. We ate lunch in the cathedral’s café, which was awesome because they had a bunch of skylights, which enabled us to be able to look up at the cathedral as we ate. I also really liked this cathedral because it had BEAUTIFUL stained glass, which I am definitely a sucker for. My favorite was one that had dark blue glass, which made that entire of the cathedral have a blue tint. Also in the cathedral’s gallery was a copy of the Magna Carta, which if you don’t remember from your history class is a key document about Western government ideas that has been used as a model for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in addition to other important documents. It was incredible to look at a document that was written over 800 years ago.



Finally, we went to Bath, which is where, you guessed it, there is natural hot springs and Romans built a large bathhouse there. I think I was most surprised to see something that was so distinctly Roman in England – it was so distinct that it didn’t quite blend into the rest of the architecture of the city, which was mainly British architecture from the Georgian period. I originally wanted to dip my feet in to feel the water, but I was disappointed to see how murky and disgusting the water was and quickly decided against it. We also had some extra time after looking at the bathhouse, so my dad, Amanda, and I went into the Bath cathedral to look around. It was more simple than other cathedrals I have seen on the trip, but it was still extremely beautiful. I liked that the theme of the decorations had a lot to with water – very fitting for a city named Bath I thought.



When we got back to London, Amanda and I rested for a little while, and then met up with the rest of our program to go out to a club where Jason Derulo, an American pop music star, was apparently performing. Getting in was quite a fiasco since half the group didn’t follow the dress code, but once we got in it was actually quite fun. It was by far a different crowd than we have seen at other places here – there was definitely a lot more wealth, and everyone was acting more “posh” (snobby). As it turns out Jason Derulo was never going to perform; he was just coming to hang out, but we saw him so that was pretty cool. Despite the misleading expectations, we ended up having a fun night dancing the night away with the other girls in our program. Getting home was quite the challenge since the trains had stopped and we didn’t know which bus to take AND no taxis would pick us up (rude) AND it was raining, but it worked out in the end.




Waking up Saturday morning was another act of God, but Amanda and I made it back to the hotel again to meet up with my family for another bus tour. On the itinerary for this day were Leeds, Dover, and Canterbury. We began at Leeds, which had an awesome castle. If you ask my sister Robyn what the coolest part of the castle was, she would say the peacocks that were roaming around the castle grounds. If you ask me, I thought the coolest part was the moat that surrounded the castle. I have been quite disappointed that none of the castles have had moats, but this one lived up to my expectations. The inside of the castle was also awesome because different rooms had different decorations to display the different periods/history of the castle.




We then took off to Dover, where we stopped by real fast to check out the white cliffs, beach, and Dover Castle. We didn’t tour Dover Castle, but I thought it was cool because the tour guide said that it has been used as a defense as recently as World War II, where soldiers shot down Nazi air raids. Pretty awesome that an old castle was able to help out the country in a modern war. It was also nice to get an ocean breeze; something I definitely miss about California.



After Dover we drove to Canterbury, which may have been one of the highlights of the trip. The cathedral there was absolutely gorgeous and has such an interesting history, and the town was really quaint and awesome as well. I was happy that we had extra time there in order to eat lunch. I tried a jacket potato for the first time, which is basically a delicious stuffed baked potato. I have seen them all over the place and had been dying to try one, and I’m pretty sure that will not be my last jacket potato.



The tour bus then dropped us off in Greenwich, which was cool because my family was so tired when we went on the first day they were here, so they got to fully appreciate it. We got to straddle the Prime Meridian line too, which was cool! To get back to central London, we took a river cruise down the Thames, which I enjoyed because I got some great pictures of the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London that I would not have been able to see otherwise.




Saturday night Amanda and I were exhausted (big surprise), so we stayed in and hung out with Flat 10. We still got up early on Sunday morning though because we had a free walking tour from the tour company we were with for the previous two days. We decided to do the Royal Wedding tour with Jennings and Melanie, which was supposed to point out the main sites. The tour was kinda lame, but I really enjoyed walking around London because the weather was SO nice (I was in a summer dress – unheard of in London), and we got to have a legit girls excursion, and we got in the front row to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, which we did not have the opportunity to do yet.



After the tour Amanda and I met up with Robyn and my parents to go to Abbey Road. Enough said. Abbey Road was actually very busy and congested with traffic, which made it very difficult to take the perfect picture, but I think we managed to do pretty well anyways. My mom and I were very excited to see the Abbey Road studios as well, even though it was hard to see because they were under construction.



As soon as we were done at Abbey Road Amanda and I said goodbye to my family, and met up with Jennings and Melanie to head over to Hard Rock Calling, a huge concert out in Hyde Park in celebration of Hard Rock’s 40^th anniversary. I was super lucky because the only reason I got to go is because my friend James was in Edinburgh and couldn’t use his ticket anymore, and it was AMAZING. We were only there for half of the festival, but we got to see the Barenaked Ladies, Stevie Nicks, and Rod Stewart. Yes, they are all has-beens, but it was awesome and our group had a good time being outside doing the “parent” dance. We were there for seven hours but it felt like we were there for twenty minutes.



Going to sleep was difficult last night because we had so much energy from the concert, but we didn’t have class this morning so it wasn’t a problem. Amanda and I decided to get out of the flat and enjoy the nice day by going to Notting Hill to get breakfast. I had scrambled eggs with smoked Scottish salmon, and a strawberry tart for dessert. It was honestly one of the most delicious meals I’ve had since I’ve been here – I would have taken a picture of it, but I was too hungry to pause before eating it.

I finally returned to real life this afternoon when I returned to work at Parliament, but even that was exciting because I finally got clearance for my security pass! Guess the Brits trust me after all! I’m still not allowed to answer the phone in the office though, because apparently having an American accent makes me sound like a untrustworthy idiot. Excellent.

Off to the George Bar tonight, which is apparently where Shakespeare used to hang out. Hope you enjoyed this intense post!

Caution: Frowning is Forbidden on Fridays

It seems like a lifetime since I’ve last blogged, so hopefully I can remember everything!

Last Thursday I returned to class, where we went on a tour of the Sky News center in Osterley. It was awesome to see the news as they were filming and producing it, and see a front line perspective on how much work goes in to a television broadcast. We literally stood in the control room and watched everything happening live – it was awesome. Not to mention we saw a cast member of Geordie Shore (yes, Britain’s spin off of Jersey Shore) walk by, so all the girls were a bit star struck. Also at Osterley station I got a samosa for a pound (go figure), and it was delicious. I wish they sold samosas everywhere in America like they do here!



Then Thursday night (evening? whatever) we went with our program on the London Eye, which is the big ferris wheel thing on the Thames River. I have to admit I had pretty low expectations, but the view was amazing. You could literally see everything in London and see everything beyond it for miles. All of the pictures had natural lighting and were absolutely gorgeous. Don’t know if I would go for a second round, but I am definitely glad I got to see it once.



Friday’s class was also interesting because it was a walking tour of London’s east end. I knew it had the reputation of being the immigrant’s quarter, and we walked through it briefly during our Jack the Ripper tour, but I had no idea it had such rich history. Many different immigrants have come and gone through the area, including Jews, so there was an amazing bagel shop randomly in there (that I am definitely planning on returning to) and synagogues mixed in to the predominately Muslim Bangladeshi community that currently resides there. Later that night we ended up going back to Liverpool Street, which is on the border of the east end, and went to a pub there. It was a lot of fun, until we accidentally missed the last tube, which gave us the inspiration to walk home. Note to self: Liverpool Street is NOT fifteen minutes away from my flat… it is closer to an hour. On the plus side we stopped off at an amazing kebab place (dubbed “Mr. Shish”) so we went to sleep that night with full and happy bellies.



On Saturday morning, Amanda, Jennings, Claire, Brandt and I headed over to Trafalgar Square to watch West End Live, which was an outdoor festival that gave twenty minute previews of all the shows currently playing in the theaters. In my opinion, we saw all the best ones – “Wicked”, “We Will Rock You”, “Chicago”, “Jersey Boys”… but we only saw maybe about a quarter of the festival. The positives to this adventure? I got a happy meal from McDonalds on the way there (don’t judge me) and got the most fascinating toy I have ever gotten in a fast food bag… it was a fake iPod, and it ACTUALLY PLAYED MUSIC. Kids these days are so lucky, because that toy was legit. Also we got to see the best parts of most of the musicals we wanted to see without having to pay to see them all. The downside? The weather honestly sucked. I have never seen weather change SO fast in my entire life. Ok I know I am from California and we don’t have “real” weather and blah blah blah, but still – it went from sunny, to rain, to sunny, to cloudy, to rain, to sunny, to HAIL, to sunny… all changing in about five minute intervals. Brandt said it best, in that if he had a dollar for every time he had to take his jacket on or off during that performance, he would be rich.



Needless to say, after watching the end of the “Jersey Boys” performance, we headed back to our flat to dry off/hang out/make some lunch. I was very content to make the Mac n Cheese my mom mailed me, and watch a crappy show called “Made in Chelsea”, which is basically the UK’s version of “The Hills”. This low key sentiment carried out through Saturday night, where we chose to go to Hagen Daas to get ice cream in Leicester Square instead of going out. Let me tell you, it was the best decision ever. Brandt and I decided to split a crepe with lemon sorbet, raspberry sauce, and chocolate crispies, and it was absolutely delicious.

Sunday morning Amanda and I woke up early, because the Primack clan arrived in London! We went over to their hotel, and took my dad out to a full English breakfast for Father’s Day. My mom was reallllly excited because they played lots of Beatles and Paul McCartney music in the restaurant we were in.



Afterwards we went out to Greenwich, which has a cool open air market on Sundays, and is also the location of the Prime Meridian line, the Queen’s Palace, and some other random cool stuff. I felt really bad because it took a lot longer to get there than I expected (stupid Underground construction), and my jetlagged family was obviously fading fast. However they were troopers and powered through the day, and I think it was a good short introduction to London for them.



For as much energy as my family lacked, Amanda and I had that much excess energy. This inspired us to basically rip apart our flat and build a fort. It was more difficult than we originally anticipated, simply because we lacked a lot of key materials such as safety pins, string, etc., but we made it work. You can tell me whether it was a major success or a major failure:



Monday was relatively uneventful – it was raining outside, so we felt extra lazy. Classes were easy too because we just held them in the Syracuse center, but the speakers were at least pretty interesting. One of them was Roger Hardy, who spoke about reporting Middle East issues, which of course spurred on several never-ending debates (oy vey). After class Amanda and I met up with the fam, and we went to a pub in Leicester Square. Robyn and my mom had their first fish and chips (yay!) and as expected my dad was boring and got a hamburger (love you Dad, you have to admit it’s funny though).

Now I’m finally caught up to today, which started off with me going to work for a half day. The time flew by fast because I had to write a ten minute speech that my MP is supposed to deliver on Friday (so soon!). At lunchtime I left because our class had a field trip to the US Embassy! The security measures there were ridiculous – literally their security is more uptight than the security at the White House. We spoke with a Foreign Service officer, who gave us a really interesting insight on what it’s like to work in the embassy and what it takes to get that kind of job (it is a lot tougher than I thought!).

After the embassy trip I rushed home in order to meet up with my family in time for an early dinner, because we had tickets to see “Doctor Faustus” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater! I was really excited not only to see a play, but also to sit in the Globe Theater. Even though it has been remodeled, it is exactly how it was like back in Shakespeare’s day. The play was really good, and we had surprisingly good seats. It has also been a lot of fun and refreshing to see my family after work and classes, and I’m going to be sad to see them go next week.



An overriding change since the past week is the amount of time Amanda and I spend upstairs with our friends in Flat 10. Our dear friend Jennings, who we have been friends with since the beginning of the program, lives up there, and we automatically clicked with the rest of the roommates and have been hanging out with them an insane amount ever since. They provide lots of laughs and good fun, and its cool to have other Syracuse students here to hang out with, but are also a change of scenery from the faces we see in class everyday. So basically if you see time gaps in my blog, you can insert “Allison and Amanda were sitting in Flat 10”, and that would be a pretty accurate representation of our day.

That’s about all I have for now. Good stuff to come for next time… have some trips planned this weekend with the family, and I got a call from Mara today that she has arrived in London! I am SO excited because I haven’t seen her since she left me to go study abroad Israel! Until next time :)

"In this country we keep to the left"

After coming back from Dublin, I finally feel like London is “home”. I am getting increasingly more comfortable with all the public transportation, have picked up some British slang, and am starting to decipher between the different accents. Most importantly, I know which way to look before crossing the street so I can avoid getting hit by buses! It is nice to finally feel settled after all the moving from Berkeley from Stockton, and all my nomadic adventures around California before flying to England.

The past couple of days have been relatively busy, though. On Monday we got to meet the BBC’s foreign correspondence executive, which is awesome because he is in charge of all the BBC corporations in the world (no big deal). We also met with an editor from the Guardian, one of the major tabloid newspapers here in London. Tabloids in London are a bit different than tabloids in the US – while they still have stories in yellow journalism style that are greatly over-exaggerated, they are not just focused on celebrity gossip. The main distinction is more of the size of the paper, rather than the actual content. Monday night was also exciting because Amanda and I mingled with some of the students in another Syracuse program (yay new friends!), so we now have new people to hang out with in London, which is nice.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I got to go into work for the entire day, which was actually kind of a bummer because the weather was BEAUTIFUL. Honestly it was San Diego weather in London, which is basically unheard of. During lunch my coworker Sarah and I, and a bunch of other interns we know decided to grab sandwiches and have a picnic at St. James park. It was such a lovely day that it was packed, but it was so nice to sit out in the sun for a bit (makes me even more excited for my next excursion with Amanda to Portugal in July!). I wish I had my camera to take pictures!

After I got home from I quickly jumped in the shower, and Tory, Mike, Jon, and I rushed over to Hard Rock Café. Apparently yesterday was there 40th birthday from when they opened the first Hard Rock, which was at the London location! In celebration they had their original menu at its original 1971 (ie. about a pound for a burger). If you are familiar with Hard Rock’s prices, you know this is an absolute steal, so we naturally had to go and check it out. Unfortunately hundreds of people had our same idea, and after 3 hours of waiting in line we decided to give up and go home to eat. On the plus side I got free ice cream and a free yo-yo while we were waiting! Great success.



Upon arriving to my flat, I was intercepted by our new friends (and Amanda, of course) and went directly to the Ice Bar to celebrate our friend Gina’s birthday. Yes, it is exactly what you think it is. The entire bar is frozen and made of ice (awesomeeee), and they give you these huge cloak things to keep you warm and make you look like an Eskimo. Thankfully you are only allowed to be in the bar for 40 minutes at a time… this California girl wasn’t handling the cold too well towards the end. We weren’t ready for the night to be over so we headed over to Sports Café (our American place) and danced/hung out until we were ready to go home for the night.



Went back to work this morning, and for the first time I felt like I was actually getting the hang of what I was supposed to be doing without asking a million questions and needing constant direction. I was exhausted at the end of the day though – I wrote 4 press releases, edited the website (and had to teach myself html along the way), updated the Facebook for my MP, updated the Twitter, went to meetings, AND did research for a speech he is making next week. All of this, mind you, had to be in "British" English. Surprisingly, there are more differences than you think, more than just changing out a "z" with an "s" every now and then. Needless to say I was far from bored today, but I feel a huge sense of accomplishment.

I can’t believe it is only Wednesday, because this week has been so long! However there is so much more to look forward to… going on the London Eye tomorrow with my program, and my family is arriving in London this weekend! Look out for more updates soon :)

Going Green

What? Al does a blog post on time? Incredible!

On Thursday I returned to my normal class schedule, as opposed to going in to work at Parliament. In the morning we visited Compass, a political think-tank organization that pushes for social change. When I say social change, I mean social equality. Not equal opportunity, equality. To all my Republican friends out there, you would HATE the politics in the UK. The conservatives, known as the “torries”, are more ideologically similar to the Democratic party in the US than that Republicans. The Labour party is pretty socialist, and Compass is pushing it to be downright communist. Needless to say, Compass hasn’t had too much success in having their ideas go through in Parliament, but it is interesting to see that there is a political force out there still pushing these ideas in a Western parliamentary government.

After Compass we had some time to kill before our next meeting with Lord Norton at Parliament, so we killed some time and had lunch at a pub and walked around near Westminster Abbey. It was cool to see where the Royal Wedding just was! However, we were not going to pay 18 pounds just to get in, so we decided we would try to sneak in and have a look around during one of the services (they don’t charge then).



Lord Norton’s talk was also very interesting, especially since there is a bill going through Parliament saying that Lords should switch from being appointed to being elected. During his talk he thoroughly described the purpose of the House of Lords, and explained really well why it would be “rubbish” if they became an elected body (if you are truly interested on the matter, you can ask me later because I am simply too lazy/have too much to say to type it all out here), but basically the House of Lords would completely lose its purpose/necessity if it were to become elected, and interfere too much with the House of Commons. He was an engaging speaker, and it was cool to hear a different point of view on parliamentary issues since I am interning in the House of Commons.



Thursday night was extremely low key because Fabiola (another girl from our program), Amanda, and I had to wake up at 3am (yes you read that correctly) to catch a taxi at 3:15am to Victoria train station, to catch a train to the Gatwick airport at 4am, to catch a plane to DUBLIN, IRELAND (!) at 6:50am. After watching Harry Potter 7 and packing, we went to bed extremely early so we would be ready for our adventure the next day. We wanted to make sure we had extra time to go everything, since we did not know our way around any of the stations/airports, and didn’t want to miss our flight due to dumb mistakes and/or exhaustion. Lucky for us, we got to do some excellent people watching at the train station (ie. potential prostitutes getting into fights and getting kicked off the train) and got some nap time while in transport to Ireland.

When we arrived in the Dublin airport bright and early at 8am, we were all thrilled to find that customs stamped our passports! Usually when traveling within the EU they do not stamp passports, so this was a happy surprise! I also chuckled because they stamped our passports with green ink… so fitting. We found our way to the hostel relatively quickly, dropped off our bags, and immediately headed out to explore the city. Dublin itself was a lot smaller and more modern than I expected it, but I still loved it. There were beautiful flowers hanging from rooftops everywhere, and there was SO much beautiful greenery (very stereotypical, I know, but the stereotype is very true). Also, the city of Dublin is full of statues of everyone who was important to Irish history in any way. It was so bizarre, I don’t think I have seen so many statues in one place in any other city I have visited before. We happened upon a free walking tour, which helped us orient ourselves in the city and know the history behind all of the things we were seeing (and know who the statues were of, haha). Our tour guide, who was also named Amanda, was awesome and taught us not only about Irish history, but gave us stories from her family connected to Irish history and an idea of what Ireland is like currently in terms of politics and culture. She also invited us on a pub crawl for that night, which was excellent since we were trying to figure out what to do at night as it was.



After the walking tour, we went to the Guinness Storehouse with two other girls we had met on the tour, Arden and Monica. They were also from the US, and were in Ireland to go horseback riding (how cool is that?) but were spending a few days in Dublin first. For those of you who don’t know, Guinness is a stout beer from Ireland that is served all over the world. The tour was awesome and super interactive, and I learned a lot about how beer is made. At the conclusion of the tour they gave us a free pint of Guinness at their Gravity Bar, which is on top of the storehouse and had beautiful views overlooking the city of Dublin. It was definitely a nice place to sit and relax with our new friends after walking around all day.



As soon as we left Guinness we were STARVING, so we went to a restaurant the hostel recommended called O’Shea’s with our new friends in tow. You could have probably gathered from the name of this place that they served authentic Irish food, so I ordered an Irish steak and potato pie. It has the picky eater stamp of approval, aka it was amazing, and just what I needed after a long day of traveling and walking.



With our bellies stuffed we walked back to the hostel to get our room keys, set up our beds, and get ready for the pub crawl that night. We got ready relatively quickly and headed over to Temple Bar, the area of Dublin where the pub crawl was to begin. We were planning on walking until we got hit with a random downpour of rain (I was not too pleased, by the way) and had to take a taxi. However, it was totally worth it because the pub crawl was a lot of fun! Our new friends from the day were also there, in addition to Mike, Tory, and Jon, who are from our program and also came to Dublin for the weekend. We went to a variety of different Irish pubs, and got a good taste of what Irish nightlife was like. We also had special deals on all of our drinks because we were with the crawl. Amanda and I didn’t want to have a drink of our own at every place, so we shared in order to try all the special stuff they had to offer. The best by far was a strawberry beer, which we are hoping to find again in London!

The next day we woke up relatively early, grabbed breakfast at the hostel, and then hopped on a train to Malahide, a small Irish town about 20 minutes away from Dublin. It was a bit of a fiasco at first because Fabiola, Amanda, and I were overcharged for our tickets by 15 euros (yikes!) but they promised to mail us refund checks in the mail, so it ended up working out fine. At Malahide we saw a beautiful castle, which is one of the oldest in Ireland dating back to the 11th century. Fabiola loved it so much she started calling it her future home, and didn’t want to leave.



In addition to the castle, Malahide had beautifulll nature. In addition to the huge trees and greenest grass I’ve ever seen, Malahide is also located on the coast of the Irish sea. On our way to the water Fabiola bought us a fresh apple pie (with no forks, but that was not an issue) and we sat by the beach, enjoyed our pie, and looked at the Irish cliffs. It was absolutely amazing.



Upon arriving back in Dublin, we went to McDonalds to get lots of food for cheap (we were low on cash, thanks to the train station), and made our way over to Kilmainham Gaol, a famous Victorian prison where many important Irish figured were held in the 19th and early 20th century. We fell in love with our tour guide, who was extremely Irish and gave us a very detailed history about both the prison and the important political figures who had been held and killed there in the past. It was also cool because the prison has been featured in several movies, including “The Italian Job”.



Sadly, after touring the jail we had to head back to the hostel to grab our bags and make our way to the airport. The only thing that cheered us up about leaving Ireland was the Chocolate Café in the airport, where we all pigged out on delicious sundaes, brownies, and chocolate pancakes to use up what was left of our euros. The plane ride was interesting as well, because basically the cast of Jersey Shore was on our plane, and being loud, drunk, and obnoxious the entire time. One of them, who looked exactly like Mike the Situation, took some of Fabiola’s potato chips! So rude.

Ever since we got back to London from Ireland, we have been lazy bums. Literally all we have done is slept in, ordered pizza, watched movies, and slept some more. Well, I got some research done for my paper (yay!), but that is about the only productive thing I’ve done today. It doesn’t help at all that it is pouring rain outside, and our beds are so cozy and warm. Up next on my to do list today is to watch Mary Poppins with Amanda (we have been wanting to watch a bunch of movies that take place in the places we have just been in London. PS I Love You is also on the list as a result of going to Ireland).

TO ALL OF MY GRADUATES FROM THIS WEEKEND: I am so very proud of you all, and so sad I can’t be there for your special days. Congratulations guys, you did it! Sending all my love from across the pond :)

Brighton, Pub Crawls, and Near Death Incidents

I told myself at the end of the weekend I would catch up on the blog immediately so I wouldn’t have a massive post again! But alas, it is already Wednesday, and here we are again with another huge update…

Friday got significantly more exciting after class finished. My friend Peter, who took me with his friends on the camping trip to Cornwall the first weekend, graciously bought me a train ticket to participate in his going away pub crawl (he is super awesome and got an internship at CERN in Geneva next year, and was also leaving to visit his girlfriend in America so there was plenty of reason to celebrate). This all would have been completely fine, except that the train ticketing service sent the tickets, with a signature required, to Peter’s name at my address. Needless to say, when I went to go and pick up these tickets from the Royal Mail on Friday afternoon, they refused to simply hand them over. After an hour of coaxing and shameless use of American charm (thank you Amanda), they finally gave us the tickets! Definitely a good start to the weekend, along with the BURRITO STAND we happened across near our flat! It wasn’t even close to being as good as our real Mexican food in California, but it definitely hit the spot.

After taking a quick, but much needed nap, our group got ready to go out to Zoo Bar, which is more of a big club than a bar in Leicester Square. Several people in our group heard that this was a great place to go, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. We spent the night dancing, and were out so late that we missed the tube home (which was fine, because it wasn’t that long of a walk and we got to stop for Burger King on the way home).

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult to wake up on Saturday morning, but it was definitely worth it. Our program took us to Brighton, a beach city about an hour away from London. When we were told about the trip, they said that “if you are gay, just a little gay, or not gay at all but love gays, you will love Brighton”. I don’t know how accurate that statement is because I did not notice THAT many gay people, but it was definitely a fun town with lots of shopping (for all you San Diego folk, it was very similar to PB). Because of its location on the beach, Brighton has unfortunately been burned to the ground several times (mostly thanks to the French), so all the buildings seemed relatively new. One of the only exceptions to this was the Royal Palace, which is where the royal family would come for their beach vacations. It was stylistically very interesting, with Indian design influence on the outside and Chinese on the inside.



At the end of the day I left my friends who were heading back to London on the bus, and got on the train to head to the aforementioned pub crawl with Peter. When I got to his house we had pizza, and shortly after went into Farnham to visit the pubs. These were by far the most legit English pubs I have been to during my stay in England, and it was fun getting to hang out with Peter and crew again. When we were done at the pubs, we went back to Peter’s house to have a small bonfire/enjoy the nice weather outside.

Sunday morning I was surprised with a proper English breakfast. Ok well it wasn’t completely proper because I didn’t have the sausage or bacon, but everything else. It was delicious! If it didn’t take so much time to make I would make one for myself every morning! Sadly I had to leave shortly after breakfast because Peter had to pack for his trips, and we had made plans to go on a Jack the Ripper tour that night in London with some people from my program, Crystal, and Amanda’s friends Genevieve and Doug. It was an interesting tour, except it was pouring rain and cold the entire time. Kinda put a damper on the evening… literally.

At the conclusion of the tour we sat in a pub to dry off a little bit, grabbed some food, and jumped on the tube to return home to our flats. We thought that since the tour was over that the scary part of the day was over, but little did we know it had just begun. When we were switching trains at the tube, Jennings and I made it on to the train, and accidentally left Amanda and Mike on the platform. We, along with the rest of the train who saw what had happened, were laughing hysterically, that is until we arrived at the next stop. As soon as the doors opened, a man who was either asleep/drunk/high/cracked out/whatever falls out of the train, and slams his head on the platform. Needless to say the mood of the tube immediately changed, and they had to shut down the line until the emergency staff arrived. Jennings and I were immediately not happy that we had made it on the train anymore! To offset the horrors we saw we came home and watched “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” before we went to bed. I had never seen it all the way through before, and it was hilarious! It was definitely a good way to bring up our moods.

Lucky for us, we did not have class on Monday morning, so we got to sleep in! Class that afternoon actually wasn’t too bad either, because we had speakers from the Today Show, the largest radio program in the UK, and from the author of one of the books the class had to read. After class, Amanda, Genevieve, Doug, and I went and climbed 311 stairs to the top of the Monument, which had an AMAZING view of the city of London. We were physically exhausted but it was definitely worth it.



On the way back to the flat we also walked by St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was also beautiful. I especially loved all of the flowers that were around the church – their colors were so bright, whereas most things in London look dull because the weather is almost always overcast. After our walk the four of us came home, cooked dinner (again!), and watched the fiasco of other students in our program trying to make weekend plans. Amanda and I had booked flights to Ireland last week, so thankfully we were not involved, but it was just as stressful watching the debacle as it was to be a part of it.



Tuesday was my first day of work! The other intern in my office, Sarah, is awesome, so going to work seriously feels like just hanging out with her. I also got to have lunch with some of her other friends who are also Parliament interns, so I got to meet a lot of other cool British people! The class met us at Parliament, and the MP (that’s what they call members of the House of Commons here) that I work for spoke to the class and Sarah gave them a tour of the Parliament building. I came home with the class, where we made dinner and decided to check out the Sports Café, an American place where, yes you guessed it, they have American sports on TV! And dancing, and cheap drinks. We didn’t stay too long because we were exhausted, but it was fun to meet other American students who are in London.

Which brings me to today, where I ditched class again and spent the day in Parliament; going to meetings, doing research, and having lunch with more British interns. I would be more specific, but I’m not allowed to be :) Yes, I am that cool. And now I am laying on the couch, looking forward to a chill, low key night. If you want to Skype me and say hi, tonight will be a good night to do it!

PS. To all my friends who have finals this week, good luck! Thinking of you all.

Week 1 in London and Oxford

Apologies to my loyal readers for having to wait so long for another post! While it is bad that it has taken me so long to update this blog, the good news is that this abandonment is due to an excess of exciting happenings.

Ok so maybe Monday wasn’t so exciting, but it was a much needed day of rest. Even though the UK doesn’t have Memorial Day, it happened to be a bank holiday so we still had no class/a day off. We slept in, and my roommates, Amanda and Mike, and I went out to a quick breakfast with some of the other students in our program at Pret a Manger, London’s version of Starbucks (aka one on every corner, but everything is way cheaper and there is a bigger/better selection of food). From there we ran errands and legitimately started unpacking and got settled into the flat. We also decided that we wanted to do several roommate dinners per week to practice cooking and save money (Mom, Aunt Teri, and Grandma – aren’t you proud of me?!). We of course took pictures to prove how awesome we are:



Because Monday was so low key, Amanda, Mike, and I decided to wake up early on Tuesday morning before class to go for a walk/explore around London. At the beginning, this was an awesome idea. But then we got close to Parliament, and Big Ben, and all the famous London monuments and got carried away to a point that we were almost late to class (not to mention the blisters I accumulated on my feet from walking so far. Ouch…). It was still worth it though, because now we have a better idea of the layout of London, and a better sense of how far away things in London are from our flat (better to learn sooner than later, I suppose).



Then there was class all day, blah blah blah… I have to admit, class is not so exciting for me. The topic is interesting – in case I did not mention it before, it is about Politics and Media in the UK, which is right up the alley of my Communication/Political Science degree. However, after being out of lecture classes for over a year and knowing that I do not need to take notes because I am the TA, I have the tendency to zone out (if you haven’t gathered already, I am in class now as I am composing this blog). If I wasn’t being paid to show up, I probably would choose to sleep in a little more often, but I will definitely survive. After class though, we decided to go to King’s Cross Station. Why would we go there? Come on Harry Potter fans… to visit Platform 9 ¾! We were disappointed to find that in fact the actual station was under construction, so they set up a fake one outside, but hopefully it will be done before we leave in August!



To cheer ourselves up from our Harry Potter fail, we went to Harrods to window shop. We spent most of our time in the hat section (no pictures, sadly), which was everything you imagined from the Royal Wedding. The best part though, was the Chocolate Bar we happened upon. Yes, you heard correctly, chocolate bar. Everything chocolate was there – ice cream, milkshakes, cake, etc. We chose fondue. Is your mouth watering yet? If not it will after looking at the picture below. It came with strawberries, bananas, pound cake, croissant pieces…



Wednesday’s class was significantly more interesting, because we took a field trip to see Danny Finkelstien, who is the executive editor of The Times newspaper in London and former politician. His office was right next to the Tower of London castle and the Tower Bridge, no big deal. But he was hilarious and had an interesting insight to what is happening now in British politics. After our field trip we came back to our flat to cook dinner (again!), this time with salmon on the menu instead of pasta.



This dinner was also awesome because my good friend from work in Berkeley, Crystal, arrived in London and came over to hang out! After dinner we decided to give Crystal a proper UK welcome, and took her out to a pub in Piccadilly Circus. We had a hilarious bartended who was a surfer, and completely jealous that Crystal and I were from California. We ended up going back to our flat relatively early because Crystal was jetlagged and because I had a meeting at the Parliament building the next morning.



My meeting on Thursday morning was less of an interview, and more of a “nice to meet you, this is what you’ll do here” meeting. The MP (member of Parliament) that I will be working for is named Jon Trickett, who is one of the leaders of the Labour party from Yorkshire, in Northern England. He is absolutely hilarious, and had me laughing throughout our meeting, so I think this internship will be interesting as well as enjoyable. My fellow intern, Sarah, was also very sweet and helpful so I should have a smooth transition to the job. My official first day is next week, so I will let you all know how that goes in a later post.

From Parliament I met the rest of the group at the train station, and we took off for a day trip to Oxford! Upon arrival we got a campus tour from Ash, the current president of the Member’s Union at Oxford. Apparently former presidents have become pretty famous, so I’ll have to look out for him in the future! We had the rest of the day to meander around and explore on our own. We decided to walk through Christ’s Church, which is where they filmed several scenes in the first and second Harry Potter movies, go “punting” (basically going on a boat that is a crossover between a row boat and a gondola, ridiculously difficult by the way), and to grab a food/drinks at the Turf Tavern. After dinner we attended a debate at the Member’s Union, which was actually a comedy debate for charity about whether people should still have children or not. The debate teams from Oxford and Cambridge both gave silly arguments, and had the audience laughing, except for us sometimes because we didn’t understand some of the slang/couldn’t always understand the accents. It was still interesting though because we got to sit in the room where several famous (serious) debates have occurred in the past at Oxford.



And now we are caught up to the present moment, as now it is Friday morning and I am sitting in class and promptly not paying attention. If you have made it through this post without skimming/skipping some parts, congratulations! I will try not to wait so long between posts next time!