Week six: ...and I still haven't stopped laughing

This week at the internship was a riot, as usual. On Monday, we had a staff video conference with UKTI Glasgow (Scotland) where all attendees had free lunch! So of course, Martin and I had more than enough reason to show up. About halfway through all of us stuffing our faces with sandwiches, we realized that all the Glasgow people were sitting there without food and just staring at us… oops. Once the meeting actually began, the assignment for everyone was to sit in groups and brainstorm ideas for how UKTI can be more efficient and effective. They were supposed to create points for the most flawless, successful events ever and the funny part to me was that they had to write them all down on huge sheets of paper using brightly colored markers and present them to other groups. I was hoping that eventually exercises like that would stop once you’ve reached adulthood, but apparently not. I sat there eating my crisps and drinking my coffee while the adults tried to get their creative juices flowing. It was quite entertaining. That same day, I ended up leaving work a little late, not because I couldn’t finish my work but because I was too busy laughing with my coworkers. I forget what we were talking about by now but I remember Andy looking at his watch and saying “Mai, what time are you leaving?” To which I told him that I’m staying longer because it’s like added time in football games, and I’m adding on time because of all the stops I’ve had to take on account of laughing too hard (we’re football fanatics together, what can I say?).

On Thursday, one of our coworkers, Matt, invited a bunch of us to go out to the pub for lunch. It was his last day at work on Friday, not Thursday, but they decided to get the sending off festivities early and start drinking on Thursday. Somehow it was agreed upon that I should try more British beers and so I tried two, but I didn’t like either of them and someone else had to finish them for me. I guess I’m still not English enough! I also got another vocabulary lesson, this time from Martin and Peter. Martin was trying to say that I had to try something called a Cornish pasty, but I kept on messing up the name when I said it. First I pronounced it Cornish “pay-sty” and it was supposed to be “pah-sty.” Martin claimed that “pay-sty” would mean that it’s white and sickly looking, which it is not, to which I then argued that the “pah-sty” had to be pasty-looking before it was cooked in the oven anyway. Then for some reason I said “Cornwall” instead of “Cornish.” Then I said “pastry” instead of “pah-sty” and I asked them “Where did the R go? It had to have been a pastry at some point.” Peter spent the whole time rolling his eyes at me. The lesson continued with the pronunciation with the word “glass.” Apparently in northern UK, they pronounce glass much like Americans would pronounce glass. However in the south, they say it something like how we would pronounce the word gloss (as in lip gloss). So I asked Martin, “How would you pronounce ‘gloss’?” and he thought that I said “glass”… it took him another minute to realize I was saying a different word, but when he tried to distinguish between their pronunciation of “glass” and “gloss,” I really could not see the difference… Finally, there was the word “film” (as in I’m going to develop some film). They said that some parts pronounce film as if it was spelled “fil-em,” adding that E in there for some random reason. Go figure right? The English language is ambiguous enough without all these different interpretations! And if you got lost several times while trying to read my attempt at retelling the conversation… don’t worry, we shouldn’t make much sense to most people anyway.

In midst of all this silliness though, I did work this week (surprising, though, right?). Per Martin’s request, I did research on Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain in particular. What I ended up composing as a result of my research is going to be the introduction for the mission out to the Gulf region, to spread UK business there. I also started keeping track of the bids for the 2018 Winter Olympics (people start planning really far in advance for these events!) and updated the suppliers list for London 2012, as more companies sign on to be a part of it. Even though 2012 is four years away, in the minds of those who are planning it, it is right around the corner! I also wrote an article on an event called Winning Beyond 2012 (which brought together UK companies, trade specialists, and senior officials from eight different sports international sports games), which is going to be posted on our Portal soon!

On Saturday, I went to the Cuban Carnival with two friends from the TWC program, Pam and Leslie (2 of 3 other roomies in DC, with 3rd being Alisa). It was exactly what I needed, a little Latino spirit! We ate amazingly good food, drank smoothies, and walked around to all the booths, which featured products from other countries in South America (Peru, Colombia, Jamaica, etc.), not just Cuba. The best part, however, was the dancing! They had a live band and live singers, and the atmosphere was incredibly lively! We spent half the time dancing in the crowd (and those people were also dancing). I actually started the dancing before we even got to the carnival grounds when I heard a song I knew echoing from that direction (“Ella me levantó” by Daddy Yankee) and couldn’t resist.

People dancing at the Cuban Festival

The stage and the gazillion people in front of it... haha

Plug for Mexico! Viva Mexicoooo!!

Rockin' them Cuban flag shirts!

This week in the world of Football and Me was an eventful one! On Wednesday, Germany beat Turkey 3-2 in the semifinals, letting Germany advance to the finals. Then on Thursday, Spain (my team!) beat Russia 3-0. The sad part was, Spain’s best player and the player that had scored the most goals in the entire championship, David Villa, had pulled a leg muscle about 34 minutes into the game and had to sit out for the rest of that game AND the final game. I happened to instigate some rowdiness later that night when I saw some Spaniards in the street decked out in Spanish gear and carrying a big Spanish flag and yelled “España, whoooo!!!”… which only led them to sing “Que vivaaaa España…” However, Sunday (today), was the icing on the cake (or whichever part of cake you like best, and if you don’t like cake then there’s always pie) because Spain took down them big bad Germans! So to complete this week’s theme of “still laughing”… HAHA SPAIN BEAT GERMANY!!! I had never yelled so loud in my life while watching a football game. Someone actually asked me if I was Spanish, simply because I was so vocal and making comments about everything. I had managed to make all my friends Spain fanatics (they were all cheering loudly with me at the pub), and even my 13 year old brother at home in California who didn’t even know what channel the game would be playing on changed his MSN messenger tagline to “Spain shall win the finals.” Football spirit is contagious!! And now that it’s over and Spain has won, there’s no more football to watch… I don’t know what to do with myself… maybe attempt to watch cricket? Naaaah…

Spain running around celebrating their victory!

Week Five: All Tea’d Out! (Plus a bit of Prague)

This week at work, a lot of people on holiday or on business trips came back. My main supervisor Andy came back from holiday, David came back from the road shows around England, Sarah came back, and Martin came back from Rome. Andrew, however, left for Vancouver! In the middle of doing my work, I somehow manage to squeeze in a thousand cups of tea. I like my tea hot so when it gets to half empty, I have to go run and fill it up with hot water again…and this happens very often, as you can imagine. I guess I am becoming more British than I thought. As for work, I’ve been doing more research for Andy and Martin on various companies and events. I’ve been emailing other international trade specialists to put together that UK road show in September and so far have just been keeping record of who is interested so I can determine in which cities we should plan stops. I’ve also been emailing them to compile a list of UK companies who’ve had success in the Beijing Olympics so that eventually we can do case studies on them and keep track of our progress. In addition to that, I’m helping out Jessica, the Major Sports Events Team marketing manager, because sometimes I don’t have enough to do. Andy told me on Wednesday that I was “too efficient” (which I suppose is the best complaint someone can get from their boss!).

We’ve continued to have amusing (at least to me) conversations at work. One day we all had a discussion about British candy vs. American candy. Andy loves eating these things called Curly-Wurlys, which are caramel coated with chocolate. I tried one but it kept getting stuck in my teeth so I don’t think I’m going to do that again. Martin is obsessed with rock candy, which I tried a piece of and I think they just taste like candy canes… without the stripes and it’s also not Christmas. We have a stash of candy available to anyone who needs sugar and everyone walks by it at least several times a day… no wonder we’re such kooks while we’re working – we’re hyped up on candy!

Thursday could have been summed up as the best workday yet, probably because of how little work I actually did. I arrived at a little past 9 (the bus was running late) and helped Andy prep for a big meeting starting at 10. The meeting consisted of business owners and CEOs in the sports sector coming together to discuss the plans and goals to promote UK companies. It centered a lot around London 2012 and other international sports events, many of which I had already looked into a little. The meeting lasted for two and a half hours, but then we were fed sandwiches! They were cut into 4 smaller pieces and there were so many kinds that I tried several… what can I say, I’m a bit indecisive. After the meeting, Andy and I met up with some other coworkers who had already left for their lunch break and went to a nearby pub. Sarah’s birthday was the day before and she was buying everyone drinks. When Andy and I got to the counter and he asked me what I wanted, I told him that I wasn’t sure how drunk I am allowed to be in the office! I went with an apple cider called Strong Bow just to be safe, but when we got outside and I saw what my other coworkers were drinking, I realized that it was really okay to get something substantially alcoholic! Some of us went for another round of drinks, and by the time we got back to the office, it was already 2:30. When I asked Martin sarcastically if there was anything he wanted me to do, now that our day officially began in the afternoon, he told me “Oh stop being such an American!” Lesson learned!

The highlight of this entire week, however, was my weekend trip to Prague with Alisa! My first trip out of London since I arrived three weeks ago, and I MADE IT COUNT! We almost didn’t make it to our flight, and the story, although funny now, was not so funny as it happened. We had to get on bus 36 to Victoria where the night bus 11 was to take us to Liverpool St. Station to catch the train. Well, the night bus 11 arrived a few minutes late, there was vomit on the bus (so we blame the tardiness on anonymous drunken people), and then we got to Liverpool St. Station late, missing our train by 2 minutes! We then had to wait 30 minutes for the next train, so by the time we got to the airport, we only had 15 minutes left before the gates for our flight were closed. The line for security was extra long and impossible to get through in 15 minutes, and by the time realized that we were down to 7 minutes. We had to ask people in front of us to go in front of them in order to attempt to make it to our plane on time, and luckily there were people nice enough to let us do that! After we got through security, we threw on our shoes and grabbed our bags and SPRINTED (literally, with flailing arms and flying hair and all) through the terminal to get to our gate. I think that was the most exercise I’ve done in a long time (walking miles around London doesn’t compare to a crazy sprint). Obviously there was a happy ending to our ordeal, because we made it to the gate and they were still boarding the plane. We were right on time, right when they said they would close the gate.

After sleeping like a baby on the flight, I was absolutely ready to explore Prague! The first day there absolutely killed my bank account. Alisa and I went to eat at a nearby restaurant that the hostel told us we would get a 10% discount at… but they failed to tell us there was an automatic 10% service charge. They also charged me for the condiments I used (ketchup for my fries) and bread that we didn’t eat (we corrected that angrily). Expensive lunch and I was pretty pissed. At least the next places I spent money didn’t anger me that much – I spent a ton on souvenirs! My excuse was that I hadn’t bought ANY since I’ve been to this side of the world and now I have lots of “souvenir credit” stored up. The rest of the weekend, Alisa and I were very conscious of where we ate food. We ate the sausages at those stands because they seemed authentically Czech enough for us, random ice cream, and sandwiches from the grocery store. We also carried around a big 1.5 liter water bottle wherever we went. The first one I carried, actually, was from that expensive up-charging restaurant we went to the first day and it was a glass bottle of still water. I didn’t want to waste anything especially since I had paid a ridiculous amount of money for it. Unfortunately I soon realized that I was getting looks from people because some of them thought I was holding a huge bottle of vodka and occasionally drinking out of it in the middle of public spaces… hahaha. Another lesson learned and from then on I carried around the cheap plastic bottles that are clearly made for water!

We must have walked a gazillion miles… all I can remember from the weekend is walking and more walking, and then occasional sitting when we couldn’t walk anymore. The views were spectacular and they were exactly what I came to Europe to see! So with that, I’ll let my pictures do the talking! :)

The National Museum, very close to our hostel

Valdstejnska Garden, near Prague Castle

View of Charles's Bridge

Nighttime view from Charles's Bridge

Stone Bell Tower at night (reminds me of Cinderella's castle at Disneyland)

Part of the climb up to Prague Castle

View of Prague from the top!

P.S. Football Update: The Netherlands got squashed by Russia yesterday, 1-3. So much for orange domination! The Spain v Italy game was tonight, and it was intense! I rooted for Spain because it will be my home in the fall, and wow… neither side could score during the normal game time, there were plenty of close calls though, which made it almost maddening. In the extra time, STILL neither could score, so they had to go to penalty shots. At that point, I was clutching my friends and saying “oh my God, this is ridiculouuus” repeatedly. I yelled every time Spain made a goal, but more importantly, every time Casillas (Spain’s goalie) blocked Italy’s shot! Spain’s shots were blocked only once, but Italy’s were blocked twice! I was literally jumping up and down when Spain won, it took up to the 5th and last penalty shot kicker to determine the winner. España ganó! Whoo!

Week Four: Minding the Gap

Perhaps one of the things I appreciate most about being outside of the US is being able to easily access a TV channel that features football (soccer) games on a regular basis. At home in California, I had to scour all the Mexican channels just to watch the World Cup, which I didn’t mind but at the same time, GET WITH THE PROGRAM, English-speaking stations! The Euro 2008 is on now, as I mentioned last time, and I try to catch as many games as I can – I find it fun to stand in a pub screaming, groaning, and throwing up my hands with the rest of the fanatics. For people who don’t understand the game, I think it’s still fun to get carried away and maybe even fake anger, because that’s all part of getting into it! You’ll see that this week (probably an indicator of next week as well) mentions a Euro 2008 game every day, with other equally exciting events sprinkled in!

On Monday, my friends and I went on a hunt for a pub that was playing the Italy v. Netherlands game. For a country that loves football, I actually found it difficult to find a place that had the game on… the usual response was “Really? I don’t know what channel that’s on… I don’t think we will have it on that channel.” But finally we found a place called Chiquito Mexican Grill (great food, lousy and extremely sour margaritas from a machine that taste like a lemon slush). Italy, for those who don’t know, won the World Cup 2006 – so imagine my surprise when the Netherlands beat them 3-0! More on the Netherlands team later…

Orange domination! Netherlands celebrating a goal against Italy

After class on Tuesday, I went with Alisa on her mission to find internet splitters (she was getting a bit tired of having to share her internet time with someone else, which I think sums up everyone else’s feelings too). Unfortunately for us, the electronics stores (along with most other stores) had long closed, as was confirmed when we got off the tube at Tottenham Court Road (only in the US will stores open until 9 pm, which I think is much more convenient for people on a 9-5 work schedule). Feeling irritated for having trekked up there for nothing, we decided to console ourselves with some sushi at a place called Yo! (exclamation mark included in the name), located near Piccadilly Square. It featured two revolving belts – one going clockwise, the other counterclockwise – and the sushi chefs stood in the middle, making different types of sushi and placing them on the belts. You just grab the one you want and pay for the ones you’ve eaten at the end (which turned out to be dangerous, because I just wanted to grab everything that went past me).

Wednesday (Switzerland v. Turkey, 1-2), Alisa and I finally finished booking the details of our weekend trip to Prague next weekend! Altogether, it was about $350 (USD) for the flight, train to the airport, and 2 nights in a hostel. It will be my first trip out of the UK since I’ve gotten here and it’s about time! I’ve also booked flights to Rome with my friend Stacy and her roommate Jenny the first weekend of July, but have yet to book trains and hostel. I’m also planning to go to Paris, possibly the third weekend of July, but that has yet to be planned. I cannot wait to see what the vibes of those places are! I want to be shocked and amazed with what I see, and though London has been a different scene in many ways, I still want something even more different and dynamic. Part of the reason, I think, for why I don’t feel like I’m that far away from home is because they are still speaking English to me (albeit in a completely different accent so that sometimes I can’t catch their words the first time around, and using terms that I bewilder me, if only for a second). In short, I just can’t wait to see what effects more disorientation will have on me.

On Thursday night (Croatia v. Germany, 2-1), a bunch of us went to see King Lear at Globe Theater because CAPA had provided us with tickets. I had never read this particular Shakespeare play before, and had to ask the lady sitting next to me to read her guidebook in order to attempt to figure out what was going on. It was a lot of drama – made all the more confusing because I couldn’t tell one man from the next (the women looked different enough for me to distinguish, and there were only three of them). Not to mention my seat was behind a big pole… so half the time I had no idea who the voice was coming from. I ended up leaving a little before the intermission (I thought there would be no intermission because it was more than an hour and a half into the play and there were no signs of stopping) with my friend Casey who was even more confused than I was because he had arrived 45 minutes late. My scientific conclusion: British accents are hard to follow, especially when they are being dramatic and angry and speaking-at-a-rapid-pace. Shakespeare is difficult to understand, especially if you’ve never spent 3 weeks analyzing that one single play scene by scene, as we used to do in high school.

Inside of Globe Theater

View across the River Thames from outside of the theater

At one end of the Millennium Bridge, looking at St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance

On Friday, my friend Isaias (the one visiting from France) went back to the Vietnamese borough, Hackney, in search of Viet food again. Yummy, as expected! Then we went to Oxford St./Piccadilly Square/Leicester Square (they’re all next to each other and really close to walk to) to look at stuff that we can’t afford and/or don’t know why we would spend that much money on that stuff even if we did have money. Then we went into a random ice cream shop/dessert place because I thought that the pictures looked too good to resist. Somehow between being indecisive about whether I wanted ice cream or if I wanted chocolate cake, and Isaias wondering where our waiter came from and making me ask him, we made a new friend. (And the ice cream v. cake predicament was solved by the compromise by one slice of cake with one scoop of ice cream on the side, if you were dying to know). Joseph, our waiter, was from Algeria and had just come to London 9 months ago. He found it entirely amusing that Isaias thought he was Italian and that I thought he came from Belgium (in my defense, it wasn’t a real guess, I only named the first country that popped into my head when I was forced to guess and really did not have the slightest idea where this guy was from). Isaias proceeded to try to practice his French with Joseph, trying to get me to join in on their French conversation (I am from Montreal so I’ve been exposed to French my whole life, have taken a few French classes, and read Montreal’s French newspaper for fun when I’m bored, including when I’m at my internship and there is down time) but I was too busy enjoying my chocolate cake and strawberry ice cream to say much. For dinner, we met up with Isaias’s friend from high school, who happened to meet the love of her life here in London, is now living and working here, and getting married in 2 months. We went to Wagamama (the most fantastic Japanese noodle place ever, my favorite place to eat here so far, as I’ve been there about 3 times… maybe 4?). Then we went to Lloyd’s Bar to watch the Netherlands v. France game. Isaias, of course, was rooting for France because he is in love with France after studying there for a semester, and I rooted for the Netherlands just to spite him. Well, the Netherlands beat France 4-1, which was pretty disastrous for the French, and every time my team scored, I (as expected) yelled and clapped and threw up my hands (along with half of the bar, I wasn’t the only one). It was sweet, sweet victory.

Wagamama: Outside my favorite place to eat... getting hungry just thinking about the food.

On Saturday, before going with Isaias to Heathrow International, we went for lunch at Pizza Hut (he was craving it). It was fancy; they have wine glasses on the tables, actual hosts seating you and waiters taking your order at the table. I still find it odd that our regular fast food places in the states are fancier here. Now if only they had the dollar menu to help us poor Americans out with the horrible exchange rate, but I guess that had to be different too. When we got to Heathrow (after getting on the wrong District line train and having to go back, and then having to wait forever for the right trains to come), I had to sit with Isaias’s bags while he checked in and met an old Venezuelan woman who sat next to me. She started out speaking to me in English, saying that she had been on a cruise with her family. I then answered in Spanish (I’ve been taking it for about six years now) and she continued on in Spanish, not realizing she had just changed languages until five minutes later when she stopped and said “¿Hablas español?” (You speak Spanish?) After she had left, an old British man sat down next to me and asked me where I am from, so I told him that my family is Vietnamese. He then remarked how he had been to Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia but not to Vietnam, and also how he is flying by himself to Tunisia but meeting people there. At this point I need to emphasize how old this man was – really, really old. To hear that at his age he was flying to North Africa on his own and still having adventures was incredible and I could only think “Wow, I hope I’m still able to go travel the world when I’m his age too.” Another thing I love about London is that when I am out and about, I see people with all types of ethnic backgrounds and can hear them talking in their native languages. One minute it will be French, I turn my head and hear Spanish, and then even languages which I can’t even guess about. Some places claim to be diverse, but they really aren’t or maybe their diversity is minimal – a huge majority with speckled lightly with minorities. But in London, the diversity is palpable at any given place, at any given time.

I got back from Heathrow just in time to catch the Spain v. Sweden game at 5 pm. I was rooting for Spain just because I’m going to be studying abroad there during the fall semester. They barely won, 2-1, when one of their star players, David Villa, made a goal in the added time. Good enough to win the game, but is it good enough to contend for the championship, especially against the Netherlands team, which seem to be on a roll? I don’t knooow… tough one. We’ll have to see!

This week at my internship was slow, only because my supervisors were either out of the office or prepping to get out of the office. Andrew was in the office all week, sort of, but he was at invite-only meetings half of the time and when he came back he was swamped with trying to sort out his overflowing email box and had stacks of papers on his desk – none of which I could personally help him out with. He left for Vancouver yesterday to attend a meeting regarding the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. For that, he asked me to compile a packet with all the background information he would need (status of building, the venues, the plans, etc.) so that he would not sound “entirely clueless” (his words). On Wednesday, I was done at 11 am-ish because Andrew had meetings to go to for the rest of the day. I had finished everything he had asked me to do, and he said he didn’t want me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. On Thursday, he was also stuck in meetings until around noon, so I started making quite interesting conversations with my other coworkers in the office. I met Zafar, who is on the construction team with Andrew, from Pakistan and we talked about traveling around the US (something that Zafar really wants to do eventually). He said that one of his cousins built a house in Virginia for the same price as Zafar’s house in London but that the length of his cousin’s master bedroom is the length of Zafar’s entire house (I couldn’t stop laughing the whole time he was making comparisons). His commute into work is about 1 hour and 20 minutes each way, because he lives out near Heathrow. And I thought that the Los Angeles commute was bad. I talked to Simon, who sits across from me so I just poke my head out to the side when I want to say something, about different types of tea. He was trying to show me where they keep their tea. The box he pointed to was red and said “red”-something on it, but I couldn’t see because his hand was covering it and I happened to say “oh, red tea?” To which, Simon said, “I don’t know if there is such a thing as red tea, is there?” And I said, “I don’t know, there is black tea and green tea, and Earl Grey tea, which I assume is grey, so there must also be a red tea.” I continued to make joking references to the existence of red tea the rest of the day, and if you don’t find that even slightly amusing, then I guess you just had to be there. Then Ivan came by and somehow we struck up a conversation about British sports. He attempted (quite futilely) to explain cricket to me, saying that it was like baseball… except not really. Each team has two innings (called something different in cricket terminology, which I now forget), but sometimes the games can last up to five days, only to possibly end in a tie. There is something called a wicket keeper, and I forget what that equals to in baseball too. Instead of running bases in a diamond shape, they run from one post to the other and back, and can keep running until… I don’t remember until when either, I just know that one person can make more than one run, unlike baseball where you just run home and you’re done. The bat is flat, like a paddle, and bigger than our bat, but the ball is smaller than our baseball. So… yes… is that enough like baseball to make the connection? Ivan went on trying to explain other sports to me, saying that polo is like “hockey on horses” (meh?) and rugby is like American football, only better. He also mentioned football (soccer), at which I jumped on the subject. Simon then claimed that football “bores [him] to tears” while Andrew said that he’s hoping the Netherlands will win. So, all in all, though not a very productive week in terms of having official tasks to do, it was a good time with the coworkers just like the week before. Aside from often feeling like I’m speaking English completely incorrectly because our accents are so drastically different, I feel included in this office! Sometimes I want to emulate their accent just to feel like I fit in more (I imagine I’d get just about the same feeling if I were to learn some entirely different language like Arabic, got thrown into Egypt and attempted to talk to Egyptians, knowing that my speech sounds horribly bad). If you have to work, at least you love where you work and enjoy the company of the people whom you’re working with, right? That’s all I could ask for.

2nd Canadian Embassy I've found (the other was in DC). This one is next to Trafalgar Square. We rock! :)

Week Three: Writing Updates Between Sneezes

I thought I had it bad when I was in DC and sneezing up a storm, but this is much worse. The first thing I do when I wake up is sneeze… then I proceed to sneeze about 20 times that day and walk around with my eyes all puffed up, looking as if I’m drowsy (it gives the effect that my eyes are even smaller than they actually are, which is bad especially because I’m Asian and people think my eyes are small already). I’ve been told that I probably have hay fever, so today I finally gave in and spent money on buying medication. Crossing my fingers on whether or not it will actually help!

Despite being all hazy and whatnot, I managed to have an awesome first week in London (minus some minor mishaps). On Tuesday, I had the interview for my internship for UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). It is a government organization helping companies export and import throughout the UK as well as abroad. They have sectors for every industry imaginable, and I am interning for the Sports & Leisure Sector. It was very casual, and comprised of me, my supervisor (Andy) and one of his coworkers (Sarah). We talked about the weather (something that I was told the British tend to talk about), and about some work I’d be doing. I asked if I would be taught how to make tea and they laughed, looking confused, and asked me if I personally liked tea. I said I did, but I had asked because during orientation they stressed tea-brewing skills. My coworkers laughed some more and said that I would not be expected to make tea for them. They were very laid back and even said I could work whenever hours (although obviously I decided against the idea of coming in at noon, leaving after lunch).

That night was my first class in London, about London and Britain. Even though it was pretty interesting, I could not stay awake to save my life. At any random time, my eyes would get really heavy, and I would think, “oh no, I don’t have enough eye muscles to fight this!” I would sit there nodding off for I don’t even know how long… until suddenly, the sleep haze went away and I was wide awake. I don’t know what provokes it, or how to suddenly make it go away. But I did realize that day that perhaps falling asleep at 3 am was not such a good thing, and trying harder to go to bed at the right time would not be a bad idea.

Even so, after class ended at 8 pm, I did not go straight home but instead met up with a close high school friend (Stacy), who is studying in London for about 6 weeks and is staying in Kensington, near the CAPA office. We went to Sports Café (which is a sports bar) near the Piccadilly Circus station with some of her friends and some of mine. It started raining when my friends and I left, and it was already dark so the lights were bright and colorful. I went running in the rain.

Piccadilly Square at night

Wednesday was the first day of my internship. My internship is a relatively short commute. I just get on the bus stop near our housing, get off 25 minutes later at Victoria (which is a pretty convenient place because it is a tube station, train station, close to the coach station, and also has many bus stops as well), and walk to my internship about 5 minutes away. I arrived really early, so I spent more than half an hour in a bookstore next to the office building entrance. The first assignment was to update the list of UK companies sponsoring the London Olympics in 2012, so we could contact them about our services later down the line. For lunch, I walked down the street to an open market area with rows of sandwich shops and the like. I came back to the front of my building and as I sat just observing the people on the crowded street, the sun came out to play for the first time since we arrived on Saturday.

First sunny day in London and I'm stuck in an office building!

My coworkers are hilarious. They crack jokes about each other all the time and shockingly, I understand them and find them really funny (we watched an episode of the British version of “The Office” in DC to get a taste of British humor and I think I laughed only once, maybe twice).

Later that night, Alisa and I roamed London again! We went to Hyde Park but it was getting dark so we didn’t go in. Then we went to Trafalgar Square and spent about an hour taking pictures of Nelson’s Column and the pretty buildings and fountains. Just as we were going to leave, I saw Big Ben in the distance and we took another 10 minutes to take pictures of that.

Trafalgar Square

More Trafalgar Square...

The highlight of Thursday was at the internship. Six of my coworkers and I went to St. James’s Park to eat our lunches. We sat in the park enjoying the 2nd sunny day for about an hour and a half. When someone realized we had been gone for a while, she said that maybe we should go back, but another person said “but why?” and then we stayed another half an hour. I love the casual atmosphere and how they can be outrageous with one another. I’ve already gotten a taste of office politics though – they apparently do not like another woman in the office who shall remain unnamed and tease one of men (David) by telling him that she’s in love with him. I’ve been advised to stay out of such politics though, so I just sit, smile, and maybe laugh at their jokes.

At home, things were not as good though. I got home after my internship that day and found out that our water was still not back yet. I had not showered since Tuesday night because the water went out before I got home on Wednesday and I shower at night… and I was starting to lose it. Almost two days with no shower at all and I get a tiny bit grungy. I heard later that many people had actually called in to their internships and told them that they would not be coming in because they were not presentable. I had been drinking tap water too, so I was dehydrated as well as dirty. I decided to take a nap and by the time I woke up at 7 pm, the water was back, thank God. I used twice as much shampoo and conditioner just to make up for the day that I missed, haha.

On Friday, I met up with my friend Yehia – an Egyptian who is an international student at my school, University of San Diego, but came to visit his brother in Oxford before heading back to Egypt for the summer. He loves to wander and make himself get lost, so that is what we did. We started at Victoria, got on the tube and went to Oxford Street, walked over to Piccadilly Circus and went into an Italian café that he said his family loved going to when he was young. We ate what I would consider a full lunch there, complete with a dessert, but he called it a “snack.” He enjoys eating a lot, as you will soon find out, but a good thing about him is that he is accustomed to paying for people, especially girls, when he goes out to eat so my response is always “okay, let’s eat some more!” After that “snack,” we walked over to Hyde Park and roamed around inside there for a while.

Getting crushed by a huge fallen tree in Hyde Park...(just kidding!)

I saw some big geese (yes, that was a fact worth mentioning, I thought).

Then we walked over to Knightsbridge and went into Harrods… a huge high end store with everything you would ever need to live life lavishly. We had sushi as another “snack” in the food court. Then we walked around for a while and… I wouldn’t say that we got “lost,” because we had no idea which direction we were headed towards in the first place. Eventually we wound up at Sloane Square, where Yehia wanted to go into another café to have a hot chocolate. I was still really full from the “snacks” so I just had some green tea instead. Then we got on the tube and went to Leicester Square, where we walked around in circles and up and down the street, reading menus to decide where to have dinner (see? I told you… he likes to eat). We finally decided on a restaurant called Mint Leaf, which had Indian food. It was fantastic! I had a seafood platter with some rice, and we went for dessert as well, of course. Then we had to rush back to Victoria so that his driver could pick him up and take him to Oxford. As for me, I got on the bus like a normal person with a budget would, heading back to my housing.

Indian food for dinner! Yummy!

On Saturday, I met up with my friend Stacy again. She brought one of her flatmates, Jenny, and Alisa came with me. We went to eat at Wagamama’s, a restaurant chain known for its amazing Japanese noodles (they also serve rice dishes as well). It was delicious! I already want to go back. Then we went up to the High Street Kensington station, where the Marble Arch is, and did a little shopping. We went into Primark, a huge store with tons of cheap clothing, which was hands down the busiest store I have ever been in. You could get trampled in that store if you’re not careful. It was loud and bustling and it wasn’t even a market, it was just a store with two floors. After a while, Stacy and I had to run outside because it was overwhelming in there. I guess we are not great bargain shoppers. We walked up the street and went into some shops; I ended up buying stuff even though I knew I shouldn’t have. Oh well… that’s why they invented loans I guess!

Yesterday, a good friend of mine, Isaias – who has been studying in Aix-en-Provence, France for the past semester and is starting an internship with the EU in Strasbourg in a week – arrived in London with one of his friends. I met up with them and went around London, but not to any place new for me. In the evening we went to a pub and met up with another friend of mine who I met last year during my time studying abroad in Guadalajara, Mexico. We all watched a football (soccer) game--Germany v. Poland, and Germany won 2-0. I am still a little bit disappointed that England didn’t qualify for Euro 2008, which I’m sure is not nearly as bad as the Brits feel… I was told by a coworker they’ve only managed to do that twice since the end of WWII, and of course one of the two times has to be when I’m actually in London.

Today at my internship, my supervisor’s two bosses, Andrew and Martin, came back from their weeklong trip to Athens, where they met with companies regarding the London 2012 Olympics. I did some research to prep Andrew for his trip to Vancouver next week about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, and Martin assigned me a new project – to organize a road show for our UKTI Major Sports Events team, tentatively for September. Martin is leaving again tomorrow for Rome and won’t be back until Friday, and my supervisor is on holiday at home this week. Between the traveling and the holidays, I think that I would not mind this job at all, if I were a full-time employee. :)

On my lunch break I wanted to walk off my McDonald’s (I NEVER eat it in the States, but I’ve already had it twice here and I give into my cravings for fries… I don’t even know why I do it, it’s not even cheap). And just kept walking on Victoria (the same street I work on) and all of a sudden I ran into Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. I have to say, it’s really nice to be walking distance from such infamous sights, as if they were no big deal at all. It’s even more amusing to me that I didn’t even know they were just down the street from me! That definitely would not happen to me at home! I’m in the middle of history!

Hello, Westminster Abbey!

Big Ben! (and the London Eye peeking out from behind a building on the left)

Week Two: Landing in London, an Epic in Three Parts (3)

Today was the LAST day of orientation (and re-orientation and re-orientation). I am so happy. Afterwards, my friend Alisa (also my roommate back in DC) and I went in search of my internship location off of Victoria station, because I have an interview scheduled for tomorrow and didn’t want to be lost on my first day. I made friends with the security guard, Paul, in the lobby. I think that this will be a good experience. Yes, simply based on meeting the nice security guard man in the lobby. I am that optimistic. (As a side note: I have also made friends with two old security guards where I live, Bailey and Junior, because of my problems with my key and being locked out and whatnot).

Afterwards, we decided to go absolutely crazy and travel all over London. We roamed the Victoria station, which turned out to be huge because it also houses a train station and has a mall attached to it. Then we got on the tube and headed over to Covent Garden, where Alisa’s internship is supposed to be… “supposed to be” being key in that previous sentence. We marched up and down that area and could not find where her internship site is located. Oh well, good exercise. Then we went to explore some more and found ourselves at Leicester Square (also where Chinatown is, although I think we completely bypassed that). We took some pictures, and began to act like very obvious tourists (i.e. taking pictures in the red telephone booths… I know, it’s a little bit embarrassing, but necessary).

Leicester Square

I began to get hungry and so we moved on in search of food – except that I only wanted to go eat at this Vietnamese restaurant that I had read about off of Old Street station… far away. But we decided to go anyway. We traveled all the way there, got off, it was drizzling, and we didn’t know where we were going… I attempted to use the map and opened it upside down (hey, I realized that it was upside down in a split second!). It was a long trek over to the restaurant (which we didn’t even get to, because we were distracted by seeing another Vietnamese restaurant and were too lazy to walk any further). The food was so yummy! It was just what I needed after more than two weeks of eating meals consisting of peanut butter sandwiches in order to save money (yes, it’s that drastic).

Viet food at the restaurant we hunted down!

Then Alisa got the brilliant idea of going to see Tower Bridge in the dark. That led us to board the 149 bus right outside of the restaurant and go down the street to Liverpool Street station. I proceeded to be very tourist-y, taking pictures of random buildings on the street that were remotely attractive to me. We got on the tube there and got to the Tower Hill station. We got out and took some more ridiculous but priceless pictures (trust me, they’re pretty good).

View from outside Liverpool Station

Then we walked across Tower Bridge and along Queen’s Walk, parallel to the river until we reached London Bridge. London Bridge, despite all the hype, is not special whatsoever… it looks like a normal bridge. Tower Bridge is the crazy looking one! (Just a tip, so you know how to distinguish the two).

Tower Bridge, next to the Tower of London

We walked down the street and got onto the Jubilee line at the London Bridge station and did some tricky maneuvering to arrive back at Victoria station – yes, where we began. That was because we wanted to see how long it would take for me to travel to my internship by bus (buses are quite useful too, especially after the tube closes at midnight or so). That whole experience proves that spontaneity is sometimes better than making plans! And that being random and entertaining your whims are actually quite rewarding!

In any case, enough rambling from me for now! I can’t wait for the interview tomorrow and to really get into the vibe here!

Keep you posted.

Week Two: Landing in London, An Epic in Three Parts (2)

The only reason you can read this blog right now is because somehow, eventually, the internet problem was fixed and I was able to send my blog! Yay!

I started to write this entry then suddenly was overcome with jetlag and wanted to sleep very badly. Now I’m writing at 1:34 in the middle of the night… which I suppose means that I have a while to go before I get rid of it.

Today we had to go to South Kensington to the CAPA office for some orientation sessions… tomorrow we have some more orientation sessions… honestly, I didn’t know I could get re-oriented so many times in such a short period. We had a lot of orientation prepping in DC and now we have some more! I simply cannot wait for our internships to start, to get used to this pace of life and to just run with it. I don’t want to take any more baby steps, believe it or not.

The best part of today was the panoramic tour of London. It’s a larger city than most people think and very historical. We saw bridges, buildings, parks, monuments, museums and had the chance to stop and take pictures a few times.

View of Parliament and Big Ben

Tower Bridge

The tour was from a coach bus, but otherwise we have walked and taken the tube. The public transportation here is amazing! The tube runs practically everywhere, and buses make very regular stops. You can always see a double decker bus or a few passing by – sometimes too close to you.

St. Paul's Cathedral

At pedestrian crossings, they have words on the ground telling you which way to look (for instance, “look left” or “look right,” quite simply), which has probably already saved many of our lives several times on this trip already. I’ve adopted the phrase “Green man!” every time we are able to cross the street because instead of a white man lighting up, there is a green man! And when we can’t walk, a red man lights up.

The area where we live in Camberwell is green and leafy, a little less bustling than more central London of course, but we are still relatively close to the center.

For dinner, my roommate Jessica and I cooked! I was in charge of the chicken and she was in charge of the pasta. We did amazingly, if I do say so myself. I have cooked before, but not often. I think I will really take advantage of the fact that I’d go broke in a week if I keep eating out to force myself to cook more. It will be the motivation that I never had before.

Jessica (my roomie) and I are living the high life in London (we wish)!

Week Two: Landing in London, An Epic in Three Parts (1)

Technically I still have 20 minutes until it is officially June in London… but we can overlook that. We landed in Heathrow today nearly an hour late, which I barely noticed. Surprisingly, I was able to sleep most of the 7 hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean, with a few negligible neck problems. It took another hour to drive to our student housing in Camberwell, during which I completely fell asleep on the bus.

The neighborhood tour came right after we had just a few minutes to check in and drag our baggage up a couple flights of stairs (no elevators here). It was pleasant, the weather was nice and cool--no humidity like in DC. The walk to the our nearest tube station isn’t that bad, and it was there that most of us spent our first substantial amount of money in London – 93 pounds or around $200 for a month pass on the tube between zone 1 and zone 2 (which also includes unlimited bus use). We live in zone 2 but have internships and classes in zone 1 (more central London), so we had no other choice. For dinner, the majority of us happened to go to a nearby bar named… something with “black sheep” in it. I only remember its website that was displayed on a sign, “barbarblacksheep.com”… because I thought it was quite funny. We had a great time, laughing and just letting loose… after which we all decided to march over to a local grocery store, so we wouldn’t wake up in the morning hungry and without anything in our rooms.

So far, I’ve had a pretty unlucky experience with the housing here. My landline phone does not work. The internet which we are simply supposed to connect to with the provided Ethernet cable does not work. My key to get into the building was actually a deactivated one, which means that I have the key to get into my room but not to get into the building where my room actually is. Because it's the weekend, I've had a tough time resolving my problems immediately. The person who answered my call to the support line for the internet provider was confused, and the best response he could give me was “Oh… it’s not supposed to do that.” Technology always has a way of ruining your day, doesn't it? I consider all of this part of the transition process, I suppose, and hope that these problems will all resolve themselves soon…. On the other hand, I guess without technology we will all be bored in our rooms and be more encouraged to go out on the town – though I doubt that many of us were planning to stay cooped up in our rooms anyway!