18/2/13 (Weekend to Bath)

I really like how I go days without blogging and then suffocate you with like four days of information. I apologize for that. However this weekend I was gone and didn't have internet, so that is the reason for it this time.

14/2 Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started like any other Thursday. I woke up early and had to go to class. So once I got out at noon, I went and had a wonderful bowl of cereal. I love cereal. After that, I left at 12:45 with Nicole and Elisha to head to class, which was to be held in Westminster Cathedral. We took the 7 bus, and I sat right up front on the upper deck. Luckily I was with them, because I fell asleep on the bus. They woke me up and we found the cathedral. We got there a little early so we explored around. We found a giveaway where we had to fill in a time and sit on a chair of ice to get some chocolate. So we did it:

Behind us is the cathedral.

There was also a man with a hawk doing his thing... because you know... London.

This is St. Patrick's Chapel. If you look above the
statue of him, you'll see how it is just brick. Eventually
this will be filled in with a mosaic commemorating him
and Ireland. 

What I found interesting about this is that it is not built in the normal, Gothic style that most Catholic cathedrals are build it. The reason for this is because Westminster Abbey, which is right down the road, is built in the Gothic style, and that is a near perfect example of how to do it. So they decided to differentiate and build in a more eastern style.

On the inside, they decided to leave a lot of the mosaics unfinished, so as to let future generations complete it to their desires. This cathedral is also relatively young: it was finished around the turn of the 20th century.

 Both of these are symbols found in St. Patrick's Chapel. To the right, surrounding the red are two snakes, which as legend goes, St. Patrick chased out of Ireland.

We had a tour guide that took up around the alter. There is a place in the back for the choir boys.

A lot of the desks in the back had graffiti-like carvings on them

We also got to overlook where the congregation sits. It was stunning.

Sorry about the quality.

Finally, we got to see the chair in which the most senior person in the church sits. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XIV both sat here. We weren't allowed to sit, but it was still amazing to see.

Later that night, we all went to a club called Tigertiger because we had free tickets. I am not one who is big into clubs but it was a decent time. There was a big group of us, so that made it more fun. I think we left around 2 because we had to be up and out of Woburn Place by 8:30 the next morning. 

15/2 The day after Valentine's Day

Upon boarding the bus at 8:30, most people were quite quiet. We had a weekend trip which was going to Bath and Avebury, but I will get to that later. First, we went to Stonehenge to check that out. It was pretty much amazing. Just brilliant.

If you look to the upper right, there is a little black bird

We were blessed to get such amazing weather for the entire weekend. It was sunny and rarely cloudy at all. Which made it semi warm and tolerable!

After Stonehenge, we went to Bath, which was one of my two favorite places that I have been so far. Fact: Nicolas Cage and Brad Pitt both have houses here. 

Nicholas Cage's penthouse is the circular area.

The first thing we did was visit Roman Baths. They were build around 100 a.d. and have survived since then. They are natural hot springs which makes the water absolutely lovely (apart from the sulfur smell and metallic taste). Matt and I spent a lot of time here, just sitting by the bath and watching the ducks swim.

After that we explored some more, spend some time at a pub called the Pig and Fiddle. I would highly recommend it to anyone who visits Bath ever.

16/2

We woke up early for two reasons: free breakfast and Spa day.

The breakfast was great. That is all I have to say about that. We went and got in line at 9:00 for the spa, which is a five star luxury spa. We each paid 26 Pounds and spend the morning relaxing. To see the spa, click this. It was amazing. The steam rooms had four pods that were all different flavors. One was mint and eucalyptus. After two hours of that, we went to grab lunch. We grabbed a pasty, which was basically a pot pie wrapped in bread. I got a Cornish one, which I have no idea what was in it. Delicious none the less. After, we met at 13:00 for a rugby match. It was incredibly exciting. Like no jokes, I would have loved to gotten into rugby. The hits these guys put on each other were just punishing. Here are some photos, which again, it was beautiful out.

After that, we wandered a bit. We found, in a candy shop some Lucky Charms... that cost 12 Pounds for a regular box. That is around 18 Dollars. Unbelievable. Then, Matt, Jake, and I explored a bit more and went to dinner. We went to a French bistro, where it had a unique way of ordering. We ordered from the set menu, and got three plates; two entrees and a starter. But the portions of each was quite small because the premise was to try as much as you want. We finished and were full but not stuffed. I love that feeling that French food gives you.

At night, we went out in a group of like 7 of us. The first place we went was quite dodgy. It was upstairs in this alleyway, but they had pound drinks, so good enough. We eventually ended at the Pig and Fiddle again. Still, just a solid place. 

17/2

We left around 9:30 for Avebury. This town is owned by the National Heritage and is a World Heritage site. Why it is is because there is a twenty foot ditch dug about 5000 years ago with stones placed all around the ditch. These stones, the heaviest being over 100 tonnes, were all placed by hand and to get one in, was estimated that it would take 250 cattle and 250 men. It was completed in a measly 500 years, give or take 100 years. Oh yea, and the ditch was all dug out by shovels of cow shoulders and picks or deer antler. When they found the bodies in one of the burrows, they all had signs of arthritis. Surprise. 

The largest stone of the lot.

This is our tour guide. He was amazing. He had such a funny since of humor and
was very knowledgeable about the stones for a volunteer. He was just blunt with
his jokes, which made it all the more funny. 

In Avebury, I walked around alone for a while just taking in the silence. There was an organ there in the local church, so I took those photos for Mez. It was a very old church. We got back to London around 17:00, and I just got caught up on life. I think I fell asleep around midnight, because I was honestly too exhausted to do anything else. 

18/2

Today, my plans are to relax and go to bed early. I will go to Store Street to talk to the director for a little  bit. I will also take a trip up to Kings Cross to print out some tickets. I do not have to work this weekend, so I am taking a trip to Oxford University. It should be amazing. I have the entire day to explore there, I leave Paddington around 6:20 and don't return until 22:00 or something like that. Other than that, I may go shopping or something boring like that. Maybe walk around Westminster a little, but no promises. Talk to you all soon!!

BES Assignment 2: Making sense of it all

I have now been to the Museum of London twice, once alone and once with Joey and Matt. Both times, I learned interesting things, and I feel like I have a little better understanding of the history of London.

When walking into the museum, there are award winning photos which adorn the walkway. They were stunning photos and captured the essence of the United Kingdom and the world. Going into the museum, we started with the artifacts of the pre-Roman era. It is hard for me to comprehend that people have literally lived where I am sitting for thousands of years. I was really interested in what London looked like before all the building and roads were introduced, and the museum gave me a brief look into that.

As we moved through history, something that caught my eye was the mosaic that was featured after the Romans had come to London. I cannot wrap my head around the idea of ancient people making intricate pieces of artwork out of shards of rock. To me, it seems like it would take years to complete and not worth the hassle. They are beautiful and well built, being that some have survived to this day.

Seeing the old wall of London wasn't a big deal for me until I saw the Tower of London. It really put the old wall into perspective. This wall literally kept the city safe from invaders for many years. The wall provided security and protection for Londoners. Amazingly though, it fell into disuse and eventually became obsolete.

I wish that they would have talked about the Plague in London more. There was a short video of it, but I was hoping they would go more in depth. Something they did talk about brilliantly though was the Fire of London. It started out with paintings, which I overlooked the first time but focused on more in my second trip. The art work was interesting because some showed the fire and the complete and utter destruction it caused while others showed how people were trying to fight the flames, and it gave the situation a more human feel. After the paintings was an old fire cap that would have been worn by the fire brigade. It was so heavy and cumbersome but I expect that it did save the workers necks from hot ash. The display ended with a video explaining about the fire. It was quite interesting because there was a display that showed how the fire spread. I was shocked to hear that the stone of St. Paul's exploded and the roof melted because the heat was so intense.

Finally, they had a display set up like old London, with shops that you could walk or look into. I enjoyed this because it reminded me of stereotypical 18th century London: a banker with scales on his desk, a hat maker, a tobacconist, and of course a tailor advertising the latest fashions. I enjoy these kinds of things because it takes you back to a different time of living. A simpler time where people had one trade and they were the only one of that trade, not like today where people are multifaceted and must deal with other small business competition as well as bigger companies.

Overall, I thought that the Museum of London was great experience. My first perception was that it was small, but that is not the case at all. One just needs to divulge themselves into it and truly examine the artifacts. I will most likely visit the museum once more before I leave.

BES Assignment 1: Street Life

During my first month in London, I have visited two markets (along with other, smaller markets, especially the Hoxton Market): Brixton Market and Camden Market. Both of these markets were amazing, and incredibly diverse and different than each other.

Brixton Market:

When I went to Brixton, it was very early on in my trip here. We went later in the day, so some of the shops were starting to close up. Something that I noticed was that everyone seemed to be shouting, either directly at people to come look at their things or just in general to gather people around. I had mixed feelings about it. I do not like being directly talked to by shop-keeps unless I am planning on talking to them. On the other hand, I thought it was a good idea to just start yelling to get people's attention. I loved how the meat and vegetable market were open. What I mean by that is that there was a stand full of delicious looking vegetables arraigned artistically. Also, the meat was just hung out either on hooks, or on ice. You could literally go up to and touch a fish in the eye.

I ended up buying some bananas from this one stand. However, he was asking for a ridiculous price. He asked 2 Quid for 7 bananas. I haggled him down to 1.30, so I was very happy with that price. I thought it was a lot of fun haggling with the guy too.

Camden Market:

Camden Market is one of the things I have enjoyed most about being in London so far. We went on a Saturday and it was wild. There were so many people everywhere. These people were unique people though, not you typical Londoners. At one point, we passed a stall where it was painted all black, there was a doorway, and the only thing in front of it was a lady dressed in black with bright red hair. For a while we thought she was a statue. We didn't buy anything from the stands, but the food court was a whole different situation.

When we entered the court, we were inundated with some aromatic smells, it almost knocked us over. There was everything from fish and chips, Asian food, hamburgers, Turkish wraps, and even an entire pig roast. First, we did a lap to see everything, and more importantly, get a sample of everything to help us decide what we wanted for our meal. We treated the lap like an appetizer, eating such a variety of foods. I ended up with a roasted pig sandwich which had the best British ingredient I have found so far: chutney! It was delicious. It is lovely that the market is only 10 minutes away, so this will definitely be a place that I will be going to many times in the future.

Going to these markets was a great experience. I hope to visit more markets on the list, as well as Spitalfields Market on the weekend. Probably this weekend I will go check that out. It is just such a big change in culture than what I am used to at home, where we do all of our shopping at stores, and farmers markets are rare, and if you do find one, they are nothing special.

Internship Journal Week 4

This was an interesting week, and I believe that I am gaining a lot of experience that will help me in the immediate future. Mainly, skills in communication, networking, budgeting, forecasting, and managing accounts are what I have been focusing on these past few weeks, and I think the work is paying off.

On Tuesday, I had to meet Karina at Liverpool Street Station at 9:30. We walked about four blocks to a center, where Locality was leading a workshop for small business enterprise. First, they talked about dealing with capital investments and acquiring property. There was a man who showed an Excel workbook dealing with investing in property. It was rather lengthy, but how it worked was you put your expected cash flows in and then a broken down version of your expenses for the project, then its output was some charts. One chart showed anticipated cash income vs. expenses. Another was cash flow vs total cost of the project. This one I found useful because it showed when the firm would break even on the investment. This would be useful in determining the overall usefulness of the investment. For example, if you have a thirty year investment and a ten year investment and the thirty year investment costs 500,000 Pounds, but you break even in year seven, and the ten year investment costs 50,000 Pounds and break even in year six. Just looking at those numbers, it is hard to determine which would be better to pursue. Also, the workbook was set up so that if you changed one number in the inputs, it would change the entire output, so if you weren't sure about a number, you could play around with it until it was the result you desired.

After that, we talked about problems small business's have with leadership. Each firm there said that they had one or more experiences in the past six months where they had to deal with an employee problem. We learned different techniques on dealing with employee problems. I didn't take as much away from this because it was more geared towards looking at individual problems and offering advice to that. I took the time after though to network with people again and have some delicious desserts. At all of these conferences, there are great desserts. We left at 16:00 and called it a day after that. It was, in my opinion, another positive event that I was lucky enough to attend.

I was told not to come into work on Wednesday because my boss was ill. Instead I went exploring and saw some museums and art galleries.

Something that I have noticed about working in Britain is the amount of times we take break during conferences. I believe between 10:00 and 16:00 that we took either 5 or 6 breaks. They were each about 10 minutes long, which does add up after a while. However, everyone seems attentive after the breaks and full of tea, which is great! So much tea is drank here. There was actually a line on the aforementioned workbook that was specifically for tea supplies. I really enjoy the relaxed feeling I seem to feel everywhere I go for work. No one really seems too stressed or worried, and are more worried about making you feel comfortable and getting to know you better.

This is a picture from the Garden of my boss, with the Trust behind her. 

BES First Five Weeks #5

I am writing this entry after our trip to Bath. I chose to wait so I could talk about the trip there and how I feel to be back in London.

Bath was amazing. I had low expectations for it and I thought there was going to be a lot of free time, so much so that I was going to be bored. That was not the case at all. Bath was such a picturesque town. I love walking the streets of places and I feel like I didn't do enough of it there. Honestly, for such a compact city, there was almost too much to do, making it nearly too perfect of a place. I loved the little shops, cafes, restaurants, pubs, and houses. It was nearly perfect. Even the air smelled better than it does in London.

When the final day came and we had to leave Bath, I found it bittersweet. After an exhausting weekend, it was nice to know that home was calling, but I could have stayed there a lifetime. The pace of life, the things to do, I could have done it all forever. At home, there is not really a place to go like Bath. There is no posh town that is historic, chic, modern, friendly, and welcoming all wrapped into one. I went to the spa and I think the most relaxing part of it was when we left the steam room and went outside to the brisk air. There, we were overlooking the Roman Baths, and got a stunning view of the city. Just seeing how peaceful and beautiful it was at 10:00 had a soothing effect to it.

Once we entered London, I had mixed emotions, like I said. It was nice to be in a familiar area, and nice to know that we would be starting in a routine again. But it was hard to look at the city. The buildings seemed a little dirty, there were people and cars everywhere. Everything literally seemed to be moving, where as in Bath, things were static and calm.

Through all my travels around the world, I started a list of places I want to return to. It is extremely small. I wouldn't be heartbroken if I never visited Paris or Madrid again, but the places on this list, I must return to. In alphabetical order (because I cannot rank one over the other) the places are: Arles, France and Bath, England. Both of these cities seem to be locked in a different era. They both are unique places to me, places that I can go to and be in complete ecstasy for a day or week.

BES First Five Weeks # 4

I mentioned that I wanted to speak with some people in pubs to get a better understanding of London culture, and to just speak with people in general. I have two occasions that have made this goal completed.

The first happened this past weekend during the Manchester United game. First, there was a bit of a row between two people in the pub, which was very odd to us because they were older gentlemen. The aggressor started yelling at this man who was sitting near us and we honestly could not figure out why. He was minding his own business and standing watching the game. Nevertheless, everyone at the pub took it in stride and just continued what they were doing. I don't think that in America this would happen. I think that a third party would step in to quell the argument. Once they left (around intermission), this older gentleman, of whom I have noticed at this pub during Manchester games, entered. He stood near the television and looked over to our table and gave me a hello. So after the game, I went up to him to talk a little football. He was extremely nice and seemed interested to the conversation. As we parted, he said that he better "see you all back supporting the Reds next time their on." I was shocked to hear him say this because I guess it means that we are accepted at the pub, at least by this guy.

My second story did not happen in a pub, or even at all yet, but I feel it is a very relevant point to make. At my internship last week, I had to go to a seminar to discuss the third sector of London. There, I met this man, Alan, and we talked over tea, sandwiches, and some delicious biscuits. Anyways, after our conversation, I got his contact address. I emailed him and we set up a meeting this coming Friday. We are to meet at a coffee shop. I am excited for this because I really enjoy talking to people about the similarities and differences of our two cultures. I hope this will also be a positive experience for me in networking, something that I feel I need to work on.

I have noticed that once you do break through the stiff upper lip of Brits, they really are pleasant people to be around and incredibly interesting and are interested in you. I hope I can continue forging these relationships and others throughout the rest of my time here.

13/2/13

It was great. I did everything that I told you guys I would do. After I wrote the last blog post, I made a grilled ham and cheese, which I am a pro at now, then left.

First, I walked up to Kings Cross because down the road from that was a museum called the Wellcome Museum. It housed a lot of old medical materials that this man, Wellcome, collected over his lifetime. At one point, the thing I was listening to said that he would just purchase crates of objects, then put them in storage. Also, they had three commentaries from amputations spanning from the 1600's, 1800's and 2000's. I am glad I didn't go into practicing medicine, because it sounds complicated. There was also an exhibit on skulls. Most of it was cool, except it is really weird to think about how everyone says and thinks they're unique, but really, we are just bones.

After that, I walked across the city to Hyde Park. I got side-tracked and just explored a lot of the city streets as I walked towards there. When I finally got there, I knew I had to walk towards Kensington Gardens. On my way, I found an art gallery, so I stopped in. I thoroughly was confused the entire time. The first room seemed to be just book covers of German books, then it proceeded into a room with two birds in a cage, then a room of yarn wrapped around a board, and finally, a room of boots and a couch on the opposite side. Like I said yesterday... because art.

Then I made it to the Museums near the border of Westminster and Kensington. I ended up going to the Science Museum. I loved it. I don't want to be a school teacher. There were many smaller British kids there on field trips. The museum was geared towards younger kids and was quite interactive, but I don't care. I still liked it a lot. I know this will come to a surprise, and I was truly disappointed in myself, but I was too tired to walk home. I ended up getting on a bus and taking that back to Euston, and walking home from there. It was the first time since coming when I was too tired to walk. On the bus, I was up top and I fell asleep for a little bit. Luckily, I woke up on Oxford Street, so I knew where I was and didn't miss my stop.

Once I got home, Tayler and I went to Primark to exchange my pants that I got this past weekend because they were too big. That was an interesting excursion because she needed to get a green shirt for tomorrow, but we couldn't find one. I attributed it to the fact that green is not "in" this season. After rushing home, I got changed and went to ULU to watch the other Champions League match, which Manchester United was a part of, so that was great. But it was packed there, so that took away from it a little. Still, it was a lot of fun to watch and yell and cheer with a bunch of people. Now, it is midnight and I am planning on going to sleep for tomorrow. Below are some pictures that I said I would post!

So the big tower here is something I use frequently. I use it as a marker to
get home,because I am about a stone's throw away from it.

If you notice on the right, there is a fence. They are literally
everywhere here. Places are fenced in. Today I even saw a private
garden. 

Also, there are a lot of squares like this. It adds some greenery
to the city, which is great. There is one actually up and down the
street from me, kind of like Wegmans!

This is a field in Hyde Park. The problem is that it is usually cloudy
and it is winter so it looks glum, but it is so quiet, peaceful and semi-romantic
(if you are into that stuff. Romantic walks etc.)

This is a waterfall in Queen Mary Garden's, which is a part of Regent Park.

On a bridge in Regent Park. It was actually my favorite park I have been to so far.

There are no "London Style" of houses, rather houses are usually
built similarly to the ones on their street or neighbourhood.

Again in Regent Park. These parks are huge tracts of land
and great for killing a few hours in the freezing cold.

This is a train. It was talking about steam power and was impressive at the time.
I liked it because not many children were interested so I could look for a while.