#our professor bought us tickets...it was nice just a bit touristy

[aisling-saoirse]

The Blue Lagoon - October 2023

[fredericksmeg-blog]

2 weeks in London.

Hello I am back!! This is blog part 1 of 2 for the month of March!

Monday, March 6th On the Monday after we got back from Wales, all that I wanted to do was sleep. Instead, I woke up ~early~ to do my laundry before the room got mobbed by everyone who was coming back from break. That was the main event of the day, pretty much. I ate some dinner from the groceries that I had in my freezer and went to my very first Internship Seminar class (because we were starting our internships that week). We talked about our career goals and a whole bunch of hoopla. It was just fine. When I got home, I sorted through my pictures from break and hung out for a bit.

Tuesday, March 7th On Tuesday, I had my BLC class, and we pretty much just talked about where we went on break and then got out early because everything is a joke. I went to Tesco to restock on groceries and almost had to uber home because I couldn’t carry all of them. I ate lunch in my flat before I zipped over to the British Library for my Archives class to look in the gallery that has the Gutenberg Bible, original copies of Beowulf, da Vinci sketches, Shakespeare, etc. We got a very detailed account of them, which I appreciated. I’ve been in there a few times already and it’s not exactly a large room, but I learned a lot about things I didn’t even know where in there.

I genuinely don’t remember what I did for the rest of the night. Probably made some calls, uploaded pictures, and organized my life because I started my internship the next day.

Wednesday, March 8th Wednesday was my first day at Mercato. When I got there, no one that was in when I interviewed was there. Aka, no one knew who I was or what to do with me. I sat around for a bit while my Italian coworkers fed me espresso until I was ultimately sent home early with the promise that there would be more for me to do tomorrow. I was so unbelievably jacked on caffeine that I went home and ran 5 miles. That never happens to me. What a day. Jas and I watched Baby Mama that night. Good times.

Thursday, March 9th On Thursday, I had a more productive day at Mercato. The day flew by and that was ideal because afterwards I met up with Will and none other than Brian Schlaff at the Tate. We went to a delightful pub on the South bank of the Thames called the Founder’s Arms, had a few beers, and ate dinner. After we ate, we headed to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which is one of the oldest pubs in London and it’s essentially a maze. There was sawdust on the floor, and different rooms with hidden bars. I’d never been in it before, and I’d been meaning to, so I’m glad that we went! It was just really nice to see Brian and hang out with my friends. After that we went home and just hung out and planned some more stuff to do that weekend.

Friday, March 10th In the morning, I made breakfast with Will and Brian just like old times. We scrambled up some eggs with toast and it was lovely. Shortly after that, I headed off to my internship for another day. It was just fine, again. Did some spreadsheet stuff. I genuinely can’t remember. I probably won’t go I into much depth about my day-to-day at my internship on this blog, because I already have to write a lot about it for both my Internship seminar and the hundred of job applications that I’m working on. After my internship I hurried back to the flat, changed, and then went to Camden to grab dinner at Brewdog with Will and Brian.

I had a very delicious Pale Ale and a chicken sandwich that was cleverly named Cluck Norris. Then the three of us did the Camden Pub Crawl, and it was really fun. In the middle of it we decided that we would try to facetime our friends from hope and that went about as well as you think it would. We ended up at a club/venue called KOKO and there was the most atrocious white rapper playing there that night so we left pretty quickly. We got pizza (I had half on one, each of the boys had almost 2 haha) and went home.

Saturday, March 11th On Saturday morning we rose from the dead, went to Borough Market, and ate the whole world. It ended up working out that each of us bought something to share with the group, in addition to our own meals. First we had a veggie pie from the Pieminister, then we had some fried balls of ginger and dough and onions I think, and then we had some spinach and ricotta ravioli. I ended up with a grilled cheese on my own, and I also bought a donut. Am I proud of all this? Maybe.

From there, we walked to Somerset House to see the Courtald Gallery, which has a few really neat impressionist paintings including the self-portrait of Van Gogh after he mutilated his ear. We spent about an hour there and it was cool, I had no idea that it was there. We also grabbed some coffee.

Then, we walked to Trafalgar Square and got on the tube to head up to Regent’s Park. We took a nice walk around – it was a gorgeous day – and ended up at Primrose Hill. Will saw an ice cream truck and just about flew into the sun with excitement, so we did that. The ice cream dude asked us where we were from, and we said the states. Thus began the regular conversation of “Ugh, Trump haha” and then we say “Ugh, yeah.” and then he says, “We have Brexit though so we’re not doing too well either.” = this entire conversation is one that I’ve had probably every time I make small talk with a British person. Anyway, we told him that we didn’t vote for Trump and he gave us a deal on the ice creams. Then we climbed to the top and sat down for about an hour.

From Primrose hill, we bopped down to Brick Lane to get some curry for dinner, which was actually a lot more touristy than I expected. I guess at this point it’s kind of well established as a good place to get for Indian food. Then we walked farther into Shoreditch to grab a beer before we headed back to the flat. We had a chill night, and watched The World’s End, which is an Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movie about an apocalypse pub-crawl. It was really something.

Sunday, March 12th What a magical day!!! I woke up and went to Brixton for the very first time with Will and Brian. We went to the market and grabbed some delicious brunch, which was lovely. We meandered around there for a bit afterwards and went into a few stores. Naturally we went to go see the David Bowie mural and got some coffee. Then we headed to Westminster, so Brian could take some tourist photos with Big Ben as one does. This is when I had to say bye to my dearest best pal because I was going to the Harry Potter Studio tour that afternoon. It was v sad and I won’t see him until probably August. So that was a bummer.

When I got back to the flat, I had a quick snack because I didn’t know the next time I’d be eating. Me, Bri, and Nat were all super jazzed and got on the bus to the tour. I wore my Hufflepuff scarf.

I love the Studio Tour. It was really nice to be able to go again and kind of pay attention to things I didn’t see the first time and what not. I shed a few tears; I’ll be real, but not as many as the first time. The Hogwarts express wasn’t there the last time I went, and that was really emotional. It was really amazing and I had a great time flopping around the studio and drinking some butterbeer .I had to practice a lot of self-control in the gift shop but I still went a little crazy, mostly on gifts for other people. On the way home we were subjected to Pitch Perfect 2 being played on the coach screens, which was less than ideal.

I got home and had a granola bar before I quick-changed and headed to Embankment with Jas’ friend Maggie, because we were all going to see Francis and the Lights! It was an impulse thing that we bought tickets for earlier in the week. But wow, I’m so glad we went. He was amazing, and put so much energy into it, he was dancing everywhere. He was also really genuine. I felt great after that, and it was just so good. Wow. Overall, this was one of my favorite days.

Monday, March 13th Alternatively, Monday just ended up being a Bad Day™ and there was nothing I could do about it. I woke up and hung around the flat until we had a check-in lunch with our UW program director at Comptoir Lebanais, which is a Lebanese food chain. It was pretty nice and I had a falafel wrap. After that I don’t really know what happened. It was pretty nice outside, but I just got into a little bit of a funk and almost didn’t make it to my Internship seminar. I didn’t feel like doing anything and it made me a smidge guilty because I should always be taking advantage of my time here. I dunno. I went grocery shopping after class to pick up the essentials. Went to bed early.

Tuesday, March 14th On Tuesday morning, I woke up and went to Richmond for my BLC class. It was nice, but we walked around for maybe 45 minutes and my professor didn’t say much, so that felt a little pointless. I went home for lunch, and then went to my Archives class; we gave presentations that day. I led my group this week and talked about maps like the crazy geo-person that I am, but it was actually fun to talk about something that I am really interested in. Then I went home and made dinner.

In an interesting turn of events, my friend Hannah from high school (she was on foreign exchange from Norway) is studying and living in London right now. I met her for a drink at a rooftop bar called the Queen of Hoxton and it was a really, really nice time. It was refreshing to talk to someone that I met such a ~long~ time ago and we probably hung out for almost 4 hours. If I were in Europe for longer, I for sure would’ve visited her in Oslo! I’m bummed that I couldn’t.

 Wednesday, March 15th & Thursday, March 16th Honestly, all I did on these days is go to work and come home, make dinner, do homework, go to bed. Having this internship is really nice and it’s one of the main appeals of this program, but at the end of the day it’s hard to squeeze every bit of time out of every day to adventure and do fun stuff.

Friday, March 17th Another day of internshipping! When I got home I met up with my friend Grace, who is studying in the Netherlands this semester and visited London for a weekend! We know each other form ye olde Geography Club and we’ve had a bunch of classes together. We hung out for a bit in my flat because she’d been out all day with all of her stuff, since I had my internship. Then, we went to a pub because St. Patrick’s Day, and I had a Guinness. We were wiped, though, so we went back and went to bed.

Saturday, March 18th On Saturday, we woke up and walked down High Street Kensington to get a quick bite before we went to the Design Museum. We got tartes and they were great, and then hung around the museum for a bit. I’d been before with my art class, but it was a little mobbed from all of us, so it was cool to be able to see all the interactive parts of the exhibit. From there, we took the tube to Camden and went to eat some viral content at Chin Chin (that’s the marshmallow - covered hot chocolate place that’s all over Facebook). It was pretty good and super rich. We met up with another one of Grace’s friends, and split up there because I was going to a tiny ticketed festival in Shoreditch with Jasmine and Sarah, and she had a ticket to see an exhibit at the Southbank center. I hung around the market for a bit more and ate some real food for the first time that day.

Then, I met up with Jas, Sarah, Kenzie, and Jono in Shoreditch. We went to the festival day party thingy and got some onion rings and beers. It was in the middle of a roundabout, which was interesting. We also slid into the Bounce bar, which is just full of Ping-Pong tables, and Jasmine went rogue and stole a bunch of paddles. Then, we went over to Marylebone for a Badger watch party of the basketball game. I met up with Grace there. It was actually a ton of fun; I had some food and hung out with people from our program and a ton of alumni that are living in London. Of course, it was really nice that we won. I was incredibly wiped after that day though, so we went back and went to bed. 

Sunday, March 19th Grace woke up super early and Sunday morning to fly to Paris, and I laid in bed for quite a bit. Around noon, I went to Trafalgar Square for the St. Patrick’s Day Festival with Jas, Sarah, and Bridget. We had a pint of Guinness and even some Guinness cake, which really didn’t taste that much like Guinness. We watched some live music, parts of the parade, and some Irish dancers. We even saw Sadiq Khan (the mayor) speak, which was really cool. After we hung around there for a bit, we walked to Covent Garden and got pizza at Homeslice in Neal’s Yard. Everybody else went home after that, but I went back to the British Museum, which now that I’m thinking about it, will probably be the last time I go to the British Museum on this trip. I went home and made dinner later that night, and hung out in the flat.

Part 2 of 2 coming soon, ladies and gentlemen.