Oxford & Wembley Stadium

Hi guys!

I am SO sorry I haven't updated my blog. The main reason is that I've gone into depression mode from it being rainy and dark here and haven't felt like doing much of anything except watching my new TV addiction, 24.

Last weekend I went to Oxford with Dave. Everything I imagined when I thought of England, Oxford had. It was this sweet little city that had beautiful old buildings with ornate architecture and sweet winding roads that made you think of Great Britian. I loved it. The streets were filled with people and the city was already in Christmas mode.

Dave. Super Cute =)

Busy Streets

Dave and I just walked around and he showed me the places that he's been to, but we ended up at Oxford Castle. It used to be a prison for all of the crazy convicts that were in Oxford and we got a tour with people dressed up. Dave got super excited and said he wanted to do the tour and if the tour guide was dressed up in old English costumes he'd hug them. They indeed were dressed up, but he didn't come through on that promise.

Anyway, seeing Oxford made me fall in love with England all over again and it was the first day where I felt like I really didn't want to leave England and come home.

Genna and Cierra. That arch is what Wembley is known for.

On Monday, our International Marketing class got a tour of Wembley Stadium. It is absolutely MASSIVE. The team that's played most there is Arsenal but it doesn't just belong to one team. It was rebuilt a few years ago so everything is new and improved and it really made me regret not going to a football (soccer) game while I was in England. Oh well, I'll save it for my next trip!

The Tunnel

Our tour guide was hysterical and showed us around. We got to go into the basement where all of the players are and where the media is let in. The locker room was pretty cool and so was the tunnel where all the players line up to go onto the field to start the game. We also got to see where the royals sit if they ever want to watch a game. Those seats looked really comfy!

Other than those two main events, not much has been going on. I wasn't aware how depressed I would get this month, and it super sucks!! It's always cold out and overcast (more than usual) and it gets dark around 3:30/4:00 PM so there isn't much daylight. My internship has been eating away at my weeks so when I'm out I'm normally exhausted.

This weekend I didn't do much of anything but Silvana's roommate from Glasgow is here, Caitlin, with one of her friends from home, Nita so it's nice to have new faces to see and hang out with. Hopefully I'll snag a few pictures and post them of the three of us.

Thanksgiving, as we all know, is on Thursday, so hopefully our house can get it together and make some sort of thanksgiving family dinner so we all feel less homesick. Ruth, one of my roommates, found StoveTop stuffing and I have fallen in love with her. She also plans on making pumpkin pie. I couldn't ask for a better roomie!

In other news, SILVANA IS COMING ON SATURDAY AND I CANNOT FREAKING WAIIIITTTTTTTTTTT.

That's all for now!
Cheers!
Miriam

Defying Gravity

You know in the movies when the main girl character is just fed up with everything and all at once just bursts out and yells at the other character, lets say her boss, that's been taunting her and she's just been taking it over and over and over?

I imagined playing that scene out in my head today several times and then screaming "I QUIT!" and storming out of the fictitious office... It's one thing to assign me work that no one else in the office wants to do, but to  taunt me while I'm doing it just creeps up my skin. I already want to shoot myself in the face- you should be encouraging me. Whatever.

I was assigned to work in the financial accounts department today, which has different scenery than the room I've been in for the past two weeks. For example, there were binders on my desk. It was SUCH a nice place (kidding). In all honesty, I was excited to move around and meet new people and was totally fine with the work I was assigned until my "advisor" came over and started laughing about what the other guy gave me to do. She just kept saying "Haha, I remember when I was an intern. You gotta start somewhere! Wow, that work sucks." Seriously? Seriously. Taunt me more.

ANYWAY, the guy let me go at 5:20 but I had to grab the other two interns so I asked if it was okay to leave and she gave me a dirty look. Now, it would be kind of understandable to get pissed if I was actually on your payroll but NEWSFLASH! I'm working as your slave for free. Ten minutes will not stop time, will not kill you, and will not destroy the earth as we know it. Thanks.

So I left the office and RUSHED home because I went to go see wicked with Genna and her friend that's visiting, Katie. The show was unbelievable! Oh man, I still can't get over it. The Elphaba, dare I say it, did a better job singing Defying Gravity than Idina Menzel. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Idina, but this girl was phenomenal. I was so happy to see a theater (theatre) show in London because London is KNOWN for it's theater. Granted, it was an American show but all of the actors were either Scottish, English or Irish and I loved hearing the accents. Bock (Boch?) was Scottish, and it was absolutely perfect. So perfect, in fact, that every time he opened his mouth I nudged Genna and told her how absolutely perfect it was.

Oxford!

<3

Alright, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is Friday which means the next day is Saturday which means I'll be in OXFORD with Dave! SO EXCITED. I've been dying to go since I got to London and now I'm finally going. PLUS, my big, Jeff (miss you!) keeps telling me how much Harry Potter scenery is taken from the city so I think it will be a nice precursor to seeing the movie in London when it comes out!

CHEERS!

Miriam

Parliament, Primark, and Pre-Christmassy London

Monday was uneventful... The typical class/nap/eat/watch netflix/sleep routine occurred. Tuesday is when my life took a jump from boring to bloody brilliant!

My British Life and Culture class is probably one of the best classes I've taken. I've got the token British guy teaching with lanky features and an awesome accent to boot. On top of that, we get to go on fun field trips like Shakespeare's Globe Theater AND a tour of Parliament!

I think it's quite funny that I have lived in DC for over two years and not once have I gotten a tour of the White House OR gone inside the Capitol building. I still have yet to step foot into the National Portrait Gallery. Yet, I was able to step into the House of Lords and the House of Commons. I saw where the Prime Minister and his opponents yell at each other from "two sword lengths apart" and where the Queen sits when she comes to take a gander at the political system reigning in her kingdom (queendom?).

The people in the House of Lords get there mostly through genetics, not popular vote. Generations of men in certain families have sat in these red seats. The UK is getting fed up with that rule and these hereditary lines are slowly being diminished in government. 

No one knows why, but the House of Commons' theme is green. You see the red line where that woman is crossing her legs? It's on both sides of the seats. It's a myth that the two lines are two sword lengths apart because the different parties would get to angry at each other they'd want to start fighting. Our tour guide told us that swords were never allowed into the room, and there are still hooks next to where the people put their jackets for where they can hang their swords (haha, that sounds sexual).

Our tour guide was a little cute lady who works for some political guy (I forgot if he was in the House of Lords or Commons) but she gave an awesome history lecture while quickly ushering us around the maze that is Parliament. Coming to London, and Europe for that matter, has given me a new found interest in history because, well, history is everywhere. Every building and landmark has a unique story and I can feel my brain start churning back in time imagining what it would have been like to see London when it was the head of an empire, when the Colosseum held the ancient Gladiator battles, where Plato sat in Athens writing his Allegory of the Cave, where Scottish people started getting sloshed in the afternoon...

Anyway, after my tour through the history of England I left the ancient realm and thrust into the here and now at a little place called PRIMARK.

To you mudblood civilians in America, Primark seems like just another cheap store to buy clothing. WRONG. Primark is heaven. I went in to specifically buy a pair of black flats to wear to my internship and instead had a shopping orgasm. Everything was soft and pretty and wintery and londony and..... I left with 5 shirts, ear muffs, and flats. I warn you- don't go to Primark alone. You won't have a person next to you telling you to "PUT THE SHIRT DOWN!" or "close your eyes and CAREFULLY walk away from the shoes before someone gets hurt." 

I couldn't find a better picture on google. sry.

Had I gone in with nothing in mind I would have needed a truck to help carry all of the stuff I bought back to my flat. Another thing I recommend is checking UK sizes to US sizes. All in all I only spent 35 pounds, which is great considering the amount of stuff I bought.

Another thing I've noticed in London is the sushi restaurants. If you know me, you know my favorite food is sushi. I can eat that shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is difficult to resist a spicy crunchy tuna roll from Satay Asian Club in DC (REPRESENT!) and in London they make eating sushi easy. The places that sell sushi individually wrap pieces to go and have these cute little trays pre-made begging for you to pick them up and buy them. Instead of sitting in a restaurant waiting for a half hour while an old asian man in a funny hat makes it for you, it's all ready to go.

So, because the English don't believe in Thanksgiving (GASP) they completely ignore it and right after Halloween EVERYONE goes into a Christmas frenzy. Certain tube stops have sparkly decorations and all of the restaurants are promoting their Christmas dinners. I haven't gotten around to asking anyone, but it seems that when Christmas rolls around people want to be out on the town, not drinking egg nog and listening to Nat King Cole. Regardless, I love it. Especially since this town is getting dark at around 3:30 PM and is getting COLDER by the second. With no Christmas cheer, I think more people would want to kill themselves. I can't imagine being any more north at the moment.

I keep checking the weather in Brisbane, Australia to get excited for the heat, sun, and FUN I'll be having down under. That's bad though, because I only have a few little weeks left before I jump on a plan and recross the pond. I genuinely love this city, and this country. There is something special about England that I can't put my finger on. I'm getting the hang of being a Londoner and it's weird to think Paris won't be a train ride away (I know I haven't gone yet SHH) and all of these awesome cities won't be 2 hours away either. 

Okay Okay I'm getting too sentimental. It's only the beginning of November. I'm gonna sign off now.

CHEERS!

Miriam

Athens and the Start of My Internship

Sorry it's taken me so long to post. Basically, I was in Athens a total of 4 hours. It was just enough time to travel from the airport to the city center and the Acropolis. After much convincing, I got Genna to climb up to the top and see the Parthenon. The view was incredible. I remembered all the stuff I was told about Athens and how it was surrounded by mountains, which made their culture very unique to the rest of Ancient Greece.

PARTHENON!

We got obsessed with taking jumping pictures

View from the top=)

After scurrying up to the top, we had to go back down in order to make our flight to London. We were conveniently seated on the very last row of the plane in the middle where we got no view of the outside. The one perk? There was a cabinet with a handle that was too small to be a bathroom, but at least 5 people tried opening it and we got quite a few laughs from watching determined people attempting to open the door.


The week went by pretty quickly and the main highlight was MY INTERNSHIP STARTED.


I shouldn't call it a highlight, more like a lowlight. On Wednesday I got the riveting task of opening the mail for the accounts payable department and organizing it for all of the people who process the invoices. For people who don't speak "Accounting," the accounts payable department is where all of the expenses are process and paid. Invoices are basically the letters the company gets informing them of what the bill is, when it needs to be paid and how much each product costs.

Because HCA controls 6 hospitals with thousands of vendors and clients, there is a lot of mail. Thursday and Friday I was staring at excel spreadsheets updating databases. Worst of all, I thought I was only working 20 hours a week because that's what my VISA said, but I found out its only 20 hours a week if I'm being paid. So, I'm stuck working 9 - 5:30 Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I hate being given menial tasks because I've already had two internships where I was given actual responsibility and did parts of audits.

I only wish FIE had explained how much I'd actually be working and that I wouldn't be learning about the industry, but instead be doing bitch work for the department that they don't assign to people who are actually on the payroll. I have heard other horror stories that aren't as bad as mine- one girl has to make tea for all of the people she works for and has to remember who likes 2 teaspoons of sugar, who likes a pinch of milk, and who likes it plain. If she gets it wrong, they tell her to do it over again.

If my boss told me to make tea- fuck that I quit.

The upside is that some of the people I work with are quite funny. The entire department, minus my australian boss, are dudes in their 20's who like to crack jokes and are actually interested in getting to know me and the other two interns I work with.

On top of the internships, we have an internship class thats an hour and a half long where we talk about our feelings. We have an essay and a presentation (such bullshit) but at least it's an easy A.

This weekend was quite fun. I went to Greenwich market in the east end of London which is basically a mini Camden Market. Dave and I had a lot of fun walking around and getting cute trinkets. We then saw the movie Due Date which was actually quite hysterical.

FUN FACT !

Cinemas in the UK serve American sized popcorn and drinks! All of their food sizes are much smaller, so I was super excited to be watching an American movie with American sized movie going snacks. Of course I stuffed my face full of popcorn.

Later that night Genna, Cierra, and I went to a club called "The Rocket" in Euston which is in the northern part of London to meet Emily (our friend who is going to UCL) and some of her friends from AU. We ended up running into more AU students who are going to LSE. We all got cheap drinks and danced our butts off to some sexy jams. It was a lot of fun to be with 10 other American University students in London just having a good time. London may be a big city, but somehow I keep running into AU students...

Sunday I just went grocery shopping at Sainsbury's for the first time in over a month and cooked a full dinner. Yay for home cooked meals!

To leave on a positive note - I get a tour of Parliament tomorrow for my British Life and Cultures class! yay!

Cheers!

Miriam

The BEAUTIFUL Island of Mykonos, Greece

Alright, I have time to post about Mykonos and not much happened so it'll be quick.

I already talked about Tuesday, the worst day of my life while traveling to Mykonos. When we got there, it was absolutely stunning. I can't describe to you how cute the island was. We were so unbelievably exhausted that we just fell asleep and decided we'd go exploring the next day.

We woke up Wednesday to sunshine and WARM WEATHER! I got to wear a tube top and shorts and couldn't have been happier about it. Before we had left London I was wearing a heavy winter jacket, a scarf, and gloves. To feel the sun on my skin was worth the trip.

At breakfast, I decided to try Greek coffee- I definitely prefer american drip coffee. Our waiter told me not to order it but I wanted to try it. The waiter kept checking to see my reaction while drinking it, but I couldn't give him the pleasure of being right so I pretended it was delicious.

After walking about 50 feet, I saw a place that rented 4 wheelers. At that moment I just knew. Genna kept refusing to rent it, but at a price of 10 euros for the whole day, HOW COULD WE SAY NO!?

This is the video we took while on the 4 wheeler. It's hysterical.

The beach!

View from our hotel room

Picture I took while on the ATV (4 Wheeler)

Thursday we were going to go to Delos, and island right next to Mykonos with ancient Greek ruins, but it was pouring rain, cold, and windy so we slept in. We decided to spend the day walking around the tiny, twisting roads and spent a lot of money.

Friday gave us more bad weather so we just walked around, hung out, napped, and started packing. It was frustrating for us to not be able to explore as much as we wanted but in all honesty we were exhausted from Rome. We literally walked around the ENTIRE city, so sleeping in and hanging out was perfect. The whole island was empty because tourist season was over, so there wasn't much partying going on. Drinks were WAY over priced too. We went to one bar were a beer was 6 euros and a mixed drink was 8 euros. Instead, we bought a LOT of wine from a grocery store and spent the night laughing hysterically and swapping stories from high school and college.

Our hotel room!

Near the port, where a lot of the bars are

What all of the streets in Mykonostown looked like. Somehow we didn't get lost.

The people in Greece were just as nice as the Italians. The hotel staff was super nice and so were the people we met. Overall, the vacation was amazing- but it wasn't over yet. Saturday we spent a few hours in Athens which was AWESOME!

(see next post)

=)

ROME

Okay, instead of leaving a really long explanation of what I did in Rome which would take you about 5.4 years to read, I'm going to post pictures and explain them. This way I can finish the post quickly and you can peruse until you get bored :)

Day 1. We went to the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps, and the Piazza Novana for dinner. We got an awesome tour of the Colosseum and Roman ruins for about 15 euros which was great because I really had no idea what I was staring at

In front of the Roman Ruins!

Spanish Steps! We met up with one of Genna's friends from AU and she showed us around. We went to the Trevi Fountain and then to the Spanish steps. Apparently the steps are supposed to be Romantic but instead it was touristy, hot, and really crowded. Across from the steps was a road with a bunch of designer boutiques and we strolled around while pretending to have thousands of euros to dispose for fun (although we didn't buy anything, obviously).

After the Spanish steps we somehow ended up at the Parthenon, which was SO COOL. I remembered learning about it in art history freshman year of high school, so seeing it in person was surreal. Seeing the Colosseum was kind of the same, but because I saw it in pictures all of the time it felt like I had already been there.

That night we ate dinner in the Piazza Novana and ate PIZZA. It was delicious, and our waiter was SUPER nice.

DAY TWO

We started out south of the Colloseum and walked all the way up and it turned out there was this large street fair for no reason at all and we got to see some cool stuff. People were singing on the sidewalks and there were tons of souvineer stands but the coolest part were these guys competing at tug of war. I got this awesome picture of them with the Colosseum in the background.

Afterwards we went to a museum with a Van Gogh exhibit which was boring, saw a bunch of other monuments that were pretty but I'm too lazy to upload pictures, and ended up getting lost across the river in Trastevere for a few hours. I got really angry at Genna, but we eventually figured out where we were and got gelato.

We then proceeded to take a TON of pictures for no reason. This is one of my favorites!

Later, we went to Campo Di Fiori, a huge bar scene, and then ended up back at the Pantheon where we got dinner. I literally ate pizza while staring at it. Super awesome.

DAY THREE

We met up with CIERRA!!! It was great to be able to talk to someone other than Genna because we had been together nonstop. We waited on line to get in for literally 3 hours and were so hungry we had to eat in the Vatican which cost a ton of money and the food wasn't that good. The museum was amazing and I took over 100 pictures.

The Sistine Chapel was literally the most stunning place I have ever been. I was so excited to see all of the famous paintings. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but I like to live on the wild side so I snuck a few. You can see the famous painting at the bottom of this picture.

At the Vatican. Genna was taking too many pictures of me.

Most importantly, I GOT TO SEE GIACOMO!! We met at my hippie camp, Omega Teen Camp, in 2005 and I hadn't seen him since. We met at the Vatican and we finally got a tour with a true Roman. It was so great seeing him again, and Genna and I fell in love with his accent! He took us to a famous lookout in Roma called Pinchio which was beautiful and then took us to dinner! 

Us at dinner. Notice his hand gesture.

We had PHENOMENAL food and after much wine decided to go back to Travastere to go bar hopping. Ended up drinking WAY too much and Giacomo offered to drive us back to our hotel which was waaay outside of the city center.

Overall, ROME WAS PERFECT!! 

I'll post about Mykonos and Athens soon. I also started my internship yesterday, so I need to discuss that as well. Sorry it's taken me so long I've been nonstop since getting back!

Cheers!

Miriam