Paree zee citee of luv (pronounced like written)- Don't worry Dad, it is just a commonly used phrase.

This weekend I went to Paris.  I was excited to go considering I took French all through high school and was certain that it would all come flooding back to me as soon as I hit the streets.  Alas non (no in french.)  I had to ask for directions when we got there…. and that was about the extent of my french speaking.  Ou est(where is).... (insert image of me pointing to the map with a questioning look on my face.)  This of course was after 45 minutes of aimlessly roaming the streets because we were convinced the french hated us and wouldn't help with directions.  People are good.  Our hotel was a bit.... small.  And the walls were paper thin.  And the cleaning ladies like to talk/yell in the hallways at 5 in the morning about their problems in Russian.  But our small hotel room felt like a safe haven from the bone chilling streets.  The weather felt like a cool -46 degrees... and I forgot gloves.  On the plus side we got to see all of the places we wanted to go in only 2 days.  This list includes: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur on Montmartre, the Louvre, Moulin Rouge, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, and more.  My favorite place was probably the Notre Dame.  I guess majestic would be the word I would use to describe it.  It had a real presence as cheesy as that may sound, if it even makes sense.  The architecture in Paris is amazing.  Almost none of the buildings look modern, so everything matches and it was really pretty.  

Yep, you guessed it.  The Notre Dame

Asian being attacked by birds while smiling.  

Some serious bling.

Casually posing near the Eiffel Tower

Yeah! Friends! (Me and Abi)

Garbage man saw me taking pictures and waved so I chased him down the street to get a picture.  

Dan, Abi, Me and Jordan outside the Notre Dame.  Those smiles are forced.  We are actually freezing.

Inside the Louvre.  Me purposefully looking awkward

Posing like the Eiffel Tower. Except for me (of course.)  I am reppin' the STL posing like the St. Louis Arch.  Dan looks on confused by my choice of pose.

We had to. Jumping for joy at the Arc de Triomphe. 

Can-canning outside the Moulin Rouge

My large friend and I

At the top of the hour at night the Eiffel Tower glitters! Really pretty.

I found the apartment I am buying in Paris when I have multiple homes.  Naturally it looks like a penthouse. 

It's sooo me!

Every other store on every street that I visited besides Champs Elysees was selling souvenirs.  Right next to the Eiffel Tower there were men set up on blankets and walking around selling tacky, mini Eiffel Towers.  They were quite charming too (no) calling me "Lady Gaga" and telling me how beautiful I was.  Then they would say get 1 for 5 cents!  I don't know how many times the whole "beautiful" routine works for them but I think they should probably work on some new material.  As for calling me Lady Gaga, I can personally thank them for getting "Bad Romance" stuck in my head the rest of the day.  One would think, now why wouldn't you be a bit more creative than selling mini Eiffel Towers in front of the Eiffel Tower since that was literally what practically everyone was trying to sell.  Well, some people were getting.. ummm creative..? And were selling "dancing" cows that looked like they were having a seizure rather than dancing. I was tempted to buy it for my family on the farm, but decided to save myself the extra dollars and them the awkward reaction when they opened it. 

We got crepes (obviously) while we were there.  I was excited to get my banana and chocolate Nutella crepe until I saw they only put a slab of Nutella on top.  I wanted them to load that baby up!  Nothing is worse than someone who is stingy with their Nutella. 

I saw Mona at the Louvre.  Good thing people prepared me for it because she was just a small ol’ painting.  (I prefer to call her Mona now instead of the Mona Lisa because I feel that since I saw her in person, we are on first-name basis.)

Small Mona, Small girl near Mona.  Check the size.

My personal favorite part of the Louvre, posing like the statues.

The Louvre at night

On the flight back, Dan commented on how it was the first time he had ever had a female pilot.  Me too maybe, I am not sure.  However I am sure that I hope she is not my last so I can regain my faith in women pilots.  The flight back was fine mind you, nothing to be worried about.  But boy did she just PLOP us down on that runway.  I still laugh every time I think about it.  Everyone was just bouncing up and down in their chairs trying to not look alarmed.  Hilarious.

Overall, Paris was really fun and I am so glad I got to go and see all of those places.  I was really happy to be back in London though because it is so much cleaner here.  And the whole sharing the English language thing is quite nice as well.  AND I got to see Grandad on Skype when I was talking to my family which was really awesome J

Today at work we had 2 people come in from the States to do some live shots on the riots in Egypt.  Fox thought it would be nice to have our newsroom as the background.  Here I am pumped that I will be looking journalistic in the background of a live shot on national television… but no.  They moved me to the desk across from mine. Just a mere three feet away from stardom, rats.  I kept trying to casually scoot my chair over but I never made it into the shot.  Maybe next time…. However, I did help edit the package for the six o’clock news.  So if you happened to be watching Fox at six and saw the story on the riots in Egypt and their President Mubarak, I helped with that!!

Well I am pretty sure I have about 83 run-on sentences in this post, but I am too lazy.  Au revoir et bonsoir!!!

The Moscow terrorist attack

I experienced my first serious breaking news at Fox today when Moscow's busiest airport was bombed.  Our bureau ended being responsible for all of the live reports so we were busy watching the wires for updates.  I had to call a contact concerning whether any planes from America had landed close to when the bomb went off.  I figured out several different flights had landed in Moscow earlier that morning.  It was really cool watching Greg report live on Fox in America the information that I had just fed him.  Luckily so far no Americans have been among the victims.  My prayers go out to everyone there.

I am currently blogging on the bus.  Thank goodness the Brits are lax because it is taking me FOREVER to get to work.  I don't understand how people drive here because the roads are terribly confusing.  Something I admire about the drivers here though is the fact that you virtually never see a wreck... that is, until today.  I can honestly say wrecks here are comparable to blizzards in the south.  Everyone goes slightly insane.  The driving gets worse and the buses stop completely, hence me blogging during my commute.  What is supposed to be a 15 minute bus trip took around 45 minutes to an hour.  Again thank goodness everyone is relaxed and laid back.  I called into work freaking out and my supervisor Kim answered and all she said was, "Oh, no worries.  It took me an hour and a half to get to work today.  Welcome to London."  Truely. 

Stonehenge and Bath

We didn’t have our two classes on Tuesday because our professor from Mizzou was sick and unable to fly out of the States. So, we had our first class Thursday.  Although the class is once a week and is going to be three hours long, I think it is going to be really interesting.  For a lot of our classes we are going to be going out into the field and touring different sites such as where the 2011 Summer Olympics in London are going to be held.  Pretty neat.  Yesterday we went to Harrods, the world famous, AMAZING department store.  Harrods is known for having the best quality EVERYTHING, spectacular service and if you want anything, literally anything, they will get it for you.  It is said that Ronald Reagan once called for a baby elephant to be delivered to his home in California. Done.  Harrods is extremely expensive, rightfully so since they have the best of the best in the world.  However, this week they are having their big January sale and things were 80% off.  It took more willpower than I knew I had to not shop my socks off.  I did get a sub there from their food court.  Chicken Bacon Club.  Holy wow that sandy was GOOOOD. 

Friday at work I got my official I.D. for Fox and all my log-ins taken care of. I found out I am going to actually get to go conduct an interview by myself with a cameraman.  This is really exciting because something that I actually will be working on is going to be possibly on Fox News in the U.S. We never actually know if Fox is going to use any of these side stories though because they may have all of the slots filled.  

Saturday we went to Stonehenge and Bath.  Stonehenge was what I expected.  "A bunch of rocks."  It was still cool though.  I was more impressed by how pretty the country side was though.  In Bath we saw the Roman Baths with the spring that has been heated since the Romans occupied there.  Bath was quaint, yet had a lot of cool shops.  I was freezing all day long which is not really my cup of tea.  And I was wearing a groutfit (an all gray outfit)  so I was exactly styling while I froze.  Bad choice of wear all around.  We went to eat at a cute pub in Bath called West End.  Everyone at our table got fish n' chips.  They were dank.  So good.

Me and the rocks

Me hobnobbing with the sheep

On the way to bath.  The small towns jail... It could fit 6 people.  Hope there is not a lot of crime there...

Gigantic masterpiece. 

Everyone ordered them and it was WELL WORTH IT!!

The Roman Baths. So pretty

Classic posing in front of the Bath

Bath is also the home of Jane Austen.  Jane and I looking pensive.

Modeling at Bath

The countryside in Bath.  This picture doesn't give it any justice.

Planning on watching the play-off games tonight at a local sports pub.  GO JETS!

            

Caitlin is my life. (This post was named by Caitlin Adams... weird right?)

The past few days I have spent getting settled in.  Saturday morning we went on a bus tour through London and I saw all of the big places to site see, including my future home Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben.  It was really cool.  

Attempting to spy on the royal family through the windows.

My future home

Peter posing so I can get a picture of the girl on the kid-leash. Classic.

Big Ben in the background.  Side shot of Westminster Abbey

Caitlin came to visit me and got here Sunday afternoon.  I think she is staying with me until Wednesday morning.  We went to Chipotle for dinner (I happen to live only a few tube stops away from the ONLY Chipotle in England.  Score!) and then we went to a small pub around the corner with the guys to watch the NFL playoffs and football.  I called it soccer in the pub and the bartender (who happened to be listening into our conversations the entire time) told me to stop being disrespectful.  --- I would like to interject here and say: GO JETS!

Caitlin on the luxurious bed I made her.  

Getting to Fox News was quite the...event.  My commute is mostly outside.  Cold.  It is also around an hour and a half long.  Yuck. I have two stops on the tube and then I have to take a bus and then walk to the station.  Not bad right? Well, it wouldn't have been all bad if maybe the Gunnersbury Tube Station had changed the signs saying the bus station was one way when really they had moved it to a completely different road.  I spent about 15 minutes wandering aimlessly through a neighborhood.  God bless the little old man who helped me catch the H91 bus just in time. The people here are actually extremely helpful and friendly I have found thus far.  Once I got off the bus I got lost... again.  I thought if I made it to Sky Broadcasting Group I would be good to go.  Turns out Sky Broadcasting Group has about 15 huge buildings in the same general area.  No worries though.  I found the newsroom and was not late.

The newsroom is fairly small, but I really like the vibe in there. My supervisor, Kim Miller, happens to be the Head of the London Fox News Bureau, which is so awesome.  She already had me logging tapes and calling places about stories, so I am excited to know I will actually be doing something during my internship.  She said that since I actually live in the city she may be calling me in the mornings before I come into work and sending me out to actually conduct interviews myself with a photographer and doing stand-ups (so I will be on camera.)  I can’t wait.  This is going to be awesome for my resume. 

Me looking like a tool in my interview outfit.  

I took the wrong tube on the way home to which was LOVELY.  I sat next to a few delinquents for half of my 2-hour journey home and a girl who liked to describe her last night in FULL DETAIL to her friend on the phone loudly. 

Tonight Caitlin and I went and saw Wicked and it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.  The pipes on those people were fantastic.  I had goose bumps almost the entire time.  I am sad to see her go tomorrow morning L but we had a good time.

Classic step picture.  Before our date night :)

When we said we wanted the sign in our picture, we kinda wanted to be in it too.

The Wicked set.  The dragon moved.  It was awesome. 

 Oh hey.  My hot date.

Ladies be jealous.  Me and the men on my trip.  From left Peter, Alvaro, me Alex, other Alex and Dan

things I've learned thus far

What I have learned thus far (mostly from a professor we had a bit of tea and crumpets with):

1.     --Real Londoners don’t wear rain boots.  Only tourists wear rain boots.  And on top of that they are not called rain boots.  They are “wellingtons,” but don’t call them “wellies”… just don’t.

2.     --Some words have silent letters just to confuse the Americans.  For example, the tube station nearest to --our flat is Warwick.  It is pronounced Warick. 

3.     --The Brits have very VERY dry sense of humor.

4.    -- Everyone else in the world knows A LOT more about America then we know about his or her country.

5.     --Although some Brits may find Americans annoying.  A lot of them are just fascinated by us.

6.     --Americans are incredibly more noisy than the Brits… whoops.

7.     --No one talks on the tube except for foreigners and tourists.  Again, Americans are loud.

8.     --Everyone here thinks all Americans conceal and carry back at the states.  My roommate tiny, precious Emily Allen got asked if she had a gun back at home, which I found particularly hilarious. 

9.     --Mace is illegal.  If they find it on you and you could spend up to 15 years in prison.  So no Mom, I don’t think it would have been a good idea for me to bring the mace.

10--The roads are terribly confusing (especially when regarding one-way streets) as to which way the cars are going to come from.  I have had some close encounters with some automobiles… eek.

11--According to the girls in the club bathroom last night, Simon Cowell is a very attractive older man.--   Yes, we went to East London last night to a pub and a club.  The club was full of dancing and I was in heaven. 

12--So far I have not been IDed anywhere where they serve alcohol, but my purse was checked and my guy friends were patted down.

13--You MOVE for commuters who are on the go. Otherwise they will not take kindly to you and will take. You. Down—No worries, hasn’t happened to me yet.

14--The men here are beautiful and I don’t mind it.  Walking down the street with these people is like getting a free ice cream cone, such a treat.  (Don’t worry dad, no boyfriends for me)

15--There are some weird people in this world.

16--There are a lot of people who put on acts to get money.  Last night a woman came up and told us some sob story while fake crying (no tears) and told us she would pay us back somehow, she would even give us her engagement ring.  UMMM no thanks lady, move along.  Some of my friends gave her money.  I am more of a scrooge. —Right after this happened a brit came up to us to check and make sure we knew it was a total scam, what a nice chap. 

17--On page 3 of “The Sun,” a newspaper, there is always a naked woman.  The professor told us that the other day she had a bikini top on and it was shocking,

18--EVERYONE looks nice every day.  I have not seen one pair of sweats.  It inspires me to attempt to look presentable.  

I received some very exciting news today when we got our internship interview times.  Boyana, our internship director with CAPA, pulled the three other broadcast girls who are doing NBC and CBS and myself aside today to tell us that our internships were going to be extra competitive because students from the EU and London all wanted jobs at our placements.  I got news that I am going to have to take a train for 30 minutes to get to Fox so we will see how that works out… Anyways Boyana told me that Kim Miller, my supervisor at Fox News, was SO excited to meet me and have an American in the internship position.  She said my interview was going to be more like an orientation meeting.  When I tried to reach Kim she was busy at a meeting about the royal wedding (!!!!!!) so I emailed her and told her how excited I was and asked when we should meet.  She responded with just as much enthusiasm and ended her email with directions and this glorious sentence: “We look forward to you being here - promises to be a busy time with the Royal Wedding coming up”

I just CANNOT wait to find out what my internship entails.  I go in on Monday to meet people and sign up for accounts.

I will keep you all posted!

I MADE IT!

After a change of flights, being stuck in the STL airport on a plane for 2 hrs. and 45 min. and flying 7 ½ hrs from Chicago to London I AM FINALLY HERE!! We got to London at 8 a.m. London time so it was only 2 a.m. back at home.  The six-hour time difference is really getting to me. I couldn’t sleep much on the plane because my arm kept falling asleep (weird) so now I am extremely tired.  Jet lag= blah.

 Sidenote: none of the movies on the plane were any good, but I did read Jen Pham’s book by Chelsea Handler to keep me entertained.  I laughed out loud the entire time and thoroughly enjoyed myself, regardless of whether or not I looked like a lunatic.  Thanks pham. Oh, and I had to move 3 times because I was sitting in people’s seats.  At one point a women caused a huge scene and I happened to be sitting in her son’s chair, cool.  She started bawling to the stewardess about how people had been rude to her. (Not me, someone before she got on the plane.)  Talk about uncomfortable.  Bawlers are not my cup of tea.

Our van ride to our apartment was really cool.  We had to drive from Heathrow airport, which is west of London to our apartment northwest of London.  So we went through London “proper” and I got to see a bunch of museums, the tip-top of Buckingham palace (Helloooo Harry!) and some other cool things.  The city itself is so beautiful. I am in LOVE. 

All of the apartments are older and smaller than in America.  In our apartments, every one in the building is different (that I have seen so far.)  Ours is sort of a loft.  Its small but I like it.  Two other rooms on the floor below us are both Journalism people too so that’s awesome.  Of course both of theirs have a HUGE (compared to ours) living room and kitchen with a vaulted ceiling.  The only thing HUGE in our apartment is the incline of the stairs, which could pose a problem on down the line. However, I still love my apartment.  I think it is very homey. :)

My room!! Check out those curtains.  Whoever styled this room has a real knack for interior decorating.... 

the end of my bed, closet space and for Granny: see that special calendar on the bulletin board? :)

 View from right when you walk in the front door.  Our room is to the left.  That is the bathroom straight ahead. And of course, the stairs of death that even mountain goats couldn't conquer.  They lead to the living room and kitchen.

 Our bathtub nozzle.... uhhh...

 Our living room/kitchen.  Mom will be glad to hear that currently the T.V. doesn't work.  Don't you love the robin-egg blue cabinets?! Beautiful.

Me in front of the apartment.  HOLLA!

Our neighbors across the street.  Also, a very pretty apartment.

Going to tour the neighborhood now. Over and out.