schtuff

Things I don’t like:

-       The people who named the bus and tube stops.  I came across a Clifton Gardens when I decided to take a random bus home from work, which happens to be the name of my street.  Do I get off?  What are the chances that it will be anywhere near my flat?  Slim people, slim.

-       Smelly people on the public transportation system.  

-    When one entire tube line closes during the week… and it happens to be the one I take to work.  It took me 2 hours to get to work.  That is 1/4 of the time it took me to fly to London from Chicago.  And I wasn’t covering nearly as much ground.

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Cold toilet seats.  (my work has ice cubes for toilet seats.)

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Six inch platforms and pink spiked mohawks.... but maybe that's just me...

Homeboy works at Sky which is the broadcasting company that we share a building with.  He always wears the same outfit.  One time when he sat next to me on the bus I tried to cringe my neck to see what he was listening to on his iPod... but failed.  I expect he is probably a wannabe rebel with a Michael Bolton music taste.

Si

Things I love:

-       My co-workers.  We are too fun. 

Baz working at his station unknowingly being photographed from the back.  Tiffany put the post-it on his back that says "Poop Step" because he came to work with dog poo on his shoe one day.  

-       How fascinated everyone is with Americans.  It gives me a cool edge.

-       …. What don’t I love about this place?

-       The national wedding show.  I went out on a shoot with Tiffany and Pierre to the National Wedding show to get some footage for a package we are going to do on the Royal Wedding.  We interviewed a ton of cool people and got a lot of good footage.  While Pierre the cameraman was getting some shots, Tiffany and I took the opportunity to try on the tiaras and veils...

there was also a fashion show.  This was the most awkward model out of the whole group.  She needs to work on her catwalk. I could probably help the girl out...

I had to log the tape today so I took a little snapshot of me doing my stand-up. This one's for you mom.

-   Free chocolate in the national wedding show “swag bag.”  However I did NOT appreciate the girl who was giving out the free gift bags and chose to give me the cheap one with no ponytail tiara .  C'mon lady!

-       The fact that The Telegraph (newspaper here) has a royal wedding tab on the website under “News.”

-       Hobnobs and Digestives (cookies)

-      

-       How Peter and Dan are constantly making fun of me….ooh wait… no…  this should probably go into the section above…

-       London

I could write a lot more but alas, I am tired and a girl's gotta sleep.  Goodnight London, Good evening Columbia!

lists because I'm lazy.

I have been slacking on the blog.  I am very sorry.  I have been a little under the weather lately.  No worries though! Still having a great time.  Since it has been a while I am going to do this in list form.  These are all of the things I have done, learned and witnessed in the past week that I remember off the top of my head...

1.  Egypt, Egypt, Egypt.  As I said before Egypt has been a big issue in our office and we have been mostly in charge of covering it.  Our two correspondents, Greg and Olaf, were some of the journalists who made headlines for being attacked by the protestors.  They were probably hurt the worst out of all of the journalists from the U.S. so they really made headlines… even Perez Hilton-->   http://perezhilton.com/tag/olaf_wiig/  My dad said he saw the interview of John Roberts with Olaf and Greg.  I was not actually in that day so I wasn't there for the taping but I heard it was pretty moving. 

2.  Apparently if you roll a clementine or orange around before you peel it the "pith" (the white part on the inside of the peel) will come off easier.  Who knew?!?

3.  Sorry Granny but... Larry King has flatuating problems.  My co-worker has worked with him before and apparently not only did someone have the job to febreze the place after each take, but someone else had the job of briefing each guest before they went on about his, ahem, problems.  HOW AWKWARD!!??  -- still funny though.

4.  I am now on first name basis with my favorite person who works at my closest tube station.  Tube Stop Tim is THE MAN!!

5.  On Sunday I went to a football match with Dan and Peter.  We got the tickets for free through CAPA.  It was Division II teams.  Queens Park Rangers vs. …. It’s slipping my mind now…   It was cool to be able to go to a game, even if it wasn’t a big one.  The game ended up a tie, 1 to 1.  People really do not hold back on things they have to say.  One of the things I have noticed while I am over here is cursing is regular and done often.  This holds especially true at football games.  People can say some pretty raunchy things.

"We're the best in the league, we're the best in the league. We're Queen's Park Rangers.  We're the best in the league." - A cheer they did- insert english accent.

6.  I planned my trip to go visit Sophia in Brussels!! Dan and I are taking a bus there on March 10^th and coming back that Sunday.  I can’t wait!!

7.  We visited the Soho area on Saturday and just walked around.  Soho hosted the Chinese New Year celebrations in London (which I am so upset I forgot was going on-- love me some crab rangoon.)  It has a huge oriental presence but also Soho is home to the gay community.  Dan, Jordan and I were going to stop to get something to eat there, but everywhere we were going to go into Dan was a little sketched out about….

China town

8.  I am watching Deal or No Deal right now on my tiny worthless box, I mean, T.V.  The people who hold the boxes are not models, they are just regular joes.  It makes the show that much more hilarious.  Everyone is getting way too into it.  I feel like I am watching a soap opera.  British television does not pale in comparison to ours back home. 

9.  The weather has been BEAUTIFUL lately. High 40-50s and I don’t mind it at all.

10.  I walked around Kensington Palace and gardens.  Kensington Palace is where Princess Diana lived before her death.  It was really pretty…. However… I couldn’t help but be distracted by the girl who kept talking to and taking pictures of the squirrels.  SG (squirrel girl) kept laughing and cooing at this one squirrel and I kid you not, the squirrel JUMPED ON HER LEG!! What may be even more shocking was that the girl laughed.  LADY! You have a squirrel attached to your leg! Last time I checked that wasn’t a regular occurence… SO. WEIRD.

Creepy squirrel girl on the search for squirrel. 

side shot of Kensington Palace and some gardens

11. Alvaro’s friends from Spain came to visit last weekend.  They were all really cool and most of them could speak English pretty well.  No one was as fluent as Alvaro and I never took Spanish so gesturing was key to a conversation.  I did find that because I have taken French, I could understand some of the things they were saying in Spanish because the language is so similar. 

12.  We have an inside source (kind of) coming to help us with our packages on the Royal Wedding.  It is secret so I can’t divulge my information on my blog but I am pretty excited to get the ball rolling on this.

13.  I cut Dan’s hair this weekend. It turned out pretty well I think considering I have never cut anyone’s hair in my life.  This was not a buzz mind you.  This was a straight up, borrow Demonica’s technicolored scissors and snip away haircut.  I got assigned to do this without even volunteering.  I was a little nervous at first but as Dan said, “The first cut is the deepest.”  Now I am thinking about opening my own salon…. Any takers?

Dan post hair cut.  Props to me. (with Jordan my roommate)

14.  I walked into work today and was greeted by Tony Blair’s secret service.  He had an interview with Fox’s morning show, Fox and Friends, and had to come into our office to tape it.  Naturally I took some creepy pictures with my iPhone camera.  When he left he smiled and waved at me.  We are pretty much best buds now.  I am going to ask Ton (we’re on nickname basis) if he can get me the hook-up with Harry.  You gotta brush a few elbows, ya know??

Tony Blair with foreign correspondent Amy Kellogg

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY PEOPLE!  Any excuse to eat chocolate and celebrate is fine by me!

protests

We had kind of a scary week with the Egypt protests at Fox.  One of our correspondents Greg Palkot, who I think is the greatest and a cameraman were caught inside a building in Cairo on Wednesday that was surrounded by protestors.  We received news that the protestors were trying to break in and were searching for all journalists and westerners.  The protestors are mostly thugs who are just taking this as a chance to violently loot everyone of their money and journalists of their expensive equipment.  Greg contacted us to tell us he was stuck in the building and then we didn't hear anything the rest of the day.  We tried to watch it on the news but that wasn't giving us any information on Greg.  When I got in today (Friday) I found out that Greg and our cameraman had gotten attacked by the protestors.  They had several broken bones, were bleeding and scratched up and had all of their equipment, passports, phones and money taken.  They are headed back now.  We have been focusing all of our time in the last week on the protests doing live shots and packages every day, but actually having one of our own hurt by the protests really hit home.  I hope with Mubarak stepping down this can all come to an end. 

My life...

True story:


Right now I am listening to my friend on his very own radio show via his internship while sitting in my robin-egg blue colored cabinet kitchen.  Texas Peter's American Country Hour- he is doing sooo good.  and he is hilarious.  I will post the link for the next Thursday he does it.   I love it.

... Is this real life??