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??

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.