Day 13 14 and 15: Class and Beerfest, class and interviews, then all day field trip class and wacky night in

Wednesday was class and BEERFEST! I know sooo exciting! Class was pretty good, but of course I was looking forward to the Great British Beer Festival. Rachel and I left for the festival after class and a good lunch and got there around 2pm. We met up with Kyle, the only guy that was in Ireland with us for the earlier part of the trip. It was great to see him and see how all of his travels prior to us leaving had been going!

This was one of the many beers that we had sampled that day called the triple chocoholic. It really did have an aftertaste exactly like chocolate.. it was a bit weird. Anyways, a little known fact about this Beer Festival that we did not understand was that for each drink you actually wanted you had to pay.. but the prices were really cheap and at most 2 or 3 pounds. Although we did make it around asking for a lot of realllly small sips before we committed to any beers ciders or perrys.

This man was a really nice guy from the Cider and Perry station. We loved his shirt so we just had to get a picture of it and he posed for all of us :) what a nice man. Until of course you ask for so many small sips that it amounts to practically a half glass in total.. then they get a little bit mad and want you to buy something :) he he he

Day 14 was not anything too too exciting I had class and an interview that night which I was preparing for for a good while because it had been my first interview since A-round interviews. Then Day 15 was a full day of class, outside of the classroom. We started off going into shops and stores not as shoppers but as researchers. We took in the details, the colors, how it made you feel, who they were marketing towards, what their promotions were and other such things. We went into stores such as Primark, Neu Look, Next, Marks and Spencers, DKNY, Mulberry, MM, Stella McCartney, the Dover Street Market and many others.

It was really a full day. The picture above was from one of the windows at Marks and Spencers and this one is from Louis Vuitton. They had taken all sorts of bags and turned them into animals, it was pretty interesting. Overall it was a very busy day and my brain was exploding afterwards.. So it was time for a crazzy relaxing and fun night in.

Day 11 and 12: Walk through Hyde Park and celebration of Amys Birthday

Monday was a day of relaxation and walking around for me. We all slept in because we have not been doing so well getting to sleep early with everyones schedule back home and being able to video chat with family and friends. After sleeping in everyone else had class that afternoon so I took that time to go on a walk all throughout Hyde Park, up to the Lancaster Gate area where my family will be staying when they come to visit, all the way past the princess Diana monument fountain, down the little river that goes through it, past paddle boats and small restaurants.

The park is so nice you could really spend all of a nice day in there walking or having a picnic and just relaxing. So that took up a lot of my time. After that I came back to the apartment and rested after many hours of walking.
Finally everyone came back from class so we could all hang out together, make some dinner and have a good night together. We also baked Amy a birthday cake for her b-day and celebrated at midnight! Woohoo 20 years old for her.

The next day was Amy Truong's actual birthday. She has been on the trip with me since we were in Dublin. She loves french food so we went out to eat at a french place and the food was pretty good, although their french onion soup had something weird going on with it and I couldn't figure out what it was. Lucky for us the restaurant was right in the middle of Spitalfields market. It was not too too busy because it was a tuesday, but there were lots of places for womens clothing, hats, jewelry and other fun things. Also a lot of the other regular shops in the area were very enticing and interesting, possibly because I am drawn to all sorts of trinkets and accessories :)

The afternoon concluded with us attempting to go to the rooftop gardens near High Street Kensington, but they were not open for the day. So we went back to the apartment to collapse for a nap and hang out for the night. Days can be so draining here!

Day 9 & 10: Borough Market, Prime Meridian, Cantebury, Leeds and Dover

Sorry I have been a bit late with updating the blog, but here is an update of the past weekend. On Saturday Rachel Back and I went out to the Borough Market. This market is mainly a food market with everything from sweets to veggies and fruits, wild boar sausages, all sorts of cheeses, veggie burgers, sangria, smoothies and everything in between.

I got a delicious smoothie when I first got there as we were walking around praying the rain was not going to come. Then i finally found some honeycomb covered in chocolate. So good, I have been looking for some of this since I left Dublin!

Next, for my actual lunch I got a wild boar sausage sandwich. It was pretty good, although personally, I wished they would have used different bread. But it was really great. After that Rachel and I thought it would be a good idea to go to greenwich and check out the royal observatory there which is home to the prime meridian. This is where the time starts for anyone that cannot remember. So when I was standing here, I was standing in two time zones between the east and the west. It was pretty cool. Rachel and I also got to check out the only planetarium in London. There we got to watch a movie about the planets and stars in the sky that night. It cool, but made me a little bit sleepy in there :)
Sunday was our day trip to Leeds, Cantebury and Dover. We had a little bit of a misunderstanding with the tour company, but the day turned out alright. This was my swirling sausage lunch with mashed potatoes ( i know I know!) and the other stuff was my onion rings, but it was more like onions fried in batter, still good though. Before this in the morning we were at Leeds castle and it was a beautiful place and we got to try a bit of the kinds Mead. Mead is a wine that is made mostly out of honey, but honestly it felt a bit early to be trying this honey wine. Not too bad though. I did have bee's following me around all over the place and I am not joking, it was terrifying.
After lunch lead us into the Cantebury Church. This is where the day turned even more for the worse, our tour guide told us to meet her specifically at 1:30 and I am not a person that is late, yet when all of us girls got there they stupid tour guide a couple minutes ahead of time the tour guide had left without us, and lets hear it for the worst part, SHE HAD OUR TICKETS IN. SO we had to convince the people at the front gate to let us in and then to find our way around the place. But aside from that issue, it was gorgeous inside there and I enjoyed getting to see it.

Next we were off to the Cliffs of Dover, and FINALLY we got to see a beach. This one was of course ALL rocks, but hey it felt really good. We did not spend too much time here but it turned out to be a nice day and we got some cool pictures. But I am warning everyone that plans on going on guided tours in London, please please please read the fine print and look at reviews, because I would not give our tour company/ guide/ or anything a good review.

Love and miss you all!

Actual Changing of the Guards

Camden market Bird Caller

Day 7 & 8: Classes galore! and The 39 Steps in the Theatre

Thursday was not too exciting for me because I needed a bit of time to relax. I had my marketing and sales class in the morning and in the afternoon I took some time to relax while everyone else had class. Later on that night we got the amazing opportunity to see The 39 Steps. This was a British play about one mans life and it was absolutely brilliantly done. Had lots of comical moments and I would definitely suggest getting to see it!!

Friday was the last day before the weekend!!! yay! I had two classes but they were both the design and merchandising class. It was good and a lot of fun. In the afternoon we got to go walking around and went to an exhibit of Masion Martin Margiella who was a brilliant designer. Then we went to the apple store in the city and it was absolutely mobbed. We went to these two places to look and see and gather our reactions about the stores and clothing and everything. It was a really fascinating afternoon. The night was spent trying to plan our our days here and plan out traveling. It was a pain, but we are still working on it :)

Miss you guys

Day 6: First Day of Classes and small walking tour on my own

First day of classes was pretty interesting. Apparently our class is a little bit less marketing and a bit more sales oriented, but our teacher is relaxed and cool. We are learning about how the consumer things, how to get in sync with the consumer, understand them and sell to them better. It is really interesting, but a lot to take in at the same time. After class today I was on my own because everyone else had the Shakespeare Class, so I went on my own little walking tour.

My book provided me with a walking tour through "the city" and took me from Trafalgar square to Tower Bridge. The first photo is from me in I forget exactly where, but it is in my book :) It took me all along this street called the strand and along there was Twinings Tea company. They have been there since 1706 and I was allowed to go in back and have a complementary cup of tea. I tried the pomegranate white tea, it was pretty good but I wound up getting a multi-pack with different types in there like english breakfast, early grey and 3 others.

Another place it took me to along my journey was Ye Old Cheshire Cheese. I did not go in to eat but it looked pretty interesting. I have been craving cheese lately so maybe they have some good stuff inside ;)

On down the road through the strand that turned into Fleet street was St. Patricks Cathedral. Very beautiful and so large it was hard to get a picture of it all. I did not go in to save time for the day but the outside was simply breathtaking in itself.

After going to many different places including churches, narrow laned side streets, shakespeare's London, the monument, the place where 9 streets come together and Tower Bridge I called it quits for the day. I came back to the flat and on the way got myself a little cookie from Ben's and it was to die for!!!

Later on in the evening Megan and I went for a walk through Hyde Park and all the way up to where my family will be staying when they get here and then went back through the park, past the lake, to Dianas monument and back to the flat. We did not realize it but we had been gone for about 1 1/2 hours and were exhausted and hungry... Late Dinner time!