Rollerskating & Boat Races

Chu and Tanya hip hop dancing!!

Tanya, Sarah & Teresa Rollerskating (no Rollerblades allowed!!)

So first I want to start out with a funny story about hanging out with my roommates. On Wednesday night we (Tanya, Chu (roommate), Pat (roommate), Candace and Linc (Australian that Chu met in Austria)) were sitting around watching TV. The guys started talking about what celebrities they thought were hot. The girls were then making fun of them and we asked what chic flicks they enjoyed. How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days was brought up as one of their favorites. I let them know that I had the DVD and we joked about watching it. We all then went back to checking email and such and then Chu looked over at me and said "No really. Can we watch it. I wasn't joking". It made me giggle! So we put the movie in. The girls and the guys were watching it and then all the girls went to bed. From my room I could hear the guys laughing throughout the rest of the movie. Tanya and I were laughing because the 3 guys were watching How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days on their own. Don't know if any of you will find this funny!!!! Maybe you had to be there.

The next night was also an entertaining night at Ability Towers apartment 50. We were all sitting around watching yet another chic flick (The Girl Next Door) and then it broke out into a dance party (1st picutre). Thursday nights there is a hip hop class and Chu and Tanya went the week before, so they decided to teach me the dance! It was pretty funny. One of the neighbors also stopped by and joined in on the fun.

Friday night we went to a Roller Disco place for a September interns B-day (there are interns who start in September and then the Marchees who start in March). It was a blast!!! The last time I Rollerskated was in elementary school when we would go to Skateland. Luckily none of us broke anything. Although some came pretty close to breaking bones. Poor Tyler (a September who lives next door) had a bruised hip and floor burns on his elbow. He was limping around the next day!

Saturday morning I finally got to sleep in!!!! First time since I've been here. It was really exciting! I then went to the gym and then Tanya, Teresa, Zahra, and I went to see the Cambridge vs Oxford boat races. A big to-do in London!! We left our place around 2pm. It took about an hour to get to where they were starting. We had some lunch and then headed to the starting line. There were tons of people hanging out along the river. We were able to find a good spot right at the beginning. We stood in the rain with 100s of others to watch the red flag get waved and the rowers begin. It was a little lame!! But it's part of the culture! After the 0.2 seconds of the race that we saw, we headed into the nearest pub (Bar M). It was like being in college again. The bar was jam packed. We stayed for a couple drink and then decided to head home because the line to the bathroom was about a 30 minute wait.

Today I had a group meeting for a presentation that we have to give in class on Wednesday night. It's about Open Management Systems. Shouldn't be too bad. It only has to be 10 minutes long. I think I'll survive.

This week during work I booked flights and hotels for Ireland. Becker and I are going May 19th - May 22nd. Should be lots of fun. I'm getting really excited for it. We are going to rent a car (ohhh scary driving on the left side of the road!!). From the airport we're going to go to the Cliffs of Moher where we will probably be able to watch the sunset and then we are spending the night in Doolin. From Doolin we are going to take a ferry to the Aran Islands where we will be staying for 2 days. They speak Irish there and I've heard that the landscape is gorgeous!!! I'll make sure that we take lots of pictures!

I'm also probably going to go to Portugal with some of the other interns the last weekend of April. They are buying tickets tonight so I might jump in with them. We'd be leaving Friday night and then coming back Sunday night, so I wouldn't have to take any days off of work. We'd be staying in Porto. Don't know much about it, but the pictures I looked at online looked amazing!

Edinburgh, Scotland

Last Friday Tanya, Candace, and I headed up to Edinburgh, Scotland with Topdeck tours. We had to leave our apartments at 5:30am in order to get to the Globetrotters hostel in London where the bus was taking off. Needless to say we were tired when we finally got on the bus. Which was good, because it was a 10 hour bus ride!!! yikes. I thought it was only going to be 5 hours, so I was a little shocked! Luckily I was able to get two seats to myself, so I slept a decent amount. We got to the Globetrotters hostel in Edinburgh at 4:45pm. We got settled in, headed to the hostel pub for a drink, and then had a free BBQ provided by topdeck tours. After the BBQ we decided to brush up on some Scottish history. We watched Braveheart in the fancy DVD room that our hostel had. It had a big theater screen and comfortable lounging chairs.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early for our city bus tour. It was pretty interesting. saw the city and the hills/little mountains next to it. After the tour we ate lunch at a fancy restaurant named The Witchery. Tanya was told that famous people eat there quite a bit. We asked our server about it and she said that Justin Timberlake was there a few weeks ago. DAMN!! should have done the Edinburgh trip earlier. That would have been AWESOME! probably wouldn't have known what to do if i saw him though. drool a bunch and stare.

After our famous person free lunch :( we headed across the street to Camera Obscura. Which is a museum with a bunch of crazy optical illusion stuff. There were 3D magic eye pictures. Love them!! There was also a booth were you took your picture and then it showed you what you would look like as a monkey, baby, and cartoon. It was pretty funny! There was also one where Candace and I sat across from each other and when I looked at myself I saw her eyes, my nose, her mouth, etc. It made us laugh!!

From Camera Obscura we headed up to Edinburgh Castle. We toured the castle grounds and looked in on the Scotland Royal Jewels. They were pretty cool. don't think dirty!

Now one of the best parts comes after Edinburgh Castle. We went on a Ghost and Torture tour. Our tour guide brought us back to old time Edinburgh where they screamed "gardy loo" out their windows and then dumped their toilet bins out. GROSS! Hopefully you have good reactions otherwise you're covered in goo! We were then brought into a room that had torture devices. Not very pleasant. After that we were brought down to the below ground vaults where there is some ghost activity. The vaults we went into were featured on the history channel's Britain's Most Haunted. Spooky!!! It was actually a little spooky. One room was home to a poltergeist. The lights never work in there and sometimes the flashlight that the tour guide carries goes out or flashes. We also had to avoid the center and guys stood on one side and women on the other. Apparently the ghost attacks women more violently and the right side (where the women were) was less powerful. Scary. None of us were attacked. The poltergeist must have been resting! Another room had a circle in the center of it where there is an evil spirit trapped inside. Sometimes when people step into it, they wake up the next day with unexplained scratches. The tour guide dared any skeptics to step inside. Candace and our bus driver did! Yikes! We were all expecting something to happen, like the bus rolling or something, but luckily nothing did. No scratches or weird accidents. Maybe it is just a bunch of balony. After the Ghost tour we were dropped off at a pub where we got discounted drink tickets from going on the tour. After that our bus brought us back to the hostel where we drank and played pool at the hostel pub.

We got to sleep in until about 9:30am the next day. That was exciting. Especially since we stayed at the pub a little later than we should have! After loading the bus we travelled for about an hour and a half to get to the William Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle. They were both nice. At the William Wallace Monument we walked up 256 stairs to the top where we had a spectacular view (i'll be getting pictures online shortly). After that we headed back to the hostel where we had a quiet night. Too much fun the night before!!

Monday morning we left at 10:15am. We watched Euro Trip, The Italian Job, Troy, and the Illusionist on the bus ride back from Edinburgh to London. Yes, the bus ride was so long we were able to watch 4 full movies!!! Got back to my apartment around 9:30pm, made some food, talked to Becker, and went to bed. I was WAY tired, but even though I was still uber tired in the morning I got up and went to my cycling class at the gym. I have successfully woken up before work to exercise 5 workdays in a row. I think I might be able to do this workout before work thing!!!

Work wasn't too bad today. it went by pretty fast. I'm starting to be able to do more things on my own. Still don't have my own computer though. Hopefully it will come tomorrow, otherwise i'm SOL.

Skype phone & address

Today I had my first day of class. It started at 10am and ended around 4:20pm. It wasn't too bad. We did goal setting and presentations about learning strategies. After class I went and bought the skype phone. you guys can now call my minnesota number ( 763-219-1168) and skype connects you to my cellphone. it's awesome!! i don't have to rely on my computer to talk to you people back home.

I also signed up for a gym membership. there is a gym (Fitness First) a couple blocks from my apartment. they have cardio and weightlifting classes at 7:00am during weekdays. I'm thinking about trying to get up every morning and workout. we'll see if that works out. my roommate might also get a membership so she would be able to help me with the getting up early.

Tomorrow we also have class. it starts at 10:30am and goes until 1:30pm. We are then planning on heading into central London to catch the end of the St. Patrick's Day parade and to check out the festivities. They have an Irish food market at Covent Garden and Irish performances at Trafalgar Sqaure.

i don't think i've told you all where i'm staying yet. (MJ i'm sure you're going to be one of the only ones who understands this!!) its an apartment building called ability towers and it is directly inbetween the angel and old street tube stops on the northern line. if you wanna take a look go to this website. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/Standard-Tube-map.pdf it is on the black line.

Also the address where packages can be sent is:

Michael House
35-37 Chiswell Street
Fifth Floor
London, EC1Y 4SE
UK

anyways. tanya and candace keep talking to me and distracting me, so i gotta go.

First Week

I have almost made it through my first week of work. One more day to go!! I have figured out how to get to work in one shot. No more getting lost and wandering around. I finally got my login Monday after lunch. Then I could get on the computer at least. Slowly they have started giving me things to do. It’s pretty slow moving and my supervisor pretty much ignores me. But oh well. It’ll all work out. If not, its not my career, just a year long internship.

Tuesday night Emily (one of the other March interns) had Tanya (my roommate), Candace (another March intern) and me over to her place for dinner. Her place is a little more central and close by Hyde Park. It’s not even close to as big as my apartment but it’s in a nice area. I’m going to have to stop over during the day and take a walk. Last night Candace had us over to her place for chili and cornbread. She is an amazing cook!! She was even nice enough to give me some leftovers so I didn’t have to pay for lunch today. Awesome!!

Today I received my permanent security pass at work. There is a library by my office and with my security pass I can checkout books. So during lunch I stopped by the library and picked up a murder mystery book! Way exciting! There are also travel books there, so whenever I go somewhere I can stop by the library beforehand and checkout the proper book. Nice.

Tomorrow night I am going to see SPAMALOT (a play based on the Monty Python movies) with a group of 5-10 interns. Should be fun!!

This weekend I have my first MBA class. Its 10am-5pm on Saturday and 11am-2pm on Sunday. Hopefully it’s not too boring!

Other than that I am just working with Tanya and Candace to plan out our Easter break trip. We have Good Friday and Easter Monday off, so we have to take advantage of a long weekend and travel!! We have found a 4 day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland for a decent price. It includes bus, hostel, breakfast, BBQ, a free tour of the town, a tour of the castle and a day trip somewhere. Looks good.

Hope everyone is doing well . . . . :)

New flat video

Hey everyone. My roommate has a video camera and made a video of the apartment. Press play to view!

My Apartment

I have finally gotten to my apartment. And it is great! It is much bigger than i was expecting. There are two bedrooms and two bathrooms. my roommate Tanya and i have the room with the bathroom attached. we are living with 2 interns who have been here since september. their names are Patrick and John. We have a pretty big living room and kitchen. There is a dishwasher in the kitchen and a washer and drier. its very exciting. my other roommates are all ok with people crashing here when they come to visit!! so your london trip is now cheaper. Above are some pics of my apartment.

1st week

I have survived my first week here in London. It went by pretty fast. Tuesday and Wednesday were orientation days and Thursday and Friday I was at the office (cantor fitzgerald). The work I have to do there doesn't seem too difficult or overly thrilling. Thursday was my first day there. I did ABSOLUTELY nothing. Apparently my area isn't very organized, so no one really knew what I was going to be doing. They were also working on month end, so were very busy. I literally sat next to someone (i don't have a desk and/or computer yet) and watched her work for eight hours. towards the end of the day i was fighting to stay awake. on friday i was able to do a little bit more. it looks like i will be working with the control team (accounting team) and also doing a little administrative work, like helping out the main boss guy on any projects and keeping track of people's vacation time. should be interesting. the two mountbatten interns who are leaving seemed to really like it there, so that's a good sign. one of them even got hired on with cantor in New York. there is one other intern from march there with me and also an intern from august. the intern from august travels almost every weekend. i may have to jump on some trips with her!

the area my building is in (canary wharf) is really beautiful. it is the financial district in london and is along the river. its nice seeing water everyday! most of the buildings are big glass buildings and one of them is the tallest one in london. there are millions of ways to get to my building from the tube/train station, you can stay inside the whole time or walk outside. the other march intern (max) and i have yet to find our way there in one shot. we always seem to get turned around at some point. one of these days we will win!

some other interns can walk to work which saves them from having to buy a tube pass. the monthly tube pass is 93 pounds (roughly around $200). it would take me a few hours to walk to work, so i'm screwed. i'm thinking about buying the yearly pass, because that drops the monthly cost to about 80 pounds per month. max, the other intern who works at cantor fitzgerald, is thinking about getting a vespa (motor scooter). i might go in for half of it!!! we could find one for about 800 pounds (each pay 400). the yearly tube pass is 968 pounds, so we could save quite a bit. gas is expensive here, but i think we would only need to pay about 30 pounds a month for it. i would still have a tube pass, but do a pay-as-you-go one, and probably only spend 10-20 pounds a month for it. then at the end of the year we could turn around and sell the vespa to an incoming mountbatten intern and get most of our money back. sounds like a brillant plan!! the only trouble i can see is that his team at works tends to stay until 6:30 and my team usually leaves at 5:30. so i would have to take the tube back (which would defeat the purpose) or i would have to stay late. staying an extra hour might be worth it. it would give me more money for traveling while i'm here. we looked online and found some decent ones. there was a pretty pink one. max was thrilled when i found that one!! he would probably do most of the driving through town to and from work, but i bet at some point he would let me take over. or maybe i should say, at some point i will make him let me drive!

today i am planning on going shopping. i plan on buying a big purse, big enough to fit tennis shoes in. my feet hate me right now from walking to and from work in heals. it is not fun at all!!! my feet have never swelled up so much. at home you don't have to walk as much (walk to the car, walk from the car to the office, walk back to your car). here its a couple blocks to the tube station, a hike at the transfer station, and then about 4 blocks from the tube station to my office building (5-6 blocks if you're max and me because we keep getting turned around!). it's acceptable for ladies to wear sneakers to the office and then change once you get to your desk. i plan on taking advantage of that! i also want to buy a nice jacket to wear to the office. its not too cold here but cold enough to need a jacket. the only warm jacket i have is my wintercoat and its not fashionable enough to wear to and from the office. damn brits are so fashionable! i'm just trying to fit in! I also want to take a look at the new skype phones that they have. apparently you can buy one for about 50 pounds and then i can have mobile skype. so rather than you guys calling my computer with the 763 number that i bought, you can call to a mobile phone. i think that's how it works. and if that's the case then that is awesome!!!

anyways . . . . . i miss everyone and hope everyone is doing well. gotta go and meet emily and candace (other interns) for our day of wandering and shopping.

Getting to London

So I have completed my first day of orientation. It was long and they gave us A TON of information. Some useful, like where the nearest gym is to my apartment and what cell phone (or as they call them in the UK, mobile phone) is a good deal. A bunch of us ended up buying one after the orientation session. So my UK number is 07975728646, if anyone gets bored and feels like calling! I also bought a skype number and that is 763-219-1168. We will have internet in our flats for 10 pounds a month. not too bad.



So anyways. Here is the story about my travel here. Got to the Minneapolis airport around 4/4:30pm (flight took off at 6:30). My plan was to check in two bags and have only my backpack for a carry on. I knew that my bags were probably going to be a little overweight, but sometimes they don't care. Well this time they cared! one bag was 57 lbs and the other one was 54 lbs (50 was the limit). So i had to use the extra carry-on luggage that I brought and take 7 lbs out of one and 4 lbs out of the other. Mom and i just started grabbing heavy stuff and throwing it in the carry-on. Both of my check-in bags ended up being 46.5 lbs. I asked the lady at the counter if i got anythign special because they ended up being the exact same weight. she just looked at me. apparently she didn't care for my attempt at humor. As we left the counter mom and i realized that we didnt' pay that much attention to what we were throwing in the carry-on, so we quickly had to check for sharp objects and liquids. It turned out that we grabbed a case that had scissors and twizzers in it and a bottle of lotion that was over the 4 oz. mark. luckily i was able to stop the guy who was x-raying my bags and he was nice enough to put that stuff back into my check-in luggage. Then i went through security and was lucky enough to be randomly selected for security screening. So i was escorted through the metal detector and all of my stuff was taken out of all my carry-ons. The guy was probably wishing that they had picked someone else, because i had a lot of crap!



the plane leaving for minneapolis had to be de-iced, so we were a 1/2 hour late taking. so we got into toronto around 10pm and my next plane took off at 10:55pm. Now normally this won't be that bad; however, at the toronto airport you have to go through passport control and then through security again. and then my gate was .5 mile away from passport control (the guy who pointed me towards my gate told me, he does it everyday so he knows!). I ended up arriving at my gate all sweaty with sore legs at 10:45pm. With just enough time to hop on the plane and get settled in quickly before we took off.



The plane was really nice. It had individual tvs for each person and you could pick which movies and tv shows you wanted to watch. I however decided to sleep and it was wonderful. the plane was really empty so i got all three seats to myself. I was able to stretch all the way out and get a decent 4-5 hours of sleep.


I arrived in London at the scheduled time. got my luggage and went through passport control. I found the mountbatten people at around 11:55 am. They shuttled us to the hotel at three different times: 9am, 12pm, and 3pm. A current intern and i were walking towards the bus as it took off!! So i ended up waiting at the airport until 2:45. it got a little boring!

after i got to the hotel i sat around for a while and then headed to the tube station with some of the others so we could get our week tube passes and dinner. i was back at the hotel around 6pm and in bed by 8pm. I slept ok last night. woke up a few times.

Well anyways. that was a bunch of info.

tomorrow is another orientation day and then thursday i start work. AHHH. wish me luck!!

Flying away in 3 1/2 hours!

Just got back from eating with the family, Becker, Jen Hall, & Janelle at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a good last meal! I will miss their food. Hopefully someone can figure out how to send 6 parmesean garlic wings and buffalo chips with cheddar (southwestern ranch on the side) to London. I will probably be craving them while I'm over there!!! These last two weeks have flown by. I had the last two weeks off of work and thought that I would have more than enough time to do everything that needed to be done before flying over. I just finished packing about 5 minutes ago. It's amazing how time flies. It still doesn't seem real that I'm heading to London tonight. In just a day I will be setting up camp at my temporary accomodations and then within a week I will be setting up my permanent home. It's weird. I don't think it will really set in until I've been there for about a week.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by last night for my little going away bash. It was great to see everyone! Hope lots of you can come and visit me!

Well guess I should go and see if Mom and Dad are ready to take me to the airport.

check ya later!!!!! For everyone who's not visiting, see ya in June of 2009.