I actually saw the RED TELEPHONE BOOTHS. The
real ones. I've seen them in Disney World Epcot and at Universal Studios in LA, but this time I saw the real ones. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I became a Brit for the past week. Here is a re-cap of my long study tour in London with the DIS Communications & Mass Media program:
Sunday-Left for London from CPH airport at 12, we even got to check a bag!
-Arrived in London for a bus tour with a British man-got to see all the sights
-Checked into hotel, Holiday Inn Kings Cross and group dinner at a really nice restaurant called Bertorelli's (DIS always hooks us up with AWESOME food!)
-Jourdan, Emma, Kellye and I found a local pub to go watch the USA v. Canada hockey finals...we were surrounded with Canadians, but still showed our American pride :)
Monday-Delicious English breakfast at the hotel- eggs, tea, croissants with jam, ham, cheese, cereal, yogurt
-We were given three choices of museums and I chose the S
aatchi Gallery, which had contemporary art exhibitions. My favorite exhibit was a wall covered with tiny squares, each square with a drawing of everyone that has been killed in the Iraq war. Some of the squares had descriptions on them about the person. It was a very touching illustration.
-After the museum visit we decided to use our free time and go to Buckingham Palace. We arrived exactly in time to see the changing of the guards, which was SUCH a cool thing. There were tons of people, so it was hard to get good pictures, but here is a little video of the band marching in.
-We met up with my professor Jonas and some other people from our group to visit
3 fish in a tree, a creative agency in London. We met with one of the directors, who was actually a man dressed as a woman, but I guess that is just part of the creative industry? It was awesome to see how creative people can really get and see some of the things they are producing for their clients. I left thinking "if ONLY I were THAT creative!"
-Kellye and I took the rest of our free time to wonder around Piccadilly Circus, London's version of Times Square, and got coffee at Costa, London's version of Starbucks.
-We met our class at an outdoor place called Cafe 1001 for yummy burgers and potato fries and then we went to
Short & Sweet, London's only weekly short film evening. Each and every week, a program of the very best in short films is shown, giving new artists a chance to display their work and old artists a chance to keep playing theirs. Some of the films were super trippy, but others were awesome!
-We ended the night celebrating Kellye's 21st birthday at this HUGE club called TigerTiger. The club was almost overwhelming because of the size and amount of people, but luckily Kellye got treated to VIP wristbands for all of us, so we hung out in the VIP lounge for the night.
-At about 1:30 a group of us decided to head back to the hotel because it had been such a long day. Little did we know that we had about an hour journey ahead of us to figure out how in the WORLD to get back to the hotel. To our surprise, the tube closes at 12 (still don't understand this reasoning). Public transportation then switches entirely to buses, which may be useful if you know which ones go where, but unfortunately we did not have this privilege. After asking about 10 different people which bus went where, we finally got the right one after a couple of tries. When we arrived back in King's Cross we still had a 15 minute walk to the hotel, and were pretty creeped out by the guy who had followed us off the bus. Needless to say, we RAN. Literally ran from him. I was so thankful to finally cross the threshold of the Holiday Inn at 3 a.m.
Tuesday-We started Tuesday off with an academic visit to a public relations agency, mine being
Edelman. They are an amazing firm and I was familiar with a lot of their work, so it was neat to see their chic office, clad with colorful chairs, Mac computers and mini-bars everywhere. We chatted with a lady named Vicky who worked with their technology team and she answered a lot of the questions that we had about PR at Edelman and the field in general. Everything she said went hand-in-hand with what I have been learning at Elon and in my time here at DIS, so that was affirming.
-We decided to go back to the hotel and grab a quick nap before the rest of the day continued
-Met up with Jourdan at Harrod's (what a sight!) and then made our way to King's Cross College campus where we discussed our PR interviews with the class and Kellye, Emma and I gave our presentation on how convergence and new media is changing the landscape of the PR industry
-We had dinner at Brown's in Covent Garden, ending my steak meal with an absolutely delicious Sticky Toffee Pudding
-I braved the tube on my own and made a trip to the Elon flats to visit my dear friend Mary Catherine. It was SO great to see hear and hear about her experiences in London and share mine from Denmark. It was definitely the face from home that I was needing :)
Wednesday was our day to travel outside of London
-We started our day at Stonehenge, the 5,000 year old monument that is now a World Heritage Site, thought to have been built by people of the late stone age
-Made our way to the city of Bath where we visited the famous Roman Baths and
Sally Lunn's House, the oldest house in Bath that serves the infamous Sally Lunn Bun (DELICIOUS)
-We got a chance to roam around the beautiful little city, which ended up being my favorite place on the tour! It was such a quaint British town.
-We stopped for dinner on the way home at The Pear Tree, a place that reminded me of Kate Winslet's house in The Holiday. Great food, great people, great conversation.
Thursday-Started off with a lecture by Mads Qvortrup, who previously served as the Spin Doctor for Tony Blair's administration. Unfortunately, since I am not that interested in political media it didn't hold much relevance to me.
-Visit to the LONDON EYE..probably the coolest thing we did! It is kind of like a ferris wheel that looks out over all of London--great for pictures!
-Spent the rest of the afternoon in Camden, a younger, hipster part of London that reminded me a lot of Canal Street in New York...I got a really cute hat at a vintage shop for 3 pounds!
-Met up with the rest of the group at 7:30 for Billy Elliot the Musical....good show, but not the best I've seen. New York Broadway is definitely better..
-Got a chance to see Kelsi and Janelle (its been about 10 years since I've seen them), two of my best friends from when I lived in Missouri for kindergarden through 3rd grade...we had SO much to talk about and they are just as I remember! Ironically enough, we are all majoring in communications and want to go into PR!
-Unfortunately after I left them I couldn't get in touch with my group who had gone out with our professor, so I just got in a taxi and headed home.
Friday-We paid a visit to The Daily Telegraph, the highest selling British broadsheet newspaper
-Ended the trip with lunch at SeaFresh where everyone was served fish and chips, but I claimed to be "vegetarian" for an hour so I wouldn't have to muster the energy to force down my most hated food.
-Hopped on a plane at London Gatwick back to CPH and arrived
home at 9:30
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I really enjoyed visiting London. It is such a beautiful city with a lot to see. But in all honesty, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I guess everyone had built it up to be the greatest city on Earth and nothing can compare, and I just didn't feel that. It was a great city, don't get me wrong, but it just wasn't AS great as I thought it would be. The transportation wasn't superb, I felt very unsafe on more than one occasion, and there were SO many tourists everywhere. I guess I have started to compare every city I visit to Copenhagen, since I consider it home now. I've learned that I like more of the small, big city feel and that I feel safer here than I do anywhere else. Maybe its because I know the transportation system and I know my way around, but nevertheless I am more thankful I chose to study here everytime I return :)
