Greetings From Rome!

Buon Giorno! I'm not sure if I spelled that right. But I hear just saying ciao is pretty informal. I wanted to be fancy.



Anyway, I'm sitting in my hostel right now in Rome typing this blog post. Derek and I have been having a crazy week. I will give a lot of details later, but for now I just wanted to type a brief update.



I am already done with my study abroad program. Last week I had finals. On Friday I had a really busy day because I finished my final paper for the equivalent of IU's Z302, went to City University to turn it in (very long commute), ate Chinese with Haley and Christine, and then I had to pack for home and get all of my stuff together for Italy.

On Saturday morning I woke up really early to take a cab at 6:30am to Paddington Station to leave my giant suitcases at the left luggage drop off. (Hopefully they are doing ok there.) Then I flew Ryanair from Stansted all the way to Pisa. From the Pisa airport I had to take a train into the city, and then another train to Florence. I had a slight freak out because my phone was not letting me call Derek, but he finally called me and we figured out how to meet up.

So far we've been to Florence, Siena, and Rome. Today was our last full day in Rome, and we are waking up early tomorrow to take a train from Rome Termini to Florence SMN stations. Tomorrow night is our last hostel stay, and then we are both flying out of Pisa (I have to take the same complicated route to get back to the airport) at the same time, but I'm going to London and Derek is going to Seville. Crazy planning was involved, but it's been a fun week.

Well, that's my update for now. I will write with fun details later!

Apparently, I am a hayfever sufferer

It is becoming hayfever season here in England, and apparently I am one of those afflicted with the allergy. I've been taking a Boots-brand hayfever pill once a day in the morning, which helps for about the first 12 hours, and then makes it challenging to sleep. I looked at the prevention tips online for hayfever (at medinfo.co.uk if you must know), and prevention is not in my favor. Here they are, accompanied with why I am suffering so much:

1.) In the summer stay inside between 5pm and 7pm, when pollen counts are usually high. Keep windows and doors closed, especially at these times and when sleeping. I am always outside during this time due to commuting. Also, my roommates and I basically have to keep our windows open at all times or else it gets unbearably hot in our room.

2.) Use an air conditioner or filter when possible, at home, work, and in the car, to remove pollen and other allergens from the air. There is no air conditioner or filter in any building that I frequent.

3.) Damp dust and vacuum your home regularly, to minimise the presence of pollen and dust. My roommates and I have discussed how the Palace Court cleaning lady never vacuums our room thoroughly. I also do not have individual access to a vacuum.

4.) Airing bedclothes in direct sunlight is also helpful. I do not have direct sunlight to air my bedclothes.

5.) Be aware of the pollen count (usually broadcast along with the weather), and avoid areas of high pollen concentration, eg long grass, lawn mowings, and trees if allergic to these. If you need to work in these environments consider wearing a mask and goggles. I live next to a giant park called Kensington Gardens.

6.) Avoid unnecessary extra irritants such as smoke and chemical fumes. My sole mode of daily transportation is the polluted underground tube system.

As you can tell, I have all factors against me. Sleeping has become difficult, because now I have nose, eye, and throat problems along with an unfathomably uncomfortable mattress.

I also just got home from taking my only written final exam this week - marketing. We had two hours to choose five out of ten questions that he asked, and form detailed answers. I studied a lot, but I do not know just how detailed he wanted me to be. Out of seven people in the class, I was the last finished, though. Pretty typical of me. It has been very difficult to transition from being graded primarily through multiple choice exams at IU to all essay exams at City/Arcadia.

Now for some fun blog topics that I jotted down as they came to me while I was at Starbucks studying for my marketing exam (it's air conditioned so it was good for my health...that's my defense).

First, customer service at Starbucks is very different here in a negative way. They do not ask for anyone's names, and using a credit card slows down the process instead of speeds it up. No one is accustomed to "swipe cards" here, because the Brits use a pin number like a signature.

Second, if you are a big ziplock baggie and full gallon of milk fan, you should probably not study in Britain. Instead of ziplock baggies, they have baggies that stick together at the top like stickers/post it note glue. It's extremely awkward, and makes it much harder to put food into the bag and seal it perfectly. My best description of my attempts would be if you peeled off a really long piece of scotch tape to use on something very high, and the tape just flaps in the air and sticks to itself instead of staying straight.

Third, the Body Shop is much bigger here than it is in America. You will see a Body Shop in every city in Britain.

Finally, I find it strange that expensive cosmetics are sold in Boots - the equivalent of Walgreens or CVS. For example, the Boots store near me has an large, all-inclusive Lancome counter. There are some Boots stores that have every high-end cosmetics brand inside the store, just like you would see in Macys or Dillards back home. Why do the cosmetic companies place their products in Boots as a distribution outlet? I have yet to find out.

Ok that's it for my thoughts this week. I move out of Palace Court on Saturday, which is starting to get really depressing. I've loved living with all of the people in my program, and I'm going to miss them a lot when I go home. Only three of us who live in Palace Court go to IU, so it will be weird saying goodbye to so many people.

By the way, I think I already mentioned that I'll be in Italy next week before I fly home. I will try to update from internet cafes as best as I can.

Just A Roamer

I've been quasi-sick since Monday, which I'm trying to get over. I can't diagnose the problem, because it's like a cold with some extra weird symptoms. I'm stuffy, have extremely irritated eyes (in a way that's never happened to me while sick), and I'm very achey. Today after I got home from work/class I took a 3 hour nap, and still woke up feeling as achey as I did all day. Wish me luck that my health improves!

So tomorrow is my last day at work. I'd have to say that I feel ready to end work, only because I'm sick/tired where the manual labor is more difficult this week and because I need to start studying for all of my finals next week. Yesterday was the first and only day that I skipped work all semester, and I did so in order to work on my internship dissertation.

Speaking of my internship dissertation, it's all done! Thank goodness. I turned it in this morning. It ended up being 43 pages single-spaced including a four page bibliography and lot's of appendices. I ended up writing around 8300 words, which my supervisor said was fine despite the maximum word limit of 7500. My big concern, though, is that UPS printed it so that the page numbers got screwed up, and I didn't have enough time to re-print it because I would have been late for work. I let the Arcadia office know that it was UPS' fault, so hopefully it's not a big deal.

On a happier note, it was like an English summer here in London today! It was around 70 degrees and partly cloudy. The entire day I was sweating because it was so humid and I didn't realize it was supposed to be so warm.

The tube was extremely hot today, especially the central line. I'm not sure why the central line always seems to be the warmest. I've finally determined that the Northern line consistantly smells like pollution, while the other lines do not. I'm not sure if that's because the Northern line is older or the deepest (which I've only heard because someone told me that people hid out in the Northern line during the blitz because it's the deepest). Regardless, it is not pleasant and I'm glad I only take the Northern line twice a week. I take the central line every day, and I'm glad that it's usually a nice experience...especially since it's warm in the wintertime when it's cold outside.

Oxford Mission: Find The Gatsby Bridge

It has been rainy and cloudy all weekend here in England, but Derek and I decided to go to Oxford today after not doing much of anything yesterday.

We went to Paddington Station around 10:45, and just missed the 10:51 train. We stood in line to buy our tickets, and they ended up being 20 quid...which was definitely more than the 14 quid I paid to go to Cambridge. Then we planned to catch the 11:21 train, and went to get breakfast and wait. For some reason, when we came back to the platforms at 11:18, the platform that the Oxford train was leaving from was already erased from the board. So we missed the 11:21 train as well. We hung out and went to some of the shops at Paddington such as The Body Shop and Boots to wait for the 11:51 train. Finally we got on that train and took it all the way to Oxford.

When we got to Oxford, we went to the tourism booth at the train station, and I grabbed a free advertisement for the hop-on-hop-off bus tour only because it had a map of the city in it. The Oxford campus was an extremely easy walk from the train station. Derek and I decided not to take the bus tour, and instead just walked around ourselves using the map as a guide to where we were. We had fun just seeing everything, but if you want to learn the significance or history behind any buildings, I don't recommend doing it our way.

Almost all of the buildings at Oxford cost money to enter, so we only really walked around the outside. There were tours from the Oxford information center, but we did not want to pay to get in on one. The only landmark that was truly important to me was seeing the bridge that is mentioned in the book The Great Gatsby. In the book, Jay Gatsby shows his friends a picture of him under the landmark Hertford Bridge at Oxford, and wrongly convinces them that he actually attended university there. Now I have a picture just like it.

We also passed by the college that C.S. Louis and other famous authors studied at. The Christ Church college is famous for having some of the scenes of one of the early Harry Potter movies filmed in their staircases. Derek and I did not get to see where it was filmed because, again, it cost too much money. Seriously, we felt every building cost 3 quid to get in to and it wouldn't be worth spending all of that money for each individual building. I honestly do not know how Oxford gets away with charging that much to tourists. Perhaps they do so in order to keep the number of tourists to a minimum...and allow only the truly dedicated to roam around. Pity I'm not wealthier, because I really wanted to see what a classroom looked like.

We also walked by the Oxford Castle because it was 6.50 quid to get in and we didn't know what attractions lay inside that would be worth the expense. There was a giant hill next to the castle that cost money to climb, and there were small children just swarming all over the hill. Also, people dressed in period costumes manned the entrance to climb the hill, and I saw a man at the top dressed in a scary black hooded robe. I took a picture because he reminded me of a dementor.

A dementor on the hill at Oxford Castle

Tourists lined up to see where a few scenes were filmed in Harry Potter

Christ Church College at Oxford

Oxford Castle

Derek and I thought there would be nothing cooler than to be able to tell people your school was called University College

*Side Note*

Finally I just want to quickly put to rest a rumor that you may have heard. Before I left for England, I was told that "you can't find peanut butter there." This statement is not true, because Marks & Spencers sells their own store brand creamy peanut butter. However, if you are a chunky fan, you are potentially out of luck. I hope this sooths any worries that may have been keeping you up at night.

And My Reward Was Half A Chocolate Easter Egg

Last night I had to work at a store event for top customers, where Stella McCartney came and helped style the women. Christine and I were in charge of the coat check and handing out goody bags when a customer left. All of the top customers were very nice and very pretty. Also, I got to wear Stella clothes from the spring/summer collection. For the first half I wore a light blue blazer and seagull printed dress. For the second half I wore jeans, a blue and white ship passenger list print top, and the light blue blazer. I really liked the second outfit.

However, the key thing to remember is that I got to speak to Stella briefly! She was walking down the stairs to go to her waiting car, and I handed her a goody bag. She laughed happily and said, "I get one too?" I assured her that she could take one. She looked like a regular person, who just happened to be very skinny. It was cool that I got to see her smile, too, since she never smiles with her teeth in pictures. It's not an ugly smile, so I don't know why she hides it.

I worked from 9am-9:45pm last night, and now I have to go get ready to go back to work at 9 this morning. Then I'll be working on my internship dissertation this afternoon since I have no classes due to spring break.

We Conquered London. It Is Ours Now.

This weekend Derek came to visit, and we did SOOO much in two days. I'm going to write it as a list, because there are too many landmarks to simply chat about.

Friday: Tower of London, London Wall, Tower Bridge, Tower Hill, The City, walked down The Mall, Buckingham Palace, sat on chairs in St. James Park, Parliament/Big Ben, Number 10 Downing Street, walked by Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, walked by The National Gallery, and saw a movie being filmed with an actor that Derek recognized from the movie Rome.

Saturday: St. Paul's Cathedral, Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Borough Market, Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge, Monument, walked by 3 churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren and another small market, Royal Exchange/Bank of England, and ended by walking the entire length of Portobello Road.

Today we've stayed in. Derek is out right now purchasing his ticket to Edinburgh at Kings Cross Station. My word of advice with that is to not go to Europe without a credit card.

I Don't Feel In Any Real Danger Because The Archive Is Basically A Bomb Shelter

Today was the first meeting of the G20 Summit in London. Christine and I joked that this was the second time that the entire city shut down since we've been here (the first for snow).

Because all of the top world leaders are meeting in London right now, a large number of anarchist groups flew in to protest. Basically, I read that it was like a parade, where they started at Moorgate and walked by a lot of the major landmarks of London to show their distaste for the recession. Apparently part of the parade was supposed to walk right past the Stella McCartney store/my office! I cannot confirm whether that happened, because Christine and I left for class at 12:30.

Many Londoners were freaking out that instead of a peaceful protest, it was going to turn into a riot. I never once felt scared for my safety, though. Perhaps it was because I knew I'd be somewhat out of harms way, but I also never once passed a protester. A girl I work with named Kate said that her friend had seen some protesters on the tube this morning wearing dark masks over their faces. Also, I was told that people who worked in the banking industry were told to dress down in order to not look like a target. I believe most of the protests were about capitalism, wealthy people during the recession, and the banking system. There are a lot of photos of the protesters in Trafalgar Square. Here's a photo I found online from BBC.com of some protesters:

On another note, there's two more things I want to mention.

First, I began thinking this week about how different the tube experience would be if I were a foot taller. At 5'1'', I struggle to reach the highest rail to hold on to near the doors. However, I've noticed that really tall men and women are constantly tilting their heads down on the tube because the tube actually has very low ceilings. I feel that would be very annoying when the tube is very crowded in the morning to not only squeeze in with a lot of people but also to have to tilt your neck constantly. Despite being more confined, I still feel that the tube was much better than the Metro in Paris, though.

Finally, I thought I'd run through my Monday - Thursday schedule to give my readers and idea of what I'm doing:

Monday:
8am-9am: Wake up and get ready for work/school
9am-9:30am: Commute to work. Sometimes pick up Starbucks or Oi (bagels) at the Bond Street station
9:30am-1:30pm: Work at Stella
1:30pm-3pm: Commute to City University/Buy & eat lunch
3pm-5pm: International HR Management class
5pm-6pm: Commute back to Palace Court from City University

Tuesday:
8am-9am: Wake up and get ready for work
9am-9:30am: Commute to work.
9:30am-6:30 or 7pm: Work at Stella (Usually home by 7:30pm)
Usually home by 7:30pm

Wednesday:
8am-9am: Wake up and get ready for work/school
9am-9:30am: Commute to work. Sometimes pick up Starbucks or Oi (bagels) at the Bond Street station
9:30am-12:30pm: Work at Stella
12:30pm-2pm: Commute to my Arcadia University marketing class at Thoresby House
2pm-5pm: Marketing class
5pm-6:30pm: Commute from Thoresby House to City University/Buy & eat dinner
6:30pm-8:30pm: Arcadia University's Working In The UK sociology class at City University (mandatory if you are in the internship program)
8:30pm-9:30pm: Commute back to Palace Court from City University

Thursday:
8am-9am: Wake up and get ready for work
9am-9:30am: Commute to work.
9:30am-6:30 or 7pm: Work at Stella

I managed to have Fridays off as well as Saturdays and Sundays, but not everyone in the internship program was able to schedule it that way. I definitely recommend getting Fridays off if possible, though, in order to have a long weekend for relaxing, homework, and travelling.