The newsroom of all newsrooms

 Classes have begun!

As I sit here after a week of classes here in London, I am pretty excited about what the academic realm of my experience is going to entail.

London, why are you so pretty?!

On Monday, I ventured to the NBC News London Bureau. It is about a 30 minute walk which was extremely enjoyable, so I think I am going to end up walking most days. I popped into Starbucks on the way there (It's hard to branch out when Starbucks always hits the spot), and found that my cashier was Hispanic, the customer in front of me was checking her Twitter page in Japanese and the man who made my coffee was French. I have never really felt like an outsider here, mostly because there are so many cultures it is virtually impossible to feel like a minority. I also enjoy walking to work just to see what everyone wears to and from the workplace. London's professional wear, known as "smart casual," has quickly become my new love. Ideally I will keep up this level of fashion upon return to the U.S. Everyone is just super cute all the time.

As it turns out, Monday was a Bank Holiday here in England (the Brits have a gratuitous amount of holidays) so I pretty much just took care of a few security things and left. I went back on Wendesday, however, and officially got settled in. I have my own NBC email (kelly.taylor@nbcuni.com - BOOM), along with a fancy photo ID security card. I spent the morning meeting a bunch of the staff members and getting a tour of everything. NBC News shares their facility with ITN, which is the main broadcasting agency in the UK, so the newsroom is massive. It feels 100 times bigger than the newsroom that I worked in this summer and it's super cool! Every desk has about 6 television screens streaming various NBC content. It actually makes me giddy. At one point I was watching the BBC, ESPN and the Today Show simultaneously. Good thing I'm a TV major.

That morning, the London bureau was busy cutting two packages for the Today Show in America. One was on the foreign conflict in Libya while the other was on Prince Harry's drunken escapades in England, fun stuff. A woman from the foreign desk was showing me the ropes, and she followed the package on Libya from the beginning to the end, making sure the live correspondent was in proper position and sending the video feed to various outlets. We went out to lunch and she gave me the inside scoop on all the surrounding cafes. I feel like I will go out to lunch most days because it's doable to get a really good meal at a cafe for about 4 pounds a day. Plus I just feel like a real life working Londoner by doing that.

I spent the rest of the day with Elaine, another intern, who introduced me to their iNews and Avid software which is a bit overwhelming but I'm sure I will pick it up fairly quickly. Also, the tea and coffee station was by far the most popular part of the newsroom. Londoners love tea more than anything else. I can definitely handle free coffee and tea at work though. It looks like I will be working around 9-5pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. I'm pumped to get going and actually contribute a little something to a television superpower such as NBC.

On Tuesday, I had my history class, 17th Century England, and my theology class, Development of Doctrine. My history professor is this Irish guy who I can already tell is a great professor. I was already highly immersed in his lecture by day 2 of class and am definitely looking forward to it. All the silly English royal family stuff is always fun to learn about.

My theology professor is definitely a bit off his rocker. He was kind of a last minute replacement and has never taught American students before, but he is entertaining nonetheless. Allie and I will survive that one together!

My London Theatre class, which I have for 3 hours on Tuesday afternoons once a week, is probably my favorite. We basically attend some form of London theatre or tour a theatre venue once or twice a week. Our professor is a former big time director/stage actor and definitely knows his stuff.

My last class, Playing Shakespeare, is on Thursday afternoons. We are studying Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest for the first half of the semester and seeing all the performances on stage. Between this class and my other theatre class, I am seeing 10 theatre performances/tours before fall break. That is ten in the first half of the semester! I am so excited! Our first performance is this Tuesday night, and next Saturday, we are traveling to a Shakespeare venue in Stratford to see Macbeth on stage. Playing Shakespeare is also the class where we act in the Globe Theatre for the second half of the semester. Class doesn't get much better than that. I better warm up my acting chops.

I emailed the national women's frisbee team, Iceni, to see about attending a few practices of theirs, but if that doesn't work out I will probably end up playing some pickup on the weekends. There are dozens of teams of all skill levels here in London which is quite promising. I've already played frisbee in the park by the London Eye as well as in Green Park in between classes the other day.

Allie and I have also successfully cooked another meal: chicken parmesan. We didn't poison anyone and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The whole trading off meals thing is seeming to work, that way I will be eating more than cereal and sandwiches every day.

We've also had our fair share of going out this week! Monday was half price margaritas at this place called Benito's so we hit that up and then had a good time at a pub nearby the flats. Tuesday, we headed to Sports Cafe which is right by the London Centre, and they have college night every Tuesday. There was a giant beer pong tournament and it was ND overload as we took over the place. Wednesday, we just chilled at the park by the Eye after dinner and ended up meeting some fairly sketchy London characters that left us with a good story by the end of the night. Let's just say Allie and I were glad the boys were with us, however.

Last night, Thursday night, we again traveled to O'Neils. It is definitely going to be the go-to Thursday night pub. The live band is awesome and there are a lot of drink specials. After being there for a couple hours, however, the band proclaimed they were having "technical difficulties" and everyone had to leave the venue. We exited and saw dozens of police outside and heard murmurs of a stabbing, not so good. We were not going to let that get us down though. The boys worked out some deal with the bouncer at a place called Club One so we got in with a good deal and got a free drink once inside. The dance floor was empty when we arrived, but was definitely full when we left. We spent a few hours there dancing with a bunch of people from the program. Thursday might be the new Friday, considering we got home around 3am. Sorry for partying!

Before O'Neils with the roomies

Today, Friday, after catching up on some sleep, we walked around Eastern London a bit, checking out some markets and thrift stores and doing a little grocery shopping. Tomorrow, we are going to Stonehenge and the Roman Baths during the day then returning to Sports Cafe to check out the ND football game that night. It should play around 8pm our time which works out perfectly. The Irish better kill it this season! Sunday, we are hoping to check out St. Paul's Cathedral (you can get in free during mass) and maybe some different markets/parks. It's looking like we are going to an England destination next weekend (maybe Brighton or Windsor Castle) Spain the weekend of Sep. 23, perhaps a little Ireland or Wales trip thrown in, and then fall break which is up the air but will probably consist of Italy or Greece or Amsterdam or all three. We will see! Planning travel is a new adventure we need to get on soon.

Other things I've noticed about London:
1. The cafe to person ratio feels like it is 1 to 1.
2. The pub to person ratio is also obscene. Pubs on every corner.
3. People complain about London food but in reality, there are so many cultural hubs here that the variety of cuisine is huge and it is so good! Everything I have had to eat has been excellent so far.
4. First Cape champagne is my new favorite thing ever. It's always a celebration when you're living in London. Bottles are popping.
5. The corner outside our flats always has a lot going on. These wall jumpers, known as "Parkour," jump up and around all of the walls and railings outside our flat. It is highly entertaining to watch from my window. The other day there was also a beat boxer directly outside our flat. Free entertainment is a common thing.
6. People generally like Americans here. One of the sketchy London characters I mentioned earlier probably told me he liked my accent 100 times. It's funny because we Americans love the British accent way more than our own!

It hasn't rained hardly at all in the past week after we were getting poured on the first couple of days. Everything is so fantastic, merely looking out the window and embracing that I live here is fun. My coworker, Elaine, assured me that I will undoubtedly fall in love with London after a semester here, and never want to leave. I think she might be right.