Red carpets on the way to school

On Saturday, the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon turned out to be pretty cool. We took a bus for a couple hours and made it relatively quickly. We snapped some photos and took a tour of the town, getting the chance to see Shakespeare's home he grew up in, his school, etc. We also saw his grave in the cathedral there which was interesting. We saw Macbeth that night performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Shakespeare always makes way more sense on stage as opposed to on the page, so it was a relief to see the performance after reading the play last week. The acting was fantastic and the director took some liberties with the play to keep it entertaining. After a long day, we headed back to London. The Notre Dame football game was on at 1am, so I went to sleep without watching it. However, I awoke the next morning to countless messages talking smack about our last second loss to Michigan. Once again, classic Notre Dame. Whatever, Fighting Irish for life.

Shakespeare's house

On Sunday, Allie, Crystal and I spent the entire day shopping! It was awesome! We spent some time on Oxford Street which has major brand name stores along with about 100 H&M stores, no joke. I swear, the Brits love H&M almost as much as they love tea. We bought some key purchases including a neon pink fanny pack at Urban Outfitters for 5 pounds. I can't wait to rock that on spring break this year. We continued to the Covent Garden and Soho area where I proceeded to buy more items. Covent Garden is definitely one of my favorite areas of London so far. It has both mainstream shopping as well as a market and the Covent Garden Piazza is this open area with really cool restaurants and buildings. After buying the biggest sandwiches ever for less than 5 pounds each (major win), we hit up the Thames River Festival. Since we live 2 minutes from South Bank, the festival was conveniently next door. We each bought dresses from these cute vendors on the river. There was a deal where you could buy 2 for 25 pounds, so I obviously bought two dresses and I am in love with them! Crystal came back with me for a few hours and then we spent time that night at the festival as well. We checked out this performance where artists painted a mural to music (really cool/hard to explain), then watched fireworks over the Thames! I have officially had my first firework experience in London. Overall, Sunday was one of the best days I've had here so far. The boys returned from Paris that night and it was good to see that they made it home alive as well.

Crystal!

Monday, I worked the late shift at NBC from 4-10pm. The late shift does more work for the Nightly News so I verbated some tapes from Libya about Moammar Khaddafy, no big deal. The late shift is cool because the personal NBC car takes me home at night so I don't have to walk plus I just feel official. We started booking fall break on Monday night, which somehow has turned into a trio in Rome, Paris and Amsterdam. It is going to be an unreal week.

Classes resumed on Tuesday with my history teacher being awesome and my theology teacher being crazy. After my theatre class, we took a tour of the National Theatre at 5 followed  by our second play, The Kitchen, at 7:30. In between the two, we walked outside the theatre to find a red carpet movie premiere going on (literally right next door to where we live). The red carpet area served as an obstacle I had to walk around on the way to school, not real life. It was a premiere for some British movie but we recognized a few famous people, including Colin Firth. There were photographers and fans everywhere and the scene was crazy. I snapped some photos and then we went back inside the theatre. Unfortunately, this week's performance was extremely lackluster and paled in comparison to last week's hilarious play. The group consensus appeared to be disappointment. Therefore, the only thing to cheer us up was to go out. Everyone headed to Sports Cafe (Tuesday nights are students nights) and we had a really good time. It was a little rough when I woke up at 7:30am for work this morning, though.

Red carpets impeding my way to school

I am currently writing this at NBC because I have some down time. I just went over some tapes of this guy who is doing research on extending the human life span, freaky stuff. I have decided one of my favorite things about working here is being able to watch the Today Show every morning on my computer screen. Not only that, but we get to see the camera view the entire time, including during breaks and commercials. It is honestly so entertaining to watch Matt Lauer drink his coffee and Ann Curry primp her hair. I feel like such an insider. Also the lady next to me was making calls to Ann Curry (who is reporting in Libya) a minute ago which is also unreal. For those who don't know me well enough, Ann Curry is the head female anchor on the Today Show and happens to have my dream job.

I'm planning on meeting up with Crystal again tonight, and tonight and tomorrow night seem like promising nights to go out as well before I leave for Berlin on Friday.

After being here for three weeks, I have compiled a mental list of things I love about London which I now feel the urge to put in print:
1. Dressing "smart casual," so fun and it gives me an excuse to buy clothes
2. Weather, it is overcast and rainy a lot of the time, but it is much less extreme than South Bend
3. The location of our flats, we live in the dead center of London and we are neighbors with South Bank, the British IMAX and the National Theatre
4. Cider, particularly Bulmer's, the girly alternative to beer
5. Traveling, I haven't gone anywhere yet, but currently have multiple trips in the works and am so excited! Europe is my playground!
6. NBC... enough said
7. Night life, for reasons like the fact that it is appropriate to go out on Tuesdays and I have had some absurd nights of clubbing
8. Notre Dame catering to us with field trips and awesomeness all around
9. Tea time, I quite enjoy the strawberry tea variety
10. Walking to work, it's relaxing and I will probably never be walking distance from work in the future
11. Meeting new people, even though we're all from ND, I've met a ton of awesome people since I've been here
12. Cooking or attempting to cook, it's going better than expected
13. Getting lost on the streets and stumbling across awesome places accidently
14. Actually feeling like I live here and transcending the role of tourist!

Cheers from London! I'll update this again after the weekend.