NYC

I've not been able to get at a computer really for the last few days, but I am in fact in Brooklyn staying with Cassie. It's been a really fun couple of days.

I got into the city on Thursday, Morgan and I rode the bus in from New Jersey. We hung out in Port Authority until Cassie was able to meet us. Straight from Port Authority we went back out to Brooklyn to drop off my bag. Cassie shares a two bedroom apartment with her boy and two other roommates, one of which lives in the living room behind a curtain. All the rooms though were bigger than I was expecting and it's a pretty nice apartment over all. And I'm not just saying that 'cause Cassie'll read then when I'm gone. It started raining that day, but it didn't deter us. We went to Mood Fabric and marveled at all of the fabrics. Seriously we spent probably 4 hours in there. Then we wondered around the Fashion district, popping in and out of wholesale stores who happened to have sample sales. Cassie took us out to the Lower East side, a place called Spice. It was some of the tastiest Thai I'd ever eaten. There were plans after to meet up with two of Cassie's friends, two German guys, who ended up being three German boys out trolling for girls. Matt, Cassie's boyfriend, met up with us at the Subway station before we got to the bar, which ended up being Off the Wagon. The most stereotypically college kid big city bar evar. The music was good, the beer was astromonically expensive for anything other than Bud and it was all so loud you couldn't hear a damn thing from even the person you were standing shoulder to shoulder with. All of us ended up leaving and heading to the Belgan Beer Bar, a much quieter bar that I had seen on our way over to Off the Wagon. The beer was pretty pricey there too, but it ended up being a much nicer place. At one point we thought le German boys had left us so Cassie had me drink down my beer quick. But it turned out they were just sitting outside in the beer garden, so we joined them and had another round. Cassie, Morgan, Matt and I didn't end up leaving Manhattan until midnight and due to a miscommunication one of the german boys, Sasha, followed us down into the Subway thinking that we were going back to Brooklyn to drink more, when infact we were all dead tired. It got straightened out before he got on the train, so he was (hopefully?) able to meet back up with the other two, Bjorn and Andreas, before they got too far away.

The next morning Morgan and I had to get up SUPER early. Like 6:45 am. We had to be at the subway station heading back to Manhattan by 7:30 am to meet up with Russ and go with him to Timberlake Studios. We actually made it there without getting terribly turned around and before Russ did. The studio was much smaller than I thought it was going to be, but they had studio cats, who were super friendly. Sara Timberlake was really interesting to listen and talk to, she went through how she got jobs, the process of taking designs and turning them into mock ups, then about fittings and the like. She let us at one point get into small groups and describe what we thought would go into the making of these designs. It was all very cool. After the workshop Morgan headed back out to NJ to go back to her home town to catch up with high school friends and I followed Russ's group to lunch. Cassie had an interview at 1:30 only a few blocks up from where the second workshop, this one a make up workshop, was being held. The group I was tagging along with was a local to home high school group, the director of which I knew from last summer's job at the REP. Apparently they go on a yearly Tony's trip. But the make up designer they had come in to the Geiger studios and show them how to do different make up tricks like old age and fanstasy was Angelina Avallone. She's the make up designer for most every show on Broadway right now. I stayed for her workshop as it ended up finishing near when Cassie was done with her interveiw. At this point, as interesting as Angelina was I was near falling asleep in my chair and needing to go back to Brooklyn. So Cassie and I met up, trudged through the rain and came back to Brooklyn so that she could change out of interview clothes and I could just rest a bit. Getting back to Brooklyn, Matt came home and we decided to to out to dinner. Which I have learned is a trek. It took us an hour to get to anywhere that sounded decent. They don't have a car, so subway is the only mode of travel, and we had to switch trains to get down to the place. It was FANSTATIC food, but far out.

Today we slept late, then Cassie and I went out to the Renegade Crafts Festival in Queens. Another hour long subway ride, but this one was worth it. It was a very very cool crafts fair. AND! It was goreous out. The rain that had been drizziling down for the past few days cleared up and it was sunny and warm the whole time. When we'd seen the whole crafts fair and picked up various trinkets we headed into Union Square to meet up with Matt and sit a bit. After meeting up with Matt we ventured down to Chinatown as I'd had a bit of interest in getting one of the famed fake bags from the Chinese vendors. I found a really nice one that is, to me, pretty indistingishable from a real thing. Now we're getting ready to head down to the produce market to get food for dinner and cook for ourselves in the apartment. Cassie and Matt are getting ready to move to a new apartment in Astoria which they are really excited about, but leaves you short sometimes in the grocery department.

Paris

I wasn't too very excited when I was packing for Paris, even before I learned that I was going to have to pack all of my belongings up. I dunno, I'd never really wanted to go to Paris as I'd not heard amazing things about the people or atmosphere of the city, just nice things about the monuments. Really though, in all honesty I did not meet one person who was anything ruder than indifferent. Plenty of people who could care less, but no one went out of their way to be mean, and in fact most people where really nice. We traveled by Chunnel Train to Paris. Trains are my new favorite form of travel, and yes I know that they crash more than planes, but I just feel much more comfortable traveling across the ground rather than the sky. The train wasn't one of the new super fast trains, those started this week, but it still it didn't take too long to get there. When we got to Paris we were immediately shuffled onto a bus for a 3 hour long bus tour. It was fairly interesting and informative. Like to the fact that Marie Antoinette was beheaded across the square from where Louis the 16th was beheaded because the ground under the guillotine was becoming unstable as it was over saturated with blood and the rotting bodies where obscuring the view of the platform. Gross, but interesting. We did this long, sleepy tour because we couldn't check into our hotel . Everyone fell asleep by the end of it, me just long enough towards the end to not know where in Paris compared to everything else our hotel was located. When we all awoke at the hotel we got checked in and up to our rooms. You were automatically sitting next to on the train and rooming with your roommate from the study center, and as Emma stayed behind, that meant Cassie was sharing the room with me. Yay! The room was TINY. Not unlivable, but if you had tensions with your roommate the people in the hall would be able to feel it, because there was no room for it inside. But as we were only really in there to sleep it wasn't bad. Cassie and I ended up hanging out in there for a short time before heading out to dinner before the guided tour of the Louvre by one of the art history Professors from the study center. A number of us went, which is never good with me. I'm not fond of groups larger than four, as they tend to include more than one annoying person and no one will make a decision that the rest of the group will all unanimously agree on. Of course this happens when were are all cranky and hungry. Finally choosing a place that had a menu in English we sat down to one of the most strained meals I've ever had. The food was all pretty good, it was the company. Some times there are people you have in your life that you like alright, for small amounts of time and there is never any reason in the world that you want to have two of them in the same place at the same time. This is because you know they will feed off each other's annoying qualities. Which is what happened. I was about to punch someone. But we ate quickly enough and scooted off the Louvre without incident. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, an a bunch of other amazing pieces. It really made me sad that we ended up powering by a lot of wonderful art, but I'm telling you after 3 hours of walking around in there and not covering more than one wing I was art-ed out. I really didn't care anymore, which I acknowledge is sad. There was really just too much there to take it all in. They say that it would take someone years to look in to each and every peice in the Louvre. That and I plan on using it as an excuse to go back some day.

Weekend Update

Well this was a very productive weekend for Touristy-London-Things. Cassie and I spent Saturday morning going to Abbey Road and taking crazy photos. Those were really taken on Abbey Road, with different color sweaters and we're both barefoot on the correct one. We weren't the only ones doing it either, but we couldn't get a head on shot because there was a lot of traffic. The fact that we got all 8 shots without too many cars blocking was a miracle. Tiffany is also the most awesome friend ever, using her amazing photo shop skills to put all four pictures of me together into one.
After nearly getting run over 12 times Cassie and I proceeded to 221b Baker St. The non-existent address of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Apparently Doyle went up and down Baker St to make sure that the address didn't really exist so that no one would be bothered by people trying to get in touch with Sherlock Holmes. Years later (think 1950's) a bank was built at that address and was so flooded by people looking for Mr Holmes that they had to hire a separate secretary to tell people that he wasn't real. She apparently felt so bad that she ended up telling people he'd just gone into retirement and handed them a list of other real private detectives they could hire. We did get to go into the touristy museum to see the recreated flats of Watson and Holmes. We got to play with a lot of things in there too which made things a ton of fun.
Cassie and I then ended our day with delicious pasties and Harry Potter dorkiness by visiting King's Cross Station and Platform 9/4 which is not between Platforms 9 and 10 as there is nothing physically separating them, but the archway next to the entrance to platforms 9, 10 and 11. Again we weren't the only ones doing it, but it was still fun.
In the evening we attempted to go watch fireworks for Guy Fox Day, which is actually tomorrow, but that failed fairly miserably. We got lost when we were there, missed 75% of the fireworks and got on the wrong bus home. Thankfully we were dumped near a tube stop on the correct direct line to get us home so we were able to get back that way. But really the evening was a bust.
Today I helped Katie film a short video for her campaign for being VP of her sorority. We had fun making signs and going out to film in front of Big Ben and Parliament. I swear Emma, Katie and I filmed it 20 times before we got one down right without Katie accidentally deleting it or me flipping out signs upside down while attempting to hide behind Katie. We had a mini audience, the people in the park across from Parliament and the protesters. Afterwards Katie bought Emma and I lunch at a pub called The Silver Cross, very packed and very good food.
The rest of the day all five of us have just sat around the flat and cleaned a bit. Next week we go to Paris for 5 days. Exciting! And a weekish after that Hilley and Co will be here in London for Thanksgiving Break. Not too terrible long left here in London, and that makes me a little sad. I've gotta get on my list of things I still need to do!

Work

So Hurrah for the Tubes being up and running again today. It was my first full day of work today, working from 9 to 6. I spent most of the day tracing and cutting patterns for a new TV series. Everyone there is really really nice, and they are really patient with me. I love them. The fact that the head boss guy has my same name causes a few confusions. I've got them to call me a nickname instead to keep the confusion to a minimum. One guy calls me America. Seriously. I think it's pretty funny, he's enamored with the States apparently. I was attempting to explain where I was from to him, but I didn't have a map so it was hard. He was going on for a half hour about how BIG the US was. He didn't believe me that it takes more than a day to drive cross country. Everyone at work tends to treat me like a little sister. They've been keeping me busy too, little stuff mainly but I don't mind. The big industrial machines kinda scare me. I'll learn to use them next week.
But nothing too exciting has really happened around here. I've been to a few pubs, stayed in a few nights. We all plan on doing a bunch of touristy stuff this weekend like touring Buckingham Palace and maybe the London Eye. I really want to do that, so I hope we can.