No Longer the Intern

I'm back in the States now. Actually I got in late Thursday night, into Raleigh to spend a few days here with Greg. They trip home wasn't really too terrible, once I got to Amsterdam that is. I had to pay to check a 3rd bag, as what I was planning on being my carry-on was over size and over weight to be a carry-on. They made me rearrange my bags twice to make it all fit and not be severely overweight. Regardless, I still had to pay 140 pounds, or rather $280, to get all my things and gifts back to the States. This is after being told that our taxi was more than the Study Center gave Morgan and I for the taxi and only getting an hour long nap as sleep from the night before. And all of this before 6 am GMT. Once past security it wasn't too bad, even though I sat next to the most inconsiderate man in the world from London to Amsterdam. It was the shortest of the flights though, so not all that bad. My flight from Amsterdam was 10 hours, but it was super smooth and I slept for probably half and watched Ratatouille. Seriously one of the best movies I have ever seen. If you haven't seen it, then do, because it rocks. But anyways. I got an exit row seat on that flight, which meant plenty of room to spread out. The guy next to me was a really chatty fellow and charmed half the stewardesses to get us anything we could want. He was funny and made it easier for me to get through the flight as we all know that I HATE flying with a passion. Got into Memphis alright, Customs was quick and easy. Even though I checked a box (as a second bag, because the box was in the flat and no one else wanted to use it) and it got ripped. TSA said they'd tape it up for me, but they didn't end up doing it. Cheep skates, nothing is missing though, luckily enough. After my relatively short lay over in Memphis we left for Raliegh, and Greg was waiting for me when I got there. Even though the man I sat next to on the Memphis-Raleigh flight was making jokes that he wouldn't be. That guy was pretty cool too, I lucked out with sitting next to friendly but un-creepy people. We actually got into Raleigh 20 minutes early, which was really nice since I'd been in airports for nearly 24 hours at this point in the evening. And with that Greg brought me back to his new awesome apartment and I crashed. I'll be home on Tuesday afternoon, for anyone who was wondering.

This is a bit sad, as it'll be my last post here unless I get the RA position in the Summer. Ah well. It's not really appropriate anymore since I am no longer the American Intern. Or rather no longer an intern and no longer special for being American.

Hilley & Co.

This past weekend was the busiest I've been in a long while. Russ, Hilley and a bunch of others came into town. They all got into London Wednesday morning and I was hanging out with them until late late late Sunday night. I did work Wednesday and Thursday a bit, only a half day Thursday really. Other than that it was hang out with them until about 3 am, come home, go to sleep and get up at 8 to do it all again. I brought Sara with me when I could as she went on a London trip with Hilley a few years ago and really wanted to meet up with them. When we could James, Casey and I split off from the group as we had a few people slowing us down a lot. I didn't realize how quickly I walk now until they all got here. I apparently walk very very quickly now, as does everyone in this city, especially in the Tube. We ran around Portabello Road Market, Covent Gardens, The Tate Modern, the Globe, the British Museum, the British Library and Harrod's. The British Library has the coolest free exhibit, with all of these originals of things like Handel's Messiah (an Original) and ancient religious texts. Harrod's was way too much for me. Huge and packed and way too many people moving around and too much to see, none of which i could afford. We had 2 hours to run around in there and most of us ended up down the street at the sammich shop an hour in. It was a great group that came with Hillley, a most of which I knew and had traveled with before. A few I hadn't and called me Mia's Sister. All in all though, it was a calm trip for a Russ trip. Lots of shopping. Lots of eating at dinner time. We ate amazing food every night and I spent more money on food in the past week than I think I have all semester. Really. But it was awesome and so was the company. I'm sad that they only got to stay for such a short time. They'll have photos up on photobucket some where and I'll probably steal a bunch to put on my Picasa.

On a completely different note I've got only 2 weeks left here in London~! It's finally hit me that all I really want to do is go home for a visit and come back to London. I love this city so much. I really don't want to leave. Honestly I'm thinking of applying to be an RA here over the summer, as they are looking for one. I really don't want to leave. Work may be a bit slow, Greg may be far away, but damnit... I fit in this city. No need for a car, automatic exercize, friendly people, terrible weather (but I can learn to deal with that). So Dad, you won the bet. I don't want to come home.

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.

Return from Paris

I got in from Paris about 8pm my time Saturday night. I must say that I throughly enjoyed Paris, and hope to go again with a little more time. Four days is fairly long, but I feel as though I barely scratched the surface of everything available to do there. The food was amazing, the people were all very patient and very nice, and the company was top notch. I spent yesterday captioning, tagging, and uploading my photos to various places. Facebook has a good number, but my Picasa page has all of them. Even the repeats, as I am fond of taking five pictures of the same thing. I used both of my camera cards and had about 500 photos on them. A lot I deleted or were from other things like Emerald Banquet or Lake Ella (also posted up this morning for anyone who wanted them). Well about a hundred were. The others I've sifted through, leaving just about 350 photos that are of decent quality and clarity. I'll go into detail about my trip when I get home from work and the play Casanova tonight. Note to self: Get the new Casanova BBCTV series, as it is hillarious. We watched most of the first episode in class today.
Ok! Off to work!

Back to the Model Comp

On Saturday we left Glasgow at the early early noon to set off for Sheffield. It was a gloriously beautiful day out, you could see the Scottish Highlands as we drove south. They looked to me just like the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. It was so mesmerizing though... it lulled me to sleep. Just in time too, as every coach I've gotten on lately has given me a horrible nauseating headache. I spent a good 4 of the 6 hour coach ride asleep or attempting to sleep. We did stop once, at the most beautiful rest stop I've ever seen. Really this country is just too green and beautiful to have people stay in the city the whole time. It is also covered in sheep. Cassie and I took a ton of photos of the lake and land behind the rest stop but it really doesn't do the area justice. After our short stop we climbed back on the bus to watch Zoolander with a group of models. The male models choose it. If you don't know, the movie is about a male model and does nothing but make fun of the industry and stereotypes that models are put in. They boys were the ones laughing the hardest. I'd never seen it before, but I liked it alright for a movie that is nothing but dumb the whole way through (Not near as painfully so as the Ballad of Ricky Bobby). We got into Sheffield late, but the hotels were ready for us. The coach ride was only supposed to be 4 hours and ended up being 6. We'd gotten in just in time for us to throw our bags upstairs, run out for Chinese and then pop into a pub to watch the very disappointing England vs South Africa rugby final. England had some great plays, but gave up after a goal-unit ( still unsure of the name) was taken from them on a technicality. That was at about half time, the crowd gave up around 3/4 of the way through the game. It wasn't even a good game, really. It didn't help that the refs were from the Republic of Ireland, so there was no chance for love there. There was a crazy lady sitting behind Cassie and I during the game too. We were standing behind a couch and had been before she sat behind us. She got up and asked Cassie to move several times even though the pub was too packed to go anywhere. We did our best to oblige her, but nothing was good enough. Then at half time she jumped up, shot forward and stood staring face to face with Jess, one of the models. She just smiled a scary smile then ran back to her chair, saying nothing. Jess was kinda creeped out, needless to say. We all walked the half a block home from the Old Monk where we'd been watching to our hotel all a little disheartened.
Early the next morning we went down to the Sheffield mall, where the bags were nice and close. Cassie and I were even close enough with our table and goodie bags to watch the show! This of course meant that during the show we had to yell over the music or talking on stage. The modeling agency actually did their best in Sheffield apparently, calling over near 30 girls in the 2 hours we were open. We had to shut down early because we ran out of goodie bags, even though we still kept taking applications until 3. Cassie and I got to walk around the mall a bit, but not too much because we had to go straight to Manchester that evening.
Mmmmm Manchester. The hotel was pretty damn amazing in Manchester. This is where we had the £900 credit for food at the hotel. Which between the two nights we consumed wholly, with champagne to top it off. That was the only good thing about all of Manchester for us. The first night we were there Cassie and I stayed in, as both of us had massive headaches from the coach ride that day. Everyone else who decided to go apparently went out to Canal St, famous for being full of gay bars. One of the boys didn't realize this, and I wish I had been there just to see his face. It would have been hilarious. They all had a good time though. Which was good, because the mall in Manchester was terrible. The mall manager would disappear for hours on end and wouldn't let us take the full number of boxes of goodie bags. This created a great, big mess. Cassie spent the entirety of the day running back and forth carrying boxes from the basement onto the mall floor to keep the table stocked. The mall offered no help, and the line was a big fat mess of a disneying line. The girl who was helping me with the photos thankfully wasn't the incompetent one. Another annoyance was the fact that it was near impossible to get up to the green room, as it was pass locked with only one pass to get through. They finally just opened the door in the last hour we were there. When we got back to our hotel dead tired Cassie and I each took naps before getting all dressed up for the worst evening of the trip. It started off very well, with the modeling agent Cesar telling me that he loved my outfit. That comment made my evening. We had a really long amazing dinner, then headed out to a club. This club was supposed to be TigerTiger, a very posh popular club. But we couldn't get in. So we went to a club around the corner that ended up being so horrible I can't even remember the name. It smelt terrible. HORRIBLE. The people were mean, they shoved you at every opportunity and I even got hit by a beer bottle when someone threw it at me. The music was random, sometimes good, sometimes weird. I didn't drink any while I was there, and that may have been the only way to make this club acceptable. Good God I was glad when we left. Also there was a minor panic attack across the crew because one of the bands had to withdraw from the tour... for personal reasons. It really sucked as the were generally a good group of guys. Bonus though? Minus IQ got to switch out with them and they are even better than the band who dropped the night before the show. Check out their MySpace as they generally rock my socks off, and by the way, sound warning.
The next day we headed out to our last stop before home, Norwich. Norwich was the most amazing place ever. When we got there the mall security had everything set up for us. Absolutely everything. Bags and all. The green room rocked out socks off, being perfectly located at the lift right next to us at goodie bag centeral. We were close enough to the stage to hear what was going on in the show, but no so close our ear drums wanted to die. Amazingly enough, we ran out of goodie bags by 1:30. An hour and a half after opening the line and we had no goodie bags. And every one of the girls where nice. Except for one overly pushy mother whom I wanted to deck for being snotty. All in all a really good way to end the trip portion of the Model Comp.
The bus ride home is another story. We left Norwich a little after noon and we didn't get into London until near 7. It was terrible. The models were loud the entire time and the traffic was backed up for miles on the motorways because of road work. :( Not nice. Jamie the world's best bus driver got us home safe though.
Thursday I slept and did minimal grocery shopping. That was all I was good for.
Basingstoke was so terrible I'm not sure I can post about it without going into a rage again. It started off that we had to be on the coach leaving London at 7 am. Which for Cassie and I means leaving at 6:30 am from our flat. Then sitting on a coach for a while, which wasn't bad, but then we got there. Our green room was a broken down disused shop. We were shoved into the tiniest space in the mall, and then finally given a better green room in which no one was allowed to talk above a whisper. At the end of the day we were told we had to have everything out of the green room by 3:30 or it would all be thrown out onto the street. A lot of Angry Mothers live there with Entitled Fathers. I was livid at the way we were treated. Really, I'm pretty sure Sucrose is never going back there. It was especially terrible after our awesome treatment in Norwich.
Watford was the absolute last stop on our tour. I have never seen a nicer green room. Free hot chocolate/tea/coffee machine and bottled water in a fridge. Huge room! Ah! The hotel manager was so helpful and sweet. The day went really slowly though, as they had never done it in Watford before. There was a time specifically where I wanted to punch Incompetent-Face in the face, but refrained. Really the day went well until the end where I got shouted at by an angry security guard for not saving him a bag or two. Twice. He wouldn't even shut up when we offered him on that we had been given for ourselves. Then when we left, he stole it. Not a nice guy. Then we were back home by dinner time and we helped unload the bus and said our goodbyes. I got a ton of free makeup and things. Most every one I worked with was super sweet and helpful. They've invited me to stop by the office anytime and I'm Facebook friends with all of them. Cassie and I have hung out with the Minus IQ boys once and are hoping to go to one of their concerts before we leave for home.
But that was my 10 day break in all it's glory. Dispite was the time stamp on this says, tomorrow I leave for Paris so I should have some good stories about that when I get back. For now: Sleep.

Glasgow: One week later.

So enough dilly-dallying around! Time for some serious posting!
Let's start at the beginning: Thursday Oct 18
Trip to the airport started us off at a bright and early (only not so) 6:30 in the morning to get on the Tube to get on an overground train to get the bus to get us to the airport by 9 am. It was fairly uneventful getting there and even on to the plane, though I did meet almost everyone Cassie works with in that span of check in and boarding which made it kind of confusing when trying to figure out who people were later. The flight was amazingly short and smooth, I barely had time to realize we were in the air and freak out. We got to walk around Glasgow a bit once we got there because our hotel rooms weren't going to be ready for a few hours. They held our bags for us though, which was nice. Downtown was just a few blocks from our Hotel so we all headed out to get something to eat. After trying several places to seat 18 people we end up splitting up, Cassie, Aoibhean (Ee-Bv-an), Erika, Michelle and I ended up eating at a Spanish "Tapas" restaurant that was pretty tasty. Note: Tapas just means little appetizer sized dinner things that you are supposed to order like 3 of each I have Cassie begging me to make a Tortilla now because I got her to try one there. After lunch Cassie and I meandered around downtown Glasgow for a few hours before going back to the hotel for a quick rest before trekking out to find the Pizza Express. Which we walked 3 sides of a square to find. We were late, but we found it, enjoyed our pizza and most of us went home. It really wasn't that eventful, the next day though, that was crazy. Friday started my first, most people's second, Model Comp event. We got up early, had a hotel breakfast and all packed into the coach (bus). The mall we get too is really really nice, big open area with a glass roof and the goodie bag pallets are right next to the elevator. This is very important, as we discovered the boxes used to ship the goodie bags were not strong enough most times to actually hold what was packed in them, so they would crush or tear if you looked at them wrong. This naturally made it very difficult to carry. So Cassie and I found ways to worm out of it. We had to make Jeff's scripts and go sandwich shopping for the crew. By sandwich shopping I mean going into Marks & Spenser (think a step above JC Penny's but with a food store) and get 30 pre-made sandwiches of all varieties and bring them back along with at least 12 2-liter bottles of water. Pre-made sandwiches here are delicious, even if you have to HUNT for one that does not have mayo or a soft cheese on it. During this and most of our time working we were followed by the most incompetent and rude person in the group, who shall remain nameless. She made Cassie and I both feel very angry and unappreciated throughout the trip even when we had done twice the work she had. On more than one occasion she was snappy for no reason other than she was hung over and over bearing. I threatened to Cassie to stop working if her attitude didn't change, that's how bad she was. Thankfully we weren't the only ones who had problems with her and everyone in charge knew that. But back to Glasgow. I really felt bad for some of the girls who walked through the line, they seemed so hopeful to get scouted, but there was no way in hell that they would be models. This is coming from someone who will also never be a model, not even a plus sized one. I had to herd a number of girls past their tall chosen friend to stand beyond to wait for her when they would all pool up behind her waiting for their scouting. It literally left me feeling like the I'd just told them that Santa was dead or something like that. Not that too many girls in Glasgow got scouted. It was a rough town, which typically means rough looking people. Some of the girls were pushing baby carriages and you know that the baby inside was their's. This was a competition for 13-17 year old girls. A number had tattoos and badly done piercings, or where just plain missing teeth. Really some of them would have been quite pretty if they just took a squeegee to their face and got off the 2 inches of makeup they were wearing badly. Cassie stopped two girls who looked 14 easily with their height, clothes and makeup. They were 11. It made me want to dry inside, as there is no way I'm letting any 11 year old I ever have try to grow up that fast. I really like my mom's rule of one type of make up at a time starting at 13. Start with eye shadow, at fourteen get blush, and so on until you know... 16 when you start going to high school dances and really it's not crazy to wear. I'm not saying that you're a bad parent if you let your little girl wear makeup, just don't make her grow up too fast, you'll miss her. Anyways, there weren't many girls coming through and we ended up staying an hour after we were supposed to close, sending many a 8 year old through with a suspicious glance and a goodie bag, we finally closed up with an extra 100 or so goodie bags still in boxes behind us. We loaded everything back onto the bus and headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner. At this point Cassie and I got gussied up like no other to go out with everyone after more Pizza Express. We found the second Pizza Express much easier with 7 goodie bags in hand for our servers, managers and whom ever when we got there as we had a group of 26 people to seat and feed. Every one there was happy to have really started the tour and Cassie and I made friends with Xavier, one of the makeup artist. He and I ended up splitting 2 and a half bottles of wine before we left, making the evening quite entertaining. Dinner took a while because of the size of our group but it was all good fun. We left dinner to proceed to a beautiful Victorian building with a really cool little bar inside. Soho Bar, I think it was called. They played great music and I learned something important. American's dance like hookers. Feet planted, butt shaking. English? Think 1980's swinging arms and touch-steps. It's pretty difficult to try and change your style of dancing after 5 or so glasses of wine at dinner but Cassie and I managed it by the end of the evening. Everyone had a lot of fun, especially as we practically ran the bar. I didn't drink any at the bar because I didn't bring any cash with me, but it was kind of nice to sober up a bit before attempting to get home. When we all did decide to leave we tried to get a taxi for the 6 of us that were all going together. Cassie called a cab over and it's sat 5. So what does she do? She shoves us all in a taxi and walks off by herself! She literally shoved me in the taxi and shut the door, then made sure the taxi left before I could turn around and get out. I didn't want her walking home alone, but it ended up working out as she escorting two of our tiny female models home a block from where she shoved us in a taxi. I ended up waiting for her in the lobby of the hotel until she got home. But she got home safe and sound. We left for Sheffeild the next morning.

**Names changed protect the innocent

I'm back from the first leg of the Sucrose/ Remmil** makeups tour. Updates on their way as we speak.

Ten Day Break! Exciting!

Tomorrow begins my ten day break. Really that's a day early, but I'm spending it with Cassie working a Modeling Competition all over England. Actually our first stop is in Glasgow, then to Sheffield followed by Manchester and then Norwich before a day off home in London. After that there are two smaller day trip things to cities I can't remember.
*** Because I will be traveling I will have very limited use of a computer, as such I won't be on AIM or Skype from here until Wednesday. I will try to check my email every or every other day. ***
Work was very, very , very slow this week. Adrian is in Holland and no one knows when he'll be back. Without him there isn't much work to be done. Though yesterday I spend the day turning a manikin into a dress form. That was actually a lot of fun and it involved power tools. I felt very proud when I was done. Chris is going to hopefully show me how to cover it in linen when I get back from break. Monday I spent in Shepard's Bush with Ginny looking for fabrics for a mermaid costume they are working on. She told me that it seemed like I was the one who had lived in London for 20 years, not her as she was very confused by the tubes we had to take to get out there. She hadn't ever been out to the shops there. It was actually kinda cool, because for once the shop keepers weren't all snooty. They generally are because they think I'm so little fashion student looking for free samples, when really I'm a work-study kid looking for free samples. I ended up staying up way WAY past my bed time last night as I had a paper due this morning. And I'm a terrible terrible procrastinator. But it got done and now I'm off to bed so that I can be well rested for tomorrow's journey. Which starts at 6:20 tomorrow morning. Gag me.