Sunday 29 November - Friday 11 December

Thursday Eya and I did some shopping. We wandered around Oxford Circus looking for gifts. The tube stations were packed with people! Oxford Circus is a huge shopping street and really the only section of town with stores that stay open late for people to do Christmas shopping, so it gets really busy.

Friday I didn't have to go to class. I went to Pret A Manger to use their free WiFi. I applied to 2 jobs in NYC!!! After a few hours I went back home and Bridget, Eya and I decided what we wanted to do for dinner. Eya hadn't been to Ping Pong (a dim sum restaurant) yet so we decided to go there. Dinner was excellent (tiny morsels of deliciousness as the menu says!), I could eat there all the time! After dinner we walked next door to an 80's club called Reflex. Christine had been there a couple of times and said it was really fun. It was pretty funny inside. Top Gun was playing on all of the TV's and some people were dressed up in neon, leg warmers, etc. We went downstairs to the bigger bar and dance floor. They had props you could buy behind the bar-like wigs, Madonna-esque cone bras, sunglasses. I've never been to the Breakfast Club at home, but from what people told me, that is what it reminded me of. We ordered a "shared drink"-a Long Island that came in a HUGE martini glass. After a while we walked back towards home and stopped at Beduin for a little before heading back home.

Saturday I went with Chelsea and Brian to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We left a little late (especially for a Saturday) because it was really crowded when we got there. We couldn't get anywhere near the gates but we were able to see the guards march through the street. I went home for lunch and then headed out with Eya and Bridget. We took the train to Depford to go to the other Cockpit Arts Open Studio location. There were some repeat designers. I was able to see Emma Nissim's space which was really cool-her stuff is so cute!

Afterwards we took the train to Hyde Park to check out the Winter Wonderland-a German Christmas market. It was pretty rainy out so it wasn't really fun to walk around, but it seemed pretty cool. There were a lot of rides and German food and stalls with people selling things. We headed back home and ordered some Chinese for dinner so we wouldn't have to go back out! Eya and I decided we wanted to go back to Beduin so we headed there around 12 AM. We know the host now (not sure what a host does at a lounge, but he doesn't get you drinks :P however, we do get in free!!!). We did meet the manager that night and finally got a free drink....or two!!!

Sunday Eya and I took the tube to Liverpool Street to go to Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields Market. She found some things for her mom which was awesome! They have a wedding to go to next month-a few days worth of parties too! We went back into the city and had dinner at Wagamamas before heading home.

Work was pretty busy this past week too. Rachel and Sarah are scheduled to go to China the weekend of the 12th and won't be here for my last week at Braintree :( I was finally able to meet Tara, who is like Braintree's Creative Director. She does a lot of things for the website and email and also style's for the catalog and other promotional work. I'm going to work with her this week! I can't wait-she is really cool and creative and I just can't wait to see her work and talk to her about everything I've been doing. I'm scheduled to work with her this Wednesday. I'm going to her house for a photoshoot for of the women's Spring samples for PR use.

Chelsea and I went out Monday night to Knightsbridge (Harrod's tube station stop) to look around the shops for a change of scenery from Oxford but everything was closed! It was only 8 PM! So we took the tube to Oxford Street and wandered around there for a bit. Tuesday night we went to Oxford again with Chrsitine. She was looking for a dress for her work Christmas party. She found a cute one at Mango. Afterwards we went to Nando's for some dinner.

Wednesday I received the Christmas clings for the store! I didn't have time to leave work and put them up though because I had to get the showroom ready for an appointment the next day.

Thursday I went to Camden in the morning to put the clings in the shop window. I met Asher, the new shop girl from Australia. The clings look really cute!!! I can't wait to see the windows all done-I'm really excited and anxious. I'm sad that I won't be in London when they're finished but at least they will be done and I'll be able to get pictures.

I went back home and got ready to meet everyone from Braintree at Green Park tube station. We were going out for our Christmas dinner/farewell party for me! First we went to the Winter Wonderland. We had lots of mulled wine and German sausages. Then we all went on the Free Fall ride which was terrifying! The first fall is so scary, they just leave you hanging up there forever!!! Around 945 PM we headed to a Lebonese restaurant called Noura. We order mezze, which are small sharing dishes, much like tapas in Spanish cooking. The food was amazing. They had mainly lamb and vegetarian dishes. Everything was really, really good. I didn't get home until after 1 AM.

Friday I went to my last class! Alan asked us to email him when we got back home to let him know how we readjust to going back and all that. After lunch, we went to have tea at Liberty. While we were waiting to be seated I saw some girls walk by and realized they were Daisy Lowe and Pixie Geldof! I was so excited!!!!! They were just wandering around, doing some shopping!!! They are both socialites/models/daughters of musicians. We sat down and order afternoon tea for two. It came with a 3 tiered tower of cakes and scones. Everything was yummy!!! The tea was really good too and everything was very cute.

After tea we wandered around the store some more. I saw a short haired blonde woman and heard her speak and thought to myself "that kind of sounds like Pink" and I said it to Chelsea too and right as I said it she looked right at us! It WAS her! We were 3 feet away from PINK!!!!! We didn't know what to do!!! It was crazy!!! THEN, after wandering around the store some more, I saw this very skinny girl walking around with what looked like a personal shopper. I recognized her face, but couldn't place it right away until I got a good, straight on look at her. She was a freaking Victoria Secret model! 3 sightings in 1 store!!!!!! It was insane!!!!

We wandered around the area some more and ended up in Piccadilly Circus. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, which was really good. Then we headed back home. Eya, Bridget, Chelsea and I went out to On Anon in Piccadilly (the same place Eya and I went to on Thanksgiving). It was pretty crowded and a lot of fun again.

Sunday 22 November - Saturday 28 November

I’ve been able to accomplish more on the windows!!! I’m working with another graphic designer to develop the artwork for the windows. Work has been pretty steady, constantly doing things. Thursday was THANKSGIVING! In the morning, Bridget and I went to Borough Market and grabbed another amazing grilled cheese. Then we headed to St. Paul’s. We walked around inside for a while and then went to climb the stairs to go to the top. There were soooooooooooooooo many stairs. And a lot of them were little, long steps, which made it a lot worse, constantly compensating for the height you’re used to. The good thing was that they gave you breaks. After the first set of stairs, you come to the Whispering Wall. You can sit at one part of the wall and whisper into the wall and the sound will travel around the wall and the other person will be able to hear you! It doesn’t work well when there are a lot of people, you need to be closer together. After that you go up more stairs until you get to the first outside part. The view was awesome; you could see the whole city. One last set of stairs brings you to the very top. We walked down to the bottom and went downstairs to have some tea in the café.

We wandered back home and hung out there until we had to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner! We had tickets for the Medieval Banquet, which is like a fancier Medieval Times. We were told people dressed up a lot in medieval dress and you could rent costumes there. But we decided to just dress in our own clothes. We got there around 7 PM and were greeted at the door by guards. We went inside and took our seats. People were getting into their rented costumes and some of the staff/cast were walking about.

Eventually the festivities started and our Beer Wench (!!!) told us how we should “ask” her for more wine and beer and anything else we needed. If you run out of beer or wine you hold up the jug and scream “Wench!!!” and she’ll come running. The dinner was a 4-course meal, with utensils, and plenty of bread, beer and wine. While we ate, there was a sword fight, jugglers, and singing. It was pretty entertaining and the food was ok, not Thanksgiving, but it was good.

After dinner, Eya, her friend Eveon, Chelsea’s boyfriend’s sister Amy, and I decided to meet up with Harry and his brother Grant at On Anon in Piccadilly Circus. We took a cab there and it dropped us off right out in front of the club. We were ushered into a line by a promoter straight away. Once we got inside, we needed to walk around to find Harry and Grant. The club was HUGE. We went up one set of stairs and we were in a room with different music and a bar (no Harry and Grant though). We went back downstairs and walked around the main bar to another set of stairs. Once up that set, we walked and walked and walked and walked, passing bar after bar and different sections of the club. It was crazy-it never ended! Finally, turning another corner we saw them hanging out on a couch in front of a bar. It was college night so some drinks were half price-vodka soda (vodka seltzer in the US, they don’t call it seltzer here, they have no idea what that means. Story I forgot to tell you guys! One night when I was out I accidentally order a vodka seltzer. I’ve been really good at ordering vodka soda the entire time I’ve been here because I knew that’s what they called it. When I ordered it the incorrect way, the bartender looked at me, started making the drink then said, “You’re lucky I’ve worked in America, otherwise no one would know what you’re talking about.” I was like ooooohh, I’ve been so good this whole time!!! Oh well) was only £3-AWESOME!!! After hanging out for a while we went up another set of stairs and were in a dance area with a DJ. Music was great and we danced the whole night! We got home after 3 AM-I felt bad for Amy because she had to get up very early to catch a train to Paris :P

I got up to talk to Alan on Friday. I skipped my first class. He had told me about Cockpit Arts Open Studios a while back. Cockpit Arts is an organization that offers studio space to small designers. A few times a year the studios are opened to the public where you can buy the designers’ goods and see the space where they make everything. He was excited I remembered about it and decided to come along with me, which I was happy about because I probably wouldn’t have been able to find my way to the building.

It was £5 to get in and the ticket was good for the Cockpit Arts Holborn and Depford locations. There was a lot of jewelry, which I expected, because tons of people make jewelry (learned that from Lexi Lu!). It was cool to see the looms, screen printers, and other tools the designers used to make everything. I looked for Emma Nissim, who is a designer with a store in Greenwich Market. She screen prints on bamboo tees and sells Braintree clothing and accessories. She wasn’t at the Holborn location though, so I would have to look for her the next weekend at the Depford studios.

Saturday, Eya and I took the bus to Greenwich Market. We went into the Emma Nissim store. I talked to her for a while and told her I worked for Braintree and that I was from NJ and looking for work in NYC. She said that she would love to open a store eventually in NYC, that that was always a dream of hers. Definitely a good contact to keep! If she opened a shop in NYC that looked like the one in Greenwich it would do really well-its really cute, cozy, eclectic-would definitely fit in with the downtown scene.

Thursday 18 November-Saturday 21 November

Thursday I went up to the Bank tube station to look at the store windows in that area. We had passed it on a bus the night before and I saw a Louie Vuitton and Gucci store. The area was really nice. Then I took the tube up to Oxford Street to meet Chelsea at Liberty. Liberty, of course, looked amazing on the inside too! The ceiling in the gift room and the jewelry and handbag room was covered with metallic gift bows, COVERED. It looked so pretty.

Then we headed to Bond Street because at 6PM the city was lighting the Christmas lights. Before we even got to Bond Street we saw snow! There was all this stuff flying through the air and we were like SNOW!!!! When we got to Bond Street there was soooooo much snow!!! When we got closer to all of it we realized it was soap! We walked down all of Bond Street. We saw reindeer and all of the stores decorated. As we walked down the lights overhead lit up one at a time, starting at the Old Bond Street end and ending at the New Bond Street side at Oxford Street; it was so pretty, the snow made it amazing.

We were pretty hungry by the time we finished so we walked toward Piccadilly Circus and wandered through some streets until we found a place that looked good. It was called the Bistro. It was Turkish and Mediterranean cuisine and they had really good fixed menu prices. The food was really good! We met up with Bridget in Soho after dinner and had coffee and dessert at Bar Italia on Frith Street. Chelsea was on a walking tour and was told that Bar Italia had the best coffee in London. The coffee was really good and so were the desserts! I had a cannoli, sooooooooo good!!!

Friday Chelsea and I went to Twining Tea Co. and to Covent Garden. Then I met up with Harry at the Knightsbridge tube station. We went to Harrod’s and Harvey Nichol’s to check out the windows. Harrod’s windows were themed to The Wizard of Oz and Harrod’s lit up like Emerald City at night! It was soooooooooooo pretty. The windows at Harvey Nichol’s were really awesome, very imaginative. I went home afterwards and waited with Chelsea and Bridget to hear from Christine and her friend. They were at the movies and we were meeting up with them for dinner and to go out afterwards. Christine’s friend is a vegetarian so we ate at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Mildred’s by Oxford Circus. The food was DELICIOUS! I had pumpkin and ricotta raviolis and sweet potato fries with sour cream and a glass of vegetarian pinot noir, naturally (whatever vegetarian wine means). We all shared white chocolate and pistachio cheesecake for dessert. I definitely want to go back there; there was so much on the menu that I wanted to try.

From dinner we took the tube to Covent Gardens. We took them to Los Locos, which is where Eya, Chelsea and I ended up last week. It wasn’t as crowded but the music was just as good! After a while there we went to the Verve (another bar we went to the week before), which was packed! We left around 3AM.

The next morning, Bridget, Chelsea and I headed to Borough Market, a large ALL FOOD market by the London Bridge. It was, in a word, SPECTACULAR. EVERYTHING looked soooooooooooooo good. There was cheese and bread and pastries and olives and more cheese; tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh juices and smoothies. Anything you could want was there. To start, I had a chocolate muffin, which was actually a regular muffin base with chocolate chips and chocolate crumble on top. So yummy! I got a latte too. Then Bridget found this amazing cheese vendor-they were cooking up cheesy potatoes and grilled cheese!!!!! The smell was outrageous we had to try it! Chelsea had the cheesy potatoes, which were served boiled with melted cheese (I think the wheel was cheddar) and a side of gherkins. Bridget and I got the grilled cheese, which was served on dense whole wheat bread with a mix of cheddar and gruyere swiss cheeses and garnished with a white and red onion mixture, then grilled to absolute perfection. It was the best grilled cheese I have ever had!!!!!!!! Afterwards I grabbed some toffee and dark chocolate covered caramels for later on.

We walked to St. Paul’s from the market to hop on the tube. We were headed for Portobello Market in Knotting Hill. A lot of the tube stations are closed for engineering work on the weekends, so we had to get off before the Knotting Hill station stop and hop on a bus to go the rest of the way. Once we got there we walked quickly through the antique and food section until we hit the new goods/fashion area. We had already been to this market so we knew what we were looking for which was good because it had started to rain. We took the bus back to Oxford and took the tube the rest of the way home. We all just relaxed the rest of the night.

Thursday 12 November-Wednesday 18 November

Thursday, after Bridget got home from work, we went to Covent Garden to get our hair done. We had picked up vouchers (coupons) during the week and she wanted a hair cut and I needed to get my highlights touched up. After a couple hours there (with new hair!) we went to Oxford Circus to go shopping for some new jeans for Bridget, with my help of course! I had been to Uniqlo a while ago and knew they had pretty cheap jeans, so we went there. Oxford Street was all lit up with lights! It was so pretty, but it was raining so I couldn’t get any pictures. Bridget was able to get a pair of jeans and a few other things, which was great. Christine met up with us and we had dinner at Nandos again (second time in a week).

Class we pretty uneventful on Friday; I was done with the first class by 11:00 and Alan wasn’t in his office yet so I just went home. I took a nap and then headed to the hardware store down the street to see if there were any paint samples there. Unfortunately there wasn’t (that’d be too easy). But one of the workers told me where I could get some so I decided to head there on Saturday. I went across the street to sit in Café Nero for a little bit-had a mocha and white and dark chocolate cheesecake, mmmmmmmmm! After that I went back home and got ready to go out with Eya and Bridget. We went to Covent Garden and ate dinner at Nandos again (third time!). After dinner, we met up with a few of Eya’s friends at a club called Verve. It was pretty cool, good DJ. We were there until about 3 AM.

The next day we all slept pretty late. When we decided to get up and do something Eya, Bridget and I took the tube to West Kensington where there is a Home Base, a store kind of like Lowe’s, so I could get some paint samples for the store. While walking from the tube station to Home Base we passed an enormous Tesco with a double decker parking garage. After getting some samples we went into the Tesco and picked up a few things. It’s so funny to see regular size grocery stores here, especially ones with parking lots. Everyone in the store had carts, buying tons of stuff, like they had regular size refrigerators at home! Haha

Chelsea was home from Italy by the time we got back. Her, Eya and I met up with Harry and his friends right outside the London Bridge tube station. There is a bar there call the Shunt. It’s supposed to be made up of all these underground caverns. When we got there though they were not letting anymore people in! The guy at the door was actually being pretty mean to people. We left and headed to Piccadilly Circus. Harry’s friends had a hard time deciding where to go for some reason, so we eventually left them and walked to Covent Gardens. A promoter ended up giving us a flyer for Los Locos, a club/bar in Covent so we ended up going there.

Los Locos was PACKED. We found some seats and got drinks. The DJ was really good, he was playing Whiney Houston, Bon Jovi, Bruce, everything you could sing to or would here at a wedding. We had a really good time there.

Sunday Chelsea and I went to Spitalfields Market. She hadn’t been there on a Sunday yet, which is the best day to go. We started at Petticoat Lane where we found some cheap souvenirs and I bought a cute dress (only 8 pounds!). From there we went to Old Spitalfields Market. We had breakfast (well by that time it was actually lunch, it was already 11) at a café that my guidebook says everyone goes to. After we fueled up, it was time for some shopping! We walked through the entire Old Spitalfields. We found stalls and areas that I didn’t go to the first time I went too. There was sooooooooooo much good stuff. I love that the people selling the goods are up incoming designers and hand make mostly everything there. We wandered in there for a few hours we walked to Brick Lane, which is right up the street. We walked through the Sunday Up Market in the Truman Brewery. It smells amazing in there. All of the food stalls are right in the front so as soon as you walk in you are bombarded with sweet and sour, chili, curry, etc. It makes you hungry instantly. We walked through the whole market there and grabbed some lunch. Then we walked up Brick Lane and stopped at the beigel shop at the end.

Monday and Tuesday I did a lot of things for my project for the store. It’s coming together but it’s making me nervous because I think I may run out of time! I don’t have many weeks left here and there’s still so much to do! Because there is so much going on at work I’m finding it hard to communicate with John and Rachel and have decisions be made as quickly as I’d like them to. Tuesday night I went to McDonald’s to use their free WiFi (getting pretty sick of pub food). I ordered from their value menu and got a large drink and fry and boy am I glad I got a large-their size large is like a U.S. size medium!!! I was ready for some Biggie sizes!!!! No wonder we have an obesity problem haha, but seriously I needed more :)

Wednesday I was able to talk to John about everything that I had pending for the store. After over a week of sitting with first draft artwork for the front door, I got everyone’s opinion on the changes and emailed the graphic designer back. When I got home from work, Chelsea and Bridget were getting ready to go to the Absolut Ice Bar off Regent Street. I missed out on going to the Ice Bar in Barcelona so I definitely wanted to check it out. We bought our tickets, which paid for entry and your first drink. We had to wait a few minutes for the next time slot so we stood on line. Once the slot came up we were given thermal capes with gloves and in we went! At first it was like going into a meat locker, walking through those rubber flaps, and then an automatic door. Once inside, it was really cool. The ice is from Sweden and there’s a bunch of cool stuff carved in it. We got our drinks, which came in a glass that was a giant ice cube-kept the vodka nice and chilled! You are only allowed to stay in there for 40 minutes and the website said the average length of stay is 25 minutes; its -5 Celsius. We were in there for almost the entire time. I was fine except for my fingertips.

After we left the Ice Bar we wanted to look at some Christmas decorations. I knew the windows at Liberty would be amazing so we went there first. Luella Bartley, a British fashion designer, designed everything for the department store, Liberty’s Luella Christmas. The windows were awesome, filled to the brim, crazy. Inside, from what we could see, looked amazing too. From there we turned down Carnaby Street, which is decorated in a 60’s theme with HUGE balloons, hearts, deer, etc.

THURSDAY ALREADY?!?!

Monday I really began to organize my notes and ideas for Braintree's rebranding and windows. John wasn’t going to be in the office until Tuesday, so I could only send out a couple emails requesting quotes because I still needed a little more information on some things. I sent out emails to get quotes for the doormat with a custom logo on it and got responses right away.

John was back in the office Tuesday, so I was able to run some things by him about the store. We finalized an idea for the front door. I mocked something up in Word then Rachel emailed that document to the graphic designer so she could put it in all the right dimensions, fonts and add the artwork. Once that artwork is approved, I can send it to the company for a quote and hopefully get it ordered for the store!!! I sent an email asking for a quote on a custom hand-carved wooden plaque for the sidewall of the store. The owner mocked something up fairly quickly with the little bit of information I gave him, and it looks really nice. I need exact dimensions and it definitely needs to be stylized more to grab people’s attention, so either I’ll mock something up or Rachel may ask the graphic designer to come up with something.

I reminded Rachel that I had a list of green publications and forums for her to look over so she said we’d go over it the next morning. We also started talking about my plan for when I go back home, with job hunting, etc. She told me to bring my resume in so we could go over it and that she would be more than happy to write a recommendation letter for me!!! I definitely want to get her opinion on my resume, especially with what to put for this particular internship. She said that we could also discuss what type of jobs I was or would be looking into, interviewing, cover letters and all that stuff :)

Tuesday night I went to Convent Gardens to check out the Christmas lights with Chelsea and Bridget. They were really pretty, I think they are all LED lights. Afterwards we went to Nandos, a Portuguese restaurant. Delicious!!! Really good, spicy chicken and mashed potatoes….MMMMMMM

Today I showed Rachel all of the GREEN publications I found for Braintree to send press kits and releases to. I found mainly online magazines and forums (makes sense since they are GREEN companies-NO PAPER!). She was interested in a few which was great. I had to dig for a little more information on those in particular, some membership fees, etc. She wants to send them press kits and releases, for when a new range comes out for example, but Braintree currently doesn’t have anything like one really. She asked me if I had any experience writing a press release, which I do not formally, only through school, but I told her that I could definitely draw something up because I can write well. So we will see about that because in the meantime I’m still working on everything for the store!

I got the artwork back for the front door, but some small changes need to be made so I probably won’t be able to send that off for a quote until next week. I put in the order for a doormat and now I’m just waiting for a visual mockup from the company for our approval. I picked everyone’s brain about another one of the outside installations so I could mock something up and send it off to get a quote. I ended up finishing that particular mockup after work and emailed it to John and Rachel to see what they thought.

Rachel went over my resume with me. She made some really good suggestions so now I have to tweak it a little bit and show it to her again on Monday. She said that we could do some cover letters and look over specific job posts next week. She also wants me to look into fashion placement agencies so I can contact them before I leave for home, that way I could have appointments set up with them for when I return.

After work, I went to the Bleeding Heart Tavern with Eya, Chelsea, and Bridget. It’s right around the corner from us, on Bleeding Heart Yard. There is Bleeding Heart Tavern, Bleeding Heart Bistro, and Bleeding Heart Restaurant, all different menus and price points. The tavern was really cute, small. The staff all had French accents. The menu had a French flair about it as well. I had spinach and cheddar roulade with mashed vegetables. It was really, really good. For dessert (because you have to have dessert!) I had peach and blackberry crumb with clotted cream and white coffee (filtered coffee with milk). Delicious! The menu had a lot of interesting things on it and the prices, at least in the Tavern, were not bad, so I think we’ll be going back there again!

Yet Another Week Gone By

The past week has flown by! I went to work last week Tuesday-Thursday because Chelsea and I were in Amsterdam on Monday. My whole week was thrown off; we never got a chance to catch up on sleep until Saturday morning! I'm so used to having Thursday to myself. I started to input all of the spring and summer 2010 styles onto the Braintree website. By doing that I was also able to streamline all of the color names and other information like that on all the order forms and the sketchbooks, making sure everything was the same so as not to confuse the customers, the factories or ourselves!!! I also had to take down some sold out styles from the a retail website that sells Braintree but that we (the company) have to input all of our own data (pictures, everything). Braintree is doing really well, they are sold out of a lot of styles for Autumn/Winter. The company seems to be growing at a good rate which is really good!

Thursday night, Chelsea, Bridget and I decided to check out the fireworks that were celebrating Guy Fawkes Night. "Remember, remember the 5th of November..." ring a bell? Ever see V for Vendetta? Guy Fawkes Night celebrates Guy Fawkes and his groups' failure to blow up Parliament. Its the biggest celebration of someone's failure EVER. Fireworks are set off all over the place for over a week. November 5th is the night his plan was supposed to take place until he was caught and failed! We wandered around, heard lots of fireworks. We ended up eating at Pizza Express along the Thames. After dinner we wandered back towards our flat and decided to check out a road we'd never been down before. It has big office buildings with all these neon lights all over the place. We ending up finding a cute little square (The Square) of stores. A nice paper/stationary store called Paperchase, a cute boutique, chocolate shop, and an organic restaurant/take out place.

Friday we watched "This is England" in class. It was mostly based on the director/writer's life. The main character is a young boy, about 12, who lost his father in the Falklands War. He's a loner and is bullied a lot of school. He befriends a group of skinheads and soon joins them. By the end he realizes what he's become and finds his way back. It was a really good moving. After we talked to Alan (our independent study professor). We told him about our trip to Belgium and Amsterdam. He gave us more places to go. One sounds really interesting, its called Cockpit Arts. Its a company that financially supports small designers. One of the stores Braintree sells to is supported by Cockpit Arms. Saturday Chelsea and I found the store at the Greenwich Market! It was so cute, really nice screen printed tees and tanks. After class, we had lunch and wandered back to The Square to do some browsing. The paper store was so cute! Lots of really nice things. We went to the organic restaurant and had some coffee and tea to warm up; its starting to get chilly here!!!

Saturday we FINALLY got to sleep in. It was so nice. When we decided to get up we got the bus to Greenwich, about 40 minutes ride outside the city. It was like we were in a different world! There was a drive through McDonald's and KFC and a Pizza Hut in a Pizza Hut building!!!! We were like where are we???? When we got to our stop we popped in a cute boutique called Coco-James that was featuring up-incoming designers. Then we headed over to the market place.

The market was AWESOME!!!! It was full of handmade things-sweaters, handbags, jewelry, headbands,t-shirts. There were stalls of really good looking food too, Ethiopian, Nigerian, an olive bar, sushi, fudge, hot apple cider. The cider was very tasty!!! The store supported by Cockpit Arms (Emma Nissim) was in the market. It was adorable. The store was a compact space filled with trunks, an old bike, and lots of cute, antique looking items, like someone's attic. The racks had one of each style hanging and the trunks were filled with the backstock. The store sells its own namesake brand and Braintree clothing. Emma Nissim is an eco-friendly brand like Braintree.

After we ate lunch we headed over to the Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum, home of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), otherwise known as the Prime Meridian. We stood in two hemispheres at once! The Observatory had a laser marking the Prime Meridian too which was pretty cool because you could see it go out into the city. The view of the city from there was amazing too. We headed back into the city just in time to grab some dinner. Eya, Bridget, Chelsea and I went to Wagamama's, an Asian food chain. It was really good. For dessert I tried the Wasabi Chocolate Cake-delicious!!! Aubrey, our GE coordinator, recommended it. After dinner we filled in our calendar with our London "To-Do's" because our time is running out!!! FAST!!!

Sunday we slept in again (our little vacation took a lot out of us!). We had no plans for that day so Bridget, Chelsea and I decided to just head out and wander around from there. We went up to Camden Town and popped into the 99p store (the version of the dollar store). From there we went to King's Cross and checked out where Chelsea had stayed and hung out the first time she went to London. More wandering ensued from there until we found a 3 story Paperchase!!! I think we were in there for at least an hour, so much stuff to look at.

Amsterdam

The train ride to Amsterdam took about 2 hours. Once we got to the station we went outside and it was raining!!! Luckily we saw signs for our hostel!!! We followed those and checked in to our private room. The room looked like a dorm/prison cell, not joke. It was very cold and drab looking. We had to make our own beds which I’ve never heard of but that was okay. Definitely more barren than the hostels I’ve stayed in previously. We were starving so we went out to grab something to eat. It was still raining pretty good (my brolli didn’t survive the storm!) so we just went to Burger King!!! We sat in there for a couple hours because it was raining and because we didn’t want to go back to our hostel room. Eventually, when it stopped raining, we left and walked around a little bit then headed back to the hostel. Chelsea unpacked the sheets to make the bed and as she was unfolding the sheets she saw a stain on one of them! Then she unfolded the other one and it was stuck together! We were horrified!!! Definitely not sleeping in those beds!!! We didn’t know what to do really, but decided it would be a good idea to try and find somewhere else to sleep. We went out and went to 2 hotels before finding one with the same rate! 55 Euros for a private room and bath, breakfast and WiFi included!!! The hotel even had 2 cats!!!! They were sooooooo cute!!! We paid for the room and went back to the hostel to grab our things and talk to the person at the desk about a refund. The person at the desk was the night guard and told us that he could not do anything about a refund, we would have to return in the morning. So we left and stayed in the nice, kitty-friendly hotel :)

Breakfast in the morning was really good. The cats were hanging out with everyone too. After breakfast we went straight to the Anne Frank house. Rachel told me that the line gets ridiculously long so to go early. We got there at a great time, no line! We weren’t allowed to take pictures, which was disappointing. But it was really awesome being in there. I haven’t read the book in a long time, since 5^th grade, and I also haven’t seen the movie for a while. The rooms were unfurnished, that was Mr. Frank’s wish when the museum was opened. Anne Frank’s original diary was on display, as well as sheets of paper she’d written on after the diary was full. There were interviews being played of Mr. Frank and one of the women that helped the Franks hide in the annex. There was also an interview with one of Anne Frank’s friends. It was pretty amazing all of the items the museum had on display. After walking through we looked around the gift shop where we could see the MASSIVE line that had formed outside! Glad we got there early!

We took the tram back to the area near our hotel walked to the hostel to talk to the manager about a refund. We explained to her what happened and that we came downstairs and told the night guard we were leaving and that he simply only asked us for our room number. She told us that this was not normally grounds for a refund, that clean sheets or another room would have been offered to us. We further explained that we did not trust that “new” sheets would be clean and that we were not going to sleep in the beds so what were we staying there for? She then said that the night guard didn’t tell her any of this had happened, therefore she would have to speak with him to get his story. She couldn’t do anything for us until she spoke with him. She did say that we could file a formal complaint with the company by writing a letter :P (Result as of November 5, we got our refund!!!!)

After that ordeal, we went back into the shopping area and walked around all the shops. There are tons of stores all over the place. After a little shopping we wanted to check out the Red Light District. INTERESTING is the only word to describe it I think. I’ve seen pictures of it before, but it’s a bit different in real life. Tons of people walking around there too, with women (not attractive by any means either) on display here and there. It was just really odd to see and be around. The area reportedly gets sketchy at night but attracts a lot of curious tourists during the day for obvious reasons. We wandered around some more and eventually went back to the hotel so we could organize our luggage before heading to the airport for our flight home. After some repacking, we took the tram to the central station and took a train to the airport. We got to the airport a little early, so we couldn’t check in right away. But when we finally got on the plane it was smooth sailing from there! Literally up and down! We arrived at the Stansted Airport in London at 9:30 PM and took a coach back into the city. We got home around 11:30 PM. After we unpacked we were off to bed for work in the morning. BRILLIANT HOLIDAY :)