Assignment 2 Museum of London

I didn’t get much out of the Museum of London, but there were some pretty neat things I saw just out on display. The ancient things were quite interesting to me, like the remains of the different animals and the remains of humans from way back. There were also tools and pottery that were used back when the Romans were settled in London as well. I felt like the museum could have been set up better such as being in a better order and not having a big room with multiple cases and no real order marked on where to go.

Another interesting thing I saw were the different houses that were built as time went by and how they were constructed. It still amazes me how small the houses were and even in London today, the houses aren’t as big as I’m used to back in the States. The furnishings in the house were also semi interesting and it seemed like they got a little more detailed every time there was a time period. The houses were made of basic materials that they would be able to find easily and were easily usable and maneuverable.

The thing I found most interesting were the videos they had showing on the plague and the great fire. The videos went into great depth and explained what happened, where it was, who was affected, how long it lasted, what happened after and all the information people want to know about the important times in London’s history, but it was presented in a nice, appealing way. The one on the fire started from the beginning and told how it was started in a bakers shop and ended up spreading out and how it had a map of where the fire had done damage in London after every day the fire was going on. The one on the plague talked about how many people were killed from it, not only in London, but also everywhere it had been. I can’t imagine living in a city where there had been a fire that destroyed a pretty good section of the city and also a plague that killed thousands and thousands of people.

The lower part of the museum wasn’t quite as interesting to me. There was a touch screen thing that had occupations from that would be possible and you could read about them and then take a quiz to see if you’d be hired for the particular job. It was fun going through that and seeing the different things that would be expected out of certain jobs and what all had to be done. After that was more of a fashion section. I don’t really care for fashion, so I just went through it and glanced at some of the things and moved on through the rest of the museum. Overall, I’m glad I was able to go to it, but it wasn’t one of the most entertaining or interesting things I’ve done in my life. 

Assignment 1 London Markets

I have gone to Portobello, Borough, Camden, Brixton, and Brick Lane markets. Each one was a little bit different from the rest. Camden had shops that sold everything from postcards and souvenirs to hookahs and smoking supplies. There were multiple tattoo and piercing shops as well, right next to a food stand. It was strange walking around and seeing so many different types of people with different beliefs and ways of life.

Borough is my favorite as far as food is concerned. I got a duck sandwich there the first time I was there and it was fantastic and also a good portion.  I wasn’t used to being able to walk around and having people offer samples of everything they are selling. The second time I went, I basically had a nice little lunch off of eating the samples they were giving out. This is also the time I tried Turkish Delight and I don’t blame Edmond for betraying his friends, that is some tasty stuff.  

Portobello was a very big market. I got there and started walking down trying to look at everything I could, but it was difficult seeing everything with the road so packed full of other people. Portobello was a fun market to just walk around and see the different clothing and foods that were offered. There was also a lot of old antique stuff which I find interesting myself, so I ended up looking around at that kind of thing for a while till I realized how big the market was and that I didn’t have a ton of time before it started to close down, so I ended up going through it a little faster than I would have liked, but I still got to see most of the market. I ended up stopping and turning around because it looked like it was going to rain and I had been there for a couple hours and knew I had to walk that much farther back to the tube station.

Brixton was a little sketchy, with just tents set up and not one of the best looking markets I’ve been to. It was fun to walk around and see what all there was being offered there, but there wasn’t anything I would really want to buy so I didn’t end up spending a whole lot of time walking through it. There were lots of fruit stands and also places selling fish, so in many places, the market would smell like fish.

Brick Lane was kind of a surprise to me. I thought it would be a bit run down, and it was, but it was also a lot of food stands. We went in a big section of food stands from everywhere and also right next to it there were a ton of places selling clothing and also jewelry. We started off walking down the road and we had three or four guys stop us trying to get us into their pub to eat there by offering us discounts and free beers, but we wanted to check out what all Brick Land had to offer so we told them we might stop back, but in reality, we never did.

27 million

Alright, I'll get to the title of this in a bit. But first, Monday and Tuesday just had my internship, and you can read about that in my previous blog. But the version in a sentence would be: I did pretty much the same as last week, which would be made excel spreadsheets. Not too much too it. So we'll move on to the actual fun stuff that I'm excited for. Real excited.

Over last weekend the idea popped into my head about going on a cruise for spring break. So I started looking into some, and they were 500-700 pounds, that's $800-$1100 for you Americans that don't know the exchange rate. Then late Tuesday night I decided to look one more time. This time I found one, with food included keep in mind, for 296 pounds($430). So I just got really excited and told a couple buddies that wanted to go with about it and they got excited, but we had to wait for morning since it was late at night to actually do anything about it. The next morning, or I guess around noon, I was sitting in the kitchen area with Brett, and started talking about it and one of the girls on the program heard me talking about it and started asking questions about it. She then announced she was totally in and talked to her roommate who was also in, then some other girls heard about it so they joined in. It got crazy all of a sudden in that kitchen. Unfortunately I had class shortly so I couldn't actually book anything, but Abby, the first girl that heard about it, decided to call the company. There was only one room left in the original cruse we wanted to go on. So we decided to look around and Andrew, the guy Abby talked to on the phone, said he would do some checking for us as well and call back. Well, as I was heading off to class, her phone rang, but I had to go so I wouldn't be late. She texted me and told me about it. It was for 328 pounds ($525) and food was included and went from Barcelona, to La Goulette (Tunis), Tunisia to Valletta, Malta to Messina, Sicily, Italy to Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy to Genoa, Italy and back to Barcelona. They decided to book it and there were 7 other cheap rooms available. I could barely make it through class, and could not focus at all, at least we were just walking around an art gallery. So we got back from class and called and we got our rooms booked. 14 of us on the London program are going, so needless to say I'm excited and it's going to be a blast.

I'm not quite sure how to follow that up. I'm becoming a Londoner, but man, this weather. The last few days it's been 50-60 out and sunny. I think people were lying to me about all this rain business. So since it's so nice, I couldn't help myself but going outside and walking around enjoying this beautiful weather. I went to Portobello Market by myself on Friday for a few hours. It was a really neat market that stretches for 2 miles and has antiques and food and everything in between. But boy was it busy. There were a ton of people there. Then on Saturday I went to Borough Market with a couple friends and ended up finding Turkish Delight, the stuff that Edmond gets from the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia, and I can hardly blame him for betraying his siblings, that stuff is good.

Today gets its own paragraph. I went to church at Hillsong again. This time with about 15 others. This was not any ordinary church service, as they had Matt Redman there. It started off normal and they had their normal worship team lead in a few songs, then they had their offering. After the offering Matt Redman came out and pretty much put on a concert for an hour. Now to the title of this blog, 27 million. Matt and LZ7, a rapper, made a song about human trafficking and named it 27 Million, because there are currently 27 million humans in hostage of human trafficking. I personally like the song and it comes out tomorrow (February 27) on iTunes, and it's to gain perspective of what's going on in the world. They had a lady there talk for a while, who rowed the Atlantic Ocean. Wow. It took her and her team 45 days and they were moving non-stop. they would row for 2 hours then take 2 hours off in shifts, just to gain support for the same cause. It was a great morning and a great way to start off the week. After that, I went to Brick Lane Market with some friends and explored the area a bit.

Well, that's all I have for now, have a great week and God bless!

Internship Journal 2

Feb. 20&21

This week was pretty similar to my first week, so it's nice that I won't be doing anything too different from week to week. Monday I got to sit through a couple hours of meetings and see what's going on in the business pretty much, where they talked about the major things going on within the company. I also learned that I will be doing the post for the company, which consists of opening the mail and checking what it is and dispersing it to the people within the company. Then in the afternoon, I made another spreadsheet on excel. I enjoy creating excel worksheets and seeing them work out the way they are supposed to, so that's fun.

Tuesday when I got in I went over the spreadsheet that I had created the day before with Doug, and he had me change a few things and then also make different graphs. The spreadsheets aren't anything that has to be done, but it's something he likes to look at and see how the company is doing in certain areas that he has me work on. He would say things like "That's interesting," while he was looking at the work I had done.

This week, even more than last week, I realized how laid back the environment is in the office. People will just randomly stop working for a while and talk to each other for a few minutes and go back to work. I was also told that I need to learn a valuable work lesson, which is to work slower. Which I found interesting. I like to get  my assignment or project and start working on it and get it done correctly and efficiently, but I guess I'm supposed to slow down and take breaks while I'm working. So on Tuesday I would tell myself to slow down, but the only way I know how to slow down when I'm working is to stop, so every once in a while I would just stop working and observe the office.

Angry New Yorker's, are angry Londoners on steroids

Finally, I got to start my internship this week. Nearly a month after arriving in London, I was able to do what I came here for. Master Adviser is a small business that deals with investments for people for the most part. There are only around 10 employees, and the work environment is much more relaxed than it is in the states. I was told interns usually work from 9-5, but if I was an early riser, which I'm not, there is usually somebody there before 8 and somebody there till around 7 at night, so the hours can be flexible if wanted. Also, just the atmosphere in the office is really relaxed and they will randomly just start talking about football or a holiday they are going on soon. For my first two days, I made two different spreadsheets on excel and did some secretary work to help them get caught up. Not too difficult, but I can tell it's going to be a good experience already.

Yesterday I went to Brixton market with a friend and it was a bit sketchy. You walked down the street and there were tents popped up with things under them that were being sold. On the edges of the street were other stores that were actually buildings, but most of them were meat/fish places and you could smell the fish. They had full frozen fish sitting out ready to be sold. We also went wandering around the area and ended up finding a tennis court and some people playing football. When we were about to head back on the tube, I saw a sign that said "Pound" and as we got closer it was a Pound Store, like a Dollar Store in the states. Everything was a pound, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to stock up on some cheap candy.

I have been planning on going to church since I've been here, but I've been too lazy to actually get up and go. I decided yesterday I was going to go today at 11:30, but I was tired and slept a little too late. Lucky for me there was another service at 3:30, so I got ready and went to it. I went to Hillsong, and it's in a theatre. It is definitely a church for the younger generation as there were fog machines and lights going everywhere before the service even started. The worship band included four keyboards for two people to play, a drummer, 4 guitarists, and seven vocalists. Not only were the songs up-beat, but the people on stage were dancing around, and not only the people on stage, but people all over the theatre were dancing and enjoying themselves giving Jesus praise and worship. It was quite the sight, and made me think why we don't express ourselves more about what we have back in the states. It caught me off guard at first and I couldn't even sing, I was just soaking in everything that was happening, and seeing all the people dance around enjoying themselves. The guy that gave the sermon told a story about when he was in the New York. He was trying to get a taxi and couldn't. Then he found a line with a person whistling in the taxi's so he got in line. When it got to be his turn, he got in the taxi and started messing with his blackberry. He then heard a guy say "Is that all sir?" but he just ignored the voice and continued on with his phone. Then he heard the voice again, a bit sterner this time "Is that all sir?" That is when he realized he forgot about the crazy thing Americans do, tipping. At that point he said if you have never seen an angry New Yorker, take an angry Londoner and put him on steroids and you get an angry New Yorker. Just something I thought was funny, as the first time we went out to eat, we weren't sure if we were supposed to tip.  We were told not to, but we were so used to tipping, we weren't sure what to do. Then when people from here go to the states, they're in a worse situation. If we tip here, who's going to get mad about it? If you don't tip in the states, they will get mad.

That's all for now, if you look back farther in my blog you will see an internship journal and internship assignment, these are for my program, and just go into a bit more detail on somethings. Eventually there will be assignments for class posted on here which will be the same thing. God bless and have a great week!

Internship Assignment A

An Outline of Personal Goals, Objectives, and Tasks

I.    To become more culturally aware

        A. Learn more about the British culture

        B. Watch and listen to the other employees as they go through their work day

II.   To explore an area I am interested in

        A. Learn from other people who are in the field I am interested in

        B. Do basic work for what I think I want to do

III.  To gain an understanding of what it is like to work in an office every day

        A. Start by working two days a week in an office

        B. See how other people go through their day in an office all day

Internship Journal #1

February 13-14

These internship journals are meant for the directors, but everyone is welcome to read them. They will just go in more depth of my internship.

The first day started off pretty much as an interview, since I never had one with Master Adviser. I got there and I was shown around the office by the owner, Doug Brodie, and afterwards we just sat down and talked for a while. Afterwards, he had me go out and walk around the area a bit to get accustomed to where I was and what was around me. So the first half of the first day really wasn't much of a job. The second half of the day, after lunch, Doug had me make an excel spreadsheet and find the gross and net amount that each employee made from 2005 to 2011.

On the second day, Doug wasn't in as he had a wedding to go to.  The secretary was given a project for me to do for the day. I was to make another excel spreadsheet and figure out how much the company had saved its clients by charging the fee they did, rather than the 5% that is normal from 1996 to 2011.  After that, I was given some invoices to scan and save into their system, basically helping out the secretaries do their work, not much specifically for my internship, but that's going to be part of my job as an intern at Master Adviser.

The work environment is really relaxed. The first day I worked, they had a meeting and I sat in on it. They were doing their business and talking and instantly after it was over, the started talking about football and where they were going on holiday. Also, during the meeting, one of the guys turned to me and asked me a question, which seemed rather strange to me, but after thinking about it, it made sense why he asked.  He asked "Say you're in New York and you're walking in the street and a car hits you. The ambulance comes and takes you where?" He wasn't sure if they would take you somewhere to make sure you had insurance or what they would do, since they have the universal health care here.

First Weekend Trip

The last few days have been quite busy, but before that, the beginning of the week was pretty much normal. Not much new happened, just getting used to the every day life in London. On Wednesday, I found out I have an internship, so that was exciting, as long as it doesn't get pushed back, but this time I actually have a time to be there, which is in less than 12 hours from the time I wrote this. I'll be at Master Adviser, and they do all kinds of things like investments and such, so I'll be working with accounting stuff, along with other things. I'm looking forward to the experience of working in a British office, and getting to know some locals. The location of the internship is much more ideal than my original one as well, as it takes half the amount of time to get there.

On Thursday, everyone on the program got to go on the London Eye, a 450 foot ferris wheel, at night. From the top you could see most of London lit up, which was really cool. It was a bit cloudy, so we couldn't see as far as we would have been able to on a clear day, but it was really neat being able to see that much of a huge city all around us.

View from London Eye

Then at 8:20 on Friday morning, we all got on a coach bus and started off to Stonehenge. It's crazy thinking those stones have been in the ground for thousands of years, and are still standing. It was cool being able to see them, but half the walkway was closed and you couldn't get very close to them, which was a bummer. Stonehenge was a neat thing to see, and something I can now say I've been to, but overall, all that Stonehenge is, is a bunch of rocks. Not overly exciting.  The most exciting thing was getting out of the center of London where I have been for the last nearly month. While we were at Stonehenge, it almost seemed as if I was back in Iowa for a while. There was some snow on the ground, and we were surrounded by open fields. As we left Stonehenge and headed for bath, the only thing different between being here and being in Iowa, besides driving on the other side of the road, were signs that said "Tank Crossing" rather than "Deer Crossing".

Stonehenge

Bath was a nice change of pace. It was a lot smaller than London, and the people were much more relaxed and seemed a lot friendlier. Although there are around 100,000 people living in Bath, it seemed small after being in London for so long. We went to the Roman baths and once again, it's crazy how those stones have been in the exact same place for so long, and how the natural bath still has the same lining and is still waterproof from thousands of years ago. After going through the Roman baths, we were able to try some water. It was the worst water I have ever had. It was warm and tasted just plain bad. But when am I going to have the chance to do that again? It's another thing I can say I have done, that a majority of people haven't.  We also got to go to a rugby match. I had no clue how rugby was played before hand, but towards the end, I started to get a feel for it. One thing I noticed was that those guys are strong and tough. I don't think I'd last an entire match, or 5 minutes in a match at that.

Steam coming up from Roman Baths

 Bath Rugby

Sunday, we left Bath around 11:30, 30 minutes later than we were supposed to because the coach wasn't there. But it eventually got there and we headed off to Lacock Village. I ended up spending an hour and a half in the abbey, just walking through it and taking pictures. It's crazy to think that it was used as a house until the late 20th century. Oh yeah, this is also where some of the Harry Potter movies were filmed. After walking through the abbey, I walked around the block in Lacock and enjoyed seeing the difference from the states, in which every building was made of stone or brick of some sort. It would have been nice if cars weren't on the streets, just to make it look more like it did back in the day, but it was still a pretty neat place to spend an afternoon.

Lacock Abbey

Well, that's about it. I finally get to work tomorrow, got out of London for a weekend, and having a good time. Have a good week and God bless!

Snow

So things are starting to get normal. We are all starting to get into a routine, which is nice. I've gotten to the point where I have seen pretty much all the main things in London, so it isn't quite as exciting to go out and explore, but it's still fun to just walk around. Not a whole lot happened this week. On Wednesday, we had our first art class in a gallery. We went to the National Gallery and walked around it for two and a half hours listening to our instructor tell us about specific pieces of art. Art and galleries are not my thing. She had some interesting things to say, and the pieces of art were cool to look at.. for a while. After a while it gets to be a little old, but yet again, it's one of my few classes, so I think I'll be able to handle it.

This week, me and some guys planned our first trip. It was going way too smoothly.  We had our train to Liverpool booked, a night booked in Liverpool, and a train ticket to Manchester booked. We were planning on going to a Manchester United game, but we tried buying the tickets and found out you had to be a member to get tickets at this point. We ended up finding out we will have to wait a couple weeks to see if tickets will even go on sale to the public. So we have the trip booked, but the main attraction is not certain. Either way, we are still going and going to see the story of the Beatles in Liverpool.

Friday I found out my internship got cancelled. Something within the company and there was supposed to be another girl on the program working at the same spot, but now we are both out an internship. The directors had already sent out emails looking for another internship for both of us by the time they had told me. So I guess I have some more 6 day weekends. It was kind of a bummer, since I was supposed to start tomorrow and was actually going to do something, and since an internship was one of the main reasons I decided on London, but God will work it all out.

It snowed last night. You think people drive slow in the states when it snows, the entire city shuts down with a couple inches of snow. We went outside last night and ended up having a snowball fight in the middle of London at 1 in the morning. Not something that happens every day. This morning I was planning on going to church. I got up and got some breakfast and checked the travel for London website to see if anything was closed or delayed. Most of the tube lines had some sort of delay, but the ones I needed to get to church weren't delayed at all. So I waited a bit and showered and got dressed and decided I should check for delays one more time. The main line I needed had severe delays because of a lack of workers. I wish I had that excuse not to go to school if it snowed a couple inches. It's now almost 3 in the afternoon, and the snow is pretty much gone.

Street outside where we stay

Next weekend, everybody on the program is going to Stonehenge and Bath. It will be nice to get out of the center of London and see some countryside, especially since most of us haven't been outside of London in 3 weeks. We are also going to a rugby match, so that will be an interesting experience. I have watched rugby a few times on tv, but I can't even imagine watching it live.

Until next time, God bless.