Internship...Day 9.

Well, its now Sunday and I finally have time to catch up! On Saturday, Nicolette and I went to Buckingham Palace to see Kate's wedding dress, along with a guided tour of the state rooms. It was amazing! We were so bummed though because they didn't allow us to take ANY pictures. It was beautiful and I wish I had pictures for everyone to see! Then we went to Marylebone to get a quick bite. We chose an italian restaurant where we could sit outside and I had the BEST margherita pizza of my life. So delicious! Today has been a catching up day, doing laundry and starting on my last few homework assignments.

On Friday, my internship didn't go as well as usual. The day before, Lyndsey had been on the phone with Rachael and Rachael told us to be at the office at 9:30 the next morning. Lyndsey then passed that onto us. I thought she said 9:30, but Amanda thought she said 9 and I really couldn't remember, so we showed up 9 the next morning just in case. Turns out, we weren't supposed to there until 9:30, which I think made Rachael a little ancy because the office is so small. She put us right to work though, first by filling out a small questionnaire about how we liked the internship so far, etc. Then we changed a couple of graphics that are hung around the office. We put these huge images in their frames and then folded up the old ones. After, she sent us to get a ton of boxes that came in shipment with all new torso forms. We had to unpack all of the boxes and assemble the mannequins. Not my favorite job in the world, but it had to be done.

Then, Rachael gave us a little project. She wanted the three of us to create a mood board for a window concept that she had come up with. Her concept was bare, modern trees in neon colors for a background of a window display. She said there was no right or wrong, so we just started googling pictures, cutting them out and pasting them on a foam core board along with the fabric swatches. I thought it looked pretty good when we finished and at first, she said she loved it. Next thing we knew, she starting ripping off almost all of the images. She might have left 5 out of at least 20. Every time she tore one of she said "I'm being ruthless, but this doesn't need to be on here." It was really hard to watch her tear apart about an hour's worth of work, but I guess that's the creative process. Trying, trying, and trying again.

After that, she said that she couldn't make any sense of the spreadsheet we had put together on Wednesday of all the stores and their stock of the jewelry stands. We really had no idea what we were talking about when we called the stores; we were just doing what we were told. And all of the stores were really confused because everyone calls jewelry stands by different names. This time, Rachael had us send out an email to all of the stores with pictures of each stand and what it was called. We waited about 20 minutes and then started calling all of the stores. We should have sent out the email the first time because it was a million times easier!! It still took us about 4 hours to get a hold of the stores, which was a bit tiring, but our spreadsheet made much more sense and was a lot better organized.

It was kind of a frustrating day, but I guess not everyday can be perfect! I learned some valuable lessons and learned to deal with a little constructive criticism. Anyway, tomorrow I'm really nervous about because I have to catch a train to St. Albans by myself! Only one of us could go with Sandra to St. Albans, which is about 40 minutes outside of London. Kind of nervous because the train I catch is out of St. Pancras International, so it's huge! Just another reason this experience is helping me...definitely getting out of my comfort zone!

Well, that's all for today. Cheers!

Internship...Days 7 & 8!

Hi Everyone!

Enjoying my first day off in a while! Jess, Nicolette and I slept in and then went to a 5 pound store where literally everything was 5 pounds. I got a cute dress and shirt. We ate outside at a really cute Italian restaurant because it was a beautiful day! Now I'm back at the flat, trying to be productive.

On Tuesday, we had a really fun creative day! Our mission was to get supplies for two different projects. Our first project was creating lace paper mache balloons from a picture that our boss had found as inspiration. We took the tube about 40 minutes away to a street with a ton of cheap fabric stores. We had certain colors of cheap lace to look for, so we grabbed one of two colors from each store. It took us about an hour to get all of the lace we needed. Next, we went to Oxford street to search for paint, glue, and all of the craft supplies that we needed. It was a huge run-around because we couldn't find the right glue and spraypaint that we needed for the next project. The second project was taking a plastic mirror panel and splitting it into four sections, using different techniques on each section. The first section, we used paper mache as a glue and put wrinkled gold tissue paper on it, with the mirror still showing through. Then we tried spray paint and stratched it after it was dry. In another section, we fixed the gold acrylic paint with crackle paste, so I'm excited to see how it turns out. We just did mock-ups of each idea to see which concepts Sandra and Rachael might like best to see if they want to put it in an actual window.

After getting all of the supplies which took from 10-1, we got to work on the actual projects. We spread out on the concrete floor, laid down bubble wrap, and mixed up our paper mache. Cutting out all of the semi-circles took a while and then painting them onto the ballons with paint brushes took a while as well. Although, it was very therapeutic and relaxing. Halfway through our arts and crafts session, Lyndsey, the British intern that is working with us decided we needed a tea and biscuit break (biscuits are british cookies). She made us each a cup of AMAZING tea and bought us cookies to munch on while we worked. It was actually pretty perfect. Here are the finished concepts:

love it!

mirror techniques.

On Wednesday, it was so nice to have a half day! Lyndsey, Amanda, and I met at the office. We had to call all of the stand-alone Fenn Wright Manson stores and get a count of how many jewelry stands they each had in their store. We shipped a lot of jewelry stands out as well. For a couple of hours, we just did research and compiled all of our ideas into a powerpoint and saved it to Rachael's desktop. We actually got out of there at 12!

Now for British-isms!

I had my roommates and I brainstorm and come up with just a few of the differences between London and America, either terminology or other details. :) Here they are:

1. Light switches are all backwards...press down to turn it on and vice versa.
2. There is a button to push before you are able to open the door to exit and a button to flush the toilet.
3. Exit=way out
4. Bathroom=toilet
5. Salad dressing=salad cream..and no ranch dressing! :(
6. Stop lights change yellow between red and between green..I think we should adopt this one so people are ready to go when the light turns green!
7. Pants=Trousers
8. Underwear=Pants
9. Queue=line..."queue up, please=move up in line"
10. Of course, they drive on the wrong side of the road ;)
11. Bangs=Fringe
12. Tanktop=Vest
13. British credit cards have a chip in them where they are simply inserted into the machine instead of swiped.
14. Free ATMS!
15. No frozen foods because there are no preservatives in british food.
16. No air conditioning!
17. Sidewalk=Pavement
18. Vacation=Holiday

Those are just a few, I'm sure we'll think of more! :)
Thanks for reading!

Internship...Day 6!

Hi Everyone!

Today was an interesting day. We were working with Sandra today, Rachael's Visual Merchandising colleague. She told us to meet her at Clapham Junction at 8:40, which is about 45 minutes to an hour to get to from where we live. We decided to leave at 7:50, thinking that would be plenty of time. Except, when we were boarding our first line, we decided to go a different way than last time. We ended being stuck being on a train that terminated, so we had to get off and were stranded at that station for a good 20 minutes. We kept calling Sandra and texting to tell her that we would be a little late. Finally the next train came, we rode it to our stop, and then we had to get on the overground to get to Clapham Junction. That train was delayed, so it was another 7 minutes before it got there. We finally got to Clapham...40 minutes late. We felt SO bad and apologized for being late, especially on our first day working with Sandra. Luckily, she was totally understanding and super nice. We then took another train about 20 minutes away to a town called Kingston, where there was a shopping mall.

Fenn Wright Manson had a section in the department store, with a window that we had to install. The window was decently big, so it took a while to hang our 6 orchid panels. We made them all different heights to add depth to the window. We kept it pretty simple, with only two mannequins, mainly because stock was so low we didn't have much to choose from. Sandra loved it and we even got out around 12:30, which was SO nice.

Here it is!

After work, I went to school to replace my student ID. I had to do a little bit of run around to get it, but I finally have one! My first new form of ID other than my passport. It definitely makes me feel better. When I got back to the flat, I started researching flights to Dublin; I'm dying to go! I've heard its really beautiful and everyone that goes has loved it. I searched for a while and all of the flights were around 140 pounds. I finally got on edreams and found a flight, there and back, for 45 euros, which is about $90! So cheap!! However, they added on another 20 euros for taxes, and then when I put in my card info, they charged 20 euro to use a Visa! So ridiculous. But, one of my flatmates said it is cheaper to book early in the morning, so we are going to try to book it in the morning before we all go to work. Hopefully it is a little cheaper. Still though, pretty good deal!

Tomorrow, Amanda and I are going to be in the office for the first time to do another mock-up of the Christmas window. I think it should be fun! Hopefully we'll have another short day because we are planning to try to go to Wicked again tomorrow night. Crossing my fingers that there will be student stand by tickets available because they are a million times cheaper! Anyway, that's all for tonight.

Cheers!

Internship...Days 4 & 5!

Hi everyone!

So happy right now! Since I was pickpocketed in Italy; my entire wallet, with EVERYTHING in it including credit cards and every form of ID I own, I finally got my credit cards mailed to London and I now have money! Never realized how scary it would be to not have any back-up!

On Thursday, Amanda and I went to RGB studio again to do another web product shoot with the same team, Faye, the director and Jason, the photographer. We had a whole rack of garments to do this time and most of them were from the autumn/winter line, so there were a lot of layers and a lot of fabric, which makes it a little more difficult to pin and make it look nice. It took us a while to steam everything and then take 3 shots of each garment. We did the shoot from 9:30 to about 1 and then took a lunch break. Amanda and I went down the street to a small sandwich place and I had a really good ham and cheese sandwich and chips (crisps as the Brits would say :). Then we went back to finish as much as we could. We finally finished dresses and sweaters done and moved onto coats. We actually got to style a 1000 pound fur coat...pretty cool! After that, Faye let us finish the shoot and go home a little early. They were SO impressed with how much work we got done. They were so happy because we saved them so much time that they got to take a half day the next day. Pretty successful day in all. Other than the fact that I pretty much ruined my favorite flats ever because the whole walk back to the tube station from the studio (about 15 minutes), it was POURING and my shoes got completely soaked. Once they get wet, they get soggy, stretched out, and they smell the next time I wear them. Uggh..oh well, they were starting to get worn out anyway from all the walking.

Today, Amanda and I traveled with Rachael to a town about an hour outside of London today to install another window display. We rode the tube for about 45 minutes and then we got to London Bridge Station to meet Rachael and take a 40 minute train to the cutest town I've ever seen! It's so nice being able to see parts of England I would have never known about otherwise. This was the biggest window display, so Rachael enlisted Amanda and I to help out.

We already knew the drill, so we got started hanging panels from the ceiling rod. We placed the clings on the windows while Rachael made phone calls. After she was finished, we started steaming garments and dressing mannequins. Once we got the mannequins in the window, they didn't look right with the placement of the panels. We finalized placement of the mannequins and then adjusted the panel placement. The right window was then finished, but we still had the left window. The two windows were different heights, so we had to play around with the left one to make sure it looked good, but still was cohesive with the right window. At one point, I had placed the plastic panels on the floor. I was getting down from the window ledge and grabbed the wall that I placed the panels on. While I was sliding down, I sliced my hand, inbetween my fingers, on the plastic panel and it bled for a while. It hurt pretty bad. Then, when I was putting the window clings on, I got a random bloody nose. Really annoying because I got a blood spot on my pants and had to wait in the bathroom until it stopped bleeding.

After the windows, we had a long lunch break. We walked down the street to a little cafe where we could sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. I had a grilled cheese, crisps, and salad. It was good, but it definitely didn't fill me up. So, we decided to make it an even longer lunch and get dessert. Yum, chocolate ice cream sundae. And only 6.60 for everything! I guess getting outside London helps with prices!

After the windows were done and the mannequins were accessorized, we started on the side windows. We re-dressed the torso forms and put a couple of accessory displays on the cubes in the windows. We reorganized the floor a bit and spruced up the table displays. We finished up, got photos, and said goodbye to the adorable ladies that were working. Then it was another 40 minute train ride and a 45 minute tube ride home. Work has been so much fun so far! I'm learning a lot and I get to travel to some really great parts of London. Can't wait to see what comes next!

Here are some photos from the day:

The street view from our lunch table...so adorable!

Some of the store! Love the light fixture.

Window #1

Window #2

That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed it!

Internship...Day 3.

Hello again!

Today was a very sucessful day. We left the courtyard around 8:50 to start our journey to one of the retail stores in a part of London called Clapham Junction, about an hour commute from our student housing. We hadn't anticipated it to take so long, so we made it barely in time.

The store was very small, so the windows didn't take too long to finish. It was the same window scheme, so we already knew what to do. We put the butterfly clings on the windows and then hung plastic panels from the ceiling rods. Pretty easy. Then we gathered and steamed the garments, dressed the torso forms, and pinned and styled until the garments looked good. We fixed up the store a bit, making sure up-tops were in order and everything looked presentable. Here's the finished product:

A little hard to see, but you get the idea :)

Here's the next window:

And the inside of store #1..so quaint!

Then, it was onto our next store. This store was about 30 minutes away, another long commute on the tube. On our way there, we stopped in a cafe to grab a quick lunch. They gave student discounts, AND I had one of the best chicken burritos ever! We sat outside for a while and then walked to the store. We arrived there, ready to do the same routine. The store was a bit larger, and so much cuter! The lady that was first working there, while I was steaming the garments, literally took the steamer out of my hands and took over. I guess I wasn't steaming good enough for her, I have no idea. She was a little strange, but I just kept going on the windows. Amanda and I dressed the next set of mannequins, actual mannequins this time instead of torso forms. I like the mannequins a lot better because I think the garments look more expensive that way...and more flattering.

There was also an older lady there, I'm guessing she was the store manager, but she was so sweet! She raved about how wonderful the windows looked. Also, I heard Rachael talking on the phone to her boss saying how "really, really brilliant" we were. So funny. I think she likes us! Faye and Rachael were fighting over who would get us for the next two days. They decided that we would go to another photo shoot tomorrow and then Rachael gets us on Friday to work on the biggest window display at another store location.

Anyway, here are the windows from the second store:

And the inside of the store:

That's all for today! Cheers :)

Internship...Day 2.

Today was very eventful, long, and exhausting.

I was up by 7 am, showering and getting ready for my internship. I met Amanda in the courtyard at 8:30 and we headed to the Marylebone High Street store for FWM. We were planning on doing window displays all day, so Rachael sent us to the basement to dress mannequins. We pulled all of the garments in the correct sizes, steamed them, and dressed the torso forms. They were perfectly dressed, pinned, and styled, so we put them in the windows. The visual merchandising team that met us there didn't like it, so they stood there analyzing it for what seemed like forever.

Finally, Rachael decided to give us another job. She sent Amanda and I to do what they call "cop shop," short for "comparative shop" where we literally walk around London to take snaps of competition's windows to gather inspiration and so on. So we did! It was a lot of fun and we got to walk around gathering images for about 3 hours, with a lunch break. The best part is, they give us 5 pounds allowance for lunch each day, so I really only paid 69 pence for my meal! What a deal. :) After we were finished gathering images, we went back to the high street store to de-brief. However, when we got back to the store, the mannequins in the window were all wearing completely different outfits than what we dressed them in. They completely changed direction about a color scheme and I was a little frustrated that we had done all that work for nothing...

Then, Rachael then gave us another project. We went back down to the basement and she had us work on mock-ups for the christmas window display background. The idea was to cut circles out of metallic paper and wire them together so it looked like a big panel of metallic discs. It took 3 hours, but they started to look really neat! I guess Rachael will pitch it to the rest of the team and then they will send it in to have it professionally done. And, Rachael said that Faye, the director from the photo shoot liked us so much that she wants us to come back and help again on Thursday and Friday! Definitely don't mind working photo shoots for a day of work!

We have to work again tomorrow, installing another window display at a different store location, so I'm sure it will be another 8 hour day. I love it, but I'm not used to such long shifts. Welcome to the real world, I suppose! Also, so happy I'm finally finished with my 3000 word essay for my internship class. I think it was so difficult to complete because it has absolutely nothing to do with my internship, just some random topic for busy work. Nothing more do I hate than busy work. Oh well, all done and turned in now.

I guess that's all until tomorrow!
Ciao! :)

Internship...Day 1!

I haven't blogged in a while...not much to really catch up on. I finished up my last week of school (thank goodness) and ended the semester on a good note, a B+ in Trends and an A in Styling! I guess our trends instructor doens't give A's which I think is ridiculous. If you put in the work and deserve an A, why not? Anyway, I was more excited about my A in styling. Really excited to pick up my portfolio and see his comments!

On the Friday morning after classes finished, we left for Paris. We had a package deal through a tour company and it was absolutely fabulous. We started off the day by a train ride to Paris, only about 2 hours, and then got on a bus to ride to our cruise. We took a cruise and tour of Paris from the River Seine and learned about all of the famous bridges, buildings, etc. It was so beautiful! Next, we hopped off the boat and walked straight up to the Eiffel Tower. Literally, right off the boat. It was amazing. We took the lift (British term for elevator) to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower where we had an amazing lunch (in the Eiffel Tower!) with champagne and all. Next, we toured the world famous museum, the Louvre, which was really intersting. I even got to see the Mona Lisa!! So awesome. That night, we went for dinner and got drinks later in the evening. The next day, my birthday, we went to the Notre Dame, which was so beautiful. I got a ton of great pictures. Next we explored the city and walked to the Champs Elysees, a famous shopping street. We walked around for most of the day and then went back to our hotel. We had about an hour to kill before our train back to London, so we went upstairs to the hotel bar. The bartender gave us all glasses of free wine and an entire bottle of champagne for my birthday! After, we got back on the train and traveled back to London. It was late by the time we got home, around 11:30 or so.

I unpacked, skyped, ate, and took a 2 hour nap before I had to get up to catch our flight to Italy. We had a taxi pick us up at our flat around 3 am and rode to the airport. Nicolette, Cassidy, and I flew into Rome, checked into our hostel and immediately went out to explore the city. First, we stopped at the Colosseum, which was amazing. We walked around taking pictures for a while, stopped by the gift shop, and went up to the top level to see the view. After, we kept walking until we stumbled upon more amazing buildings, statues, and beautiful roman ruins. Next, we walked to the Trevi Fountain (also amazing!) and took more pictures and threw our coins in to make a wish. We stopped at a cute little Italian restaurant and there I had the BEST pasta of my life. And a glass of italian wine, of course. :) The next day, we decided to visit the Vatican before our train ride to Florence. It was beautiful, and huge! It really is it's own city!! After, we took the train to Florence, about a 2 hour ride. As soon as we got there, we checked into our second hostel, and took an hour train ride to Pisa, another city in Italy. There, we walked to the Leaning Tower of Pisa! I couldn't believe how far it actually leaned! We had to get typical leaning tower pictures and then traveled back to Florence. When we got back, we had yet another amazing dinner and the BEST coffee gelato I HAVE EVER HAD! I wish I could go back to Florence just to get more gelato. The next day, we walked around the city, through the leather market and onto the museum that housed the famous David Statue. We waited in line for 2 hours and finally got into the museum. However, once we got in, I found out that we couldn't take pictures after I had already taken a few, and a crazy lady came screaming at me to stop and stood there until I delted all of my pictures. Ridiculous. Anyway, we then got a nice lunch, and then headed back to catch our flight to London. I'm literally still exhausted from the two trips right after each other. The next day, I didn't set an alarm and slept until 2:30. Guess it was much needed. Not to mention, it took a full 2 days for my feet to recover from all of the walking, they were about 2 times there normal size from all the swelling!

I finally got caught up on rest and had my first day of my internship today. We were emailed an address for a studio, so my friend that I'm interning with met me in our courtyard at 8:30 to head to the studio. We found it and immediately got to work. It was a huge studio! Our task was to prep all of the garments for Fenn Wright Manson's fall line and shoot them on mannequins for their website. I went to fill up the steamer with water to get it going, but the tank wasn't clear, so I couldn't see how full it was getting. It looked like a pretty big tank, so I kept filling it up. Next thing I knew, it was overflowing and water was all of over the floor. The guy in charge came running over and asking me how much water I had put in. I told him 2 jugs and then he decided then to tell me that it only took 1! (How was I supposed to know??) Anyway, after that "whoops" I steamed the rest of the rack, which took a while. After that, Amanda and I started dressing the mannequin, one garment at a time. We worked with a photographer and pinned each garment until it looked perfect. We took a front, back, and inside out shot of each garment for the website. It took forever to get each garment just right, but the photos looked great. For the whole rack, it took about 5 hours to shoot everything. Halfway into the rack, we broke for lunch. Our boss, Rachael, took us to a really cute restaurant where I had meatballs in tomato sauce with saffron rice. We accidentally stayed for 2 hours, due to the slow service and great conversation between the 3 of us. We had a great time. Next thing we knew, they were calling us to come back to the studio. When we got back, we had a few last garments to shoot. It didn't take too long, and after we were done, Rachael let us go home for the day. It was an amazing first day and I'm so excited to see my hard work on their actual website! Here are a few snaps from the day!

Some of the studio.

Amanda with our rack of garments.

More of the studio.

Amanda, Faye(director of the shoot), Rachael (my boss), and me!

Day 32...Day of Awe.

Hi Everyone!

Today was a great day. Shelise and I got up this morning to go to mass at St. Paul's Cathedral. We left decently early, about an hour before mass started, which we thought was at 11:30. We got off at St. Paul's station and started walking, but ended up walking the wrong direction. We finally looked it up on Shelise's iPhone and figured out that we needed to walk back the other direction. When I first saw the outside, I was literally in awe. It was so beautiful and so huge! We tried to find the entrance (which took a while) but finally found our way into the church. It was absolutely massive. First, we were in the back section because the front section was roped off. We tried to get on the side on the back section, but still couldn't see because of the huge columns. Then, an usher let us through to the front section, in the front reserved row! It had to be one of the best seats in the church. The mass actually started at 11 am, but we made it just in time for the sermon. We were right next to the choir, which was absolutely amazing, and had perfect view of the priest giving the sermon. The mass was so beautiful and I even received holy communion. Great experience for sure.

View from the outside.

We were plannning on tea time, but the reservation could only be made for 3:30. I had already told the photographer that I booked, 4 pm and that couldn't be changed, so we have to save tea for another day. The shoot went great; a lot better than I expected. We planned to shoot at St. James Palace, but ended up finding an even better palace on the way there. I think I got a lot of really great shots. My theme was Phantom Fatale, and I think it transferred through in the photos. So excited to see what my portfolio looks like in the end! Here's a quick sample:

Just a few of my favorites! After the shoot, I made some soup and salad and Shelise and I went through all of the photos, narrowed them down, and photoshopped our favorites. I love the outcome and hope you guys enjoy them too!

Good night :)

Days 29, 30, 31...Busy, busy, busy!

Hi All!

It's been a few eventful days. On Thursday, I went to class to present a practice run of our final project with my group. It went pretty well, so I'm hoping my final project will go pretty quickly since I already know what to do. Except, for my final project, I have to do some sketches of garments, so that might take a while. After class, my flatmate Jess and I went to go find my internship site. It was pretty easy to find, but I'm glad I went the day before. I figured I would already have enough anxiety about the interview on Friday and didn't want to add more pressure by having to find the location. Anyway, after, we went to a couple of stores to check out the awesome sales. I didn't buy anything, but almost every store had at least 30% off sales! Trying to conserve my money for Paris and such. :) We went to a bead shop to get beads for the headband Jess is making for one of her classes and then went down the street to a pub called The George, for my first traditional fish and chips experience! It was SO delicious!

I love fish anyway, but this was fantastic. And, of course, they had strawberry and lime cider, so we had to each get a bottle. I was so excited to finally get my fish and chips. After, we went home to get ready for the night. Shelise had a model casting that night at a club, Amika, and was allowed to bring 5 guests. We got ready, took pictures, and headed out. We got the tube station, walked for a little ways, and waited in line. They let us in for no cover and then led us into a small room and directed us toward one table where we were supposed to stay seated. All of the other girls assumed it was a model casting as well, so we all stayed in the booth. Ends up, there was confusion between the club and the modeling agency and the club wasn't aware that there was a casting at all. After 30 minutes or so, more people started to show up and they gave us all free drinks. Even though there wasn't a casting, it was still a good time! It was a ridiculously nice club, I couldn't even believe there was no cover charge. There were security guards EVERYWHERE and at first, I was afraid to even take photos. Overall though, pretty good night.

On Friday, I slept in a bit and got up to get ready for my interview. I got up 2 hours before I had to leave, so I didn't have to feel rushed and have time to collect my thoughts. I ran through all of the questions I thought they might ask, had 2 copies of my resume and my cover letter ready to go, and my outfit finalized. I was ready really early, so I relaxed in the kitchen with my flatmates until it was time to leave. I left a little more than an hour before my interview, which was way too early. I ended up arriving at my interview location 45 minutes before my interview, so I walked down the street to a little cafe and ordered a can of Sprite and sipped on it until 20 minutes before my interview. I went to the building, buzzed in, headed up to the 4th floor and introduced myself to the receptionist. The office was VERY small and the interview was very informal, which I was really happy about! My interviewer, Rachel, was really young and trendy and very nice. She sat me down, asked me a couple of questions about my resume, and told me about the company. She explained that my lunch would be paid for everyday (amazing!) and that any extra transportation would be paid for if they were to send me to a different part of the UK for work. She said I would be attending visual merchandising meetings with her and her colleague and go to their retail stores to inspect displays and even create some of my own! I'm so excited to get started!! I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be able to have this amazing experience. I will be so much more confident in the career field when I go back to the states knowing that I have experience working abroad in a culture drastically different than my own.

After my interview, I came home to relax and eat. I had a lot of homework to do, so I put a pizza in the oven and went back to my room to get some work done. I guess I set the timer for too long and then forgot about the pizza, so when the timer buzzed, the top of my pizza was burnt to a crisp. It was just cheese pizza, so I ate it anyway, since only the top was burnt. After dinner, I started to look for flights to Italy, since the flatmates and I are dying to go there. After a couple of hours, I actually found a roundtrip flight for 218 pounds! I think it was a pretty good deal considering the prices I had seen before. So after researching for what seemed like forever, we finally booked the flight at about 3 am. We will be going to Paris on the 8th and coming back to London late on the 9th, then getting up the next morning, the 10th, for a flight to Rome at 6 am. We will arrive in Rome around 9 am, check into our hostel, and sightsee to the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, and maybe the Vatican. The next day, we will take a train to Florence and spend the day and night there. On the 12th, Tuesday night, our flight out of Florence back to London is at 7 pm, so I'm super excited for such an exciting trip!!! Paris to Rome to Florence in a week's time! Then the next day will be the first day that I start my internship. I'll be exhausted, but it will be SOO worth it!

Today, Nicolette and I got up and went to the Tower Bridge. We didn't really know exactly where we were going, but we just asked people until we found our way there. It was SO amazingly beautiful! We walked across the bridge and then down into a park where the view of the entire bridge was visible. That's also where I got the best pictures:

Beautiful, right??

After that, we were pretty exhausted so we came back to the flat to work on our photo shoot for styling tomorrow. This is our final project, not in the studio, so we contacted a student photographer and Shelise will be our model. My theme is Phantom of the Opera-ish (still have to come up with a decent title). I have a black mask and all the garments are either black or white and flowy and romantic. Our location is St. James Park and St. James Palace, so I'm excited to see how it turns out! Hopefully I'll have the images tomorrow night, so I can post them soon. Also, tomorrow morning, we are going to mass at St. Paul's Cathedral, which I'm really excited about,too. After mass, we are going to have tea time at 2 pm and then our shoot is at 4. Sounds like a pretty amazing day to me. :) Then it's home to do more homework...I better hit the hay before this big day tomorrow!

Good night and thanks for reading!