Playing tourist in Londontown

In the weeks after returning from Paris, a bunch of people came to visit London including Jon who was still here for his Spring Break! Jen's friend Ally from home came and Cara's sister, Erin came to visit too. This meant we got to play tourist! We saw the Changing of the Guard finally at Buckingham Palace, BIG BEN, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and the London Eye all in a weekend!

The Changing of the Guard was a crowded experience and we only saw parts of it but the highlight was when Jen Chiu literally found 35pounds on the ground which later paid for drinks at the Pub (picture below to prove it!) Took a picture in front of the iron gate although the Queen did not grace us with her presence :(.

We didn't get to go and tour the Abbey because there was a long line but did get nice pictures around Parliament/ Big Ben/ Trafalgar Square area along with a very London red phone booth picture!

That was a nice day out and we made the most of the touring and seeing things! Jon left on Sunday to go back to Boston which turned out to be a travelling nightmare but he did get there safely in the end.

That day was also the St.Patty's day parade in Trafalgar Square so we went back down in green celebratory attire and had some Irish Cider. They had traditional Irish music, dancing, drinking, a parade, and we had a blast; even bought some Irish shamrock headbands. It was such a beautiful day out and because it wasn't actual St Patricks day on Sunday, the festivities continued on Wednesday the 17th of March.

Guiness was sponsoring a bunch of Pubs down in the Picadilly area and all you needed was a voucher for a free pint of Guiness so of course in the spirit of the holiday we had a couple each! Many people had big Irish hats going around and quite randomly a guy came up to me and gave me his it was great!! Jen had her Shamrocks and we did a mini-pub crawl that night before ending up at Waxy O'Connors for an Irish night out with the locals and tourists! However before we got to Waxy's another random guy came up to me asking for the hat because he said he was Irish and said he needed the hat..I told him it was mine and he snatched it off my head and ran away with it...it was the most absurd move of the night but we kept on with high spirits! Also randomly saw a girl from Punahou..of course in London this would happen..

Actually make that double because the next night we went to O'Neills...a popular American college hang out spot, and I saw Patty Boxold and Gretchen saw someone from her elementary school..It's A Small World Afterall?

Passport to Paris!

Paris: land of the Eiffel, crepes, the Lourve, romance, red lipstick, and an amazing weekend. I went with Jon after he got in to London from Boston for his spring break.

After barely making it to the train station on time we finally got settled on the Eurostar which was only a 2hour journey under the Chunnel from St Pancras London-->Gare d'nord Paris. Thank goodness Jon knew enough French for us to get around. We got our metro tickets and headed to our hotel.

Because we got in around 5pm we still had enough time to get around and sitesee. The Lourve was open until 10pm only on Friday's so we went there first. When we first turned the corner to see the large glass pyramid surrounded by magnificent buildings, I was breathless at how amazing the entire structure was. Altogether the Lourve is supposed to have 12 miles of artifacts and art pieces..we obviously could not do all areas but did see the major works. We saw the Mona Lisa and a few of the other exhibits (it was more than a month ago so I'm having trouble recalling now..). People had told me about the Mona Lisa before so I was expecting it to be a lot smaller than it actually was. It was mounted by itself on a wall that stretched all the way to the ceiling. The rooms there were simply jaw dropping; some of the paintings went from top to bottom of a room and over 5 meters long, incredible pieces of art, see an example below!

It wasn't just the art that we were looking at, the rooms themselves had the most amazing architecture and exquisite colors and textures. Jon an I took a picture of us with the long corridor stretch of one wing of the building.

After wandering the Lourve it was starting to get late so we walked toward the Eiffel Tower in the (far) distance, also looking for food. I was insisting on getting to the Eiffel tower because I figured there would be food places around there...unfortunately there weren't too many when we got there by Cab so we forgot about our hunger and took a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The top was spectacular and at night you could really pick out all the landmarks because they were brightly lit up No picture could capture the beauty from the top of the tip and it was totally worth going all the way up even though we were starving. We found a cute place after on the corner and just ate the two things they offered because it was so late and the cook was about to leave haha.

After splitting a bottle of wine Jon and I were a bit tipsy as we headed back to the Eiffel to get a crepe from a small stand across the Tower. Nutella, bananas, whipped cream in a crepe; succulent goodness in my mouth-it was magical. We were so happy we bought tickets for a ride around the merry-go-round..Jon got a bit backwards on his horse. All in all a successful day 1 in Paris!

Day 2: We woke up and headed toward the Notre Dame and it was a beautiful morning. There were little cafe's around the Notre Dame and I ate an incredible croquette. We went over to the Notre Dame and the history behind the church, how Joan of Arc was executed in front of it and the number of super powers who used it; They also had really nice stain glass windows illuminating the building :)

After leaving the Notre Dame we found our way to little market stalls and food areas on the way to the Pompidou Museum.

We headed to the Pompidou Modern Art museum where we first went in the wrong entrance going into the public library instead. which was interesting in itself. People were watching TV in different languages at little stations and there was a cafe. We found our way to the actual museum and walked around; I think I need an art appreciation crash course because some of these modern art pieces are less than interesting and uninvented to my (non art major) eye. We then went took a metro to the Arc de Trioumph which was spectacular because it had about 11 streets around its round about. You could climb it but we passed and headed down the Champs Elysse with the posh stores and the massive 7 story Louis Vitton.

That night we went to a close by French restaurant and ate escargot (it was so goo dthere, i love love love snails in the garlic sauce) and lamb / duck entrees...pretty amazing food. We had to have an early night because the next day was either Versailles or....EuroDisney! The choice was unanimous and we went to see Mickey on sunday!!

Basically Day 3 was a full day at EuroDisney...as if we were 5 again. We figured Versailles would always be there but our youth days are leaving us...and we need to be kids while we can! hah. We went on all the rollercoaster rides: space mountain, thunder mountain, indiana jones ride, etc, ran through the Alice in Wonderland maze with small children..and ate overpriced park food. It was actually a nice break to get to explore like a child again. And with us returning to Paris from EuroDisney, we headed back into the night to London,

Catch Up Post!

To save some time, I've decided to create an easy list and pictures post in order to CATCH up on the first part of March.

I have to look through my pictures to document what happened when. Since I'm so bad at putting up pictures to Facebook these days I'm so behind on my travels on facebook--that's why my blog's an exclusive look at (more) recent happenings!!

Following Spring Break was my first week of work and my supplementary course; International Marketing. I'm wrote about my internship in another post.

Here it goes:

Just before break the program set up a night out at FABRIC--an 8 floor nightclub. There were a lot of BU people there and it got a bit overwhelming with the floors and sounds and lights and other people. I'm pretty sure I'm grew out of the clubbing life within the first week just because everything's pretty far.

On a Saturday, we went to Portobello Market in Notting Hill (like the movie!) and explored the many tents of food, antiques, jewelry, and clothing. It was all outdoors and down a long street, we tried a german scrumptious hot dog, and Gretchen got some Churros with chocolate mmm mm goood. I was tempted to buy a Jazz album of 40 all time hits but found 2 pieces of jewelry I've been wearing a lot. One is a handmade ring made from wire w/3 beads intertwined. The other is a necklace that has an

elephant pendant which opens up to a clock. It was also cool that at this market there were street performers and this really sick guitar blues player...totally enjoyed that.

The next weekend we went to the CAMDEN market (Jen, Danielle, and I). It's a pretty big market with so many sections. We went to the food part first and had oh so good Chinese food (but the noodles tasted funny), we ate them next to a giant lion and on seats resembling mopeds..pretty different. After, we toured around the stalls (previously horse stalls) of antiques, the jewelry and clothing spots and wandered through the stores. I got heart sunglasses-tacky but fun, cute sale earrings-b/c a japanese lady had made them, and a face mask-because it was 1Euro and totally worth the absurdity of us trying it on...pictures are too embarrassing to post!

Another day, it was FINALLY nice and clear in London so since we hadn't previously, we went for a stroll in Hyde Park starting at Kensington Palace, heading toward the Pond, down to this other area with fountains and shrubbery, through the paths to Princess Diana's memorial, and finally crossing over the Serpentine. We had a cute photo opt at the Royal Albert Memorial right across from the Royal Albert Hall. It was pretty cool because the day was pretty amazing for London Standards.

Just briefly before closing, I ALMOST (I know, bad story) saw the Queen during her welcoming of the South African President to London. Since I work 10 minutes from Buckingham Palace and we were looking at the royal site (b/c we heard a bunch of guns firing), it said that there would be a royal procession. I took my lunch break and walked down to the Palace but just got there after she had been seen UGH--I did get to see the army of men on horses which was also pretty cool.

Paris, St Pattys Day, and Church Club coming up next time..

Barcelona, my downfall

BARCELONA...Barfelona as my dad calls it..

It's already March (April) and I haven't finished my Spring Break posts from the latter two days of our Spanish adventure. It continues in Barcelona, Catalunya, Espana... I had already visited Barcelona in May during our family cruise and my sister, Jaime, who had studied abroad there showed us around some so I had hit all of the touristy spots and seen a lot of the Gaudi architechture such as La Padera, La Sagrada Famiglia. I wanted to take this opportunity of being in Barcelona to see the nightlife and visit the castle on the hill. I have to say I did get to do both but unfortunately left my...mark..in Barcelona and had to red shirt a day.

We got into another super sweet hotel we found on Expedia which was close to a metro stop and a skate park; El Torre Hotel Catalunya. The first day we headed out towards the beach and walked along the boardwalk from Las Ramblas. We saw the food market and made it all the way to the cute clubs on the beach.

We headed home to have a rest before we could go out to eat. When we woke up and were ready to go, it was POURING cats and dogs, litterally the rain were golf ball size and flooding the streets-ridiculous!

Found a place near the university square--unfortunately didn't get to find a spectacular area because it was so horrid out. We did make it to El Gato Negro Espit Chupitos; a SHOTS bar with 100s of shots to choose from--most of them didn't have too much alcohol in it and they were all €2! Here are some pictures!

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I had the Hawaii, Bob Marley, Princess, Comic Book, and a complimentary Nipple shot from the bartenders! At this place we saw people from BU who were studying in London--of course--and also met people studying in Europe from UC Berkeley who knew Jen Chiu's roommates..SMALL WORLD. The place was a load of fun with the presentation being hilarious for some.

After a while, we headed to a place called RazzMaTazz after at around 2am where things were JUST getting started because Europeans party LATE. This was a large club and I met a guy studying in Barcelona from Portugal and we spoke through broken Spanish to communicate about surfing. It was really interesting and entertaining but apparently I had too much to drink as the next day I felt sick and had to stay in bed all day which was NOT pleasant :(

Actually I made it out to Monjuic with Gretchen for about 30 minutes then had to go back to the hotel. I learned about Coca-Cola's marketing failure on a TV program though! That night I felt better and went out to eat but was coming down with a cold I could feel it forming in my throat...also unpleasant. So I didn't push myself and stayed in that night. We did get to dinner on Las Ramblas and I had yummy Chicken Paella!!

Next morning (sunday), everyone was still sleeping but I wanted to go see the castle on the hill so I went by myself in the metro and on the tram and up the finicular (phew long journey!!) to finally see the castle and the small amusement park. It was a breathtaking view from the top and I was glad I checked that off my list!

All in all, the trip was good and I'm glad I had seen the major Barcelona sites before so I could sort of relax there-it was Spring Break after all!

PS: I remember how amazing the Gaudi tiles were on the street and snapped a pic:

Madrid parte DOS

MADRID II

After waking up at a reasonably early hour of 11am, Gretchen and I headed to Breakfast near El Sol for some scrumptious sandwiches. We made our way to the park (Parque de Retiro). Took a bunch of nature shots and we enjoyed the outdoors on this chili Thursday but altogether it was really nice to experience peace and quiet. They had a model photo shoot going on at the time so we watched that for a little hoping it would be a superstar spotting... Despite it being the cusp of winter, there were still some pretty nice colors to be found in the park

Afterwards we met up with our other two friends from the program at the Reina Sofia--a modern art museum (free for students!). The Reina Sofia featured a lot of Spanish artists like Picasso and Dali and I enjoyed this more modern style of art better than the self portrait gallery at the Prado Museum. We didn't last to long in the Museum because there were so many rooms but we did get to see Picasso's really big piece there called the Guernica. Also, I never knew how thought provoking Dali's surrealist paintings were (one is below to catch a glimpse). At that point we didn't want to walk all the way back so we took the metro for 1Euro and got up to the shopping district to find some great deals and buys.

We went to another contemporary restaurant called "ROOT" that night and then went out to a bar (ladies night so all drinks free again...) and then to club Kapital; a popular tourist nighttime destination and even world known as a hoppin club (7 floors). Only snapped a couple of pictures here in the Heienken top floor bar! Don't worry parents, it was all good, this was not the night I got defeated...that's coming up for Barcelona..

WE did get up at 4am to catch our plane to Barcelona and woooooosh vvvala...new entry to come...eventually. I'll leave with a video from Club Kapital because if I had tried to get myself silly drunk, this would've been a craze of a time. I still had a TONNE of fun.

CaxtonFx--The Interning Phase

So I wrote this back at the end of FEBRUARY goodness March has flown by and it's already April..1st...this might be a joke.. BUt anyway, I wrote about the internship 3 days after it is as follows:

Since I have to keep a journal/notes for my internship, I might as well publish a few tidbits from the first few days and continue to keep a log of what I do on a daily basis.

Part of the International Program I am doing involves an 8-week internship at a company I've been placed at...Everyone is guaranteed an internship which is really neat aspect of this program. Since I am thinking of concentrating in Marketing and Finance (not to mention my History minor as well), the placement team thought a Marketing Internship in a Financial firm would be appropriate and I couldn't have found it a better match.

Although I did not know the company going in, it's been 3 days of interning and I feel like I know a lot about the company and the British work environment as well.

I work for a company called CaxtonFx which is a foreign exchange currency company which trades on all amounts of currency for the spread but also benefiting their clients by arranging the best interest for them. Also, recently, they have set up a currency card which works as a credit card without charging fees on the transaction's made. The way it works is that you load your card with the company in British Pounds and convert them to Dollars before you go to the US. Or you convert to Euro's before you head to the EU for travels or a business trip.

My job as an intern is to do market research on 3 different sectors Caxton Fx could possibly penetrate in order to maximize their client base. I am looking into the Auto Industry, Fashion Industry, and Promotional Item's industry. Near the end of the internship I'm going to present this to the head directors of the company so that could be gratifying. It's nice to have a long-term project set up but let me tell you the researching is a lot of work because I'm reaching a lot of dead ends already. There's another intern from the BU program which is nice because we can take lunch together and have some morale boost during the day.

Things I've noticed since being at CaxtonFx:

1. The guys are pretty funny but also very crude, dropping the F-bomb like its nothing and joking about some controversial things (homosexuality etc.)
2. Company culture seems to be about transparency and people are very friendly and mobile about walking around the office to get answers or to communicate (director's windows are all glass with no blinds to cover them)
3. As seen with MOST British companies, people DON'T have cubicles and privacy is more limited to upper management, I could stare at the guy across from me all day if I wanted to be a creep. This is standard to have just flat desks next to each other.
4. Since I work in an area with not too many restaurants/shops (b/c we're near Buckingham Palace and Embassy's), the Sandwich man comes with food (woohoo! but I make lunch mostly)
5. The currency market is really interesting especially in the turbulent economic times and also with the way they view the dollar versus how we view the dollar..(GO US DOLLAR!)

That is all for now! Cheers!

NOW 4/1/2010 at CaxtonFx, things are starting to wind down and a lot of people are on "holiday" aka vacationing for the long easter "bank" holiday which gives people both Friday and Monday off of work.

I've presented my work to both the sales team and the marketing team and they are independently working on developing their grip in the Auto Parts industry, specifically targeting the Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SME's).

Blah blah blah, it's been a good internship and I'm looking forward to this Easter Long weekend (Friday and Monday off) because my gosh--work's really long and tiring and my butt and my back gets sore! OOOF.