Im best friends with Kim Kardashian & Will Smith

So today started off like any old day, that is until I made up an excuse to leave work early and went off to the Hancock London premiere. I got there around 3:00 (it started around 7) thinking that I would be in the back of the crowds with an awful view. To my surprise, there were only about 30 people or so. I staked out my spot next to a German lady whose living in London. It was interesting and nice to have someone to talk to for 4 hours.

To make things short, I got great pictures of everyone. Charlize Theron walked down the red carpet first. Unfortunately, she signed autographs to the person of the right of me and to the person of the left of me. In between I met some famous British stars. Then Will Smith came down...he was great!! Willy signed autographs for practically everyone who was asking as well taking numerous pictures with the 'common people'. : ) Once he passed, we saw Jason Bateman (of Juno and Arrested Development) who kind of rushed past everyone. As my roommates were getting pictures of Jason, I saw a girl and did a double-take. All the sudden I yelled, "KIM KARDASHIAN!!!!!". She came up to me (and was probably happy that someone recognized her outside the U.S. (nobody was really calling her name)) and I took a picture with her. Unfortunately, I messed it up and asked her to take another one. While doing so, I was casually asking her where Reggie (Bush) was. UNFFFFFFORTUNATELY, I BLINKED IN THE SECOND PICTURE AND LOOK COMPLETELY AWFUL.

Anyways, it was a great afternoon!! Below are the pictures:


*Rolling out the Red Carpet!

*German lady I talked to to pass the time.


*Morgan and Jen (2 of my flatmates) working the red carpet and posing with the V.P. of
Warner Brothers.


*Charlize, like a foot away signing autographs--but not mine. I'm kind of bitter about it.


*Will, he was great and so enthusiastic with the crowd!


*This guy is Simon and is from a famous boy-band in the U.K.


*Will walking down to the red carpet.


*Kim Kardashian! She looks so pretty!


*No words can describe this picture. SHIT.


*The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air signing autographs! I GOT HIS AUTOGRAPH!!


*Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush (of the Saints)! Reggie had a very stern face and then I
yelled out "GO SAINTS!!" and he smiled. It was glorious


*What a great day!


*Will Smith exiting the show.

The Queen's Official Birthday

Once again, I find myself behind on my blog. Whoops!

Anyways, I had a wonderful Saturday. The day started off quite early with a wake-up time of 6:30. However, it was well worth it--it was the queen's OFFICIAL birthday! But don't confuse 'official' with 'real' as her real birthday is in April. The tradition of having an "official" birthday dates back quite far when a monarch (whose birthday was in November) wanted to have a day of birthday celebration that had clear, sunny weather.
We staked out our spot, which included a view of the parade and of the performance for the Queen of the Horse Guards. While waiting for the parade to start, royalty and military family members piled into the stands. I could have sat there for hours looking at their outfits--bright colors with big hats or feathered hair pieces. It was very interesting and cool to see! After sitting around for 3 hours, the parade started. This parade was called "Trooping the Colour" and consisted of marching and music from Welsh, Scottish, English and Northern Irish royal guards.

   

*Our start of the day, outside of Westminster tube stop.  It was very serene at 7:20 in the

morning!

*View of the Horse Guards from behind the barricades--i.e. the common people area.

*Picture of the wealthy, military people standing in line for their seats at the Horse Guards.  Look at her feather hair piece--most of the ladies had hats or feather hair pieces!

*Another shot of the English elite!

*Prince William is sitting next to Camilla Parker-Bowles is the big white hair piece.   Across from them is my future husband, Prince Harry. :)  

 

*The Queen at the performance

*Royal guards marching towards the Horse Stables.

After the performance, the Queen continues the parade back to Buckingham Palace where 41 cannons go off. She makes her way up to the balcony where her family are standing and a military fly-over of 55 aircrafts occurs. Since my two flatmates left, I met this girl from Alabama who was studying and interning abroad too. We both wanted to go to the palace too. So after the Queen left the Horse Guards we ran through St. James Park and along the parade route of the Mall (the red gravel road that leads up the Palace). We would stop for 2 seconds and take a picture, and then keep running along the parade route, then stop and take another picture. I felt like a photojournalist but it added to the experience as everyone was trying to run to the Palace to get a good view.

*The Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, making their way back to Buckingham Palace.

*This is where we kept running and stopping to take pictures along the parade route on the Mall. 

*The Queen putting a blanket over herself--it wasn't really THAT cold!

We ended up getting very close and great spots.  I have posted lots of pictures --however, the blog won't be able to hold the 120 pictures I took of that morning!

*We finally made it to Buckingham Palace where the royal family, minus the queen had yet to arrive.

*Statue in front of Buckingham--it was such a beautiful day!

*The royal family steps back inside in order for the Queen to make her grand entrance outside the balcony.

*I thought this was so cute--when people were running towards the gates of Buckingham, I saw this 4 year old British girl on her dad's shoulders. She had a birthday hat on for the Queen and a British flag. So adorable!

*The Queen came out and waved and then the military fly over started.

*The statue again--I thought this looked very majestic!

*Fly over.

*Amazing!

*Proof I was there! And proof I looked bad from 4 hours of sleep and waking up at 6:30!

Wrapping up, I continued this great day with a wonderful production of "Into the Hoods: A London Fairytale."  It is the first hip-hop show to ever make it to the West-end.  The show was filled with great music, lots of great dancing and humor.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone who visits London.  My roommates and I capped the night off with some great gelato from a shop called "Scoops".  

All in all, it was a great Saturday in London!

Field Trips and Famous Pizza

As promised, I am updating regularly...

Today we had a program field trip where we visited Parliament. The journalism students went on an additional trip to the BBC.

We were at Parliament for about 3 hours. During that time, we met with a Member of Parliament. The MP we spoke with was a member of the House of Commons and a member of the Conservative Party here in the U.K. We then took a two hour tour of the amazing building--learning the history, customs and roles of Parliament. I found out that Parliament includes all members of the United Kingdom and was glad to see the symbol of Ireland (the harp) decorated in gold throughout the entire building.



We continued our day at the BBC with an interesting tour. There we saw the newsroom, the celebrity green room, sets for TV shows and so much more. We also learned that only 2 people have been driven in cars around the BBC's lot--the Queen and none other than........ Jennifer Lopez. Our tour guide told us that she refused to walk less than about 100 feet to the door.

For dinner, 2 of my roommates and myself went to Da Mario's for pizza. It was a beautiful building and a restaurant that Princess Diana took William and Harry out for pizza frequently. The pizza was amazing and I can't wait to take my parents there when they come in August!




*Da Mario's. It's about a 10 minute walk
from our flat.


I should probably mention that none of these photos are mine--they are from Google. I forgot to bring my camera with me today. It wouldn't have mattered much anyways as photography is not allowed at the BBC or Parliament.

Much love.

About One Week of London

Below are pictures pertaining to the following post. Sorry they are not in chronological order--I haven't figured out how to organize them.






*Anne Hathaway's picturesque cottage.

*Flowers in her garden.



*Creepy townspeople outside of Warwick
castle.

*A view of Warwick.

*Another view with the amazing gardens
there.


*I don't know about you, but I thought this
was a pretty cool picture.


*Orange tree table setting at the Orangery.


*The Orangery.


*Me at the Orangery--excuse my hair, we
walked in rain for 10 minutes before we
got there. The hot tea warmed us up
though!



So I'm clearly behind on my blog...

From what I can remember:

*One of the days we took a 17 hour field trip to Warwick Castle and Stratford-Upon-Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace). The castle was VERY touristy with jousting, archery, among other things. It was owned by Madam Tussaud's--the wax museum company. However, it was beautiful nonetheless. Although the fog and rain made the day a bit miserable, it added mystique to the castle. After our trip to Warwick, we went to the family home of Anne Hathaway--Shakespeare's wife. The cottage had an amazing garden and much of the home was filled with furnishing from Shakespeare's time. We continued our day in Stratford where we toured a Shakespeare museum. For lunch, we had what our bus driver called a "proper" fish 'n chips place. After sitting in a pub for three hours, we saw a performance of "Taming of the Shrew". It was a long, rainy day--but very interesting and a day in which I got amazing pictures of the scenery.

*On Thursday, we found out about our internships. I am working in the marketing department of London Sports magazine. They reach out to upper-class to high middle class active Londoners as well as sports fanatics. Their readership and circulation is about 300,000. They are revamping their marketing plan so I am excited to take an active role as an intern. A few days later, I met my supervisor--Jake. He was a very nice guy who had been hired by the shareholders to improve the state of the magazine financially. I start this Thursday and am excited to learn as much as I can!

Beyond that, I don't remember much from the week. From now on though, I will try to update every two days so that I can write about all my experiences!

Now that I am kind of caught up:

Today my roommates and I dressed up for afternoon tea at the Orangery. On the way there we saw a helicopter and one of the Kensington Palace attendants told us that Prince Charles was in the it and was landing in a nearby field. I was hoping it would have been Prince Harry who would have saw me, fell madly in love and then introduce me to the Queen. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

To carry on about afternoon tea: the Orangery is a restaurant in Kensington Gardens. I don't really drink tea, but I figured (to be cliche) "when in London, do as the Londoners do". I ordered Green Lemon tea and a white chocolate almond raspberry slice of bread.
It was amazing and something I'm glad we did!







Until next time, love from London.