One Last Taste of London

Covent Garden street performers entertain and interact

I've been home now for a few days and enjoyed some good food with my family for Thanksgiving. But after going through the photos that I took in London I realize how beautiful of a city it is, how much I enjoyed my time there and how I already miss it. I tend to like big cities but I realize think what sets London apart from other metropolises is the enormous variety of culture, food, and activities it has to offer. In leaving London I already miss walking past the huge Mosque in Reagent's Park on a sunny day, admiring the smells and tastes of Chinatown, and observing the alternative culture that fills the streets of Camden Town on a Saturday night.

There is also a great amount of creativity in the city, which can be seen in the British Museum, the Tate Modern and even on the street. Here at home there isn't much to do on a free Sunday afternoon, so as I sit writing this I'm wishing I could go out and find a new street market to explore like I did almost every weekend in London. There is so much going on in London and I wanted to share a few more of my photos that I thought showed the variety of things the city has to offer.

Sand-sculpting genius along the beach of the Thames River

Tantalizing tastes of Camden Lock Market

There are many cities around the world that are inhabited by a diverse population but I have never experienced a city as diverse as London. New York City may rival London in population but I would still claim that London has more to offer. While my time working in London has come to an end for the time being, I will definitely never forget the friends I've made there and the experiences I've had. I've enjoyed writing this blog and hope that it's been read by at least a few of you out there.

Portabello Market offers a colorful variety of food, clothes, antiques and "knick-nacks"

A Peacock shows his true blue in the Kyoto Gardens in Holland Park

I hope I've been able to give some idea about what living and working in London has been like because I really enjoyed it and plan on returning in the future. London is a fantastic city and while the weather is sometimes a little drab, I'll tell you I'm looking out my living room window in St. Louis and watching snow fall from the overcast sky. In addition, the grass in my front yard is a sort of dead, yellowish brown. I guess I'll just have to wait until I return to London for a window overlooking the rich green grass in Regent's Park.

Getting a little lost in a labyrinth outside London (and more specifically at Longleat Park)

On the flight home

Well, after three months in the incredible city of London I'm sitting in my window seat on the flight back to the states. It was a good amount of time to live and work in the city but it really flew by. Meaghan, who if you remember from my first post in London attempted to claim the big room in the flat, and I were just looking through the photos I've taken in the past few months. Going through my healthy collection of pictures, 10 gigs, already has us missing the sights and the sounds of the city. Meaghan even teared up a little, but she's a wuss.

There were mixed feelings this morning as we all woke up early to finish packing and clean up the flat. We woke up to what was pretty close to a blizzard outside. Taking one of my last views out the big windows in our living room, I wanted to curl up in a blanket and sit on the couch with some hot cocoa, but there was a good amount to finish up before we left. We had to clean everything up and take out all the trash. We also had a lot of food to get rid of so there was a bit of a morning feast as I put all the leftover frozen pizzas into the oven, made a few pop-tarts, put together some sandwiches and put hot water on for coffee. We put on some music for a while and danced around the flat while we cleaned and packed. There were some leftover beverages that needed to be finished as well. You might say it was a bit of a makeshift going away party. The general feeling was that we were excited to get home to our friends and families, but also sorry to be leaving London and each other. People started leaving around 11am and it was sad to see the good friends that I've been living with for the past few months head out the door for the last time. Saying goodbye to twenty great friends all within a couple hours is rough.

Interning in London has left me with a good sense of the business culture in an international city and an understanding of major sporting events, but there's a lot that I will take from the past few months besides just work experience. I've made some great friends; in my flat mates, my co-workers and a few Londoners. I've come in contact with many new cultures, new languages and new foods all converging in one ever-changing city. Traveling to a new place for a few days or a week can be a good experience, but in order to really get a feel for its respective culture and daily life, you really just have to live there. I feel quite lucky to have been able to do just that.

Last week living in London

Last week was a sort of a culmination of some of the work I've been doing. I was able to attend two events sponsored by my organization, UK Trade and Investment. The first was called Global for Gold and was focused on businesses results during the Beijing Olympics and business prospects for future Olympic Games. Andrew, the head of our major sports events team, did a PowerPoint presentation, which I helped put together. There was a case study presentation from Speedo that described the entire process of creating their high-tech swimming suit, the Lzr Racer. Swimmers wearing the suit in Beijing broke 23 of 25 world records and won 94% of gold medals. There was another interesting presentation by a company called Fast Track that emphasized the importance and logistics of sponsorship for sporting events. It was interesting to hear how all the companies targeted specific markets and ensured success. The free lunch was also a great opportunity to network and talk with some of the company representatives.

The second event I attended last week featured visiting officials from Poland who are involved in the UEFA European Football Championships in 2012. The tournament is scheduled to be in Poland and Ukraine in four years time. Many UK companies attended the event, including construction contractors, security companies, and multimedia firms. Again, I was happy to stick around for the free lunch and network with the companies. It's always a good idea to talk to people and get a few business cards.

Networking events and seminars are a big part of what UK Trade and Investment organizes. Many of them, like these two, are held within the UK,;others are overseas in international markets. UKTI has held overseas missions in places like South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and Rio de Janeiro for their bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Although I obviously haven't been along on any of these missions, some of my co-workers have and it seems like a great experience to travel overseas and be part of the creation of a major international sporting event.

Looking back on my time working at UKTI, I have learned a good deal about major sports projects. Prior to my internship I never really considered all that goes into orchestrating an event like the Olympics or the World Cup. These kinds of events are truly enormous tasks with an uncountable number of issues that need to be addressed. I recall now when I traveled to China years ago in 2004 and stayed in Beijing for a few nights. Even four years before the games there were already people selling goods, souvenirs and various clothing advertising the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. At the time I remember wondering why they would be so excited about something that isn't going to happen for four years. Why are they making such a big deal about this when it's so far in the future? After working at my internship I understand all of the work and time that must be invested in order to put on an event like the Olympics. I've spent some time researching contract possibilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the Summer Olympics in 2016 and events even further in the future. I now realize how necessary it is for countries and businesses to begin working on these sports projects many years in advance.

On that note, we leave London in less than a week, and I should probably follow up this blog by starting to pack up my things. Packing isn't quite as monumental a task as putting on the Olympics. It may not lead to unfinished stadiums or poorly organized events, but last minute packing can definitely lead to messy suitcases, forgotten toothbrushes and unecessarily high levels of stress.

Barca Blog

Seaside bikeride

This past weekend I travelled to Barcelona with Dave and Linda. We escaped from the cold and rainy environment of London for a warm and sunny short vacation in the Spanish city. It was about 70 degrees for the entire weekend and we took full advantage of it. Renting bikes was an excellent way to enjoy the temperate climate as well as to tour the city in a short amount of time. Although there wasn't any swimming, we visited the beach and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere.

Our first late-night Spanish meal of tapas and paella

The change in culture was as refreshing as the Mediterranean seaside. After stepping off the plane, we immediately ran into a language barrier with two or three people. While some find this to be an annoyance of traveling, I love it. It's a fundamental difference between cultures and it means that you're going to learn something, whether you like it or not. Anyway, out of the three of us, no one knew any Spanish, so it was hit and miss as to whether we got our point across or got our questions answered.

View from Sagrada Familia Cathedral

We made it to where we were staying, another couchsurfing.com destination. This time a Spanish villa about a 20-minute train ride outside the city. I called Paul, whom I had been in contact with on couchsurfing.com, and he arranged for us to be picked up at the train station the moment we stepped off. We were set up in what was essentially a mansion that had been turned into a hostel, only we felt like part of the family. Paul said that he was in the beginning stages of starting a hostel and touring business and was letting people stay for free while he got everything going. Paul ran the place with a couple of friends who cooked us breakfast and dinner, gave us clean sheets and beds to sleep in and never asked for any compensation. There was simply a piggy bank for donations, which we happily contributed to.

Playing a game of kick the ball over the pool at Paul's "No Worries Villa"

On our last night we left the villa and checked into a hostel in the city since we had to leave from there the next morning. We were delighted to find out from Paul that Barcelona's football (soccer) team had a match on Saturday night. We were even more delighted to find out that tickets were only 18 Euros, far less that the £30 to £40 we have been paying for matches in London. The match was at 10 pm, which gave us time to enjoy a couple glasses of sangria at our hostel's bar before we made the trek across the city to the Nou Camp, Barcelona's stadium. The home team far outclassed the visitors, winning 6-0. It was awesome to see Thierry Henry, who I've been watching on TV for what seems like most of my life, score a goal in person. However, Samuel Eto'o did steal the show by scoring 4 goals in the first half.

GOAL GOAL GOALASOOOOOO!!!

A fantastic weekend in the seaside city was the culmination of my travels here in Europe. It's been great getting to see some places I never thought I would. My time abroad is running short and I'll be in London for the next two weeks before flying home. I have always thought traveling to be an invaluable method of learning about different people and cultures. You can gain experiences that will give you an understanding of the world that no book ever could. On that note, I always find myself coming back to this quotation by Saint Augustine; "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page."

A Global Election

Barack Obama is going to be the next president of the United States and the entire world is watching, not just Americans. I had never expected to see so much about the US election overseas but news of the election is everywhere. Working abroad in an international city just makes the global impact of this election that much more apparent. The overwhelming consensus leading up to November 4th was that if the world could vote, Obama would have no competition. As it turns out, it was still a comprehensive win. The feeling that I've experienced in the past few days is that rest of the world is just as excited about the results as the majority of Americans are.

All of us TWC interns stayed up until 4 or 5am on Tuesday night to watch the election coverage in our flats. It was no secret that most all of us, sans one or two slightly confused individuals, cast our absentee votes for Obama. Some people were given the next day off from work and had a little more freedom to celebrate than others. I was in bed by 4am after Obama's win had been secured since I still had work in the morning. However I was woken an hour or two later by the joyous cheers of my flatmates outside my window in the street. I just smiled, rolled over and fell back asleep. Apparently the other inhabitants of our building weren't quite as amused as we all got a warning email the next day about the noise. Oh well, perhaps everyone should have been more conscious of our neighbors, however losing 15 minutes of sleep once every four years is pretty negligible in my opinion.

Every single newspaper in London had Obama on the front page the next morning. My co-workers all asked me what I thought about the election. Everyone was at their desks looking at blue and red, but mostly blue, maps of the US on their computers all day long. The general feeling even in London was that people really respected Obama, and even the US population for voting for him. I have to say, that I am often conscious of being American when traveling abroad.

I stay conscious of my accent, the way I dress and the way I act around other cultures, because honestly, and it's no secret, some people are not particularly fond of Americans. Their criticisms are often stereotypes, based on false assumptions, but you still have to be careful of your actions. The last thing you want is a confrontation in a place where you don't know the culture, the land or the laws. But, for the first time in my lifetime, I think there has been an immediate positive change in the world's general view of the US, and more importantly, Americans.

A story in one of the free London papers described how a US journalist was traveling on a bus in Vienna the day after the election when a woman walked up and kissed after him hearing his American accent. I have been approached by a couple Londoners simply looking at me and saying "Obama!" with a fist-pump after hearing my accent. My sentiment is that people around the world are looking on us in a much better light than they have in the recent past. I'm not sure if you can truly feel that back home in the states, but I'd like to tell you that I am really noticing it. My favorite front page newspaper headline from London described November 4th, 2008 as "'The day America became a little bit cool again." So, while I still haven't received any unprovoked kisses, the average volume of my voice may go up a couple decibels in the following weeks.

Meeting Mai Predecessor

I've been back to work this week at UK Trade and Investment. I am now interning with the Major Sports Events sector after we changed our name from the Sports and Leisure Infrastructure team. Presumably we changed our name because we deal mainly with major sporting events and the word "infrastructure" causes people to only think about construction when in reality we work with companies that provide all sorts of products and services.

I've been helping our marketing manager, Jessica, with some case studies on UK companies who had success at the Olympics in Beijing this summer. "Success" meaning that the company was able to win or sign a significant business contract and profitably provide their services. We're trying to research how the contracts came about and what the details of the companies' successes are. Some of UK companies we're looking at include the architects of the "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium, the suppliers of the minerals and metals used to make the Olympic Medals, the manufacturers of the device used to test the quality of the swimming pool water, and even the florists who provided over 40 million flowers for display around the Olympic gardens. I have been contacting people in Beijing to help us get more info on these companies. When finished, the case studies will be used for future promotions, events, reports, press releases and speeches.

Interestingly enough, this week I was also able to meet the TWC intern, Mai Le, who worked at UKTI during the summer program, and wrote for the blog as well. She is studying in Madrid this semester and came to London for a weekend visit. She stopped by UKTI to go out to lunch with some of her colleagues from over the summer who are currently my co-workers. It was funny to talk to someone who had the same internship and the same responsibility of writing for the blog. We were able to share stories and laugh about many of the office's idiosyncrasies. We also tried to teach our supervisor Andy how to use chopsticks, not really an endeavor which could be considered a UK "success."

On top of that, Linda and I had been planning on making a Vietnamese noodle recipe called Pho that night, so after finding out Mai was Vietnamese, I mentioned our dinner plans. She got pretty excited, so I invited her back to our flat for dinner. The Pho was delicious as we talked a little more about UKTI and Linda and her discussed different Vietnamese dialects and foods. She soon headed out as she had a flight back to Madrid the next day. It was all a happy coincidence shared over a tasty meal. It was great to meet Mai, although a little like I was catching up with my own ghost… hmmm, and tomorrow's Halloween? Anyway, I've been writing this over my lunch break at work so I have to get back to it and finish up a few things before it's officially the Halloween weekend. I'm not sure what I'm going to be yet, but I do know where I'll be; Amsterdam and western Germany.

Dylan

It's a little windy for a kilt, I'll go with jeans

Last Wednesday night we were all relaxing a bit in our flat when Linda mentioned she and her sister Mary, who is visiting from Canada, had booked bus tickets to go to Edinburgh, Scotland on Thursday for the weekend. Being that I didn't have any plans for the weekend, and I had been wanting to go to Edinburgh, I got on my computer and had soon booked a ticket as well.

Thursday night we got to Victoria bus station, about a 30-45 minute trip from our flat, and of course I forgot my ticket at home. I tried to use my mobile phone to call someone back at the flat so they could look up my confirmation number on my computer, however, even though I had added £10 to my mobile account that day it hadn't gone through so I had to scramble to find change to use the payphone. Eventually I got ahold of Brittany who texted me the number and I was able to hop on to the bus just before it left.

The cozy common room of our hostel

An eight-hour overnight bus ride is not something I would recommend; however, it was cheap and got me to Scotland. We left the station and found the place we were staying, Castle Rock Hostel. The hostel had super friendly staff, was clean and in a great central location. After checking in at around 9:00 am and taking advantage of the cheap but tasty breakfast offered at the hostel, we went on a free walking tour of Edinburgh. Although I'm not generally one to walk around as part of a big touristy group, we were able to see a lot of the city and get some good historical background from our guide, a lively and knowledgeable girl who was also from the US.

The sun came out and I jumped for joy (photo courtesy of a patient Linda)

Early fall colors

Friday night I met up with Colin, who had stayed at Olov's apartment last weekend when Dave and I were there. Colin lives in Edinburgh and he was going to a friend's house party so he invited me along. The party had a summer theme with blow up palm trees and people wearing hula skirts and flip-flops. I was in jeans and a hoodie because I didn't know about the theme. The host of the party said it didn't matter since I'm part Hawaiian, although I think a better excuse is simply that Scotland is freezing cold.

The sun went down and we were out and about

Saturday and Sunday we walked to a few great sights on the outskirts of the city. We saw the Scottish parliament and then went on to Holyrood Park where we hiked up an enormous cliff that looked westward over Edinburgh. The view was really incredible, as one could look down and get a bird's eye view of the cathedrals and castles that appear so ominous when you're looking up from the street. On our way off the cliff we took a bit of a short cut and quickly found ourselves trying to navigate our way down a very steep slope. The cold wind was blowing as we were stepping and sliding down the slick, grassy side of the cliff. A couple times we weren't really sure how to continue without risking a pretty big fall. Things were made more challenging as the three of us couldn't stop laughing at the situation we had gotten ourselves into. Finally we managed to carefully inch our way down to the bottom safely.

Sunset high up on a ridge in Holyrood park

Autumn in Edinburgh brings wind and rainbows

Sunday evening we got our things together and got ready for another overnight bus ride home. After two consecutive weeks of traveling I was happy to get back to London; although I soon checked my email upon arriving home to see Dave had booked two tickets to Germany for Halloween weekend. So I've got one weekend in London before I'm off again to Germany (and maybe a small detour to Amsterdam).