Well, today is the day of my interview with my internship placement. It's pouring down rain here so walking to my school was a bit painful, and not to mention wet and cold. But the school is great and everyone working there who I met were so very friendly. One of the school's buildings is across from the BBC building and apparently paparazzi hang out there often to catch the stars going into the studio for interviews. It seems like an exciting spot! The interview was more of an orientation so I toured the buildings and met the teachers. I think I may be placed in the theater department, which was great and massive. I'm going to love it there! The theater, I believe, is much like SCPS. They put on large scale productions as well as smaller in class ones. The students are also grouped in houses, just like in Harry Potter!! I don't know if they have cool names like Hufflepuff, but they have house colors and tshirts. The one assembly I sat in on had blue as their color. All I could think was OMG they are in Ravenclaw. So freaking awesome. The students were preparing for sports day. Because the school is in central London, they do not have sports facilities so they make field trip like things. Talking to the staff, it's amazing how different the American school system is from the UK. The grade and age match ups are different. They were surprised that my high school did not have final national exams. Maybe that was just SCPS. I don't know. When I told them where I was from, I was told they have no idea where that is but it sounds American. Given the fact that it's in American, I would agree with that! The secretary's son was memorizing all the US states as well as their capitals for fun. Over in the states, we have to memorize that stuff for class. As many of you know, I am hoping to be a high school counselor in the future. I found out that grade school counselors are not very common and most work part time. My contact person told me they had just hired thier counselor and were still working out the kinks in the position. I'm hoping to talk to him about the position, etc. My meeting did not last too long, but I left feeling confident about this! And I walked myself back to my apartment in the pouring rain. My poor shoes.
The rain deterred us from going back out. And on top of that it was raining. However, after growing tired of the television and insane reality television shows, we decided to go do something. It was decided that we would go see The Queen: Art and Image at the National Portrait Gallery.
This particular gallery had portraits of the Queen, comissioned by her people or simply done by other people. They were spectacular! The queen is so beautiful and I absolutely loved seeing all the portraits! Since we were in the gallery, and the rest was free, it would have been a waste of a trip to not walk around and see the rest. Inside were so many portraits of noblemen and royalty as well as scientists and writers. It is so crazy to think that the paintings we saw were the originals and painted centuries ago! There was a beautiful portrait of Diana. After leaving the gallery we made our way around Leicester in search of food. We ended up at Fiori Corner and had a lovely meal. (I can't find their website, but they weren't that great) This place had the hands off customer service that we had been expecting. And we forgot to mention that we wanted tap water and had to pay for water! Ridiculous!
And then came the highlight of the evening. We made our way via Tube to Harrods to begin the tasting of the chocolates. Our plan is to go multiple times and each time try chocolates from a different counter. The man working at the first counter was so fantastic, and cute I may add. He was very patient which we needed and even gave us two free truffles. How sweet! We each ended up with seven truffles, not including our free ones, and were in high anticipation of tasting them! We told him we would most defintely be back. And we will be! We have seven more counters to try out!! Also, note to self. Harrods will take US dollars and if you need change they give it back to you in British pounds. A good way to exchange money! And you get to buy something from Harrods. Below are the chocolates!
So. From left to right: Milk arcade truffle (amazing!), Almond truffle, Coconut truffle, Mint fondant (so delicious!), Roche, Sea Salt caramel cup, and Hazelnut cluster. Basically, best things ever. I cannot wait to go back to the next counter and see what they have!
So we are currently watching football as a good Brit does. Tomorrow is free so we are deciding on what to do!! I love London.
A note on British TV: In many shows, the voice over individual who narrarates the show often makes fun of the people on the show rather than simply tell the viewers what is happening in the scene.
Week Two: Day One: Internship 1
No comments:
Post a Comment