INTERIOR DESIGN!

I got an email today that I passed my portfolio review and that I am officially in the interior design program!!! So excited

This Weekened

So I had a free weekend this weekend and it was amazing!  Friday I went to buy tickets for the Lion King for when my parents are here!  I then went to their hotel to make sure it was not sketchy!  After that Becca and I met Lee for lunch in the Gherkin.  What a cool building.  Becca and I went walking around Covent Garden for the afternoon and went in all the cute shops!  That evening I went out for drinks with Lee's company which was nice.  Just a relaxing evening. 

Satuday was market day.  Becca and I went back to the Borough market for cheesy potatoes then went o Portabello Market.  This market was full of antiques  and then fresh foods and crepes and then fashion.  I got a fresh loaf of bread for a pound!  It was so cool and there was so much there.  We could easily go back and still have tons to see.  

Sunday was Sami's birthday ( Lee's older sister).  I went out to lunch with them for Sunday roast.  It was good, pub food, but nice pub food.  Later that evening I felt sick and it turned into a night of me being sick.  I did not sleep well ( or at all) last night.

This morning I emailed my internship and said I could not go in, I felt awful.  I have been in bed all day, I had a presentation in theater but I could not go.  I have not eaten anything all day.  I am starting to feel better but I have no appetite and no energy.  It has taken me all day to write this.  I am starting to feel better, so I am sure by tomorrow I will feel better.  I am fine though!

Cant wait to not be sick.  

On a positive note, I leave for Italy in a week from today!  

Spring Day

If you have not read my long post it is below, from this weekend!
Just wanted to post something quickly to say what a wonderful Spring day it was today!  I had to put a dress on because it is just that weather!  If anyone cares, I am venturing out with the fashion.  I wore something I would have never worn before London.  I had a sweater over my dress so it looked like a skirt and sweater, was nice!
Had a great day at my internship!  Working with paint colors and running some errands outside to tile stores and paint stores!  Had so much fun!
I made Lee a delicious dinner of pesto pizza on Naan bread with chicken and onions and then green beans! It was so good and so easy to make!
Just a quick hello :)
Love this weather!

Oxford, Liverpool and the start of this week!

I know it has been a bit since I blogged but I have not gotten a chance.  We were away from Friday morning until Sunday night and the past few days have been crazy!
OK so I will start!
Friday, we left early in the morning and we took a bus to Blenheim palace and stopped there for a while and walked around and did a tour.  This was the palace where Winston Churchill was born in and a Duke of Marlborough lives there.  It was an interesting place with the most amazing ceilings!  I could not take any pictures inside.

Blenheim Palace

After that we went on the bus to Oxford!  On these nice bus rides we took some nice naps!  Oxford is not on the way to Liverpool but it was great to stop at anyway!
So when we got to Oxford we had lunch at this cute cafe and walked around a little and then went on a guided tour!  This tour took us all around Oxford University showing us the colleges inside it.  (If you go to oxford university, you also have to attend a college inside of it.  There are about 200 colleges all included in Oxford University.)
Our tour took us around dthe city and colleges and also showed us some iconic Harry Potter locations!

The Eagle and Child Pub, it is where alot of famous writers wrote in Oxford! 

The Dining Hall that the Dining Hall in Harry Potter was based off of! ( Oxford would not let them film in this one so they had to make a whole new one for the set)

Oxford Chapel, the most beautiful building! 

Another building where some scene in Harry Potter was filmed.  

The official Oxford logo! 

Those are some main sites from our Oxford tour.  After that we drove to Liverpool.  We got to the hotel at about 8 pm and were starving but had no idea where anything was in Liverpool because we had just gotten there so we all ate in the hotel restaurant!  It was pretty good!  After that we ventured out to explore Liverpool.  I asked the man at the desk at the hotel where a nice place to go out for the evening would be and he showed me on the map.  After getting to where he told us (Matthew Street) we realized that the average age for all the places on this street was about 40.  We walked around alittle and then went back to the hotel to relax and sleep.  

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel!  All you can eat!  It was so good and we ate a ton!  It had English breakfast food like beans, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms etc. but there was also toast, tea, fruit, cereal and muffins!  I stuck with the food that I like to eat!  After we stuffed ourselves with breakfast we went to the Liverpool Museaum with the group to go to the Slavery Exhibit.  It has gotten awards.  It was pretty interesting but it was on the 3rd floor and was about 100 degrees!  I had on about 10 layers that I had to take off and carry throughout the museum!

Later that day we went to the Beatles museum!!  It was so cool because I learned about the history of the group not just the famous members.  I learned so much about the Beatles that I did not know before.  We stayed in there for about 3 hours!!  
The next day we left the hotel early and went driving for 2 hours to the Black Living Museum.  We had no idea what to expect but when we got there we found out it was a lot like colonial Williamsburg!  We are lunch there then did a tour of the tunnels in a boat which were like limestone covered walls!  It was really cool but was cold when you are 30 feet below ground.
We got back at like 7 and Lee came over and had dinner here...a good old Dominoes pizza!  I did not feel like cooking so that was the way to go!  The Dominoes here is not as good as home!
THis week has been great so far!
Monday I went to my internship in the morning and did alot of ordering for the bathroom project we are doing.  I feel so involved in it all and it is amazing!  I talked to the client and also the vendors to make sure our order is perfect.  I then had theater class where we talked about the show we would see called She Stoops to Conquer!  It was hilarious!  Was an amazing play!
Tuesday I had my media class in the morning where we went to a Greek Radio Station and got shown around there..it was interesting to see the rooms they had and their radio room!  After that I had Culture by Design where we talked about brands and fashion so for our outing we went to the mall...Westfield of London!!  One of the biggest malls in Britain.  HE gave us some tasks to observe the higher class stores ( Louis Voutton, Dior, Tiffanys, Prada, etc) and then we had some time once we did that to go into normal priced stores!  It was a great outing!  We then talked about brands and how people act in places like that. It was interesting.
Today I went to my internship in the morning and then I had art history!  We are now on the Rococo period of art which is my favorite period of art!  We went to the Wallace Collection ( look it up) and it is a building set in the 18th century with work from the 18th century.  Crowned molding, gold everywhere, the most amazing inside!  And it was Mr. Wallace's house and he donated it when he died!
http://www.wallacecollection.org/

It is now Wednesday evening and I realized how much work I have to do! I am about to start some homework!!
That blog post took forever to write!

Bye!

Edinburgh Weekend

What a weekend!
We went to Edinburgh this weekend for 4 days, it was a long 4 days but it was really great!  We left and took the train at 8 on Friday morning.  Once we got there in mid afternoon we checked in the hotel then started our day!  The hotel was much nicer than we expected!
After the hotel we did an open bus tour of the city.  It was so cold out but we stayed outside so we could get good pictures.  For being such a small city it was a pretty long tour! We were freezing by the end of the tour, even with gloves, scarves, hats etc on! This tour was good because we started to figure out where things were, we caught onto the city pretty quickly.  After the bus tour we were starving so dinner time!  We found this all you can eat chinese buffet and it looked good!  We pretty much ate the entire restaurant!  It was really good food!  After that we went back to the hotel for a quick rest and then went exploring more.  We ended up at this pub which was really cool and historic looking.

Saturday, we had most of the day to ourselves but in the morning we went on a tour of Edinburg Castle.  After that we decided to grab a quick lunch at this cute restaurant.  They ended up being a big whisky place but we just needed lunch.  The man that ran the restaurant was so nice and told us some cool things to do while we were here.  After that we made a quick stop into the Museum of Childhood which was cute, it was small so we went through it in like 30 minutes.  Then the fun began, we hiked up Arthurs Seat...to the very top!   It was not a path to the top, we hiked up rocks, some rock steps which were difficult to climb on, and more rocky paths.  To the tip top, it took about 3 hours.  I was prepared and had a water bottle and digestives ( chocolate biscuits ) in my bag!  My mom taught me well!   Once we got to the top it was the most beautiful view.  Once we caught our breath and sat down for a few we just walked around looking at all the city!  We got a lot of cool pictures!
After taking our time up there, we climbed down!  That was a tiring hike!  That evening we went to this bar called the barking dog, or something like that.  It was a bar that brewed their own beer.  It was gross stuff, dark and all tasted bad!  We got to try some of them to find the one we liked the best, but none of them were good!  As I was in there I was thinking, my dad would love this place! The guys in our group loved it and got angry when all the girls wanted to leave because we were tired of smelling the beer!
Sunday, we went on a Highlands tour all day.  This tour was a nice bus and the bus driver talked the entire 2 hour drive to the first stop which was a loch.  He told us what we were passing and history of Scotland.  I only fell asleep for a little bit of it so I got some of the information.
Our first stop was a Loch where it was really pretty because the sun was still rising so it was really nice!  The second stop was a small town where we had lunch.  It was all in the highlands so everywhere was not too crowded with people and everyone was very nice.  The third stop was the castle where Monty Python was filmed!  It was cool to see it!  The last stop on this long day was the Sterling Castle.  It was really pretty but by this time we had seen a lot of castles and did not spend too long there!  We came back and then went to the oldest pub in Scotland!  It had live music and was really historic!
The next morning, Monday, we had nothing planned expect to be at the train station at 5 to leave.  We got to sleep in some and then we went out exploring!  We went along streets we had seen all weekend and had not gotten the chance to stop at.  We also had lunch at the Elephant House which is where JK Rowling started her first Harry Potter book!  It was a really cool place and the bathroom was covered with people writing notes to JK Rowling or just about Harry Potter!
We finally got back to London at about 10:30 pm, which we then had to wake up for class at 8 the next day!
Yesterday I had 2 classes and we did a cool outing for one of them.  For culture by design we went to the Brand Museum which has every decade and important things from that decade it then has the development of products through time.  So it had the Johnson's baby powder bottle from its first one made to how it developed to now.  It was really cool to see how it changed!
Last night, Tuesday, I went to a West Ham game with Lee and his dad!  It was a really fun game!  They drew ( tied) 1-1 but it was really fun!
Been a busy past few days!! I am going to Liverpool this weekend!
It is starting to get to be nicer weather here!

Tonight we are seeing a play for theater called A man and two governors.  It is supposed to be really good!  We all had to read the play so it should be cool to see how they compare!

This week

I figured I better blog before this weekend because after this weekend I will have a lot to blog about.  We leave tomorrow morning early for Edinburgh!  Should be a great weekend!  I cant wait to go!
So this week.  Standard week of classes...for London that is!
Monday I had my internship in the morning and then I had theater class.  For my internship I started drawing some sketches for the piece of furniture I am designing.  We did not see a show this week for theater because we are missing class next Monday because we will be in Scotland, so we cannot talk about the show.
Tuesday, I had 2 classes.  For our outings we went to the British Library and saw the Magna Carta and the Beatles documents and alot of stuff like that.  It was cool!  For Culture by Design we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  We looked at the contemporary design work, it was really cool!  I love that class.  Side note...I got that class to count for art history so I am taking technically 2 art history classes here so I will finish my art history minor sooner than I thought!
Wednesday I got to my internship and then they told me about my next project.  I was to go to the Chelsea Harbor Design Center (a mall like place of all vendors for fabrics, tiles etc).  I had to find tiebacks for cutrains for a client and had the fabric sample with me.  It is a massive place so it was good that I was only looking for something that they did not have a massive amount of lines for.  Every store/vendor had diferent ones so I photographed, ordered samples and gave out my business card to them to get in contact.  Now it is time to present them to the client and find out lead times and prices for all of them.
Today, Thursday, I went to my internship all day, we went to the Surface Design Show.  It was amazing!  I am so happy I am getting out and seeing so much for my internship and not just sitting at a desk.  It is great!  The design show was a lot of vendors with glass surfaces, tiles and metals.  Not as much fabric more wall coverings and stuff.  I learned a lot about companies.  Tony who went with me (he is a designer for the company) was teaching me questions to ask to companies just by leading and talking to alot of vendors.
Had lunch at an amazing burger place called Byron!  It was so good! I had a root beer float also!
Tonight we are going to see a movie at the Odeon Theater.  It is a theater where most premiers are done.
Tomorrow we are going to Edinburgh.  I will post after my awesome weekend in Scotland!!
Having a great time still!!!

Friday through the weekend

So I think I left off at Thursday.
Thursday is my internship day.  I went to my internship all day, obviously with the break for Pret A Mange ( best sandwich place ever, dont worry there is one on every corner here).  I have had a good experience with my internship so far.  Thursday I was working on designing this furniture unit for behind the sofa in the studio.  I am still working on it and once I have a plan and a nice drawing and dimensions it will get made!  How cool is that.  I am also designing a cushion for a bench in the studio. I will chose the style, fabric, trim and do sketches.  I took dimensions of the spaces Thursday so I can continue to work on that.  Thursday night I came back and made lee a nice dinner of stuffed red peppers.  It was nice to have a dinner that wasn't pasta or frozen pizza.  When i went to the store I wanted to find quinoa but I had to settle for cous cous! oh well!  Friday we had a free day.  After sleeping in a little bit Becca and I went to our local shops and I found a bigger purse!  It is cute and was cheap!  Then the fun began, we went to explore Harrods.  So I thought I knew Harrods pretty well since I had been once...but I was wrong!  We got a map of the store and went to all the rooms ( even the floor on the top with pets in it).  We played the game, find the most expensive thing and guess the price.  When we were in the kids department we found a simple Dolce and Gabana dress for....700 pounds...for a little girl!  That is one spoiled girl!  We were exhausted after spending hours in that store.  Friday night I went to a Alumni Shabbat with Lee for camp.  It was a lot of camp people from England and we had a nice meal and just hung out!  It was really great!
*reoccurring theme on this trip...food!

Potatoes over hot melted cheese!

Saturday we had another free day so we went exploring.  First we went to the Borough Market.  This place had the most amazing food ever!  It was so much food and so great!  Lunch was awesome!  The picture is on the right.  They took a massive wheel of cheese and would melt it so the top was hot, then push it off onto the potatoes!  It was so good!!!
I will be going back there and bringing my parents back there!  They had nice fresh produce so I got some fruit!

After that we went to explore the Highgate cemetery.  It is a famous cemetery where Karl Marks is buried.  This place was similar to the famous cemetery in Argentina.  We walked around some, it was pretty creepy.  After that we came back here and defrosted and relaxed.  It was a long day outside in really cold weather.
Saturday evening we went out.  On our walk to the tube it was snowing so much!  Obviously, massive snow ball fights broke out!
Today, lazy sunday!
Doing homework for the week and relaxing!

I really love that even when we have free days, we dont just sit around, we come up with stuff to do and go off and explore.  Today we were going to take a day trip but the snow changed all our plans because alot of the tube lines are shut or slow.  Would have been a pain!
So snowy outside!!

Another great start to my week!

So I am blogging again, I think I am doing pretty well keeping up with this!
Its Wednesday afternoon...I just got back from my internship and I have class in an hour so I have some down time for about an hour.
Monday, I had my internship in the morning where the guy did not show up becuase he was sick.  I came back that morning and relaxed and did homework until my class.  My class in the afternoon was London Theater.  We talked about last weeks play ( the ladykillers).  Our discussion focused on humor and exaggerating situations with humor as opposed to a subtle style of show like The Mouse Trap.  It was pretty interesting.  We then talked about going to see MATILDA!  Our tickets were for Tuesday night ( last night).  We were all so excited to see it!

Tuesday, I had 2 classes.  British Media and Society and then Culture by Design.   In the first class we talked about history of interesting places and how they help facilitate the communication in that place.  I wasn't following the conversation fully, I was doodling!  We then went on a walk around Covent Garden, Leister Square area.  We stopped at various theaters and were told about the places.  We stopped at the National Opera House and went around there and were discussing important things about that.  It was cool to hear about the Opera House.  While in there we found out they are doing Alice and Wonderland the ballet in a month.  I then saw later that they sell discount ( 1/2 price tickets) on the streets to the Opera House.  Its like it is destined for me to see it!
Later that day, I had culture by design where we talked about photographs.  He showed us two pictures of september 11th and we had to argue which would be best in a history textbook for 50 years from now.  The pictures were drastically different, so it was a good debate.  We then went to the National Portrat Gallery where we looked at the exhibit Taylor Wessing.  It is leaving in about a week so we got lucky we could see it.  Our teacher works at the portrait gallery so he has the insider scoop!
Right after that we went to Matilda.  Stopped at a cute pizza shop on the way to the theater.  Matilda was amazing!!  I have never seen anything like this show.  The set was amazing and it had more special effects then I expected.  Matilda in it was adorable!!
Today, I went to my internship in the morning.  I had a great time there.  I worked on a spreadsheet of the items for the clients bathroom we were working on.  It got me more comfortable with brands in London for fabric and items.  I also signed myself up to go with the guy designer on Thursday to a massive design festival.  That is next Thursday, so that is great!
About to head to class!!
All i do is eat and drink tea here!! Oh it snowed a tiny bit yesterday while we were on our walk...even with 100 layers on I was still freezing
It hasnt rained in te past few days which is good because my purse is too small to carry my umbrella around with me all the time, this weekends goal is to get a bigger purse!
Havent stopped smiling or laughing since I have gotten here!