A dreary day in London...

Today was definitely not the best of days for our group in London. We are all really getting frustrated with the way things have been going for us since we left Morgantown for London. We’ve been trying to make the best of the situations put before us, but it is really hard to stay positive when you are looking at everything around you and saying “how did I end up here and why am I staying?”

A group of us (Jessica, Jason, Greta, Erin, Lauren and myself) went over to Waitrose to do some grocery shopping (even though my kitchen is absolutely repulsive and usually filled with horny people who I do not know). On our way to Waitrose, we saw a bunch of paparazzi swarming around this one café. Since we are currently playing the part of the nosey American tourists, we had to stop in and see who they were making a fuss about. A couple of people in our group bought some pastries while a couple of us checked out who the famous girl in the back was. It was Kate Middleton—on again/off again girlfriend to the heir to the British Throne, Prince William. While it is not all as glamorous as it may seem to be, it is still pretty cool. She was trying to keep it as low key as possible and was wearing large sunglasses to conceal herself from the paparazzi. She was kind of asking for it though by spending the night with Wills last night after the concert in his mother’s honor (hey, I’m in Britain, I’m going to keep up with the British gossip if I can!).

After an interesting adventure in grocery shopping in an unfamiliar country, we went to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Unfortunately, since it was being dreary London and raining, the event was cancelled. So we navigated our way back to the dorms, picked up some lunch and then relaxed until our meeting with Anglo American.

The meeting was informative, but seemed to drag on for a very long time. We were given tips for living in London and brief tidbits of information about our internships, but no real useful information to prepare us for what we are getting into as we start our internships over the coming days. We were given directions as far as getting us to through the Tubes to the general location of our internship, but we were not given any street directions, which led to a lot of very unhappy Mountaineers.

On top of that, apparently the internet is out in the entire building except for me. I am definitely not complaining that I have internet, I just wish that everyone else could have it so that we can all feel connected to the outside world in some manner. It was very hectic those first few days not being able to watch TV or read the news on the internet or communicate with our families. A lot of us had planned on using e-mail as our primary means of communication with our family.

Right now, the group is experiencing a lot of ups and downs and as a whole is riding the same emotional roller coaster with no sign of stopping any time soon. It is hard to look forward to things ahead when everyone around us is unhappy. A lot of the residents here do not understand why we do not like our living situation, but they do not know that we were led to believe that we were getting ourselves into something entirely different than what we have found. We are making the best of it. Soon, I am going to start cooking dinners in the kitchen and we will probably just eat it in one of the rooms or try to take over the common room (if it is not being resided in by one of the guys on the floor). Through all of the crap that we are going through, I am really happy that we are pulling together almost like a family and trying to be supportive of one another.

As for tomorrow, I am looking forward to my first day as an intern with Bell Pottinger. I am researching the company to learn about them, but there isn’t much to offer on their website about who they are and what they do. I am very excited though to get started.