Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Hm yes lets go to a huge parade right before our flight....

So as I discussed earlier (I think)- I went to the massive Nottinghill carnival on the bank holiday. Anyway as I was preparing to leave (ie waiting in a massive q to cross the street) this girl from somewhere that required an accent pushed through claiming she had a flight to catch. My first thought was weird why would you go to a really crowded carnival when you had a flight in a few hours (bear in mind this girl had no case with her and was no where near the airport). Anyway she wanted out but the police told her to wait her turn. Her solution was then to climb over the gate when the police officer turned his back (stupid). They grabbed her- nearly arrested her- then put her back. About two minutes later our group was allowed to leave (patience is a virtue). Anyway she runs down the road only to suddenly slow at a pastry shop then stop walk back to the window and begin to examine the cakes! ( I cant make this up). This is the last I saw of her as I continued to walk faster than her!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

And then I got a stalker

Hello,

So living in London there happen to be India restaurants every five feet. So even though my gym is only a block away I have to pass one. This Indian restaurant looks really nice on the outside and the food was decent when Chris and I ate there but it was not the greatest. That is not the problem though. The problem lies in the fact that a guy stands outside the door dressed up every night. It is ALWAYS the same guy 7 days a week. He recognizes me on my walk to the gym about everyday. The first few days of this walk he just tried to give me his little flier. The next few days he upgraded to saying hello or something else I could not understand, but now he has upgraded to being a bit fresh ...."you look very very pretty today" was the most recent. Even when I walk up on the other side of the road he still shouts! I have tried not looking at him etc but he is very determined to say hello EVERY time. Any suggestions on how to deal with my stalker?


In other news I love living in London if for no other reason the randomness. My friend visited me today and as we were heading to Soho for some vintage shopping we walked by a very large crowd in Trafalger square. While I thought the passing of the summer Olympics' flag festivities were going to be at the Mall (think DC mall not downtown mall) they were showing it there as well. So we stopped just in time to see good ol' Borris take the flag and magically the shot cut to all the crowd in London so you could say we were on tv for the olympics :)

Then as we carried on walking down the street we suddenly saw a ton of bubbles. Turns out it was this man in a tiny old fashion truck that not only blew bubbles but sang! (Well the man sang) And he just road down the street singing into a mic that played outside the car and blew bubbles!

Gotta love London!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

For Internal Use Only....

Hello,

Things have been mostly mundane lately so I haven't felt the need to put anything on paper, work, workout, eat, sleep, visit Chris in Reading that is about it. Then filing papers today I came across several with the stamp "for internal use only" well the only other time I have seen that exact phrasing is on a monastat box so I found it hilarious. Maybe I am alone in this discovery?


In other news there is a woman in our office who might die if she stops talking. I literally here her voice ALL day. She carries on a conversation with each person on her team then once she runs out of things to say to them she begins her calls, some of them work calls some of them personal. The really annoying bit about it is, when she is talking to other team members you only hear one side of the conversation (hers). Yes she is loud- most likely the only reason I hear her voice all day!

In other news I got to "do a deal on my own" yesterday. I say on my own but the underwriters had already agreed to sign the change to the wording. But I still had to go find the building on my own and then find the person in the office. The woman I spoke to was me to a scary degree. Not only were all of her office supplies PINK. But she had a pink fuzzy frame of her and her hubby as well as pink fluffy pens and various other pink memorabilia (it was a little scary even for me). And this was at an important London insurance company!

The rest of this week should be simple minus going to Parliament for drinks with Alice (yes she is cool and can get me in so we can have cheap drinks). Hopefully this Saturday I will go to the Reading Festival (check it out on google the line up is not half bad although I am guessing Margaret will be the most jealous).

Hope everyone is doing well.

x
me

PS Lisa Parker rocks my socks!

Monday, August 11, 2008


The spurs v roma game

And then I went swimming in the street....

Hello,

SO this weekend was a very very wet one! I headed to Reading on Friday night (bad idea as the train was well packed) and got to see the bf's house for the first time. Wasn't nearly as bad as a bachelor pad could be. The next day I was tricked into helping set up for their house warming party (just kidding didn't mind helping). Although the helping included things such as removing the front doors (long story). The BBQ went well aside from the fact that it took about two hours for them to get the grill going due to all the rain! The next day we headed back up to London for my first professional football match. We saw the Tottenham Hotspurs play (well kick the ass of really) AS Roma. Chris, his sister, and cousin, were well pleased as they are all fans, although I was sad to see any team from my beloved Italy get the crap kicked out of. It was an experience however. I got separated from the group and went to the bathroom, just as massive thundering and shaking of the stadium started- an entire stadium stomping and shouting at once = scary! In fact in one cheer which encourages fans who hate Arsenal (their enemy) to stand up, no one is actually supposed to stand up anymore for fear of making the bleachers collapse! (I am sure the stadium is not that flimsy though). Although it was pretty funny to hear an entire 40,000 people go "ooo" at the same time. Excellent place to go people watching. This week at work will hopefully go well- already been in Lloyds again. That's it for now!

x
me

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

My new job


Hello,

For those of you keeping track I ended by job with the law firm on Friday (was only a two week to do) And started Monday with RK Harrison. It is an insurance brokerage ie. people come wanting to get certain policies and they dive out into the insurance world and find companies to cover their client. It is pretty interesting when they have work for me (August is a slow month). I have actually worked on the presentation for one of the submissions almost all on my own (pretty exciting). My team is all guys so I have advised on things such as: what to do for a one year wedding anniversary, what is a good chick flick, and pick up lines. (They are a pretty interesting bunch). While there is the occasional binding task for me, they do try hard to get me to learn a thing or two. Today I actually got to take a tour of the Lloyd building (above). Basically its where oodles of syndicates (the people who provide the insurance) work. Most of the brokers go over at least once a day and throughout my time with them, they will occasionally take me with them (like today). What is even cooler is that some days I will get to sit in a box with an underwriter and watch for a few hours. (Clearly I am just trying to find jobs that get me into cool buildings in London).

Not much else to report at the moment.

Ps to explain the building...property at Lloyds is $$$$ so they wanted to fit as many syndicates in as possible (get more $$$). So everything else is on the outside; stairs, elevators, air shafts. Needless to say not very pretty (but pretty sweet on the inside, especially since the escalators are clear!)

x
me

Sunday, August 3, 2008