Morgan Freeman Said I Should Stay in London

Luckily on Monday morning, my professor decided to do one on one meetings with students about their final papers instead of having class. He met with each student for 10 minutes each, in alphabetical order. Because I have the last name Wermers, I was at the end of the times which meant that I didn't have to meet him until 12:30 which left me with a free morning. 

Rose was also free Monday morning so we woke up around 9:30 and we were out of the house around 10. We made our way to Portabello Market because Rose wanted to do a little souvenir shopping and I wanted to get food from the market for breakfast because I still think about that donut that I ate months ago and I wanted another one more than anything.

However, we were sad to find out that although the market was open, it was no where as crowded or fun as it is on the weekends. Most of the stands were just setting up and the stores weren't open yet. We walked through where the market would've been and grabbed a bus back to our flat so we could eat lunch there. We hung out for a bit before I had to run to CAPA for my meeting about my final paper.

The professor was running late with his meeting times so my meeting was a little later than I expected, but we didn't have much to talk about because my professor seemed to like my topic for the paper and I was on my way.

During my break between classes, Emily Mason and I ran to Sainsbury to grab lunch before we started working on our British Advertising final. 

We were given a product and expected to pitch an advertising campaign/advert to a client. Our product was a microwaveable omelette and as wonderful as this project sounded, we had learned nothing about pitching an advertising campaign to a client or how to even come up with one which was frustrating because they are quite vague here and don't offer much instruction when it comes to projects.

Thankfully we were able to bother dad at work and he helped us with brainstorming and the general process of how an ad pitch goes. 

For dinner, we went to Zippy's (surprise)! We only have so many days left of our Monday night tradition and with finals coming up, we knew people would start to get busy so we wanted to make sure that we at least got one last visit in.

On Tuesday, I worked. I wrote a blog for the website, changed the content of one of the documents in the toolkit to make sure that it was social media appropriate and as easy as possible to use for companies for the entirety of the day.

That night, Emily Mason and I made our way to the British Film Institute because we had to do a field visit for our film class. It was a little confusing trying to find the Reuben Library and the Mediatheque. In fact, we only found the Reuben Library (it turns out that the mediatheque is closed until the end of April which is why we couldn't find it). 

The Reuben Library was at least a little cool. I thought the library and the mediatheque were the same room so I was quite confused on what was happening and it was nothing like I imagined it would be. However, knowing what I know now, it all makes sense.

On Wednesday, I only had a half day of work because there wasn't much to do. While at work, CAPA advertised that they had an extra ticket for the Ceremony of the Keys that night. Rose had won a ticket earlier on in the semester, so I quickly emailed CAPA and was lucky enough to get a ticket for the event.

After work, I went home to hang out with Emilia before we left the house to grab some take away because we were planning on picnicking for dinner.

We grabbed some pizza and wine before we met Liz by CAPA and got on the tube towards Primrose Hill. We ate dinner and watched the sun start to set before it started to get too cold and we had to leave. 

Also, Harry Styles lives by Primrose Hill. That's all I gotta say about that. 

From Primrose Hill, Rose and I made our way towards the Tower of London for the Ceremony of the Keys! 

When we arrived to the Tower, we were greeted by a CAPA staff member and a few other students. We waited until 9:30 before we were met by Yeomen (aka Beefeaters). From there, we walked through the main hallway and waited at an inner gate. From there, we waited for Queen's Guards to walk through the gate and lead us to a ceremony that has been completed every night for the last 700 years. It was short, but still something that I'd recommend if you happen to know what you're doing a year from now because the event is sold out for the next year. 

On Thursday morning, it was time for our presentation for advertisement class. We happened to have about 30 slides while it felt like most of the other groups presenting had less than 10, which made us quite nervous. However, it seemed to go well and we were happy with the final product and the way that we presented it. 

For my afternoon marketing class, we had a guest speaker who taught the class and I actually enjoyed the lecture that day. Part of me wished that Dr. Sam was my normal professor for that class to be honest with you. 

Friday morning, Billy, Emilia, Colleen and I made our way back to the Victoria Bus Station to get on a bus to go to Cardiff, Wales. 

We arrived in front of Cardiff Castle on a picture perfect day, but decided that after the four hour bus ride, we wanted to eat before we did anything touristy. We found a pizza place with VERY subpar food at best, but it filled us up and we started with the tourist attractions.

The first was the Cardiff Castle. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It seemed more like a park to me than a castle area, but it was still beautiful. We did some gift shopping quickly before walking by the shops that lined the main street. 

From there, we made our way to Cardiff Bay where we walked around the area, passing Roald Dahl Plass which is just a public space near the bay that is named after one of my favorite authors growing up. We walked by the Doctor Who Experience before resting by the bay. 

On the way back to the bus station, we passed the new performing arts center which was beautiful and home to some BBC offices, along with stages for performances and a few restaurants.

Saturday we knew we had a rugby game to go to later in the day, so we couldn't go too far, but we definitely didn't want to waste the rest of the day. Emily Mason, Billy, Rose and I decided that we wanted to see Abbey Road because Emily, Rose and I hadn't been there yet and it was a beautiful day. 

Outside the tube station, we walked a block or so when we saw a street sign labeled "Waverly Place" and we paused to take pictures of it because of Wizards of Waverly Place. Rose captions her snapchat of the sign "everything is not what it seems" and that' basically described the next hour or so of our lives. 

We made our way to Abbey Road, instantly annoyed by the fact that there was construction in the area that would be in our picture. On top of that, there were cameras everywhere at the time we had no idea what was going on and didn't really make an effort to figure out what was happening because we were too focused on trying to figure out how to get the PERFECT Abbey Road picture (which is borderline impossible). 

Billy overheard something about a Morgan Freeman documentary and we were all confused on what kind of documentary they could be filming about Morgan Freeman without Morgan Freeman present. 

Some nice girl behind us in line offered to take our picture and although the angle isn't 100% right, the picture turned out pretty well and most of the construction was covered by Rose's body. 

As we crossed the street, a lady from the crew told us that they had filmed us while we crossed and asked for permission to use the footage in the documentary, mentioning something about National Geographics which also didn't make sense to me, but we still signed her paperwork and what not. 

We walked towards the studio to take pictures and read the writing that covered the walls from Beatles' fans who had visited before us. From there, we wandered into the gift shop next door and printed our photo from the crosswalk onto a polaroid that was specially designed for Abbey Road. We looked around the store a little bit more before walking outside and seeing a tall, African American figure where we had been about 15 minutes ago and a sudden realization washed over all of us as we stared at each other and wondered if the figure that we were seeing belonged to Morgan Freeman. 

We ran across the street and walked by the product, being quickly rushed along so that we weren't in the shot. Lone behold, there Morgan Freeman was in the flesh and we quietly freaked out, trying to get pictures of the man, the myth, the legend. We stood there and listened him to about five or six takes of his speech. His voice sounded even better in person and it was insane hearing the voice that narrates everything speak in front of me. Morgan Freeman joked along with the cast and in that moment I decided that he was probably the nicest human being ever and that I wanted him to adopt me. 

On top of that, we waved at him in-between takes and he smiled at us which means that he knows that we are live and that's enough for me. I literally felt like I had just been blessed. 

Once they got a good take, the rushed Morgan Freeman into his car and he sat there before they moved him onto the next filming location. We stood there in disbelief a little bit longer before deciding that we had to continue our day. 

From there, we went to Camden Market to make it in time for the opening of the Cheese Bar. We'd tried to go to this restaurant previously, but the line was an hour long and we decided not to go. However, because we were there early, we were able to get seated to enjoy the cheesy goodness that was the Cheese Bar food. And yes, everything on the menu was cheese based. I ordered mozzarella sticks and I wish more people could've seen how far the cheese stretched when I bit into the mozzarella stick. It was melty and beautiful and I would highly recommend the Cheese Bar.

After lunch, we walked around Camden and into a shop called CyberDogs (I think), which was basically a rave shop on steroids. It was an interesting experience and the music was good. 

From there, we met up with Tori to head to the Rugby Match because incase you didn't know, Saturday's a Rugby day. It was Derby Day which meant that the two teams that we were seeing were rivals which made it even more exciting because that meant that the crowd would be rowdy. Because of the fact that it was Derby Day, there was a pre-show and half time concert from Louisa Johnson who was the winner of the most recent season of X Factor UK. 

Rugby has been a sport that I've been trying to understand because I have so many good friends who play the sport and I knew basically nothing about the sport. Even watching the game, I was just confused on why. That's it. I was confused on why. I did enjoy watching a sport that involved so much heavy contact and had beautiful men playing. Rose's dream man, Owen Farrell was playing and I've never seen Rose cry but I'm almost 99.9% sure that she cried when he came out. During the game, Rose had managed to befriend a few older British men who were a little confused on why this group of teenage girls from America were at a rugby match.

The Saracens beat the Harlequins 40-19 and we were happy about the outcome. 

On Sunday, Rose and I decided to go to the Olympic Stadium because it was another beautiful day and we had nothing to do otherwise. We took the train to the end of zone two and were able to walk to the stadiums from there. We walked through the Olympic Village and around various stadiums including the aquatic center and the main stadium which is now home to West Ham United before making our last stop by the Olympic rings. 

We finished our time at the Olympic Stadium a lot quicker than we had expected, so we decided to head into the touristy part of London and made our way to the Tower Bridge Experience which allows people to walk into the bridge and stand on glass panels above the busy street below. It was definitely a complete tourist trap and we're not going to deny that, but we had friends who had done it and we figured why not? 

We had planned to go to the Tower of London after, walking over the bridge and towards the fortress, but because it was such a beautiful day, the place was packed and there was an hour line to see the crown jewels so we decided that we'd come next weekend and be here when it opened because we didn't want to wait in an hour line to see the crown jewels. However, both Rose and I were hungry so we decided to get fish and chips from a stand close to the Tower of London because we had seen people walking around with them and we were impressed. 

After lunch, we headed home to relax and take some naps before we drowned ourselves in school work in prep for finals week. 

On Monday morning in my movie class, we watched a movie called Secrets and Lies and I would have to say that this was genuinely my least favorite movie that we watched the entire semester. The one main character was extremely annoying and there were so many different plot lines that didn't make sense until the last few minutes of the movie. 

During the break between classes, instead of just sitting there for a few hours, I dragged Emily Mason and Billy and I took a half hour tube ride to Leadenhall Market which was the original inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies. I think the first one might've been filmed there, but I'm not 100% sure to be honest. 

After a quick visit to the market, we headed back to CAPA where we did some school work before we suffered through another internship class and thought about how close we were to never having to set foot back in the class. 

Tuesday I worked at Women's Trust for a few hours in the morning, trying to think of any last minute touches I could throw onto the design because I was presenting the design to Pamela, who helped with the branding of UK Says No, another organization that we work closely with and Matt, the founder of Latimer Media. Pamela presented me with more branding knowledge, trying to think of the financial costs and how easy it would be to produce or up date these options which was definitely something I hadn't thought about previously. 

After presenting to both of them, we decided on which option we were leaning towards. They both seemed impressed with my work which was quite satisfying considering I've never had to work with the complete branding of a project before. It was actually something that I really enjoyed. 

Wednesday was another day in the Women's Trust Office. While there, I worked on creating a digital copy of the two designs that I had created for the toolkit using GIMP which is basically a rip off photoshop but gets the job done. 

On Thursday, we wrapped up the last of the final presentations that we needed to complete in our advertising class which meant that I was officially done with one class and it was bittersweet. I was excited that this class was over because the teacher was monotone and the material was staring to get extra boring, but also sad because I was coming to the realization that the program was almost over. 

In Marketing, we presented our last presentation that counted towards our final. This meant that the only thing left for us was the final paper which we would be working on as a group and would be turned in at the beginning of next week's class. 

That night, CAPA threw an end of the year party at a club in Picadilly Circus. Billy had helped plan the event which gave us more encouragement to actually go because who wants to go to a school sponsored event?

I'm going to have to give it to CAPA student council though because the music was great and seeing a bunch of people I knew on a dance floor was even better. It was nice to just let loose with friends before the stress of finals completely crushed most people's hopes and dreams (probably). 

Good Friday meant that most businesses were closed and everyone who had an internship was off of work. We decided to sleep in a little bit because, again, we couldn't do much because we had finals coming up and needed to prepare for those. So, Rose, Emily Mason and I decided to go to Portabello Market and do some souvenir shopping because we hadn't had a chance to get back to Portabello Market when it was in it's prime (after the failed attempt on a Monday earlier that week). Other than that, Friday was quite uneventful because of the closed businesses and the fact that we had an early morning the next day.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early and got on a bus to go to Oxford as the last day trip we were taking while in London. We walked through Shepherd's Bush and close to the Royal Cresent where we picked up the Oxford Tube and took the few hour journey to Oxford.

We started the day off at a cute little cafe by the bus station where we ate a quick lunch before we went searching for the University which we quickly discovered was everywhere and was housed in almost every building in the town.

What I never realized was that the whole town was basically made of different buildings for the University and that the University wasn't just housed in one confined area like most colleges in America. The town was completely interwoven into the University and I couldn't tell you where one part started and another one ended.

We eventually found the entrance to Christ Church which is part of Oxford, but more importantly is significant to Harry Potter fans. At Christ Church, we saw the inspiration for the Great Hall along with the Bodley Tower and Hall Staircase which were actually used in the Harry Potter franchise itself. 

After Christ Church, we found an open field by the new science building (I believe) that was being built. We laid in the sun for a while and watched a group of guys practice football in a different part of the field before we decided that we wanted to do something else. 

We walked through Oxford to try and find a pub that was recommended to us by a friend, but had no luck finding it so we crossed the street from where we were and entered the Ashmolean Museum. The Ashmolean Museum is the world's first university museum and featured large collections of greek and Egyptian art and artifacts which was interesting because those are two of my favorite subjects when it comes to art and what not. 

We tried to eat dinner at a local, outdoor pub, but the kitchen was so backed up that it would over an hour to get food and we had a time crunch because we were meeting Emilia's sister's boyfriend, Finley, who lived in Oxford and had agreed to show us around quickly, along with take us punting!

This left us with limited options and lead us to Pizza Express, which is a British pizza chain. If you couldn't guess, we had pizza and it was actually pretty good. I wouldn't rank it anywhere close to New York pizza or Chicago pizza, but still enjoyable.

Finley picked us up from dinner and walked us through the Covered Market which was actually right next to where we had eaten dinner. We were a little angry that we had eaten before walking into the market because there seemed to be quite a few cute shops and food places that we could've eaten at. (Like I said, Pizza Express was still good, but market food is always amazing).

From there, we stopped at a Sainsbury to get some wine and snacks for our punting trip. Because there were so many of us, we had to break up into two different boats. One boat was punted by Rose and contained Liz, Billy and me while the other was punted by Finley and contained Emilia and Colleen. I was nervous to go punting just out of the pure fear of the boat tipping, but with a little bit of wine and good music, I forgot all the fear. Punting was actually one of the best experiences and I would highly recommend it to anyone who goes to Oxford or Cambridge. 

The bus ride home was long due to the traffic that we ran into on the way home, but we were all definitely sad to be leaving Oxford. Due to the traffic, the bus ride home consisted of all of us falling asleep. 

Once we arrived home, we made a quick run to Sainsbury for dinner and all sat in our room, watching a movie and eating dinner. 

On Sunday, Emily Mason, Rose and I headed back to the Tower of London before it opened so that we could see the crown jewels with a minimal line. We waited shortly and ran directly towards where the jewels were housed, allowing for a short 10 minute wait, if that, for our opportunity to see the jewels. (I recommend this if you wanna see the crown jewels because the line can get to be over an hour long and standing in that line is the LAST thing you wanna do on a hot day in London).

The building houses more than just the crown jewels themselves. It holds hundreds of millions of dollars of jewels from all the past kings, queens and other royals. You can't take pictures of the jewels themselves, but when you view them, you stand on a conveyor belt that slowly moves you past the jewels which I actually enjoyed because I believe that it gives you enough time while allowing people to not just stand in front of the jewels and ruin other people's chance of seeing it. 

After the jewels, we went out onto the grass by the front entrance so we could go on a free Beefeater tour which was recommended by our friend Billy who had gone previously with his family. Honestly, the Beefeater tour was the most enjoyable part of the day because it gave us more history of the tower along with some fun stories.

Following the tour, we went into the Royal Armory where we saw different weapons and armor. There was some very interesting pieces of armor included in the collection. We left the building and immediately saw how long the line had gotten for the crown jewels and were thankful that we had gone earlier. 

Our final stop at the tower was the bloody tower which was small but had the most interesting history. It got its name due to the mysterious murder of two young princes which is believed to have taken place there. 

We looked at the Tower Bridge for what we assumed could be the last time and ended up eating at late lunch at the same fish and chips stand that we had eaten at the previous week and ended up heading home to complete papers and presentations. 

This week marks the last week of the program, which is quite bittersweet because I'm excited to not have to go to work or do school work anymore, but I'm also coming to realize that the program is ending which means that my time in London is coming to an end. 

Monday was the last day with my British contemporary film professor which was a funny day to say the least. Previously, his laptop and phone were stolen, resulting in him resetting ALL of his passwords. This also lead to him forgetting ALL of his passwords and a funny little awkward period for the class while we waited for them to be retrieved.

We watched the movie American Honey which was good, despite the fact that it lacked a plot and seemed to have no conclusion at the end for anything that was discussed in the 2.5 hour movie. 

Finally, it was the last day of the god awful internship class and we talked about adjusting to getting home which literally frazzled me. It was nice to see my friends in the class tho because for many of them, it would be the last time I saw them in person. 

On Tuesday, we switched up my work environment and I was working at Latimer which is the same location for the place that Emily Mason has her internship at. It was nice to work in an environment that played good music and had people my age. Also, I enjoy bothering Emily Mason so there's always that. 

That night, since it was a Tuesday, we did the last visit to Sindercombe for the two for one burger special. We sat at "our" table that we've sat at every time we've gone to Sindercombe and enjoyed the food and drinks. It was quite bittersweet, realising we'd have to leave our local pub, but nonetheless, it was still enjoyable.

BUT ALSO LISTEN. On our walk to Sindercombe, we noticed that our little kebab shop just a few doors down had newspaper covering the glass at the front and we realized that the business was CLOSED for good. It left us extra heart broken and I don't even know why bad things happen to good people. Please don't mention kebabs to us because it is quite triggering.

Wednesday was my last official day at Women's Trust. I have to admit, I didn't really think I'd like working there just due to the age difference and the fact that it's all sad topics talked about all day, but I really did enjoy the company of Heidi and the rest of the Women's Trust employees. Melissa came in for my last day where I showed her the finalized versions of the branding project that I had on my computer. 

Melissa, Heidi and I went out to lunch at Pizza Express that afternoon and just talked and hung out for a few hours as a sort of goodbye lunch for me. It was really nice and on top of that, Melissa and the board presented me with a little mug that read "Act like everything you do makes a difference. It does." It was a really thoughtful gift which Melissa emphasised was true and that I had proved that whilst working at the Corporate Alliance.

I stopped at Westfield Mall after work to grab a few CDs from HMV and a few last minute gifts. On top of that, Emily Mason, Rose & I got some cookies from Ben's Cookies because they are a UK chain and the cookies are AMAZING. (10/10 would recommend).

That night, despite the fact that I didn't want to admit that my time in London was coming to an end, I started packing. 

Thursday was the official last day of the program for me. I started off the day with my last ad class, even tho we all didn't understand why we're were having class due to the fact we did our final presentation the last two weeks. We spent the class talking about car commercials which I guess was alright. 

For my marketing class, we turned in our final papers and then made our way to a class lunch at Nando's which was fun due to the fact I never actually made it to Nando's on my own time. It was also nice to get to talk to my friends in that class one more time before we parted ways.

That night, we all ended up going to commencement due to the fact that we are easily persuaded by the mention of free food and chocolate fountains. We took pictures in the photo booth and listened to the last words from people at the program. On top of the free food, we received goodie bags with a drawstring bag, shirt and some candy. However, if you're Rose or me, you managed to take upwards of eight shirts because first of all, frick you CAPA. Second of all, we deserve all the free things in the world.

To end our Thursday night, we ended up going to Roxy's with other CAPA friends to dance our last late night in London away! It was really the perfect way to end the experience and I couldn't believe that it was over and that I was saying goodbye to some amazing friends and wrapping up the endless memories. 

Friday morning marked the end of the program. My dad flew into London that morning because we had the FA Cup Semi final between Tottenham and Chelsea the next day, along with adventures to Budapest, Bratislava, Krawkow and Amsterdam planned for the next few weeks!

Studying abroad in London was one of the greatest decisions I ever could have made. I made plenty of amazing friends from all over and traveled to places that I never imagined I would get to, along with the experiences they all presented. It made me a more independent person and gave me more confidence in myself, along with providing a new place to call home.