It Only Took 3 Months for Me to Find a Member of One Direction. 16 Year Old Me Would Be Disappointed

Monday morning, we watched a Docu-drama called Touching the Void which is a 2003 Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' climb of Siula Grande in the Cordilleria Huayhusah in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. The movie was actually really good once the viewer finds out why the climb was nearly fatal for Joe Simpson and it leaves the viewer on the edge of their seat.

We had presentations in my internship class so it was a generally easy and short class.

Tuesday I was at work all day, working on a some research for my boss and my typical intern duties; nothing really different or exciting about this.

There's a concert venue down the street from us in Shepherd's Bush called the Shepherd Bush O2 (clever, I know). That night, James Arthur was playing and Billy, Emilia and I watched the ticket prices for the sold out show on stubhub all day. One of my goals in London was to see a concert with a British artist. Regardless of if they are big or small, I just wanted to go to a concert. After moving in and seeing the concert venue was a block and a half away, I knew I HAD to attend one.

James Arthur was the perfect option. For those of you who don't know, James Arthur was featured on the British version of the X Factor and is currently breaking into the American market with his single "Say You Won't Let Go" (it's slow, but still a banger).

At 6:00pm, about an hour before doors opened, we bought 15 pound tickets ($23 USD) to go to the general admission concert. We didn't know much of James Arthur's music and we were a little worried that it would just be slow songs, but he came out strong and you could tell the very diverse crowd was eager to see James.

He started with some high energy songs before slowing it down towards the middle of the concert. At some point, Billy noticed that people were looking up to the VIP balcony and tapped me on the shoulder, telling me, "that one guy looks familiar." And lone behold, we were in the same room as Louis Tomlinson from One Direction. Needless to say, the little fangirl inside of me freaked out and I was lucky enough to have fangirl Emilia with me to freak out with. We were so busy low-key freaking out, that we almost missed the fact that Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls was just a few seats over from Louis. She knew James from X Factor and you could tell from her dancing and the excessive amount of kisses that she was blowing at him that she was proud of how far he's come.

Wednesday morning I had meetings in London with my work. We were meeting with a new client. When I walked out of the building, I received a text from my dad that read something along the lines of "There was an attack by Parliament. I'm assuming that you're okay." This was the first I had heard of the attack and I immediately googled it, informing my boss and other colleague who had also started to receive messages from loved ones.

The weirdest part about all of this was that obviously the news stations were covering it and people were concerned, but the people in London didn't seem phased by what had just happened. They took the tube just like any other day and it was almost like nothing was wrong. My friends back home who were snapping me and messaging me seemed more concerned than the people who were actually in London.

Thursday morning, we had more presentations in Advertising class so another easy day in that class. For my Marketing Class, we had a field trip the the Museum of Brands and Advertising, the same museum that I was at the week before. I was not eager, nor excited that we were going back, especially because the first time was boring and I don't know what was going to be different from what I had already seen.

However, for this trip, there was an activity which involved us innovating packaging for a brand and designing new aspects of it. It was interesting and was quite enjoyable if you ask me.

That night, I returned home, made sure that my bag was packed and we were off again! This time, Billy, Emilia, Colleen, Liz and I were off to Edinburgh, Scotland for a day. Yes, a day was an extremely short time to be in a country, but the flight was about an hour and between the round trip flight and the cost of the AirBnB for two nights, it was only $77 a person so we HAD to take advantage of it. The plan was to fly out Thursday night, spend Friday doing a few quick tourist things before flying back midday on Saturday. The reason we didn't stay until Sunday is because we had tickets to a football match (which I'll talk about later).

Getting to our AirBnB was the greatest feeling. Getting to the actual town form the Airport was fairly simple. Our AirBnB was located generally close to the castle which allowed for a great view right before we went to bed and when we woke up the next morning.

Friday morning we woke up, enjoyed the view of the castle and went to a cute little breakfast cafe across the street from our AirBnb with a fun and entertaining waiter who had us all in laughing fits.

We started our day with a walk up to the castle on the hill (Ed Sheeran reference; get it?). We toured the inside of the castle including various bedrooms and chambers, participated in a whisky tasting (brought to us by the cute bartender!!!) and viewed the prisons and the crown jewels for Scotland. From there, we walked down the street to the Camera Obscura.

When we googled things to do in Edinburgh, Camera Obscura was one of the first few things that was recommended so we figured why not!?

Camera Obscura is a building full of illusions and is a tourist attraction towards the beginning of the Royal Mile and located extremely close to the Castle. The illusions were cool because who doesn't love a good illusion. It also kept us entertained for about an hour and a half which was nice because it was a bit chilly outside.

From Camera Obscura, we walked along the Royal Mile where we did our souvenir shopping and stopped along the way to walk into a market and a nice church along the way.

We decided to go to the National Monument of Scotland which was located on Calton hill. On the way there, we walked through more of Edinburgh and even walked by the Balmoral hotel which is known for being one of the most luxurious hotels in Scotland. Beyond that, the hotel is known for the fact that the clock is fast. The hotel does this knowingly. It is located next to the train station so to make sure that people don't miss their trains, they messed up the time a little. The Balmoral hotel is also has a J.K. Rowling suite. In this suite, J.K. Rowling finished writing the Harry Potter series in 2007. For a hefty price, of just about 1000 pounds, people can stay in the room and see where J.K. Rowling ended it all.

Calton hill had a beautiful view that must've rivaled the one that we could've seen from Arthur's Seat (which we unfortunately did not have a chance to climb). The monuments that sat on top of the hill allowed for a great space to just sit and watch the sun start to set. The part surrounding the area was full of locals and tourists eating food or playing with dogs.

For dinner, we stopped at an Italian restaurant and had take away pizzas to eat in the AirBnB so we could charge our phones and rest a little before we went out that night.

We ended the day at a pub to meet Billy's friend who was studying abroad in Edinburgh for the semester. The pub was what I wish we had found in London. It was definitely a young, college kid demographic with a cover band that played popular songs that everyone knew no matter where they were from. People that were older and much older were also scattered among the college students, but we just as enthusiastic as the students whenever songs were covered that they knew. They danced the night away and screamed the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

That Saturday morning, we left the AirBnB early in order to catch a bus back to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 1pm, but we all like to leave early just in case something goes wrong along the way. The flight was short, but we were home by 4pm with enough time to relax and do some homework while we prepared for the next day.

On Sunday, we attended the Lithuania vs. England football match. CAPA, the organization I am studying with here, offered us tickets to the event earlier on in the semester and we were FINALLY getting to use them.

The game was at Wembley stadium which was really cool. It's one of those iconic stadiums and I was happy to be able to see an event there while studying abroad in London because while you can always see the stadiums in a stadium tour, being there with locals and while there's a major sporting event is a different atmosphere.

The thing that bothered Rose and me the most was the fact that people seemed to have no spirit for their team. In line with the British culture, people dressed in dark colours and nice jackets instead of in the colours of their team/country. There were very few jerseys or shirts for the teams being worn and it was weird considering how used we are to Americans going overboard for our national team or just any team in our country.

England ended up beating Lithuania 2-0 and the crowd couldn't be happier.

Monday morning was just another school day. We watched Dirty Pretty Things which is a 2002 movie about an illegal Nigerian immigrant who was a doctor in his home country who finds himself involved in the trading of organs on the black market. This movie started off slow, but once it picked up, it was clever moment after clever moment.

Internship class was internship class, what's new!? The class dragged on with random information that didn't apply to most of us.

For dinner, we continued the tradition of eating at Zippy's! We all got out usual orders and then ended up back at the apartment with our friend Danielle who came to hang out.

The days at my internship are slowly disappearing, band honestly so is my work load which is nice, but also awful. I feel like I'm not doing enough even tho I ask for more work. My boss tends to overestimate how long projects will take me. I continued to format the documents that would be inside the branding project and at this point they should be perfect (I hope).

For dinner, we went to Sindercombe because they were doing a 2-for-1 special and Billy wanted burgers (what's new?).

Wednesday was another day at work which involved me researching the way that the branding of the toolkit could be formatted and trying out a few more designs on paper before I produced a more advanced copy of the formats.

I had my two classes on Thursday which seemed to drag on forever because the weather was nice and I wanted nothing more than to go and lay outside instead of being stuck inside the CAPA building.

On Thursday night, we went to Vue at the mall to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie because everyone had been raving about it and we all wanted to see it. Let me tell you!!!! It was one of the best movies that I've seen in a while and the hype is well deserved. The songs were great (except for the one song the beast sings that I believe is unnecessary, but was still good vocally).

For this Friday, Billy, Emilia and I decided to stay in London instead of traveling because we had been traveling so much and we just needed a break and some sleep. We started the morning in Vauxhall where we walked over the Vauxhall bridge and found ourselves at a cute little petting zoo where we spent a little amount of time.

From there, we took the tube to Holborn station to see the John Soane Museum which was the home of the neo-classical architect by the same name. It contained many projects that he participated in or completed along with a collection of paintings, drawings and antiquities that he assembled.

We had lunch at Fields Bar & Kitchen in Lincoln's Inn Fields before we made our way to the Hunterian Museum. This museum features a grisly history of surgery and medicine with gruesome instruments and preserved specimens. Sure, this sounds gross, but the whole museum seemed like a movie set and it was almost preserved to a point of where I didn't even think it was real. Part of the reason that we went to this museum is because it is closing in May for three years and we wanted to see what is was all about while we had the chance.

On Saturday, Rose, Liz and I started our day at Camden Market because we wanted to try to go to the Cheese Bar which is a new restaurant that was opening in the area. It started as a successful food truck and grew into something bigger and better. Plus, it was another one of those Insider videos that people kept tagging us in so we figured that we had to go and try it! Also, who doesn't love cheese?

Unfortunately, the line was about 45 minutes long and we had planned a day around us so we didn't want to waste upwards of an hour and a half at this cheese bar. We decided to eat at other restaurants or stands in the area.

From there, we went to the Tate Britain because they had a new temporary art exhibit that was put in and we wanted to see it. At this point, we were kind of tired of museums because we've been to so many because all museums are free in London and while we've been traveling, we've been going to them. However, the weather wasn't the nicest and at least it gave us something to do.

For some reason, we were all craving something sweet. We googled "Best Milkshakes in London" because who doesn't love a good milkshake? We found out that this place in covent gardens called Maxwell's has a milkshake called a "freakshake" and it seemed extremely extra, but would definitely be worth it.

On our way to covent gardens, we passed Westminster and saw the memorial and flowers that had been left out following the attacks that recently took place. It was sad to read all the letters that were left there, but at the same time it was nice to see the community come together.

Once we made it to covent gardens and found Maxwell's located just outside of the market area. The wait was 45 minutes, so we put our name on the list and walked around covent gardens for a bit.

I ordered the Oreo Freakshake, Rose ordered the Freakshake from Mars, and Liz ordered the Cookie Monster Freakshake. I can't really describe how wonderful they were, so here's a picture so you can just imagine how good they were.

On Sunday, we took a 3 hour bus ride to Bristol. It was supposed to be 2.5 hours but there was construction and traffic, but I didn't mind because we had woken up so early for the bus ride that it gave me more time to sleep on the bus.

I was excited to go to Bristol because it was one of the places I definitely wanted to get to while here. It's the home of Banksy who is my favorite street artist and there were plenty of works by him still all over Bristol. In fact, the main reason why (at least) Tori, Rose and I were there was to find Bansky artwork. I didn't care if we didn't see anything else in Bristol as long as I got to see Banksy work.

I know that people frequently think that Banksy is probably just an overrated and over hyped street artist to some people, but I genuinely appreciate his work and with the world being unaware of plenty of things and business moving from place to place and buildings being knocked down or renovated, it is getting harder to find his work. Other street artists tend to deface his work too because he's changed the culture and view of street art which has made other street artists dislike him and his work.

We started with lunch after the three hour bus ride because it was nearly 1pm and we were all starving. We found this cute little pizza place up the hill from the bus station and ate some AMAZING food that kept us full for almost the entire day.

Afterwards, we headed towards M Shed which is a free museum that is located on Prince's Wharf beside the Floating Harbor in a dockside transit shed that was originally occupied by the Bristol Industrial Museum.

Inside the museum was the first piece of art that we were searching for: Banksy's Grim Reaper. It was placed here in 2015 after it was removed from the Thekla boat. 12 years ago, Banksy painted this onto the side of a ship and nightclub. While the ship was in dry dock in 2014, the family who owned the boat removed the Grim Reaper by physically cutting it out of the boat. They are fans of Banksy's work and realized that the elements were slowly deteriorating the artwork and they wanted to preserve it.

Afterwards, we hung out near Prince's Wharf for a bit. There were table tennis games happening, a bunch of live musicians playing music at different spots along the wharf and because it was such a nice day, plenty of locals out with their families. Children were playing in the fountains outside of the aquarium and ice cream was being eaten by almost everyone except us.

From the aquarium, we walked towards the second stop on our Banksy street art self-guided tour that Tori and I had constructed while at lunch.

This second piece was the one that I was most excited to see out of all the pieces on our tour. It was on the side of a building and there were two little speakers with a gate over them in the brick wall which served as eyes. Under it, in the shape of a smile, were the words "You don't need planning permission to build castles in the sky." How cute is that?

APPARENTLY NOT CUTE ENOUGH.

The building (I believe it's the library, but I could be wrong) did some construction recently and put in a loading dock. You could literally see where the old brick stopped and the new brick started, thus destroying half of the artwork and making Tori and I extremely sad.

After that disappointment, we decided to rest out on the grass, for a little bit by the Bristol Cathedral. There was this couple doing couples yoga, I guess. It was a little more complex than just yoga, but it grabbed our attention and we couldn't help but watch them for a bit before we started back on our journey.

Just across the street from the park we were in, Rose spotted Banksy's Well Hung Man. This was a stop later on the walking tour because - well, we didn't realize it was RIGHT THERE.

The Well Hung Man is the known Banksy image in Bristol.

From there, we walked up the hill, stopping for fro-yo and into a small vintage-y looking thrift shop before making it to the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery which is located next to Bristol University.

In 2009, there was an exhibition called "Banksy versus Bristol" in this museum. Following the success of the exhibition, Banksy's Paint-Pot-Angel was left there as a reminder of the success of the exhibition.

The last stop on our self-guided tour was in Strokes Croft which is the heart of Bristol's cultural quarter. This piece has been cited as an archetypal piece of Bristol culture. On top of that, the "Mild Mild West" mural was Banksy's first known large wall mural.

On the way to the bus stop, we ended up passing by a piece of the Queen as either 1) Ziggy Stardust or 2) Bowie's Aladdin Sane (it all depends who you talk to and how you want to interpret it). This piece is rumored to be another piece by Banksy, but has never been confirmed. This wall previously held another piece of Banksy art work, but it was painted over and destroyed in the past.

We stopped at Sainsbury after seeing the piece before hanging out in another park before we boarded the bus to go home.