Old News

Written 1/21, I forgot to post it. Oops!

This trip is already flying by. It’s time to take a second and reflect.

Last Sunday was the first sunny day of the trip, and it was wonderful. I met up with my cousin Dianna, who is living in London, and I hadn’t seen in 10-12 years. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I shouldn’t have been worried because we had a great time. We caught up on everything we’ve done since high school (she had several more years to cover than me) and she showed me around London, a LOT of London. We spent about four hours together and only sat down for a half hour in the National Portrait Gallery Café. We walked from Leichester Square through Chinatown and SoHo, around Oxford Circus, down Carnaby Street, through Trafalgar Square, over the Thames River, along the riverbank and back over the river to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We were both exhausted by the end, but it was really great to see so many parts of London and gain perspective about where everything is in relation to each other. I haven’t gotten much of that because I usually take the Tube everywhere. I’m really grateful that Dianna was so cool about spending her Sunday showing me the city. I had a really enjoyable afternoon.

On Tuesday I started my internship at a political consulting firm. I was really excited to work at the company, but it’s been a really slow start. British offices have a very different vibe than their American counterparts, or at least my experiences have lead me to that assertion. Right now I’m just reading a lot of government reports and copying and pasting data into spreadsheets, so there’s not a whole lot to report.

In other news, I had my first awful experience on the Tube yesterday. Apparently the system doesn’t actually live up to the godly standard I imposed on it, but today was fine, so all is well.