Calais

So Matt, Emily, and I were planning on going to Dover to see the famous White Cliffs. As the trip got closer, all the British people who heard about the trip told us it was pretty boring there. My friend Jenna then told me it was possible to get on the ferry to Calais from Dover and come back within a day. We changed our bus tickets to the last bus back to London, which was a shame because I had paid 1 pound each way for round trip bus tickets from National Express.
Anyway, our bus was scheduled to arrive at Dover at noon and the next two ferries out were at 12:40 and 1:35. Our bus did not arrive until 12:40, so we figured we would get on the 1:35 ferry. However, SeaFrance doesn't let foot passengers get on without checking in 60 minutes in advance even though people driving a car onto the ferry need to be there 30 minutes in advance. Basically, we couldn't leave until 3:00 and our bus left Dover back to London at 8:30. We decided to get tickets anyway and enjoy the ride to Calais and back even though we'd have very little time there.





As we were getting on the boat we decide to look for a place to stay overnight in France, despite the fact that we had only packed for a short day trip to Dover. Considering that the three of us all really like to plan this kind of thing in advance, this seemed especially spontaneous. Good fun.
Here we are arriving in France.





After we arrived, we hopped off the boat and walked into town from the ferry station. The first thing we did is make sure we had a place to sleep so we didn't get stranded in France without a bed to sleep in. We walked around and found a Holiday Inn and were able to get a room immediately. We relaxed for a few minutes then set out to find a meal. I'd packed a lunch, but Matt and Emily hadn't really eaten since breakfast and it was about 5 by this point. We went into the first restaurant we found and, of course, the food was incredible. I had a bowl of onion soup and then a bowl of some sort of pasta with some sort of cream sauce. I couldn't say exactly what was in it, but it was full of amazingly tasty veggies and general decadent goodness.
Matt and Emily each got the beef stew and they said it was heavenly.





After eating, we went to the hotel and laid down to watch the tennis for a little while. We felt bad, since we were in a different country, but we were exhausted and in a food coma. After the third set, we dragged ourselves up to look around the town. There wasn't that much around the town, but we saw a few things. There was the dock area with a memorial to drowned sailors going back 200 years. There was also the tower that's been bombed and attacked by basically everyone ever including the English, Germans, Americans, and Canadians. Hilarious. Still standing though.





The next day we got up and had a breakfast right at the Holiday Inn. The description made it sound so good, but it really wasn't that great because they didn't have everything they said they would and through some misunderstanding or other, we thought the breakfast was included, or at least cheap. However, it was 13.50 Euros each. That, in addition to the fact that it cost an extra 15 euros to have a third person stay in a room with two double beds, made the hotel cost more than we wanted it to. Oh well. When we went out, we stumbled across a market they'd set up in the town square. They were selling fresh produce, meat, seafood, flowers, clothes, beds, purses, and whatever else. It was really cool, and was gone a few hours later when we came back into town. Odd. Here's a van that was selling horse meat.




Anyway, we set off to the beach from there. It was absolutely great - there was not a soul on the beach. It was a bit cloudy and very, very windy but the sun started to come out. Certainly very windy and cold, but it was great to be on the beach. It was the widest beach I'd ever been on. The distance between the dunes and the water was incredible and totally flat. The tide has to come in and out so rapidly. Near the beach, there was this layer of sand being blown across the beach by the wind. It looked very cool. We, of course, didn't have any sun lotion, as we didn't even plan this trip. We got roasted, but didn't notice until later. Oh well.






After we spent a while there, we went and walked around looking for a place to eat and get a bottle of wine. It took a while, but we found a place to eat on the town square in front of that bombed-out tower and did exactly that. The food was incredible, and the atmosphere was even better. Awesome. By this time, the weather had cleared up and it was absolutely beautiful out.




We then walked to the top of this light house. It's so great that it cleared up, because the view was amazing!




I took a bunch of pictures and used a program to stitch together a panorama. It's hosted on Facebook, so it made it really small. You can sort of see it though.

After that, we walked along the road casually and got back to the ferry station to get on the boat back to Dover.



Here's a few shots of the ride back:



We eventually got to Dover. We had to grab food at a BP gas station since basically everything in Dover was closed. Not a great dinner, but we caught sight of Dover Castle on the way.

Also, it's worth nothing that people were much more rude in Britain on this journey than in France. People were so nice in Calais. It was great. Anyway, we got the bus back to London at 8:30 that night and got home really late.

It's been a while

Sorry. It's been a while since I've updated this. I've forgotten my camera on a few of my trips out, but I haven't done anything super big recently. I'm going to Dover on Friday, Scotland the next weekend, and Ireland the weekend after that. Obviously, I am going to be having some great things to write about and post pictures of. Anyway, here's a few random thoughts and recollections from the recent past, in no particular order.

I've mostly just been working and watching the football. There's some really exciting games on - Holland v. Russia was a great game. I've done a bunch of random small things recently, like walk around Hyde Park with Matt and Evan. It was sooooo beautiful there, it's really a shame I didn't have my camera. Another time me, Katie, Nicole, and Evan went to Little Venice and walked around for a long time.








Last Wednesday Nicole and I went to see Tokyo Police Club at Scala because we got in free - oh the advantages of interning in the music business. Mobius Band, who are from Brooklyn, opened are were really good. I like both bands, especially Mobius Band, even though I'd never really heard either.





On the way home, we found Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross Station. Oh how nerdy.


On Friday, I went in to work at about 11:00 and met up with my boss and Trev from Big Boss Man, a band signed to the label, and went to a studio. It's on the 29th floor of this huge building right near the office. From the windows, you have this amazing view of most of the city, including the Gherkin, the Thames, Tower Bridge, and all kinds of other stuff. Awesome.
Last Friday, Nicole, Kate, Gareth, and I spent our day walking around near Leicester Square and Soho Square and then went to see a matinee of Spamalot, the Monty Python musical. Sooooooo funny. Later, we went to a club that Gareth's company runs, so we got in free. It was okay - I hadn't really been to a club before. I guess it was fun, but we were out all night and it was too loud to even talk in there at all. Not really my thing.

Oh, one more thing. So the other week, a couple of us went walking near the river and London Bridge and everything and I snapped a few photos. I took a picture of something I didn't know the purpose of, but now I know what it is. Apparently, this giant telescope thing we saw is a fiber optic thing that allows you to wave to people in New York City. Ridiculous. There was this big line and we didn't know what it was, so we just skipped it. Oh well.

Saturday

Today was the Bath and Stonehenge day trip. It was extremely awesome. First off, the English countryside is absolutely beautiful. Taking the bus to Stonehenge, and especially between Stonehenge and Bath, afforded us some beautiful sights. I was surprised how quickly it got green when leaving the city. The best part was the sheep farm on the tiny hillside between the highway and the outside fence of the airport (I think it was the airport, at least. It may have been an industrial park or something). Stonehenge was cool, but got boring quickly. It was really cool to see and was even bigger than I expected, but I admit that it did get boring quickly. Here's me representing my roots in front of England's ancient monument.





We decided to go off and commune with nature and narrowly avoid piles of fresh poop in a massive field with some sheep. That was nice.


So then we headed off to Bath, which took about an hour. The trip was beautiful. I took some pictures from the bus. This is one of them.


Bath was cool. The first thing we did was grab some lunch - a lot of people hadn't had anything to eat for breakfast so we had to take care of that. We went to an Irish pub. Rugby was on and we all got a pint of Guinness Red, which I had never heard of before and was really, really good. Me and Adrienne also each got an amazing veggie burger. Very tasty. Anyway, the next thing we did was go right to the Abbey and the Roman Baths. We were on a very limited schedule, so we decided to skip the baths and its 9 pound entry fee. The abbey was quite breathtaking and dates from the 15th century.





Next we took a walk along the river. There's a couple awesome bridges and a bunch of cool boats, plus the little dam. It was kind of okay, I guess.



The next awesome thing we did was go to the oldest house in Bath, which also happens to be the oldest tea house in Bath. The building is from the 15th century, and the tea house opened in the 17th century. I got Darjeeling with lemon, but Matt got the more traditional house blend with milk and sugar. Here I am, all prim and proper.



When we got back to London, we hung around for a while at the International Student House and chatted with a few people before we went our separate ways. Now I'm at home updating this thing while Mr. and Mrs. Smith is on tv. They love their sub-par American movies at night here. That's all for now.

Friday evening

It's a Friday evening at ten o'clock and we're all in our pajamas and thinking about bed. Hilarious. All we did is just have some dinner and watch the Netherlands / France game (Netherlands 3-1 whoo!). I made potatoes with onions and pieces of a veggie burger I ripped up. It was really good. What you do is cut up a couple potatoes and then cook them for a couple minutes in the microwave. Then you put them in a pan with chopped onion and cook the hell out of it with some oil. I also heated up a veggie burger and ripped it up and cook that in there. I added some pepper and lots of herbs at the end and covered it all on ketchup. So amazing.

Anyway, the reason why we're all heading to bed so early is that most of us had work today and we are heading to Bath and Stonehenge tomorrow for an all day trip through BUNAC, the company that got us our work visas. It's going to be awesome, but we have to get up around 7:00 to be at the meeting place before 8:30. Oh well, it's going to be awesome.

Working life

Work is pretty cool. I've been doing things like posting shows on online ticketing websites, researching places to send recordings in the US, taking packages to the post office, and finding sites to sell music online in Sweden. There's only three people working there (Paul, Claudia, and Rob). They are all really nice and we're all getting on quite nicely. The office is rather small - basically just one room full of press releases and CDs with a storage space on the floor above. I don't start work until about noon and get off about 7 or so. Music business, I guess. I'm looking forward to getting more "important" tasks. I know some people who have been given some really intense assignments straight off, but then again some other people have very little work to do, so I guess I'm okay. They still have to show me how to do a bunch of things, and they have been rather busy making calls and meeting with people over the last few days that there have been times that I just have to sit there watching them talk. Hopefully, two months will be long enough so that I'll be able to really get the hang of things and be able to do certain things without instruction. We'll see. It's going to be an awesome experience, I can already tell.

Friday - Sunday

Okay. Since I'm behind a few days I'm just going to give the Cliffs Notes version of my travels since Friday.
Friday:
Me, Nicole, and Katie went to this gigantic market in Camden. It was full of ethnic food stalls, hippie shops, vintage clothing stores, and the like. It was endless and there were other cools things, like a canal and a random high-end restaurant right in the middle with these ornate carved walls. Gareth met up with us towards the end of our trip to the market.











Later that day we went to see Leicester Squre, Picadilly Circus, St James Park, Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament. We walked forever, so we were exhausted by the time we got back.















Saturday, we had plans to go see a Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe Theatre, but it was sold out. It was the first night of that play for this season and a Saturday to boot. I guess we should have seen it coming. Still, me, Matt, and Sean went to London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and walked past the Tower of London. We didn't go in because it cost a bunch of money and was mobbed with people. Another time. It's funny how everyone thought this bridge actually is London Bridge, when it's actually Tower Bridge. London Bridge is actually quite boring and the one that stands now was built in the 1970's. Weird.





Today, we went to the Science Museum and saw an IMAX movie about the Space Station in 3D. It was pretty nuts. The movie cost 7 pounds, but the museum was free, so it's all good. We looked through the museum too, but not extensively because it wasn't open very late. The big thing below is the huge steam engine they keep running in the entrance hall. After that, we came home and hung around here until me and Matt went to Abby Road and found the famous crosswalk and Abbey Road Studio. Awesome. Also, we didn't take the FAMOUS cliche photo for a couple reasons: There were only two of us, there was traffic, and there was also come confusion about which zebra crossing was the proper one. Oh well.











Well, it's my first real day of work tomorrow though, so goodnight

Thursday was my first day of work. I didn't have to get there until about 12:30, though, so I got to sleep in. I got all dressed up in a nice shirt, khakis, and nice shoes. I got there, and the guy was dressed in black pants, shoes, and t-shirt. So I guess I can dress down. Excellent. The place is just a small office above a jewelry store on Hanway Street just off Oxford Street. It's small, with only a couple people working there. Paul, my supervisor, seems like a nice guy. Same with the other women who I met, Claudia. We talked for a while about the different things the company does, especially promoting artists on their label. They used to farm out a lot of their promotion, but now do it themselves mostly. They gave me some CDs to listen to over the weekend, and I'm starting for real Monday morning. Well, not exactly morning. I go in around noon and stay until the evening. That's the music business for you.


I got back home within a couple hours, so I called up Nicole. She didn't have to go in on Thursday, so we met up at the Tate Modern by the river and saw most of the museum. Gareth met up with us somewhere along the way, along with a few people from some college in Virginia. We got out of the museum and walked along the river.





We saw some sweet stuff - like a whole area covered in graffiti that's a spot for skating and BMXing. It was cool. We also saw a giant couch and armchair made of fake turf. Not sure what the deal with that was exactly...








We then made it to the London Eye and took the "flight" for too much money. Worth it, though. The view was awesome.











After that, my camera ran out of batteries. We went to see an amazing Berklee band, the Young Republic, at the club owned by the company I am working for. Their set was short but really great and high-energy. Awesome. Best of all, I got in free because I work there! Okay, I'm about to run out of internet minutes for the week, but they get reset tomorrow, so I'll have more tomorrow.

Tuesday and Wednesday

On Tuesday a bunch of us went to our Anglo-American meeting, the company that set up our internships. We got all kinds of info about London and such and then we all split to grab some food. We finally found some things to eat and then split up because a bunch of people needed phones, but me, Michelle, and Amanda split off and explored a while. We went to the Trocadero and played some arcade games and rode the bumper cars. That was sweet. Later, we met up with Amanda's boyfriend Mark and went to Pizza Express. Just walking around was awesome. I didn't have my camera with me and I can't even remember exactly what all we saw, but it was awesome.




On Wednesday, I didn't have to work yet, but everyone else went to their first day. I just took the train down to where my internship will be and found the office and the club the company owns. When I checked the schedule, I notice that a band I know from Berklee called the Young Republic was playing there the next night. They are so good. Check them out. The area I am working is super nice. It's on Oxford Street, right at the Tottenham Court Road Station. This is the view out the station:





I went down the street and walked through Soho Square, which is a little park that was PACKED with people having lunch. I found an amazing Chinese / Thai vegan buffet place and stuffed myself full for 5 pounds. Then I had to go to the BUNAC orientation that is apparently required by law so they can stamp my card and allow me to move in and out of the country. It was cool in that we found out about a trip to Bath and Stonehenge for 22 pounds total, which is awesome. A lot of us signed up for that and are going on the 14th. We headed back after that and had a lot of good times at home. This was on the way from BUNAC to the tube:





Thursday was a big day, but I can't locate the cable for my camera. Once I do, I'll upload the pictures and post a few here.