My New Haircut, The Red Army, & Livin' Large

Wow! It’s been exactly two weeks since I’ve updated my blog for you all, so I apologize for the delay, but I’ve been absolutely jam-packed with events, schoolwork, interning, travelling, and experiencing Europe to the fullest, so here’s going to be another long and drawn-out play-by-play of my adventures from my side of the pond.

Let’s pick up where we left off last. On Thursday, Nov. 6th, I was back in my culture class to cover the election and catch up on the time that we had off from break and such. It was a beautiful day in London, so we got to spend a little time outside instead of being cooped up all day. That was nice. After grabbing a quick lunch, I went down to Soho to get a haircut. I found this small little barber shop that was recommended to me by a friend that has £5 haircuts. A little Greek man runs the shop, there are two chairs, and he and his partner in crime just shove customers in and out in rapid succession to get the job done, snip snip. Regardless, I’ll take a 6 pound haircut any day.

That evening, one of my flatmates, James, was having his brother come into town for a number of days, so when he got into town we made dinner and decided to have people over to our flat to hang out for the evening. On Friday morning, we got up early and took the tube to the outskirts of London where we went to the Fullers Beer Factory for a factory tour. It was only 8 of the guys from our trip (including James’ brother John) to show up at the factory at 11am for our tour. Our tour guide, Tim, a British War Vet, was the long time building manager of the Fullers Factory and now that he has retired, he is a full-time tour guide for the factory. He was great. I’d never actually seen anything like this factory before, much less actually knew the entire process of making beer, so it was actually quite an educational experience, because many of the old machinery is still there, just placed beside all of the hi-tech stuff, so it was cool to see both the old and the new and how it all came together. It’s interesting too, because there is only one Fullers Beer factory in the entire world, and everything made by Fullers, must come through their London location. They make something outrageous like a few million pints of beer per day, and all of it is essentially made, for a month from now, because of the fermentation process. That’s just unreal. Anyhow, after the tour, we hung out with Tim a bit, asked more questions, tried the different types of Fullers products, and then started our trek back home after visiting the gift shop. We picked up a quick stop at a Chinese restaurant for lunch and headed back home to the flats. In the evening, we decided to take John out in London to see the nightlife, so we went to a club for a little while and then called it an early night. I’m not much of a great London clubber, but at least he got to see what it was all about.

Saturday, we went down to the local pub around lunch time to watch the Manchester United versus Arsenal football match. It was a great game, and in our small little pub, it was standing room only because of all the locals. We only get 4 and a half channels in the penthouse, so we obviously have to go elsewhere to catch any good matches, but it’s a very cool experience to be in a room full of working class Brits that are all yelling and screaming at the tele over something like a throw-in. Classic. After the game, John, James, Mike and I all grabbed McDonalds for lunch, and went grocery shopping for the upcoming week. After that I headed down to the South Bank of the Thames to see the tail end of the Lord Mayor’s festival, which is essentially a large firework show, and a parade because it’s already time for the celebration of Christmas in London, so the lights come on pretty early. I missed the actual fireworks, but went with a few of the girls from my program to dinner and caught up for a few before heading back to the Penthouse to meet up with the guys. Later that evening, we hosted people over to the Penthouse from the building to hang out for the night. Some of the other students that aren’t from our Elon program also share our living facilities with us. They are from Balls State University in Indiana, and we haven’t had many opportunities to hang out with them, so it was nice to see some newer faces and get to know new people. That was essentially the end to our Saturday though, since we decided it was too pricey to actually go out on the town for the night.

Sunday morning was a day I used to get back into the swing of preparing for the upcoming week. In addition to the typical laundry and cleaning chores, I got a bit of work done and had a relaxing low key day. Not too much excitement, but that all came on Monday.

Monday morning (this was Nov. 10th); I went to work early and worked with both the AMMO team and The Reel team at Xtreme. I’ve done a lot of different tasks over the course of my semester, for instance, I updated a database for the AMMO people, by calling over 200 some companies, and confirming or changing their contact details just so that we’d have verbal confirmation that our information was correct in our system. Additionally, when I worked at The Reel, I’d do my typical crediting of ads in our program, but I’d also do some things such as work in Adobe InDesign, to help format our newest brochure/DVD product in it’s latest stages, do write-ups for currently featured ads that would be posted on our website, all while hanging out with my awesome co-workers. It’s nice to be in a low-key, very productive, but friendly and exciting work-atmosphere. If anything, it’s the most encouraging and best atmosphere I enjoy working in too.

However, the fun didn’t just stop at work on Monday, because Monday night, I was invited by the Reel guys to go to the London International Festival Awards in the heart of London. So, I suited up, took the tube and met the guys (Jamie, Chris, and Nick) at Leicester Square near the West End of London, where we all went to the Hippodrome which is where the event was held. We walked up to the entrance, talked to the bouncers and were smoothly through the door as Press participants. Immediately after checking in our coats in the cloak room, we were met by ushers all serving complimentary drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Everything from jumbo shrimp, fish and chips, a delicacy that we titled “jenga chips” (because they were stacked atop each other), and squid were all just bites to eat along the way. Of course, Chris and I were the champions of eating…a lot. So we stuffed our faces on snacks and drinks before the show even started.

After that, we found our way to our table, which was in the balcony, in our own little section that overlooked the entire stage and ceremony. We were frequently visited by more servers, carrying rice, bite-sized chicken/beef burgers, and bringing us bottles of wine. The four of us dined like kings while we watched the best in advertisements, photography, and shorts receive awards throughout the evening. Now there’s something I must say about the London International Awards ceremony, because according to my co-workers, this entire event, really doesn’t mean a lot to individuals working in the media business much in the UK, but internationally, this thing is supposed to be like a huge deal. Therefore, lots of individuals from around the globe were there and very excited to be there, so it was at least good for the atmosphere for sure. Now the awards primarily focused on Media Agencies, and production companies, not so much like directors or famous people, so contrary to popular belief, I didn’t see any like “huge stars” or anything throughout the event, just got a lot of free food, and felt really important. Haha. Anyways, after the actual awards ceremony stopped, the Hippodrome staff cleared out the entire bottom floor of tables, people and chairs, and opened up a dance floor. The songs ranged from oldies and rock n’ roll (mainly ABBA and Thriller) to a few contemporary hits too. Regardless, the dance floor filled up with all the guests who decided to dance the night away.

I hung with my co-workers a bit longer before most of them needed to leave. Everyone in the place was at least two times my age, so I did feel quite young to be at such an event, but even so I got a few pictures of myself on the Awards stage, and even snagged a picture with one of the awards themselves, which was pretty cool. I had a seat at the bar to talk with a few Media Agency people about their jobs, and what exactly they were involved with in the corporate world, and a woman sat down beside me and we struck up a conversation. I asked her what agency she was with, but it turns out she was the actual owner of the Hippodrome. Crazy huh? So I talked with her about how her club/venue works for a few, and then met her husband, Peter, the other owner of the place. I think I made a pretty good impression, and it makes for a good story either way. Nevertheless, it was just another outrageous Monday night in London.

Tuesday the 11th was another day of classes and catching up. In the afternoon, I stayed at school to use the free internet access to book my newest flights back to the states. Our semester is supposed to end around December 2nd or 4th, and students are supposed to fly home the 8th, however, I decided to extend my stay in Europe to do a bit more travelling and adventuring, so my official date back to hit US soil is now set for December 18th. I will be flying out of Dublin and getting home in the afternoon, just in time for the holidays.

In the evening of the 11th though was where I got my first big shot at seeing something else monumental, a real live action football match. Our flat and a number of our friends from school here got tickets to the Arsenal versus Wigan match at Emirates Stadium in East London and we all went to the game to watch the thrilling 3-0 shutout that Arsenal played. It was epic. The crowd was crazy and intense, filled with chants, shouting, and cheers, and even when the game ended and thousands of people flooded the streets of suburban London everyone was still making noise. We had to catch a tube down to central London, and we went into a McDonalds for a late night snack, and even in our suits and Arsenal colors, we still encountered fans chanting “Red Army” (Arsenal’s team name) and asking about the final result. It was definitely an experience I’m glad I got to have.

Wednesday of course was another day back in the office. I was working with the Reel again and did a little bit of different work because I was assigned to find new adverts, shorts, and virals for The Reel product. So I skimmed and viewed some 30-50 ads and picked out what I thought to be the most innovative ones and found the credits for them, so that we could further investigate them later. This was awesome because I’ve now worked on more or less the entire assembly-line process of making “The Reel” product, from start to finish, which is incredible as an intern. Following work, Wednesday night was low key for me because John left our flat and I had to get ready for my trip to Athens that I was going to be taking the next day. I hung out with a few of the flat mates and other guys from the building and called it a night so that I was rested up for my excursion. Thursday morning I spent packing and getting ready for the airport before my flight to Athens, Greece where I planned to spend the weekend at with my friend Kat.

I’m going to stop my blog real quick at this point in time at this rather cliff-hanger moment, only because I’m going to do a full blog entry all about Greece, and my amazing experience there. That should be up soon and ready for reading, hopefully by the time you can digest this. Sorry for the delay once again in my blogging, but as my semester is slowly winding down, I’ve been jam-packing my time with adventuring, and I wouldn’t imagine it any other way. Keep in touch, stay classy, and keep the updates coming. Cheers!