The One Where I Attend My First Movie Premiere

Yeah, I finally can cross one more thing off my London "Must-Do List." I went to Leicester Square after my PR job to see the red carpet for the How To Lose Friends & Alienate People premiere. Unfortunately, Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox did not attend even though they star in it.

The funniest part of the night was when people take home the cardboard movie posters that line the gates between the spectators/paparazzi and the actual red carpet. I managed to snag one.

They look tiny in the pictures on the red carpet but I had to decide to walk the 30 minutes across London home instead of take the Tube. Picture me carrying a HUGE movie poster in front of me that is twice my size on the streets of London.

I looked like a movie billboard walking around London. Paramount Pictures should have PAID me for giving them the free advertising/publicity. Or at least hire me right off the spot so I (the Marketing major) can have a full-time job come graduation!

I couldn't help but keep chucking to myself about how ridiculous I looked as I got stares from people walking past me.

I felt like the kid who wears the red-green-blue glowstick souvenir necklace proudly around his/her while walking back to the parking lot after the 4th of July fireworks. I finally attend a movie premiere and this movie poster is my souvenir I'm taking back with me goddammnit!

Responses on the street:

1. Many smiles from members of the opposite sex.
2. A drunken guy tried to come up to me with arms wide open an hug me and my poster to which I scurried off into the street to get away fom him.
3. A girl said, "What is she doing that for?" (British accent included.)
4. I walked by a pub where a guy said "That poster looks good on you."

Cheers!
Farida

The One Where I Further Discover What London Has to Offer

Summer officially ended this weekend (I guess all those British girls I see while walking around wearing white pants after Labor Day --no Labour Day need to officially stop! I'm guessing they don't have Labor Day over here, though so British fashion victims have an excuse to wear white pants still.)

 All the colleges in the UK have finally started classes, (they call this week Fresher's Week) after all the US people have been in classes for a month. We're only in our second week of classes.  For our Geographies of London class on Tuesday, we got to have a field trip (yes, an actual 3rd grade-style field trip!) to the famed British Museum only minutes down the street. I'm not a museum-type, but it was still cool as it's massively huge. 

On Wednesday for our community service, we had to help paint Southwark Cathedral in the Southbank by the London Bridge.  It was some huge memorial to Shakespeare or something I don't quite remember. One girl swore she saw Tim Gunn from Project Runway walk by which wouldn't be surprising since London Fashion Week was going on. Alot of tourists and people kept walking by us and taking our pictures! I don't know if we should have been flattered by the attention or feel like freaks on display.

On Friday afternoon, we went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (or at least its remake. The real one burned down centuries ago) to see A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a lot smaller than I imagined, actually.  I have never read the play and didn't think to Sparknotes it beforehand, so for the most part I was completely lost. It was a comedy though, so it was funny in a lot of parts and ended on a good note. The costumes were really colorful and decadent.

Saturday was our day-trip to Brighton.  Brighton = England + California.  Really, it does. I felt like I was in Laguna Beach, CA than the UK.  It was amazing! The weather was warm and sunny and the beach with its pier and everything was just like the Santa Monica Pier or Coney Island the sand was all huge pebbles though, so that was a bit strange.  

Skate culture is huge over here as it would be in the US like Orange County. There is this amazing skate park we passed by that our friend Nick skates at. It was featured in one of the Tony Hawk skateboarding video games. It looked so pretty with all of the colorful graffiti on the walls, unlike any graffiti I've ever seen before. There are a lot of skateboard shops in Covent Gardens as well. 

Last week, I finally managed to get a gym membership finally. It was probably the cheapest one I could find as it was a Y, but it happened to be historical as it's the first YMCA ever created in the whole world at Tottenham Court Road in Central London. It's alot more decadent than ANY gym I have ever gone to. I lucked out big time.

I'm learning a lot here.  A couple of the things I have learned so far: not only do people text to each other but British companies are OBSESSED with texting as well. "Text ___ to 23729 to get this! "Text ____ to 68003 to get that!" They use texting to request songs on the radio to hailing a cab.

Most importantly, I learned there is no huge street where shops are lined on called High Street. "high street" is a word the British use as we would, "the main street" it's just a term meaning the biggest/main road in town.  All this time I was so excited to find bargains on High Street! I guess I"ll have to settle for Oxford Street or Regent Street instead. 

I'm contemplating hitting the red carpet tomorrow night at Leichester Square for the "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" movie premiere.  Megan Fox and Kirsten Dunst are starring in it so maybe they"ll be there!  Katy Petty is also in town tomorrow night doing a show. I wanna go to that, we"ll see. 

Cheers!

Farida

The One Where I Get Approached by a Psychic

I have discovered even more places walking around the streets of London. During these discoveries I learned that the Circle Line on London's Underground tube network does indeed go in a circular track. Besides that, after our first class, I walked all the way to Regent's Park. It was nice to be among trees again like I would in the suburbs. I even jogged there the next day as I still don't have a gym membership yet.

In one afternoon, I managed to go from shops at Covent Gardens to Leichester Square (entertainment center where the movie premieres, cinemas and clubs are) to Chinatown.

As I was walking, a couple guys around my age pass by me, check me out and say, "That's an American! Damn!" It's kind of weird because I do everything in my power to dress stylishly like a Londoner. Also:
a) I didn't have a map in my hand
b) I didn't look lost,
c) they had never heard me talk.
What is it about me that tips people off to think I'm an American?

Another afternoon I went from Piccadilly Circus (London's answer to Times Square) to the Savile Row (famous for high-end men's suits) to the only Abercrombie & Fitch international flagship store in London (that was massively huge by the way and WAY overpriced) where I got a picture with an Abercrombie model. I went by the Mayfair district and while I was there this happened:

I wanted to go to a cafe to chill. The Starbucks nearby seemed too tiny so I walked into one called Cafe Nero. As I walk in, an old man with long black hair tied into a turban comes up to me and says:
"You have a great forehead! You are a very lucky girl! What is your name?"
Me: "Farida"
Him: " From your forehead I can tell that you are a very ambitious, cautious and hard-working girl."
He said some other stuff but I can't remember other than that they were dead-on with my personality. He then says,
"You will have three good newses be told to you the next month."
He goes on to tell me that he is a Yogi from Kashmir and shows me an aged black and white of himself when he was 12. He says that he is a psychic.
"Your forehead shows that you have two stresses in your life at the moment: your career and your relationships. Is this true?"
"I guess so." I wasn't totally getting along with my flatmates the night before so I thought he could have been right.
"You have two bad habits that if changed can help fix these. I want to hear from you after these have been done. I would need your e-mail."
I wasn't sure about the whole e-mailing business.
He then says, "I will tell you your bad habits after I go to the washroom."

I didn't know if it was some cult or what. As he was talking to me I clutched my purse tightly. It could have been one of those scenarios where a stranger is talking to you to distract you and then his little friend comes from behind and steals your stuff. Whatever. I was alone and with my map in hand clearly a tourist. I felt like I was in danger, so as soon as he left for the bathroom, I booked it. I just completely left.
On the street, he and his little partner were outside the cafe yelling, "Farida!" Farida!"
I guess I'll never know my bad habits. Maybe they could be running away from stuff.

Cheers!
Farida

The one where I finally reach London

So much has happened in the past four days I don't think this entry can justify all of it.

On the plane ride over, I was sitting next to Jon-Paul. Virgin Atlantic likes to be all fancy and high-tech so we were trying to figure out what all the buttons in front of you did. I told him to press one where a huge *ding* goes off and seconds later, a male flight attendant comes over with his British accent, "Can I help you guys?" All while the plane is dead silent at the time so everyone was staring at us. I was like, "...Oops?" It was pretty funny, he never let me live that down the rest of the ride.

The day we arrived on Sunday, we took a walking tour around our neighborhood, Clerkenwell. As our group of about 20 students, mainly females were walking down a sketchy street, we not only see a random group of like 8-10 year olds walking by themselves no parent around, they were also yelling "Tourists! Tourists!" I found out they were a gang. Apparently there are alot of gangs of kids around London. Weird.
While walking, we also passed by a guy who yelled to us, "Do you girls want to be in a video shoot?" He was meaning we would be extras in a music video for Kanye West or something. We definitely saw past that. It could have been porn for crying out loud! Our advisor, Anthony looked so pissed and annoyed it was hilarious and completely random.

We went to dinner that night at a very fancy restaurant where they were turning away people left and right. The drinks averaged about $16. I didn't want to order dessert so I was gonna order and give it to Brittany to take home. They didn't even have anything to put it in to take home. Apparently in England, it is considered gross to wrap up uneaten food when dining out so no one does it.
The most hilarious part of the night was when a homeless guy comes in to the restaurant and begs our table to give us some of our food. Anthony said he has never seen anything like that happen in London in his whole life. We went to a bar called Saloon near where we live that night and let me tell you, Absenthe is really overrated.

Monday was an orientation at FSU where we are taking classes. Tuesday was cool. We went on a double decker bus tour of the city and saw such landmarks such as Big Ben, the Parliament, Hyde Park, The London Eye, and the London Bridge. (FYI: It is not falling down.) We then took a boat cruise down the Thames River to Greenwich where we visited the Prime Meridian line. I know, totally dorky but after remembering learning about it in 3rd grade Social Studies class as the line that divides the Western hemisphere from the Eastern hemisphere and where Greenwich Mean Time is located I had to check it out.

Yesterday we went to CSV, the placement offices where they are assigning what we will be doing for our 10 hours a week volunteer work. Most people have to work in museums or tutor, but I think I got one of the coolest assignments of all! Me and Liz have the press-related assignments. Liz gets to be a TV reporter for CSV and interview all of the volunteers and report on what they are doing. I get to help her with production. I also get to be CSV's publicist and also act as a journalist interviewing people in order to write my press releases. I am working with London's leading left-wing national newspaper, The Guardian! It's a well-known paper all around the UK and I might be published in it!

That night, we attended the BBC Proms concert at Royal Albert Hall. It is a symphony concert held everyday during the summer. But sitting there, it only managed to hold my interest for all of...5 seconds. I guess I'm not much of a classical music fan.

London is everything I pictured it would be looks-wise. It can be intimidating at times as everyday is a fashion show with people all dressed up walking up and down the streets. I hardly saw anyone wearing sweats. The prices are intimidating as well. Everything is crazy expensive, like $10 for a bottle of shampoo! There are many streets as it is a very large city I have yet to fully navigate through. No one wears bright colors. They all wear muted colors like blacks, greys, and browns. Perhaps they are saving the bright colors for all the neon green and orange plastic grocery shopping bags? I hardly see any fat Londoners around. All the food in the grocery stores seem health-conscious with their labels unlike the US.

Speaking of grocery stores, in order to get your old British Pound bills from the 1960's used (as most stores I've found, don't accept them anymore) just flirt with the cute checkout guy at the grocery store with the amazing British accent!

Cheers!
Farida