Revolutionary Road Premiere!

Today Patricia, Kelly and I went to the Revolutionary Road premiere. I totally recommend going to a premiere if a) you really like the celebrities that will be there, b) the weather is tolerable and c) you don't mind standing in the same spot for at least 4-5 hours or longer. It sounds really unappealing and believe me it wasn't fun to stand there for so long in the super cold but the payoff was definitely worth it. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were there...they were the only celebrities there but frankly, that's plenty for me. Not only are they amazing at what they do, but they really seem like they're nice people and care about the fans who were standing there in the cold for so many hours. They both looked super gorgeous and I was pretty impressed with how long they stayed out on the Red Carpet. It was probably 40 degrees or something like that, maybe lower, but there was a really cold wind that blew on and off. Leo at least had a suitjacket on but Kate was wearing a dress so she must have been freeeeezing. I mean, we were all in huge winter jackets and gloves and were still being frozen. Anyway, they all walked down the Red Carpet and did their interviews with all the press that was there...which included MTV News [not surprising] but also CNN International which was surprising to me. After their interviews they walked all along where the fans were and were signing autographs...like a ton of them. I was mostly busy trying to get good pictures of them both, which was hard because even though I was about three rows from the barricade, there was a huge push of people from behind, and tons of arms with cameras and people holding up things to get signed. I managed to get a few good ones though. When Kate was going past us I was more focused on the picture-taking but by the time Leo came around I figured that I would actually have a decent chance of getting him to sign something since we were so close. So I whipped out a postcard I had bought at Westminster and reached out toward him and he grabbed it and signed it! You can't really decipher what it says, which I feel like is typical but what do you expect when they're signing their name hundreds of times in an hour? As he was autographing things for people I think he was kinda talking to us although it was really a blur to me. I think I remember someone thanking him and he said you're welcome. Then someone must have asked how he was liking London and he said something like "it's nice, but it's a little cold." An understatement. Another cool thing was that Patricia told me that as she was reaching out to him to get something signed, some guy pushed by her to pass Leo some big laminated portrait or something and Leo bypassed that guy and reached for Patricia's thing. She said the guy was most likely one of those people who sells autographs online for a lot of money so I thought it was cool that Leo wasn't contributing to that and he could tell who were fans and who were people who just wanted the autograph to make money.
Overall it was probably one of the best nights ever. The conclusion is a) I love London and b) Kate and Leo are amazing and I want to go see the movie soon.

Here's the two best pictures I took

Day 3

It is officially the third day in London and I'm already feeling like this is home. It is a beautiful place, and they're right when they say give it a week and it will feel like you've lived here your whole life.

I will say that the seven-hour plane ride was not pleasant. Aside from the fact that my superlong legs never have the room they deserve, there was a sneezing Brit next to me. All I could think of was landing in London with a cold. However, that wasn't the case...thank goodness. We did end up having NO IDEA where to meet the coach to take us to our flats but eventually we found him/he found us and then we boarded the bus. The first views I had of London were super obscured by fog. We even had to circle Heathrow for a half hour or so because the fog was so thick they were having landing delays. It was beautiful though....and it wasn't even the nice parts yet. Mostly old areas with small houses, some playgrounds, really old looking areas. Lots of green. Even though I was so tired that my eyes hurt, I was so thrilled to finally have made it that those moments on the bus were extremely wonderful and I just remember being completely happy.

Our flat is really quite nice. We drew names out of a pot [classy, I know this.] to determine who got which room. Somehow I was chosen first so I got the biggest one and it's a single too. Excellent. The building itself is super old and you can tell, but it's pretty still. We have a nice little lounge and a kitchen, a toilet that is tricky to flush, and a brand new shower. Not too shabby at all. I actually really love it.

We've done a ton of walking since we got here. It's really cool though because everywhere we go, there's always something to look at, dumbstruck. Even if it's just some old building. Everything here just has this old beauty to it, I could literally walk around the entire city and still find new things to ogle at [interestingly enough, I passed an Ogle Street today. Honestly].

I took the tube for the first time today with Patricia to our interview at our internship. It was really sort of intimidating at first. We had no idea what was going on/what to do/how to do any of it. Aside from the general lack of knowledge we had, the entire station was going in 3x fastforward. The morning commuters were buzzing in and out, tapping cards, going through gates, everything was just fast. It ended up being really easy, thank goodness, and pretty cool for someone like me who has never even been on the subway before. Expensive though. But such is London.

Also I feel really stupid being an American here. For one thing, we're clueless about everything and how they do things here, which I feel like just furthers the dislike that people have for Americans. You think it's going to be so similar, since they speak English too and all that, but it's really very different. Even simple things are hard...i.e. crossing the street. You have to be really careful to not get run over. I never know which direction to look, and like I said before, everything here is fast. The one good fast thing though is that people walk fast. Finally. A place where I don't have to be slowed down by people. The only problem is, I'm the slow one now because every time I go somewhere I spend half the time consulting the map to make sure I'm going the right way. Which, might I add, has gone really well so far.

The food here has been pretty good so far. We've had some interesting experiences already...from Pizza Express [which should really be called something like Come In and Order Pizza/Pasta at a Sit Down Restaurant and Wait 45 Minutes for it in a Non-Express-like Fashion] where we had the cooks yelling at the servers and vice versa. Not even kidding, there was like a serious argument that they had, and it was right in front of all the customers on that side of the restaurant....I've never seen something like that before in my life. There's also Wagamama...went there today. It's an interesting place, I guess it's like Asian food...rice and noodles and chicken and all sorts of vegetables, some of which I haven't heard of. It was really good though...really good. I'm trying to expand my food horizons and so far so good. We still have to get Indian food which was supposed to be on like every street corner, but so far I've barely seen any places at all.

There's a TON of exploring/adventuring to be done...tomorrow we're going to Westminster to see all the exciting things there, hopefully get some VIP action and get to go inside some of the famous places. I'll post again soon, maybe with pictures!