25 Jul London Calling, Never Sleeps
As I sit in my room staring at a blank word document, words fail me. For an aspiring writer and editor, that’s never a good sign. Our days here in London have been jam packed…and it’s only been 4 days. I guess the best place to begin is at the beginning. After traveling from Melbourne to London; being on a plane and awake for around 36 hours, I was met at the airport by Emma: one of our Program Coordinators from Absolute Internship. I actually walked past her twice, I’ll blame the jet lag for that. Once everyone who was arriving around that time was there, we started the journey from Heathrow to the housing; my new home for the next 8 weeks. The journey wasn’t too bad, not as much traffic as I had expected especially for a Friday afternoon. Check in was quick and easy, the next things on my list were to unpack, shower and nap. Turns out I really only had time for two out of three, but hey they say the best way to fight jet lag is to power though. That night we all had dinner together, it was great to meet everyone. There are about 20 or so of us who arrived; there are quite a few publishing interns and I’m one of three Australians.
Saturday brought with it orientation and an open bus tour of the city. It was actually nice and sunny, which for London is a rarity. The notorious traffic reared its head, but when the sun is out; it’s hard to complain. On Sundays, you go for a roast, it’s just what you do. We had ours at a quite the hipster pub, fairy lights and Yorkshire pudding, a juxtaposition for sure. Here we met a few of the June interns, who were quick to suggest tips and tricks for surviving London. They even organised a movie night, where we watched Finding Dory.
After lunch a few of us walked to the British library. They have hand written Beatles lyrics, a Guttenberg bible and at the moment, a great exhibition on Punk. I highly recommend going to check it out. My day ended with a quick shopping exhibition down Oxford Circus and Regent Street and getting a little lost at Piccadilly Circus. Turns out every Sunday in July Regent St. hosts a different street festival, will definitely have to check them out properly. Instead of briskly weaving though the overwhelming masses of people, to get to one store before it closed.
Monday signalled the start of my internship at my company. It’s a small company which is great, plenty of opportunities to learn and be helpful. I spent the day sorting, cataloguing and packing books to be shipped to the warehouse and to the rubbish bin. After work drinks with a few fellow interns at All Bar One in Butlers Wharf. It’s right on the Thames with a great view of Tower Bridge. In this short time I’ve done so much and already made some great new friends, so I’m sure this fast pace isn’t going anywhere soon. So stay turned for more adventures.
Ps. Apologies for the slightly terrible, people-less pictures. They will get better and have me in them, even though I thoroughly dislike having my picture taken.
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