Sunday, August 9, 2009
Bye, Buh Bye! Cheers, Bye! ♥ 3:36 PM
Now to recount the tale of my last two days in London.
Thursday at work was quite a hectic day. I had to try my best to finish up my feature, but unfortunately by the end of the day I still hadn't heard back from the sources that I needed to hear from in order to finish. So I wrote all that I could without it and Jenni asked me to finish it while I was in Italy, not ideal but luckily most of it was done. Jenni, Laura and Sara took Claire, Michelle and I out for lunch (Michelle's last day of the internship was Friday). We went to an Italian restaurant called Strada and it was really good food and it was nice to talk to them on a non-work basis again like the picnic. Then at the end of the workday they showered us with little gifts as a thank you for being such lovely interns. Despite the stress that sometimes came along with the internship and our eagerness to be through with it, Claire and I were both pretty sad when it came time to leave and nearly cried. It was very weird to be leaving Prof. Beauty for the last time.
When we got home I had to finish packing everything up and then we met our other flatmates - Amanda, Claire H. and Linden at a pub called the Brass Monkey where all of the MSN interns were having a last day party with the editors there. We spent the evening there until the pub closed at 11:30 and then headed back to the flat, where I proceeded to do a bit more packing before I fell asleep.
In the morning I got up early, put absolutely everything in my suitcases and brought the big one downstairs as it was going to be picked up by Luggage Free sometime that day. Then I went to class a bit early to check-in online for my flight and print off my boarding pass in the student lounge. I had to say my goodbyes a bit early and leave class a few minutes early because I got a call from Luggage Free saying that they would be picking up my bags at about half 12. Luckily after handing off my bag I had time to stick around the flat to have one last quick meal and while I was eating my flatmates came back early so I got a chance to do a proper goodbye even though I'll see them all back at Mizzou.
Then I got on the tube to Heathrow terminal 5 and checked my luggage and went to wait for my flight. I worked on my feature a bit more while I was waiting since I got some of the quotes I needed and then got on the plane to meet my mom in Roma! I slept for most of the flight, and once I landed walked through the airport to the train station.
I tried to buy a train ticket to Termini train station from one of the ticket windows, but he only took cash. So then I had to go withdraw cash. But then I noticed a more official looking ticket window and used my card to buy it from him. Meanwhile, I had been trying to call my mom at the hotel - but the number I had wasn't working because I was calling from a UK phone instead of a US phone. After messing with it for a bit, I got the right number and got through to her but then the power went out at the hotel - which of course I didn't know until later, I just thought I couldn't get through! I was pretty exauhsted and stressed out by that point and almost broke down and started to cry since I couldn't understand anyone and couldn't get ahold of her, but after trying several more times got to talk to her and figured out where to meet her once I got off the train.
We walked back to the hotel from Termini - it was a really nice hotel called Camelia. It was the nicest place I've been in in a very long time. The bed was so unbelievably comfortable after what I've been sleeping in all summer. I was thrilled about that. After getting back to the hotel, we went and ate at a little restaurant just next door to the hotel. Then, we headed back to the hotel and fell fast, fast asleep.
The End.