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I've been trying to catch up for weeks now, so today I am making it my goal to get up to today. The final day of catching up, the final day of tag. So one last time, allow me to take you back. This time our journey starts off on last Monday, July 27th.

I found myself without Claire at work again today, as her sister and friend Carlye were still in town she switched Monday for Wednesday. So I spent the day with Michelle sending out emails to nail product suppliers asking them for any trend tips they had and any celebrities they knew of that were wearing their colors for the Nails Buff page of the magazine. After class that evening we had planned on going to the King's Head for quiz night, but yet again our plans were thwarted as we were forced to remain in the flat and work on our projects for International Issues Reporting.

Tuesday was more of the same, Claire had joined me at work again and our editor was still out of the office. Claire and I did some chasing in regards to our Cassinasages and Cirque du Soleil stories and then the assistant editor Laura assigned Michelle, Claire and I to do a Blog Challenge. Basically we had about an hour and a half to pick a topic that would be relevant to the readers and write a blog on it, the best one would get there's posted on the website. I wrote mine about how salons should be dipping into the sunless tanning industry, and I won! However, it has been over a week and it is still not on the website so I doubt that will ever go up and that they were just trying to take up our time.

Wednesday as I'm sure you will recall, I spent the morning attempting to catch up on my blogs, then went to class and then worked on our project in the evening some more.

Thursday at work Claire and I went out with the new intern Michelle to do some Vox Pops. It started raining and no one wants to stop to talk in the rain, nor did we want to be out vox popping people so we ducked inside for a quick cup of coffee and started up again when the rain stopped. At first we had quite good luck, but it wore of quickly and ended up taking us a fairly long time to get enough people to be willing to answer our questions and to be okay with having their photograph taken. Once again our flat spent the evening working on projects and I began to pack a bit.

Friday we went to class per usual. Since Saturday was Claire C.'s 21st birthday Friday night we geared up to go out and celebrate. Linden's friend Shelby was in town visiting again from Paris, so the group of us went back to our favorite Friday night 80's and 90's music party - Underworld. We had a jolly good time as before, staying till closing time.

Saturday morning was a pretty slow morning. We all slept in a bit and then went to finish up the individual parts of our projects and write the paper that went along with it. When we had finished we all went out to dinner at Gourmet Burger Kitchen for Claire's birthday dinner and then returned to the flat to sip wine on the patio and have a relaxing night in together, staying up just long enough to say it was no longer Claire's birthday before heading to bed.

Sunday Claire C. and Amanda had to work on their group project, Linden was out with Shelby and Claire H. was busy taking a practice LSAT so I decided to make my way out into London by myself. I got onto the tube and stopped at Temple, one of the old parts of town and just wandered around until I found myself in Trafalgar Square where I decided to go into the National Portrait Gallery. It was huge and I didn't mangage to see all of it before I needed to go back to the flat to eat some lunch, but it was a great morning/afternoon. After returning I finished up my project and did some more packing.

Now onto the next week - my very last week in London. Monday (August 3rd) started off poorly. Claire and I recived a very difficult deadline for a new feature we were each to write. Mine being on salon's who have embarked on creative business tie-ups with non-beauty brands and Claire's being about tips from marketing managers a big companies. So we spent the morning sending off emails and making phonecalls before we had to head off to class. We had a full class session where both my group and my other flatmates group presented and then afterwards we went to take a tour of the BBC since last time we went we hadn't been able to take the tour. It was pretty cool, but very little of it related to journalism and I think we all felt quite annoyed that we had to take one of our last nights in London to go on a tour we wouldn't have bothered going to on our own. Especially with the 10 page BLC paper due Friday and our new deadline for Prof. Beauty - Claire and I began to stress out. After we got home we all worked on our paper a bit - I made sure to get half way done - then I did some packing and talked to my mom about our trip to Italy.

Tuesday was another phone call and email filled day. I got a few leads and at least one for sure contact for my tie-ups story and also a blog entry in while I was waiting for my phone calls and emails to be returned. That night I finished up my paper, did some more packing and tried to figure out how I was going to ship one of my two huge suitcases home due to the hassel that carrying 3 suitcases through Italy (especially at first when I would be by myself) would be. Thanks to a very helpful man name Jeremy at Luggage Free, I was able to get everything worked out at the last minute.

Wednesday Claire and I took full advantage of it being one of our last days in London, especially since it was my last day that I would really have much free time. So we got up in the morning and headed out to TKTS, the discount ticket booth, and got tickets to see Phantom of the Opera that night. I've been wanting to see this musical for years, and having landed in London - the land of theater - I decided I wouldn't leave without seeing it. Then we headed over to Buckingham Palace because in August it is open for tours to see how long of a wait it would be. While over there we caught the changing of the guards and saw the line to get in and decided it would take too much time. So instead we headed over to Westminster Abbey and went inside. It's absolutely huge and marvelous inside. It is basically just filled with tombs and memorials. Queen Elizabeth and Mary are burried there, as well as Mary Queen of Scots. They also have Poet's Corner where many a great writer are buried. It was very awe inspiring and wonderous to be around so many greats - even in their deceased state.

This is all I can manage for now, I started this blog Tuesday afternoon while at work and then got responses and had to get to work on the story. However I am now in Rome with my mom and we are about to head out after resting our feet for a while. Now I'm only 4 days behind, so with any luck I will catch up soon! Photos will be up shortly I hope!

P.S. - I forgot to mention, Phantom of the Opera was absolutely amazing. One of, if not the, best plays I have ever seen. The sets were fantastic and phenomenal and it was just perfect - exactly what I hoped for.