Bright Dresses, Feather Headbands, and Fur Coats

Translation of title is--- Its London Fashion Weekend!!!

For the record, sadly no I was not invited to attend a designers runway show. I did however get to buy a ticket to fashion weekend, which is an ongoing event the few days after the official fashion week. They take one of the main tents of fashion week and host a catwalk that shows some of the highlights from the past week. You can also get tickets to enter the designer sample sale where everything is marked down a lot, up to about 80% off I'd say. Of course, I bought tickets to both!

What may not be apparent by how I actually dress is that I really do love fashion. What I don't like is spending the money or energy on being fashionable so alas I where the same basic outfits over and over again but thats life. My dream for years and years was to work for Teen Vogue. And yes, this was my dream before the hills and no I do not aspire to be LC. Anyways, I have been so excited about this catwalk/ sample sale because I have never been to a real fashion show and I figure that London will be even more fashion forward than New York, right? Plus designer clothes at 80% off isn't bad either. Maybe I'll buy some stuff so all of these chic London girls stop showing me up with their fantastically grunge wardrobes.

Sarah and I got to the tent around 3 30 and the show started at 6, so we had time to look around at the sale and do some shopping. I kind of forgot before hand that a $600 pair of shoes at 60% off is still way over my budget, so for most of the clothes I admired and walked away. I did buy one dress though! Its a bright orange, flowy dress. It was only 20 pounds. I can picture myself now walking through the sand in Cannes then throwing on my color-blocked sandals (that I do not yet own) and walking through the streets of the Riviera. Yeah, embarrassing imagery. What can I say? I like to imagine where I will wear clothes before I buy them. And I am going to Cannes in April so it's perfect!

I also bought a fashion weekend gift bag. Not because of the stuff inside of it though. It was all lame. They gave me mouthwash and hairspray and mentos and I honestly haven't even looked through it all yet so maybe there's something good hiding deep inside. I bought the gift bag because of the bag itself. Its a regular tote but it has a sketch of the building and says London Fashion Weekend and has purple straps. I really just want to go shopping with it at trader joes when I get back to GW and make everyone jealous when they read it and think I was invited to some exclusive show of London Fashion Week. That really is my sole purpose for buying the bag. Well that and the purple straps. I do love purple.

Moving on- the show itself was OK. It was really cool to actually be inside of the tent, and some of the clothes were great (especially the series on bright color-blocking, I'm kind of into bright colors at the moment if you haven't noticed), but the way it was set up was weird. I guess I was expecting like a normal catwalk type thing, but it wasn't. There were weird interruptions throughout of ads or this random woman talking. It was fun nonetheless though, so I am glad I went. And I am really excited about my new dress.

Work it Girl!

Just on the catwalk after the show :)

Cheers to You Reading Week

As I mentioned to you before, this week is reading week so I figured I would update all of you on what I've been up to with all of my free time since Greenwich.

First off, on Wednesday I went to Windsor to see the castle and the town and all that good stuff. The castle is really big! I expected it to be somewhat like Cardiff Castle since that is my only point of reference as far as castles go, but it was so much bigger not to mention it is still in use unlike Cardiff. In fact, I believe that Windsor is the largest castle that is currently in use. We got to see the changing of the guards. If you ask me, it is way to drawn out. It was interesting for about ten minutes but then it all just kind of looks the same. They make a big deal about it though, there is an entire ring of floutists and drummers and other musicians in addition to the group of guards who are switching. I also got to take the tourist picture with the guard, who decided to stomp and freak out when I accidently touched him. AWKWARD. Apparently, touching them is very forbidden. We also toured the Queen's Doll House and since the royal family wasn't there at the time we got to tour the state apartments which were but also, like the changing of guards, way overdone! I guess thats what royalty is all about though, right?

Windsor, the castle

Me and the guard, who looks really uncomfortable

Castle Repelling... my new favorite sport

After our castle tour, we went around the town which had a lot of shops and restaurants like every other cute small town in the UK that I've been to so far. This one had a lot more of the big name shops though.

Windsor, the town

Where Harry and William went to college (note: not the same as University) in Eton, the town across the bridge from Windsor

By the time I got back to my room we had been gone for about 13 hours, so I was exhausted. And THEN, when I was getting ready to curl up in my bed and pretend to work on my paper, I read an email from my mom saying the bank called about fraudulent charges so I needed to call them back. At this point I was annoyed because they had done this before just because the charges were in London after I told them about 4 times I was out of the country. Turns out, however, that someone had in fact gotten both my debit and pin number somehow and stolen 800 dollars from my account. Most of my money is in my savings account so that means that they put me about 600 dollars in the negative on my checking. fantastic.

When I try to call to call the bank, my phone runs out of pre-pay minutes and when I call to top up my phone, my card is obviously rejected. This leaves me with no money, no phone, and no way to get in touch with the bank. Thankfully, after freaking out on facebook and getting sweet advice from a bunch of different people, my mom was able to put money on my skype account so I could call the bank. Once I called the bank, they were really helpful. They put the money temporarily back in my account and sent me the claim forms and assured me it wouldnt be an issue. The only thing that bothers me now is the person that would take my money :( With my lack of money, they didn't choose a good person to try and steal from so their loss! I hope the money at least went to pay for their sick child's medical bills or buy food for their family or some other worthy cause . My debit was cancelled and I have to make it to Barclays to get my credit card activated so for now I am trying to live off of my cash but hopefully it will all work out fine. Whatever. Annoying but no big deal and really what can you do? life happens.

On a happier note, on Thursday I went to Camden Market. Its like the alternative, goth, punk and many other weird sub-culture area but they also have lots of vintage stores and that kind of stuff. Has anyone seen What a Girl Wants with Amanda Bynes? I'm pretty sure its the place where she goes shopping by the River and tries on the weird clothes and sunglasses. It at least looks like it. The market seems to go on forever. It is quite possibly one of my new favorite places in London. I am definitely going back before I leave and stocking up on clothes (and an extra suitcase to carry them back in). There was also this store called Cyber Dog (google it) that I am now kind of obsessed with. Its all futuristic looking and rave clothes. I want a dress from there so bad! I think I might just have to be Zenon, Girl of the 21st Century (Disney Reference) for Halloween so I have an excuse to buy one since they're pretty expensive. Just don't go in the basement. It's a bit disturbing hehe. The last thing we did before we left was go to the first ice cream shop in Europe that uses liquid Nitrogen to make your ice cream right in front of you. They always have chocolate and vanilla and then each week that add a different flavor, which happened to be sea salted buttered popcorn when I was there. The whole place looked like a science lab- it was amazing.

Camden Market- again, think What a Girl Wants

Ice Cream Science FTW

Then today, GW England took us to the National Theatre to see Frankenstein. I thought it was really good! I think I was the only one who thought so from our group. It was definitely an edgy choice for GW because it was gruesome and there was a lot of nudity but it was really well done and the scene changes were incredible. It was ridiculously fluid, almost like a movie. Overall, I was entertained and thats what you look for in a show so I thought it a success. Oh, and random fact: the guy who directed it was the man who directed Slum Dog Millionaire.

Want to know the one thing I didn't do much of during reading week? Reading. That is probably what I should do for the rest of the weekend. At least I got a lot of the touristy stuff done :)

Where Time Begins

So, this week is reading week. Meaning no classes. Meaning I am already 1/2 way through my lectures. It's crazy, by the end of March I will be done going to classes. Then I have April off, 2 exams in May and still have my flat through middle of June. That leaves a lot of time to be a tourist. Something I am becoming supremely good at! My latest tourist excursion? Greenwich.

So, I learned today, while actually in Greenwich, that it is actually in London, in Zone 2. I have always thought of it as its own city until I got there and saw the O2 stadium and other various London landmark buildings and until my directionally gifted friend informed me its part of London. It only takes about 30 minutes to get there via tube/above ground train. This just goes to show how huge London is. I think its about 700 square miles? That's one big city.

Greenwich is kind of exactly what I expected it to be. As soon as we get there its loads of British style red brick houses and then there is one section in the middle of town with majestic white stone buildings (the historic part, no doubt).

As everyone knows, Greenwich is home to the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time aka where time begins so to speak. There is other stuff too, like the National Maritime Museum, some college, The Queen's House which was one of the homes of many of the tutor Kings and Queens, the Royal Observatory, shopping, markets, restaurants, etc.

The Maritime Museum and Queen's House were average at best (well they were really beautiful on the outside, but there is nothing much inside).

The Royal Observatory was cool though. When you walk up the hill to get to it, you can take pictures on the Prime Meridian. Another thing to check off the bucket list. Since I went to the equator while in Kenya a few years ago, and the Prime Meridian today, now all I need to do is go to where they both meet. Anyone want to take a cruise with me to the Gulf of Guinea? I am beginning a sign-up sheet so let me know ;)

Oh hey, standing on two hemispheres!

Greenwich is also supposed to have some cute stores and a cool vintage shop but for some reason when we got done with all of the sight-seeing stuff at 5 everything was closed. So strange. I guess this just means that I will have to come back at some point.

Reading week continues, so hopefully I will get to do some more UK touring!

PS: Happy Valentine's Day! I just love holidays, especially one that involves sparkling wine and chocolate :)