It seems like regardless of how I spend my day, when 9 or 10 p.m. at night rolls around, I'm absolutely exhausted.

Today was much slower than most. I got up slowly, took a shower and got some serious online alone time. I finally opened my International Issues book and grudgingly started the quiz Clyde set up for us. Fortunately, it was multiple choice and untimed, and we could save it and come back to it whenever we want. 95% for not cheating the system and just skimming Part I looking for the right answers - I rock.

Anyway, midway through the book, I got bored of sitting here by myself and texted Dickon. We ended up meeting at the Knightsbridge tube station at 4 and walked over to Harrods. Harrods has everything you could possibly want for prices you could buy luxury imported cars for. We walked through women's clothing, evening gowns, the toy store with child-sized Ferrari's, the food court, etc. By the time we got to the food court, we were pretty much starved so we decided to be thrifty and go somewhere else for dinner instead.

He suggested a sandwich place called Pret A Manger that supposedly has the BEST sandwiches and he was right. We both got mature cheddar and pickle sandwiches which sound really sick, but they were really good. When we went to grab drinks, I made a comment asking how anyone could like sparkling water, which is basically the fizziness of soda without flavour. And he says, "Sparkling water! Thanks for reminding me," and took one. Apparently he got hooked on them in China when he was ten. Random.

He is so nice! We just sat there and talked for a long time, and then we took a walk down to the Gloucester tube stop so he could go and meet a friend for his second dinner. I don't know if this is specific to Dickon or Brits in general, but I just feel like there's a wall up there. He's very formal and I don't know if he intends to be, but it's hard to get comfortable in a situation like that. It's very hard to explain. British people just aren't WARM. They're nice, they're lovely, but they're not warm. I wish I could come up with a location or activity that would kind of calm him down and loosen him up, but I can't think of anything other than alcohol! Haha, any suggestions?

We have watched way too much British television tonight. Did you know they have a show called "How Do You Solve a Problem Called Maria?" It's like American Idol except they're looking for the next Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. It is by far the funniest thing I've ever seen. When a Maria gets kicked off, the remaining Marias sing "So Long, Farewell" to her. We were dying.

Whew, three entries in one day. Don't get used to this.

Ahhh, much better.

So yesterday I headed off to my interview. I wanted to look professional, yet look comfortable and keep cool, since it was warm. I went with a Victorian-style cream top and brown dress pants and pulled my hair back into a french braid. I almost twisted my ankle walking up the sidewalk in my heels to work. I am so embarrassing.

My boss, Jenni, seemed really nice, although I would never pinpoint her as the type to be the editor of a huge, jewellery-based magazine. The room where I'll be working is really big and is actually shared with three other magazines. There were about four computer stations and each desk was piled high with proofs and papers and magazines. She said I'll start out doing proofreading, which I love, and that she'll teach me to do page design. Since this magazine caters to merchandisers in particular, they just put out their Christmas issue!

I work 9:30-5:30 four days a week (no Wednesday because that's for field trips), and she said punctuality is extremely important. Bugger. However, the particularly good news is that the magazine will pay for all of my transportation. She told me to get a three-month tube pass, which means that ALL my transportation here, both work AND leisure, will be taken care of. That is a huge amount of money, so I'm really happy about that. I start work on Monday, September 11 (yikes), and I change stops at the tube station that was bombed in 2005. I really hope I don't die on my first day of real work.

When I got back from my interview, Jon, Diana and Nichole were all about to go shopping so they invited Katie and me to go. Diana needed trousers for work (pants = underwear here) and Jon had heard of a REALLY cheap store named George's where she could find some. It was 2.3 miles and no one could figure out a way to get there by bus so we walked. Huffing, puffing and panting, we arrived at George's to discover that it was - drumroll please - a British Wal-Mart. No joke. We almost cried.

That was really the beginning of the end of our good day haha. We were starving after shopping so we went to a pub where we were informed that all of us had to have driver's licenses in order to be served. Excuse me? Diana only had her school ID card and I clearly don't have my driver's license, so we had to leave. Does that make any sense? Even if you don't order alcohol, you have to have a specific ID in order to sit down. The drinking age is 18 here anyway, and we were all told that it would be best to leave all forms of ID in our rooms for safekeeping. Very strange.

We ended up eating at a British fast food joint. There's nothing quite like traveling 4,000 miles to eat a cheeseburger. We thankfully found a bus that brought us almost all the way home, and we staggered up to the top of the bus and collapsed into our seats and pretty much glared at each other for the duration of the bus ride haha. We were quite the happy bunch.

We all hung out last night in our usual spot - our lovely, balcony-side living room. Someone had left chocolate biscuits downstairs for all the residents, so I brought them up for us to munch on. Jon brought us drinks and did our dishes while we girls sat back and read the newspaper hehe. I knew we kept him around for a reason!

And that's that! Diana got her hair cut yesterday. It was shoulder-length before and she decided that she wanted it much shorter, so it's somewhat spiky now and the back goes to about her chin. It's really cute on her. I'm getting a little tired of my long hair, but there's no way I'm that gutsy!!!

I'm trying to figure out what to do today, as right now, I'm here by myself and I have no idea when the others will get back. I might get ready and head down to the Catholic Church to find Mass times. Harrod's and TopShop are also calling my name, so I might go off to Knightsbridge and Kensington. I better enjoy these free days while they last because I'll be a working girl here before too long.

Everyone else has left for Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Castle, an excursion that I opted out of since I've already been to Hampton. Most of our trips are subsidised because we've already paid an advance $300 for a variety of activities that they have lined up for us. The price of each trip you decide to go on is deducted from your total. At the end, any money left over in your fund is given back to you. Therefore, this money is quite precious and I'm trying to be thrifty!

I really wanted to just go to Windsor today, but I haven't heard back from the girl I was planning to go with. Dickon told me that Eton, the most prestigious and expensive prep school in the UK and also where Prince William attended, is just a short walk away, so I was hoping to stop by there and take an obscene amount of pictures. Oh well. Even if today doesn't work out, I'm sure there's another day that I can go. And to be honest, it would be really nice to have some alone time today so I can update THIS, send out a few e-mails and get some homework done.

Early Thursday afternoon, I headed off to High Street Kensington to meet Perry for lunch. I took one wrong turn, quickly realised it and turned around and made it there without any other problems. Quite impressive. :) As expected, when I saw him, I gave him the biggest hug ever. He gave me his extra phone which is SO NICE - he said it cost him £150, but he couldn't find the charger to it until recently, so he just bought another one. He helped me top it out (pay for minutes for the phone, which you can do at nearly every convenience store) and then we headed off to Chinatown for lunch.

We ordered sweet and sour chicken and rice, which was served to us with chopsticks. I think chopsticks are one of the reasons that Asians are so thin. It's impossible to eat fast, or in my case, at all. Perry gave me a brief tutorial, but when that proved in vain, he asked the waiter to bring me a fork. Pathetic.

After I left Perry, I hopped a tube back home to get ready for my evening out with Dickon. I knew he would be coming from work, so I thought I had better dress up. I finally decided to wear Amy's favourite outfit - the khaki safari dress - with brown heels. I was so nervous about meeting him! I saw him from across the street because he looked exactly like his pictures. He was reading a newspaper and I walked up and was like, "Dickon?" And he looked up and... yes, he did... he shook my hand. Haha. Hello, awkwardness.

The rest of the night was really fun. We spent over 2 hours in the drawing room of the hotel, me feeling completely uncivilised because everything was so nice. The meal itself - tea, finger sandwiches and various pastries - cost around 40£ ($80!!) and Dickon paid for it all. He said he had stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before working as a doorman at his friend's party and so that would cover the cost. How nice.

He walked me home and was pretty much gushing about the area that we're staying in. I found out the other day that the flats next door cost 2000£ ... per WEEK ... to rent. Oh, my Lord. I am living up this trip because there's no way I'll ever be able to afford to come back!!

So the night with Dickon was fun - albeit slightly uncomfortable - and we might hang out again this weekend! Yay!

I'll have to update on yesterday a bit later because I just decided that I want to return to bed. Goodnight!

My new workplace is about 45 minutes away. It's a loooong ride on the tube, followed by a considerable walk after the closest stop. To be honest, I haven't really started preparing for the interview yet. Or doing any homework here yet. I've decided that I'll either do it right away, as soon as it's assigned, or I'll do it last minute. Either way, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it because I feel like it's superfluous anyway - my REAL classroom is the streets of London!

The Museum of London was quite dull. They had some cool replicas of Victorian fashion - dresses, petticoats, etc. - that I would totally wear. I just really don't care about fossils from 50 million years ago. And PLUS! - the collection ended with the beginning of the twentieth century. Just when all the good stuff was happening! Or at least the stuff I would care about. Bogus. And they call themselves a museum.

As you all know, I'm meeting Perry today for lunch. I'm pretty nervous because this is my first time going off on my own. I'm not scared of being by myself for safety reasons, but namely because I have no sense of direction whatsoever. My family can attest to the fact that I can't differentiate between my left and my right. When you come upon a street, it will say, "Look left" or "Look right" for oncoming traffic. As you may remember, the English drive on the opposite side of the road as Americans do. I have determined that this is the way I will die. I will enter an intersection, see a "Look left" warning, and I will look right instead, enter the street and collide with a double decker tour bus.

Anyway, I'm not exactly planning to die on the way to meet Perry, but I'm pretty sure I'll get lost and end up in Paris (which hopefully I would notice when I started treading Channel water). Whenever Katie and I go off, she practically has to take my hand to guide me because I keep turning the wrong way. It doesn't help that every time we've gone off to Imperial College we've taken a different route. I'm scared for myself.

Dickon made reservations for us to have tea at 5:30 at the Cadogan Hotel Restaurant in Belgravia: http://en.venere.com/hotel/index.php?htid=72092&lg=en. It looks so fancy! What to wear, what to wear. And no, Carly, just because he's taking me to a hotel does NOT MEAN I'm bringing mace. Five years in prison doesn't sound too appealing to me. Plus, I think I have enough traffic violations on my record without adding "carrying a concealed weapon" assault charges to the list.

Have a great day, everyone!

So I got my internship!

I will be working at a jewellery magazine. One of our RAs, Jamie, told me that when she was here a couple of years ago, her friend had the same internship as I will have. She absolutely adored it and she still keeps in contact with her supervisor. She said the supervisor, Jenni, loves Americans and thinks our "accents" are adorable. Jamie also said that she's pretty sure the girl got a end-of-the-year present - aka jewelry! I'm so excited!

I go in for my interview on Friday at 2 p.m., so I will know more then!

Clyde, our Mizzou advisor-professor, gave me a few hints on body language. He told me that I have an "infectious smile" but that my body language hints that I'm shy. Me, shy? Okay, yeah. So I'll have to work on that!

Katie and I are going to leave in about half an hour to find our new workplaces so we don't show up late on the first day and make a horrible impression. The only downside to what sounds like my perfect internship is that it's quite far away. Jamie told me that I'll have to take the tube to get there and then hop on a bus right afterwards. So basically, I'll be getting up at 5 o'clock and leaving an hour and a half before I need to be there because the transportation can be tempermental. Katie will be working in the advertising/sales section of USA Today. Later today, we're taking our weekly field trip, this time to the Museum of London. Mizzou students are responsible for writing a blog, and we're each taking turns doing so. Being the only news-ed major, I get to go first. I have to write a personal perspective on our trip. I'll send you the link when it's posted!

I'm pretty sure tomorrow will be the greatest day of my life. I don't have any classes. Most people who don't have classes tomorrow have their internship interviews; mine's not till Friday. So what will I be doing? I will be meeting Perry in Kensington for lunch, where he is being so incredibly wonderful and Perry-like and giving me his extra cell phone to use while I'm here! I will then be meeting Dickon for my first proper English tea and crumpets at 5:30, and we'll be going to dinner afterward.

When I was packing, I thought I was being so incredibly girly by bringing so many clothes. I was very, very wrong. I feel like I don't have nearly enough stuff, particularly summery clothes, since it is SO HOT over here right now. This morning, for example, I didn't wake up because I was well-rested. I woke up because I was drenched in sweat. Sorry for the questionable mental image. Also, I didn't bring enough walking shoes. My tennis shoes look so goofy with most of my outfits because yes, I am more concerned with looking fashionable than the well being of my feet. Also, I have a pair of brown flats but no black ones - and I have lots and lots of black clothing.

An optional excurstion to Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Palace is planned for this Saturday. I decided not to go because I've already been to Hampton, and I didn't want to use money to go somewhere I've already been. Luckily, I talked a girl named Wendy from SLU into just going to Windsor Palace with me. PRINCE WILLIAM! Oh boy.

Amy, I'm wearing your red polka-dotted shirt today. And your perfume. Thank you. :)

I will post pictures when my Mac starts behaving itself! I'm fortunate compared to all of the people in the other flat because they don't have wifi OR a desktop working.

That's all from me! Have a lovely day!

P.S. A lot of us joke that we're going to come back with southern accents rather than British ones because so many kids in the group are from Tennessee and Georgia. I WILL NOT LET THAT HAPPEN.

Things have been so hectic that I've barely had time to sleep, let alone update this blog! I'll do better, though, I promise.

Well ... I'm here, and it's wonderful. It didn't start out that way, though. When we arrived at Heathrow, it was misty and gusting wind. We ended up doing a pub crawl that night, which meant frequenting a few pubs in the area. Being that I don't drink and it seemed like everyone else did and also that I was beyond exhausted (I slept for maybe an hour on the plane ride over), I just kind of lost it. I got back to the flat and burst into tears. I'm so close to my family anyway, and being so far away for so long just seemed terrifying. I think it hit me then that I wouldn't see them for three and a half months. It kind of hit me when I had to leave my dad at the airport, but it DEFINITELY hit me then. I thought I was going to die.

However, sleep and sun can do wonders to you. The next day (Sunday) was very nice and we took a tour bus around London. We were set free at two to roam in Piccadilly Circus, so I went off with three girls from Tennessee, Lara, Melissa and Charity. Car, just for you there was a Spanish festival, where we saw a four-story human pyramid and dancing horses.

Yesterday we had orientation for our British Life and Cultures class at 8:30 and then we also met with our International Issues class led by our Mizzou professor, Clyde Bentley. He seemed really nice and laidback. Things are looking very positive in the journalism direction. :) After that, we had a few travel people come in and talk to us about weekend trips. There are just so many opportunities that it was overwhelming. I think next weekend I might head off to a lodge by the sea in Wales to do cliff-jumping and surfing.

Today, Katie (my roommate) and I headed back to Piccadilly Circus to wander. Before she left, her friends gave her a present that had 50 London cards with different things to do on each of them. Her goal is to do all of the activities on the cards, so we got Card #1 out of the way today. We found some old record shops and browsed for shoes. At 2 o'clock, we find out what our internships are, so Katie and I will be heading over to the school in a bit for that. I'M SO SCARED! The internship will be such a huge part of this trip. I hope I get a good one.

My flatmates are wonderful. I couldn't ask for any better ones. Katie and I share a room on the bottom floor that's probably half the size of my room at home. Katie is from Mizzou and is actually the one I'll be sharing a house with when I go back in January. She's really sweet and quiet. We get along great. The other two girls are Diana and Nichole. They go to a small private college in Naperville, Ill., and are both into theater. Diana's boyfriend Jon is also on this trip and he spends most of the evenings with us in our living room. Again, very nice kid.

The flat is nice, if not a bit dirty and small. Nichole described our bathroom to her parents like this: If you sit on the toilet, you can wash your hands in the sink and stretch out your legs and wash your feet in the shower at the same time. You're hard pressed to fit two people in the kitchen, too. We have a mini fridge which is hard for 4 people to share, plus there were bits of mold growing on the egg cases and drawers. Ick. The living room is really big and has two armchairs, a couch, a TV and TV stand (that doesn't work.. yet), and a computer table and chair. Diana and Nichole's room is upstairs, and the staircase is right by our door. They call their new abode "the midget room" because once you walk up the stairs, the ceiling goes up to your shoulders. You have to duck down to walk across the room. They thought it was the coolest thing until they figured out that it's very difficult to pull on a pair of jeans while hunched over. By far, the greatest part of our flat is the balcony. Katie and I can access it from our room and we can also access it from the living room. At night, when we're all sitting in the living room talking, we'll open the doors and get a nice breeze. Lawn chairs are also sitting on the deck, so Jon has fallen asleep there a few times.

We live in one of the poshest areas of London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Apparently Elton John lives right up the street, and if I see him, I might just die. I still need to find out Jude Law's place of residence, so don't worry, Ames - I'm right on that.

I got ahold of Dickon last night on the phone and we made tentative plans to have dinner together on Thursday night. I'm so excited! For those of you who don't know, I met Dickon via facebook about a year and a half ago and we've been good friends ever since. He lives and works in London, too. It will be nice to finally meet him! I also have plans to meet Perry for afternoon tea on Thursday. I can't wait!! Thursday should just be wonderful in general.

Katie and I are about to head off to our internship meeting. Wish me luck! I'll update soon. Love and miss you all.

All right, I'm shipping out in less than an hour. I'm so nervous!!!! I need one more thing ironed before I stuff it in my suitcase and before airport security rips the insides of my suitcase apart. Why bother? Then I need to figure out how to fit laundry detergent into one of my two bags - both of which are almost zipped and protruding at odd angles in various places.

I'M SO SCARED!!!! I am not mature enough to do this. Repeat after me: I have Perry. I have Perry. I have Perry. And my teddy bear. Breathe.

The next time I update this, I'll be in London! Or someone will close it down post-mortem. :/ HAPPY THOUGHTS, ASHLEY.