Day 75

Thursday, July 26 -

I got up at the crack of dawn (not really, the sun rises at like 3 a.m.) and went into work to go out on a shoot! I was surprised because the Tube was pretty much empty and the Olympics are upon us, so I was expecting it to be packed and awful.

Anyway, I went out on this shoot to see Mitt Romney have a meeting with former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Pretty much all that happened was he arrived, walked to the door of the building, glanced at the press (CBS London photog and me, two interns from the CBS affiliate in Boston, some other intern guy who had people inside), and went into the building.

Mitt Romney and his security team of 3498574897 guys in suits with ear pieces and black sun glasses, rolling up to Tony Blair's office.

Mitt Romney looking over at us, walking into the building.

The whole thing was very anti-climatic. He stayed in there for about 30 minutes and we hung around outside, waiting for him to come back out. You could tell he was about to leave because all his security people started moving around, they drove the cars up and everything got really serious. Then Romney walked out and went straight into his van. No glance, no wave, nothing.

Romney's black SUV driving up with the doors open, ready for him to dive in and speed away.

Romney leaving, ignoring the people to the side who showed up just to get video of him.

Romney in his van. The guy in white getting in looks so much like him, I think he was a decoy. 

After all that crazy excitement I went back to the bureau and logged the video feed of Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate going to some school to talk about this new charity program Coach Core. Then I got to go run an errand and bring bags of food to the production crew at Downing Street. Romney went there to chat with David Cameron and CBS brought complete coverage of his entire journey! I think he lost popularity here, because he said, "there are a few things that were disconcerting" about the Olympic Games, and London got super mad. British papers tore him apart and David Cameron rushed to the Games' defense.

The traffic getting to Downing Street was terrible. We almost got stuck on this road that seemed like it should have been a one-way street. Cars were parked on both sides so there was barely room for two cars to squeeze by, and some truck was parked in the road delivering something. We tried to back out, but more cars were turning on the street. We tried to go back in, then the truck got stuck, and everyone got stuck. But we somehow made it out in the end.

Once I made it back to the bureau, I texted Romney's final remarks about his day and went home for the evening!

I also did my laundry for the very last time this whole trip. I didn't do five pounds worth of laundry every week this whole trip, so I think I made a profit off the stipend!!! (Except not really, because I think it was part of the program fee.)