Day 12

Thursday, May 24 -

I thought getting to work at 8 in the morning was early... but today I had to be there at 6:45, so I had to leave my flat at 5:45. There were actually a lot of people out that early in the morning, and also the sun was already up.

I went out on a shoot for Jubilee stuff, and we started at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It is opening up a new exhibit about the Thames and we needed video of some picture. After that we had about an hour to kill before an interview, so we sat on the lawn of the museum and chatted and tanned!

Apparently CBS London only has about 7 staff members, and everyone else is freelance. Most of the people who are now freelance used to be staff members, but a few years ago they had huge budget cuts and slashed around 40% of the staff. Then she was telling me about the crazy life of the correspondents, how they're always on call and can really be sent anywhere at anytime with little or even no notice.

After the interview, I basically got a free tour around London! They needed footage of Jubilee-esque things, so we went to all the tourist spots with extravagant Jubilee displays. While the camera man was getting some shots, the desk assistant and I went into shops and looked around. She told me it was an example of what not to do during a shoot. She also said shoots were not usually this relaxing and laid back. It took all day, though, we didn't get back until almost 5. Yay for 10 hour work days!

UK flags hanging down Oxford Street

The Queen made out of Legos!

Bunting at Sloan Square.

Day 11

Wednesday, May 23 -

Who cares about the election in Egypt or the Eurozone crisis? Today's big story was a guy jumping out of a helicopter at 2,400 feet without a parachute. He wore his wing suit and landed on cardboard boxes.

Today at work I was watching one of the editor's put together a story about the people who recently died climbing Mount Everest. He used to live in Texas in the same area I did, and he went to one of the high schools by me and knew where my high school was. Also, one of the other interns I met yesterday went to UT Austin and she also knew the area. Small world!!!

It was interesting to see how the story was put together. The editor looked through the archives and found the video of Mount Everest they already had and wrote it down and sent that off to the corespondent so she knew what to write to. Someone from the New York office had done an interview with a guy from National Geographic and transcribed it and sent the text of it to London. The corespondent, who was actually in London today, then wrote the story. The producer looked it over and made a few changes, and then the corespondent tracked it (recorded the voice). As soon as that was done she was out the door on her next story (which was actually that Wing Man one). The editor then put together all the video and sound. They actually did it slightly out of order because they had to send the script back to New York to get the approval from them. The story was originally supposed to air on the morning show (which is noon London time), but then it got held until tomorrow so it wasn't as urgent and the people in the New York office didn't look it over until much later in the day.

This is in direct contrast to the newsroom I'm used to working in, where you pitch your own story idea, get your own video, do your own interviews, write your own story and then edit your own story. In that sense the finished package isn't really a collaboration but rather something you can take ownership of. Here, it's much, much, much more of a team effort. It was also really interesting because part of it was worked on in New York, so they had to send this story across thousands of miles to put it all together.

I don't know if the story will ever actually make it on air. The guy who was editing it had to leave at 4, and by that time they had just gotten a revised script back from New York. Apparently there were a lot of changes, except the correspondent who voiced it was already gone for the day and wouldn't be back until tomorrow.

But while all this was going on, Wing Man was going to jump out of the helicopter. Sky News was broadcasting the story but they said they weren't going to do it live (how considerate of them), but thankfully I was in a newsroom so we just watched the live feed through their servers.

Day 10

Tuesday, May 22 -

I had to be at my internship at 8 a.m. this morning... and it takes an entire hour to get there... so I had to get up super early. No bueno. I was supposed to be working with the website guy (who I believe is a Mizzou grad!), and they wanted me to come in early so I had plenty of time to work with him. But I asked and apparently he doesn't leave till 2 and I only need to work 4 hours so I could have easily strolled in at 10 o'clock. Anyway, I get there and he is working from home today! I was kind of disappointed because I was looking forward to it. I got to work with Eurovision instead, which is a news wire service that feeds them video. A description of the video comes up on the Eurovision website so I copy it over into CBS's news system so the producers can read about the video we have.

I had enough time before class to come back home and make myself lunch. I went to the store yesterday and got peanut butter and jelly, but they don't have my brands here so I got weird British brand. Like all of the food here, it tastes weird. Weird bread, weird peanut butter and weird jelly. I miss Jif and Welch's!

In class today I learned that I know absolutely nothing about British history. We took a 'pub' quiz over some reading that no one actually read, where we worked in teams to get an answer and apparently there was supposed to be a keg, which is where the pub part comes in, but we're not that authentic. After the quiz, though, we went over all the answers and I learned so much about England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the formation of the UK, Britishness, their government and the royal family. A lot of what we talked about happened while I was alive and I would like to know why I never learned about it in school.

Day 9

Monday, May 21 -

I was rudely awakened by the fire alarm at 2 this morning, and we actually had to wait outside in the cold. This is about the 5th time it's gone off in about three days. Also, the shower or something is leaking into the other girl's room and now we're not supposed to use that shower until it's all fixed, so we're down to 11 girls sharing two showers. It's quite annoying.

Anyway, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and it was awesome. It's basically the museum of stuff. My favorite was the fashion exhibit, where they had displays of British fashion from the 1700s to now. They also had a ball gown display which looked awesome, but you have to pay to get in there so I didn't go in. There were also exhibits for all different parts of the world with different things from all different time periods.

Dishes from the Middle East from several hundred years ago.

Swords from India from several hundred years ago.

Roman sculptures and designs, also from several hundred years ago.

For class today we took a field trip to the BBC! We started off in the news part of the network, and they told us it is funded by viewers through a license fee everyone has to pay for their TV. During their newscast they don't have any commercials, so they actually have a full 30 minute newscast. Sports and weather are shown at the very end and together they take up less than 5 minutes. Compare that to America, where our newscasts are also 30 minutes long but they only have about 12 minutes of news content, and we air weather towards the very beginning and repeat it several times. So kudos to Britain for coming up with a solid 25 minutes of news. We continued the tour through the whole building, which is shaped like a question mark so the main part of the building is actually a complete circle, and looked at the studios and dressing rooms. The best part was we got to keep our visitor badges! Yay for free souvenirs!

Day 8

Sunday, May 20 -

I've been here a full week now, so I tied on my walking shoes (because yesterday I wore flats and I think my feet were a step away from falling off) and set out to explore London by myself!

I walked to Trafalgar Square and took some pictures, and watched some little girl get attacked by pigeons because she was feeding them bread.

Then I walked around towards St. James's Park. I didn't actually know where I was though, so I didn't know that I was by Buckingham Palace.

I was hungry so I stopped into a Cafe Nero, which I would compare to Starbucks, and got myself a milkshake thing and a Belgium chocolate brownie! They were both delicious.

After drinking the whole milkshake, though, I really had to go to the bathroom, or should I say loo, and they don't do the whole 'free bathroom' thing here, so I had to pay 30p to go! It was a weird experience, but the bathroom was pretty nice. I found myself on Oxford street which is filled with different shops, so I went into a few. It turned out to be pretty depressing because I really wanted to buy everything but I'm trying to stick to a budget. I really should have chosen to study somewhere where the dollar has more value.

Oxford street was very busy and there was tons of stuff going on, but I turned a corner and all of a sudden it was empty and quiet. It's so cool how one minute you can be in the hustle and bustle of a city and then next you're in a quiet residential area. I'm really proud of myself because I walked around and found my way back home without being totally lost and having to just get on a Tube to the right station.

I walked across Millennium Bridge which looks terrifying to walk across but it has a great view!

Day 7

Saturday, May 19 -

I went to the Tower of London and it was awesome!

The view of the Tower of London from the Tube station!

Queen Victoria's crown, and inside of it is a HUGE diamond.

Medieval bathrooms. The hole just leads right out of a window.

King's armor

The axe they used to behead people.

This is the building where the crown jewels are held. Unfortunately they didn't allow pictures inside. :(

Actual houses inside the castle with awesome blue doors that people (I think who work there) live in.

Graffiti on the tower walls by prisoners.

Traitors Gate! It opens to the Thames River and they used to hang the heads of traitors on it.

White Tower, where the Royal Family used to live.

Tower Bridge

Day 6

Friday, May 18 -

I finally got to sleep in today because class wasn't until 2. Normally I don't have anything on Friday's but we were scheduled to go to class this Monday, but CAPA felt the need to have us sit through hours of boring orientation instead and they decided we still needed to go to class, so they moved it to Friday for this week. We ended up getting out early because the building closed at 5, and class was supposed to go until 7:30.

I set out with some people to find shoes, because I need rain boots. I was under the impression that the weather here averaged in the 60s, but it turns out it's actually in the 50s and raining. Every day. It's too cold to wear sandals, my flats just absorb all the water, and my only other shoes are heels which are not ideal for walking extended distances. We went to this place called Primark, which was awesome and super cheap. My rain boots were only 10 pounds (~$17)!!!

We got a bit adventurous with our dinner, and we ate out at this Lebanese place. I got chicken wings and they were delicious. For dessert, I finally got that ice cream I've been craving for several days. It was at some Indian/Moroccan/Lebanese (I don't remember which) place, and it was also delicious.