It's been a while.

Hello internet world.

I decided that I would post about what my life currently entails. I'm not sure why I randomly decided to update cyberspace about my whereabouts, but might as well.

I finished up my junior year, which is scary because I think that means I am now a senior. I am slightly in denial that the real world is only a year away, but I am also excited about what all that means. Hopefully in a year my life will be more exciting than it is terrifying, but only time will tell.

This summer I am working for the Durham Arts Council. The DAC is really a great organization. They encourage the Durham arts community in a wide range of ways, including grants for artists, exhibit space, support of creative non-profits, and offering summer arts camps and yearly arts classes. It is a great type of organization to be involved with, and I am really excited about working for them.

It is strange having a 9-5 job. I feel much more like a real person than I have before. I get up, get ready, commute to work, sit at a computer, commute home, and then I am tired and just want to go to sleep. It is nice, though, to have a simpler routine. I have much more down time than I have had since probably I started high school. I am filling that time by hanging out with friends and attempting to put a dent in my movie and book lists. I am making some progress, but not nearly enough. Here are my current goals and accomplishments as far as movies and books are concerned:

Watched this summer: Magic Mike, Moulin Rouge, When Harry Met Sally
Hoping to watch: Inception, Amelia, The Art of Getting By, and so many more
Read this summer: Steal Like an Artist, and parts of The Gospel According to Harry Potter, and What's the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?
Goal for the summer: Love Wins, Lord of the Rings. Initially I hoped to read all three of LOTR. Now I simply hope to get through the first.

I'm not sure if I will be posting again on any sort of regular basis, but you never know. Check back occasionally if you are curious.

Also, I have a tumblr now, but I mostly just re-post things I find amusing. Most of these things are somehow related to Harry Potter, England, the Beatles, Hipster fashion, or Montreat. If you find those things interesting look me up. kirbyrachel.tumblr.com

xoxo,
Rachel

already nostalgic.

I'm not in London any more. On Saturday I flew back to North Carolina, and I have spent the last few days sleeping, doing laundry, and craving a good cup of tea. I am happy to be home, though, as I get to sleep in my own room, spend time with my family, and spend money without having to do mental math for each price.

My last few days in London were really busy. I had final papers and tests that took up the majority of my time. It was not the most fun way to spend my last few days in London, as I wanted to be exploring, but it probably helped me emotionally prepare to come home, as I was just ready to stop doing school work.

My last day, however, was absolutely amazing. I went to the gallery for the last time, which was really sad, but it was a good day. After I left Hampstead I headed for Parliament, where I was meeting up with some friends at a bar there. One of my friends did an internship with an MP, so we were all spending time with her people. I had never been to Parliament and I felt really important having a connection to get inside. The picture below was taken from a...let's say UNIQUE view from the building. It was probably the coolest view of the city that I have ever gotten, and probably the best I will ever get. It was a great way to spend my last evening. And I was reminded of just how beautiful the city is.

Samuel Johnson once said "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." I find this to be absolutely accurate. I am by no means tired of London, and I doubt I ever will be. I love the city so much. It is definitely one of my favorite places in the world, and I hope to return to it again. Life seems so much slower back in this small town, which is fine, but I do miss the business and the excitement of London. The city will forever be a home for me.

printroom.

This semester I have done an internship at Printroom, a small gallery in Hampstead that sells contemporary fine art prints. I have learned a lot about through this placement and I have really enjoyed the opportunity. I have gotten to meet some of the artists, which has been really neat. One of them is actually from near Morganton, NC, which was a fun connection to make. The networking opportunities of this internship have taken me all over London. I even got to go to a function in a 30 story sky scraper down in Canary Warf.

I have gotten to see and handle hundreds of beautiful pieces of art. Life is very different when you look at art so often. I will miss the excitement of opening a new delivery that is from an artist. It is great fun to feel like I am one of the first people to see a new set of prints!

I have created a facebook page and a twitter account for the gallery (please follow @PrintroomLondon on twitter and like Printroom on facebook) and I have done some updates for the website. I have really enjoyed these marketing aspects of the intership, and I am glad I got the chance to help the gallery use some new forms of social media.

These are just a few of the awesome things I have gotten to do with my internship. I really love my weekly trips to Highgate and Hampstead. If you are ever in the area, you should definitely look up the gallery. I know it is somewhere I hope to return to, as it has been really great to me.

Oh, and last week when I was hanging the gallery window I saw Ricky Gervais. Pretty cool!

american nomad.

My friend Jenna listens to a band called the Apache Relay. She knows some of the members, and has told me about them multiple times. When she messaged me and told me that they were playing in London last week I decided to check them out. The show was free so I took a few friends and we had a really great time. Their latest album is titled "American Nomad," which we thought was fitting. Sometimes I feel like a nomad, with all of the suitcases and storage containers that are currently used in my life! I never really spend too much time in the same place. I also just realized that I won't be in the same place for more than two weeks straight again until I am in Chapel Hill in January. Crazy. But anyway. Their music is the kind of stuff I want to listen to while sitting on a porch in the mountains. They definitely got a few more fans that night! Yes, I went to see a band from Tennessee while in London, but it was a great show and it was nice to get a little taste of home. I felt like I should be wearing flannel. I am so looking forward to seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains again soon.

Over the weekend I went to multiple parks. I am planning to purchase a print from the gallery where I have my internship, and the print I want shows a scene from Primrose Hill. I decided that I should probably go to Primrose Hill before I buy the print, just so that I can say I've been there. I found it right as the sun was starting to set and it was really pretty! The hill provided a great view of London. I could see the eye, and St Pauls, as well as a few other noticeable landmarks!

Then, on Sunday I went to Hampstead for their Christmas Festival. I am in Hampstead at least once a week for my internship but I never really get to explore. It was fun to actually see the area where I have invested so much time. I went to Hampstead Heath, which is a massive park. Somehow, my friends and I found ourselves leaving the park in an entire separate part of London. But we managed to get back to Hampstead to enjoy the rest of the festival, and to see the lights turned on, on the high street. It was a beautiful day and a nice time to relax and explore the area. It was a nice weekend, and I enjoyed exploring the parks and areas outside in London! The weather has been absolutely incredible this semester; I don't know how long it has been since I have seen rain!

do you sell sour cream?

Two years ago I spent Thanksgiving in Ireland with my family. It was slightly odd, not being in the USA, but it wasn't too strange, because I was still with my family. Clearly, Hannah and I still enjoyed Thanksgiving.

This Thanksgiving, however, I was not only in London, but I was not with my family. It was my first Thanksgiving without them. Luckily, my program decided to have its own Thanksgiving dinner. Our UNC professors said that they would provide the turkey and the pumpkin pie as long as we all brought in a side dish. Great!

Wait...now not only was it my first Thanksgiving away from my family, but it was the first time I was responsible for REALLY contributing to the meal. Hm...

So I emailed my mom and got a recipe for broccoli casserole. It seemed manageable. I was in Sainsbury's on Thanksgiving grabbing a few last minute ingredients for the casserole and I was reminded that some things just aren't the same here. For example, I could not find Ritz crackers. Or any proper substitute for a super processed, buttery and salty cracker. As I was running around, attempting to figure out the conversions for ingredients and the proper substitutes for what I couldn't find I noticed a young man with a cart. In his cart were two entire turkeys, a wide range of vegetables, and a few other seemingly obscure items. He was going up to every employee in the store and asking them "Do you carry sour cream?"

I'm not sure what Thanksgiving dish involves sour cream, but his southern drawl was a give-away; he was an American student attempting to recreate Thanksgiving, just as I was. It was some what comforting to know that someone else was having a makeshift Thanksgiving. I was tempted to speak to him, and tell him I knew how he felt. Hopefully he figured out a good substitute for sour cream.

My flatmates and I all managed to pull off our dishes, and it was a successfully yummy Thanksgiving meal. We had turkey, pie, casseroles, sweet potatoes, rolls, and cranberry sauce, just to name a few. It was nice to be around people who had ties to UNC, and North Carolina just as I do. But, while I am not quite yet ready to leave London, I decided it would have been nice to return just for Thanksgiving. It's just not the same without family.

if harry potter shopped at harrods...

For those of you who didn't already know, I'm rather obsessed with Harry Potter. Surprise, I know. I heard that Harrods had a special display and shop of Harry Potter props and toys. I went on Saturday and completely nerded out. They had actual props from the movies, which was neat. Wands that were actually used by the actors, and dresses worn by various actresses.

These are ACTUAL WANDS. BAH. Okay, freak out is finished, for now...

They also had a small recreation of the great hall, with a great back drop. I would have been sorted for Gryffindor, obviously. It was really fun to see it all!

Saturday night I went to a Christmas market with a friend. It was on the southbank, which I have decided I really love. Waterloo bridge is probably my favorite one, because you can see everything from it. On one side is Parliament and Westminster, and on the other you can see Saint Pauls and the Gherkin. It's a really nice bridge, and it was fun to be on for the sunset.

I went to the Courtauld gallery on Sunday, but I didn't take any pictures there. Last night I went to see The Apache Relay, a band from Tennessee, and they were really good! And then tonight I saw the play One Man, Two Guvnors. It was absolutely hilarious. It was a great week.

is the lord mayor santa?

This Saturday was the Lord Mayor's Show in London. I don't understand all of the politics of having a Lord Mayor of London, and a Mayor of London, and the positions not being the same, but it meant there was a parade, which I understood completely. The parade was much longer than we expected, but it was really neat. There were bunches of marching bands and floats, all representing aspects of London. We kept joking about the parade, and comparing it to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We would laughingly look for Garfield balloons, and we discussed the thought of the parade ending with Santa. There was no Santa, but the parade ended with the Lord Mayor himself, riding up the street in the really elaborate carriage seen below.

There were fireworks on the Thames river in the evening, then I walked around down near Westminster. It's such a nice area lit up at night. It was quite crowded, though. I think many people had the same idea. But it was pretty to see it all, and it wasn't too cold, which was nice.

Today, some of us decided to have a tourist afternoon and explore some of the more touristy areas of the city. We went to Kings Cross station to attempt to get pictures at Platform 9 3/4. When I was in London a few years ago the display was not actually in between platforms 9 and 10, but it was inside of the station. The sign is now outside of the station in what appears to be a construction corner. Not the real thing. I'm sure I would have successfully gotten to Hogwarts if I had been able to get to the real platform...

We the wet to Abbey Road to see the recording studios. We had debated getting a picture at the cross walk, but we quickly realized how obnoxious it was for all of the drivers to be interrupted by the crowds of tourists. We may return in an evening to get a picture when traffic is down, but we did not want to cause any more annoyances on the road today. Instead we just took pictures in front of the studio.

It was a gorgeous day in London. It felt like mid-October. The leaves are changing colors and falling, and I wore a light sweater and was fine. I was glad to be able to explore some. It was a wonderful London weekend.