This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at NYU chapter.
To begin, I just want to say that my heart goes out to all those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion. A lot of tragedy has happened in the last week for the US but time does eventually heal everything. Stay strong everyone!
This week was filled with lots of things to do with the news and media. Last Wednesday, Margaret Thatcher’s funeral took place which caused absolute chaos in downtown London. I wish I could have seen the funeral; politics and the whole ‘hate her/love her’ argument aside, it would have been really cool to witness the funeral of a former prime minister and see the Queen and the entire royal family.
While many Londoners attended Maggie’s funeral, I instead weaved my away around traffic to get to work on time. Luckily, I got to attend a photo shoot and interview the winners of the BBC’s TV show “The Restaurant” J.J. Goodman and James Hopkins. Both bartenders co-own the trendy London Cocktail Clubs, and are creators of drinks like the Bacon and Egg Martini. J.J even taught me a cool bottle tossing bartender trick after the interview. The week at Square Meal got even better when I had a brand new copy of the spring edition magazine at my desk opened up to a page with my name on it. For one of the features in the magazine, I wrote a review on a cookbook from a London restaurant chain called Leon and got to have my little blurb and name in the magazine. A photo shot of me holding some herbs also made it into the magazine… I guess you could say I’m a hand model now.
The next day at my internship, I got assigned two stories which will appear on the Square Meal website. For one feature, I will be writing about the best restaurants in London with wheelchair access. The second feature will be centered on the Italian tradition of aperitivo.
Thursday my journalism professor took us on a private tour of the BBC Broadcasting House. This was definitely the highlight of my week. We got to see individual news areas like BBC Arabic and BBC Persian and talk with their chief editors and producers. My class also walked around individual studios and saw some broadcasters shooting a segment for BBC World. The building is so huge and overwhelming but I love it!
Even though my antibiotics are not completely finished yet, I am feeling worlds better from last week. Sadly, this was probably the last week before I really have to buckle down on school work and spend most of my Saturdays writing papers as opposed to sightseeing.
I have had mixed feelings this last week about going home. A part of me really wants to so I can see all my friends and family but another part of me wants to stay here. Maybe someday I will get really rich and buy my own flat in Mayfair.