Londonia, Teil zwei

The past two days on the way to work, I've had one of the songs from The Boat Tape stuck in my head. (pick up your hat, close up your flat, get out and get under the moon!)

Today at work, there was finally activity! Well, what that means is that I left my desk multiple times today! I suppose Willner wasn't as busy today as he normally is, and had time to coach me. He's really good about that. He doesn't BS me when we meet to discuss my projects. If he doesn't have time, he says so, and when he does have time, I find myself wondering "Doesn't this guy have more important things to do than coddle the co-op the entire day?" In other words, he's a very dedicated and caring mentor. He asked me today how my time here has been, and I said it has been good, but at times I wished I had more work to do. Then I mentioned that in past co-ops, I at times had several projects going on at the same time. So Willner says “If you want more work, I can give you more work!” And he says that I looked so frustrated at many points during the quarter that he thinks it would have been a bad idea to pile on more work. I couldn’t work up the courage to tell him that I might not have been so frustrated if I had more than just the one, frustrating project, that I would have welcomed something else to work on in order to give myself a break from the madness. Plus that would have come across as insolent. But anyways, Engelhard also finally had time for me, and I went down to his desk on the ground floor (where they get to play with 3D modeling software! So jealous!). I dragged the extra chair over so I could sit in his vicinity. And it never fails, sitting in that chair, watching him do his thang on the compopper, I struggle mightily to maintain consciousness (GOOD SONG). Also, Willner took me and Ebert over to introduce us to Herr Schwarz, the man in charge of the Prüffeld (test field), and to schedule a day when we can attend the safety procedure thing. Apparently they’re popular over there, since we can’t get a time slot until the 29th of June, so oh well. More time to figure out HOW exactly we will be testing the oil flow through an orifice! Oh! And Andreas #2 (there are several in my office) gave me a technical document that he translated into English that he wanted me to go over. Well, that took one hour for me to overhaul (when Andreas came over to my desk afterwards, he took one look at all the red marks I put on it and grunted, “oh my!”), one hour to go over my corrections with him (after which he walked over to Andreas #1 and said something like “I just went over this with Claire, and all your mistakes got corrected.” I tried not to listen. Or laugh.), and later he came over and told me that it took an entire hour for him to correct the actual document on the computer. Yikes.

I love the Major Cleaning Fit I enter whenever I need to do laundry. Since the dryers in Germany are TURRIBLE, I have to lay out all my laundry in my room. And to do that, I need to de-clutter and de-grungify my bedroom. And it was really really bad this time. It’s like I went into a beserker rage, but instead of killing anything in my path, I whirl around my room like Taz, and when I find myself on my back in the middle of my floor, cross-eyed, my floor is vacant and spotless. Ahhh!

London? Oh, right.

And we come to Friday in the Big Chips-Are-What-We-Call-French-Fries! I travel to The University of Westminster with Jamie and Bonnie (who does indeed have a pleasant British accent) in the morning around 9:30 or so. The entire morning leading up until the lecture starts, I’m told by everyone that I will be bored out of my mind. Then the guy starts talking. And he is wonderful to listen to, AND he keeps us all engaged! He talked about Britain and the effects of World War II on British society. After 10, 15 minutes of lecturing, he latches onto the NHS (National Health Service) and talks about that for an hour-and-a-half. Break time! A whole posse of us traipse across the street to the coffee shop. And I get a pastry that looks plain but is filled with a vanilla cream BOMB! Super win. We return to the lecture hall for a movie, but technical difficulties get the best of these Brits, so we just continue talking about the NHS. Sigh. LUNCH!

The University of Westminster

We walk somewhere. I’m not in control. So why should I know where we are? Lol, but we stop at this little pub sort of place called The Prince of Whales, where I order Fish and Chips. But I don’t get chips, I get french fries. Seriously, these people shouldn’t falsely advertise!! Then we walk to this museum of World War II, where they all check in with someone who has a clipboard. Then John and Colin head out to Amsterdam, and Jamie, Bonnie, and I head inside. Everyone in this class will have to answer questions online by Sunday night. The first exhibit we go to is The Childrens’ War, documenting the WWII through the eyes of Britain’s children. It was very sad, reading all the excerpts from letters written by some of the children who were a part of the mass exodus of children from the large cities of the UK. Then Jamie and I walked through an exhibit about the World War I. I saw the army recruitment poster for the British army, for Kitchener’s New Army. ...with a mustache like that, what man could POSSIBLY refuse to take part?

Cool Car in the Museum

From The Childrens' War exhibit. I found it amusing... :)

What a guy! What a mustache! What a party mustache!

So after multiple hours spent within the museum, walking and reading without reprieve, Jamie and I were exhausted. We didn’t really do anything else on Friday, sorry about being lame. We did rent and watch The King’s Speech, though. Fitting, right? I really liked it!!

It seemed like everyone was reading on the subway!

NNNNNNOM

The other day, I opened one of the cans of skyline, grated some cheddar cheese, and had SKYLINE! Ohhhhhh, talk about pure BLISS. :D :D I do believe that I made my Facebook status: "Today's mood just took a plunge when I realized that I have no clean clothes, and can't do laundry until THURSDAY. But then I made Skyline. And for a moment, the world was perfect." (And SIDENOTE: I got the laundry key a whole 18 hours earlier than expected!! so I'm DONE with laundry!)