Jam Packed Day of Awesomeness!

      This morning led us to Thomson and Reuter’s; a company that basically sells media to other mediums such as papers and magazines. They sell stories and photographs mostly. The building was tall, similar to Toronto skyscrapers but this building in particular had a minor difference. Along the outside of the building was an electronic, automatically updated headline announcer. A black strip panel with orange digital writing brings headlines to passers-by every single day.

      This company is similar to AP which is their competition. We got a short tour and were able to speak with three employees and get some insight! One was a photo editor which was very interesting to me because he knows where the photo will go and whether it will be front page or a tiny image somewhere obsolete. Therefore he can decide what kind of imagine is being desired and based on who wants the image he can decide their traditional style and go from there. Another employee who actually came to the UK from Toronto, Canada, was a story editor! It was yet another possible preview for our futures. He discussed how many stories he must edit through each day (which is more then 10 on a normal day) and how hard he works.

        Break time… and by break time I mean eat a delicious large hot dog from a street vender time. BEST THING I HAVE EATEN HERE. I mean that in the nicest way to British food, but that hot dog was simply fantastic and I would go back there every day; topped with onion, pickle, mustard, ketchup, relish and hickory sticks!!

      After Thomas and Reuters we took a short walk to the Museum of London which Kimberly thought would enrich our experience and make connections with the city we are visiting.

The entrance to the London Museum 

      I found the museum to be a beautiful building with wood framing on the inside, but missed a bit of the context aspect. I enjoyed looking at the history of the ports, and the sailor/pirate lifestyle that was London in the olden days. They had another exhibit which was only around for about two weeks, called Estuary. I enjoyed this because the back wall was strictly images of trash close up and cropped.  It was just a fantastic project I really enjoyed looking at (KFC, garbage bags, broken glass etc.). We couldn't take pictures here but it was interesting for me to see this.

      Free time after the museum Steph and I wandered our way down to the waterfront and stood in the lineup of a thousand people to get on the London Eye.

      I am in love with heights, never had a fear of them. I climbed trees and road roller coasters, and now I love visiting the CN tower and am a new fan of planes. SO! Since a huge Ferris wheel stands in London at the water front and waiting to show people the amazing view of London England; I had to do it. Steph on the other hand was not too excited with her fear of heights she took it upon herself to concur this fear. She did amazing, as she sat on the wooden bench in the centre of glass dome (one carriage of the Ferris wheel) clinging to the bench and opening her eyes only every now and then. The oval dome that took us around the wheel had a closed and solid floor but the rest was glass, and it fit about 25 - 30 people in each. The weird thing about getting into the dome was that the wheel never really stopped moving. It took about 30 minutes for the wheel to go a complete rotation.

 

  

WHAT A VIEW?!

      

After that excellent adventure we toured down to the Rock n Roll shops of London. One shop that was strictly Beatles and one that was a variety of rocker memorabilia. Here I was engrossed by the records hanging on the wall and famous signed guitars (Kiss caught my eye).

 An off-center, but still cool picture of the front of the London Beatles Shop

 

Guitar signed by Kiss in the Rock & Roll Shop

       They had mass amounts of T-shirts, guitar picks, and much more. After purchasing a “God Save the Queen” shirt for Steph we came back to the hotel; stopping to grab a few little trinkets** for my family back home, seeing as, tomorrow……..is………….our……….LAST DAY! How did that happen?!


**Trinkets: shot glasses, t-shirts, key chains, London-humour style condoms, but my favourite will be the pictures that are priceless.  
After this massive day it was lights out for me!