After waiting in the airport for what seemed like 24 hours, we finally all borded the plane. Wait.. not all of us, Aren got taken out of the airport in handcuffs due to a ring that was suspected to be brass knuckles. It was probably the worst way to end his trip, but I was so focused on myself and seeing my boyfriend, being in my own bed and driving my car again that I totally had no idea what anyone else was feeling or doing. We landed after two hours maybe, and Stephs grandparents gave me a ride home. I couldn't be more happier to be home at this moment, on Canadian soil. 

Let's End This Trip

      Today was fabulous(yes I enjoyed NY on the last day!) We started the morning with free breaky at the hotel and watched one of WNET's television programs called Need To Know. After this we went and had an exciting talk with Marc Rosenwasser who is an executive producer at PBS. He also produced the show we watched at the hotel that morning. 

      He has had a long career working in production on television, from ABC to NBC to CBS and then PBS he has lived just about every minute of it. He loves his job and says the topic change is always constant and is learning and seeing the world everyday.Very insightful even to those of us not going into broadcasting (which I have been increasingly curious about over this trip with CBS and not WNET). He explained that is his job there is no room for error. You have to be ready all the time! He gave us similar advice as the NYT did "find something that you love, because you want to work somewhere you hate". He said to constantly be thinking about where you want to be, 5 or 10 years from now and don't lose sight of that goal, start anywhere, but start at the very bottom and you will make it. Be persistent and you are allowed to take chances in this industry. While we asked him about where he thinks broadcasting is going to explained that it still has a place in the media, but it is becoming more of independent broadcasting then a team effort. Many broadcasters will pitch a story themselves, write the script, go out and get the story, do the camera work (in front and behind) bring it to the studio and edit it as well. It seems amazing to me, that multi-media has just simply grown into a huge industry and makes me want to know everything, about... everything! 

      We also beifly talked about funding for PBS there are four parts to it: the viewers, foundation, the government (13%) and corporate. This means it is a hybrid broadcast so they can have ads but cannot directly sell things. The ads you do see aren't selling things, but they are creating a positive image for their company or product which means it is still beneficial. PBS is seen as an educational program (and it is) so this just enhances a company/product image being viewed on PBS/WNET. 

       After Marc left us we were then able to talk to the two men in the editors room who edit each week for Things To Know. They were hilarious and engaging joking with us and each other they made their job seem very fun. However, they also explain to us what they really do and how hard they do work to edit each piece to fit and run smoothly.
Then we got to see the production area where employees sit behind cameras that are technically 16 blocks away at a separate location. The employees monitor each show, and decide which camera shows what, when and at what angle. Really interesting stuff!!

       Unfortunately Steph felt awful (I guess we swapped issues from the previous day) during the visit so Kimberly and I took a taxi with Sabrina (also feeling under the weather) back to the hotel. Steph and I went to the food emporium – a grocery store and got some comfort food; clearly anticipating home time tomorrow. We mowed down at the hotel on some crackers, pita bread with spinach dip, and Steph got cheese. We also had a jar of pickles that we honestly had wanted since the day we left Canada, however, they just weren't the same. No Valasic pickles here apparently. So we took an easy afternoon before realizing we had to leave the next day... After this we both felt a bit better and decided to go for a walk and ended up buying some final souvenirs for our friends and fam jams. We took some cool pics of Time Square Finally then back to the hotel for the final night!! 

Broadway Shows!! 

Time Square.

Crazy Big Billboards

M&M's this made me think of my sister Emma and I stopped into the Hershey store in time square to snag her some delicious chocolates I know she will enjoy! 

Can I go home now?!

A Title Can't Describe This Awful Feeling

      I feel just awful this morning, sick to my stomach almost, and I might be homesick, but I can't even put myself in a good mood. I hate being negative but it seems inevitable today. I feel like crap, and it makes think NY is crap. This, however, is probably reasonable. I am not enjoying my stay in this city... I smells bad constantly, like a mix of sour milk and garbage of every variety. The streets are crowded, the subways are worse, people constantly pickpocket other people. Street venders will hit on every female they see, I feel unwelcome and degraded here. 

      On a lighter note we are off this morning to New York Times, which will hopefully pull me off the streets enough to feel like I am no longer in NY.

      Talking with Jessica and Suzanne of NYT I could barely focus on what they were saying while my stomach pains increased. Basically what they told was that they go for stories that will have the most impact. Suzanne used to be a police reporter, and Jessica started at Business Week Magazine doing the editorial section. 

      Advice they gave us that meant something good for us was "take any job you can get" basically saying that starting anywhere is better then starting nowhere, you can't be picky coming out of college/university and we should all understand that. 

        We also talked to them about how different print media has become. The major difference is the story size, from when Suzanne started with stories about 1300 words long, she now writes about 600 words. We also discussed the difference of PR and journalism, using twitter as an example. PR people use bias on things such as twitter accounts, and journalists tweet how they really feel and try to tweet the truth. They also shared a funny story about an up and coming journalist who had an interview at NYT and before the interview Suzanne and Jessica checked her twitter account and found her writing some not-so-nice things about the way Jessica and Suzanne wrote for the Times. It didn't help that she had many personal pics on twitter and showed up the to interview in a short skirt and fishnet stockings... she did not get the job - SHOCKER! 

Outside of The New York Times

      This interview lasted about an hour then we had about another hour of free time (which most of the other students took to spend money shopping at stores we have in Canada). *I do apologize for my negative undertone here.

      After this Kathy had gone back to the hotel with a migraine and I truly wish I had followed. Before she left she had pulled some strings to get us into the building where FourSquare was. This is a app for cellphones that is basically like checking into anywhere you are in the world so all your friends can see. I was a bit skeptical about this app and thoughts of stalkers crossed my mind. The office itself was really cool, again it had an open concept and our tour guide was fairly insightful. They also had conference rooms that were similar to places you can check in using FourSquare (such as a vegan restaurant of airport). They also had lunch area complete with a candy bar, picnic tables, and a ping pong table. It was a fun environment but not something I could take seriously. Our tour guide explained that this was a start up company and was slowly expanding. They have 150 employees in three location across the world, NY being the main one. I couldn't see myself working here... 

      Finally the days itinerary ended, and Steph was able help me back to the hotel tell me to relax pop a few advil and she poured us some alcoholic beverages. She could tell I was grumpy and I think she felt the same way, so why not take the edge off. We grabbed her iPod and headed for the rooftop patio of our hotel. It was the nicest place I had been to in the city. We sat and listened to old school tunes, while chatting and drinking in the sun. It was honestly the best time I had in NY...Which is pretty unfortunate. 

            Rooftop Chillin' 

 On top of the POD         

      As our fellow classmates got back from shopping and exploring the city, we all ended up on the rooftop discussing our favourite part of the trip. It was fairly mutual that the answer had no one specific place. It has been (all-in-all) an amazing experience. 

Too Sleepy

      Waking up with 15 minutes to get ready Steph and I overslept and didn't have time to shower or eat. We raced to the lobby and met our group, not feeling 100%. We took the no-so-friendly subway of NYC traditional transit to CBS Radio. There we met so-in-so who gave us amazing insight on the radio aspect of media, and the audience; radio isn't dead.

                 

A few shots of CBS Radio and Lee Harris working his magic in the studio

      After leaving this building I stuffed a few fries in my mouth and the group slit in two. Five of us went with Kathy and Kimberly to see ground zero. Emotional I was, just buying tickets I shed tears. We walked to St. Paul's Cathedral where Steph and I prayed (not at all religious, this felt meaningful to me). A few blocks away was Ground Zero. I was personally disgusted by the people who basically thought it was an attraction and not a memorial sight. People was smiling, taking selfies of themselves in front of the memorial. I felt awful, it was disrespectful. I am so glad I was able to see this site, now, after so long of just hearing about it and watching documentaries. Although I don’t have a direct connection I don’t think its required in this case.

 Images of the memorial

Beautiful water falls running below ground level where the towers once stood.

 

Only a few names of the many that were there, I did not even feel right taking these pictures, but I learned that the memorial grouped the names of friends and family together instead of alphabetically which is what the original idea had been. 

      After this emotional tour we went with Kathy and Kimberly to the Staten Island Fairy to see the Statue of Liberty. 

      Before we got to the Ferry we stopped for a quick bite to eat, but not feeling too hungry Steph, Mel and I explored the streets close to where the rest of our group was eating. On the street we found a man who had two snakes wrapped around his neck. Of course we were interested so I struck up a conversation and he explained that his two friends were Roxanne and Paulo. He offered us to hold them, and I, being the only brave one decided "why not?!" He passed me Roxanne and I wore her like a scarf around my neck. I smiled for a picture but was freaking out on the inside. 

Roxanne and I in NY!!

      On the ferry I thought "not an amazing experience" it was quite distant from the statue of Liberty but it was still pretty cool. I snapped a few photos none that were too great. Kept thinking I was in the movie National Treasure with Nicholas cage which was a fun idea haha. Either way the ferry was fun and the view of NY was very pretty.

 Staten Island/Ian Being a Pro

My not so fantastic picture of the beautiful statue.

 

 

A few random shots on and of the ferry (which as a bonus was free!!).

This image looked like a diorama to me and it made it feel so surreal.

      Back to the hotel with Steph and Ian on the subway we needed. Again, the subways here are not nice at all, even less appealing then the TTC. On this particular train we were on a hunchback women got pretty aggresive to another passenger, a girl standing behind this women was using her cellphone and the older women began yelling at her to get the technology away, she swated the phone in the girls hands, and kicked the girl in the shin. The girl on the cellphone was taken aback but simply asked the women if she was alright... I was a bit nervous to exit the train while my camera was around my neck but she keot to herself as we all left the subway. 

      At the hotel we were able to shower, something I hadn't done all day! It felt good to be a clean person again for the evening. Food time? Maybe. Today I can be a fatty ;)  Olive Garden it is! Megan, Steph, Daniel, Mel and I made our way back to time square to find an Olive Garden. This is a restaurant only in the States, and is similar to East Side Mario's. There was unlimited bread sticks and salad which we all demolished and all of us thoroughly enjoyed our pasta dishes. Dreading the walk back with our stomachs feeling massive we made our way back to the hotel at nightfall and literally put ourselves in a coma at the hotel. 

 

Before and After. I think I really enjoyed this meal ;) Chicken and shrimp in alfredo pasta with bacon on top. Totally worth every penny! 

Full Day, Lets Gooooo

      Work up early this morning and met in the lobby, took a walk IN THE RAIN, looks like we escaped last night, but today we weren't so lucky! Today we head down to Paley Centre for Media (this place is like a media museum, and actually used to be that. It is a permanent media collection of over 150, 000 tv and radio programs and advertisements that are available in NY and LA) Now they have classes for students to learn about advertising. We had a pretty cool teacher speak to us about advertising, I didn't get much out of the talk. I felt like I knew most of her points about advertisements. We discussed the visual ads seen on things such as candy bars, cookie boxes and laundry detergent. Talk about how we recognize the fonts/colours/shapes. Then we looked at a few commercial ads on television and how they capture our attention, make us think, but keep it simple!

This was a quiz we started with to see who could recognize the letters that are seen everyday for specific products. For example the first letter "a" is the style used for alphabets cereal. The list went on... and most of us could name almost all of them, can you tell we are a consumer generation?

      Next we sat down with Chris Anderson at the Heartland Pub a few blocks from Paley Center.The food was simply amazing. I had vegetarian chili that was in a tortilla bowl and side salad. Chris had the burger and fries (very American). We all had a great talk with him and learned so much about himself being a journalist. As we proceeded to talk he stopped, looked at me and said “you want to go into PR don’t you?” I replied with a yes and he said “I can tell” that moment made me feel so good! It was interesting, but made me feel like I was special, or at least that he saw I was interested in PR and knew a bit about it! Chris was quite fascinating to listen to and he is now a professor so you could tell he was able to talk to students like us at our level. 

      Last thing on our agenda was a tour of NBS studios which was quick, with a short film intro to start the tour we then saw the SNL set. Gained some interesting facts like how quick these shows are put together. The writers start the scripts on Monday to create the skits. Then they have the celebrities come in on Thursday and get a head molding so they can build different wigs and crazy head gear for the show. Saturday the celebrities are back and go on the air live with the funniest television I have personally watched. Ultimately the tour didn't wow me, but was still fun. 

      The Rockefeller Centre was beautiful, which many shopping and dining places but I wasn't interested in that aspect of NYC. The gift shop for NBC was cool but very expensive and I didn't want to spend $35.00 on a Friends T-shirt…

The NBC logo,and as expressed in the tour video NBC is about Peace, Love, and Peacocks. These are also the expensive t-shirts.

Rockefeller Center

      Getting back to the hotel Mel, Steph and I chilled in our small POD Hotel room in our bunk beds and made a fort. Steph and I are both 21 and decided we should take advantage of that and go get a drink in NYC. We ended up in the Lower West end. The first bar we walked into was basically a hallway, and didn't look welcoming to us: Max Fish was what the sign said on the door. Moving on we went to another more comfortable bar/restaurant. We sat at the bar and ate some delicious cheese puffs with bacon on them. After chatting with the bar back who bought us a drink after our first one we left! Deciding we had an early morning we took a taxi back to the hotel and slept into the morning. 

Now We’re In Newwwwwww Yooooooork

      After our roommates attempted to wake up Steph and I up 3 separate times ( :0 ) , we finally jolted out of bed with 10 minutes to throw our crap into our luggage and meet in the lobby. Not even able to see straight we attempted to clean up the mess of the night before and I ended up leaving my boyfriends parents international adapter in the hotel along with (I’m sure) many other small items… My head was not on straight this morning.

      Feeling better then I wasn't the only one exhausted I took a picture of Ian napping on the ground at the airport in his onezy.

      Boarding the plane and gaining a little more consciousness I took my seat by the window and was able to watch the plane take off and snap some pictures. It was pretty emotional leaving this place, I absolutely fell in love with London. I could see myself living here for at least a few years of my life and only after 7 days I realized this. I honestly shed a few tears as we took flight to NYC.

      Thankfully I was able to find sleep on the plane and took advantage of these 8 hours. 

 

View from the airplane (take-off) and Ian sleeping in the airport.

       When we landed we took shuttle vans to the POD hotel. It was cute, and hey bunk beds! Felt like camp with Steph as my roomie. There was also no bathrooms attached to the rooms, but 4 shared bathrooms on each floor that played music. Above each door in the bedrooms lights showed which bathrooms were available.

      Steph and I were both still exhausted but didn't want to waste a night. We found a pizza place because after all NY is famous for that. It was really good pizza but I think after airplane food anything would have been amazing.  We then found our way to time square taking about 20 minutes to walk there. It was nightfall and it was a beautiful place to see lights and action. People were dressed up in costumes like Disney characters and superheros. There was so much going on on the streets, artists, sketchers, venders, and tourists. One man who was spray painting the skyline on NY captured my attention it took him about 10 - 15 minutes to complete the skyline with the statue of Liberty and he would sell them for 20 dollars. Amazing talent. 

      Steph and I saw the Hard Rock and decided since we had been to Toronto's Hard Rock and saw the original Hard Rock in London we should visit this one. Upstairs was a gift shop and below was basically a hall of fame along with a restaurant/bar. People were lined up waiting to get seats, but the bar was open so we went in and ordered a drink. The cup I had said Hard Rock NY Time Square on it so I bought it for my mom. She used to work in downtown Toronto and would hang out at the Hard Rock before and after her shifts - I thought it would be perfect for her. 

 

All is one? Picture of Elvis, Budda and Jesus Christ at the Hard Rock. The cup I brought home for my mom <3 

       We left after this and headed back for the hotel. It was muggy and warm, and started to rain a bit. Thankfully we got to the POD before the worst of it hit. We crashed, and slept like babies this first night. 

London: Conquered

      Today! Our last day in London, I am so sad but definitely made the most of it! Up a little later then normal (which felt really nice!) but still, there was no way I was wasting a full free day in London. Leaving the hotel with Stephanie at about 11 o’clock we navigated our way to the first stop of “big bus tour”. we had gotten ticket earlier in the week to ensure that any sites we missed along our academic pursuits we could them today! This was a double decker, open top, guided tour of London England. The bus allowed us to hop on and off whenever we wanted as the tours ran multiple buses all day long. We saw some amazing places and a few we had already been to. I would recommend this to anybody in London because in case you miss anything on your trip you wont miss it on the tour. 

Front seats on the double decker! We sure are eager.

      We saw the original Hard Rock café. Protesters made the bus detour a few times but that only gave us more sites to see! The tour guides were not supposed to discuss the protests and claimed them to simply be "fascist demonstrations". Yes, this was very convincing when they stopped traffic and were pursued heavily by police officers on foot. 

      We also went to the Albert Pub which is a historical building; it cannot be torn down or changed. This was amazing because it was one of the oldest building s in London and in the centre of huge business offices and skyscrapers.

 The white building is Shakespeare's Globe - His theater.

  

Pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye: my two favorite sites in London (that are generic and touristy)

         

             

 

Steph and I being adorable with Big Ben in our background! This clock really amazed me, maybe its because when it was showed in Peter Pan I loved it then too.

This is the Albert Pub, a Listed Building in London, meaning that it cannot be torn down or changed. This was quite the pub to visit it was cozy and in the middle of skyscrapers a real escape from city life...and great beer! ;)  The picture on the right is just a shot from the bus watching cloudy sky collide with the pop-up building infested landscape.

      That night we made a plan to rock London til we literally dropped. Last night had to end in a bang and so it did. Steph and I accumulated 6 club stamps and met more people then I could even imagine (and hardly remember). We got very DRUNK and ended up getting back to the hotel at about 3:30/4 am grumpy and exhausted. The next morning would be a wake up call in many ways. 

Last night, and oh boy did we ever TRY to stay classy :) This is Steph and I at the hotel before all hell broke loose.