The long awaited premiere of Harry Potter has finally come and gone -- and boy, was it good! I had completely forgotten that the premiere was coming up prior to Thursday night/Friday morning (midnight showing), but when I did remember, it felt as though I had a fun surprise during the week to look forward to.
Up until midnight on Friday, though, I still had to get about my daily business. During the week, I spent quite a bit of time at BA's headquarters sitting in on interviews and working on transcribing those interviews. Being able to work and then go to an interview really breaks up the day so it makes the day go by faster, and it actually can be really interesting. Since I've started working at Up to Speed magazine, despite not necessarily being interested in aviation, I have learned a lot about the industry. I guess I'm sort of getting a 2-for-1 deal as I'm simultaneously learning a lot about the magazine industry while also learning about aviation and the innerworkings of an airline.
I also spent some time at T5 again working on the "Voices" piece of our magazine, which requires us to go around the terminal and ask customers about their opinion on a particular topic for that month. Even though I consider "Voices" to be a part of the job that is slightly embarrassing, yet sometimes fun (due to the fact that people will reject me upon even saying hello and won't want to talk, the embarrassing part, but sometimes they have so many great stories and things to share, which is the fun part), I like being able to get out of the office for a while and walking around, maybe even hoping for a celebrity sighting. Last time I was at the airport for "Voices," Madonna passed through and we weren't paying attention. This time, however, the photographer noticed a shaggy-looking guy walking around with a guitar and claimed that he thought it was "Richard Daltrey" -- although, I'm assuming he meant Roger Daltrey, of The Who. My other coworker didn't think it was anyone famous, but I, using my powers of deductive reasoning, rationalized that it had to at least be some sort of celebrity for a few reasons: 1.) he was old, yet carrying around a guitar 2.) he had the rockstar shaggy haircut...and was carrying a guitar and 3.) he walked over to First Class to check in...with his guitar. The chances of someone being old, looking a bit like a homeless person with their long hair and grungy look AND going to First Class and not being a celebrity seem to be very unlikely, at least to me, and maybe that is largely stereotyping or maybe ignorant of me to suggest, but in this case, I thought the guy looked familiar and all of those reasons are pretty convincing. However, I suggested this mystery person to be Robert Plant, so the photographer took out his iPhone, googled Robert Plant, and wouldn't you know it? We had a match! It was a good celebrity sighting. Legendary.
I prepared for later in the week for my next celebrity sighting -- Harry Potter! We had plans to go out on Thursday for the midnight showing and we were all excited for Harry Potter, of course, but also because we were doing something so innately normal for us in a completely foreign country. It's weird feeling that normalcy and familiarity when you're across the Atlantic in a place you've never been before, but it was fun to get popcorn, candy and soda and feel like we were just down the street at our local theater (or should I say, theatre?). In true British fashion, though, we decided that we would head to the bar prior to Harry Potter so that we could chat and get even more excited about the premiere. We each had a drink, talked about how much we love London and then around 11:00 decided we were ready.
We got to the theater and grabbed all of the movie essentials: popcorn, candy, soda, ice cream. This time in true American fashion, we made sure to get the largest box of popcorn and the largest soda possible. The buzz of excitement was almost tangible at this point, so we headed into the theater, found our seats (they had assigned seats so we already knew where we were sitting) and anxiously awaited the final installment of the Harry Potter series.
The movie was phenomenal. I think it's difficult for any book, especially a series of books, to be translated onto the silver screen. The Harry Potter movies have been fairly accurate for the most part, although, sometimes they leave out things that I thought were more important, but as for being movies, they do a fantastic job of staying true to the dignity of the book. The final movie was no different -- in fact, I thought they masterfully handed something that was so important to the series: the finale. Even though we didn't get back to our rooms until about 3AM, we were all still wide awake following such a fantastic night.
Going into work Friday was not as bad as I thought it would be, considering that I only got about five hours of sleep. I grabbed a pane au chocolat in the morning before work and went on my merry way, feeling even a bit refreshed. Of course, Fridays are always tough because I feel like I am so close to the weekend, yet I have to wait for 5:30 to come around before I can start having some true weekend fun. I made it though, and when I got home from work, made myself a pathetic attempt at dinner and chatted with the rest of the interns in the kitchen.
We had decided that we would want to go back to Shoreditch for our Friday night festivities so we spread the word to anyone else who was coming along. We went to some place called Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, or something like that, which boasted two bars, a dance floor and DJ -- an unbeatable mix for what promised to be a good night. Some of the interns went to the bar next door to start, a place called Bluu, but they met up with us after and we pretty much all went to the dance floor together. The DJ was playing such a great mix of music -- there was some Def Leppard, Frankie Valli, Johnny Cash, Madonna and even some Rolling Stones -- and you might not think that all of those different musicians would work, but somehow it did and we were all laughing and having a great time.
Surprisingly enough, I did not go to another bar after that one, although most of the other interns did head over to the Lexington, as usual. The Lexington is great because it is a really chill venue and open until 4AM -- which is especially good when it is only a short walk away and you just want to get home by the end of the night. So some of the interns went there, some of us went home, and that was our Friday night.
For Saturday, we were supposed to go to Brighton, but we never really got our acts together and planned or confirmed anything, so we're spending another weekend with the lovely city. I'm not sure what today holds, though, as it is raining more so than usual and the best kind of exploring happens when it is sunny and you have nothing to stop you from walking all over the city, but a little rain never hurt anyone, right?
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