Bonjour, Ami

Hello, Friend.

I spent the weekend using words such as Bonjour, Merci, Oui, Non, and Excusez-moi. Yes, I spent the weekend in Paris, France. Our professors surprised us in class last Wednesday by announcing that they were sending us to Paris for the weekend. That was one of the best surprises I've ever received, and very unexpected. I'm so thankful to have professors that care so much about their students. That's a blessing that not all students are able to experience.

We took the Eurostar train to Paris, and arrived Thursday evening. We stayed in a new hostel, which was thankfully close to the train station. Thursday night we went to the Eiffel Tower, enjoyed some crepes, and admired the French culture.

Friday we walked all over Paris. First, we visited the Salvador Dali exhibit. This exhibit travels all over the world, and it just arrived in Paris a few weeks ago.  I have never really been into art, but seeing the thoughts and feelings that inspired his pieces of art gave me a new perception. His thoughts were so deep that very few people could understand him, so he created surrealism art.

"The Melting Clock" - one of Salvador Dali's most famous sculptures. 

After the museum we visited the Basilica, and saw the incredible London Skyline. In the area of the Basilica, there was an abundance of street vendors, gypsies and graffiti. I was surprised at the amount of graffiti because of how much Paris is portrayed as a clean, beautiful city. I didn't see one place in Paris where they had covered up graffiti. 

After a nice lunch at Hard Rock Cafe, we visited the Pompidou, a five story art museum in Paris.  Three of the five exhibits were temporary exhibits, including the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit. 

The Pompidou

We ended our day with visiting Notre Dame. Unfortunately the inside was already closed, but we walked around the outside. There were street performers all around the church, which I found a bit disrespectful.  Notre Dame is one of the most known churches in the world, and people have just turned it into another tourist attraction. 

Notre Dame

Saturday we devoted to the Louvre and Versailles.  The Louvre was so large we didn't even know where to begin. I learned that if you spent twenty seconds looking at each item in the Louvre, it would take you 4 weeks to get through everything. Yes, you read that right - 4 weeks.  After visiting the Louvre I was sure that it was the largest museum in the world, but it's actually the fourth largest in the world. The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. is the world's largest museum.

Sorry for the distortion, this is the only photo I have to justify how large the Louvre is.

We finished our Paris trip with a visit to Versailles. There are no words to justify how gorgeous, elegant and unreal the Palace of Versailles was. I felt like I was in a story book and it was only an illusion. Pictures do not do the palace justice, nor share the history of it. It's still hard for me to fathom all of the history that happened in the palace, including all of the queens and mistresses that lived there, people beheaded, and royalty born there.

The entrance to the Palace of Versailles. 

A parlor in the palace. 

The King's quarters.

The famous mirror room.

Marie Antoinette's bedroom.

After an unreal weekend in Paris, I am now back in London for 4 more days. Then, I'm back to the U.S.  I hope this week doesn't fly by too fast. I'll try to blog before I head home.

Until then, Cheers!

Learning in London

Aside from the abundance of information I am trying to learn about the UK culture, I have two classes that I'm always playing catch up in. I can't complain about the catch up though, because I really enjoy this class. At the beginning of this trip, I thought I would be playing "lost puppy" the whole time considering I'm a public relations major taking senior level advertising and news courses. These courses have exceeded my expectations by a landslide. I feel like I completely understand international advertising, which is odd for me because advertising has always been my weak point. The required text for international advertising, Another One Bites the Grass by Simon Anholt, is written very well. The book is one of the most understandable textbooks i've read since I started college.

Mollie and I presented our chapter from the book to class Tuesday, and the presentation went really well. Our chapter was titled, "Going It Alone" which talked about global centralization in advertising, and all the things you need to be aware of as a centralization agency. The chapter really put the point across that learning the culture you are working with is one of the most important things in advertising. I really enjoyed the book because it was interesting, easy to follow and understand and the message was straight forward. Here is a picture of our mind map, which is a guide or outline of our presentation. 

It was nice to give a presentation and enjoy presenting the material. I cannot count the number of presentations I have NOT enjoyed presenting because I don't like the material. Professor Noble did an excellent job on choosing the textbook for this class. This week I'm presenting my media outlet for the British Media course, and wrapping up all of the final projects. It's so hard to believe we only have one more week left in London, but I'm ready to be two courses closer to graduating. 

Until next time, Cheers! 

A weekend in a green country where cashmere is abundant...

If you couldn't guess where I'm at by the title, I'm in Scotland. I'm currently in Edinburgh, Scotland to be exact. The town is absolutely beautiful with green hills, cobble stone streets, old castles and churches, and an abundance of friendly people walking the streets. The culture seems like a world of difference, even though Edinburgh is only a four and a half hour train ride away.

On the train ride here, I wrote a journal entry about what I was expecting in Scotland.  I expected an abundance of green  hills, a calm and quiet city, few advertisements (unlike London) and pubs down every street. Within hours after arriving Friday evening, I discovered my expectations were fulfilled.

There are hardly any advertisements in this town, and I actually enjoy that. Everywhere you look in London there is an advertisement right in your face.  This is the first time I have seen a large city without an abundance of advertising in I don't know how long. I understand that advertising is needed to create a growing market for businesses, but I am relieved to be somewhere without advertising. The little advertising in this town makes it seem that the businesses here do not need advertising, or they simply do not want it, maybe because they are old-fashioned.

There are people on the street that hand out fliers or coupons to restaurants, shows and such, but they are not in your face, and they do not approach you until they see that you are interested. No one here is pushy with their sales, they are respectable and helpful- very much unlike London.

Yesterday after Sean, David, Hussan, Holly and I arrived, we walked around the downtown area and found somewhere for dinner.  After dinner, we found ourselves among a street full of cashmere and wool clothing shops. I expected the wool and cashmere to be cheaper here, since this is where most of it is sourced, and it was cheaper than I expected. The cost of two cashmere sweaters was only 18 pounds. You wouldn't find that anywhere in America!  On our walk around the town yesterday we came across this beautiful castle.

We are planning on going to tour the castle on Sunday morning.  Tomorrow we are taking a 12 hour tour around Scotland, going through the Highlands and possibly going to find the Lochness Monster. If I see it, I'll be sure to post pictures on my blog!


Until then, Cheers!

A little taste of my learning here.

In my international advertising course, we are required to create a 60-advertisement tear sheet portfolio. A tear sheet portfolio is a binder filled with advertisements taken from newspapers, magazines, or even photos of advertisements, and a critique of every ad.  Since tear sheet portfolios are crucial in the advertising industry, and this project is a significant part of my course, I figured I would write a blog about it. 

I'm beginning to think London is a city of never ending advertisements. The more places I travel around London, the more I think that London is the advertisement capital of the world.  Yes, I have seen multiple ads more than once, but I see a new ad every day I'm here.  Seeing so many ads is a great learning experience for me, as I’m able to critique many ads throughout the day. I'm able to decide if they are effective or not, from my response to the ad, as well as my classmates. The colors, font types, font sizes, headline, copy and graphics are all critical elements in an advertisement. 

I apologize for the terrible quality of the photo, but this is one of my favorite ads. It was (and still is) very appealing to me. Every time I walk by the ad in the tube station, it grabs my attention. The cut out of Princess Diana is the most appealing part of this ad. The contrasting colors catches people's eye, especially the fact that it's inverted color (black background, white text).  The pink banner on the side stands out against the black, grey and white, which intrigues the viewer to look at the banner. The position of the headline and position of the text describing the location is creative, but makes the ad hard to read for people that are in a rush. The font choice for the headline, "Fashion Rules" needs to be thicker. I have seen many of these ads in several tube stations in London, placed in different parts of the tube station. The target market seems to be tourists, the average income London resident, as well as people interested in fashion. 

#RoyalBaby

I'm technically skipping a blog post, but I feel like writing about the royal baby is much more important than the advertising field trip we went on last week.

A group of us just got back to the college from visiting Buckingham Palace. It was an incredible sight to see. It's crazy to think that I was in London to witness history being made.  Thousands of people were in between Hyde Park and the palace (they are right next to each other). Everyone was happy and anxious.  The line to view the birth announcement was hours long, so we went to another section of the fence to look at the birth announcement.  I had to patiently wait for people to move, but I finally got this shot. If you zoom in close enough, you can read the words on the announcement.

The crowd was very different than an American crowd. Everyone was excited and anxious, but they were calm, respectful and quiet. There was no pushing, shoving or screaming coming from the crowd at Buckingham Palace. I feel like in America, it would have been a big, rowdy, loud party.  There was security spread out among the park and all around the palace, politely directing the crowd in the right directions. 

The palace was surrounded by media tents and vehicles. There were several reporters standing along the street rehearsing their reporting lines, as well as many reporters interviewing people on the streets of London.  Alisha, Monica, Courtney and I were interviewed by Suzie Bakos, a reporter for Hello! online magazine.  She asked us questions like, "What do you think the baby will be named?" and "How do you think Kate and William will be as parents?" Bakos also took a photo of us, and posted the article and photo here :  Hello Magazine Article

The traffic at Buckingham Palace slowed down about an hour after the 41- gun salute finished, but the line to look at the birth announcement was still down the block. The media continued to thrive, both at Buckingham Palace and at St. Mary's Hospital. Hours after we left the palace, there were photos on the internet of Kate, William and the new royal baby leaving the hospital! It's mind-blowing how much online media has changed things. Minutes after Kate and William left the hospital, there were photos of them walking out of the hospital posted worldwide.  Online media is a scary accessibility point, but when history is made, it is beneficial for the whole world. Today, I know people across the world are thankful for online media, because they are able to see the royal baby just as if they were at St. Mary's Hospital.

Until next time, Cheers!

Looks like I'm having fun.. Where has the time gone?

This week has absolutely flown by. I didn't even realize until today, Friday, that I hadn't written my two blogs for the week. I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun!

This week started out great. As I mentioned in my last post, Mollie, Alisha and I went to the Yahoo London Wireless Music Festival on Sunday. There were 60,000 people attending the festival that day, 38 bands performing on 5 stages, and many vendors with food and drinks. The festival was Friday- Sunday, held at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The entrance to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 

We saw 2 Chainz, A$AP Rocky, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, and Rihanna. They are all mainstream artists in the U.S., so it was really neat to see them perform in another country. I didn't see very many advertisements for the festival, but once we got off the tube there were signs and security guards directing thousands of people to the venue. The security was handled well, but I was a bit disappointed at the lack of advertising in London.  Considering that Yahoo sponsored the event and signed a 6-figure deal, I expected the advertising to be abundant.

Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z performing at London Yahoo Wireless Music Festival. 

I researched the advertising after the event, and read an article from when Yahoo announced that they were sponsoring the event. According to the article, Robert Bridge, the international marketing director for Yahoo, declined to go into detail about the advertising plans, but said that Yahoo would use an "integrated marketing approach" for the festival.  Bridge also said the campaign would be the biggest campaign for Yahoo in some time.

You can read the rest of the article here: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1174142/

The crowd at London Yahoo Wireless Music Festival before Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake.

When I was researching the advertising the day after the festival, on the third page of the Google search I came across an article that said two people had been stabbed at the festival.  First of all, I was shocked that two people were stabbed and I didn't even know about it until the day after, and second of all I was shocked that this wasn't headline news.  If something like this were to happen in America, it would be on the first page of search results when I searched "London Yahoo Wireless Music Festival". The fact that it wasn't headline news right then was almost a relief. In the U.S. the headline news always covers murders, deaths, tragedies, thefts, etc. Basically the front-page news in the U.S. is always negative.  Needless to say, I've learned a lot about the American news system, just from seeing it from an outside perspective.

Busy, crazy, intriguing first week.

The first week in London has been incredibly busy. Throwing yourself into one of the largest cities in the world and being handed two summer courses is more than a handful. There is so much of London I want to visit, and multiple countries I would like to travel to during this trip, but there isn’t near enough time to see everything.

I absolutely love both of the courses, British Media and International Advertising. I am a Public Relations major so neither of the courses were required, but I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to expand my view on the journalism and advertising world.

This week, outside of class, we visited the British Advertising Museum, British Museum, took a bus tour around London as well as a boat tour on River Thames. A few of us also went to an outdoor theatre to watch Pride and Prejudice, the play.

We took the bus tour and boat tour on Monday after class, which introduced us to about half of London. There was not an actual tour guide on the bus; the tour was guided by a voice recording that each individual listened to with headphones. We saw many of the famous monuments and famous in London, as well as the downtown shopping districts.

The British Museum was incredible. I felt like I was in an interactive history textbook. For me personally, the most intriguing aspect of the museum were the statues that were dated 350+ B.C.  Standing inches away from a statue that was made before Christ still shocks me. Also, the Rosetta Stone was much more fascinating in person than in pictures. I didn’t realize how detailed the Greek alphabet was until I saw the stone in person.

Pride and Prejudice was held at Regent’s Park Open Air theatre. It was my first outdoor theatre experience, and I’m so glad it was in London. Theatre here is much more popular than in America, which I learned when the tickets to the play were sold out weeks in advance. The play was almost 3 hours long with a 20-minute intermission, and worth every second of watching.

In addition to the school trips, I’ve learned so much about the culture just from going out with my classmates. I’ve also discovered the food service is worse, the food is cooked healthier, and a service charge/tip is included in the bill at almost every food/drink establishment.

            Yesterday, Mollie, Alisha and I attended London Yahoo Wireless Music Festival at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We were among an estimated 70,000 people watching Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, 2-Chainz and many other artists perform. I’ll talk about that in my next blog.

  Until then, Cheers!