Day 2

Today started out with a lot of rain. Waking up to the gloomy pouring sky is great, if you don't have a long commute of walking and public transportation to look forward to. The bus worked out better than I planned however, and I was forty minutes early. So I stopped for coffee and breakfast at a fun 2 story Pret on Oxford street. I usually don't eat in, but I had to escape the rain somehow. Unfortunately I had forgotten my book, so I just journaled for a while. When eleven finally rolled around, I picked up my pound sandwich and went to the store.

Julia sent me straight back out to find her a zipper, deposit a check, and mail another envelope. Thankfully I've had a few adventures finding the kind of zipper she wanted, so I knew where to go after the first store was sold out. I knew it would be, but hey, why not check. So a few stores and inside out umbrellas later, I got back to the shop with my wellies intact.

My tasks for the day included folding and organizing fabric, watching the shop with the other intern Dana, and once again modeling. Now I'm pretty small on the top half, so that works fine for their tiny garments. But my hips don't care much for size 0. Combine that with an already awkward dress, and three people you barely know tugging at the dress and completely hating it, and you get a slightly uncomfortable situation. But at least I can fully appreciate what I put my models through now during their fittings.

Julia is helping two people start their line, which turns out to be what the samples I picked up yesterday were for. They're quite crazy and intense personalities. I also met the sweet woman who shares the studio, she was very interested in the States. The only customer of the day was a woman in burka came in to look at a dress. The dress was skin tight nude material covered in magenta tulle strips, so basically glorified lingerie. Now I want to know what all the women walking around in burka are wearing underneath the complete cover of black.

Later in the day, I was asked to hand stitch the lining into a top, then to sew crazy black jewels onto the waistband. I tried so hard to make the stitches invisible, but it's hard with cotton thread on satin. We'll see if she redoes it... but hopefully it was good enough. Then I was free to go home, for a nice long 4 day weekend.

So far so good, though I'd love to work more than I do. Having days off are fun, especially now that I'm making a lot of plans with my friend April. We went to a vegan lounge to watch live music and eat vegan ice cream tonight. She's a really sweet girl, and it's nice to have a friend to hang out with after work and on the weekends. The next month should be fun, I'm going to try to see and do everything I can before I go back to the States... It seems so far away, yet so close. I'm not ready, but yet I am. I think I'm just used to being here now, so it feels like I am home in a way. There isn't much of me that can imagine what it will be like to not have this life anymore, and maybe never again. London is... amazing.