July 4th

July 4^th is not a big deal here in London which I’m sure no one finds particularly shocking.  I saw one girl with the American flag peaking out of her backpack while I was walking to work, but its nonchalant waving in the wind made it seem more like a style choice as opposed to an act of American pride.    

A fellow intern and I were sent on a small excursion during work yesterday (I wrote this on the 5th, so on July 4th).  I can’t give away much detail, but basically we had to go find a nice, white, jewelry/fountain pen box for free.  Though we were both unsure of this task at first, it was exciting to leave the office for a couple of hours.  We headed over to a shopping center near St. Paul’s and politely asked as many jewelry/high-end stores about their availability of nice boxes.  To my surprise (and to my friend’s as well), everyone was very nice about our bizarre question.  We were able to snag some boxes from a couple of companies, but even the ones who couldn’t give us the boxes recommended us to other places.  The more we asked around, the more suspicious I felt.  Our interactions usually went like this:

“Hey, we’re working on a project for our company and we need a nice, white jewelry box…for something…so if you have a spare one…you know...but yeah….”

I don’t even know how we ended up with three boxes.  Many of the employees we talked to expressed that they were afraid of counterfeits popping up if they just gave out boxes, which made sense to me.  We returned to the office and handed in the boxes, hoping that at least one of them would be helpful.

I have been asked if the people of London are rude, inconsiderate, or spiteful toward Americans.  For the past month I’ve been here, I have yet to encounter such a person.  Everyone has been very kind and friendly.  I have nothing but pleasant things to say about the Londoners.