SEEING ONE DIRECTION

I know, I know, this is so late and I'm horrible at blogging. Let's all recognise that and move past it onto bigger and more important issues (One Direction).
Pretty much the only thing that matters from the two weeks before Katie was here was the Brit Awards red carpet, and I know that this is the post that everyone (Abby Head, mainly) has been waiting for. I'm writing about my entire experience here and making this a separate post so that people who don't care (probably everyone) don't have to read it unless they want to. If for some reason (I can't think of any) you're reading this and you don't know about my obsession with One Direction, my inner stalker, and the fact that I'm engaged to be married to the one and only Niall Horan, you might have a little catching up to do. Do your research, and come back when you've gotten your mind right.
So February 19th was the day. The Brit Awards 2014. There was a red carpet (obviously) because that's what they do at these things. Alex and I had been talking about attending the Brits basically from the moment we first made eye contact, and we unfortunately missed the ticket sales so we couldn't actually go. Silver lining: the red carpet was still happening and One Direction was confirmed to be attending the Brits. There was no question that we would be there as close as possible to get pictures and see famous people and maybe get breathed on by Beyoncé or something.
So at two in the afternoon we started getting ready for our (kind of) red carpet debut and then set out soon after. I had red lipstick on (duh) and only one hand of nails painted, so I was just as put together as always. It was quite a trek to the dear O2 Arena, but we made it and were only mildly freezing. I wore my beloved cosy tights, so I was fine. We got to the red carpet line around 3:30 (FYI I'm using my message history with Gaylard as my time table for this night, so if the times are super specific that's why) because we are the definition of eager, but a few hundred people beat us there so I didn't feel like too much of a fan girl. We could see the red carpet and all the entrances to the venue, but the section right next to the carpet was gated off and the guards told us that there was a "one out, one in" policy, which meant that we couldn't get in until the number of people in front of us in line had left. I'm gonna be honest, for a while there, it was bleak. I saw sleeping bags and camp sites. These girls had been there for days. What were the chances that enough people for me to get in were gonna leave in time? I've never been more stressed.
After much waiting and getting blown around and screaming for something called Rizzle Kicks (later found out was a pop/rap duo, so I understand), we finally got let into the gated area (at 5:59 p.m. to be exact). Glory. I found my spot. There were two red carpets: a long one where we were all standing and a shorter one where the paparazzi were that you had to have tickets to stand in. From where I was standing, I could see the entirety of our carpet, as well as where people were getting out of cars, and the stage where they were getting interviewed on the VIP carpet. I was in the prime spot. I learned quickly that since this was an awards show for British musicians, I literally knew no one (besides Rita Ora and Jessie J). The girl next to me had to keep explaining the relevance of each person who walked in. I was too excited and I kept thinking everyone was famous. I thought six different camera guys were David Beckham and some random skinny girl with short hair walked down the carpet and I whispered, "Kiera Knightley" to myself (just as weird as it sounds) and earned myself some glares from the British girls around me. It was clear I belonged there (*sarcasm font*). However, the entire time we were there, no celebrities (besides Rizzle Kicks, whoever they are) came over to the carpet we were on. More stress.
The show started at 8, so at about 7:20, I put my heels on because it was game time. All the too-cool-to-show-up-too-early people were gonna get there soon. Still no luck. No one was coming over to where we were and I was giving up on the idea of seeing anybody that I had ever heard of. Daft Punk walked by us at one point, but who even knows what they're about? If I can't see your face you are not important to me, so. Finally, a guy walked down our carpet with a bunch of security guards and I recognised him, but I just could not remember of who he was. I was just thinking to myself, "Where have I seen him before!?" and then it hit me. He was one of One Direction's security guards (before you yell at me for being so incredibly creepy, he had quite a large cameo in their movie which I have seen approximately ten thousand times, so leave me alone) and when I realised it I got weak in the knees. A murmur of recognition swept through the crowd because everyone knew. They were coming.
(I actually feel like I'm narrating a war or something right now, but whatevs).
Since I could slightly see where the cars were pulling up (it was literally a kindergarten drop off line) at the start of the red carpet, I could see what kind of cars were arriving and every time there was a van, people would scream and then realise it wasn't One Direction and then sigh in disappointment (actually hilarious). I figured I would just wait because I could judge by the screams whether or not they were there.
Finally, I saw a van pull up and then something was different. I heard a lone scream. It didn't stop. It was happening. I saw the boys get out of the car and Niall did a lil' hop on his crutches because he's the cutest thing on the face of the planet, so is there any other way for him to get out of the car? Absolutely not. Now that they were there, it was the dilemma of whether they were going to come down and say hi to fans or go straight into the awards show. I couldn't see them after they got out of the car, but I could tell by the screams that they were working their way down our red carpet.
I made about fifteen five-second videos of the red carpet just anticipating their arrival hoping I wouldn't miss anything, but that didn't prove to be a very effective method. So I said to myself, "I'll just wait until I see them to start the video." So I stopped the video, and then looked down the carpet and who do I see with my own two eyes? Zayn "Perfect" Malik. About five feet away from me. Taking selfies. Gracing peasants with the presence of his eyelashes and flawless bone structure. I then proceeded to take the worst video in the history of the world that ended up being in slow motion and it literally looks like I threw my phone up in the air. Then I regained consciousness and who do I see walking towards me? Harry *expletive* Styles. His hair looked clean which was an actual miracle and he was doing something silly like looking for a pen. What a cupcake. If I would've reached out my hand (and crushed the girl in front of me into oblivion) I could've caressed his face. What a lost opportunity. Whatever.

This picture does him literally no justice.

I managed to capture him approaching me in a horrible slow motion video (which you can watch here) before he walked away to find something to write with. I followed him with my eyes and who did he walk up to but my future husband Niall James Horan. In the flesh. At that point, I'm 99% sure I blacked out because I got no pictures of anything because I saw his actual face with my own eyes and entered a state of pure euphoria. His quiff was perfect. His smile was perfect. His face was perfect. His lil' crutches were perfect. The fact that he was ten feet away from me was perfect. I could've cried or screamed or passed out (but I didn't, and that in itself is a miracle). I then noticed that Liam and Louis were there too. Obviously perfect as usual. Harry was the only one who came down in front of where I was, and because they showed up like fifteen minutes before the show started, they didn't have much time before they had to go and get interviewed and find their seats and whatever famous people do at award shows.
Luckily, from where I was standing I could see them get interviewed and talk to two little boys (no idea who they were, but they were living the life I want because they would just chill and do cartwheels until famous people showed up and then they'd high five them so that's the actual dream). I was doing so well at holding myself together like a composed, strong woman, until they walked inside. Niall was the last one to go inside and he turned around and someone on the red carpet said something to him to which he threw back his head and laughed (in the flawless way that only he can) and I just screamed because I couldn't contain my emotions about the fact that I was seeing this happen with my own eyes in real life and it wasn't a dream or a YouTube video.
After they went inside, everyone who was standing at the red carpet left, which was hilarious because everyone around me was saying, "Oh, we're not just here for 1D, we want to see everyone." Yeah, okay, you're all a bunch of liars, so bye.
I really couldn't breathe afterwards and the awards were starting, so we took a picture with the sign and then left because I had to FaceTime G and J Baby and Gaylard and people to scream about this with. I (obviously) got McDonald's on the way home, because what else am I supposed to do after seeing my future husband in real life for the first time? Also I've fallen even more in love with One Direction because they were the only celebrities sweet enough (my babies) to come say hello to their fans who had been there for actually days rather than just going straight to the VIP carpet and inside. But I also wanted to cry for them and hug them and ask them questions about their lives, so I just have a lot of feelings about these few hours.

 The O2 is a cool place and I looked hot, so here, have some pictures.

I've included an HD photo so that you can see what I was dealing with and be really proud of me for not passing out after seeing these angels (are you joking with that face, Zayn? Literally stop) in real life.

Wow, so that was way too long and dramatic so thumbs up if you made it this far. I'm writing another post immediately after this that will be about the other (irrelevant in comparison) things I've gotten up to in the past few weeks. So keep a look out if you want. Love you all too too much.

xx

Also, I'm trying to win a free ride to the airport at the end of my program so I don't have to carry all my bags on public transportation and be a sweaty mess all over the city of London. Basically, all I need is the most Instagram likes on all my pictures with #CISLondon, so if you would like to help me out with that you can do so here.

Hayley In London

First and foremost, I sincerely apologize for the lack of blog posts over the last two weeks. This has been due to Hayley visiting, having my first paper due, recovering from the Brit awards red carpet, horrible blogging skills, and also extreme laziness. I promise promise promise I'll do better in the coming weeks to update you more frequently. So I'm going to break the past two weeks into separate posts so that you aren't overloaded with too much information about my not so exciting life.
Let's see, I left off with my extremely boring week after spending time in Leeds with Hayley, so I'll pick back up on Thursday when exciting things start to happen again. Thursday morning I have my classic art history class as always, only this week we were meeting at the Globe Theatre (note the incorrect British spelling) which was so exciting! It was Allison's birthday on Thursday, so her and I rose quite early and headed off to the train station without the rest of the class so that we could have time to grab something to eat before we had to meet up with everyone. We ended up sitting in the middle of the train station eating bagels (yes) and drinking chai lattes. Life was good. Then we walked along the Thames to meet up with our class. I love southbank. It's probably one of my favourite areas of London. I just think it's so pretty and traditionally "London" because you can see Big Ben and the Eye and stuff. Loves it.
So we toured the Globe and got to learn all about the history there, even though the original one was burned down (#ThatchedRoofProbs), so this was just a historical recreation. Still awesome though, and gotta love Shakespeare and learning about him. This was probably one of my favourite tours that we've done. When we finished, Alex, Alexa, Allison (I pretty much only hang out with people whose names start with A) and I went out to lunch at a little Italian place further down the river. It was great and I drank tea out of a little tumbler which was strange, but the food was delicious so I could not complain. Then Allison headed back because she wanted to Skype with her family for her birthday and I followed her shortly after so I could work on my paper for a bit before I had to pick up Hayley at the train station.

 Wherefore art thou Romeo (Niall)?

 Pasta obvi

 Sick ceilings even in the Globe

I would love to say that this was an awesome group photo of my class, but sadly it was some primary school group that happened to be there at the only moment I could've taken this picture, so here we are.

So then I headed to King's Cross to pick up Hayley, yay! I grabbed her and then we headed to campus to drop her stuff off at mine and freshen up before heading back to southbank with everyone to grab some food and drinks for Allison's birthday. Seeing the city at night was so breathtaking, the Eye was all lit up and southbank was decorated for Valentine's Day, and it was so fun to see Hayley's reaction to really seeing London for the first time (girl was freakin'). I am falling so in love with this city it's crazy. It was freezing outside and it was so windy since we were right on the river so we warmed up with some food at Wagamama's and then walked towards St. Paul's to grab some drinks at this little pub that was actually in the middle of the water (not really at all). Such a fun night to celebrate such a great person!

 I am the greatest Valentine I could ever ask for

 I love this place

Curry is really important to me

The next day, everyone else had things to do so they were going to grab breakfast super early at a place down the street, but Hayley and I slept in a bit later and then went to a place in Clapham Junction that I found on Yelp! that supposedly had the best American pancakes in London (obviously we had to be the judges). It was raining, of course, but the place was so worth the journey. The food was literally so dope and not expensive at all. Also, they had bottomless tea, so Hayley was happy (she's actually become addicted to tea and it's kind of worrying). I'm usually not a French toast person, but this French toast literally spoke to my soul it was so magical. Basically no better way to start Valentine's Day than fueling my love affair with breakfast food.

Like damn shawty

After we gorged ourselves on English breakfast, we headed to Kingston to look around and to buy penny boards, eek! We've decided that when we go on our massive trek through eleven European countries at the beginning of April, the quickest way to zip (or fall, in my case) around will be on these precious little skateboards, so we found a shop in Kingston that sells them and bought those bad boys up thanks to the help of the cutest sales girl ever. We were planning on pracitsing skating around, but it was pouring rain so we ducked into a precious little café and grabbed one of the most delicious hot chocolates I've ever had to try to wait out the rain (which was a fail). The downpour was unrelenting, though, so we ended up just heading back to Roehampton.

 I've named her Josie and I'm quite fond of her.

 I'm really surprised it took me over a month to get a picture like this.

Actually a spiritual experience.

We just hung out at mine for the rest of the afternoon and then made some food for dinner before our night that included heading to an Anti-Valentine's Day party that Alex had found and getting blown over by the extreme wind on the way home. Probably one of the greatest Valentine's Day I've ever had.

Yay mates

Saturday we got a (somewhat) early start and headed to central to show Hayley around. We hit a bunch of the major sights, including Chipotle, which was fantastic. We took the train to southbank and then skated (can't believe I can actually say that) to Trafalgar Square and got a bus to Chipotle (holy grail) because it started raining. This is the first time I've had Chipotle or anything even remotely close to Mexican food since I've been here and it was legitimately an answered prayer. Only they gave you a lot less food than the ones in the States, and the concept of me asking for "extra rice" was apparently completely foreign to the homegirl who was working there because she looked at me like I'd asked her to help me commit murder. Regardless, it was a beautiful experience and I'm glad that I was reunited with my one true love. 

Ironically, "Holy Grail" came on as I am typing this. How relevant

Then we walked to Oxford Street and went in the giant Primark, Topshop, and a couple other stores before skating through Piccadilly Circus back to Trafalgar Square and then to Covent Garden where she was introduced to the beauty of Shake Shack. Incredible. So Covent Garden was extremely crowded because it was a Saturday afternoon, so we took shelter in a Starbucks so we could charge our phones and warm up before meeting up with the rest of the girls at Somerset House for the London Fashion Week show.

Alex texted me when they got there and so we ran over there and it was probably one of the weirdest environments I've ever been in. There were people who looked fabulous, and they all went inside the show, obviously, but then everyone else had weird coloured hair and was wearing strange patterns and bright colours (when did that become fashion) and carrying big cameras and taking pictures of random people. I've actually never felt so out of place because I had chucks and a skateboard, so. Allison got her picture taken by a random though, which was funny (famous). So we walked around, but we couldn't get in anywhere obviously because we're nobodies, and I wasn't dressed for the occasion, so I couldn't even pretend like I was cool enough to get in anywhere. Best moment was when some girls passed us handing out free bags of popcorn and literally everyone else was death glaring them and not taking it, but Hayley and I were like, "Free calories? Yes. Thank you." so we got to eat delicious popcorn that had been rejected by fashion people (#swag). Then Hayley, Allison, and I left and went back to Roehampton and made dinner and watched This Is Us, again. Good times.

I'm actually shocked that no one kicked me out.

Sunday we (Hayley, Allison, and I) woke up and got breakfast (obviously) and then went to Harrods which was actually the most overwhelming experience of my entire life (probably tied with the six-story Topshop on Oxford Street). I heard a rumour that you're not allowed to take pictures (as if that's ever stopped me) and I was afraid of getting kicked out of such a beautiful place, so I didn't even risk it like I usually do. We were there for almost two hours and probably saw 1/16 of the entirety of anything. We basically hung out in the food places (home) and then briefly explored the clothes and shoes. Also we used the bathrooms which were nicer than any home I ever live in will be. The best part of it was The Cosmetics Haul (yes, capital letters are necessary). It was home to the most beautiful cosmetics counters I've seen. Chanel. Burberry. Lancome. YSL. Dior, to name a few. I died. I wanted to touch everything, but I was equally stricken with fear at messing up the perfection of it all. The clothes were all beautiful and more expensive than my entire life. A magically spiritual moment happened in there though; we were walking into a giant room of shoes and "Show Me" by Kid Ink started playing and if my entrance to Heaven isn't exactly like that, I'm going to be disappointed.

 Bill's. Breakfast. Babes.

 Yum tho

Memorial to Princess Di on the ground floor of Harrods.

After a very extended period of sensory overload in there, we decided to just head down to Oxford Street to go to church. I just love church. It was great. We ended up getting there early so we stopped at McDonald's and got some fries and used their wifi before heading to the Dominion. Church this week was different, they called it a "touching Heaven" service, and there was no message, just extended worship. It was amazing. There's this one little guy that leads worship and he just jumps around and is so full of joy and he was leading and he just makes me so happy. He was bopping around like he'd had five shots of espresso beforehand. Such a pump up. Then we headed home and made food and I finished my paper and we went to sleep because Hayley's train left early on Monday morning so we had to leave here earlier than usual because rush hour.

Such a great weekend with Hayley and I'm so glad that we've been able to spend so much time together and live our mutual adventurous dreams together in the UK and I can't wait for our month of adventure in April, eek! I hope y'all are doing so well and I apologise again for the extreme drought that has existed on this blog during the month of February, but I'm going to work harder to do better, I swear! Also, I finally figured out where the post box is to send things (I suck, I know) so expect mucho postcards in the near future! Much love to my homies.

xx

If you want to see video documentation of my weekend with Hayley in London you can do so by clicking here.

Also, I'm trying to win a free ride to the airport at the end of my program so I don't have to carry all my bags on public transportation and be a sweaty mess all over the city of London. Basically, all I need is the most Instagram likes on all my pictures with #CISLondon, so if you would like to help me out with that you can do so here.