London!
Yesterday me & Holly went to London for the UpRising Reunion. (We've not met most of the people before so not much of a reunion). We had to meet at Lime Street for 7:20am which meant I was up at 5:30am! It was a real struggle to get up :( We got given our train tickets, it said carriage H which was really far down the train then we realised it was first class! We didn't even see it on the ticket to realise until we actually got on the train.
It was the second time I'd got a Virgin train so was actually a little excited to be in first class. We got given a Danish apple & custard pastry (which wasn't that nice), an apple & orange juice. Got free WiFi but the plugs weren't working so I couldn't charge my phone.
I wanted to sleep but Holly kept talking to me!
There was 20 of us but only 7 from our group counting me & Holly the rest were from the younger group who did their social action via social media.
We were delayed by 20 minutes so got to London around 10:25am. The actual introduction start was 11:30am so we had time to get there. But we waited for a good 20 minutes outside Euston station while Carolyn sorted out our tube tickets. We had to get the black Northern Line to Bank then change onto the red Central Line to Mile End. It was being held at Queen Mary University. We got there at 11:45am but didn't miss much as they were running late.
On the agenda we were meant to have an hour lunch it turned out to only be 20 minutes with sandwiches & some fruit. We then attended a workshop. Me & Holly chose Impact and Influence. Stand out with dynamic and confident speaking with Richard Newman.
Richard was really good & the advice he gave was so beneficial. At first he was making us stand up, pretend we were a New York cop on one side of the road & there was a robber on the other side but in America their roads are massive & have 5 lanes. We had to get the robbers attention & shout in a New York accent "Hey you, stop in the name of the law!" Didn't really know what he was getting at or why he was making us stand up & go round shaking people's hands but it all made sense in the end.
He was showing us that using different tones, body language, how we present ourselves changes the message received by other person you're interacting with. He was really engaging & knew what he was talking about. His company Body Talk trains international celebrities, UK Parliament, London Business school, many of the FTSE 100 & Fortune 500 campaign. I would love to be trained by him but don't think I could afford it!
We then had talk from Stuart Pickford from the Mayer Brown law firm who were sponsoring the UpRising Reunion. It was actually really boring & the thing he was talking about weren't really relevant unless you plan on being a lawyer & working in law. He was using a lot of jargon so unless you studied law or have a friend who has like Holly, you'd have no idea what he was on about. He just had no presentation skills especially after how good Richard was he should've been sitting in that workshop & taking tips on how to give a good presentation! He was just reading off sheets of paper & was really nervous!
We then had another workshop straight after, we were going to Hogwarts for campaigners. A taster of successful campaigning by Genevieve Dawson. We followed the group of people into the room but then thought we were in the wrong room so left & ended up back in the main lecture theatre. It turns out we were in the right room but didn't want to awkwardly go back into after leaving. We went to a talk about how you can create change by campaigning & using petitions. It was led by Katherine Sladden a campaigner at Change.org.
After the session we left, our train back was at 6:07pm so we had to leave at 5pm to get the tube back. At this time it was half 4, there was meant to be a tea break at 4 but that didn't happen as they were running well over time so we didn't want to have to awkwardly leave in the middle of a session. They did end up have a really short 5 minute break which they weren't even going to give us become they were running over time. But the day had been so long that people were getting bored & restless, they definitely needed the break if they were going to carry on till 6pm!
We got the tube back to Euston, we had some time to get some dinner for the train back. Me & Holly got food from Itsu. I got an original chicken teriyaki rice potsu £6.89. Holly got avocado baby rolls 14 pieces for £3.69, chicken teriyaki salad £3.99 & a raw veg cleanse smoothie - spinach, apple juice, ginger, coriander, avocado, cucumber & ice £3.99. I asked if mine had coriander & the girl behind the counter said don't think so, think only the smoothie has it in. The description on the board didn't mention coriander so I got it.
We should have got the salmon & avocado sushi then gone halves but I didn't even realise Holly got the sushi! I took a spoonful & realised it had a coriander in it when the girl told me there wasn't any it so I ended up having to try & pick it out. Good job I'm not allergic to it & that I just really hate it otherwise they wouldn't know what's hit them! I sent them an email earlier on about this & they've offered me lunch on the house the next time I visit them which is a bit of an issue that I don't live in London so I can't exactly take them up on that offer! I was actually quite disappointed with my dinner, I didn't really enjoy it thought it was too salty. Won't be having a potsu again maybe sushi as for the amount you get is good for that price especially in London!
We got back to Liverpool at 8:20pm it had been a really long day. I couldn't wait to get a shower & get into bed! I was actually falling asleep during the talks. But I'm so glad we got the train as speaking to Manchester people they got the coach there! They were up at 4am. If we were going by coach there was no way me & Holly were gonna go! We felt bad for them especially after going first class there (we were standard back but that's still a million times better than a coach!). I was probably in bed before the Manchester people were even home.
It was a fun day trip to London, I wish we had time to actually explore London rather than being on the uni campus all day but I guess I can't complain too much as it was a free trip to London on a Virgin train with the first class experience (apparently it's better in weekday mornings you can have smoked salmon for breakfast!!). Hopefully taking a trip down to London over the summer! Thanks UpRising!
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