New Found Love

Thursday, October 14
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Today was a slow day at the office.  I spent the bulk of the morning creating a product reference list for Crabtree's Christmas booklet that they are sending out to all of the stores.  After finishing, I completed various little tasks, such as putting together goodie bags for one of the stores' first birthdays and researching membership to the Regent Street Association (I know, this sounds fascinating).  The most interesting part of my day was probably my reading of the official Store Experience Pack; this 30 page booklet describes how stores are to lay out various displays and give detailed instructions on pretty much everything that should be going on when customers are present.  It amazed me how much detail the pack goes into, but I guess to get a consistent and meaningful customer experience, you need to be specific!
5:30 pm came not a minute too early, and I was especially excited to walk back to the middle of South Ken as I was meeting a very special visitor!  Jocey is here for the week, staying most of the time in Scotland with her friend Julia, and she and Lauren and I went out to dinner together!  After our initial hugs (I can't believe I haven't seen her since June!) and showing her the wonder that is Courtfield Gardens, we decided on trying dinner at Masala Zone, an Indian restaurant on Earl's Court Road.  Lauren and I have passed by this place many times, and we've always wanted to try it as the plates in the window always look amazing. We wouldn't exactly label ourselves Indian foodies up to this point, but we are now officially converted.  The entire meal was absolutely amazing (and embarrassingly huge), and we are now newly minted Indian food lovers.  We had so many great things, and on top of that it was so nice to catch up with Jocey and talk about all our adventures here!  The night just made me so thankful for the amazing friends and family that I have.
After some dessert (I opted for chocolate ice cream while Lauren was the adventurous one and got this kind of doughnut in a sugar syrup...yum!), we decided to come back to the room and go to bed early since we would be finishing up our first week of work tomorrow.  And, for some of us, we had some traveling ahead of us as well!
    xo Carolyn