it's my last weekend in london and all i feel like doing is shopping for cute clothes. there are a ton of museums, tours, shows and other assorted cultural goodies to take advantage of and all i want to see is the inside of my new favorite stores: h&m, mango, zara. i bought a ton of stuff yesterday. i've tried to justify it to myself by saying that i needed more light clothes to wear during the rest of my stay in europe, but i caved in and bought this jacket i've been eyeing, a jacket i'll likely have to wait months to wear since LA stays pretty temperate throughout the fall. and i still need to dish out dough for gifts. but shopping here is great, much better than in LA. there's so much variety, the prices are affordable, and the clothes are super hip. i'm coming back with a lot of great finds.

but i wanted to announce the winner of last week's photo caption contest (scroll down to see june 17 photo). and the winner is none other than my fellow classmate, VOA coworker and friend, melissa milios, whose winning caption was: Maybe with this disguise, the archbishop will forget the charges and let me back into the church!

(audience applauds) thanks for playing, y'all. and speaking of churches, the story i'm currently working on involves the 80-million people strong anglican church, which is headquarted in england. i'm focusing on the church's treatment of homosexuals, both in the clergy and the laity, which has been in the headlines lately. fun stuff -- nothing like a little sex and religion to really offend people! i've conducted all my interviews already. the coolest part was when i got a few "no comments" from the people i spoke to. it made me feel like i was asking the right questions, and, i'm happy to report, for the first time in my life it made me feel like a journalist. expect the story sometime next week.