Travel Snafus, Dancing Bears and Academy Award Winning Actresses

Hello! I am typing this, not from my laptop in a Starbucks in Hammersmith, but from my actual home computer! I can scarcely believe I am home. It is a strange feeling.

My flight was originally supposed to leave around 11 this morning, but when I did the online check-in yesterday it said the flight would leave at 13:15, which is fine, I got some time in the morning for one last Full English Breakfast before I left.

EXCEPT for two small problems:

1) My brain is no longer functioning at 100% capacity (based on average norms, not on any assumption that my brain has ever run at full capacity); and:

2) The London Underground chose a most inopportune time to finally fail me.

I got on the Tube to go to Paddington station and pick up the Heathrow Express, a 15-minute express train. However, about 3 stops into the journey I realize that I am instead retracing the route to Euston station, where I had gotten off the Caledonian Sleeper yesterday morning. There is no Heathrow Express from Euston. I'm going the wrong way!

Quickly jumping off the Eastbound Piccadilly Line (to Cockfosters) to the Westbound (which actually goes as far as Heathrow but takes significantly longer than an express train), I made for the South Kensington stop, where I could change to the Circle line to get to Paddington. But no, the Circle has chosen this particular Tuesday morning to experience catastrophic crippling delays, and as an alternate route would I please take the District line in the opposite direction for a few stops then get back on the Circle line going in the opposite direction to no no no I am going to miss my flight that is way too far out. Back to the Piccadilly, where I took my chances timewise. I ended up getting through Security with little time to spare.

The plane ride was significantly better than last time, mostly because of the entertainment system. The little TV was a touch screen and there were a lot of different things to watch and you could make your own music playlists and wow it was mind blowing. Since the flight was 7 and a half hours, I had time to watch almost three films. Appaloosa was really good. Ed Harris is one of those actors who never gets enough credit. City of Ember, which I thought might be crappy but took a chance on, was significantly better than I thought it would be. How To Lose Friends and Alienate People was the one I didn't get to finish, but I'm not too worried about it. It gets plus points for having Simon Pegg, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges, but minus points for being not all that funny really and having Kirsten Dunst in it. Seriously.

In between all these films, I found that they had some episodes of that old Paddington Bear stop-motion show. I've been looking for a DVD of these forever, so this was probably one of the highlights of my trip (which sounds like my trip must have been awful, but you underestimate my love for stop motion Paddington). I was watching Paddington doing "Singin' In The Rain" and I was seriously thinking that my plane could crash directly into the ocean right then and I would just have a big stupid grin on my face the whole time. SERIOUSLY.Thank you, YouTube, for illustrating my point.

Anyway, I'm not going to complain about the airplane food, everyone does that (but a salmon & cucumber sandwich? Really?), but I will reveal that there was a famous person on my flight today! I walked down the ramp right behind her! We waited for our luggage less than five feet from each other! She smiled at me once because her daughter said hello to me! ZOMG I WILL NEVER WASH THESE EYEBALLS AGAIN!

Gwyneth Paltrow is prettier in real life than in the movies, and her two kids are a handful, like most kids their ages. Where's Coldplay Guy? Probably stealing bass lines from Les Claypool or something. I kid! I like Coldplay, but they're so incredibly pretentious. Still, "Clocks" is seriously a great song. But yeah, Pepper Potts herself. New York is pretty great.

The subway ride home was interesting, since I had the privilege of making a direct comparison between it and the Tube. My comparison is this: the Tube has been around since the 1800s. It is the oldest subway in the world. They have escalators all over the place. They have mostly fabric-cushioned seats. The New York subway is dirty, smelly, and has no escalators that I've ever encountered. There is a lot of work to be done here.

I swore I'd get a pizza tonight and I ordered one on the train ride home. I tore it up, there's like two pieces left. Modern is great! I haven't driven in like two weeks, and it's not like you forget but I was a little nervous. I was driving too fast. It'll come back. On the way home I had to stop to get milk and almost paid with pounds (crap, I still have pounds!), then when I did pay with dollars and got my change, instead of saying thank you I said, "Cheers, mate," like I was back in the UK. I don't think the clerk heard me. I hope not. I expect that sort of thing will happen here and there for a few days. And jet lag, aaaaarrgh, it's like almost 3 AM for me right now.......

I'm happy to be back home to see my friends and eat pizza, but I miss being out and about already...and it's so cold...so cold here...

The Story So Far

So just before I left, my man Randy said that two of our friends wanted to go to the UK, so I brought them along.They preferred to stay in my bag for the trip, but they're pretty jet lagged right now so no real photo ops yet.

I'm pretty jet lagged myself, but here are a few observations from the trip so far:

- It was super warm yesterday, but it's in maybe the 40s here right now. It was sunny when I arrived, but now the sky has that hazy grey that only seems to happen when it's about to snow. It is hilarious, there are lots of people dressed reasonably, but therre are also a lot of people wearing eskimo parkas and furry hats and whatnot.

- I was worried about finding my hotel from the Underground, since the only directions I had said to get off at Gloucester Station. So I figured I'd end up figuring it out...sure enough, it was right outside the station. I can see it from my window!Pretty neat!

- The flight was uneventful. The most notable experience was probably the luggage carousel. WILL I GET MY LUGGAGE BACK??? The answer was Yes, but the baggage handlers do like to keep you in suspense.

- As we were boarding at JFK, I met an American Japanese couple who were very friendly and appreciated my Joy Division shirt. The guy was saying that he wore his similar (but better, his wife added) shirt to a Killers show (who covered Joy Division's "Shadowplay" to great radio success) but no one commented on it. Kids today don't know their history.

- Airplane food is pretty consistently terrible. But the flight did have an audio station featuring the best of New Order, so that was nice. I must have gotten maybe 3 hours sleep on the flight, but not what one would consider quality sleep.

- London's Underground reminds me of a cross between Boston and Toronto. It's about as clean as Toronto (so far), and a lot of it is overground like the T in Boston. There was a busker who played a violin jig version of the James Bond Theme, but at the time all I had was 20s in pounds and some dollar bills that he probably didn't want. Maybe I'll see him once I break these 20s.

Anyway, I'm going to take a nap and then see if I can find a hall around here to go to.