Holidays and Such
So while I was on holiday, I kept a blog. For part of it. Well, a day and a half.
***
Thursday 9th October 5:26am
Our holiday started a day earlier than I had expected, as apparently it was cheaper to get a room for the night and use the hotel’s parking than it was to leave our car in the airport’s "secure" lot. We left our house at 7pm on Tuesday (just after Buffy), travelled to the Thistle Hotel at Aberdeen Airport and stayed there for the night. Well, I say the night, but I really mean all the night that happens up until 4:30am, when my parents woke me up and dragged me to Aberdeen Airport (which is less than five minutes away) for our flight leaving at approximately 6:40 and a disappointing sausage sandwich.
The Aberdeen to London flight takes about an hour, which is peanuts in the grand scheme of things, and I fell asleep almost instantly reading Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland and listening to NFG on my personal CD player.
When we arrived in London, I immediately regretted not bidding on an Airport Card on eBay, as one of the first things I saw was a poster saying that wireless had come to Heathrow airport. When we got into the terminal, Dixons taunted me; they had Apple laptops sitting across from wireless PC cards. So cruel. To console myself, I found an Internet booth, whose keyboard was metal and whose screen flickered like a mother, and typed a reply to Kevin’s LJ post.
Then we boarded an American Airlines Boeing 777, which would take us to Chicago. We had the very, very back seats, so they didn’t recline all the way back, but we weren’t bothered because, as a family, we’re far too nice to recline our seats further than about 20º when we’ve got people behind us anyway. The entertainment for the 8 hour journey was 2 Fast 2 Furious, the remake of The Italian Job, Johnny English, a BBC TV movie called Sweet Revenge, or watching my dad get more and most flustered with the fidgety guy doing callisthenics in the seat in front of him. I opted for The Italian Job, Sweet Revenge and a smidgen of annoyed!Dad. I also tried to watch Johnny English, but it was so incredibly bad that I had to turn it off in favour of more of my book.
At Chicago airport, nothing much eventful happened, except that we saw a man with a small whippet dog, which, to my delight, was going to Los Angeles too. In the line to board the plane, we overheard him speaking to another passenger telling them that the dog was just over 8lbs - less than me when I was born. To sit on the plane, the man put it into a bag that resembled a lobster creel made of the kind of mesh used in travel cots and stowed it under the seat in front, which happened to be mine. I could think of nothing but that poor puppy, but it was extremely well behaved and didn’t even try to run away when he opened the creel at LAX. There was also a man who insisted on talking very loudly into his Bluetooth handsfree kit and kissing his blonde, and much younger girlfriend aggressively, while making sure everyone saw his t-shirt, which advertised the movie-related company that he obviously worked for.
Right now, I’m in a hotel called the Embassy Suites in LA, having got here at about 8:30pm - 4:30am body-clock time - last night. Inside the hotel are bizarre Disney-esque raised ponds and the whole place smells like the ET ride at Universal. We ordered room service for the first time in my hotel experience and it was brought up almost immediately by a waiter who said that his friend was the limo driver for Nicholas Cage (Apparently, Nic loves Macallan).
***
Friday 10th October 10:33am
We're driving around Hollywood in an attempt to waste some time so that we can go to a museum that doesn't open till 11:30am. JUst saw the Hollywood sign, but it's a bit misty so it was just grey letters on a slightly darker grey background.
We picked up our rental car yesterday - a beautiful blue PT Cruiser, and then headed over to the Getty Centre, which is a massive art gallery on top of a hill. It was really pretty actually, but most of the paintings were from before the 19th Centuy. Not only were these too drab for my tastes, but they didn't suit the ultra-modern, completely white architechture and interior design of the Centre, which I thought was a bit of a shame. It was also very foggy when we were there, so it felt like we were above the clouds, which was very cool.
From there, my parents decided that since I had been so patient in the art gallery, we could go shopping. We went to a fairly crap mall with American versions of New Look and Logo, but I got a dress in the Macy's sale, so I was happy. On the way back to the hotel, we saw a billboard for the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen's Club, which has to be a euphemism for something.
***
Uh. That's about it as far as my holiday blog goes. After that, I sort of lost interest as there was plenty of other things to do: shopping, visiting museums, reading copious amounts of slash, and (post-iPod purchase) listening to my entire CD collection on random. The rest of the holiday was a whirl of jelly beans, maps, onesies and petty theft.
***
Thursday 9th October 5:26am
Our holiday started a day earlier than I had expected, as apparently it was cheaper to get a room for the night and use the hotel’s parking than it was to leave our car in the airport’s "secure" lot. We left our house at 7pm on Tuesday (just after Buffy), travelled to the Thistle Hotel at Aberdeen Airport and stayed there for the night. Well, I say the night, but I really mean all the night that happens up until 4:30am, when my parents woke me up and dragged me to Aberdeen Airport (which is less than five minutes away) for our flight leaving at approximately 6:40 and a disappointing sausage sandwich.
The Aberdeen to London flight takes about an hour, which is peanuts in the grand scheme of things, and I fell asleep almost instantly reading Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland and listening to NFG on my personal CD player.
When we arrived in London, I immediately regretted not bidding on an Airport Card on eBay, as one of the first things I saw was a poster saying that wireless had come to Heathrow airport. When we got into the terminal, Dixons taunted me; they had Apple laptops sitting across from wireless PC cards. So cruel. To console myself, I found an Internet booth, whose keyboard was metal and whose screen flickered like a mother, and typed a reply to Kevin’s LJ post.
Then we boarded an American Airlines Boeing 777, which would take us to Chicago. We had the very, very back seats, so they didn’t recline all the way back, but we weren’t bothered because, as a family, we’re far too nice to recline our seats further than about 20º when we’ve got people behind us anyway. The entertainment for the 8 hour journey was 2 Fast 2 Furious, the remake of The Italian Job, Johnny English, a BBC TV movie called Sweet Revenge, or watching my dad get more and most flustered with the fidgety guy doing callisthenics in the seat in front of him. I opted for The Italian Job, Sweet Revenge and a smidgen of annoyed!Dad. I also tried to watch Johnny English, but it was so incredibly bad that I had to turn it off in favour of more of my book.
At Chicago airport, nothing much eventful happened, except that we saw a man with a small whippet dog, which, to my delight, was going to Los Angeles too. In the line to board the plane, we overheard him speaking to another passenger telling them that the dog was just over 8lbs - less than me when I was born. To sit on the plane, the man put it into a bag that resembled a lobster creel made of the kind of mesh used in travel cots and stowed it under the seat in front, which happened to be mine. I could think of nothing but that poor puppy, but it was extremely well behaved and didn’t even try to run away when he opened the creel at LAX. There was also a man who insisted on talking very loudly into his Bluetooth handsfree kit and kissing his blonde, and much younger girlfriend aggressively, while making sure everyone saw his t-shirt, which advertised the movie-related company that he obviously worked for.
Right now, I’m in a hotel called the Embassy Suites in LA, having got here at about 8:30pm - 4:30am body-clock time - last night. Inside the hotel are bizarre Disney-esque raised ponds and the whole place smells like the ET ride at Universal. We ordered room service for the first time in my hotel experience and it was brought up almost immediately by a waiter who said that his friend was the limo driver for Nicholas Cage (Apparently, Nic loves Macallan).
***
Friday 10th October 10:33am
We're driving around Hollywood in an attempt to waste some time so that we can go to a museum that doesn't open till 11:30am. JUst saw the Hollywood sign, but it's a bit misty so it was just grey letters on a slightly darker grey background.
We picked up our rental car yesterday - a beautiful blue PT Cruiser, and then headed over to the Getty Centre, which is a massive art gallery on top of a hill. It was really pretty actually, but most of the paintings were from before the 19th Centuy. Not only were these too drab for my tastes, but they didn't suit the ultra-modern, completely white architechture and interior design of the Centre, which I thought was a bit of a shame. It was also very foggy when we were there, so it felt like we were above the clouds, which was very cool.
From there, my parents decided that since I had been so patient in the art gallery, we could go shopping. We went to a fairly crap mall with American versions of New Look and Logo, but I got a dress in the Macy's sale, so I was happy. On the way back to the hotel, we saw a billboard for the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen's Club, which has to be a euphemism for something.
***
Uh. That's about it as far as my holiday blog goes. After that, I sort of lost interest as there was plenty of other things to do: shopping, visiting museums, reading copious amounts of slash, and (post-iPod purchase) listening to my entire CD collection on random. The rest of the holiday was a whirl of jelly beans, maps, onesies and petty theft.