"What are you waiting for?" "Free tacos!"
Finally, finally, I get to write about London! First I have to say, that was one of the best days of my life, if not THE best! I wish we could have that on a regular basis. But now, the full accounts:
I got up at 1am, after 1 1/2 hours of sleep and a friend picked us up to drive us to the airport shuttle bus at 2am. Thank God for him! Otherwise I wouldn't have had the time to sleep at all.
He also baby-sat our dog for the day, so we had to say goodbye to both of them at the shuttlebus.
We landed in London-Stansted at 7.35 GMT and arrived at Victoria Station around 10.30. Jeannie and Sel wanted to walk to Leicester Square, so we did and it was already boiling hot. Better than pouring rain, of course, but I would have preferred a couple of degrees less.
There were maybe 200 people there already and we met Nic, our fellow X-Fu, before settling down at the end of the already existing line, which ran parallel to the cinema. The next 7 hours were spent with talking with Nic, Nic and me going around and talking to other Philes/Fus, going to the loo at McDonalds and having random meet-ups with random Philes there, being asked "What are you waiting for?", taking pictures of everything, watching the preparations for the premiere, Tasha's House of Smut t-shirt, getting interviewed by Gia, getting filmed by random camera teams, meeting Lisa and Will, getting the badges from Lisa and listening to David's interview on the radio.
One of the most memorable moments was during David's radio interview, when I had just given one of my earplugs to Nic and the host started the interview by telling us what the story of IWTB is about - IN DETAILS! Nic's face was priceless. She was unspoiled until then, you see. The rest of the interview I grabbed the earplug from Nic, whenever I suspect an upcoming spoiler and laughed at her sulking face.
By 5.45 we were all standing behind the barriers. Thanks to us coming early and because of the way the barriers were put up, we were in the first row. Not that that was much use to Jeannie and me, as we had to go inside before the stars even arrived. We left the fans behind the barrier shortly before 6pm, got our tickets from Lisa and made our way inside (over the red carpet) with some other Philes. Apparently Lisa stumbled on the red carpet, which Nic is still teasing her with.
Walking the red carpet was very exciting, even though I felt bad for the people who had to stay outside.
Inside we realized that contrary to what we had been told, the fans were in a separate screening than the "official guests". I was quite sad about that, because I thought we wouldn't get to see Chris, Frank, Gillian and David that way.
But it was still really cool sitting there with the other fans and being excited together. Then they had a live-streaming from the red carpet, so we could at least see what was going on. At one point I saw David signing his way towards Sel and Nic and I will never forget Nic's face. She was in total awe. Unfortunately they cut away before he reached them, so we didn't get to see that.
After the live-streaming they showed two specials. One I'd seen before on German television, but I wanted to see it in English, so that was great. It had interviews with the cast and crew, the fan interviews from LA and I can't remember the rest.
...
Then the screen went blank I heard the guy, who had hosted the live-streaming talking to us, but it took me a few moments to realize that he was actually IN OUR SCREENING ROOM! Everything from there gets a little blurry. I don't know, if I realized what was about to come, because the host was in the room with us or because the host said something that indicated it. In any case a minute later Chris "The God" Carter and Frank "Uncle Frank" Spotnitz walk in the room, and we were just 4 seats away from them. The whole room went crazy, it was like an explosion. Everybody jumped off their seats to try and get pictures and starting applauding, yelling and cheering. It was unbelievable!!!
I only remember that they thanked the fans and that they hoped we would stay to see the movie (at which the entire audience laughed) and that they hoped we liked it, but I was too busy looking at the entrance to pay full attention to Chris and Frank. Because standing at the door was no other than GILLIAN ANDERSON!!!!!!! I'm still hyperventilating just thinking of that moment. So I kept staring at her until Chris introduced her and David and they both joined Chris and Frank in front of the screen. There are no words to express how I felt that moment. I still can't comprehend all this.
I was in the same room with them! This is a fact that I still can't quite wrap my brain around.
I never expected this to have such an effect on me. I mean, the person I care most about of these four is Gillian and I've met her twice, so I thought this was gonna be like: "Okay, this is nice. Now can we watch the movie, please." But it blew me away.
Gillian wanted us to see the movie lots of times and she thanked us and hoped we have fun watching, I remember that. And David made some sort of joke, that I couldn't hear. The rest was lost in excitement.
Ok, so then they left and the movie started and that was AMAZING AS WELL!! Watching this movie with 200 other people, knowing that everybody else is at least as crazy about this as you are, is A GIFT! Nothing short of that!
We cheered and whooped at least every 5 minutes. When the 20th Century Fox sign came up, when the theme music started, when David's and Gillian's names appeared, when each of them first appeared on the screen, at every easter egg and inside joke, when Skinner appeared on the screen, ...
I don't think I will ever enjoy a cinema visit as much as I did with this one!
Afterwards we went back to the foyer to take pictures and to wait for the stars to come out of their screening. As we heard shortly afterwards was that Chris, Frank, David and Gillian had already left - directly after they went to see us. They didn't even go and see the movie.
So, Jeannie and I went looking for Sel and Nic. Then we went for a drink and then found some other Philes and went to Burger King with them.
Then the not so nice part of the day started. Everybody else had gone home and our bus was leaving at 3.30am, so I decided to walk back to Victoria Station and sleep on the benches there. What we didn't know was that Victoria Station gets closed off at night, so we had to wait outside for 2 1/2 hours. Luckily it was not too cold. I slept most of the time. I also slept the entire bus ride to Stansted, in the waiting area before boarding our flight, through the entire flight and some of the ride back with the shuttlebus. I literally only got up to move from one point to the next. But at least I got some sleep.
I think this is it! I might edit a bit here and there and maybe put some pictures up later, now I have to fill out some documents for student support and then go to work.
Can't wait to hear everybody elses reports.
I got up at 1am, after 1 1/2 hours of sleep and a friend picked us up to drive us to the airport shuttle bus at 2am. Thank God for him! Otherwise I wouldn't have had the time to sleep at all.
He also baby-sat our dog for the day, so we had to say goodbye to both of them at the shuttlebus.
We landed in London-Stansted at 7.35 GMT and arrived at Victoria Station around 10.30. Jeannie and Sel wanted to walk to Leicester Square, so we did and it was already boiling hot. Better than pouring rain, of course, but I would have preferred a couple of degrees less.
There were maybe 200 people there already and we met Nic, our fellow X-Fu, before settling down at the end of the already existing line, which ran parallel to the cinema. The next 7 hours were spent with talking with Nic, Nic and me going around and talking to other Philes/Fus, going to the loo at McDonalds and having random meet-ups with random Philes there, being asked "What are you waiting for?", taking pictures of everything, watching the preparations for the premiere, Tasha's House of Smut t-shirt, getting interviewed by Gia, getting filmed by random camera teams, meeting Lisa and Will, getting the badges from Lisa and listening to David's interview on the radio.
One of the most memorable moments was during David's radio interview, when I had just given one of my earplugs to Nic and the host started the interview by telling us what the story of IWTB is about - IN DETAILS! Nic's face was priceless. She was unspoiled until then, you see. The rest of the interview I grabbed the earplug from Nic, whenever I suspect an upcoming spoiler and laughed at her sulking face.
By 5.45 we were all standing behind the barriers. Thanks to us coming early and because of the way the barriers were put up, we were in the first row. Not that that was much use to Jeannie and me, as we had to go inside before the stars even arrived. We left the fans behind the barrier shortly before 6pm, got our tickets from Lisa and made our way inside (over the red carpet) with some other Philes. Apparently Lisa stumbled on the red carpet, which Nic is still teasing her with.
Walking the red carpet was very exciting, even though I felt bad for the people who had to stay outside.
Inside we realized that contrary to what we had been told, the fans were in a separate screening than the "official guests". I was quite sad about that, because I thought we wouldn't get to see Chris, Frank, Gillian and David that way.
But it was still really cool sitting there with the other fans and being excited together. Then they had a live-streaming from the red carpet, so we could at least see what was going on. At one point I saw David signing his way towards Sel and Nic and I will never forget Nic's face. She was in total awe. Unfortunately they cut away before he reached them, so we didn't get to see that.
After the live-streaming they showed two specials. One I'd seen before on German television, but I wanted to see it in English, so that was great. It had interviews with the cast and crew, the fan interviews from LA and I can't remember the rest.
...
Then the screen went blank I heard the guy, who had hosted the live-streaming talking to us, but it took me a few moments to realize that he was actually IN OUR SCREENING ROOM! Everything from there gets a little blurry. I don't know, if I realized what was about to come, because the host was in the room with us or because the host said something that indicated it. In any case a minute later Chris "The God" Carter and Frank "Uncle Frank" Spotnitz walk in the room, and we were just 4 seats away from them. The whole room went crazy, it was like an explosion. Everybody jumped off their seats to try and get pictures and starting applauding, yelling and cheering. It was unbelievable!!!
I only remember that they thanked the fans and that they hoped we would stay to see the movie (at which the entire audience laughed) and that they hoped we liked it, but I was too busy looking at the entrance to pay full attention to Chris and Frank. Because standing at the door was no other than GILLIAN ANDERSON!!!!!!! I'm still hyperventilating just thinking of that moment. So I kept staring at her until Chris introduced her and David and they both joined Chris and Frank in front of the screen. There are no words to express how I felt that moment. I still can't comprehend all this.
I was in the same room with them! This is a fact that I still can't quite wrap my brain around.
I never expected this to have such an effect on me. I mean, the person I care most about of these four is Gillian and I've met her twice, so I thought this was gonna be like: "Okay, this is nice. Now can we watch the movie, please." But it blew me away.
Gillian wanted us to see the movie lots of times and she thanked us and hoped we have fun watching, I remember that. And David made some sort of joke, that I couldn't hear. The rest was lost in excitement.
Ok, so then they left and the movie started and that was AMAZING AS WELL!! Watching this movie with 200 other people, knowing that everybody else is at least as crazy about this as you are, is A GIFT! Nothing short of that!
We cheered and whooped at least every 5 minutes. When the 20th Century Fox sign came up, when the theme music started, when David's and Gillian's names appeared, when each of them first appeared on the screen, at every easter egg and inside joke, when Skinner appeared on the screen, ...
I don't think I will ever enjoy a cinema visit as much as I did with this one!
Afterwards we went back to the foyer to take pictures and to wait for the stars to come out of their screening. As we heard shortly afterwards was that Chris, Frank, David and Gillian had already left - directly after they went to see us. They didn't even go and see the movie.
So, Jeannie and I went looking for Sel and Nic. Then we went for a drink and then found some other Philes and went to Burger King with them.
Then the not so nice part of the day started. Everybody else had gone home and our bus was leaving at 3.30am, so I decided to walk back to Victoria Station and sleep on the benches there. What we didn't know was that Victoria Station gets closed off at night, so we had to wait outside for 2 1/2 hours. Luckily it was not too cold. I slept most of the time. I also slept the entire bus ride to Stansted, in the waiting area before boarding our flight, through the entire flight and some of the ride back with the shuttlebus. I literally only got up to move from one point to the next. But at least I got some sleep.
I think this is it! I might edit a bit here and there and maybe put some pictures up later, now I have to fill out some documents for student support and then go to work.
Can't wait to hear everybody elses reports.