London Trip (Day 11 of 10!!!) - And A Little Anime Detour Thrown In for Good Measure!
Friday, April 3rd 2009
Matt and I woke up early in Toronto. I was feeling less cranky after a good night’s sleep. Even though we had a breakfast voucher for the hotel, we decided not to risk missing our flight again. I wanted to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare so we’d have to find breakfast at the airport (hello, Tim Horton’s!)
We packed up, went down to the lobby and waited around with some other people for the next airport shuttle. We were the first on the shuttle and all our bags were at the bottom of the pile in the back. All of a sudden there was a commotion. A couple of people were mad because they didn’t have a seat on the shuttle. It turns out that Matt and I were supposed to reserve our seats and sign up for an available slot the night before.
No one told us about this and my personal experience had always been you just hop on a shuttle and it was first come, first served. There was also no signage from the night before at check-in indicating this was the policy. By the time we had realized our error, the couple whose seats we had taken in the shuttle (which sat about 12 people) were fed up and grabbed a waiting cab to the airport in a huff. I had left my seat, was standing out in the rain, and had apologized to the driver.
The driver said it all worked out in the end (in typical Canadian fashion) and Matt and I were off to the airport on our stolen shuttle seats. This was good because it was a decent 40-minute wait between shuttles and the next couple of shuttle-runs were already filled up. With everything that had gone wrong on our way home, I figured we got a little karma back and that other couple certainly looked like they could afford the taxi to the airport, so I didn’t give it much thought after that. Matt later told me he would have been really pissed off had we been kicked off the shuttle.
We arrived at the airport and went through US customs. I had packed the sand from the beach in a plastic bag and put it in my checked baggage and was nervous about it looking like drugs in the event the bag was x-rayed. There was a place to declare “soil samples” on the customs form but I didn’t want to risk it - besides that customs question was in the area for farming, handling of animals, and manure and this stuff was just sand and rocks from Southerndown Beach. Could there be little sea-organisms in the bag? Probably but I don’t think that was what the government was worried about. In any event, we cleared the US customs outpost in the Canadian airport just fine without any problems.
I wandered around the airport looking for either Diet Dew or Diet Dr. Pepper to no avail. Not even any Diet Mello Yello. Denied yet again.
We boarded the plane and had an uneventful trip back to Minneapolis. We collected the checked bag and my small bag of sand and rocks was intact, yay for cheap yet memorable souvenirs! It felt so good to be home, especially after our unscheduled layover. I quickly found a vending machine and happily paid $2.25 for twenty ounces of delicious Diet Dew chemical nectar.
My dad, who originally was going to pick us up the night before, wasn’t available because it was now the middle of the workday and he couldn’t leave work. That was understandable.
We were anxious to get home, so we just took a taxi from the airport. It ended up costing about $40.00 but at that point I didn’t care, I just wanted to get home. We got home around 11 AM local time and dropped our stuff off.
I caught up on the internet a little bit, opened some packages and mail that had arrived for me while I was gone, and set out Brandon’s gift for him for house-sitting on the porch. He was stopping by at 3 PM to drop off the spare key and collect some of his homework.
Matt and I would be at Anime Detour by that point, so the exchange had to be made absently on the porch. He later texted me that he loved the Wimbledon polo (his favorite color, baby blue) and that it fit just fine. I knew he was a big Tennis fan (specifically Venus and Serena Williams), so it was an appropriate gift.
Matt and I ran to Taco Bell (what a delicious crappy fast-food bookend to our trip) to eat and decompress before heading to Anime Detour. It was weird revisiting the Crowne Plaza (formerly Radisson St. Paul), site of the 2nd CONvergence Convention back in July of 2000. The hotel seemed so much smaller than I remembered (or maybe it was the fact I was only 20 at the time).
I only stayed at Detour for a couple panels that afternoon. I checked out the crowd, costumes, and dealers room (it was nice arriving in the early afternoon on Friday, no registration line whatsoever). I also looked around the impressive video game floor up on the 22nd floor. What a splendid view from up there. Matt and I joined Jesse, Eric, Matt W., Laura, and Steph for a nice Japanese dinner at Tanpopo in St. Paul’s Lower Town.
I skipped Detour entirely on Saturday. Instead, I focused on unwinding, downloading all the TV shows I had missed, and going through the 900+ pictures and video we had taken. Matt and I also went up to Blaine to retrieve our cats, Cringer and Sunny. They were both very happy to see us. My mom ordered us delicious pizza from Chanticlear (a family favorite since the original opened in Fridley in 1963) and we went through and showed her our photos (which I’ll be posting over the coming days in each of these entries).
Sunday I returned to Detour and attended the Super Sentai panel (informative and uber-nerdy) and the Shiny New Anime panel (delightful as always). Then it was back to work on Monday.
And that was that! Our England and Wales trip had come to an end. Totally worth it and very cost-effective. I did a bang-up job of planning the trip, if I do say so myself. We accomplished about 80 or 90 percent of I wanted to do - and that was with a very aggressive schedule.
I’d love to visit England again in a few years. I missed not seeing Kensington Palace, the markets at Portobello Road and other similar open-air places, and a tour of BBC Television Centre (who knows if that building will even still be around). I also wish I had done more of the walking tours. They were probably the most exciting part.
This trip did, however, assuage me from entertaining any notions of trying out for The Amazing Race again. Oh and next time I go travelling; I need to remember a sensible pair of walking shoes. My feet are still sore!
For my boyfriend’s thoughts on the overall trip, check out:
http://spacevlad.livejournal.com/290096.html#cutid1
ETA - And there it is, folks, one year after the fact, my UK trip journal is complete. It might have been delayed but I finished it!!!
Matt and I woke up early in Toronto. I was feeling less cranky after a good night’s sleep. Even though we had a breakfast voucher for the hotel, we decided not to risk missing our flight again. I wanted to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare so we’d have to find breakfast at the airport (hello, Tim Horton’s!)
We packed up, went down to the lobby and waited around with some other people for the next airport shuttle. We were the first on the shuttle and all our bags were at the bottom of the pile in the back. All of a sudden there was a commotion. A couple of people were mad because they didn’t have a seat on the shuttle. It turns out that Matt and I were supposed to reserve our seats and sign up for an available slot the night before.
No one told us about this and my personal experience had always been you just hop on a shuttle and it was first come, first served. There was also no signage from the night before at check-in indicating this was the policy. By the time we had realized our error, the couple whose seats we had taken in the shuttle (which sat about 12 people) were fed up and grabbed a waiting cab to the airport in a huff. I had left my seat, was standing out in the rain, and had apologized to the driver.
The driver said it all worked out in the end (in typical Canadian fashion) and Matt and I were off to the airport on our stolen shuttle seats. This was good because it was a decent 40-minute wait between shuttles and the next couple of shuttle-runs were already filled up. With everything that had gone wrong on our way home, I figured we got a little karma back and that other couple certainly looked like they could afford the taxi to the airport, so I didn’t give it much thought after that. Matt later told me he would have been really pissed off had we been kicked off the shuttle.
We arrived at the airport and went through US customs. I had packed the sand from the beach in a plastic bag and put it in my checked baggage and was nervous about it looking like drugs in the event the bag was x-rayed. There was a place to declare “soil samples” on the customs form but I didn’t want to risk it - besides that customs question was in the area for farming, handling of animals, and manure and this stuff was just sand and rocks from Southerndown Beach. Could there be little sea-organisms in the bag? Probably but I don’t think that was what the government was worried about. In any event, we cleared the US customs outpost in the Canadian airport just fine without any problems.
I wandered around the airport looking for either Diet Dew or Diet Dr. Pepper to no avail. Not even any Diet Mello Yello. Denied yet again.
We boarded the plane and had an uneventful trip back to Minneapolis. We collected the checked bag and my small bag of sand and rocks was intact, yay for cheap yet memorable souvenirs! It felt so good to be home, especially after our unscheduled layover. I quickly found a vending machine and happily paid $2.25 for twenty ounces of delicious Diet Dew chemical nectar.
My dad, who originally was going to pick us up the night before, wasn’t available because it was now the middle of the workday and he couldn’t leave work. That was understandable.
We were anxious to get home, so we just took a taxi from the airport. It ended up costing about $40.00 but at that point I didn’t care, I just wanted to get home. We got home around 11 AM local time and dropped our stuff off.
I caught up on the internet a little bit, opened some packages and mail that had arrived for me while I was gone, and set out Brandon’s gift for him for house-sitting on the porch. He was stopping by at 3 PM to drop off the spare key and collect some of his homework.
Matt and I would be at Anime Detour by that point, so the exchange had to be made absently on the porch. He later texted me that he loved the Wimbledon polo (his favorite color, baby blue) and that it fit just fine. I knew he was a big Tennis fan (specifically Venus and Serena Williams), so it was an appropriate gift.
Matt and I ran to Taco Bell (what a delicious crappy fast-food bookend to our trip) to eat and decompress before heading to Anime Detour. It was weird revisiting the Crowne Plaza (formerly Radisson St. Paul), site of the 2nd CONvergence Convention back in July of 2000. The hotel seemed so much smaller than I remembered (or maybe it was the fact I was only 20 at the time).
I only stayed at Detour for a couple panels that afternoon. I checked out the crowd, costumes, and dealers room (it was nice arriving in the early afternoon on Friday, no registration line whatsoever). I also looked around the impressive video game floor up on the 22nd floor. What a splendid view from up there. Matt and I joined Jesse, Eric, Matt W., Laura, and Steph for a nice Japanese dinner at Tanpopo in St. Paul’s Lower Town.
I skipped Detour entirely on Saturday. Instead, I focused on unwinding, downloading all the TV shows I had missed, and going through the 900+ pictures and video we had taken. Matt and I also went up to Blaine to retrieve our cats, Cringer and Sunny. They were both very happy to see us. My mom ordered us delicious pizza from Chanticlear (a family favorite since the original opened in Fridley in 1963) and we went through and showed her our photos (which I’ll be posting over the coming days in each of these entries).
Sunday I returned to Detour and attended the Super Sentai panel (informative and uber-nerdy) and the Shiny New Anime panel (delightful as always). Then it was back to work on Monday.
And that was that! Our England and Wales trip had come to an end. Totally worth it and very cost-effective. I did a bang-up job of planning the trip, if I do say so myself. We accomplished about 80 or 90 percent of I wanted to do - and that was with a very aggressive schedule.
I’d love to visit England again in a few years. I missed not seeing Kensington Palace, the markets at Portobello Road and other similar open-air places, and a tour of BBC Television Centre (who knows if that building will even still be around). I also wish I had done more of the walking tours. They were probably the most exciting part.
This trip did, however, assuage me from entertaining any notions of trying out for The Amazing Race again. Oh and next time I go travelling; I need to remember a sensible pair of walking shoes. My feet are still sore!
For my boyfriend’s thoughts on the overall trip, check out:
http://spacevlad.livejournal.com/290096.html#cutid1
ETA - And there it is, folks, one year after the fact, my UK trip journal is complete. It might have been delayed but I finished it!!!