LONDON, ENGLAND, CONSIDER YOURSELVES WARNED! Part 1.
What ho, mates! I'm sitting in a flat in Kensington, eyeing our hyperactive clothes washer as it rattles and bounces everything in its immediate vicinity. ... Jesus Christ, it's fucking loud. It's like someone hammering a wall. I THOUGHT I WOULD ESCAPE THAT SOUND WHEN I LEFT OMAHA AND PAPPY BEHIND. Goddammit. It actually knocked Nicky's (closed, fortunately) bottle of soda off the table last night.
Theoretically, this thing is a washer/dryer combined, which is something I've NEVER heard of. I set it to dry the first load of clothes and towels 3 times and they were still sopping wet. I think the dryer function is merely a sympathetic gesture, so I threw the towels on the patio clothesline and my leggings and skirt over chairs. I did just notice the ironing board has a long clothesline and clothespins attached to it, so maybe I'll find a place to unwind that later. ETA: NEVER FUCKING MIND, THIS IS JUST A STUPID PATTERN. WTF.
WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT DOING LAUNDRY RIGHT THERE. I'm sure you'd rather hear more about the fact that I'M IN F'N ENGLAND RIGHT NOW.
FLIGHTS: Boring, tiring, uncomfortable, loud, dumb. Flights always suck. I WILL say, though, that coming in over Montreal was GORGEOUS. Holy shit with the lakes and greenery. That was beautiful. And coming in over London, I was just sort of passively observing until I saw the London Eye and then I kind of wrung my hands and whispered, "Oh my fuck." That's when shit got real.
Customs was shockingly easy to get through. I had to answer a lady's questions while she examined my passport and documents to make sure I wasn't going to just shack up with some fit limey and mooch off the socialized health care. I almost blurted out something retarded like BUT I HAVE A WONDERFUL CAT AT HOME AND I COULD NEVER ABANDON HER. TRUST ME, I'LL LEAVE WHEN I INTEND TO BECAUSE I LOVE MY CHARLOTTE KITTEN SOMETIMES!! but I held my tongue and got through just fine. The actual place labeled "customs" was a series of empty corridors created by little fold-out walls and NO ONE WAS AT THE PODIUM and I apprehensively rolled on through, wondering when I'd get stopped and assaulted. I never did! So I went to the train that took me from terminal 3 to terminal 4 and ended up locating Janelle and the aqua-haired Alyssa almost immediately after going up a lot of stairs. Or down them. I can't remember. I remember so many fucking stairs from both the Montreal and London airports. Jesus God. I wore a backpack with my laptop and Really Important Shit on my back the whole time and if I hunch my shoulders, there is this really awful ache in them. Don't know when that's going to go away. Possibly never.
ANYWAY, so I got hugs and went to buy some Cadbury chocolate fingers and cherry Tango soda (tastes like Kool-Aid with carbonation; good to know) as a snack while I wandered up and down the terminal looking for Nicky. I even had him paged at some point, but then I was waiting by the desk and up rolled this bloke with floppy hair and glasses dressed in black and suddenly I was embraced in a Nicky hug! I told the attendant to call off the search and we wandered back to Alyssa and Janelle and rejoiced for an hour or so until Chesh wandered out, and there was further rejoicing.
Nicky, I feel I must say, is exactly as I thought he'd be in person with the addition of being EXTREMELY EXPEDIENT AND ORGANIZED. He got everything all sorted for us and we were in Kensington pretty fast with his help. I was full of the lolz the entire time because my choices are either 'mad lolz' or 'rampant bitch' when I'm tired and I try to go for gigglebox every time. But yeah, Nicky's funny and smiley and cuddly and wonderful. ILU NICHOLAS. Thank you so much for putting up with our jet-lagged arses and coming out to Heathrow at fuck o'clock in the morning!! You are an angel!
FLAT: For some reason, despite my going to the bank on Friday and alerting them to my upcoming travels, the bitches ended up placing a hold on my debit account. I could only draw out £150 from the ATM across the road at Crappy Corner Shop when we got to the flat (which is real, by the way, and small but nice enough, although I suspect there's hella mold in here and that's why I'm having Allergy Problems). So when I combined that with the 490 quid I had already, I was 60 short and Chesh had to spot me for the rent. LAME. But we got it paid and got settled. Nicky rolled my stupid bag all the way here for me and I love him for it. LET ME LAVISH MY PRAISE UPON YOU, GOOD SIR, FOR I DON'T THINK I CAN THANK YOU ENOUGH.
Alyssa couldn't fight her fatigue any longer and retired at 1PM for a long nap, but Janelle accompanied Nicky, Chesh and me to the grocery store for necessary provisions. We walked down Holland Road to Shepherd's Bush (I am really loving saying all the names of this shit because Omaha has no cool disticts/boroughs with names that aren't fucking retarded like NoDo and Midtown and Dundee, none of which really strikes me as much of anything when I'm in them) and found a grocery store. My provisions included a delicious fucking Swiss jelly roll that I ate in about a day. GODDAMN WAS IT GOOD. I'm pretty satisfied with London's sugary offerings so far. Although I don't think I'm overindulging in anything because it doesn't seem like I'm eating very much and I'm walking SO MUCH that if I don't lose like 20 pounds, I'll be sorely disappointed. *exaggeration*
All right, I'm tired of cutting up this entry now. Have some disorganized brain vomit.
English grocery stores are the most poorly-planned out venues I've EVER seen. I am so used to sprawling American supermarkets with wide aisles and 300 acres of space and here, it's all bustling and shoving and tiny aisles with cramped shelves and I'm like HOW DO YOU DEAL? Surely a wall could be knocked down or maybe less stuff could be put in to leave more space? I don't know. I'm sure it's a cultural thing, but Goddamn if it isn't frustrating.
But anyway, Nicky helped us find all the crap we needed and we lugged everything back. And I got a pay-as-you-go English phone sold by a possibly-racist ginger man. He kept saying shit about Obama like, "OH, DID YOU VOTE FOR HIM? BECAUSE I THINK EVERYONE LIKES HIM COS HE'S BLACK. AND BLACK PEOPLE LIKE HIM. ..... AND I THINK THAT'S WRONG." It was really weird. WTF, England.
We got home, put all the food away, then Janelle retired and Nicky took Chesh and me back to the same mall the grocery was in and we had dinnery lunch (I had fish'n'chips with peas and a cup of English tea! Was a bit too much fish. They had a variety of Heinz sauce packets I'd never heard of and so Chesh and I tried salad cream, which is tangy and underwhelming. It's like relish juice, but beige. I thought of trying mint sauce, but I can only tolerate very small, candy/toothpaste/gum-related amounts of mint and felt sick reading the ingredients. Ugh.) and then walked round Shepherd's Bush talking and lolling and pushing each other around. All right, well, Nicky and I pushed each other around. We're like public schoolboys.
Then we came back to the flat, turned down all the lights and watched Lady GaGa's "Telephone" video, WHICH IS GENIUS, BY THE WAY, IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN IT. I love that woman. Annnnnnd. We lolled some more and Nicky went home and we went to bed.
Um. I just went to get dressed and hang laundry out to dry and tidy things up a bit and now I've lost my thread. I don't feel like talking about Wednesday right now, nor do I want to upload photos. SO THAT'S ALL YOU GET. I might move the photos off my phone to my computer and do them later after the Ripper Walk. Not sure when everyone gets back, but I should go do something about the mountain of trash we've accumulated. Latahs!
J.
Theoretically, this thing is a washer/dryer combined, which is something I've NEVER heard of. I set it to dry the first load of clothes and towels 3 times and they were still sopping wet. I think the dryer function is merely a sympathetic gesture, so I threw the towels on the patio clothesline and my leggings and skirt over chairs. I did just notice the ironing board has a long clothesline and clothespins attached to it, so maybe I'll find a place to unwind that later. ETA: NEVER FUCKING MIND, THIS IS JUST A STUPID PATTERN. WTF.
WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT DOING LAUNDRY RIGHT THERE. I'm sure you'd rather hear more about the fact that I'M IN F'N ENGLAND RIGHT NOW.
FLIGHTS: Boring, tiring, uncomfortable, loud, dumb. Flights always suck. I WILL say, though, that coming in over Montreal was GORGEOUS. Holy shit with the lakes and greenery. That was beautiful. And coming in over London, I was just sort of passively observing until I saw the London Eye and then I kind of wrung my hands and whispered, "Oh my fuck." That's when shit got real.
Customs was shockingly easy to get through. I had to answer a lady's questions while she examined my passport and documents to make sure I wasn't going to just shack up with some fit limey and mooch off the socialized health care. I almost blurted out something retarded like BUT I HAVE A WONDERFUL CAT AT HOME AND I COULD NEVER ABANDON HER. TRUST ME, I'LL LEAVE WHEN I INTEND TO BECAUSE I LOVE MY CHARLOTTE KITTEN SOMETIMES!! but I held my tongue and got through just fine. The actual place labeled "customs" was a series of empty corridors created by little fold-out walls and NO ONE WAS AT THE PODIUM and I apprehensively rolled on through, wondering when I'd get stopped and assaulted. I never did! So I went to the train that took me from terminal 3 to terminal 4 and ended up locating Janelle and the aqua-haired Alyssa almost immediately after going up a lot of stairs. Or down them. I can't remember. I remember so many fucking stairs from both the Montreal and London airports. Jesus God. I wore a backpack with my laptop and Really Important Shit on my back the whole time and if I hunch my shoulders, there is this really awful ache in them. Don't know when that's going to go away. Possibly never.
ANYWAY, so I got hugs and went to buy some Cadbury chocolate fingers and cherry Tango soda (tastes like Kool-Aid with carbonation; good to know) as a snack while I wandered up and down the terminal looking for Nicky. I even had him paged at some point, but then I was waiting by the desk and up rolled this bloke with floppy hair and glasses dressed in black and suddenly I was embraced in a Nicky hug! I told the attendant to call off the search and we wandered back to Alyssa and Janelle and rejoiced for an hour or so until Chesh wandered out, and there was further rejoicing.
Nicky, I feel I must say, is exactly as I thought he'd be in person with the addition of being EXTREMELY EXPEDIENT AND ORGANIZED. He got everything all sorted for us and we were in Kensington pretty fast with his help. I was full of the lolz the entire time because my choices are either 'mad lolz' or 'rampant bitch' when I'm tired and I try to go for gigglebox every time. But yeah, Nicky's funny and smiley and cuddly and wonderful. ILU NICHOLAS. Thank you so much for putting up with our jet-lagged arses and coming out to Heathrow at fuck o'clock in the morning!! You are an angel!
FLAT: For some reason, despite my going to the bank on Friday and alerting them to my upcoming travels, the bitches ended up placing a hold on my debit account. I could only draw out £150 from the ATM across the road at Crappy Corner Shop when we got to the flat (which is real, by the way, and small but nice enough, although I suspect there's hella mold in here and that's why I'm having Allergy Problems). So when I combined that with the 490 quid I had already, I was 60 short and Chesh had to spot me for the rent. LAME. But we got it paid and got settled. Nicky rolled my stupid bag all the way here for me and I love him for it. LET ME LAVISH MY PRAISE UPON YOU, GOOD SIR, FOR I DON'T THINK I CAN THANK YOU ENOUGH.
Alyssa couldn't fight her fatigue any longer and retired at 1PM for a long nap, but Janelle accompanied Nicky, Chesh and me to the grocery store for necessary provisions. We walked down Holland Road to Shepherd's Bush (I am really loving saying all the names of this shit because Omaha has no cool disticts/boroughs with names that aren't fucking retarded like NoDo and Midtown and Dundee, none of which really strikes me as much of anything when I'm in them) and found a grocery store. My provisions included a delicious fucking Swiss jelly roll that I ate in about a day. GODDAMN WAS IT GOOD. I'm pretty satisfied with London's sugary offerings so far. Although I don't think I'm overindulging in anything because it doesn't seem like I'm eating very much and I'm walking SO MUCH that if I don't lose like 20 pounds, I'll be sorely disappointed. *exaggeration*
All right, I'm tired of cutting up this entry now. Have some disorganized brain vomit.
English grocery stores are the most poorly-planned out venues I've EVER seen. I am so used to sprawling American supermarkets with wide aisles and 300 acres of space and here, it's all bustling and shoving and tiny aisles with cramped shelves and I'm like HOW DO YOU DEAL? Surely a wall could be knocked down or maybe less stuff could be put in to leave more space? I don't know. I'm sure it's a cultural thing, but Goddamn if it isn't frustrating.
But anyway, Nicky helped us find all the crap we needed and we lugged everything back. And I got a pay-as-you-go English phone sold by a possibly-racist ginger man. He kept saying shit about Obama like, "OH, DID YOU VOTE FOR HIM? BECAUSE I THINK EVERYONE LIKES HIM COS HE'S BLACK. AND BLACK PEOPLE LIKE HIM. ..... AND I THINK THAT'S WRONG." It was really weird. WTF, England.
We got home, put all the food away, then Janelle retired and Nicky took Chesh and me back to the same mall the grocery was in and we had dinnery lunch (I had fish'n'chips with peas and a cup of English tea! Was a bit too much fish. They had a variety of Heinz sauce packets I'd never heard of and so Chesh and I tried salad cream, which is tangy and underwhelming. It's like relish juice, but beige. I thought of trying mint sauce, but I can only tolerate very small, candy/toothpaste/gum-related amounts of mint and felt sick reading the ingredients. Ugh.) and then walked round Shepherd's Bush talking and lolling and pushing each other around. All right, well, Nicky and I pushed each other around. We're like public schoolboys.
Then we came back to the flat, turned down all the lights and watched Lady GaGa's "Telephone" video, WHICH IS GENIUS, BY THE WAY, IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN IT. I love that woman. Annnnnnd. We lolled some more and Nicky went home and we went to bed.
Um. I just went to get dressed and hang laundry out to dry and tidy things up a bit and now I've lost my thread. I don't feel like talking about Wednesday right now, nor do I want to upload photos. SO THAT'S ALL YOU GET. I might move the photos off my phone to my computer and do them later after the Ripper Walk. Not sure when everyone gets back, but I should go do something about the mountain of trash we've accumulated. Latahs!
J.