Still don't know what love is...
Alright alright, I'm going to do my best for a quick recap and a few memory joggers here about this whole Europe experience. Rest assured, nothing I can say here can accurately express the overwhelmingly wonderful time I had, but at least it's something.
Friday I got off work a little early and mailed a package off to Samii before meeting Jen at my house to enjoy pre-trip celebratory afternoon Guinness. It didn't take much for us to be all packed up and awaiting Dennis to take us to the airport. We got there two hours early, had no problems checking in, and waited at the bar until close to our flight time. It was a very strange feeling, being there once Dennis drove off. For all the talk and planning and money spent, I think that is the when it started feeling very real to me, whatever that means.
Sidenote: Both Jen and I had found ourselves stressing a lot about things we might be forgetting. For instance, I was all a-panic the night before we left about finding a rain coat. Then we'd just have to remind ourselves and each other that we were going to places that had stores...
So we finally boarded the little jumper to Atlanta, had an uneventful sunset flight over, and again waited before boarding plane two. And what a plane... our first impression of overseas flight was a good one indeed. It was huge! And there were screens for each person and a lot of free programming, so we watched episodes of Cougar Town and The Big Bang Theory and 30 Rock and eventually Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) in preparation for London and eventually Hogwarts. There was a little dozing, a little looking out the window into the black abyss, and soon enough the sun was rising. Shortly thereafter we landed at the Heathrow Airport! I wish someone could have recorded us walking through "customs." We were both ready to have our bags searched and passports checked. Instead we walked through a little lobby with about eight bored-looking attendants talking amongst themselves and ignoring everyone walking through. That is not a complaint, mind you. We felt like we were getting away with something.
They had a whole line of great big posters welcoming people, starting with this guy:
I can really get behind a people with flower sellers everywhere. And there were-- sellers and just flowers. We had amazing weather, really. Chilly but not bad most of the time and no rain in England at all!
We figured out the train system with the help of a gentleman working there and then off we went to meet Lindsey at Westminster Abbey! She had flown over from N. Ireland that morning, and even though she was bummed about a deodorant mishap at the airport, she was in mostly good spirits. We walked around for a bit before finding a restaurant and hookah bar where we settled down for some much needed food and conversation. Lindsey told us some of what she'd been up to and we relayed the little news of our travel so far. We smoked a plum tobacco that might be my new favorite and then we were off to walk about the city.
I wish I could tell you more about what we did that day, but I honestly keep mixing up Saturday and Sunday. I think this might have been the day we stumbled upon a great book sale near the museum. We had been walking around and came to a construction barrier that seemed mostly pointless. About the same time a group of teenagers stopped at the same barrier, looking equally ready to hop over it. We exchanged looks and one of the boys said "Shall we, then?" and of course we shalled. The books place was neat, but I think the little run-in with the British teens was really one of my favorite things. We mulled about there for a bit, saw a very interesting pride statue that I still need to research, crossed some bridges, and saw a great number of telephone booths and double decker buses.
As the day wore on and our packs grew heavier we made our way to the King's Inn, where we took a basement room over a room thirty seven mix and match flights of stairs away. We witnessed someone refuse to accept Irish money, which was interesting. It's a prejudice, from Lindsey said. It's interesting to see another culture's prejudices from the outside; for the record, it seemed to make absolutely no sense. After dropping our bags we went on a quest for food that was somewhat epic, really. We walked quite a long way, found lots of take-away places and finally a bar that seemed perfect. We ordered drinks and dinner; the drinks came, dinner didn't. Eventually we came to find out that they'd forgotten to put our order in and were closing, so off we were again. We tried another place that was no longer serving food before finally snagging a table at a different bar where we got drinks and bangers and mash! We also got a delicious pasta dish, but don't tell anyone. It wasn't very English.
So that was dinner and our first day. Now our first night... well, it involved a lot of Lithuanians and alcohol. I will tell you all about it. Tomorrow.
Friday I got off work a little early and mailed a package off to Samii before meeting Jen at my house to enjoy pre-trip celebratory afternoon Guinness. It didn't take much for us to be all packed up and awaiting Dennis to take us to the airport. We got there two hours early, had no problems checking in, and waited at the bar until close to our flight time. It was a very strange feeling, being there once Dennis drove off. For all the talk and planning and money spent, I think that is the when it started feeling very real to me, whatever that means.
Sidenote: Both Jen and I had found ourselves stressing a lot about things we might be forgetting. For instance, I was all a-panic the night before we left about finding a rain coat. Then we'd just have to remind ourselves and each other that we were going to places that had stores...
So we finally boarded the little jumper to Atlanta, had an uneventful sunset flight over, and again waited before boarding plane two. And what a plane... our first impression of overseas flight was a good one indeed. It was huge! And there were screens for each person and a lot of free programming, so we watched episodes of Cougar Town and The Big Bang Theory and 30 Rock and eventually Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) in preparation for London and eventually Hogwarts. There was a little dozing, a little looking out the window into the black abyss, and soon enough the sun was rising. Shortly thereafter we landed at the Heathrow Airport! I wish someone could have recorded us walking through "customs." We were both ready to have our bags searched and passports checked. Instead we walked through a little lobby with about eight bored-looking attendants talking amongst themselves and ignoring everyone walking through. That is not a complaint, mind you. We felt like we were getting away with something.
They had a whole line of great big posters welcoming people, starting with this guy:
I can really get behind a people with flower sellers everywhere. And there were-- sellers and just flowers. We had amazing weather, really. Chilly but not bad most of the time and no rain in England at all!
We figured out the train system with the help of a gentleman working there and then off we went to meet Lindsey at Westminster Abbey! She had flown over from N. Ireland that morning, and even though she was bummed about a deodorant mishap at the airport, she was in mostly good spirits. We walked around for a bit before finding a restaurant and hookah bar where we settled down for some much needed food and conversation. Lindsey told us some of what she'd been up to and we relayed the little news of our travel so far. We smoked a plum tobacco that might be my new favorite and then we were off to walk about the city.
I wish I could tell you more about what we did that day, but I honestly keep mixing up Saturday and Sunday. I think this might have been the day we stumbled upon a great book sale near the museum. We had been walking around and came to a construction barrier that seemed mostly pointless. About the same time a group of teenagers stopped at the same barrier, looking equally ready to hop over it. We exchanged looks and one of the boys said "Shall we, then?" and of course we shalled. The books place was neat, but I think the little run-in with the British teens was really one of my favorite things. We mulled about there for a bit, saw a very interesting pride statue that I still need to research, crossed some bridges, and saw a great number of telephone booths and double decker buses.
As the day wore on and our packs grew heavier we made our way to the King's Inn, where we took a basement room over a room thirty seven mix and match flights of stairs away. We witnessed someone refuse to accept Irish money, which was interesting. It's a prejudice, from Lindsey said. It's interesting to see another culture's prejudices from the outside; for the record, it seemed to make absolutely no sense. After dropping our bags we went on a quest for food that was somewhat epic, really. We walked quite a long way, found lots of take-away places and finally a bar that seemed perfect. We ordered drinks and dinner; the drinks came, dinner didn't. Eventually we came to find out that they'd forgotten to put our order in and were closing, so off we were again. We tried another place that was no longer serving food before finally snagging a table at a different bar where we got drinks and bangers and mash! We also got a delicious pasta dish, but don't tell anyone. It wasn't very English.
So that was dinner and our first day. Now our first night... well, it involved a lot of Lithuanians and alcohol. I will tell you all about it. Tomorrow.