Vacation Part II
May. 2nd, 2005 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athersgeoBad news: My car is knackered. Again.
Good news: I've now got the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack. All I can say, really, is "Kick ass". I mean, there is just absolutely no bad in John Williams' Star Wars music :)
As promised, here's the rest of my holiday babble...
So. It's your first day on a new continent. You woke up at 3am because of the time difference. Do you:
a) Spend the day in restful, relaxing persuits, letting your body adjust to the new timezone
b) Spend the day doing as much as physically possible
c) Spend the day doing MORE than is physically possible
My answer? C. At least, by the time we got on the 7 train to go back to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cmar_wingnut's appartment, that's what my legs were telling me we'd done! It was a whole lotta walking. And standing. And viewing. And...you get the idea.
We started off very early (I think we were out of the appartment before 8:30am) because of wanting to avoid queues at our first port of call, The Statue of Liberty, though I *do* have to admit I thoughtcmar_wingnut was over estimating the problem, given that peak tourist season doesn't really start for another couple of weeks yet. Then I discovered the rigmarole you have to go through before they let you on the Liberty Island ferry. It made US Airport security look half-assed - heck, my bra set off the metal detectors. Twice. I had to be patted down. When the girl got to my stomach region (where there's always a bulge of material due to my short-torso problem) she demanded to know what it was. "My bra and the top of my jeans," I said. She gave me an odd look, prodded me again and carried on patting me down (presumably judging that whatever it *was* it wasn't a weapon). Meanwhile, cmar_wingnut had fun with the bag scanner - how many times did your bag get scanned in the end? - due to a pen flash drive...
Once that was all done, though, we were free to get on the boat and head off to the first stop on the ferry tour, Liberty Island.
Given the reputation of The Statue of Liberty and its status and all that, there's kind of a mental image you have that it's going to be huge and towering over everything...and it's just not. Both of us commented that the statue was smaller than we were expecting. *grin* Of course, that doesn't make it any less impressive - and you can only imagine what it must have been like for new immigrents coming into the US and seeing it and knowing that it meant they were nearly in their new home and nearly safe.
From Liberty Island, we travelled across to Ellis Island, which (as the first X-Men movie tells you!) was the island where the new immigrents (at least, those who didn't meet certain ecconomic and class standards) were sent for processing. The main building on the island is a museum dedicated to the history of immigration to the USA and it even has a place where you can try and look up your own family's records. There's also a very complete, ordered display on how the processing was done. The only real drawback to the whole thing is there's nearly a complete derth of places to sit down, which makes it very hard on your back/feet/knees. Also, oddly, Ellis Island now houses a shop selling fudge. If anyone can explain why an exhibit on immigration is the ideal place to sell fudge, please, be my guest!
From Ellis Island, we then headed back to Manhatten. It was when we got off the ferry that I really saw the wisdom of getting there so early - the queues to get onto the ferry (folks who'd passed through the security checks) were bad and the queue for the security check was even worse...
After a quick look around Clinton Castle (I'm amused at the American definition of castle...) and a meander around Battery Park, we headed off in search of somewhere to eat lunch and found a nice cafe/deli type place that sold a little of everything. We got some excellent pizza there and some not quite so good cheese cake.
From there, we walked (via NYC City Hall and Brooklyn Bridge) to Ground Zero. Ground Zero surprised me almost as much as the Statue of Liberty did - but in a very different way. I didn't think that after this time it would have any emmotional impact on me, but it did. Ascmar_wingnut said, there's not a whole lot to see there - and that's kind of the point. It's a hole where there shouldn't be one. I was also surprised to see that some of the buildings surrounding it are still encased in sheeting and scaffolding. I had thought that, by now, most of the surrounding damage would have been repaired.
From there, we headed back to Queens and thus ended day one.
Day two, thanks to the amount of exercise I got on day one, didn't start until nearly 6am. For me, with jetlag, this is nothing short of a miracle (asganeris can testify!). We'd planned to shop today, and shop is what we did. As well as walk more. A lot more.
The first port of call was the mall near tocmar_wingnut's appartment. By near, it's actually about a mile away, but a rather nice walk on a very, very pleasant day. Once we got there, first stop was Target - having stretched my watch strap into unwearability, I needed a replacement and Target do very nice, cheap watches. I also wanted to pick up the DVD of Elektra and I found a very cute (and nicely sized) bag (I'd borrowed a purse from my mother for the trip, but it wasn't ideal!). After that, we headed to Best Buy to investigate PDAs (wow, what a range /sarcasm) and to pick up an external harddrive for cmar_wingnut's PC. Then it was back to cmar_wingnut's apartment for lunch. I did the ET thing (Mike the Mechanic was looking at my car while I was away [for all the good it did me seeing as it's now conked out *sigh*] and I wanted to know what the damage was...) and then we headed downtown.
First stop was Grand Central, which is just an absolutely HUGE railway station and so absolutely beautifully designed and built. The architecture is fantastic and the painting on the ceiling of the main concourse is amazing (I did try to take a picture, but it didn't come out). While we were there, there was some professional photography going on, though whether it was a Bride and Groom having their wedding photos done or whether it was a Bridal magazine doing a fashion shoot I wouldn't like to say!
From there, we walked through mid-town Manhatten, heading for the Empire State building. We'd decided that we weren't going to go up it (on account of cost, the security hassle and the fact that I get vertigo!), but when in NYC, it's one of THE things you have to see. So see, we did. And did. And did. And did. MAN. is it big. I've seen all sorts of skyscrapers in cities ranging from Sydney to LA (and many points in between), but I don't think any of them are as impressive, or as visible as the Empire State is. I've got several photographs taken from various different points in Manhatten that show just how visible it is. And the neat thing? I totally wasn't expecting it to be that impressive! I was thinking "yeah yeah, office building" - but it's somehow more than that! We also walked by Macy's (speaking of huge!) and Madison Square Gardens (I'm a WWF/E fan - it's a must visit) before going into Penn Street Station to buy a drink and to catch the subway to downtown Manhatten for the next batch of shopping. About half an hour later and I became the proud owner of a brand new and very shiny PDA.
From there, we started to head back to Queens, but enroute, we stopped off at Time Square which, rather disappointingly, isn't a square! What it is, though, is very busy and people filled.
And thus ended day two.
Day three began at around about 2am when cat-induced cramp set in. Meh. When share an appartment with six cats you do, share a bed with at least one you may expect *grin* I managed to go back to sleep and wake up at the more reasonable time of 6am.
The plan for the day was to 'do' The Met, so once more, we headed downtown. We probably didn't get down there quite as early as we'd planned, which meant the obvious thing to do was have an early lunch and then spend as much time as was then available seeing as much of the museum as we could. Which we duly did.
First was a selection of Renaisance religious paintings, which was a special exhibit. Not my scene at all - and I have to say that one or two of them weren't even that good. Then came the Arms and Armour exhibit. This was MUCH more my speed (sharp pointed objects *grin*). Complete suits of medaeval armour; sabres; viking swords; rapiers; polearms; horse armour; assorted Japanese and Mongolian armour; katanas...*drools in memory* It was a very, very good exhibit. We then moved on to the preserved Egyptian temple that was given to the museum by the Egyptian govenment at the time of the Aswan Dam being built and into the Ancient Egyptian exhibit.
At this point, we lost each other! Fortunately, we'd arranged a time and a place to meet up, so we carried on. I made my way through the Egyptian rooms - really, really a LOT of Egyptian artifacts; I'm sure an Egyptologist and someone who's really into Ancient Egypt would have an absolute field day. (I'm more into Greek/Roman history - so what I found interesting was seeing the roman influence on the Pharoes in later dynasties, even down to the imperial laural wreath that at least one of the Pharoes was burried with!) I then moved on to the Roman and Greek rooms and had fun reading up about the various artifacts there (nothing particularly standout, though), through the European rooms and then up to the painting galleries where I first of all found some Constable pictures (I managed to identify them as English before I'd even seen the tags!), then some Van Goghs...it's very surreal, I think, to be able to say "Yes, I was just two feet away from a painting that's worth several million pounds". Then, though, came a very nice surprise: The Monet collection. I love Monet. He was the first artist whose work suggested to me that paintings weren't all 'boring'. And to be able to (at least metaphorically) drool over so many of the real things in one place...woweee. Ooh yes I had fun :) Then, to crown it all, I found David's painting "The Death of Socrates", a painting that only three months ago I was discecting for an OU TMA! (Have to say, it looks better in RL than it does in a book of prints. Also have to say, it was bigger than I was expecting.)
Unfortunately, I'd spent so much time drooling over Monet that I didn't really have much time to look at anything else - I took a quick squiz at the musical instrument exhibit as I made my way down to the rendezvous point and that was it! - and consequently missed out on the various Asian art collections The Met houses. Next time, though, they'll be first on my list!
After successfully meeting up withcmar_wingnut again and the obligatory museum store visit (I bought an Egyptian Cat statue and, inevitably, a print of Monet's Waterlillies), we headed off to visit a little bit of Central Park - which was absolutely teeming with folks enjoying the lovely spring weather. We then limped back to the subway to head back to Queens.
And thus ended day three.
Day four began at 2am with more cat induced cramp. Different cat, though! I managed to go back to sleep again, and once more woke up at 6am. This time, though, I used the early start productively, and started the packing process (after all the more packing I could do at this point, the less of the day I have to waste!) as well as tidying up. Consequently, whencmar_wingnut got up, she was slightly surprised to see I'd folded up the sofabed and my bedding!
We had been planning to go to the Queens Museum, but we discovered that it (and every other museum we looked at!) was closed on Mondays. So, instead, we headed downtown (again!) and made for Chinatown, which was a fascinating hustle/bustle place and then headed for Greenwich Village for lunch (which was some excellent Mexican food - though I wasn't brave enough to try any of their frozen magharitas; maybe next time!) and then a last spot of shopping (books about the Subway for the train obsessive in the family and then Revenge of the Sith for me to read on the plane!) before heading back to Queens to finish packing.
By this time, my knees, ankles and hips were begging me NOT to walk any further than was strictly necessary - by virtue of what I do and where I work, I don't do a whole lot of walking so this whole weekend was kind of a shock to parts of me! - which I obliged. We vegged for an hour or so, then headed out to JFK.
I was very sorry to be leaving, having had an absolutely wonderful time. I was also sorry to be going because of knowing what was still sitting on my desk waiting for me at work. BUT, as they say, all good things come to a close.
Once more, American security amused me by the demand to x-ray my shoes (um, you do realise that semtex doesn't show up on x-ray, and just where in the heck would I put it in rubber soled hiking boots, anyway?) but, and here's where it gets to be a nonsense, they DIDN'T demand to scan my PDA separately whereas if it had been a laptop, it would have had to go through on its own... Oh well. I bought the duty free cigarettes my parents had asked me for (they repay me when I get home!), bought a McDonalds meal and sundae (on the basis that though I'd be fed on the plane, I never eat more than half of what I'm served because it's mostly inedible) and generally mooched about waiting for my flight.
This time round, I wasn't lucky with my seat. At all. The flight was full. I had the middle seat of a bank of five. If I wanted to move...well let's just say I steared well clear of most drinks for the entire flight, shall we? *grin* I didn't sleep during the flight, either. So I worked. And read. I wrote about half the essay I'd planned on the outbound leg and read about half off Revenge of the Sith. By the time we came into land at Heathrow, I had a serious crick in my back and was absolutely desparate to move from my seat...so perhaps needless to state, HERE was where my standard travel gremlins attacked me: We had a medical emergency onboard. We had to deplane at some obscure location on the Heathrow airfield to be duly bussed over to T3. We in cattle class couldn't deplane until the medical emergency was under control. By the time deplaning started, I was in no mood to be polite and just shoved past the girl I'd been sitting next to when she looked set to take her sweet time getting her stuff out of the overhead bins. I don't think it had even crossed her mind that I might want to move... (If you're wondering why I didn't get out the other way, it's because my stuff was on that side. *sigh*)
There now followed a long series of queues (I don't know WHAT was with passport control - normally for EU citizens, it's a quick nod and a wave but on this particular morning they were actually reading the passports!), slow moving idiots (why DO people meander so slowly?!) and people who couldn't control their baggage trolley (to be fair, this was just one person, unfortunately, whichever way I tried to move round him, he managed to move in such a way that I couldn't). And then I emerged into the chaos that was T3 Arrivals. As I mentioned in part one, they're rebuilding this section of T3 at the moment. I dare say it'll be nice when it's finished, but the net result is it's VERY confusing and there's very few signs up to tell you where you're going. Like, where you can expect to find the National Express flightlink bus stops. Rather than fight my way around looking for the one sign that was probably hidden somewhere obscure, I fought my way through a sea of idiots who couldn't control their wheeled suitcases to the information desk who told me "Oh, you need to go to the central bus station".
It's a twenty minute walk from T3 to the CBS. Encombered by a suitcase that was once more doing its wobbling trick. *sigh* I get to the CBS and AGAIN walk a hundred yards in the wrong direction before finding the ticket office, which is full of people who refuse to listen to what the agents are telling them so it takes an absolute age to get served and booked onto the 11:20am coach (I NEVER book a fixed return because that's just asking to be stranded when you end up being 14 hours late!) I then head across to Smiths to buy some lunch and a drink. I must have looked fairly frazzled, cos the girl in Smiths asked if I was OK!
Sandwiches and drink bought, I headed to my stop and sat down to wait the hour or so. Of course, I made the mistake of putting the open sandwich packet down while I read more Revenge of the Sith. So one of the CBS pigeons started in on it. CBS 3 Rachel 0. However, I was tired and pissed off that my lunch was nolonger mine. So when I managed to shoo the pigeon far enough away from the sandwiches, I planted a fair-and-square kick up its backside, sending it fluttering away. CBS 3 Rachel 1. It was small revenge but, damn, it made me feel better. (And for any animal rights people reading: No pigeons were seriously harmed in the making of this vacation adventure - though contact was made between my foot and pigeon arse, the pigeon was not punted out of the CBS and, in fact, it flew away of its own volition, having salved its pride and preened for a few minutes, well out of range!)
The bus finally arrived, I got on and aside from managing a couple of hours of dozing, more Revenge of the Sith and the fact that it rained on my when I got to Bristol, that was the end of the adventure.
PHEW.
And in late breaking news: I have booked my ticket to see Revenge of the Sith at the "Only True Star Wars Nutters Need Apply" showing on May 19th. You can expect a review afterwards. (Though it may not be all that coherent!)
Good news: I've now got the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack. All I can say, really, is "Kick ass". I mean, there is just absolutely no bad in John Williams' Star Wars music :)
As promised, here's the rest of my holiday babble...
So. It's your first day on a new continent. You woke up at 3am because of the time difference. Do you:
a) Spend the day in restful, relaxing persuits, letting your body adjust to the new timezone
b) Spend the day doing as much as physically possible
c) Spend the day doing MORE than is physically possible
My answer? C. At least, by the time we got on the 7 train to go back to
cmar_wingnut's appartment, that's what my legs were telling me we'd done! It was a whole lotta walking. And standing. And viewing. And...you get the idea.We started off very early (I think we were out of the appartment before 8:30am) because of wanting to avoid queues at our first port of call, The Statue of Liberty, though I *do* have to admit I thought
cmar_wingnut was over estimating the problem, given that peak tourist season doesn't really start for another couple of weeks yet. Then I discovered the rigmarole you have to go through before they let you on the Liberty Island ferry. It made US Airport security look half-assed - heck, my bra set off the metal detectors. Twice. I had to be patted down. When the girl got to my stomach region (where there's always a bulge of material due to my short-torso problem) she demanded to know what it was. "My bra and the top of my jeans," I said. She gave me an odd look, prodded me again and carried on patting me down (presumably judging that whatever it *was* it wasn't a weapon). Meanwhile, cmar_wingnut had fun with the bag scanner - how many times did your bag get scanned in the end? - due to a pen flash drive...Once that was all done, though, we were free to get on the boat and head off to the first stop on the ferry tour, Liberty Island.
Given the reputation of The Statue of Liberty and its status and all that, there's kind of a mental image you have that it's going to be huge and towering over everything...and it's just not. Both of us commented that the statue was smaller than we were expecting. *grin* Of course, that doesn't make it any less impressive - and you can only imagine what it must have been like for new immigrents coming into the US and seeing it and knowing that it meant they were nearly in their new home and nearly safe.
From Liberty Island, we travelled across to Ellis Island, which (as the first X-Men movie tells you!) was the island where the new immigrents (at least, those who didn't meet certain ecconomic and class standards) were sent for processing. The main building on the island is a museum dedicated to the history of immigration to the USA and it even has a place where you can try and look up your own family's records. There's also a very complete, ordered display on how the processing was done. The only real drawback to the whole thing is there's nearly a complete derth of places to sit down, which makes it very hard on your back/feet/knees. Also, oddly, Ellis Island now houses a shop selling fudge. If anyone can explain why an exhibit on immigration is the ideal place to sell fudge, please, be my guest!
From Ellis Island, we then headed back to Manhatten. It was when we got off the ferry that I really saw the wisdom of getting there so early - the queues to get onto the ferry (folks who'd passed through the security checks) were bad and the queue for the security check was even worse...
After a quick look around Clinton Castle (I'm amused at the American definition of castle...) and a meander around Battery Park, we headed off in search of somewhere to eat lunch and found a nice cafe/deli type place that sold a little of everything. We got some excellent pizza there and some not quite so good cheese cake.
From there, we walked (via NYC City Hall and Brooklyn Bridge) to Ground Zero. Ground Zero surprised me almost as much as the Statue of Liberty did - but in a very different way. I didn't think that after this time it would have any emmotional impact on me, but it did. As
cmar_wingnut said, there's not a whole lot to see there - and that's kind of the point. It's a hole where there shouldn't be one. I was also surprised to see that some of the buildings surrounding it are still encased in sheeting and scaffolding. I had thought that, by now, most of the surrounding damage would have been repaired.From there, we headed back to Queens and thus ended day one.
Day two, thanks to the amount of exercise I got on day one, didn't start until nearly 6am. For me, with jetlag, this is nothing short of a miracle (as
ganeris can testify!). We'd planned to shop today, and shop is what we did. As well as walk more. A lot more.The first port of call was the mall near to
cmar_wingnut's appartment. By near, it's actually about a mile away, but a rather nice walk on a very, very pleasant day. Once we got there, first stop was Target - having stretched my watch strap into unwearability, I needed a replacement and Target do very nice, cheap watches. I also wanted to pick up the DVD of Elektra and I found a very cute (and nicely sized) bag (I'd borrowed a purse from my mother for the trip, but it wasn't ideal!). After that, we headed to Best Buy to investigate PDAs (wow, what a range /sarcasm) and to pick up an external harddrive for cmar_wingnut's PC. Then it was back to cmar_wingnut's apartment for lunch. I did the ET thing (Mike the Mechanic was looking at my car while I was away [for all the good it did me seeing as it's now conked out *sigh*] and I wanted to know what the damage was...) and then we headed downtown.First stop was Grand Central, which is just an absolutely HUGE railway station and so absolutely beautifully designed and built. The architecture is fantastic and the painting on the ceiling of the main concourse is amazing (I did try to take a picture, but it didn't come out). While we were there, there was some professional photography going on, though whether it was a Bride and Groom having their wedding photos done or whether it was a Bridal magazine doing a fashion shoot I wouldn't like to say!
From there, we walked through mid-town Manhatten, heading for the Empire State building. We'd decided that we weren't going to go up it (on account of cost, the security hassle and the fact that I get vertigo!), but when in NYC, it's one of THE things you have to see. So see, we did. And did. And did. And did. MAN. is it big. I've seen all sorts of skyscrapers in cities ranging from Sydney to LA (and many points in between), but I don't think any of them are as impressive, or as visible as the Empire State is. I've got several photographs taken from various different points in Manhatten that show just how visible it is. And the neat thing? I totally wasn't expecting it to be that impressive! I was thinking "yeah yeah, office building" - but it's somehow more than that! We also walked by Macy's (speaking of huge!) and Madison Square Gardens (I'm a WWF/E fan - it's a must visit) before going into Penn Street Station to buy a drink and to catch the subway to downtown Manhatten for the next batch of shopping. About half an hour later and I became the proud owner of a brand new and very shiny PDA.
From there, we started to head back to Queens, but enroute, we stopped off at Time Square which, rather disappointingly, isn't a square! What it is, though, is very busy and people filled.
And thus ended day two.
Day three began at around about 2am when cat-induced cramp set in. Meh. When share an appartment with six cats you do, share a bed with at least one you may expect *grin* I managed to go back to sleep and wake up at the more reasonable time of 6am.
The plan for the day was to 'do' The Met, so once more, we headed downtown. We probably didn't get down there quite as early as we'd planned, which meant the obvious thing to do was have an early lunch and then spend as much time as was then available seeing as much of the museum as we could. Which we duly did.
First was a selection of Renaisance religious paintings, which was a special exhibit. Not my scene at all - and I have to say that one or two of them weren't even that good. Then came the Arms and Armour exhibit. This was MUCH more my speed (sharp pointed objects *grin*). Complete suits of medaeval armour; sabres; viking swords; rapiers; polearms; horse armour; assorted Japanese and Mongolian armour; katanas...*drools in memory* It was a very, very good exhibit. We then moved on to the preserved Egyptian temple that was given to the museum by the Egyptian govenment at the time of the Aswan Dam being built and into the Ancient Egyptian exhibit.
At this point, we lost each other! Fortunately, we'd arranged a time and a place to meet up, so we carried on. I made my way through the Egyptian rooms - really, really a LOT of Egyptian artifacts; I'm sure an Egyptologist and someone who's really into Ancient Egypt would have an absolute field day. (I'm more into Greek/Roman history - so what I found interesting was seeing the roman influence on the Pharoes in later dynasties, even down to the imperial laural wreath that at least one of the Pharoes was burried with!) I then moved on to the Roman and Greek rooms and had fun reading up about the various artifacts there (nothing particularly standout, though), through the European rooms and then up to the painting galleries where I first of all found some Constable pictures (I managed to identify them as English before I'd even seen the tags!), then some Van Goghs...it's very surreal, I think, to be able to say "Yes, I was just two feet away from a painting that's worth several million pounds". Then, though, came a very nice surprise: The Monet collection. I love Monet. He was the first artist whose work suggested to me that paintings weren't all 'boring'. And to be able to (at least metaphorically) drool over so many of the real things in one place...woweee. Ooh yes I had fun :) Then, to crown it all, I found David's painting "The Death of Socrates", a painting that only three months ago I was discecting for an OU TMA! (Have to say, it looks better in RL than it does in a book of prints. Also have to say, it was bigger than I was expecting.)
Unfortunately, I'd spent so much time drooling over Monet that I didn't really have much time to look at anything else - I took a quick squiz at the musical instrument exhibit as I made my way down to the rendezvous point and that was it! - and consequently missed out on the various Asian art collections The Met houses. Next time, though, they'll be first on my list!
After successfully meeting up with
cmar_wingnut again and the obligatory museum store visit (I bought an Egyptian Cat statue and, inevitably, a print of Monet's Waterlillies), we headed off to visit a little bit of Central Park - which was absolutely teeming with folks enjoying the lovely spring weather. We then limped back to the subway to head back to Queens.And thus ended day three.
Day four began at 2am with more cat induced cramp. Different cat, though! I managed to go back to sleep again, and once more woke up at 6am. This time, though, I used the early start productively, and started the packing process (after all the more packing I could do at this point, the less of the day I have to waste!) as well as tidying up. Consequently, when
cmar_wingnut got up, she was slightly surprised to see I'd folded up the sofabed and my bedding!We had been planning to go to the Queens Museum, but we discovered that it (and every other museum we looked at!) was closed on Mondays. So, instead, we headed downtown (again!) and made for Chinatown, which was a fascinating hustle/bustle place and then headed for Greenwich Village for lunch (which was some excellent Mexican food - though I wasn't brave enough to try any of their frozen magharitas; maybe next time!) and then a last spot of shopping (books about the Subway for the train obsessive in the family and then Revenge of the Sith for me to read on the plane!) before heading back to Queens to finish packing.
By this time, my knees, ankles and hips were begging me NOT to walk any further than was strictly necessary - by virtue of what I do and where I work, I don't do a whole lot of walking so this whole weekend was kind of a shock to parts of me! - which I obliged. We vegged for an hour or so, then headed out to JFK.
I was very sorry to be leaving, having had an absolutely wonderful time. I was also sorry to be going because of knowing what was still sitting on my desk waiting for me at work. BUT, as they say, all good things come to a close.
Once more, American security amused me by the demand to x-ray my shoes (um, you do realise that semtex doesn't show up on x-ray, and just where in the heck would I put it in rubber soled hiking boots, anyway?) but, and here's where it gets to be a nonsense, they DIDN'T demand to scan my PDA separately whereas if it had been a laptop, it would have had to go through on its own... Oh well. I bought the duty free cigarettes my parents had asked me for (they repay me when I get home!), bought a McDonalds meal and sundae (on the basis that though I'd be fed on the plane, I never eat more than half of what I'm served because it's mostly inedible) and generally mooched about waiting for my flight.
This time round, I wasn't lucky with my seat. At all. The flight was full. I had the middle seat of a bank of five. If I wanted to move...well let's just say I steared well clear of most drinks for the entire flight, shall we? *grin* I didn't sleep during the flight, either. So I worked. And read. I wrote about half the essay I'd planned on the outbound leg and read about half off Revenge of the Sith. By the time we came into land at Heathrow, I had a serious crick in my back and was absolutely desparate to move from my seat...so perhaps needless to state, HERE was where my standard travel gremlins attacked me: We had a medical emergency onboard. We had to deplane at some obscure location on the Heathrow airfield to be duly bussed over to T3. We in cattle class couldn't deplane until the medical emergency was under control. By the time deplaning started, I was in no mood to be polite and just shoved past the girl I'd been sitting next to when she looked set to take her sweet time getting her stuff out of the overhead bins. I don't think it had even crossed her mind that I might want to move... (If you're wondering why I didn't get out the other way, it's because my stuff was on that side. *sigh*)
There now followed a long series of queues (I don't know WHAT was with passport control - normally for EU citizens, it's a quick nod and a wave but on this particular morning they were actually reading the passports!), slow moving idiots (why DO people meander so slowly?!) and people who couldn't control their baggage trolley (to be fair, this was just one person, unfortunately, whichever way I tried to move round him, he managed to move in such a way that I couldn't). And then I emerged into the chaos that was T3 Arrivals. As I mentioned in part one, they're rebuilding this section of T3 at the moment. I dare say it'll be nice when it's finished, but the net result is it's VERY confusing and there's very few signs up to tell you where you're going. Like, where you can expect to find the National Express flightlink bus stops. Rather than fight my way around looking for the one sign that was probably hidden somewhere obscure, I fought my way through a sea of idiots who couldn't control their wheeled suitcases to the information desk who told me "Oh, you need to go to the central bus station".
It's a twenty minute walk from T3 to the CBS. Encombered by a suitcase that was once more doing its wobbling trick. *sigh* I get to the CBS and AGAIN walk a hundred yards in the wrong direction before finding the ticket office, which is full of people who refuse to listen to what the agents are telling them so it takes an absolute age to get served and booked onto the 11:20am coach (I NEVER book a fixed return because that's just asking to be stranded when you end up being 14 hours late!) I then head across to Smiths to buy some lunch and a drink. I must have looked fairly frazzled, cos the girl in Smiths asked if I was OK!
Sandwiches and drink bought, I headed to my stop and sat down to wait the hour or so. Of course, I made the mistake of putting the open sandwich packet down while I read more Revenge of the Sith. So one of the CBS pigeons started in on it. CBS 3 Rachel 0. However, I was tired and pissed off that my lunch was nolonger mine. So when I managed to shoo the pigeon far enough away from the sandwiches, I planted a fair-and-square kick up its backside, sending it fluttering away. CBS 3 Rachel 1. It was small revenge but, damn, it made me feel better. (And for any animal rights people reading: No pigeons were seriously harmed in the making of this vacation adventure - though contact was made between my foot and pigeon arse, the pigeon was not punted out of the CBS and, in fact, it flew away of its own volition, having salved its pride and preened for a few minutes, well out of range!)
The bus finally arrived, I got on and aside from managing a couple of hours of dozing, more Revenge of the Sith and the fact that it rained on my when I got to Bristol, that was the end of the adventure.
PHEW.
And in late breaking news: I have booked my ticket to see Revenge of the Sith at the "Only True Star Wars Nutters Need Apply" showing on May 19th. You can expect a review afterwards. (Though it may not be all that coherent!)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-02 09:08 pm (UTC)Have to say you were a very good sport about all the walking - being a NYC native, I'm used to it, and tend to forget not everyone is adapted to miles (literally) of trudging to get anywhere.
Sorry you had such a bad trip back, too. The seating arrangement sounds horrible - and I know first hand that feeling of desperately wanting to get out of that little seat and MOVE. But I'm glad you got home safe, if totally wiped.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-02 09:20 pm (UTC)The trip back was about what I expected - and better than some, given some of the travel gremlins I've suffered! I think both parents found me amusing, though, when I got home - as the afternoon progressed, I became less and less coherent as the complete lack of sleep became apparent! *grin*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-02 10:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-03 12:06 am (UTC)I want to say that I read somewhere that the lack of seating on Ellis Island had to do with creating the proper "atmosphere," which I immediately dismissed as being a really good excuse for being too cheap to put in benches.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-03 03:43 am (UTC)1) did you see the battery park turkey?
2) did you see the flatiron building?
sounds like you covered a lot of ground in a matter of days. when i get visitors from spokane or wherever, i obligingly drag them all over creation, and then on the last day i am usually asked in a very small voice if we could just stay in and order pizza or something. i am glad you had a good time and purchased many quality items!
next time, i will be here when you are, or conversely, you will be there when i am!