Since I can’t sleep I decided to take care of something that’s been bothering me – I thought I’d lost my journal from my trip to London in November. My recurring dreams about the UK got me going about it, so I decided to go spelunking in all of my file boxes for the notebook where I’d scribbled down each day’s activities. I was supposed to turn all of these journal entries into a little “Meg’s Travels” website, complete with pictures, but I was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of photos that I decided that was all just a bit silly. I didn’t have enough webspace to host all of those pictures. There were 19 rolls in all, and believe it or not, I lost a few. Sad, isn’t it? I mean, I had some great pictures from Windsor Castle, and I lost the stupid roll. I’m hoping Amber has it.
Anyway, the reason I’m bringing this up is because I promised my friends I’d post this somewhere, so when I get bored and can’t think of anything else to blog, I’ll post a certain entry from my trip to London. Here’s the first day. I’ll warn you, it’s pretty dang long. Read it at your own risk. 🙂
November 14, 2001
I arrived at Dulles International airport three hours early, in order to leave enough time for security. But, of course, I sailed right through without a single problem so I had just over two and a half hours of waiting to get started on. I got some chinese food in the terminal, then went to gate B40 and sat around writing ridiculous stuff. I was still trying to find the right style for this travel blog, and unfortunately I went through some pretty sad styles while I was listening to the Beatles to get into the UK mood.
For a little background, I’ve been dreaming of going to England ever since I was 11 years old. At that time I met David A. Hyland over the internet, who was, at the time, a Uni student at the University of Kent at Canterbury. (Naturally, I got a huge crush on him. How could I not?) He had created the infamous Big Green Button — a completely pointless yet oddly comical webpage. I emailed him about it to say that it was entertaining, he emailed back, I emailed him back, and we did that for about three and a half years. We became quite good friends, but then he met his wife-to-be and we kinda lost touch. Natural, since married-life is quite busy.
I never forgot David, though, and he sparked this infatuation with the UK, which then moved on to a Beatles obsession when I was 12, then the Harry Potter thing when I was 15, and finally reached a crescendo with DADA/PotterWar. In April of 2001 I was bent on getting to England, and even then I had a feeling that it’d all happen in November. I had friends to meet, and a nearly 6 year old dream to catch up on.
This trip very nearly didn’t happen. A bone infection in my left foot flared up this past year and was vying to keep me from going to England. In September I had my left big toe amputated, and I’m truly shocked and amazed that I’ve recovered fast enough to do this at all. But, I am of course very, very pleased. And, thanks to a contest I won sponsored by ArsDigita in June of 2001, I was able to fund nearly the entire trip on my own.
I sat in the airport switching between Beatles cds and watching the people walk by. I brought a lot of Beatles cds because it was all part of my mental London soundtrack; all part of the overall dream.
I wasn’t at all nervous about flying. Of course, if I had been flying to Orlando that day I would have been; their plane had some kind of fuel leak. I listened to the announcements about it and couldn’t believe that people were actually getting frustrated that it took about 45 minutes to fix the problem. If it had been my plane I would have happily waited all day for them to make sure it was safe to fly. But, of course, maybe I was a little too mellow from listening to “All You Need is Love.”
At 3:00 I got pretty bored of watching the people in the airport and making up stories about their lives, so I bought a copy of USA Today like the good little Harry Potter fan that I’m supposed to be. The Life section had a big pullout about the Harry Potter film. That didn’t make me particularly happy, but the front article did; it was about how a lot of kids in Washington, DC weren’t going to see the film because they were afraid of it ruining the imagination of the books. I know it’s evil of me, but that really made me happy. I suppose I’m still a little bit vindictive against Warner Brothers after the whole PotterWar thing.
I felt old after that; I started reading the Money section. What? You thought I bought it just for the pull-out, didn’t you? Hey, I’m sophisticated, I’m business-like, I’m mindful of the financial situation of our global economy. Yeah.
The plan was to meet up with my friend Amber Sexton, who’d be travelling with me to London for the grand adventure of it all. I arrived in Cincinnatti a bit late and ended up having to run all the way from the C concourse to the B concourse, and I only just made it in time. The sad part was I really had to go to the bathroom. But, just as I ran up to the gate and hugged Amber, they were about to finish boarding the plane. Bad luck for me. I suppose it was some form of survival training or something.
We watched Legally Blonde (“You too can go to Harvard Law School, just dial 1-800-EASY-LAW”). It was okay, but it reminded me of all the jokes I heard about that movie whilst in Cambridge, Mass. Harvard loaths that movie.
When the movie was over we started talking to “Joe Texan” and “Brian British”, two gents who were sitting in front of us. It was quite obvious that Joe Texan was mildly drunk. I had quite a bit of fun joking with them, but I don’t think Amber did. I love talking to people on airplanes, you never know who you’ll meet. For example, when I was flying from DC to Cincinnatti I was talking to a man from Kentucky. Pretty normal conversation, but when it lulled, I started ripping sqaure pieces of paper out of the skymall magazine and making origami flowers. Nothing complicated, but egads was he impressed. He started pulling over the flight attendants going, “Look at that! She graduated from highschool when she was twelve, you know. Genius!” It was hilarious. All I could think was, “It’s just a flower…” When we left the plane, I gave him one of the flowers I made. They were pretty cute, but they weren’t holding together well.
Joe Texan kept telling us about how different things are in England – he was most keen on how teeny the washing machines are. (He was really drunk by this point.) He then laughed, pointed at us and said to the British gentleman, “Hey, those two’ll fetch the Brit lads, eh?” He turned back to us and winked, saying, “You should get you some of them football players. You’ll have them fawnin’ all over yeh.” It was at this point that Amber poked me in the arm as I was laughing, and mouthed, “He’s really drunk.” It certainly made the flight more entertaining. 🙂