Orlando's Security Guards and The Worst Flight

Where'd I leave off? Oh, that's right, I was about to go to dinner.

Okay, so Thursday night I left the cafe and went to have dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. I tell you, that has to be the most expensive dinner I've bought EVER! After the conversion, it was almost $30! It was a nice Rainforest Cafe, though. The top floor was the gift store (smaller than the others I've been in), the 2nd floor (downstairs) is the bar and seating (across a small bridge) and then there's another floor below that one. So it goes down 2 floors. I sat in the middle floor right next to an aquarium. It was nice.

After that I went back to the hostel to pick up the rest of my In Celebration flyers and my program for the other actors. I went back to the Internet Cafe to check my bank account to see how much money I had in it (it's quite empty - LoL) and then I went to go stand at the theatre.

Well...I got to the theater and there wasn't anyone there! So I stood behind a pillar/post thingy to wait a bit more and finally two girls showed up so I went to stand on their side, sitting down (not on the side I wanted). Eventually, 4 other girls showed up on the OTHER side I wanted and I went to stand over there, but it was too late so I went back to the other side so I could be in front at least. While standing in line I got to know the 2 girls that were there first and then 2 new girls that were Australian. Isobel and Natalie. We were standing there and Orlando came out FIRST! He's never done that before. I ended up stuck behind a security guard, but two more autographs from him. LoL Afterwards, the 4 girls and were all showing each other's pictures and saying we wanted to exchange and all that so we exchanged e-mails. Isobel and I were still stanidng there, though, because we really wanted the other actors in the play to sign the program. Well, one of them came out with Orlando when he came out the 2nd time to get into the car (the first time he came out, signed, and went back in). The one that came out with Orlando was the one I REALLY wanted! One of them ignored us and 2 others signed for me - Tim Healy and Ciaran McIntyre. They were very nice about it too. After that, Natalie started to talk with the security guards (very nice guys) and then Isobel and I went over and we started talking to them and they asked about a good bar and Isobel wanted a karaoke bar because it was her goal to do karaoke in every country she went to (she was on some tour, same with Natalie which is how they met because they're roomies for only Thursday night) because she was a musician. Anyway, it came out (not sure HOW it happened) that the guys were offered to come with us. They told us there's this theater club that a lot of the theater people go to and they have a piano there that someone can play and you can sign with. Anyway, we waited till they got the okay to go home and Paul and Kadir led us the way to it.

I at first wasn't going to go because it was getting late and I had to get up early to catch my flight, but Isobel and Natalie kept telling me I couldn't leave them and yaddy, yaddy. So I finally gave in. At the bar I didn't want anything to drink (Kadir was buying first rounds), but he asked if I was sure and not even a soft drink, so I eventually got a Coke. We found a couch next to the door and the 3 of us girls sat while the guys stood and we just talked. It was nice. We talked about their jobs, Isobel talked about a lot of various things and it was just nice. Eventually, we had this drunk guy come up to us and ask us girls something and we could not understand it. Kadir said he was going out for a smoke and Natalie sort of jumped up saying she'd go with him. Isobel and I didn't smoke and didn't necessarily want to go with him, but the drunk guy asked if he could sit in Natalie's seat so Isobel and I decided to go. It turned out to be fine. We just stood at the end of this, not alley, but walkway/arch and just talked some more. A couple of police officers in the round hats came by and Isobel wanted a picture with them so she got one and then Natalie. I was going to get one, but my camera batteries were dying. We started laughing because Isobel asked the security guys BEFORE they were off if she could have a picture with them and they said no. I was ribbing Kadir because the police officers weren't off duty, yet they were taking pictures. :P Kadir just rolled his eyes at me and said he gets paid more than they do and they could now that they're off duty. LoL

At 12:30am I decided I HAD to leave and so left. It was a nice lot and I have Isobel's email so I can look her up. I think she was going back on Friday night (with or without Natalie) to get more actor's autographs so I'm sure she saw the guys again. That was probably the last time I'll see any of them, though. It was a nice night to end staying in London, though.

Friday morning I woke up at 8:30am to make sure my packing was done and all that. I snoozed off and on till almost 9 am because I was SO tired. I had the coke late at night so I had some caffeine running through me, I was nervous about oversleeping and going home, and yaddy, yaddy so I didn't go to sleep till after 2 am and then slept badly the rest of the night. I finished my packing and was ready to go at check out time. I hopped onto the tube at 10am and took the our ride to Heathrow. I got to Heathrow and my terminal and was about to check in and the lady told me that my plan was delayed by THREE hours! It actually came up because I wanted to change my connecting flight from SFO to San Jose or Monterey. Anyway, she told me to run over to the ticket spot and ask if I could get onto the Chicago flight that was leaving at 2:30pm. I'd go via Chicago and land in San Fran around 9pm. I went over there and waited around for 30 minutes. Finally I got to a person and after our talking I realized two things - 1) what was the point? My mom DIDN'T want to go to San Fran that late and I wanted to change my connecting flight more than my arrival time and 2) it was going to cost me $200 for a STANDBY ticket. Yeah, wasn't worth it to me. So I went back and checked in to my 15:15 flight that was delayed by 3 hours. I found a place to sit next to a board because in Heathrow they don't tell you your gate till an hour before take off. I basically sat there for 6 hours waiting for the board to say which gate to go to. I did fall asleep for 30 minutes, but other than that, I was awake or restless. FINALLY they called our flight around 17:15. I went to my gate, sat in the waiting room for 30 minutes and then sat on the plane for a long time more. We didn't take off till 4 hours our initial departure time (19:15). The flight wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be - only 10 hours and 20 minutes. I slept along the way and got fed. The food definitely wasn't as good as Virgin Atlantic. They gave us for dinner chicken penna pasta in pesto sauce (actually wasn't bad), water, roll, butter, and this chocolate cake-type-thing (wasn't very good), and this really good cold vegetable salad thing (peppers, corn, dill?, and something else). The other meal was this pepper, mushroom, cheese thing in a roll, grapes, and a Walkers Shortbread cookie. The snack was Walkers shortbread cookies, which I actually brought home with me. Lol

Because the flight was delayed so long, I missed my connecting flight to SFO. We arrived in LAX around 10pm and by the time I went through immigration, got my luggage, went through customs, found terminal 4, it was 11pm or a bit after. Because the flight delay wasn't my fault or weather (the crew got in the night before 3 hours late and because they can't fly without a certain amount of rest, our flight was delayed) they changed my flight for free to San Jose instead of San Fran, put me up in a room for the night at the Sheraton in downtown LA (yes, downtown LA), food vouches ($10 for dinner (where was I going to get that?!), $5 for breakfast (I wasn't going to be there long enough!), and vouchers for the Super Shuttle to the Sheraton and back. By the time I got on the shuttle and arrived at the hotel, it was about midnight. I had gotten to know my fellow shuttlemates and we had split into two groups for scheduling the shuttle back. Cecil called for his friend John (flight for them both on Alaskan Airlines at 6:20 am) and myself on AA at 6am. Those guys at Super Shuttle wanted to know EVERYTHING about us to set up an appointment to be picked up! Our flight number, airline, where we were going, yaddy, yaddy, yaddy. I had originally said I wanted to be picked up at 3am to give me a buffer time since it took about 30-40 minutes on the shuttle to get to the hotel with stops along the way. I wasn't sure how busy LAX was going to be, but I wanted to pad it. Well, the shuttle guys said that the earliest they could do was 4:10am. That means, by the time I got to the airport, It'd be 4:40am at the earliest! My flight LEFT at 6am! We decided to go with it anyway. Stupid super shuttle people kept saying they'd get us there in time or they'd pay us back for our plane ticket and everything. That didn't make us feel better.

By the time I got to my room (10th floor), it was 1 am. It just wasn't worth staying there. LoL I should have stayed at the airport. I took a shower (felt SO nice) and fell asleep on the bed for 30 minutes. At 3:40am I get a call and it was Cecil saying he and John were going to take a taxi to the airport. It was going to be about $45, but splitting it 3 ways would make it about $15 each. It was worth it to me! We took the taxi at 3:50am and got there around 4:20am. I am SO glad we took the taxi. I don't think I'd have made my flight if I didn't do that. It took me an hour from the time I got my luggage tag to the time I dropped off my luggage at the screening spot. It took me a half hour to go through security, but only because (once I got INTO the building, security line was ridiculous) they asked if anyone had a 6am departure. I'm all "I DO!" They checked my boarding pass and let me bypass all these people. So I got through security, took the shuttle to my gate, and met up Kristi in about 35 minutes. I was SO thankful!

The funny thing about the flight was Kristi was coming back from Maui and she had her connecting flight to San Jose and when I missed mine the night before and rescheduled, we ended up the same plane home! So mom only had to make one trip to pick us up. Anyway, we got on the plane and took the hour flight home. Once there, though, I had a funny suspicion my luggage may not have gotten on that plane because I got it to security RIGHT at the 45 minute cut off time. Sure 'nough, Kristi's luggage arrived, but not mine. So I had to come back around 10 am (about 2 hours later - the next flight to San Jose from LAX). We went out to breakfast at Denny's and by the time we went back (a quarter till) my luggage had arrived!

Anyway, that was my eventful and dreadful trip home. The flight itself wasn't bad, but everything else was.

I'm about to upload my pictures and look at them, so I'll get those up as soon as I can. I do need to do some other things like unpack, do laundry, sleep, check Leaky (the site, not the Lounge - I'm too tired for the Lounge), and some other things, but I don't go back to work till Monday at 1pm so I have some time. I'm just really knackered right now. It shouldn't take someone 34 hours to get home (9am wake up in London on Friday to 11 am arrival at home on Saturday), but at least I'm home!

My butt will never recover

I MADE IT! 10 hours on an airplane (bit more than that) and I survived! My butt hurts really badly, my back and neck are cramped and sore, but I'm sitting in Kate's cute English house and have already gone through a thunderstorm, went to the post office, and picked her kid's up from school.

I'm severely sleeped deprived, so forgive me for any spelling and grammar mistakes (big ones). I have been up now for 24 hours and have had about 3 hours of sleep total between various short snoozes. I think my longest snooze was a bit more than hour on the plane.

Wait, I should start in order.

I got up around 8 am to call AT&T to activate my international calling plan. It took a bit, but I got it done. Then around 9 my mom and I left for my bank to deposit money and ask about about letting them know I'm going out of the country and not to close my account. Well, after spending about 15 minutes on a dumb phone tree TRYING to figure out how to talk to a real person, I finally did and they put a travel alert on my card so they wouldn't close it while I'm here (my primary source for money!). Mom and I drove to San Fran in seemingly record time and got food at BK and walked around this mall/shopping center. We went to the airport around 1 pm and I checked my luggage in and went to security. Went through security and found my gate fine. I sat on the 2nd floor watching my plane (Virgin Atlantic) arrive at the gate, get stocked, and all that. Then we boarded. I've never been on a 747 before and it was nice. The TV screens on the back of the seat, we had a little remote thingy so we could play games, watch various movies (LOTS of movies to choose from), and even some TV episodes. They also gave us "new" blankets, pillows, headphones, and little travel packs that had an eyemask, socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, pen, and something else.

They originally filled Laurie's seat so I was going to be stuck in the middle between two guys, but the row in front (at an emergency exit) had only 1 person there so the guy in the window seat in my row moved to the row in front. So I moved to the window seat and the guy next to me (in the aisle) kept that seat and we used the middle seat as a holding all our junk or whatever seat. It worked out nice. He was very nice too, though we didn't talk much. He was going to London for business and thinks Harry will live!

The meals weren't bad. They started off with a drink and pretzels (replacing the peanuts). About an hour or 1.5 hours later they came around with the dinner meal. It was roast beef, chicken, or a pasta with rice and beans. The food was hot (I burned my tongue a bit), which was nice. I had the chicken with gravy, I think it was, and it was pretty good. They also gave you a small bottle of water, small glass for wine (if you wanted it for free - I turned it down), crackers and cheese, cup for tea or coffee, oreo cheesecake slice for dessert, a roll, a chocolate mint, a very nice paper napkin (it was really thick, which is why I noticed), and a salad with fetta, olives, a tomato (didn't eat that!) with Italian dressing on the side. Overall, the best meal I've had on a plane! I was hungry going on, but was full afterwards. For breakfast it was a hot cheese, egg, croissant thing (I had fallen asleep for a bit over an hour and couldn't bear to eat it, so I gave it to the guy sitting next to me who ate his breakfast in record time) with fresh fruit (really good), OJ, blueberry muffin, and cup for tea or coffee.

Because we had the screens in front of us to watch, I watched (or attempted to) The Prestige (Christian Bale, and some other very good actors), Catch and Release (I think that's what it's called, a romance movie with Jennifer Garner and some guy and the actress who plays Aunt Petunia is in it!), and I started to watch Casino Royale, which I've watched before. I started to watch an episode of CSI: NY, but we were about to land and lost out on that. I also listened to Kelly Clarkson's CD Breakaway about 10 times (to help me try to sleep and ignore all the noise behind me).

Overall, the plane flight was fine. I got up twice, endured two small children behind me, which one would scream/cry every once in a while and the other would kick my chair behind me a few times, and slept a bit. I mostly rested or rested in vain to try and sleep. It was funny because I had worked it out and thought if I could fall asleep at this one point, I could get about 6 hours of sleep. Well, of course, I didn't sleep through most of that (short snoozes). So then I started thinking I was going to fall asleep RIGHT before they serve breakfast and that's what happened. I jerked awake (for some reason) and they were just serving breakfast in my row. I couldn't go back to sleep after that. So it's 4:15pm here and I'm about to drop dead because I'm sleep deprived and my body is saying it's 8:15am back home.

Getting to/out of the airport was interesting. We had "traffic" so we circled for about 10 minutes and finally landed (not the most pleasant landing I've experienced, but not the worst either). Then it took us another 20 minutes to get OFF the plane (after taxi-ing around), then I had to go through customs (no problems there), which had a line, and then go to baggage claim which meant I stood waiting for my backpack to show up for about 25 minutes! It took FOREVER. Kate was there waiting at the end where you exit, though, so that was nice. It was a couple hour drive back to her home from the airport and I slept maybe another 30 minutes in the car.

We arrived at the house in a rain/thunderstorm which was fun for me! Kate didn't enjoy it so much, but she also lives here and I'm weather deprived coming from California and all that. :P The other neat thing about flying into London was I saw the most amazing clouds! They were so white and fluffy. I hadn't seen the likes of it before so it was fun to see.

We went to the girls' school to pick them up and went to the post office, so that was neat to see. She lives in the CUTEST village and there are some REALLY nice, cute houses around here. Driving on the other side of the road didn't bother me (just seemed backwards, but not "weird" (if that makes sense)) until we hit the 2-lane roads and the 2-lane roads with cars parked on either side. That's when it became weird. Though, I did try to get into the car on the wrong side when I first got to her car. LoL I even told myself a few minutes before hand not to do it and I did. I blame it on the lack of sleep! I haven't done it since!

With this long (as Kate puts it) "novel" I am going to go rest, I think. :)

Our Tickets Arrived!

Thursday, March 8th, Laurie got a FedEx package with our tickets!!

Days till departure: 126

More Flight Itinerary

Well as I've been officially, officially going for ages now, I guess I'll post my flight itinerary!

Depart Thurs, Jul 19 - 10 am from Cork, arrive Edinburgh at 11:35 am
Return Sun, Jul 22 - 8:35 pm from Edinburgh; arrive Cork 10:20 pm

Flight Itinerary

Depart Mon, Jul 16 - 4:30 pm from SFO, arrive (next day) at LHR at 10:30 am
Return Fri, Jul 27 - 3:15 pm from LHR; arrive LAX 6:35 pm, depart 8:15 pm; arrive SFO 9:30 pm

Plane Tickets

Laurie and I are officially, officially going now!

We just bought our plane ticket to Heathrow! We leave July 16th from San Francisco and return on the 27th. Our tickets are non-refundable so whether JK Rowling does something in Edinburgh or the UK or not...we're going. LoL

So far our plans look like this:
July 16 - Depart from SFO
July 17 - Arrive in London; stay at Kate's
July 18 - Look around London and take an overnight train from London to Edinburgh (takes about 4.5 hours)
July 19 - Arrive in Edinburgh and meet with Maria; check into hostel
July 20 - Kate arrives; sightsee and get in line to get our BOOK!!!
July 21 - Read, read, read, sleep, read, read, eat, read, read (they'll probably be some sightseeing too)
July 22 - Sightsee and leave for London; check into London hostel
July 27 - Return home

Not sure where we're staying in London still.

Next important thing to do is get passports! I need a new one and Laurie too since her last one expired.