Fingers Crossed....

Well Hello from the land of the Spice Girls, Harrods, and pick-up cricket in the park. We've finally arrived and we have had the most ridiculous first day you can imagine. For the three people who will actually read this thing, I'll give you a little playby-play of what went down. It all started when we left the house at 9:30 this morning to take a second shot at making our flight to Cincinnati (our standby tickets didn't get us on the Tuesday morning flight).When we checked the seat availability before leaving the house, it looked like there were lots of empty seats so we were optimistic. Only a few minutes before we were supposed to board, however, the Delta man comes on that speaker-phone thing and says "This flight is completely full so there will be no seat changes allowed." Well "oh dang" we thought, and I boldly went to the counter to investigate. When I politely asked the nice gentleman whether or not there would be a seat for us on the plane he very impolitely answered "Noooooooooooo" (literally, with 12 o's). "Really?" I ask in a very puppy dog-esque tone. He oh-so-considerately replies, "Well we have to wait until every customer is accommodated but let me tell you, it does. Not. Look. Good." (with wrinkled eyebrows and a very "you are a 5-year old and I'm speaking to you like you're retarded" kind of expression…I didn't appreciate it very much).

So we start freaking out, Michal rushes to the pay phone to call our mother and find out the situation and meanwhile I start up a nice conversation with the lady sitting next to me all about the woes of weather delays and buddy pass travel. A few minutes later our name was called and we got on the plane, no problem. Seriously, Delta-man, why did you have to do that to us? Every stand-by person in the terminal who wanted a spot on the flight got one, and everyone was just happy as a clam. So that was some unnecessary stress to begin the day.

The flight to Cincinnati was uneventful—we watched Drillbit Taylor, which I'm quite glad we didn't pay money for, and read all about SHC (spontaneous human combustion: wikipedia it, I guarantee you'll be quite intrigued and at least slightly disturbed). The only available seats on the connecting flight into London were First Class so we were forced to ride in that cabin the whole 8-hour flight over the Atlantic. It was painful, let me tell you.

But no, seriously, the accommodations were so lovely, the whole idea of a special First Class cabin should be illegal. The seats were so big and cushy that my feet didn't even touch the floor, and next to the seat there was this little diagram of the chair with buttons showing arrows the pointed in the direction that you could shift the chair. We could adjust footrest length and angle, seat length, and headrest inclination. It was marvelous. We also got our own personal TVs with little remote controls that offered an extremely diverse selection of movies, TV shows, HBO specials, etc. The things that you have to pay for in coach were complimentary in First Class. And the food….oh my gosh the food. We were greeted by Julie, the very kind "head flight attendant" who gave us MENUS and asked OUR ORDER for dinner: Michal and I had such a difficult time deciding what to eat because the foods were so fancy we had no idea what they were!! We ordered what appeared to be the most normal thing on the menu—and what followed was a five-course meal. On an airplane!! It was insane. First was the salad/appetizer that we ordered, next came a bread plate, then the main dish, then a fruit/cheese platter, and finally an adorable little ice cream sundae for dessert. It was really quite lovely.

Taking advantage of the plethora of entertainment options aboard, we began with watching Definitely, Maybe (absolutely adorable), then proceeded to watch Jumper (also quite good, very odd though). It was during this film that a truly tragic thing happened. I had been lying in my chair in the position that the "sleep" button created for me but decided to shift because my leg was falling asleep. However during this shift, I bumped my personal remote control and my movie stopped!!! It went back to the beginning and I had to fast-forward through about ¾ of the film to get it back to where I started. I freaked out and panicked for a second because I didn't know what was going on and I was in a dark, not-so-claustrophobic, yet still unfamiliar place, and was really quite upset because Jamie Bell and Hayden Christensen were in the middle of al really intense argument and I was certain a punch was about to be thrown. It was extremely frustrating and traumatizing. Just ask Michal. (And if you can believe it, this was the smallest problem we encountered that day). Anyway, after that was done we decided to try and get some sleep but I simply could not fall asleep (I discovered later that it probably had something to do with the several glasses of Diet Coke I had drunk during dinner.) So after lying in the "sleep" position in the dark for two and a half hours listening to my iPod, everything from Celine Dion to Steve Miller Band to Jonas Brothers to Big Band Swing, I gave up and went back to visual entertainment (an episode each of Hannah Montana, Big Bang Theory, and Flight of the Conchords). It was heaven.

And now I'm going to let Michal take over and talk about our post-airplane experience, because believe me the fun does not stop here…

PS. Pictures are up on her facebook so look if you're interested. I haven't gotten them up on mine yet, so just hang tight and I'll get around to it eventually.

--Shiri


So I'm in an incredibly frustrated and asdflaerwoigsdf mood right now so I apologize if it is reflected in my section of the blog. In all honesty, the morning started out just great. We got out of Gatwick with no problems whatsoever- we even sat in the "first class seats" of the train (although backwards, which, as my good friend Sara and I recently discussed, is not a good thing). When we arrived at Victoria, we decided to head straight to the STA office, which was about a block away. That's when it began…. And by it, I mean the downpour of rain. We busted out the umbrella (the $1 of high quality) and that sort of protected us but by the time we arrived at the STA office we were slightly wet. And disturbed to discover that it must be costume day at the STA office, seeing as that there was a man dressed up as a nun helping a customer, a clown talking on the phone and Braveheart asking us to take a seat, he'd be right with us. When we got over the shock of being helped by a man in a kilt, horrible wig and blue face, we got down to business. (it really was the most authentic Braveheart outfit we'd ever seen in our entire lives) Disappointment number 2 for the day. It was the most unsatisfactory STA visit I have ever experiences. First, they weren't able to book us for the Salisbury hostel and secondly, the tour of Oxford and Stratford was booked up! Man, oh man, we felt unlucky. But on the upside, the rain was over, it was sunny outside and we headed up the path to Buckingham Palace.

We arrived at the gorgeous home of the Queen around 11:00. This was an hour out of the changing of the guard, but the fence was already packed and so we headed over to the Barracks where the band was practicing and the gunmen were already lined up and ready to go. We experienced a wonderful yet impromptu concert from the band and then headed into the Guards Museum. Now, this is a little gem of London that people rarely talk about. It's right behind the Barracks, next to the Guard's Chapel but it is a wonderful little museum and I have never met a staff more friendly and ready to talk with you. The previous year, I spent the good part of a n hour not wandering through the small exhibits of the history of the Queen's/King's guard but actually talking to the lovely old gentleman working at the museum. One of the things he taught me was to tell what group the guards were a part of according to the number of buttons on their jackets. I couldn't remember what one button was but the new gentleman working was pleased that I remembered the rest. For all of you at home: one button=grenadiers, two buttons=coldstream, three buttons=Scots, four buttons=Irish and five buttons=Welsh. Remember and learn that, there will be a test at the end of this blog.

After the Guard's Museum (which I suggest you ALL check out next time you are in London), we went to Westminster Abbey, home to al the famous dead people in England. My favorite part was Oliver Cromwell's beautiful area with the gorgeous stained glass windows and the ever-famous Poet's Corner. We were there just in time for Holy Communion, so we got a chance to experience that, which was incredible but very different from Voyagers or Sterry. It was very much steeped in tradition and ritual and to experience that in Westminster Abbey was very moving.

Having enjoyed our little rest in the Abbey, we decided to make our way to the hostel. We walked in between Green Park and Buckingham Palace, through the Wellington Arch area (which I had never been to) and up to Hyde Park. We caught a quick peek of the side of Harrods and then headed into the park. Usually, this would be a pleasant experience but we were, as mentioned earlier, lugging the entire population of Bury St. Edmunds on our back. We took a little rest on the banks of the Serpentine and then plugged onward, becoming horribly turned around by those sneaky waters. We did again end up in places I had been before on the London trip, so it was nice to become reacquainted with the Peter Pan statue and the Spike Church. Finally we arrived at dear Queensway. So much yet so little had changed since I had last been there- the Hilton was still on the corner, there were the numerous Bella Italias, the falafel shop. However, no Internet café, no lingerie shop, the addition of a Starbucks. Yet, it was like home!

We easily found out way to the hostel. Quick background- we obviously hadn't made it out the day we wanted to so we sent the hostel an email saying that we wanted to cancel our first room and to please save the rest of the nights since we would be arriving the next day. Apparently, the first claim was that they never got the message. So they gave away not just our room from Wednesday, but ALL our rooms. Meaning we had no place to stay. Now, I understand business. And I understand good business. But that was just shady shady business. So with some cajoling and fighting, the guy finally gave us a double-room to ourselves (I guess the only one there was left) but didn't make us pay more. However, he said that from now on, we were on a night-by-night basis. Fan-frickin'-tastic. He was kinda sleazy and I nicknamed him Shady Daisy although his name was Jan/Young (Shiri and I argued over this for about five seconds). We got up to our room, which was pretty nice (and has a view of the PRINCE EDWARD!), and got out the computer to start to do some research on hostels. Total suckage. Nothing was cheap, nothing was practically available it was some pretty dire straits. We sent a couple of emails to people who could hopefully help us out and then headed out for dinner and a picnic in the park.

It was on our way to the picnic in the park that we came up with our Plan B. Plan B basically removes the need for hostels until Salisbury. We'll spend tomorrow in London, then night-bus it up to Liverpool. Saturday will be in Liverpool and then we'll night-bus it back. Sunday will be in London at Church and Camden Market and Primrose Hill area (everyone, PRAY for good weather), and then we'll bus it up to Newcastle. Monday and Tuesday will be in Newcastle with a night bus back to London on Tuesday night. Then Wednesday, we'll head over to Winchester and then train it up to Salisbury and stay at James and Michael's hostel for a few days before heading back to London for one night. Then it would be hanging with Hazel down in Brighton until she kicked us out and hopefully hostels would be free-er farther down the road for the last week of our trip.

With our Plan B happily brewing, we sat down in Hyde Park for our lovely picnic. And that's when it began again. And yes, by it, I do mean an absolute downpour. But this wasn't just downpour, this was thunder and lightening and I think some locusts were involved at some point. We were under a tree AND an umbrella and still getting wet. Classic, classic. Now I know why Eeyore is so depressed all the time. When we finally got back to the hostel, things continued to sort of not go well. We were having some Internet problems, we still couldn't get the phone card to work, hostels the following week were still looking bad. Something needed to go right! And finally, after four failed phone attempts, two busy signals and two times making a connection and having it cut out two seconds later, I got in touch with James, our new hero. (For those of you who don't know, James is an Australian that I met in Newcastle when he worked in a hostel up there and is now working in a hostel in Salisbury.) He got our dates down and told me that we'd facebook chat in about fifteen minutes (PS- I will never laugh at facebook chat again in my life). When he finally got in touch, he told me he had booked us room and it was all good! Hooray, hooray, hooray! We planned to meet on Wednesday and hang out before he went to Paris and there was finally a little ray of sunshine in our day. So tomorrow it's to the coach station to purchase numerous tickets to various places in the country, a stop at the STA office in hopes of getting a hostel in Newcastle (if not, there's always camping on the quayside), then a jaunt around the Tower of London, the HMS Belfast, the Globe, the Tate Modern and St. Paul's. Lovely.