The trip back was easy. Got to the airport, didn't have to pay for my extra baggage (a value of $60!) because either I'm that pretty or the check-in guy is that bad at his job. Either way I'm putting that one in the win column. Had some food with Mom and Bethie, then went on my way. The flight itself was uneventful, I watched some movies (Away We Go is nothing to write home about, but I highly recommend Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs) and tried to sleep, rather unsuccessfully. We were delayed in landing so I missed my bus back to Coventry (my town is 2 hours from Heathrow airport in London so I take a coach bus) and I had to wait about 2 hours until the next bus came. Let me tell you something about the bus station in Heathrow. It's open. As in, there is a roof and like nothing else. And it is really cold. Especially at 8am. When you've just been up all night. Not fun. And the pigeons are really big, but, well, they are quite fun. Just so jolly.
I should mention something here. Virgin Atlantic is a great airline.
I should mention another thing. Virgin Atlantic, while a truly enjoyable airline, might be just a touch racially insensitive. Allow me to explain. On the front of their planes is a painting. It is of a red haired Vargas style girl in a red leotard with a British flag wrapped around her arms. She is quite lovely and smiling and pretty. And under her is the name of the plane. This all sounds fine. But what if the plane was named Madame Butterfly, as was the one I took to America? Or, what if it was named The African Queen, as was the one I took back to the UK? I know they are names of classics, I know this isn't intentionally racist really, but, umm, a ginger girl wearing the British flag standing on top of Japan and Africa... I'm still confused. No one thought this was an odd decision? No one thought anyone might find this a little uncomfortable? I'm the only one??
Well, I made it to Warwick. Hooray. Ahh the land of silly accents and icky weather, how I have missed you.
Since then it's just been some dancing, trying to get back on England time, having make-up Christmas with Ian (I made the traditional Higbee-Costa Christmas lasagna (as best I could with what I could find at the grocery stores here)), and generally getting re-Britished. And speaking of Ian...
Well, the other day Ian and I went to London! Back story: As my birthday present to myself I got tickets to see War Horse, a production out of the National Theatre now playing on the West End after a successful tour. There is a puppet company out of South Africa who I learned about in class and I love. They are called Handspring Puppet Company, http://www.handspringpuppet.co.za/, and are amazing. I am considering running away and joining them (side note: you know how sometimes people say they are going to run away and join the circus? Well, someone who was in my same program last year didn't return to finish her thesis, she LITERALLY ran away and joined the circus. Not sure which one, but I'm curious. I wonder what the stress of having to write my dissertation will make me do...) because I love them. After my class watched some documentaries and read about a production they did a few years back, I wanted to see their latest work. Well, I google stalked them, found out they did the puppets for this show, and thus, this adventure was born.
So, Wednesday we were all set to leave...but it was snowing. Trains were delayed up to 100minutes. Cities shut down. Students hid in their rooms from the blizzard. All was chaos. Those 2 inches were hell. Yes, Maryland, it's true, I have found a place where people are greater wusses about snow than you are. Be proud, Maryland, be proud.
We waited around Warwick for a little longer to give people time to cope with the great white apocalypse, and then made our way to the train station. Thank goodness we weren't buried alive in snow banks, and we made it to the station. We boarded our train, and off we went. Ian even brought along Dr Horrible to watch on his ipod as we journeyed. Well, we got into London and our first stop was...the underground. While lacking the sheer awesomeness of the DC Metro it is still an institution in itself and worth mentioning. Then we came out at Big Ben.
Fun Fact, the tower is not Big Ben, and neither is the clock. It is actually the name of the bell in the clock tower. We took our fun touristy pictures, and then walked about a bit. We crossed bridges, tried to get cool pictures of the London Eye (read: big ferris wheel)
and then made our way to Trafalger Square. I was on a mission to climb some statues, and I wasn't leaving until I did. Well, I should mention that it was rainy and wet, and the statues I needed to climb were really high up, but we each made it up and were thoroughly touristy with our photo taking.
Well, Ian had a cold and my stomach has been quite off all week, so we took a little break from adventuring to get some tea and warm up. Then it was back into high gear though, with a walk across a snowy St. James Park and up to Buckingham Palace. We debated how awesome/unawesome it would be to work there, and then were disappointed that there would be no changing of the guard ceremony thing that day. Guess the great white blizzard of 2010 was too much for them. Ahh well.
Then we went to a ship maze pub, which was a bar with lots of cool beers from all over, and the bar itself was all twisty with different levels like a maze, with vaguely nautical copper pipes like a ship (I am ashamed to say this very unique cool place was situated next to a La Tasca and a TGI Fridays. Oh well). At the bar we met up with Ian's brother, Joe (I volunteered to be Other Jo, figured family comes first and he's been around longer) and went off to dinner. We chatted about life, public health, London, I probed for embarrassing young Ian stories but apparently brothers are better about not sharing those things that I expected (or than I would be about my sister...sorry Betty...). We had really great food and a lovely time, but then had to dash off to the show. By dash, I mean literally run. Because Ian got the wrong theatre. I suspected something was up when the theatre we were walking into boasted posters for Oliver! and not War Horse. Well, we got directions to the real theatre, got our tickets, and bolted up to our seats. Which were unfortunately in the center of the very long row. Which the usher made us walk to, climbing over old people who gave us all dirty looks. Because the show had just started. We tried to just stand on the side, would have been happy to wait until intermission to take out seats, but this usher was persistent! Oh well. We had good seats and got to enjoy them, and all their dirty looks did make me feel badly but didn't dampen my experience one bit thank you very much rude old people. You were inconvenienced for 3 seconds. You'll live. Be polite.
Fun fact: the theatre is on Drury Lane. Yeah, like the muffin man.
Well, the show was awesome. Puppets, dude, I can't even explain how cool puppets are. Especially these puppets. The show had a few human puppets, but most were horses. Life sized horses. That people rode. Into battle. There was a scene with SEVEN PEOPLE working the same puppet. SEVEN! And another actor riding it! Talk about breathtaking. Oh my goodness, see this show please.
Well, this ended our London adventure, we went back to the train and made it back to Warwick. Good day. Good birthday.
I hope you enjoyed my first venture into posting pictures on my blog. The rest of the pictures to come out on facebook shortly.
Shout out to Handspring Puppet Company. I'm on my way, ok guys?
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