London - Day I

Captain's log, Duck date October 17th, 2011.
The time is 10:22 Israel time. I'm crampy, nauseous and tired. Gosh, I hate airplanes. But you can't get  anywhre without them these days.
Well, you can... it just would take you years and you'd die on the way, most likely.
Leave it to me to have a positive, optimistic view point on life, ha ha. Durr.
Last night was problemati. Try to go to sleep early, me. I dare you. It was a glorious failure. Ended up sleeping four hours, which is less than what I might've gotten had I gone to sleep later originally.
Oh well, was fun; got to roleplay some stuff with mah BFF-bb and freak people out with them asking me where I was and if I arrived safely.
Yes, the journey from my bed to the pc desk was a gruesome one indeed, I wasn't sure I'd survive the.
U MAD?! /Troll
The morning iself was one big pile of disbelief and denial. "Is it really today?" "are we really going?"
Leaving the house empty and closed was kind of weird afte the move for the renovation, but it's different because we're coming back to the same thing and all our stuff is still there.
Still weird though.
We finished packing and said bye to the house before heading out. The cab we booked the day before was there waiting for us and we got there in no time because, heh, not even 6 am. Who else would be out and about in such ungodly hours?
It worked in our favor because we didn't have to wait in line, not for giving our luggage or stamp our passports. We bought my brother some whiskey in the Duty Free and got us something to munch on. Then we connected to the airport's Wi-Fi and looked up some stuff, including some stores I wanted to check out that were close to some places we already were planning on visiting. Then it was some more freshening up and boarding the plane.

Flights will now forever more remind me of this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZT…
I clapped and cheered when we took off; many weird looks were sent my way. Tough.
Then came breakfast. All hope abandoned, ye who enter here.
Oh wait, we're going to the Dungeon tomorrow; never mind, then.
Nothing much to add so far, oh, other than that the safety movie animation thngie was made by Pil Animation. 'Pil' means Elephant in Hebrew and I've a friend who's a 'Pil' like I'm a barvaz - a duck - so I lolled.
Also, hurray for my well loaded MP3 player. Gosh, One Piece music really makes me happy =v=

Falling asleep, or at least trying to, is always fun. There went all the productive things I wanted to do, like, write, or play my DS (who knows, maybe it'll pay off in the Expo, Nintendo's attending) or, ya know... solving Griddelrs or watching the in-flight movie thingie. But hey, it kept me on my feet for the rest of the day so it was worth it.
I think.
If there's one thing I'm sorry for is that I'm too lazy to take my camera out most of the time. Otherwise I'd have snapped a couple of pics of all the information systems and database advertisements that were all over the incoming terminal (I studied the whole semester about it, gimme a break...). Of course, we had to round the entire airport to get anywhere so we preferred not to stall. I hoped we'd find some of those inside London but at the time of writing this, about to pass out in our hotel room, we saw none - and not because we didn't travel.
Anyhows, thankfully mom and I both filled our border crossing tickets on the plane and had our passports at hand and speak proper English so we passed the security checks easily enough. I suppose someone hated us because we were both parched but the vending machines on the way only accepted coins, no bills or credit cards. Also - bathrooms; Y U only have hot water to wash hands with? UGH.
Karma fixed it for us though by giving us our luggage shortly after we came to get them. Then we bought something to drink (HA HA SMALL CHANGE AT LAST! The poor clerk, though; he had to ask for some from the girl on the other register). We bought tickets to the Heathrow express which in 15 minutes takes you from the Heathrow airport right to Paddington station in the middle of London. I managed to take some pics while we waited (we just missed one and had to wait for 15 minutes). Oh, how I missed 'mind the gap' <3. When we settled down (I swear, I was the only one in the entire city with a short-sleeved t-shirt). I was glad the train had Wi-Fi. Then I wanted to slap myself because I'm in Goddamn London and the scenery's passing me by while I'm trying to get the network to work. So I put the phone away and fet good with myself, in addition to the growing hyperity of 'omfg, Goddamn Bat- I mean, London'.

Paddington station was just like how I remembered it minus one huge teddy bear. But we might've missed him on our rushing because we wanted to get rid of our luggage.
Preferably in our hotel.

It brought back the memories from when we left last time there. My suitcase's handle broke and I was bleeding like woah from my finger.
Ah, good times, good times. Now I have bandaids in my bag~

So we took a map of London and the tube from the information booth (I seriously think the guy wasn't approached so politely in... ever) and headed for the hotel. A five minute walk later and we were in our hotel, but it seemed like forever.
For starters, it was cold. I dressed up when next we headed out.
Second, I was trying to take everything in. Beloved London <3 So much of this area was just like how I remembered it... (no shi- there were Princess Diana postcards on sale!) It was like coming back home.
And of course, the suitcases. Grah! </3

So since whenever anyone in the family comes to London we stay here and the staff doesn't change, they remembered mom and maybe even me. "Welcome, Israel!"
I certainly remembered them.
So after a long and grueling quest in which the hotel's NPC helped us, the bags were in the room which was not all we hoped it'd be, and we were five pounds of a tip poorer. We managed to put everything away somehow using teamwork, and then wore somewhat cleaner clothes and bought groceries to make sandwitches for tomorrow.
I paid and it was magically the change I got from buying the cola.
Nooo! Come back, coins! </3

We showered and changed after that and omfg... being clean is good. Yes yes. Of course to get to that we had to beat the quest of 'how to operate the jacquzzi-shower'. Our int was just high enough to make it work and we left out soon afterward. Then we bought me an Oyster card which is a tube proximity smartcard.
I was hoping to just put it in my side-bag and press the bag against the reader. I guess they took 'proximity' seriously because I have to take the card out every time. Pooey.
But aaah, the tube. I love it and hate it at the same time. It's hot. And crowded. And oh my god, English people, stop purposefully ramming us. It's NOT cute.
Anyhows, it's really easy getting by once you know which station you need to get off on. So once we got where we needed to go, a glorious, florascent greent banner greeted us and I was a lamb-eyed deer caught in the headlights.
This was where Wicked was playing, and we came to get our tickets. Go go Thursday!!!
But... I was so busy taking pics of the place we almost forgot we came there to take the tickets orz But mom remembered 8D;;; And we took them because we pre-ordered.
"You do realize the tickets aren't for tonight, right?" The lady asked and we almost passed out, thinking we couldn't pick the tickets up today. But like I said - we got the tickets so all is well in the world.

From there we went to Piccadilly Circus which is hardly half as impressive the third time around. Or was it the hunger and exhaustion, hm (they sell good bananas here <3 but it wasn't enough! </3 I'm a duck, not a monkey, see). We tried visiting some stores and ran into Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. It was added to the to-visit list if we'll have time and money.

Then we ate at Pizza Hut with free drink refills and unlimited salad refills with every main dish. A worthwhile meal after a long day, but now I'm hungry again T_T

But maybe it's for the best because tomorrow we're going to the Dungeon.
Better get some shut eye now... while I can!!!