Part III OK I arrived safely.. It's Bloody HOT here!!!

Originally posted Friday, July 18, 2008




Thursday 17th July 9:24 am Heathrow Airport
Awesome! I am in an airport! Mum and Dad picked me up not long after 6 am.
I nodded off in the car despite frequent toilet stops along the way and the journey seemed nothing at all. I took some travel meds and was pretty chilled out.
Arrived so early I had to wait half an hour to drop my bags so my parents went home. I finally checked them into desk 27.

Slight panic through security as my hairclips and underwear set the machine off so must remember to avoid underwires in future at airports. I filled out some forms (wrongly as it turned out and they had to be done over again.)

4:54 EDT (9:54 BST)
Ok well I wandered around the airport for a bit and found the gate. there was a bus to the aircraft which seemed smaller than i had expected.I found my seat, next to a pleasant couple from Maidstone who will be on the return flight also. It was exactly like being on a train. I didn't eat the food as it all had tomatoes in but I did ask for a bread roll near the end of the flight as I was in desperation by that time. I didnt feel I was particularly well looked after and nothing much was explained.

On the descent my ears went weird and they're only just coming back online.. which is a problem as Nancy and her kids are very softly spoken and I haven't quite got the hang of the accent yet.

On the flight I watched a gig/movie of the Rolling Stones which blocked out the babies crying etc pretty well and was quite good. I think I must have nodded off intermittently as it seemed like no more than two or three hours and nothing like seven or whatever it was eventually.

Philly airport is pretty clinical. I am not looking forward to spending most off my last day in the States cooling my heels there to be honest, but hey.. I'm lucky to be here at all.
Got slightly worried my bags weren't gonna show up, but they did eventually. Security was grim. i *still* hadn't filled out the forms just right so had to go back and do them a third time
I told you I was rubbish at forms.

I emerged at Arrivals and spotted Nancy more or less straight away. Shes a very distinctive tall lady with to-die-for thick golden-honey hair. I'm afraid I spent most of the time going "huh?" as I couldn't make out her words at all with my ears so messed up. We made our way outside to the car park and yeah.. I went around to the driver's side of course. I don't think I have ever been in a LHD car before and this caught me out a number of times.
First impressions of the airport area of Philly is that it was so unbelievably hot and that it is that it is similar to the reclaimed land bits of Southampton.. i.e ugly, but moving NE to where Nancy is, my major impression was of the VAST number of shredded tyre fragments that litter the freeway and other roads. Terrifying to see that sort of carriageway debris is taken as normal. I've never seen the like on British roads. Maybe our safety standards are higher, or our Highway maintenance better or maybe we just have fewer huge trucks? I don't know.


I asked Nancy about various landmarks and she did her best to answer all my questions as best she could, and I had a lot of questions to ask.. some of which bamboozled her a little I think. I hope she likes me and doesn't think I am too Full-On. (because I am a bit, especially when I'm nervous)
Anyway Nancy pointed out a few places , including a brightly painted strip-joint.. that made me laugh a lot!

We went to a huge, but very classy supermarket called Wegmans where they have oak cases for their refrigerators LOL. It was pretty big and I've never seen so many fresh fruits and vegetables. I saw a lot of varieties which are new to me and we discovered that we have different ideas of what a cucumber is..
this led on to a lot of girly hilarity as you may imagine and I'm sure Mother would go mental at me for being so juvenile about the wieners and the moist towelettes. hahaha.

I had a good laugh at all the weird foreign food.. I mean.. eggs in a carton instead of a shell, cheese in a can? whats that all about then?. Bran cereal comes with everything BUT sultanas here apparently. We bought hummus and some other stuff and went back to Nancy's.

Its a gorgeous house, really spacious and cool with a back garden that looks out over unspoilt countryside.
Nancy's kids are adorable, really nice people who are courteous, but warm and friendly with it. Erin has very kindly given up her room to me for my stay and although it's pretty heavy on the Jonas Bros in there, there's also a signed photo of Weird Al to keep me company.

The dogs are really fun to be around, except the eldest one Maggie, hasn't accepted me yet and barks at me, but Dixie and Noelle are great fun. I asked Noelle the poodle if she was either the Governor of California or the world's largest land mammal, but she just licked my hand. Cutie she is.
I had a Philly Cheesesteak for my supper! Mike Minnick will be pleased to hear that.
Basically its meatloaf in a baguette with cheese and is very nice, and very filling. I couldnt manage the knobby end alas, (as the Actress said to the Bishop)

After that I got onto the family computer and tried to check out all my copious mail and comment, If I've not got back to yours I am so sorry... It's a bit rushed here and I dunno how much time I have on this thing.
I put my page player on and Nancy loved a lot of my music, which was good.

Nancy and I decided to round off the evening by watching WAY LIVE on her 52 inch TV which was a near orgasmic experience for me............
sigh!
and after that I finally got to see the deleted scenes section of the US dvd version of UHF which I have been longing to see for the longest time. Great stuff, although I do think Al was a bit hard on some of the material, which looked pretty funny to me... and they definitely should have left in the love scene ... even if just for Raquel and I to enjoy.. it was pretty hot anyway. Bed time was 10:30 local time and 3:30 my at home time which is totally normal for me anyway. I woke up again naturally at local time 4:30 am (9:30 am at home).
I've not changed my watch as I don't know how. Typical girl, never read the manual!
Ok it is 9:15 local time here now 2:15 at home. and Raquel is waiting I must post this before I lose it a second time ARGGH ALWAYS BLOG INTO A TEXT FILE SO TOM DOESN'T EAT IT! will I NEVER learn?

Friday. (Part of)

I woke up, as I said, at 4:30 in the morning and lay there writing out my blog longhand in my notebook. Once it did seem like time to get up I decided to go for a shower.
This was not the best idea as I had not actually asked how to operate it and it turned out to be fifteen seconds of freezing cold water (this is how long it took to get the bloody tap off again)
Anyway I figured it was enough of a wake up so I bailed out again, then came down and wrote all my blog out twice (Tom ate it the first time)
Later we went out for breakfast with a friend of Nancy's called Martha who is a delightful, wise, intelligent and very charming lady who sort of utters timeless Truth without really even needing to think about it. I really liked her a lot. We went to a diner and I had toast and coffee with juice. I was amazed to discover that American people eat bacon with waffles and maple syrup (that's just wrong on so many levels) and they were just as amazed to discover we don't eat Danish pastries for breakfast
Jam is "Jelly" and Jelly is "Jello" Anyway we had a lot of fun there and had a good laugh about all sorts of stuff.
Later on, we took Erin to her appointment and I waited in the waiting room feeling quite sleepy. It was probably about 6 pm back home by then, but that's just lunchtime here.
After that we drove into Philadelphia and walked from the car park into South Street which is a fairly bohemian area full of independent shops and boutiques, restaurants and a few bars. We were on the look out for something for Jenny as a gift and we couldn't find anything for quite a while. You have to remember that the heat was utterly killing, but now I was getting into it and enjoying it some. We looked about a bit and finally I found something I hope she will like, I may need to get something else as well though.

Nancy bought us all a water ice, which is basically a cup of brain freezingly cold sorbet which is completely gorgeous and I also shared a soft pretzel with her. Its a weird thing, almost like a very salty doughnut. The doughnut bit was ok, the salt was a little much. We wandered down (positively) 4th Street and saw the lovely old Episcopalian Church and the churchyard with nice old tombstones. I didn't get too much into looking, as we were all hot and tired and Nancy was hungry so we went to a restaurant where I had a burger and it was really nice, not greasy, like burgers back home at all. The chips were to die for.. I've never had better. The waitress kept bringing us vast glasses of iced water with lemon. Everyone is so sweet and very responsive to a smiley face.. Not at all like home. People here are serious about the jobs they do, not apathetic. If those girls at Costa Coffee in Lymington could see this place, maybe they'd buck their ideas up. Everyone is smiley and cannot do enough for you. Think on.

After we ate we decided to go back home so apart from stopping off to get a cheesesteak for Brian, we came straight back It was a really lovely day and Erin is such a sweetheart and was very patient and accommodating as I dragged everyone round all the weirdo shops looking for something for Jenny. I think tomorrow we are going to New York. I am happy to be taken about and haven't said specific places I would like to go. I don't want this visit to be like a checklist. I want it to be spontaneous and fun, not just a list of sights. I can look the sights up on the web. What is important is just the being here and enjoying the company of a bunch of really cool people and asking a ton of dumb noob questions hehee (which is extra fun if they don't know the answers) I don't think getting to know America is all about seeing where George Washington slept.. its about arseing about in the supermarket and laughing about silly stuff and being stupid and having FUN. That's why I came here anyway. I have to say that the thought of the gig as it looms ever nearer is quite well, literally awesome.. awe-inspiring then. I'm actually scared.. haha
Oh Lord, please, if you love me don't make me want to go to the toilet every five minutes. Bladder! take heed you are on a warning!. Oh and.....Please don't let me faint or make a total arse of myself