Welcome To America

Well I'm in Philly. Actually, I was here yesterday and just couldn't be bothered to post. I'm sure your very sad for this delayed blog. So this is gonna be super-duper long! YAY!!

Got up at 6:30, hardly slept night before. Didn't sleep in the taxi to Heathrow because the driver was really chatty. Mile a second...Talked about completely randome stuff too. Got there really early, my gran rang up just as we were lining up for 'fast check in' ("never more than one person in front of you" there was 4.) to ask if we were there because there'd been some huge prang on the M25 that blocked most of it. We missed it. It was awesome.

Got through security fine, just dandy in fact. Terminal 5 isn't that bad actually. It has these cool flashing light things that are awesome. I'd have taken a picture but there was lots of guys with guns walking round and I didn't feel like being shot. We had coffee and waited for our gate number to come up and read the Guardian becasue we're posh gits.

On some duty free wandering we found ourselves in the first class lounge - we left very fast. Carpet was real soft in there though...and had pretty patterns. There was also this amazing sculpture on the escalator up. it was some sort of oval ish thing and was covered in black circles that flipped over to show a mirror side. They flipped in different patterns, pretty! Also found the accesible help desk. When I travel by myself they'll guide me to the gate - the joys of being VI.

I got searched when I handed in my boarding pass. I wasn't the only one - some woman looked through my bag. She even flicked through my book (A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett) and made me open my laptop up. She also frisked me...huh.

Our plane was miles out so we had to get buses, they had the doors half shut when we actually got there. Two people had also 'decided' not to fly with BA and luggage was being removed for security reasons. Force was involved I think...

Flight felt so long, was 71/2 hours so I guess it was long. But I couldn't sleep for ages because it was afternoon. I managed to get an hour in before my iPod died. Also watched Creature Comforts, end bit of Dark Knight and listened to backstage with flight of the concords. Geez, that was freaking funny! Wind was pretty high, got up to 179mph and our landing was a bit fucked. We lost a lot of height very fast. And jolted around a lot. Didn't miss the runway though, so it was fine.

American security guys are really grumpy. In Philly anyway. The ones in NY are really awesome and joke around. Hah, we had the guy called Curto. I had to pay $3 for our trolley because no one else had $1 bills. So I'm owed 3 bucks. Whoop. When we got out the airport, complete with all luggage and a grandparent it was -4C and very iced over. We also got on the wrong side of the highway and headed towards Delaware for a bit.

Yesterday was pretty boring. Just sitting round, eating sushi for dinner. Stuff like that. Today I went down to Murray's and got fresh bagels. Was -8, but I had a grandma and a dog (and coats) for warmth. And moral support of course. Pretzel is a pound dog, mostly collie x GSD I think. She's pretty, but built like a bear compared to Bala. She's square anyway. Nothing against her though. Made mince pies too then headed out to hit the THRIFT STORES. And 'party land'. Heh. Shit shop that is. Spent this afternoon walking thorugh West Laurel Cemetery and teaching Emma the wonders of actually USING flickr.

She has a pro account now. Worship me for the $24 spent on keeping flickr alive. Hell yes.

Dinner now, wow its only 5:30? Strange...need to go to Whole Foods tomorrow to buy food, make peanut butter and to pick up our vegan carrot cake with 3 inches of icing. Mark (the indie uncle who's gonna be a DADDY!!) is coming up tomorrow night, possibly with his wife Sarah.

Gotta go, dinner smells good.

xo!