Meeting old friends for the 1st time

[sweetormiger]

Ok, so we have waited a bit to post the story of our trip to London. But better late than never...

June 27 - Last minute telephonic meetings are conducted to insure packing is commencing as scheduled.
Last run through on agreed upon meeting time and place in London.
Checking that all is still on time! Check
June 28 -Details: Flight from O'Hare scheduled to leave on time around 9:30pm, flight from Sky Harbor scheduled
to leave 7:30pm.
Arrival in London from O'Hare 11:35am, arrival in London from Sky Harbor 13:10pm
Agreed meeting details of finding each other: Connie will arrive and wait in her terminal (terminal 3
that is) for Astrid to come get her - as she arrives at terminal 5. Leaving together to geton the
tube to find Hotel.
Actual account of the above 'scheduled' meet:
O'Hare airport: Connie arrives and get's checked in and is through security in less than 30 min.
Flight scheduled to depart on time is 1 hour late in leaving!
Sky Harbor: Astrid gets dropped off at airport for 'fast check in' (she checked in online and only
needed to drop off suitcase and get boarding pass) is caught in computer glitch for 'Fast Check in'
and has to wait 45 min to get boarding pass and drop of case. Security check, quick? NO another
45 min to get through, gets felt up a couple of times by old Asian man behind her! NOT FUNNY!
Astrids flight is delayed 45 min, due to idiot father jamming a child safety seat into the airplane seat.
Then realizing he was in the wrong seat and whilst trying to remove child safety seat from airplane
seat, promptly breaks airplane seat. Repairs took mentioned 45 min.
ARRIVAL IN LHR: Connie gets to London, gets her suitcase, waits patiently for Astrid to arrive!
BA flight with Astrid on board lands at LHR 1pm - surprise we made up time! YEAH,
the meeting will take place in less than an hour (I hope) - and Connie is waiting
patiently in terminal 3 - On BA flight Captain speaking: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to London
Heathrow Airport and its' brand new, beautiful Terminal 5. We have safely landed and
you may have noticed that our delay was completely made up with back winds
pushing us along. Unfortunately our asigned 'parking' spot is occupied and at the
moment we are waiting for a spot to become available. I will circle the building and
with any luck we will be docking shortly. While Connie patiently waits in terminal 3!
- Hm, a new terminal, only for BA, no parking spot... great!- ok, circle the building,
once, twice... hurray - a free spot... ladies and gentlemen we have found a spot to
park this vessel, we apologize for the slight delay of 45 min!!! We welcome you once
to London Heathrow's new terminal 5 and wish you good luck finding your luggage!
Thank you for flighing BA and we hope to see you on board again soon!
- Ahem, did he just say good luck finding your luggage? -
While Connie patiently waits in terminal 3!
Ok, if I can stay ahead of the lines I will be through security and at the luggage
turnstyle in no time! Ha, made it with the first batch... where is my case???
While Connie patiently waits in terminal 3! ---It's a small case, it was one of the last
ones onto the plane? How can it be the last one off the plane? That's impossible....
NOT!! -- Finally get my case, race out to train to get to terminal..... oh oh, where is
note with flight #, terminal #, Hotel Address??? ARRGGGGGG>>>> forgot it at home!
And Connie patiently waits at terminal 3!
Ok no panik - I can do this.... Get onto the train and try to remember, yes flight # - good, terminal I am positive I remember. The train arrives, I get on but have to change for another train to get to the one I need to get to.... he hehe I will see Connie shortly!!! Yeah, arrival... Connie? Connie where are you? Hm, ok I will have her paged. 'Madam, can you please page my friend?' -"Certainly, was your friend a passenger?" AHA, now I can check how good my memory is! "YES MADAM!" 'Flight # ,,, ah yes Ms connie arrived 11:45am at terminal 3!"
Ok, then were is she? - Well in terminal three, you are in terminal 4! I can page her and ask her to come here.
Uhm, just page her and let her know I am on my way... see her in about 20 min! Yes travel inbetween terminals at Heathrow is a day trip and a half! Conveniently conducted by underground trains.
The funny thing is, changing trains for terminal 4 from 5 is at terminal 3!
Ok, I finally get to terminal 3 arrivals and guess what. Connie is patiently waiting!! LOL
So, now we make our way to the Underground, me exhausted from little to no sleep and then rushing around the airport and Connie simply from doing her impression of a Salt pilar at terminal 3!!
Once we are in the Tube, we sit and relate our flight experience to each other. Texting Sarah that we found each other and relax a little before we get to our destination. Thanks goodness the weather is absolutely gorgeous! it only takes us about half an hour to find the hotel.

[img][/img]

Our view is a little dubious and hopefully it's not someones bedroom
[img][/img]

A little unpacking and then to some girl talk:
[img][/img]

Astrid are you tired? "Nah, I always look like this.."
[img][/img]

as oppose to Connie's being happy about having made it to London:
[img][/img]

Connie and I went to get something to eat and the restaurant was a little busy, the 'boy' at the door showed us upstairs and yelled to his buddy that two ladies need a table... while he is wiping a table and pulling out a chair - Connie sits at another table next to the one offered to us! The first laugh that turned into an uncontrolled giggle for that night. Seriously we were both very tired and decided to have some beer...trust me, not a combination you want to go for! Still, it did not do the trick of calming us down, so off to the hotel bar we go>
While we are sitting down at the Hotel bar to have another night cap.. two little old french ladies are ordering a Cafe' Latte. Curious little ladies then asked the young man behind the bar,:"'Ow do se english pronounce Latte?" - prompt questions deserve a prompt answer:"I don't know I am polish" quibs the boy behind the bar!!!
This was the moment where Connie and I created some attention! We just looked at each other and laughter caused us to double over, maybe you had to have been there to get the joke... though I was polite and did tell the French ladies its' pronounced the same way. We were laughing at the answer of course! No wonder there are polish jokes out there...After a few more laughs and meeting three ladies who also were sharing some vacation time together, we finally headed off to bed and did sleep well!
Here are some more photos of the days that followed, meeting Sarah, Kate and of course Nick.
I hope Sarah, Kate and Connie will share their view of maybe their favorite day... I have to say that the entire week went by way too fast for me! I loved being in London, meeting Connie, seeing Sarah again, meeting Kate and again seeing Lyndsey. Of course the highlight to our trip was seeing TOSCA with Nick singing Scarpia. While we did have tickets for the front row, the second show we went to see I swaped tickets with Kate, the front row is nice for viewing up close and honestly I am impressed with Nicks abilities as a forceful lover , I did want to see if I could maybe get the full range of his vocal abilities in a different seat. I do have to say I was right, though it still was not the best seat I was able to hear Nick sing as I hoped I would. The only annoying part was that I apparently sat above the snare drum, which seemed to be under the bleachers.
I also heard some of the 'side' effects added to the orchestral arrangements, as I thought they were funny coincedences during the 1st show!
The other really bad part was that night was very VERY cold (for my standards that is) and I could not stop shaking. A headache followed and I was glad to get back to the hotel and some warmth...Connie joined me and we got chatted up by some drunk guy. Though we did end up having some fun with him being so drunk. At his expense of course!
So here are some of of our photos.
Meeting Sarah



Getting ready for the first show:



The second show with Kate joining us:




Connie meeting Nick:


And just general London things and fun:

The London home of Connie, Astrid and Sarah... seriously we have reserved rooms out there!! Including
a spot off site for public displayment of our beheading... lol





Some weird sites:


And of course The Royal Opera House



Some fun in the underground:



I have a few more but am still uploading....
more to come, hope you enjoy so far!

PS... my hair is starting to recover from all that moisture!

[Connie]

Here are some more....



Sarah & I in front of the hotel



Here is another picture of Nick & me, I got such a sun burn that day...my face is all shiny & red.



Astrid & the Harrod's doorman

Lets see if Sarah has some photo's to share.

[Sarah]

I've not even uploaded my pictures to my computer yet although I know I didn't take as many pictures as Connie & Astrid. I'll have a look tonight though and see if I can find any you haven't already posted.
.....I notice neither of you has posted the characature though...

[Connie]

The things we do for a laugh, Nick did say it was a pretty good likeness.

[sweetormiger]

Gotta love this, I only wish we'd been able to make some copies.
Nick did say he will put it on the wall, I wonder if he owns Darts

[Charity T]

What a blast! Astrid, I laughed my butt off at the Polish "joke" and I wasn't even there .

I've been pretty busy with work. And being a mom . I just now posted some new pics of AJ from his first birthday to his first baseball game on July 4th. I still have to go through and sort the SeaWorld and Texas trip pics and get them posted, as well as AJ's first county fair. Here are a few of my favorites for now:

AJ being very silly


This kid can fall asleep anywhere


AJ's personal birthday cake


Nummy!


What he looked like afterwards


AJ and me at the zoo on July 4th (everything was a "puppy!")


AJ's first baseball game (also on July 4th)


He has no clue what we were clapping about, but he joined in I think this is one of my favorites!

[Sarah]

I watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics yesterday and thought it was amazing - there were so many incredible visual displays, I think they almost created an olympic sport in visual effects. the torch lighting was just brilliant.

Looking forward to the games and hopefully team GB can bring home a few golds!!

[sweetormiger]

The games are brilliant! The rowing teams were a nail - the mens sculs were what I was waiting to see, the Chinese ladies were incredible.
But the mens teams second heat is what I wanted to see, I was not all too surprised to see GB beat GER.
Unfortunately I missed the first heat, so now I have to go get caught up on all others online.
And yes Sarah I agree the opening ceremonies were stunning, I really loved the very beginning with the old ancient drums. And the show with the Oars, where the top banner was the raging sea and the people below danced to it with these wonderfully painted oars!
One of the commentators here stated he interviewed the designer/producer/choregrapher of the show and said that it sure takes alot of people to do this - the answer was that people was the least of their problems!

[serendipity]

Hi everyone, I'm back...I'm actually not too far from the heart of the Olympic fever, no I'm not in China, but in the "vicinity."
Our move to this part of the world is almost complete, still waiting for few items to arrive. My children attend an international school and the new school year started already.
Now that I'm back, where's everyone else?

Charity, A.J. looks so adorable. I remember when my children were that young; it's kind of sad to see them grow up so fast, so enjoy this time with A.J.

Sarah and the other Muskateers:
As always thanks for the report and the photos, I'm so jealous.

[sweetormiger]

Hey Serendipity, you are in China? Wow, one of my former co workers moved recently to Shanghai.
I think that is so great.
While I made a move across the big pond so many years ago, it was only from one western world to another...
not really a big deal. Going to China though, is really impressive, not only so very far away but such a different world in all we know and do.

Olympic fever is surprisingly all around this time, I think I now am pretty good at diving and beach volley ball, lol - seems to be all I catch when I do watch it!
Though yesterday I actually was able to catch some track and field.

Great to hear from you!

[Sarah]

I don't think I've ever watched so much sport in my life.Comedy shows in the UK are having a field day joking about how no-one in the UK knew what yngling was until we won a gold in it.It was great to watch though, not just because team GB did so well but also because of all the world records that were broken - Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and a few from Team GB too.

Hope you're settling in ok Kathy, it must be daunting making such a big move, but I hope it will be a wonderful experience for you and your family.

Kate, Lynz and I had a fun weekend last weekend. We went to Scarborough ( a seaside resort in the north of England for those that don't know). We stayed in the caravan of a lady we met at a Blake concert back in February this year - she is so much fun and we love meeting up with her. On the friday we went into Scarborough to see Alfie Boe in concert with the Scarborough Spa Orchestra. It was a lovely concert and Alfie performed several tracks from his latest album and also E Lucevan le Stelle - which brought back memories of Nick in Tosca.Throughout the concert Alfie referred to "familiar faces in ther audience" and even included us in a couple of his jokes. We met up with him briefly afterwards too. Lynz and I had met him previously and we got hugs and kisses - as did Kate who he'd not met before...then Margaret our friend tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out she was with our group and wanted a hug and a kiss too - it was hilarious! She had actually met Alfie at the Festival of Remembrance as she is a war widow.
Saturday was quite a restful and relaxing day with a bit of shopping, lunch and just general laughter. Margaret and Lynz then went back to Lincoln on the Sunday as they were seeing Aled Jones and Hayley Westenra in concert.

Our next adventure is in about 3 weeks time - Dorchester Abbey - where I think the full contingent of "the usual suspects" will be present. Looking forward to seeing them all and Nick and hopefully seeing the sights of Oxford and Blenheim afterwards too.

How's everyone else?

Sasha how's your job going?

Connie have you started back at your job yet?

Mary, how are you doing after your op? Have you been to any concerts lately?

Things have been a bit quiet on here lately, but it would be great to hear from everyone.

[Charity T]

Come this time next week, I'll be back in school with a crazier schedule than ever. I'm taking a Chemistry class and a Biology lab. I think I'll like them, but they will be sooooo much work. I still hope to take my GRE's this fall, apply to grad school by January, and hopefully graduate in May, cross my fingers. I may put off graduating until I know for sure about grad school though. I'm not 100% on how getting into grad school works.

Today, for my birthday, we're going up to Indy to Rib America where we can taste various BBQ from places from around Indiana, and then we'll get to see Peter Frampton play. Beatlemania Live! plays before them, but I don't know what all they are doing. I'm just happy to get to go since Tony had vetoed the idea the first time I mentioned it.

Tomorrow AJ and I are going to my mother-in-law's for a cookout. Sunday, I'll be doing yard work and then going to a friend's for our Fantasy Football draft. The season is upon us!!!! Monday, I might go back up to Rib America with my mom. I don't remember who's playing, but I'm sure it will be enjoyable.

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day Weekend (here in the States, anyway)!

[Connie]

Booo! The summer olympics are now over. It was a joy to watch. I'm happy to be back to work, I went back to a previous employer who had an opening. I got so many hugs & welcome backs on Monday from all who work there. Not much has changed from working there 6 yrs ago, I actually remember the products & the computer set up pretty good. Didn't need much training to get back on track, good thing because my boss didn't give me any re-freshing training. He just put the work in front of me and told me to do it. That little stinker had me rattling my brain for awhile, he did that just to see how much I remembered. It's been a week now since I've been back and I feel as if I never left.

Charity good luck with school, AJ is growing up so fast and cute as ever. I see the GG's are still having fun on their weekend adventures. Have a great time at Dorchester Abbey!

[serendipity]

Hey Serendipity, you are in China? Wow, one of my former co workers moved recently to Shanghai.

Well no, not China, but near enough to swim in the same "pond."
There's a thriving expat community and different organizations so, it's not too bad...just learning to deal with cultural differences, small spaces, and the traffic congestion (literally a grid lock all over the city. ) At least the public transit system is good, if you don't mind standing most of the time.
Of course, our kids complain about not enough english speaking tv channels...we're looking into setting up a "Sling Box" here and at grandma's back in the States.
If anyone is interested in visiting this part of the world e-mail me.


x

[sweetormiger]

What is a sling box? Well traffic over there sounds like my travels home from work when I take the highway.
Luckily I have another way I can travel and traffic does not really park itself as bad as it does on the highway.

It's great to see all the posts and funny pictures.
Hope everyone has a great week, dont' forget Nick sings this week in the Abbey!
And to those of you who get to go hear him, I hope you will be able to take a picture or two and share with us!