Blogs on a Plane

Let’s talk flying.

Currently I am sitting in a two-seat row on a Delta flight to Atlanta from London with both seats to myself. That’s pretty much the only luxury of this flight. At the moment the girl behind me is doing God knows what with my seat but it keeps moving and it’s really pissing me off. And as I stare at the cheap fake blue-green leather seatback in front of me I can’t help but remember the lovely seats and personal screens on my flight to London.

But I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much, at least I’m finally going home (well, not home, Atlanta, then hopefully Seattle), and an hour earlier than expected, so that’s decent.

Still, my enjoyment of returning to the country of my birth is slightly hindered by these ridiculous flight attendants. First there was Miss Bitch who asked me what I wanted to drink and snapped at me when I asked what they had, saying “We have everything, what do you usually drink?"

Excuse me lady, but no, you do not have everything, this flight would not fit everything, so there! That may not sound that mean, but she was really mean, trust me, I felt personally hurt by her. Still, I got a Coke, cause I decided it’s too early for a beer.

Then we have the silly flight attandent who showed her age when informing us that they needed to start the movie over again because the sound wasn’t working for everything. This one said “I know for those of you who could hear the film you’ll have to watch the same part over again, but sometimes with these modern movies it’s hard to follow the plot so it’s a good thing to see it again.”

And let me tell you, this movie is not complicated, not at all. Seriously, so far… boy gets dumped, girl is in internship, boy meets girl, they sleep together and hang out multiple times, but girl is leaving in 6 weeks, girl leaves and guy says “Let’s make this work” girl says yes.
That’s about it. But sure, I suppose that’s a really complicated plot as opposed to old movies…

I am very critical of these flight attendants… maybe it’s due to the fact that I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night and instead of Santa coming to Sean’s flat for a visit, we just got more pigeons cooing at the window at all hours of the night. Stupid pigeons.
Speaking of pigeons, I always think there should be a d in that word, but there never is, what up with that?

So… the movie stopped again. No explanation this time, and we didn’t even make it to the boy meets girl part. LAME. At least I now know that we have passed Ireland and are now over the ocean, isn’t that lovely?
There is faint calypso music playing though the static of my headphones on the airplane sound system. Way to show some holiday cheer guys… Oh! Now I get to hear chirping birds.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS FLIGHT!
THEY ARE GOING TO SERVE US PIZZA AS A SNACK BEFORE WE LAND! WHAT?

I give up on this flight. I mean… I know I can’t just walk off it, and I don’t want to, cause I think I’d like to have a few hours of Christmas, but I give up on my hope for a pleasant flight, that’s gone out the double (triple) plastic-paned window with the tiny round hole at the bottom.

(Oh yay… the movie’s starting ALL OVER AGAIN, wait, nope, it’s a different movie… lovely, we’ve gone from cute witty Rom-com that I wanted to see to Salt…)

Christmas Eve in London

What does Christmas Eve in London mean?

Well, it involves Latrice stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to dance to nondescript music coming from a strange flat.

And there's cooking in the London Center kitchen where we discover that we set the oven way too low and therefore having to cook things for 3 times as long.

sssaaqqaaa (a contribution from Latrice, how nice)

We make houses and men and balls of various sizes from Christmas play dough (which, by the way, is the same as the normal stuff).

There's bitching about the fact that we're in London on Christmas as we track Santa and our flight statuses.

And there are pumpkin cookies and spaghetti and tartlets and cheese sticks and garlic bread and oranges and Christmas pudding and such and such, a good portion of which was donated by the amazing staff of the ICLC.

Of course there's a bit of bickering and stuffed animal stealing.

And what would it be without a quick synopsis of the Finnish movie Rare Exports, a new Christmas horror movie about just how evil Santa really is (but can be defeated by the Finns).

Exchanging of camels is a must.

There was even opening of presents from the lovely ICLC staff!

There's skyping with my mother, who I think needs a bit of a haircut, but don't tell her I said that.

Then of course we have the watching of E4's Christmas Friends marathon!

But I suppose it's really about spending the evening with 6 other beautiful stranded girls from Ithaca College.

(but really it's about chocolate)

Merry Christmas from Mia and Latrice!

Trapped in London

You may or may not know this, but right now I should be sleeping at my dear friend Rosalee's apartment in New York City getting energy for my flight to MN later the same day.
Instead I am sitting in the computer lab of the ICLC, a place that, as of Friday, I thought I wasn't going to see again for years, if ever.

And why is this?
This is because on Saturday London got four inches of fluffy pretty snow and suddenly the entire country shut down.
Take Heathrow, that once the snow came, instead of keeping the workers at the airport to get rid of the snow and defrost the airplanes, they sent all the workers home for two days, leaving the wheels frozen to the ground on Monday.
Way to go London.
Let's see what else London did stupid...
Well, they don't know how to fucking shovel. The sidewalks were icy and covered in snow for 4 days. The street cleaners were trying to use brooms, and I have personally seen that they don't know how to use a shovel to chip away at ice.

But, on the bright side, it's not a lovely 50 degrees in London with no sidewalk ice and lots of melting snow.
Thanks for being on the ball London.


Now I am living in Sean's tiny flat for free with my lovely flatmates Shena and Latrice until I leave for Seattle on Christmas day.

So what do we do with our time?
We play on Sporcle.
We sing songs like Fuck You and The 12 Days of Christmas.
We bitch and moan about Virgin Atlantic.
We grow to hate some of the British things that just days before we loved.
We eat free muffin that appear magically before you (from the hand's of Latrice)
We yell at each other and ask if weird travel sites are real.
But mostly we just try and kill time until we have a flight.

It's really just so lovely...

THANKS LONDON!

The Curse of Bevan Jones Pt. 4 - Ode to Bevan

London is dusted with white snow today, on my last Friday and last day of work at the ICLC.
It's almost as if London is doing it's hardest to prepare me for my return to the land of ice and snow where Metrodome roofs falls in and my 60-year-old mother shovels 3 feet of snow like a 24-year-old man.
So on this epic day there really is only one thing to write my blog about...

Bevan Jones. (I mean come on, did we ever REALLY finish the curse?)

Therefore, for your reading pleasure, I bring you
The Curse of Bevan Jones Pt. 4 - Ode to Bevan

It is quite important to start by reminding everyone that, despite all hope and in class dreaming, there really is no cure to the curse. Even in my final days with the great, and curse ridden, Bevan I felt my eyes growing heavy as the documentaries and TV programs carried on.

To prove this, let's look back on my final day of class with Bevan. It was last Wednesday, and as I watched the funny and lovely old British movie that Bevan played for us I found myself slipping into a dream land that seemed like the film, but not quite.

But that is not the point of this blog entry, the point of this blog to to honor the wonderful Bevan.

Bevan, the man who looks like he could have easily been the secret member of The Pythons.
Bevan, the man who will make you smile in a picture by saying 'lesbians'.
Bevan, the man who, according to Latrice, dresses a bit like a 4-year-old and sometimes looks like oatmeal (clothing wise).
Bevan, the man who is confidant in his belief that TJ is called TG.
Bevan, the man who never gave us quite enough information about our papers, but always trusted us to make them great.
Bevan, the man who has connections EVERYWHERE.
Beven, the man who will give his class a confused look if they forget to greet him with a cheery 'Good morning!'
Bevan, the man who, according to the ICLC library database, needs to return his copy of Eureka Street, when in reality it's probably in the hands of a young man with the same last name. (yeah Claire, I threw some work in here)
Bevan, the man who knows pretty much everything there is to know about British media and comedy.
Bevan, the man adored by all his students and can do very little wrong.
Bevan, the man who can do every British accent perfectly. 
And, of course, Bevan Jones, the man who cursed me with sleep every Monday and Wednesday morning because of his Welshness.

So now, in the words of the great Bevan Jones...

Oooooo-kay, I think that's it.

Who Dubbed Who?

British TV does a lot of weird things when it comes to American things.
This includes doing fake American accents on the voice overs for shows like Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives, which bother me, but I've gotten over.

What still bothers me though, dubbed commercials.

The first time I noticed a dubbed commercial was when I first saw one for Gladd air fresheners.
You see, there's a specific lady (and a really annoying one at that) who is in all the Gladd commercials back home. And guess what? She's in them here too. And even though she and her various different families in all their different homes are all really US citizens (we assume, and if they're aliens it's a-okay with me). But here, in the United Kingdom, where people have different accents, they decided it's best if the Gladd lady and her American family have British accents, and crappy dubbed ones at that. Gross.

Then we have M&M commercials, which we all know where made in the Sates (cause those little guys are very American) and which are rarely new, but sometimes they are. Now, thankfully, they don't dub over the M&M voices, cause those are far too distinctive to fuck with, but they do dub the voices of the humans in the ads.

Still, the worst one happened recently.
See, there's this cute ad for wireless photo printers that plays the song "Brand New Key" (you know the one, it goes 'I've got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key'). Well, it's an adorable commercial with a baby in a little rolley-baby thingy zooming through the streets while this song plays.Then in the end the (American) parents say something or another about their baby and the printer and blah blah blah who cares what they say but teh point is, even though this commercial was seen in the UK, they had accents like me (well... know quite like me, since I'm a bit more... from Minnesota, but you get the point).
BUT THEN! Just this weekend, after the commercial had been playing for like... two months, THE PARENTS WERE BRITISH!!
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure no part of the UK looks like New Mexico/Arizona (did I mention they were there? cause they were, one of those places).

This really upset me (and Theresa cause this is actually her favorite commercial ever)

In conclusion, I don't like dubbed commercials.I know they happen sometimes in the States too, and those upset me just as much, but here they are more obvious.

The lesson here is that if you're not careful, your favorite commercial may be next. And who knows, maybe it'll be worse, maybe it'll get a Canadian accent.

My Magical Power

When I'm at work and... working really really hard (on catching up on Misfits and Dexter) I often like to play minesweeper.
Cause... you know, it's mindless enough to focus on my... work, but it works my mind enough so I don't completely turn my brain to mush.
Besides the fact the playing minesweeper reminds me how awful I am at minesweeper, it also reminds me of the stupidity of my childhood.
Namely, it reminds me of how I used to think that there were normal bombs and one red bomb and I was always so unlucky that I always ended up pressing the evil red bomb.

How was I always that unlucky? It wasn't fair, just not fair, I don't even know why there's a stupid red bomb or what it does but I always always end up clicking the stupid special red bomb.
This was the bane of my childhood early computer experiences.

Now though, I know that really clicking the special red bomb is a magical power reserved only for very very special and magical people.

Like me!

Not At All Product Placement

This blog may seem like a product placement blog, but it's not, I mean... at least not on purpose.

I love Pret soup. I adore it.
Sometimes I bring lunch to the ICLC, and it's okay. But it's not Pret soup.
Currently, I am having Pret's tasty chili beef and rice soup. I taste and see no rice in it, but that's okay, because it's so delicious. And so affordable! The soup is only £2.99 and a mini baguette (with butter) is only 50p!
That means that I can get a lovely, tasty, fairly healthy, filling lunch for under £5 and be so very very happy.
I could list all their soups... (like the lovely tomato soup, or the very tasty (and rare) Italian meatball) but I won't, that might be too much product placement...
eat at Pret
I just want to share with you my joy for lunch.
I believe that everyone should have a wonderful lunch, and I am proof that a lovely lunch doesn't have to cost you an arm (legs are much more expensive, let's not even go there).
I'm sure right now you're wishing you were me, as you sit there, reading my blog, no chili by your side, no mini baguette, no joy.
But you know what?
I believe in you, I believe you can find my joy one day!
(in fact, if you go to Pret, you just may find it today)

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to finish my soup.