OMG SNOW - 28th/29th December

Well.

I'm going to start this entry by quoting my mother, shortly before my departure:

"One of these days your procrastination is gonna come back and bite you in the ass"

As it turns out, my mother is incredibly wise.

After being detained at the border for roughly 40 minutes, my first day in the UK was off to a great start. [Note: Either have a visa or a return ticket ready to show at border control. They're expensive, but better than being interrogated after a 25 hour flight]. I arrived at baggage claim to find that my suitcase had been taken off the carousel and left to stand unattended. With warnings blaring all around me about unattended baggage being taken and destroyed, I grabbed my suitcase and legged it to the loos, potentially planted drugs or bombs be damned. (You'll all be pleased to know that thus far I haven't found any cocaine or explosive devices in my luggage... Just a few kilos of meth and a stash of illegal weapons :p )

The underground was surprisingly easy to navigate, and the only issue I faced at all was lugging my 22.8kg suitcase up a few flights of stairs when it came time to change lines. The fact i had to do it three or four times didn't particularly bother me (eh Dad!), as I've decided that having ridiculously toned arms and a tight core is a fine pay off - besides, I've got my technique down pat by now.

Navigating the underground was, I must say, much easier than navigating the narrow hallways of my first hostel. It's a good thing I'm incredibly fit and buff, as despite the flat floor and roller wheels on my suitcase, I pretty much carried it the whole way to my twenty two bed dorm. The exaggerated breathing and panting that commenced as soon as I put the case down was all for show of course, purely so the other occupants of my room wouldn't feel threatened by my clear dominance.

After a short stop in the dorm to grab all my necessities and lock up my bags, it was off out in search of a phone shop. Alas, these were all closed (apparently retail workers at Vodafone get weekends off over here - some luck there!), so instead I found myself wandering towards the towering dome of St Paul's Cathedral.

Unfortunately St Paul's is closed to everyone except worshippers on Sundays, but I did manage to grab the obligatory tourist photo

- quickly followed by one of Paddington Bear, paused in his stride just before the Millenium Bridge.

Which, I must say, was rather more crowded than it appears in movies. Thanks a lot, Harry Potter, for giving me false expectations.

My short walk quickly turned into a touristy sight-see, taking me past the Tate Modern, Shakespeare's The Globe,

and almost unwittingly, The Shard (I didn't even realise I was next to it until I caught the reflection in some windows).

After my little tiki tour, it was back to the hostel, as it was getting dark and I was getting bloody tired! Spent some time catching up with family and friends, and emailing the girls from the plane to thank them for waiting for me at customs, and assuring them that I hadn't been deported.

By the time I'd finished, it was lights out - literally. Apparently I wasn't the only travel-weary occupant of our little room, as by about 5pm, six or so of the beds were occupied by softly snoring backpackers. I probably managed about ten solid hours of sleep (although the number of spelling mistakes in this draft would suggest less!), and woke in plenty of time this morning to catch my train from King's Cross (which I'll have to revisit at some point to get my free picture, complete with wand and scarf, at Platform 9 3/4. The line was probably an hour long, so I passed for fear of missing my train).

And now here I am, sat content on said train, which in the past five minutes has passed from hazy green fields to candy floss coated villages, covered in a fresh blanket of snow (SNOW!!?!?!!!?!?!?!). As if I wasn't already excited to go to Northallerton, I'm now about to spontaneously combust! (Which I suppose would keep me plenty warm in these freezing temperatures!)

Til next time, BRRRR!

Bri xoxo

Leaving and Landing - 27th/28th December

So. This is it. Here I am, in my window seat, waiting to see who I'll be sharing personal space with for the next 25 hours.

It still doesn't feel real.

I don't mind saying quite frankly that today has definitely been one of the most emotionally draining days of my life.

My phone's been blowing up all day with more supportive messages than I thought possible - the last from my dad came through a few minutes ago.

"Just to let you know. We love you more than you can imagine. We are so proud of you and not a minute will pass that we won't miss you. Have a wonderful time. Take care and be safe. Love mum and dad x"

(He must be really serious because he's finally managed to take his phone off caps lock, which he couldn't be bothered to do for the last month)

It really makes it that much more difficult to comprehend. Why on earth would I ever want to leave so many people I care about (in summer too I might add), to go to the other side of the world, in the depths of a freezing winter, where I barely know anyone?

Sometimes it really does make me question my sanity.

But the nice thing is, I'm not the only one.

After all of 30 seconds I've already made friends with the two girls sitting next to me. Emma and Kate are friends from Thames, around my age, and this is also their first big trip overseas. Bonded by mutual fear and excitement, we've spent the first half of the journey alternately talking about our plans, attempting to sleep, and completely losing our collective shit upon catching sight of the Hollywood sign.

I have to say, it was nice to have people to go through US customs with - as much as you think you've prepared yourself for it, US Border Control is a surreal experience. I've never seen such organised chaos, or such a contrast in attitudes from the officers. Clearly there's an element of 'Survival of the Fittest' to their screening process, because the guards on the floor directing people are intimidating, no-nonsense, and somewhat disdainful towards all the poor confused travelers wandering about like lost sheep.

(I guess if you make it to the desk you're deemed fit to at least try and enter the country)\

The guards at the desk however, are seemingly all in good cheer, and will even crack a few jokes while they take electronic scans of your fingerprints, and a quick photo for their records. Officer Song and I had some great banter about the two minutes it had taken me to fill out my (in the end, unnecessary) declaration form (this is apparently slow and I should be aiming for 30 seconds in the future).
*A word of advice to anyone heading through US Customs any time soon - for god's sake, wear slip on shoes and a dress. By the time I'd managed to identify and remove all the articles I was wearing that could potentially offend the metal detector (shoes, watch, jacket, belt, laptop in a separate tray, jackets in another, bag on its own), I was told by the (lovely and very patient) customs lady "you're killing me here sweetheart". Clearly filling out declaration forms is not the only area I need to speed up in!

After the process that was getting through immigration, we found ourselves in the monster that is LAX. Unsurprisingly, the ooh's and ah's we let out as we made out way through the terminal were not directed at the soaring roof or modern design - they were very much reserved for all the stores we passed! Fred Segal, Burberry, Coach, Bulgari, Porsche, Victoria's Secret :O!!!
Even though I blatantly couldn't afford anything (and didn't have any US currency anyway) I was desperate to look around. Unfortunately, due to our short transit stop and an urgent need to freshen up, we didn't have the time or opportunity (and almost missed our connecting flight altogether when Emma left her wallet on a couch, and spent a frantic ten minutes running the length of LAX to find it!). See Dad, I'm not the only one likely to do this - I was the responsible one here!

Fortunately we did end up making the flight in plenty of time, although without the water we were so desperately craving (that recycled plane air really gets you!). After a solid dinner (plane food really has improved a lot from the first time I tasted it eight years ago) and as much water as I could ask for without royally pissing off the flight attendants, I managed a rather more solid sleep, and woke up around 7am London time (or 8pm NZ time - my body is so confused) this morning.

Got Kate to snap some quality photos of the sunrise as we neared the Irish this morning (just look at those colours!), and then enjoyed a hearty-but-very-sweet breakfast (the americans put sugar in EVERYTHING) as we flew over the edge of the Atlantic. With an hour to go until we land at Heathrow, it's finally starting to sink in.

Look out London. Here I come.

Santa, Suitcases and Sentimentality

So packing is not my forte.

I am not a neat person by nature. I hoard things, I'm notoriously lazy, and I don't mind a bit of mess.

My family however, does.

They mind rather a lot. It goes without saying that they haven't been the biggest fans of the hostile takeover that's been occurring in our lounge this week.

 I think my dad is also about to blow a gasket over the appearance of our hallway, where all my 'crap', as he describes it, has resided for the last month and a half, since I moved out of my Wellington flat. So with Christmas tomorrow, and my departure looming three days ahead of me, it's crunch time. I now have to reduce my belonging to 23kgs worth of stuff, that will fit into this suitcase.

Only slightly daunting.

I think the issue I have with throwing things away is that I'm a very sentimental person. All my belongings, even the stuff that other people would consider 'junk', has memories or emotions attached to it. For example; do I need five different travel journals (when I'm also planning to keep a blog)? Probably not, no.

Am I still going to take them? Of course I am. They were all given to me by close friends and family members, and all of them have touching, loving, handwritten messages in, that I want to take with me. The logical part of my brain says that I could simply take these pages out of their respective homes and just take one journal, but then I would feel as though I were playing favourites, and the decision would just be too hard.

So now you see my struggle. I'm having a breakdown already, and I haven't even packed anything wearable.

Right. No more procrastinating. Down to this packing business.

Although I am quite hungry...

Right, okay, grab a quick snack and get on with it.

...As soon as I've mended this little hole in my dress.

And actually, these rice crackers are pretty dry, I definitely need a drink.



Okay, half an hour later, here we are.

So.

Where do I start?

Heavy stuff that's liable to move should probably go at the bottom, right? That seems sensible.

Alright! That's done. Good start.

Now... I should probably go with... Shoes next?

But wait. Shit. Which shoes am I wearing on the plane? Because I can't put those in yet. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna wear the ones I'm getting for Christmas. Which isn't til tomorrow. So I could just pack my other shoes... If I hadn't just waterproofed them and put them out to dry.

Okay, so not shoes then.

...Got it! Travel hair dryer. BAM. Sorted.

So the rest'll probably go in order of when i'll need it. I think.

Oh my god this is so stressful, I think I need a break.

...

A short interlude later and I've actually made some progress. But now I'm really struggling. My major dilemma is...

How many socks is too many? Because I'm currently sitting on 18 pairs and I can't decide if that's excessive or just cautious.

Hmm. Having weighed up my options (but not my bag - yet), I've decided to throw caution to the wind - or the opposite in this situation. The socks stay, but I am most definitely going. It's only kind of sunk in these last few days that I'm really going. The trip I've talked about since the age of 13 is finally happening, and - while I'm scared absolutely shitless, I'm pretty proud of myself for following through.

So while my efforts at blogging these last few months have been absolutely abysmal, I hope to keep my vast audience (of roughly three people) entertained much more thoroughly for the next year or so.
Tell your friends, tell your families, and most of all tell them not to get their hopes up.

In the spirit of the season - a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

xx Bri