24 Hours and a Ridiculous Story

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Exclaimer. I haven't slept in 26 hours, so typing on this European key board is harder than it should be. Typing in gerneral is harder than it should be. I should probably eat something.

Anyway, I believe it was my cousin Nadia, I mean Tanya, who said that if weird things happened to me I would make them funny. Well my friends/family, I don't need to make this funny. This is, mostly, funny.

Firstly, my dad has some of his mom in him, and as much has he hates to admit it he was nervous, and therefore was freaking out that i should be at the airport one day before my flight left. And by that I mean by 3:30 when my flight wasn't leaving until 7:45. Basically, by the time I exchanged money, got my boarding pass and got to my gate it was about... 4:15. Time flies when you're sitting with two british 20-somethings who are making out to the airport elevator music while you text message every person that you know. Eventually, I made friends with this group 50 year olds who were going on a cruise, well by made friends I mean I discussed how I think Suduko is lame with one of the women and she agreeed. She also thought that my early arrival was hilarious.

Finally we get on the plane. It's one of those magical spaceship airplanes with the new interiors for executive class. If i had the energy to find you a picture I would show you, but everyone sort of has their own "pod" for lack of a better word, and allt he chairs are at an angle..and no one sits beside anyone. Anyway, like the other sardines I walked right out of the spaceship and into the airplane to be seated next to someone I didn't know for a fun filled 8.5 hours. At first it was fine. The guy, who's name I never got, which is weird in retrospect, was actually very cool. A younger married guy, orginially from Slovania, now living in London. He was cute, and smart and was in Edmonton to work. He said he didn't hate it, which is pretty surprising, but he was also polite so he was probably lying. Anyway, we have a glass of wine and talk and talk and talk. Then they dim the lights, so we decide to ignore each other like real people, and watch movies.
Juno is one of the options, for any of you who know about Calgary and stuff, I thought that was a pretty neat serendipitous thing. The people behind us, who also just met because I heard their intros, start to get loud. They ask for more wine. And more wine. She's irish, I find this funny. She has more wine. Then all of a sudden she's swearing. And by swearing I mean yelling. And by yelling I mean SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER ***** ***** LUNGS (that was edited for grandmas!). Oh then, she is kicking and punching the back of my seat. Then, she is pushing my seat forward while yelling something about assholes. This woman must have had a bad time with a plane seat or something. The nice man beside me asks her to please be quiet. She says, "sorry". Okay. She stops. For about... 2 minutes. She's not yelling as much but she is pulling an Olivia Newton John on my seat and getting physical with it. Without the headband, and with and Irish accent. Finally, I turn around and grab her foot and say "could you please stop pushing my seat forward, I would like to sleep". "Sorry," she says. This is starting to feel like a real life bouffon exercise (I feel like a nerd even saying that and I apologize to non-theatre peeps). I get sympathetic looks from people around me. One girl goes up to her and tries to suggest (slyly) that she should try and sleep. It doesn't work. Then, she has her ipod on, and she is singing loudly with it. Then she gets up on the aisle and dances by my seat. Like a sexy bar dance. She thinks she's sexy. Drunk, irish and sexy, but let me tell you this woman is no Olivia Newton John, in fact she's no Roseanne. She's just a crazy drunk Irish woman preventing me and everyone around me from sleeping, but at the same time providing me with an entertaining blog story. Anyway--she like puts her leg up ON my seat and continues to sexy dance, but my Bristish companion says, "that is enough. This is inappropriate. Return to your seat at once". Would it be cool if I was all straight faced during this? It would. But I wasn't. I was totally laughing. Then she like grabs my face and says "you're one of my people". A shockingly truthful revelatin. Because I'm Irish, but I've never Riverdanced on a plane before. So the Riverdancing Oliving Newton John wanna-be, returns to her seat and continues to play Japanese style drums on it. So I get up and go get a stewardest. Along the way several people say, "good idea." So one of them goes and talks to her... she doesn't calm down. Well she does, for about a minute.. Then it's back to Tae-Bo on my head rest. They tell her the captain is going to give her some card or something, they giveh er coffee. She doesn't really stop. Finally, probably because I looked so tired and pathetic (this was at about 2am our time), they ask us if we'd like to move.
DUH! No. I'm really enjoying this. It's like having an earthquake that sings bad Irish technomusic implanted in my back, an earthquake that swears alot. So we do move, and we can still hear her as we walk away. Where do we move to? THE SPACESHIP!
Seriously, you can turn the seats into beds, recline them, put the feet up. There's big headphones... it's everything Russia ever wanted. Neil Armstrong would be jealous, I bet he didn't have Juno on his list of movies on the way to the moon!
So it's all quiet in there, with this nice glowing blue lights which enhance the space atmosphere. "Great, " I think. "I'll totally sleep now... "... and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.. a baby cries... and cries and cries, just on the other side of the curtain. Then there's a lot of turbulance. Then maybe I sleep for five minutes.. and then? It's breakfast time! But hey, I'm riding with the rich kids now and I get a hot towel. And coffee in a REAL cup. Saldy, my poor-town-veggie-style-airplane-breakfast is just a cold bagel with grape jam.
Then our riverdancing oliviaquake, walks by me. She's just taking to stroling around the plane. She is, in fact, still totally drunk and stealing people's seats when they go to the bathroom. They give her more coffee and juice. A flight attendant is forced to sit with her for the rest of the way until we're landing. I try and sleep with people in the space ship walk around like it's the Ledo deck of the Love Boat.

Our landing is bumby, but I'm alive. I saw Jane Austen's land from the air and that made me happy. Our drunken japanese drum playing riverdance queen has to stay on the plane. I don't feel bad. I didn't sleep at all in the 8.5 hours.

Heathrow is big. I was nervous about taking the tube..but it was ridiculously easy because the line that runs right underneath it happens to be the line that runs to where my hostel is. So after being grilled by the customes girl (seriously.. so many ridiculous questions, "how are you paying for this trip?" "what will you do when you go home?". Riverdance. Back off. I'm tired.

Anyway I can read, so I spent a while wandering around trying to find my hostel. But I did shortly. Then realized I forgot to pack my hair brush. I've only met one roomate so far, she's from France and her English is shotty at best. I pulled some rusty French out... awkward. Tu es pomme!

Anyway London is expensive, I'm glad I won't be here long. I'm glad I'm going to Ireland now... right... Anyway at least this hour of internet is cheap!

Sorry for the typos, I am far too tired to read this over. I think I'll have a snack and see if it's reasonable to fall asleep at 6pm.

Peace from L-town

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Comments

[kim bennett]

lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lana, this is the best thing I have read in a long time. My face is red and tear stained from laughing so hard!!!!!!! With a start like that, your trip is bound to be amazing!! Have a great time and kiss the Blarney Stone for me!!! Kim and Bruce :)