In the home stretch and then I can go back to posting boring shit like my new haircut and pictures of Zoe being adorable.
Thursday February, 18 2010:
So Thursday morning, I didn’t feel so good. I woke up with a terribly sore throat and I couldn’t swallow because my glands felt so swollen. I decided to sit out the trip to the VNA Museum and meet up with my parents and Katelyn as they were finishing it. I met up with them in time for the gift shop and we were off to visit Harrod’s, the ginormous, famous and ridiculously expensive department store. It was pouring rain and cold again that day. Harrod’s was both awesome and depressing. Awesome in the sense that it was 7 stories of shopping in every single area you could imagine, including pets & books. They had this amazing section of their food court that was just all chocolate and sweets. Depressing in the sense that 98% of the things in the store probably cost more than one month of my paychecks lol. We did a little more window shopping in the area before moving on to Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and did even more shopping at Convent Gardens. Convent Gardens was way more in my price range than Harrod’s.
We spent a while at Convent Gardens. We decided to visit The Admiral Coddington’s Pub (aka The “Cod” I guess?) for dinner. The Cod is famous for being where Princess Diana had hung out before she was Princess Diana. Sadly, we discovered that they didn’t serve dinner until 6:30pm and it was only 4:30pm at the time. So we had a drink and left Pub #1 and headed to Pub #2, which was some place by the South Kensington Tube Station. I don’t remember the name but I was underwhelmed by the food (not that pub food is supposed to be great but the other places we ate at all had good food). I had the biggest pint of Hoegarden at Pub #2. Mmmm. We went back to the hotel to rest up for a little while and then headed back out to Pub #3, which was right down the street from our hotel on Queens Gate and a recommendation from my mom’s cousin who used to live in South Kensington. As you can imagine, we were definitely exhausted after our third pub visit of the day and only stayed for an hour before going back to bed.
Friday, February 19, 2010:
Friday was a more laid back day. We said goodbye to Christie in the morning, who was leaving for Wales that afternoon. We went back to the Big Ben/Parliament area to take more pictures and cross over the bridge to the other side, where the London Eye is. The line for the Eye was too long at that point and since I was the only one who really wanted to go on it, we decided to move on. We walked down along the Thames River, went in some tourist shops, and crossed another bridge to go back the other side. From here, we walked up to some big book store that I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called. It was across the street from a closed-down Borders Books. After that, we headed back to South Kensington for dinner at another Italian restaurant right near the Tube station. I think it was a chain (Bella…something) but it was really good.
Saturday February 20, 2010:
On our final day in London, it was sunny and “warm” (aka like 40 degrees) in the morning so we walked around Kensington Park and up to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. Here’s where I have to gush about Kensington Park and that whole area. I’m so happy we went back there in the sunlight instead of the pouring rain we walked around it in previously. If I lived in that area, I’d be at that park all the time.
After that, we went back to the very first place we ate when we got to London: Gourmet Burgers. DELICIOUS. Go to there if you’re ever in London. It’s a chain of awesome. Then we went back to the hotel, gathered our luggage, got on the Tube and headed back to the airport. I have to say that I was very surprised with the security at Heathrow. I was wearing tall boots and didn’t have to take my shoes off. My dad accidentally left his Swiss Army Knife in his carry-on bag (instead of packing it) and they didn’t pick up on it. We got there very early because we anticipated possibly having to do one of those full body scans and never encountered one. I will say this, however: Heathrow has awesome Duty Free shopping there as well as plenty of expensive stores (Harrods, Tiffany’s, Burberry, etc.). It’s a way more fun airport to hang out in than LaGuardia or JFK.
On the plane ride home is where I started to feel sick. My head hurt, I had a lot of aches and pains and it was just impossible for me to even think about closing my eyes to sleep. I did however finish reading “Dead Until Dark,” the first book in the True Blood series and I watched the pilot of “The Good Wife,” which was pretty good. It took us 30 minutes to get through customs upon arriving back at JFK & an additional 40 minutes to get our luggage. I was dying at this point & my ears were all clogged up. Finally, around 12:30am we stumbled into the house on Long Island. I left for Raleigh at 8am the next morning.
I’ll interrupt all these London posts to announce that I got my hair cut again on Wednesday night. I really like it so far. I want to have longer hair for the wedding so I can have an up-do, so I wanted to cut it shorter now and start fresh with the growing out process. It makes sense in my head…
I’m going to try my best not to make this one as freaking long as the last two have been, mainly because I want people to still want to read my blog lol. So here goes:
Wednesday, February 17, 2010:
I didn’t sleep well Monday night and Tuesday night wasn’t much better. After going to bed at 12:30am, I woke up at 1:50am to make sure that everything was working out smoothly with the YuBlog.org Lost post. I didn’t fall asleep again until like 2:30am-ish. Then I woke up at 7am to pee & figured that I’d download the episode. It ended up taking 40 minutes. I feel back asleep until 8:45am when Kate’s alarm went off. So I definitely was setting myself up to get sick earlier in the week with the lack of sleep.
We watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday morning. My mom & I didn’t have the best angle to see it from so to me, it was kinda anticlimatic. Maybe it was because I was freezing (we got there an hour early) or because I couldn’t see very well or because I was just plain tired. Basically, they march a band in (which was neato) & then the band stands in front of the people on the ‘house right’ side so they can’t see the guards being changed. My dad had a good spot though & thought it was cool though so if you’re the type of person who likes the shit my dad thinks is cool then the Changing of the Guard is for you!
We left Buckingham Palace & walked along some park that was right there. It was a nice little park that I enjoyed looking at. Next stop: Westminster Abbey! Westminster Abbey was amazing. Go to there if you go to London. Even though it’s essentially a fancy tomb filled with corpses up to like a thousand years old, it’s absolutely incredible. Look up at the details in everything - walls, vaults, cellings, floor, statues, etc. So that’s what people did before TV, Internet and video games. Definitely, definitely, definitely check it out.
Westminster Abbey is right across the street from Big Ben & Parliament. We did some photo ops there. From there, we ate lunch & went to find some museum with a Winston Churchill exhibit that my dad wanted to see. None of the rest of us had any interest in another museum that day so sadly, Dad didn’t get to go. I felt bad. However, our next adventure took us to King’s Cross train station and Platform 9 3/4!
We finished up the day by going to see a Shakespeares’s “The Tempest” on the West End. I kinda (shhh don’t tell on me) fell asleep for like 30 minutes during the Act I. I actually really like “The Tempest” but it was about 90 degrees in that theatre & we had just eaten dinner/drank ale so it really wasn’t something I had control over…
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday weren’t as active, so they’ll follow tomorrow. Peace out.
I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to come back and talk more about London while I was in London. I started to get a cold the last few days we were there: sore throat, swollen glands, headache but then on Saturday, it exploded into an awful sinus infection and I had aches & pains and a slight fever to go along with it. Let’s just say the plane ride back from Heathrow to JFK was not fun, nor was Sunday or Monday. I’m feeling better now thanks to a steady diet of Advil Cold & Sinus, Mucinex and NyQuil. My ears are almost unclogged!
But I digress. Back to London:
Monday, February 15, 2010:
I think Monday was probably my favorite day of sightseeing. We started out at the Tower of London where we got a tour from a Yeomen Warders aka Beefeater. Despite being freezing cold, it was sunny for a little while & glorious. While there, we saw all the famous towers and locations where people were held prisoner and beheaded (including Anne Boleyn) as well as the Tower Bridge. We also saw the crowned jewels which were pretty freaking blingin’, let me tell you. I think the biggest one was 500-something carats. However, my ring is still prettier
We were absolutely freezing after we left the Tower of London, so we headed up to the area where St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Millenium Bridge were. After a much needed lunch, we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral. This place is awesome. We decided to climb up to the top of it, where there was a peephole that you could look all the way down at a center tile. We trekked up a winding staircase of 200+ stairs to the first tier, which was still inside the church. You could see all these beautiful statues and adornments from that level, as you circled around the inside perimeters of the church. Then we kept going. The winding staircase got a bit tighter but it was still walled in, so all was well. This lead to a viewing point that went around half of the outside of the cathedral. Great view; I could see the Globe Theatre on the other side of the Thames River. It was really cool to see London from above.
There was still one more set of stairs to get to the top level. This winding staircase didn’t exactly offer the same security that the previous two did. The higher we went, the more I started to freak out (and I don’t generally have height phobias). I believe I used the word “Mommy” a few times, haha. The first problem I had was that the staircase was one of those black metal ones that didn’t have great protection on the sides other than the railing and the little bars that came down to attach the railing to the stairs. In addition to this, the staircase was right in the middle of the tower we were climbing up - not next to a wall that you could reach out to grab. If you needed to grab a wall, you were going to fall down first. Oh - and you could also see all the way down to the previously level.
But, I made it to the top and it was worth it. Absolutely gorgeous view and it was snowing lightly! If you think you can handle the climb up, this is something that I definitely recommend you do.
We left St. Paul’s and walked over the Millenium Bridge to get to the Globe Theatre. Although we didn’t get to take the tour inside of it (it was almost 4:30pm at this point, I think), we did explore the front area a bit and of course, hit up the gift shop. We went out to dinner with Christie and her friend (also named Colleen) at Sticky Fingers, a restaurant owed by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stone. Decent burgers.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010:
On Tuesday, Christie took Katelyn & I to Primark, which is basically a giant British version of Forever 21 that’s always crowded no matter what time of day. After Primark, Christie left us to go to class while Kate and I met up with my parents at Kensington Palace. It was pouring rain that day. We did a tour of the palace. What a huge place. It was cool to see some of Princess Diana’s dresses up close and how similar some of the dresses from some of the old debutante balls were to dresses people still wear to proms and formal events now. The upstairs of Kensington Palace showcased rooms of former royals such as Queen Victoria or King William & Queen Mary. If you like history and fancy things, you’ll like Kensington Palace. We walked around Kensington Garden in that awful pouring rain after we were done. It looked gorgeous but wet lol. Still, it was cute to see dogs running around and playing despite the rain. Since Strider got sick in early February last year and these weeks a year ago were filled with trips to the doggie cardiologist and many overnight doggie hospital visits, we were all feeling a little bit sad to remember. Next, we went to a pub for lunch, made a quick stop at TopShop (I assessed it to be a more expensive version of H&M) then went back to Primark because we were pressed for time there that morning.
Here’s where the fun starts! I decided to buy something I had discarded that morning, so I went up to pay by check card. This wasn’t working. Thinking that maybe this store didn’t take Bank of America check cards, I give them my credit card. Credit card doesn’t work either. The woman at the register takes my card to run it herself. Still doesn’t work. She checks the back and of course, I never signed it. So this raises a red flag for her, I guess. I show her my driver’s license to prove the names match but she still calls someone else over. While she’s explaining the situation to a superior, the woman at the register next to her informs her that it’s not my credit card, it’s the credit card machine at her register. She’ll have to input my card manually. Guess what?! She doesn’t know how to do this! Joy! After a long process, she gets it to go through. I sign my receipt and she seems to forget that we’ve been over the whole “back of credit card isn’t signed” thing already. I pull out my license again and show her the signature on it (thank you, DMV for your foresight). Finally, I was free to go.
And with that, I’ll free you from having to read any more of my drabble for today. Thanks for popping by!
So we were going to use ewedding.com to create a website for our wedding but then Jay got some grand ideas of creating a real site where we could not only update with posts and all that fun stuff, but put in media, like brief podcasts and vidcasts. Then we could also use it for beyond.
We wanted to use www.jayandcolleen.com but someone already has it so now we’ve got to choose and since we can’t decide, I figured I’d ask for some friendly advice in the form of a poll. Here are the choices:
We’re going to create it ASAP, so let us know and then we’ll let you know!
Squeeeeee! Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter! After the changing of the Guard (kinda interesting but kinda boring, I don’t know) and Westminster Abbey (really, really awesome), we went up to King’s Cross Station and tried to go to Hogwarts, ha. Yay!
P.S. Ignore my sneakers; after the first two days of walking around in boots, my feed, legs and knees rebelled so now it’s sneakers for this girl lol
So far, London has been everything I expected it to be: gorgeous architecture, awesome sites to see, fantastic food, and cold & rainy. All in all, it’s been so far so good.
February 12-13, 2010:
We arrived on Saturday after an overnight flight out of JFK, where Diana Ross touched me. Yes, she did. Well actually, she technically brushed aside me as she cut through our security line to go ahead to the front of the line. Even though seeing celebrities at JFK is about as expected (yawn) as seeing them at LAX, it was still kinda random. Oh and she definitely looks fabulous. Like, really fabulous.
After we arrived on Saturday morning, we went through customs, met up with Christie, got our Tube passes and were on our way back to our hotel, The Regency in South Kensington. At this point, we were utterly exhausted so my parents and Christie graciously allowed Katelyn & I an entire hour of rest/nap time. Woot. While we were napping, flowers came to our door. They were Valentines’ Day gifts from Jay & Jeremiah. My flowers are yellow & red (as seen below) and Kate’s were red. Yay, flowers, pretty. Post-nap, we headed out to Picadilly Circus (reminded me of Times Square), Trafalgar Square (they had a huge screen set-up that the Olympics were broadcasting from), and the National Museum. At the National Museum, we saw original artwork from Vincent Van Gough, Monet, Manet, Leonardo DaVinci, Rafael, Michelangelo, Claude, Rembrandt, and a whole bunch of others. Despite being incredibly tired, it was still really, really cool and something that I’d recommend to try some day.
Side bar: This entire time I’ve been in London, I’ve been having terrible problems with my rental World Edition Blackberry. Word of advice: Get the Tour if you’re a traveler and avoid all of this annoyance/phone time with Verizon. Katelyn has a Tour & has had no problems getting service. I constantly have to reset the phone (taking the battery out) to find a signal & then hope that it actually connects with the network once it recognizes it. It’s such a pain in the ass. #VerizonFAIL.
Following the National Museum, Kate & I went back to the hotel to nap for an hour and a half because Christie wanted us to go out with her and her friends for one of the girl’s 21st birthday. My old ass must have looked like a chaperon hanging out with all those 20 & 21 year old girls lol. I ended up having a great time.
Sunday, February 14, 2010:
My parents graciously let us sleep in while they went to mass. We did a crapload of walking on Sunday. We walked around Notting Hill (didn’t see the infamous house with the blue door from the movie), visited Portabello Market (totally did sing Bedknobs and Broomsticks in my head the entire afternoon), then walked a little bit through the Baker Street area. If you’re not into shopping as much as you are sight-seeing, then I’d say that perhaps this isn’t for you BUT it’s neat area & they have fun places to do a little shopping/browsing, so it is worth the walk thru. Before heading back to South Kensington, we went to Tottenham Ct & Oxford St. see where my dad lived when he studied here back in the fall of 1977. It was still there, only a hotel had bought out where he stayed. It was a quaint & quiet area and his face was so joyous when he showed us the ‘hood.
Rounding out Sunday, I sprinted in the rain to the Apple Store on Regent Street to get there like 3 minutes before closing time so I could buy an international adapter kit for my Macbook’s power cord. WORD OF ADVICE TO FELLOW TRAVELERS: Make sure you purchase the proper power adapters for your cell phones, computers, etc. BEFORE you leave for vacation. If you put it off til the last minute, you’ll end up sweaty and soaking wet in the middle of a London Apple store and that’s not fun or fabulous. We had dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant in our neighborhood on Sunday night. I still dream of that Italian sausage (that’s what she said) and broccoli in my pasta. I’ll have to ask my father for the name of it.
Speaking of dreaming, I should probably go to sleep now because it’s 12:35am and I did not get a good night’s sleep at all last night. I kept thinking about falling down the winding stairs at St. Paul’s Cathedral and then my heart would start pounding and I couldn’t breathe - if you haven’t heard me mention it on Twitter, I’ll tell that story next time. Then I also started having the first of my wedding planning anxiety attacks because well, I’ve never been married before and I have no idea where to even start. My mom said we should start with the guest list first because it’ll be the most difficult of decisions and already that’s causing me panic because we’ve had people contact us assuming they’re invited or joking about it and that makes me super stressed out because aaahhhh I have no idea; I don’t have a date or wedding party or anything other than a state and a possible color scheme picked out. So I was thinking about that crap all night too. AND NOW I’M GOING TO STOP WRITING ABOUT IT AND THINKING ABOUT IT SO I CAN GO TO BED TONIGHT…aka right now.
The Jeremiahs 1 & 2 (aka Jay and Katelyn’s boyfriend Jer) sent us each flowers for Valentines’ Day since they’re still in the States. Aww, yay :) Here are mine:
Happy Valentines’ Day everyone! And if you’re not the type to care about V-Day, Happy Sunday!
Yesterday we went to the National Gallery and today we are going to start at Portabello Market (I keep singing Bedknobs and Broomsticks), followed maybe by Abbey Roll and a trip to the Apple Store or some kind of electronics store for me to buy an international adapter for my Macbook cause I totally forgot one…
Okay so I guess the Hawaii saga is going to be put on hold for a day since there’s obviously been some new developments in life over the last 22 hours.
So I’m leaving for London to go visit my sister Christie on Friday, Feb 12. I’m going with my parents and other sister Katelyn and we’re leaving from JFK Airport. This has been planned for a while. Back in the beginning of December, I bought my tickets on Southwest Airlines to fly out tonight, Thurs Feb 11 at 7:10pm from RDU & arrive on Long Island. Why did I plan to get in a day early? My mom had read in the Farmer’s Almanac that there was going to be a big storm this week & she was afraid that my flight from Raleigh would be canceled if I left on Friday and I’d miss the JFK flight. After some arguing & ticket-paying-negotiations, I agreed to leave tonight.
You may know that my birthday was on Monday, Feb. 8. Jay had to go to school that night and he has class all day long on Tuesdays (8am-4:45pm), so I knew that I’d have somewhat of a lonely birthday. He’s trying to get some music history classes that he took applied to his regular history classes and because my mom teaches at a college, I had asked her how he should go about applying to do that. She had advised us on some tips & that was that. I talked to my mom around 9:15pm on Monday night. I was talking to Jay around 11pm-ish that night over gchat and he mentioned he called my mom to thank her for helping him. He said this was around 9:00pm.
At this point, I’m a bit suspicious because I said goodnight to my parents 15 minutes after said phone call and no one said a word to me. I question Jay & his story is the same. Then I Blackberry message Kate. She basically tells me to turn the crazy off for the last hour of my birthday & go to bed. The next morning, she BBM’s me before 7am to tell me, “Mom didn’t say anything to you because she assumed you were in the room when he called.” “BULLSHIT!” I thought. “I talked to mom at 6pm AND 9:15pm and both times she knew that I was home alone with Zoe all night!” But that was at like 7:15am & when I went to put my key in my car door at around 7:50am yesterday morning, I had a premonition. I got in the car & that was that.
So we were going to go to Ruth Chris Steakhouse for Birth-entines’ Day. Since there’s only a week between my birthday & Valentines’ Day, we combine the holidays and call it that. It’s kinda like the kid born on Christmas Eve who shares their birthday presents with their Christmas presents ;). I kept questioning Jay on how expensive that place was and I’m going to miss a full week of work this month, so my paycheck would be lower and maybe we should just wait, blah blah blah blah blah. He kept saying “no, no, no”. However, I was talking to a co-worker yesterday & all of a sudden, I decided that I wanted Italian food. I asked Jay if we could switch from Ruth Chris to Carrabbas because I really just wanted Italian. He agreed over text, but in the car on the way there, he was all weird & pissy about how I had changed restaurants. I got annoyed and said “It’s MY birthday and if I want pasta, I’m eating pasta!”
On the way to the restaurant, we got word that my flight for 7:10pm tonight was canceled because I had a layover in Baltimore and well…Baltimore has some issues with some snow at the moment. Since we were in the car, I called my parents to ask them to change my flight. After a lot of trying, it turns out that the only flight I could get on left at 1:15pm & got in to Islip, NY at 9:55pm, with a layover in Tampa, Florida. I was *not* happy because I couldn’t miss an additional half day at work. In short, I was freaking out. Jack & Cyndi (Jay’s parents) ended up randomly being at the same restaurant as us, which was kinda funny lol.
Ohhh, time to board. Brb!
Okay back & it’s like an hour later, even though you guys don’t know that. Continuing, I was on the phone with my parents for quite some time during dinner, as they were trying to find me a flight. After about 30 minutes, it became clear that the 1:15pm flight was my only option. I resisted A LOT. I was panicking about leaving work 5.5 hours earlier than planned & not having packed yet, etc. al. Eventually I had no choice but to agree to get onto this fight. So I very reluctantly told my father that I’d do it.
At this point, Jay seems super annoyed. I think that it is just because we’ve been sitting at the table for 40 minutes and only just ordered appetizers. I felt reasonably guilty about being on the phone for so long & freaking out in public Little did I know…
We end up having a really nice dinner :) I was so distraught that I ate an ENTIRE loaf of bread by myself, then completely cleared my plate of lobster raviolis AND had 3 glasses of wine. Sadly, the 2,500 calorie meal cancels out the 3 glasses of wine lol.
So we get back home and I make a quick phone call to my parents to confirm with my mom that the random shit I’m literally throwing at my suitcase (not in or on, just at) is going to suffice for the cold London temperature. A few minutes later, Jay goes to me, “You look like you need a beer. Do you want me to get a beer?” At this point, my first thought is, “Wine AND beer?! It totally MUST be Birth-entines’ Day!”
So he hands me a beer and I put it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. Then he gets down on one knee and says something very sweet that you’ll have to ask him to repeat and pulls out a ring!!! As he got down on one knee and pulled out the box, I subconsciously knew what was going on but at first I thought he was just kidding and it was going to be a bracelet or something. Then I saw it and was completely speechless and I think I said something along the lines of, “For REAL?!?!?!“ But I didn’t cry!! I choked up & sobbed for a minute but I was too busy processing it all and nodding and everything all at once
I called my parents, who had Kate call me on Skype so they could video chat & see the ring. Then we called Christie in London and my grandparents and my aunt and basically everyone. Jay called his families & I called mine. Then we agreed that Jay could have the first Facebook announcement and I would do Twitter (even though by “first” we meant “45 seconds before the other person” lol).
So yeah, good times!! My ring is GORGEOUS. Funny story: I totally forgot that over the summer, Jay, Clif & I had been eating and then walking around Southpoint Mall in Durham for a change of pace. We all ended up in a Helzberg Jewelers in there, looking at all the jewelry, including engagement rings, that they had to offer. So I totally forgot about that when he asked me this morning over the phone, “Did he get you the ’sparkly’ ring?” I laughed SO hard. I was shocked that Clif remembered that day before I even did and that he even remembered which ring it was. Color me impressed
No date will be set until after I get back from London, although it’s going to be at least a year out in order to give friends & family who have to travel plenty of time to plan ahead to get there. It’s going to be in NY though and sometime in a month that is NOT cold because anyone who has ever met me knows that I despise the cold with a passion.
That’s all I’ve got for now and I’m SO EXCITED! So now I have to finish up my Hawaii story, tell all my London stories AND yak about wedding plans! YAY!!! It’s so nice to have things to look forward to!!
Oh, fine. Here is what Jay said to me and honestly, I only know it because he sent it to me.
“The first time I met you I knew you were special. After only a couple days of dating I knew I loved you and a couple months after I knew I wanted to be with you forever. Colleen will you marry me?”
so now we’ve got to choose and since we can’t decide, I figured I’d ask for some friendly advice in the form of a poll. Here are the choices:
