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.
Friday, Friday, Friday. I woke up on Friday, January 29 (our 2.5 yr anniversary!) at 6am. Why? Well other than my body thinking it was 11am, Clif’s phone kept making blooping noises because it was 1) Charged up and 2) getting text messages. Then at around 6:30am, his phone rang. He answered it and it was his father and he had a full out conversation with him at 6:30am. Honestly, I know that Jay got annoyed by it and talked about it on the Jay & Jack Show but it wasn’t that bad for me. I didn’t want to waste any of the day sleeping in.
I made Jay get up around 7:15am and we ended up going for a walk on the beach. We walked down one way on the beach and then back along the street. On the way back, I saw the hotel that my family had stayed in the first time we went to Hawaii, back when I was 15 or 16, the Moana Surfrider. Oh yeah and we also came across some pretty awesome leis in an ABC store…
Walking on the beach
The hotel that my family stayed at 10 years ago
My kind of lei…
So upon returning to the hotel, it was around 8:15am and we decided to go in the totally super awesome pool at the hotel. Around 8:30am, we saw Clif on the balcony of our hotel room and waved to him. I guess he was shouting down to us a little too loudly because that’s when Jack woke up and went onto the balcony to investigate. Here’s the picture Clif took while he was yelling down to us in the pool. You can barely see us, but we’re in there lol.
So we went back upstairs around 9:15am. In the interest of people want to actually continue reading this, I’ll speed it up a little bit. We gathered Clif and went into Jack & Cyndi’s room, where I did my whole “omg-I’m-so-excited-yaayyyy!” speale and everyone who doesn’t like to have fun in life looked like they wanted to kill me. Soon after, we all showered and got ready. Jack, Jay, Clif & I had not eaten breakfast yet. Jay, Clif & I decided to walk down to a local Jack in the Box and get something light to hold us over.
We had plans with Beth to give us an unofficial “Lost Tour”. We had to meet her on the set at noon. The set was on the North Shore, which was literally the furthest point from where our hotel was. It would take an hour to get there, so we left around 11am. I only had one of those Breakfast Jack thingys in my stomach. We figured that we’d get lunch on the North Shore with Beth after she finished showing us some famous filming locations. So we met up with Michael Purcell of Global Cash Card and hopped into a little rental car.
Well [pause]. Since Jay didn’t know where he was going and was relying on the GPS on Clif’s iPhone to get us to the meeting point, it took us well over an hour to get there. We saw the Grass Skirt Productions signs and turned into the lot. The guys doing security asked us if we were here for Lost and we told them yes and got in with no problem. We see dudes walking around in Others garb. Beth walks over to the car and Cyndi & Jack ask her if they can use the restroom. Michael’s face lights up and he follows them. This entire time, Clif is lecturing Jay & myself about the proper etiquette for being on the set of a TV show. You know, I may be loud and annoying in my every day life but I know how to be on best behavior when I want to be. I start nagging the hell out of Jay for us to catch up to them because I did have to pee pretty badly and I didn’t want to be stuck with professor-dad Clif over there. Jay doesn’t want to “get in trouble” so he resists until Beth waves us over.
We walk around what I think was the costume trailer and come across another set of trailers. My eyesight makes a total beeline to none other than Josh Holloway! Internal monologue: “Uh whaaatttt?!” In an attempt to try not to stare, I turn to face Jack. He mutters to me, “He’s talking to Matthew Fox!” Internal monologue: “flkajdflaudfahfOMFGokdafhia. Be cool. Go pee.” Then I remember my full bladder and natural instinct kicks in and I ask where the bathroom was. I think at this point, it was either Jack or Cyndi who quietly exclaim, “I just walked past Evangeline Lilly!” I nod and walk towards where Beth is motioning the bathroom is.
As I walk by Beth, I see she’s talking to Evangeline Lilly in her trailer but this time, I’m on a mission. I did my business (#1, don’t get any ideas) in Jorge’s trailer and return to the group. At this point, Evangeline Lilly is now outside talking to Josh Holloway and Matthew Fox. I must say that she really is quite a beautiful woman. Oh hell, everyone on that show is attractive.
End of fangirl geek-out paragraph. Start of just plan geek-out section.
So we set off with Beth (and since we all keep talking about Beth but never actually saying who she is, I should probably just clear up that Beth is Jorge Garcia’s lovely girlfriend). Since it took so long to get to the North Shore and we had to leave by a certain time to get back for the ABC press mixer, we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked for the tour. But we made the best of it!
We hit up the camp that serves as the set for New Otherton:
And saw Benjamin Linus’s house:
And the beach where the filmed the pilot, Aljira 316 crash, etc:
Moving along from there, we went to the site where they keep the wreckage from Oceanic 815 and the little plane that Yemi’s body was on:
Oh and did I mention that Jay & I found pieces of the plane that had blown outside the fence? HA! 5 years ago when I stood in the middle of the DVD section of Wal-Mart trying to decide whether or not to buy Season 1 of Lost, I definitely never would have imaged that I’d be actually holding a broken piece of that set in my hand someday…
Next up, we made a quick stop at the set where young Mr. Eko’s flashback took place - the one where the kids were playing soccer.
On the way back to dropping Beth off on set, we stopped at the tree where Kate buried the NKOTB lunchbox. I wished we could’ve gotten closer to it because I wanted to climb it lol.
We dropped Beth back off - and no, there weren’t any more sightings because the actors were all off filming - and then began the long drive back to Waikiki. Clif got us a little bit lost and of course then his phone died BUT we managed to get back based on pure awesomeness and a good sense of direction.
Well, I think I’ve lived up to this blog’s name and rambled on long enough. Next up: Friday evening (well, what I can remember from it…).
P.S. Beth has a children’s book coming out in the spring. You can find it on Amazon.com by clicking here.
I have a gazillion pictures and some really great stories from this past weekend in Hawaii but it’s taking me a little time to get them all up/written. So to hold you over in the meantime (and you’ve probably seen this already but whatever, Clif kept us up til 1am working on it and both Jay & I happen to think that this is pretty bad ass), here’s the trailer for all the coverage that was done by Team nuDia from the weekend.
Halloween was a bit of a letdown in terms of Trick or Treaters. We had none! Despite all of our excitement - including our jack-o-lantern sitting lit outside the door - no one came by asking for candy. I was really disappointed, actually, because we bought a lot of candy and we had lots of fun things to hand out and I was really looking forward to it. We went outside several times to look out at the apartment complex and see if we could entice anyone to come our way, but nada. I don’t get it! It was a Saturday too! Don’t kids want to get free candy anymore?!
That out of the way, we found that dressing up ourselves was too expensive but I did manage to get Zoe into costume for about 45 seconds:
The hat came off about 15 seconds after the picture was taken. Then she ran off to hide and later on, I found the bandana in my closet, stuffed into my shoe. I think she looks adorable. And Strider was always some form of a cowboy for Halloween, so it was my own little tribute <3 because I still miss the hell out of that dog
So we started off Halloween by joining a gym. This was fueled by several things. First, when clocks move back in the U.S. (today), then it gets dark by 5:30pm. I’d pick working out outside any day of the week, but I effing HATE the cold and don’t feel safe running or walking outside in the dark. Also, I’ve seen this season’s NuNews. I used to do some form of physical exercise (usually running) a good 5-6 days a week. I haven’t in a year. All you have to do is compare the thumbnails from the summer and now (but please don’t lol) and there’s a change. Yeah, I’m not “fat” but I’m not in shape and I used to be so I’d like to get back in shape. Yeah, I Tweeted 2 months ago that according to the scale at my doctor’s office, I’ve gained 7lbs since June, but since everything fit, I didn’t really care. But the “wake-up call” was right before we filmed this week’s NuNews. I bought new jeans 3 weeks ago and they fit fine and then when I put them and an orange shirt on (for Halloween), it looked awful. Even Jay (very kindly and gently) acknowledged that I needed to change. So I acted like the melodramatic girl I am & cried on the floor of my closet for a couple minutes before putting on the black dress that I am wearing in the video. The best part of this story is that I was going to wear the black dress from the start but changed my mind last minute and could have probably avoided all the crying-before-filming by not being so indecisive. Anyway, I know I’m not “fat” so please don’t leave a comment reassuring me that I’m not. I’d just like to get back into shape. That’s all.
Anyway, we didn’t end up going out last night despite having plans to do so and this was because we were having the best time drinking at home and watching this marathon of “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” on TLC (thank you “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ for self-imploding and allowing other shows to have some air play). Then once the game got started, we realized we were having enough fun together to not go out in the rain. Ah well, next year I’m totally going to plan a party for Halloween and invite people over with mandatory costumes.
Finally, here’s our jack-o-lantern on display last night. We thought it’d entice the kiddies, but we never even heard any come around. The last one was taken about an hour ago after I successfully didn’t burn the apartment down by baking pumpkin seeds. They’re pretty frickin’ good if I do say so myself.
Okay back to working on the post for YuBlog.org with the pictures we took from our meeting with DAN AYKROYD today! He’s touring to promote his vodka, Crystal Head Vodka, which is really good (trust me, I’m feeling it a little bit as I type this and I only had one shot of it about 45 minutes ago). It’s also shaped like the crystal skull from the legend of the 13 Crystal Skulls (re: Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or to be more precise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_skull) so that’s cool.
Okay so I sorta took what I had and combined it with what Media Junkyard did for their vidcast and voila, a brand new idea was born that directly lead to me getting 4 hours of sleep and having 45 minutes to finish up YuBlog.org stuff for today and pack for my straight-from-work trip back to Long Island this weekend. All this traveling is seriously starting to wear me down; I wish we could just pull a Potter and Apparate/Disapparate whenever and wherever we pleased. But anyways, here’s what the end of a long week of fun/being awake since 2am did to all of us who let’s face it would probably have done it regardless of when we’d woken up or our previous days’ adventures.
In other news, TGIF. Peace.
Oh and P.S. since Jay just pointed it out again, yeah, this is a blatant rip off of what Rob & Chris did but since they’re mostly my pictures with 2 or 3 from Adam, I’m going to split the difference and called it “loosely inspired”.
Oh double P.S. I’m looking for new submissions to YuBlog.org so if you have anything you’d like to contribute in any topic at all, please email YuBlog.org@gmail.com or get in touch with me. Gracias!
As usual, I’m running late, so I’ll make this quick. I’m working on sorting thru a crapload of pictures from yesterday for YuBlog.org (Nudia.tv’s community blog site) but I’ve literally sorted through hundreds of awesome ones from people who’ve contributed, so it’s just taking a wee bit longer than it did yesterday. We are heading to the convention center in 5 minutes to get some Exhibit Hall time in before Jay and Jack’s live podcast at 12PST in the Sails Pavilion. I’m finishing this during the live Lost Podcast. The actual Con pics will be on YuBlog.org soon enough but I wanted to get some personal pics from our time in San Diego up here first.
So yesterday was Day 1 of San Diego Comic Con 2009 aka Preview Night. Woot. After Jay & I picked up our rental car (an oh-so-hot PT Cruiser), we made a much anticipated stop at In N Out Burger in Mission Valley. There, we (me, Jay, Jana & Clif) met up with Ryan & Jen Ozawa from the Transmission podcast and Alirio “I Have Free Health Care in Canada” of PauseCast.
We got our badges at about 2pm and then sat around the Convention Center outside Ballroom 20 for 4 hours until the doors opened for the Exhibit Hall at 6pm. I wanted to get a Benjamin Linus Bobble Head doll but by the time I got over there after my stop at the Diamond Toys booth to pick up Stay Puft Marshmellow Man limited edition banks for Jay, Derek, and Kim, the line was too long and I wanted to go up and see the previews for V (looks awesome) and The Vampire Diaries (craptastic-minus-the-tastic-until-Boone-gets-on-45-mins-into-it). Afterwards, we hit up some local bar for food/drinks with friends like Chris in Boston & friends, Adam of the Randy Rando Randonopolis podcast, Desiree in Pensicola, Alirio and Michael the Friendly Communist. Good times, good times.
Video and pictures below:
Criffy-Crif!
Ryan & Jen at In N Out
Jack, Clif, me, and Jay with Jay & Jack listener UKJay aka @jhewlett
Some random boys causing trouble.
Jen, JOpinionated, me, Jay, Jack, Clif, Alirio, Adam
Jay, Stuart, & Adam going to see the “V” screening
So this weekend was Jay’s Birthday Weekend. He turned 24 on Friday, March 27. Side note: Sunday the 29th was my sister Christie’s 20th birthday. I don’t think she reads this but if she is, Happy Birthday!!!
Anyways, I after scouting out many local restaurants for us to try, I decided to just do the biggest deal of them all: attempt to cook dinner myself. I’m a really impatient person when it comes to cooking, so I’ve never really tried to cook before other than my Valentines’ Day 2008 trip to NC to surprise Jay and cook pasta. That doesn’t really count though because my mom helped me prepare most of it before I left & all I had to do was the pasta part, which even I can do. So I decided to start small and I made us bacon cheeseburgers:
Yeah, it may not look super fancy, but whatever; it tasted good if I do say so myself. I even went all out and baked a funfetti cake, too. Holler.
Hell yeah the candles spell out “24″. Cause I’m that creative. Jay’s sister Heather came to hang out for a little while when we did birthday cake, which was fun. Since it was pouring outside on Friday, we decided to go see the movie, “I Love You Man”. My verdict? I really liked it and I laughed at least every few minutes. Maybe it wasn’t the best movie from that whole “Apatow Gang” but in all fairness, it’s going to be really hard to beat “40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (my personal favorites).
On Saturday, we went out to dinner with Jay’s family at an awesome Italian restaurant in Raleigh. Afterwards, we went up to the mall because Jay wanted to buy new sunglasses with some of his birthday money. I got carded upon entering the mall by myself (I went in to use the bathroom while Jay parked). Turns out, if you’re under 18, you’re not allowed to be in the mall unaccompanied by an adult past 5pm. No one asked Jay to see his ID. Ha, and I’m the older one in the relationship. After the new Oakleys were acquired, we hit Sam’s Club to buy “real Mexican” Coca Cola. The night was finished out by an exciting viewing of “Mary Poppins,” which was choosen by the birthday boy.
Sunday we hit up the flea market because it was finally not raining. In fact, it was gorgeous outside. Two hotdogs each later, we went back home to do work - Jay on the “Lost Podcast” and me on my nuDia.tv show that I was going to re-film (the first time wasn’t very good, to be honest) while Jay & Jack recorded the podcast for Monday. After a delicious dinner cooked by Jay’s mom, I headed over to Clif’s studio to film. Jay & I took one car over to his parents’ house, so I waited around while Jay & Jack filmed their “Lost Vidcast” for this week (”Missing Jack”) and while Jack filmed his “Jack’s Rants” segment:
Aww, look at Clif hard at work! Okay, it’s a day of the week that ends with “y” the job search continues in 5…4…3…2…1…
