Monday 19th December
The start of 2 long days: waking up at 6:15am to finalize my packing. The plan for today was to visit Chrissie’s office at World Vision in the morning, then at some point we’ll drive over to LAX and I’d go from there.
We’d set off at 07:20am to go to work, saying my goodbyes to Greg as we went. We reached the office by 08:00am, just enough time for a quick tour and a tea run before the morning caroling sing-a-long. I’ll save the singing for my proper session in a few days time. I also met up with Alastair and Liz from the office party; while I occupied an empty office stall to work on the blog.
By 10:30, I’d caught up on the majority of the blog and was planning on nipping out to get Chrissy and Greg a present. Borrowing Chrissy’s car, I headed out for a few hours of shopping, only to settle on a $60 kitchen and candle set, as I remember the current ones from yesterday almost disintegrated.
Upon my return, Chrissy had a more convenient idea. I’d take the train to Union station and a bus to LAX, which would save a considerable amount of time, which I’m all for :p So at 2pm, we set off, nearly missing the turning off the freeway and misplacing the sat-nav and said our goodbyes. Chrissy wanted to give me $20 for the time in LAX, but thanks to a sneaky move, I left the money in the inside car handle.
The first leg of the journey would be the train to Union station. The train ran in the middle of the freeway, and it’s brilliant to watch all the traffic stuck and barely moving while we glided along in the middle of the freeway. An hour passed and the train reached Union station, so from there, I had to get to the other end of the terminal. In comparison, it felt like running through the center of London with the amount of people.
Nevertheless I bought my ticket and boarded the bus to go from Union Station to LAX. Just like the train, we had a special lane just for buses, so we simply sailed past the lanes of traffic jams and reached LAX by quarter to 4. Plenty of time saved already, only to waste 3 hours in the terminal after a quick bag drop. Through security and I thought I’d be wasting a lot of time in the duty free. Turns out that in Terminal 7, it’s the size of a corner shop, along with 2 book stores, a pub and a McDonalds. Considering there isn’t any choice, I had to do something I never wanted to do. And no I don’t mean look around a book shop, I meant going to McDonald’s
6:20 came and time for me to board the plane, I was hoping to experience the same as last time. Sitting in between a couple and get chatting. No such luck. I was in the middle seat on the left hand side; at the window was a woman in her early 30’s visiting her cousins in Liverpool. But in the aisle seat was a 330lb all American who smelt worse than a farm’s supply of manure.
Despite asking to be moved, the plane was stuffed to the gills so I was stuck in for the long haul. All 10 ½ hours of them. Just like the flight over the food was pretty good and tons of entertainment. Plus with the fact that the American and the entire row behind me was snoring, there was no way I’d be sleeping on that flight.
Sometime later, the flight ended and we landed 20 mins early due to a huge tailwind. And I mean HUGE; the screen registered a record of 103km/h. The problem however was that Heathrow wasn’t ready for us, so we spent 20 mins on the ground waiting for a gate to open up. I literally ran straight through customs and picked up my bag in quick succession. The rush was so that I could get over to Victoria in time for my bus.
Time wise it was now half 2pm GMT. Ignoring the 30 mins of intermittent sleep, I’d been awake for 26 hours and just wanted to get home and go to sleep. I was expecting on a 20 minute underground ride, but I was amazed just how far Heathrow was from Green Park, about 40 mins. From Green Park, 1 stop down to Victoria and my trip at this stage was about an hour.
Skipping ahead, it’s now 8:30pm; I’ve been awake for 32 hours, being unable to sleep on the coach. Regardless, I have finally arrived in Leeds, and awaiting the choking sensation from my mum when she met me at the station. I stepped off the coach and next thing I know, I can’t breathe. So I’m back home and I’ll now home for crimbo. In total, 35 hours awake with an hour and a bit of shut eye. Updates begin again on the trip back J
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