Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Brief Encounter... The Details ^_~

As you probably know, I went to visit Mimmi in London last Wednesday ^_____^ The lack of posting about it hasn’t been to keep any particular secret- I just wanted Mimmi to post first, seeing as it was her adventure. I’d anticipated accompanying it, but it looks like this’ll be the bulk of the details, heh. If there’s anything I’ve missed out, let me know. Although I'm saying nothing about Mimmi's skirt- every way I try and phrase it it can be twisted, so I'm saving myself the embarrassment ^_^; It was a really fantastic day, even despite the heat and body ache that came from the various activities. And oh yes, they are completely innocent ^_~ Getting Started It usually takes me half an hour to wake up when I have to get up early. My alarm goes off, I go to sleep for half an hour, wake up and panic to get ready. This time, though, I had added motivation, heh. I get excited whenever I’m due to meet someone I’ve known over a long distance- I certainly was when I went to see Pyrophobic, and today was no different. As soon as I get out of bed and get my stuff into the shower, there’s a problem. It seems that whenever I need a shower, Dad does too. And it doesn’t matter how long I leave my own shower, he will always need one too. And today, he complained (because he doesn’t really negotiate- just gets huffy) that if he didn’t have his at that time, he’d be late for work. Snide comments about laziness repressed, I said that if I had to wait for his shower to clear (his perfumed shower gels give me migranes), I’d miss my train, and there was no way I was going up without washing. That actually makes our relationship sound really bad- I love him, but not so much in the mornings or after work, when he’s stressed and difficult. To save time and patience, I let him have the shower and I went to use the downstairs one. We have two, so we might as well have used both. The problem is, now that my mum’s parents aren’t here any more it’s used for dogs, clothes washing and wool-dying, so there’s usually bins and things strewn about. But, because my grandfather had been down only two days beforehand, there hadn’t been enough time for it to get messy yet ^___^ And I got to use my new shampoo, which is very nice indeed. Smells like lemon apples. It’s a really decent shower, in truth, probably because water pressure actually exists there. The upstairs one (which everyone uses) pretty much trickles onto your head- the downstairs one starts up with a VWOOSH, so you know it’s really trying. It’s much easier to wash my hair in that, heh. So, that aside, I got dressed picking the best clothes I could find and taking some in my rucksack in case I needed to change- I hate smelling of sweat, and judging by the weather forecast it was going to be very hot (a.k.a ‘mild’, for those of you living in Florida or California). I made myself some coffee but forgot to drink it whilst it was warm, so finished it off in the car. Cold coffee with two sugars is disgusting, but it’ll wake you the hell up. Warm coffee I can handle, but this was stone bloody cold. Yuk. Anyway, I arrived at Havant station, paid for my ticket and waited for a train, which wasn’t due to be very long at all ^_^ It was only two minutes late, and by the time it reached the next station it had made up that time anyway. Fast trains r the cooliesness. On the way there I started feeling quite ill. I couldn’t work out whether it was nerves or the coffee. Coffee tends to agitate my digestive systems if I have to rush out soon after drinking it anyway, as do journeys in general, and when you’re meeting someone like Mimmi I think it’s impossible not to have at least some feeling of nervous anticipation, heh. But X-Japan made me feel better ^_^ Wa-wa-wa-wa… Waterloo Station is very big. But the toilets are not, and you have to pay 20p to get inside to boot, bloody cheapskates. I hadn’t wanted to do my hair before I left, because the chances were by the time I’d sat on the train next to several sweaty noisy businessmen it might have fallen into its usual post-wax flop. But when I first did it, it looked reminiscent of Tina Turner ^_^; Balance is hard to achieve- I hope it didn’t look too… weird, heh. I don’t like the London Underground. Not just because of the musty smelly humid heat, but also because the maps are so bloody hard to read. I figured out I needed to get to Embankment (one station away) to change trains to get to Hammersmith (a further 11 stations away). So, I did that. At least, I tried. When I got to Embankment, I found that I couldn’t get to the line I was expecting to, so then had to catch another train to Piccadilly Circus to get onto the right line (only eight stations away from Hammersmith). I later found out that I mis-read the sign and, in fact, could have gone straight to Hammersmith from Embankment on the District Line. Bugger. Still, I got there in the end… and promptly got lost ^_^; Hammersmith was much bigger than I expected- whilst the majority of Underground stations comprise of lots of stairs, escalators and lifts, maybe a shop or two and perhaps six platforms, this place had its own shopping centre, complete with a higher floor surrounded by big red buses. At the top floor, I sent Mimmi a text, feeling embarrassed at having been so dense. She was waiting for me on the station, but since I was flustered I went down to Tesco and loitered outside until I was greeted by a very friendly face ^_____^ Solo, meet Mimmi Meeting someone in person for the first time when you've known them for so long through text communication can be quite daunting. There are the usual worries- 'Do I look alright?', 'Should I have worn deodorant?', 'What happens if we don't talk?', amongst others. As it happens, I didn't have to worry about those (well... perhaps the deodorant, but Mimmi didn't say anything about that, heh).It was clear just from the first few minutes of being with her that she's as friendly, loveable and funny in person as she is online, as well as being incredibly easy to talk to, heh. We decided that we should go to the Natural History Museum first, as I’d always wanted to go there and see all the various attractions they had. I always feel a little odd making decisions about where to go because I’m conscious about what other people might or might not want to do, but Mimmi’s a very agreeable person, heh. We travelled to South Kensington station, walked through one of the longest subways I’ve ever seen and made our way inside. Admission was free, nicely much. We immediately got lost inside again, until I got a Map (the first one of which turned out not to be a Map, but a fake imposter Map with the same design and everything, actually advertising their great exhibit about Hair), then decided not to use it and go to the place we thought sounded most interesting. The first place was the Dinosaur exhibit, complete with lots of big skeletons and moving animatronic reptiles, displays and pretty colours. And thousands of people. Because of the huge amount of body heat being given off by everyone in the room (although it was massive, heaving crowds possess much… ness), Mimmi was feeling very hot, so she commandeered my water. As we moved past one of the displays showing dinosaurs in cartoons, films and toys, I went into geek mode and pointed out exactly which toys were which- Grimlock (original Transformers series), a couple of Dino Riders (remember them, anyone?) and lots of Zoids made appearances, and I marvelled at them. I’d seen them before, but never inside an actual Museum ^_^ Since things were getting so hot, we decided to whistle-stop the rest of the dinosaurs, pausing only to read the funny cartoons on the wall about how they really might have died. Then we moved onto the animal section, heh. It’s odd that some things seem a lot smaller or bigger than expected when up close. I’m talking about the animals >.> The lion I’d expected to be bigger than it was, and the hyenas seemed really pretty huge. The way they’re portrayed in wildlife programmes, I half expected them to be smaller them my dogs. Perhaps they are. It was on a high shelf, I suppose... I got to see a pangolin, too ^____^ I’ve always wanted to. It wasn’t alive, but it was great just getting an idea of what they looked like up close. There was also a cameo appearance by Panda in at least two of the exhibits- I tried to get a picture, but the sunlight appeared causing nasty window glare and it wouldn’t have been decent. Ah well. After walking through the large mammal display, including a life-size fiberglass model of a Blue Whale[!!] and making some funny comments about the animals and interactive things on display (I knew something was going to pop up about the Sperm Whale... and that dolphin did look like it was on a spit, heh), we decided that we needed food, so went to Hyde Park (Kensington Gardens) to eat our lunches. It was lovely when the breeze blew. The sunlight was nice- so much so that I actually put my sunglasses on- and the trees swayed gently in the wind, making that rustling noise that sounds a lot like rushing water. Calming stuff, heh. Mimmi: It would be great to play baseball here. Solo: Yeah, that’d be cool. We used to play it in PE lessons at high school. I wasn’t very good, but it was fun to hit things with the stick. Not that I hit people, though. Just balls. Evading attacks from hordes of gangsta pigeons, we headed towards the Science Museum. Entry there was free too, but since you could buy tickets for a simulator ride at the desk, we did. I convinced them that Mimmi was a student (sneaksy me, hehe), so both of ours were half price ^_^ The simulator rise was a bit of an anticlimax, mostly because there were some idiots behind us who had figured out that if you hit the emergency stop button and waited until the doors were closed, you could start the ride from the beginning again. The third time it was restarted, Mimmi and I got out. It’s only a simulator, but it can still make you feel pretty sick. We both agreed that if we’d stayed any longer, it would have been too much. And idiots like that piss the hell out of me. Bowling for Piccadilly I had promised Mimmi some while ago I’d take her bowling, and the nearest and most convenient place to us was in Piccadilly Circus. Retrospectively, I think it might have been nicer to find a quieter one further out, but it was fun anyway. It almost didn’t happen, though. The place I’d looked up on the internet was labelled as ‘Playland’, at 1 Piccadilly Circus, but alas when we arrived there, there was no place called ‘Playland’ to be seen. We eventually worked out that it was inside this arcade thingummy called Trocadero’s, with big green awnings and a sign saying ‘Ten Pin Bowling’ in its window. Following three flights’ worth of escalators (one small one and one big one), we got up to the bowling lanes to find out it was absolutely packed. Not only that, but it was also a bar. To me, the lack of any kind of lighting except neon pink and green suggested ‘nightclub’, and the huge amount of people who look like those I wouldn’t normally trust made me fee uneasy. I have never seen such a huge density of different skin colours in one place. Anyway, we booked a lane for half past four and went into HMV to pass the time. Mimmi likes DVDs ^_^ Mimmi also likes CDs. Mimmi also likes student discounts ^_~ Once we’d finished building up her collection of soundtracks and films, we went to take our place at the lane. Lots of people wanted a lane at our time, and all throughout our wait I was afraid that they might have given our allotted time away. In some ways... I almost wanted to forget it- incredibly crowded places make me uneasy, especially if they’re poorly lit, in places where alcohol is available and filled with people I don’t like the look of. But I didn’t want to break my promise. When would I be able to fulfil it, if not then? It’s not like Sweden’s just around the corner from my house. Eventually (and ten minutes later than our expected time) we got our lane. Aptly, it was number one ^_^ The bowling alley had lots of Macromedia-esque animations, conveniently letting you know if you got a strike, spare or left ten pins still on the lane-thing, just in case you weren’t watching what you were bowling at. Mimmi trounced me through both games, hehe. She is very proficient with bowling ^_^; The first time she beat me 124 (three consecutive strikes in the final frame! Blistering stuff) to 82, and on the second she beat me 90-something to 73, I think. I need more practice, heh ^_^; But despite the wait, I was really glad we stuck it through and managed to play. The walk to food was shorter than I expected- we went to Pizza Hut just around the corner, but I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry so I just had a bowl of potato wedgies. The pizzas they have in Pizza Hut are incredibly filling, so neither of us ate huge amounts. But, I managed to get a third student discount (fourth if you include the train fare)- Pizza Hut’s is minus 20% rather than the usual 10% everywhere else, so it meant more moneyness for elsewhere! All we needed to do was go to TopShop and I’d have been able to complete my National Union of Students discount repertoire, heh ^_^. For once I decided not to tip, even though I felt kind of guilty afterwards. They’re still getting paid more than I am, though. We then took another long walk along a very long road (which, incidentally, I’d walked down with Pyrophobic a few months beforehand, heh) which lead to Shaftesbury Avenue, home of FORBIDDEN PLANET. I love Forbidden Planet. Especially now I found out that it’s open until seven in the evening ^___^. And nobody told me the Fruits Basket had been out in the UK since April! Damn MVC for not having it. I’m still buying it from Australia because it’ll end up cheaper, but it annoys me that shops won’t bother taking in stock of the more decent stuff. MVC rarely even has Spirited Away. But anyway… I was hoping the second Trigun Maximum manga would be out, but I had no such luck. I have to wait until September >.> So I bought some Yu-Gi-Oh cards instead. Nothing really special there. When Forbidden Planet gave the word that they were closing, we left (well, it would have been silly to try and stay) and tried to find our way back to an Underground Station. It didn’t feel like it should be the end of the day- at the time it was only seven or so, but even then it would have taken me until at least nine to get home. We walked and talked, and I made lots of random silly jokes about things we walked past and things that popped into my head for little reason, heh. Eventually we found Russel Green Station and decided to take the tube back to Hammersmith. Closing Time Having to take another long trip on the Underground made me feel rather faint, so when we got to Hammersmith we made a beeline for Tesco and bought a 2-litre bottle each. I then found another two 500ml bottles hiding in my bag after we’d left, heh. Mimmi still had an hour to wait until her sister was due to arrive at nine- I offered to walk her back to the hostel, but since her sister had the key it wouldn’t have done much good anyway ^_^; Since we did have another hour to wait, I offered my Discman as a way of passing the time. Mimmi put in one of her newly-acquired soundtracks (Princess Mononoke ^_^) and we listened to it for a while. It was lovely, and although the feeling that I should have been leaving soon was pressing upon me with each increasing minute, I didn’t want to leave. When we prised ourselves from the steps, we sat on the station after receiving word from her sister that she was on the way. I let four trains going in my direction leave before I finally let myself go. I can still feel that final hug goodbye, heh. And then I got on the train, but not before I commanded Mimmi to text me when she met up with her sister, so I knew she was safe ^_^ She did within a few minutes, and I was happy. When I got back to Waterloo (eventually- the Underground was constantly stopping and starting around Euston) I checked train times, and found one going in my direction due to leave in about ten minutes, giving me enough time to grab a Cajun Chicken Baguette (UpperCrust do fantastic sarnies- if you see them, buy them if you’re hungry) and slip X-Japan back into my CD Player, heh. I arrived at Havant at about 11:00pm, and it was raining. I’d taken my umbrella in anticipation of it raining in London, so I’m glad it wasn’t neglected :p. Dad drove me home, where, after a brief sortie online, I went to sleep. It was a really fantastic day. And I mean that with the greatest sincerity ^_^. Mimmi’s a fantastic person to be around, and I'm honoured to have had the chance to meet her, heh. And despite what she says, her accent is perfect. I’m really looking forward to next year now ^_____^

Comments (7)