Friday, July 21, 2006

My Trip to the US: Day One
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Shin: Urgh, that ear wouldn't leave me alone, even on the last day >.>;

I need to resize all of the photos, so it may be some time before I get them up. I'll do the written update and then post up piccies once the film screenings have finished.

Mimmi: Yer, that they be. They really need to think of better ways of stowing children for long-haul flights :p

Kei: I am teh overred it ^___^ Just about. A slight sore throat comes by every now and again, but I vanquish it with much Vitamin C.

Miss Mo: Hehe, I'll get everything I bought for myself together and take another picture of it. My sawg's less impressive now I've given everyone the presents I brought back for them, but it's still pretty cool ^_^

Mamma Vash: Hey! Good to see (well, read) you again, hehe. Oh, that car soccer was incredible... I'll have to get a copy of that.

I'll also upload the Pac-Man and Box Man videos onto YouTube soon ^_^

Megan: Mmm, Ryanair leave a lot to be desired. Like leg room >.>; I don't know if I could go travelling for a while again, though ^_^;

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Right, then. The updates on this tale are going to be pretty sporadic, as I'm either in for very short periods of time or I'm not in at all. I've wanted to start this for at least a week, heh.

Well, I started packing on the evening before I left, which was never going to be a good plan. I was rather stressed and panicking about the whole thing, not least because I still needed to hear from some people urgently about the status of the film (and specifically whether we were going to have to fork out an extra £500 to get it rated), and that I was leaving Dan to do far too much work while I did nothing productive.

Still, I slept... a bit, and packed my washbag the Thursday morning, awaiting my lift from Jeremy. He was lovely enough to offer to drive me all the way up to Heathrow, and also to pick me up and drive me back again ^__^

I think Mum was pleased, excited and slightly nervous that I was going away to America by myself. I promised to text her when I arrived, though. It hadn't quite sunk in just what going out to another country by yourself actually meant at that point, so I was feeling okay about it.

The drive up was... fairly agreeable, actually. I was getting a little hot in my newly-adapted Lufwaffe jacket (which I received a lot of compliments about *grin grin*), but I was determined not to have to pay anything for extra baggage weight. So, everything that would fit into my pockets went in there. Sitting was uncomfortable.

And sitting was what I did a lot of for that day. Although between bouts of sitting were interminably long periods of standing in queues. Thankfully Jeremy stayed with me while I checked in- I'd have gone insane otherwise. We were stood there for about an hour and twenty minutes, leaving me about forty minutes to get food, eat it, and get to the gates before they closed.

The food in Heathrow Terminal 3 isn't particularly nice, by the way. I wouldn't recommend it. Mind you, it kind of befits some of the customers you get there...

We were waiting to eat at this canteen equivelent of a greasy spoon, which served different kinds of meat with baked beans, fries, etc, and on the menu to the right it lists everything you get with the particular option you want. Ergo, if there's something on the list you don't like, you can either pick something else or, get this, ask not to have it. Now, this choice seemed to appeal to every one of the three people in the queue ahead of us, except they had no concept of timing. This stupid, thick-set bloke from (I guess) Northern ireland was being served, and asked for an All-Day Breakfast- sausages, bacon, black pudding, baked beans, hash browns... and every single time the lady put something on his plate, or had just started to do so, he'd say 'No, I don't want any o'that. Can't you put something else on?', or 'Can you give us some more?'. In all, he was the most annoying person I witnessed throughout the entire holiday (although there were some hot on his heels), which was pretty good going seeing as I'd only been out the house for four hours. But then, these two oriental girls did exactly the same thing! Although, to be fair, they did leave after a minute, deciding that they didn't actually want to eat from there after all. And I was having second thoughts now too. I've no idea what my stomach was up to, but food certainly wasn't one of its short-term plans.

I forced the stuff down me anyway. It was pretty bog-standard, and not something I'd enjoy eating again. The seating area was horrifically cramped, too. I think Gatwick's the nicer airport, even though it's much smaller. Something to bear in mind for arrivals into the UK *nod nod*

So, with about twenty minutes left, I said goodbye to Jeremy and left for the plane, and got to the gates five minutes before they closed. I then saw on the little boarding pass the lady at the check-in desk had given me that they recommend checking in at least three hours before your flight. Whoop, I'd allowed two >.> Thank you Expedia.

Up, Up, and... Up Again
So, I'd never been on a 747 before. This one didn't look as big as I was expecting it to be from the outside; or the inside, actually. I was expecting them to be about eleven seats across.

I had an isle seat. Score! I'd forgotten that's what I specified when I booked my ticket. But I was sat next to this rather odd French-Lebanese family who I had to help fill in their Visa Waiver forms. I have now discovered that my French accent must be awful, judging by they way they couldn't even understand 'J'habite en Angleterre'. Although, my English accent is probably just as bad, as they didn't understand me when I talked about 'capital letters'. I was hoping I could get away quickly before their visa forms had to be handed in just in case they decided to come after me for giving them bad instructions.

Take-off was quite smooth, surprisingly. I wasn't as scared as I thought I would be, although I still froze and grabbed the seat arms every time the pilot adjusted our altitude.

I'm pretty sure that you never actually fly anywhere, though- they just load you and your luggage into this massive simulator which plugs into the shell of a real plane, then you get driven away on the back of a lorry. Because on the extending tube you walk down, you only see a tiny bit of the plane which could easily be a wall made to look like a plane door, and the tiny windows are probably TV screens, and the flight attendants roll the blinds down so they can change the tape over mid-flight. That's all it is- a really, really expensive ride in a simulator. Then, once you've been driven to your destination, they plug the simulator into an awaiting plane 'shell', and you look like you've flown thousands of miles. Isn't it clever?

Anyway, on the plane I watched bits and pieces of Hoodwinked. The best part was that squirrel talking about the Di-Nah-Mi-Tay (Dynamite) candles, and the rest was pretty bad. I watched about half of Aeon Flux, an episode or two of Scrubs and some other stuff... I can't really remember what. Oh, A Cock and Bull Story, which was... okay, I suppose. I wouldn't watch it again. Ah, I remember! Zathura! That was cool, cause Jumanji was, too.

They also had this interesting kids' animated series called Jane and the Dragon, a CGI thing by WETA. For a kids' series, the dialogue was really well written and the quality of the animation was good, too. Good English accents, too. But they only had one episode of it, which was episode 4. Most kids' series haven't heard of the phrase 'story arc', though, so it's not as if I was missing out on important story or character elements or anything.

Why is it that as soon as a plane stops, everyone immediately unbuckles their seatbelts even though the Captain says at least seven times at each end of the flight that you must not take off your seatbelts until the overhead light says you can? The cabin crew must get so pissed off.

Los Angeles was hot. And smoggy. And full of cars.

[Note: I'd heard one (obviously rubbish) statistic that there were more cars in LA than people. If that was the case, who is driving the rest of the cars? You can't have more cars than there are people to drive them. Buh.]

Once outside I was directed to this guy who was the share-a-ride firm's Man At The Front for LAX, who said he could get me to Anaheim. He radioed in this guy, and about twenty minutes later he turned up. Looking back, he could only have been about five metres away, judging how the rest of the journey went. We left LAX at... must've been seven pm. He had a few other people to drop off before he got to the Hilton, though, which I was fine with. They were all on the way, apparently.

As was the case most of the time when I was driven somewhere, the traffic was pretty good. Our PrimeTime minibus driver, however, left me feeling pretty annoyed. He didn't appear to know hos way around much, and then almost ran out of petrol- his warning light was on for the entire journey, and I had nightmare visions of us breaking down before I got there. By this point all I wanted to do was sleep.

I got to see a fair number of the places surrounding LA and Anaheim, though. Fullerton, um... some other places...

When we actually arrived what was unmistakably Anaheim, we saw the Disney fireworks. The biggest individual fireworks I've ever seen, I must say. Very pretty, too. Although after every single night that must lose its novelty value pretty quickly.

We arrived at the Hilton some time after 9pm. I reluctantly tipped the driver (after raeding how compulsory tipping was in the US I was scared not to tip anyone) and walked inside.

The Hilton Anaheim is a lovely, lovely hotel. Crisp, cool air blasts from the air conditioning, and it's all decked out in creamy marble and green colours, with a massive lobby with a water feature in the middle of it. And there's a Starbucks on the ground floor, amongst a number of other weird shops. I can't say I was really surprised, but it felt a little surreal. it's a far cry from some rural bed and breakfast in England.

I checked in and was given the (!) swipe card to my bedroom. I actually sort of broke one, because it was next to the magnet on my phone case, and wouldn't work... I had a spare though, so no biggie ^_^

My bedroom was huge, although there wasn't that much actual space. A lot of it was taken up with huge bits of furniture. My bed could easily have fit six people on it.

I perused the room service menu for a few minutes, debating on whether I should order something to eat. The restaurant had closed once I'd got upstairs, and I was starting to get a little hungry. It was the prices that put me off, but it took me a while to realise that, of course, it wasn't thirteen pounds for a whatever-burger, but thirteen dollars. Even so, it still seemed rather steep.

Deciding instead to flake out and save myself for breakfast next morning, I... flaked out ^_^; I could pick up my ticket for Anime Expo the next morning, and all would be well... I hoped.

To be continued...

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We're gearing up for our premiere on Sunday ^_^; Which is also my 21st birthday. Waah, I feel so old. The figure value '21' hadn't registered as being significant until I saw it on the OB Birthdays bit on the calendar. I'm a little scared, actually. I'm not sure why ^_^;

It's been pretty stressful, actually. While dealing with the BBFC (we didn't have to pay that £500 extra, by the way), on Wednesday we got a call back saying the encoding on the DVD was wrong, and I went into a blind panic thinking that we were going to have to redo everything in time for the screening on Sunday, but a phonecall from Dan (albeit several hours later) calmed me down and said that it actually wasn't a problem at all. Goodie. And even the initial problem's been fixed now, which is a relief ^_^;

We picked up all the screening equipment today- the screen, projector and speakers. Seeing it on a ten-foot screen is just... amazing. It looks like a real film now, and I can't wait for the Premiere. I'll let y'all know how it goes, if I'm not able to post again tomorrow ^_^

*hugs* hope you're well. Take care!
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