7-11/12

Today was my last day in London. It was alright. It rained a fair bit today, just like I would have imagined it raining, a light bit of constant rain, not just sprinkles, but not a downpour either. We went on one last tour (of the East End) with our favorite guide, Andy, and then had lunch with him at an Indian restaurant there called Saffron. After that we had free time and I went to Harrods to get Roni some candy because I never did have time to find that sweet shop she liked. They had two huge candy sections: one fancy Harrods candy and the other an actual candy shop, though a lot of what was there was expensive jars of things as well. I was able to get some jelly babies and dolly mixture scooped into a bag. They had flying saucers, but only in a 5 pound (currency, not weight) jar and I was not paying that much for candy. I got about 3.5 pounds' worth of the dolly mixture and the jelly babies combined and went to a regular old street corner snack shop for some aero bars and maynards. I never did find a few of the things she'd wanted at a reasonable price. Of course the candy shop in Harrods was impressive, even if a lot of it was just multi-colored marshmallows shaped to look like different things. There were some made to look like those take-away sandwiches at cafes or burgers or shishkebab. I got pictures of protestors at the end of the visit to both cities: the Palestinian protestors on O'Connell in Dublin and the animal rights people in front of Harrods in London (they sell fur). After Harrods I headed back towards Camden where we were to have our last (London) supper at Wagamama restaurant back near our original dorms in Camden. It's a Japanese noodle place. I had beef teriyaki over noodles. I got to Camden a bit early and started wandering a bit until I came upon an internet cafe inside a video store. I obviously wasn't lugging around my laptop but I needed to let at least Daniel know that my phone has gone bonkers. The keypad is messed up internally, so I can turn the phone on, be alerted that I have a message, and not be able to hit the button that says "read" and read it. I was able to answer the phone by opening it when the cab company called to confirm my ride, but that's it. Now I'm just staying up. It's 3:30 am and my cab comes in less than 3 hours to take me to the airport. I'll be home soon!
...
And now I am. Oddly enough, it's only 7:30 am and I'm up. I got into LAX around 10:30 CA time. One would think I'd be sleeping in, but hey, it's 1:30 pm in London... and I slept a lot on the plane. I'm extremely tired, of course. I never went to sleep last night in London. I just stayed up, chatted with Daniel in the computer room at the dorms and got ready to go. It really is a shame I didn't get to sleep there for more than a couple nights. Maybe if the Ifor-Evans people had informed Chapman that they'd be renovating we could have been at the dorms on Great Dover St. all along. Oh well. The flight to Toronto was pretty long. I had an 8 hour layover in Toronto, ugh. I went through customs in Canada so I didn't have to go through them in the US. I don't quite understand the arbitrary decisions on where you have to go through customs. We didn't need any of the paperwork we'd gotten for entering the UK apparently, because we were coming from Dublin, which is odd. Historically there have been huge rebellions against the British in both Ireland and the U.S... but whatever, that's history. The first flight was pretty normal. I watched He's Just Not That Into You and a few episodes of 30 Rock, all the while floating in and out of conciousness but never really sleeping, I don't think. On the second flight, which was with the exact same airline (Air Canada), apparently you had to pay for the headphones to watch tv/movies. It was weird, but I'd already seen the selection on the previous flight and probably watched all I'd be interested in anyway. I got a lot of Yeats is Dead read in the Toronto airport. I only have about 50 pages left. I figured I'd finish it on the second flight, but I ended up sleeping through a lot of it, after dealing with a bloody nose... ugh. So I got home, met Daniel at baggage claim and he drove me home. I missed him so much. Next time I've got to take him with. :P I'll probably get some laundry done and then go back to sleep for a bit, take some melatonin when I go to bed for real tonight.