Xena Convention Travel: Thursday

Journey To London

    When it turned Thursday, May 1, I was still awake. I had gone out for ice cream with Becky, then come home with the thought tha tI was going to look up and write down public transportation directions between the airport and hotel, and between the hotel and a Catholic Church, and then go to bed. Instead, I got caught up answering email and livejournal comments. It was 2 AM before I finally started researching directions, and of course I didn't use any of it.
     I passed the time in the airport itself listening to Xena podcasts, and then fell asleep the whole way from Phoenix to NC. When I found my departure gate from NC, I saw that my flight had been delayed two hours. I got out my phone, called Mom, and walked her through the instructions for logging in to XOC on my account, then dictated a couple of "I'll be late" type messages for her to post. Then I chattered about Xena for another hour. Poor Mom must have been glad when my plane did pull in! I slept most of the way to London. Toward morning, one of the stewardesses put an apple danish on my tray It was good...and a bit different from U.S. pastries...what's the British word? Pasty? It was in Harry Potter. Anyway, we landed smoothly at quarter to eleven, the time I thought I'd be at the hotel rather than just checking in at the airport.
     I felt like such an idiot in the customs line! First I stood in the wrong line. When I figured out from all the Irish accents that I'd better go wait with other Americans instead, I waited all the way to the front and was told I needed a landing card. The lady patiently handed me a card, insisted I go back to the back of the line, and "you have to write on it," miming writing. (Stupid Tourist Moment #1!) I made it all the way through that, though, and got my bags and out of the airport.
     My carefully prepared directions didn't make any sense at all in the London train station! I went to the information desk and gave the nice guy at the desk the address of my hotel. He took out a map, wrote down the directions, and then even wrote down what train I should use and what platform I was to leave from.

The first thing I did after getting on the correct plane was to sit in the first class seats. (Stupid Tourist Moment #2.) Luckily, the people across from me did the same thing, so I didn't feel too bad. I moved to regular seats at the first stop. Then I really started to enjoy myself. I kept one eye on where I was, but all I could think was, "I'm in London!" The lady across the aisle was on her cell phone. She had this lovely British accent. The houses looked a little like old style houses in Greencastle, PA where my grandparents live, but there were more of them, and more closely built together. The sky was clouded, but not overcast. It wasn't as green as I'd expected. More of a forest green.

The "underground"

I waited in the ticket line for the "underground," even though it turned out that my ticket was good for all forms of transportation that day. (That wasn't Stupid

Tourist Moment #3. I'd suspected that my ticket was good, but I didn't want to find out otherwise when I tried to get on the Underground, or worse, off.) When I did get on the underground car, I could just listen to the automated announcer say, "this is a Circle Line train." I love British accents! All kinds, since I know there are many different ones. When I emerged, I was only two blocks from the hotel (easily within eyesight), but I still had to ask directions to find it. (Okay, that was Stupid Tourist Moment #3.) And then, there it was: the Hilton Metropole. The biggest revolving doors I'd ever seen, going around without anyone to push them. And there I was, walking into a room with what seemed like half the European XOC-ers, half of whom were chorusing, "Elsie!" I got lots of hugs right away.

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