Three Girls...on a Mission

To get to Cote's cousin's apartment. From the time we got to Logan, it took us 17 hours to get there. We showed up at the airport, ready to go with our travel gear:

Wow. We are so cool. It's almost like we all bought our backpacks at the same time or something...

We got on our first flight (Boston to Shannon, Ireland) and there I entered a magial land of friendly Irish people. Everything seems warmer and happier when said in an Irish accent--the lady next to us asked if she could put her water bottle next to Cote's seat, and it just warmed my heart and soul. We took off at 7:15 (at which point I declared "RACHEL! COTE! OUR MAGICAL JOURNEY IS ABOUT TO COMMENCE!" I get reaaaally excited about airplane takeoffs), and I thought it would be easy to sleep on the flight, but Aer Lingus decided that turning off the lights on our overnight flight wasn't a good idea. They also decided that the best time to serve our meal was right in the middle of the flight, a.k.a. at 10:30pm Boston time and 2:30am UK time. Hmm. And they woke us up. Rude. At that point I felt awake and was getting to the point of tiredness where I start acting a little...silly. It started with us making fun of Cote for looking like an anime character, giving her the nickname "cartoon ho." And then when we each started doing our own thing, I watched the Grey's Anatomy season finale from I think two seasons ago and actually started crying on the plane. I felt really special. Needless to say, my emotions were alive and kickin'.

I was only in Ireland for 2 hours, but the people there were so friendly and everything seemed leprechaun themed. For example: the Irish guy standing in front of me in line strongly resembled a leprechaun. Also, instead of yellow pages, they had GOLDEN pages. I wish it had been Pot o' Golden Pages, but I won't be picky. Besides the leprechauns, what I saw of Ireland out the window actually was really beautiful. It is definitely an emerald country, and it would be really cool to visit sometime. Fun fact that I wasn't expecting: the first language on all the airport signs is Gaelic, not English. And Ireland even smelled like I imagined Ireland would. Can't really give any more helpful description here, since my only way to describe the smell accurately is..."Irish." Clean and fresh work, too. All that was missing from my stereotypical view of Ireland was a rainbow.

Our second flight was delayed by an hour because of high winds in London, and I think at that point Rachel and I actually felt like death. I was so out of it on the flight, I fell asleep while we were waiting to take off, then woke up just long enough to put gum in my mouth, fell asleep immediately with that gum in my mouth, and woke up just in time for us to land. This flight we had window seats, and I got a couple shots of 1) clouds. Cause clouds are sweet, and 2) our first glimpse of England:

We got off at Heathrow, bought ourselves some Oyster Cards (like Charlie Cards for the Underground...I think it means that London is our oyster now), and started the 2 hour journey to Cote's cousin's apartment. It took us longer, though, because we got confused and lost (we were really out of it by that point...). But a lot of friendly British people helped us along the way, one of which greeted Cote with "Hallo, darling!" when she asked for help. Without a doubt, my favorite part about England is that everyone here is English.

When we got to the apartment with all our luggage, having been awake for 27 hours straight, we realized that trying to stay awake the rest of the day to get rid of our jet lag was just silly. So we crashed for 4 hours. Then Cote's cousin and her husband (Kathleen and Dave from here on out) bought us Chinese take out (which is awesome here! Except fortune cookies are not guaranteed. Win for Amurrica). We kind of hung out for the night, called and checked in at home, went on the internet for awhile, Cote killed a giant moth in our room while Rachel and I hid in the living room, and then I stole Cote's netbook to write this.

Plan for tomorrow: Brighton (referenced in Pride and Prejudice...sigh) in the morning, then London to buy train tickets to France and do a little exploring. At night, Kathleen and Dave are going to take us out on the town and we're gonna dance dance dance till we can't dance anymore.

And now...I sleep. Although I'm not tired at all because of that 4 hour nap...