Once Upon A Time In London

This is the tale of the adventures of a native Oregonian in London.

23 April 2009

Bonnie Does London

And so the fun begins.

Tuesday night I didn't get much sleep. Come to think of it, I didn't get much sleep Monday night either. Let's just say when the alarm went off Tuesday morning, I'd already been awake for awhile.

The online "Live Flight Arrivals" claimed the plane would be late. So, I wasn't in a huge hurry. I moseyed around, taking my shower, drinking my coffee, making myself beautiful. Then a new check of flight arrivals revealed the plane would pretty much be on time, after all. "Oh, sh*t!" (Mom, that's shoot, ok? Not a bad word. Honest. I would NEVER use bad words. Ever.)

In a mad dash that would do an Olympic athlete proud, I yanked on my jumper, grabbed my bag, and was out the door. There wasn't much I could do about the bus, though. I've learned that threatening the bus driver does not make him go any faster. So, I tried to remain calm and not bounce too much in my seat. I'm pretty sure I failed miserably.

There's one really good thing about having flaming red hair. You stand out in a crowd. I mean, seriously, nobody can miss me no matter how crowded the airport. So while I stood on tippy toes trying in vain to spot my cousin, she had me in her sights within seconds. A good thing about being a Meliza is that shyness is generally not a problem. Bonnie was not at all averse to hollering my name throughout Terminal 3.

American Airlines had lost her luggage. I'd like to say I was surprised, but no. It's pretty much "de rigeur" around here. You haven't REALLY been to London unless at least one of your bags has been re-routed to Outer Mongolia.

On the plus side, no bag meant we didn't have to haul it on and off buses and all over creation. Even better, the lovely airline people delivered it to my front door by dinner time. How nice of them.

Bonnie is now settled in and recovering from jet lag. We've got a Plan for London, though nothing that even comes close to Lili's Plan. Our Plan is a little less like a forced military march and a little more like a loosely organized stroll. Though perhaps our pace is not quite as leisurely as Shirley's. It's sort of halfway between General Patton and Doris Day. Is it just me, or is that kind of a weird image?

Anyway, our Plan involves a nice balance of touristy sight seeing stuff, dances, friends, parties, BBQ and just plain relaxing. We have very little that is set in stone and no set time schedules for anything. We plan on wasting a good five hours in the British Museum alone. We will watch belly dancers and go forro' dancing and eat curries and banana bread and brownies (not necessarily together). We will smell roses and make silly faces at Royal Guards and poke about in horse stables. We will have afternoon tea and go window shopping and take pictures of stupid touristy things like double decker buses and the two of us crammed into a phone box. We will do lots of silly girl cousin things because that's what girl cousins do. Especially ones who haven't seen each other in way too long.

Goodness knows we may go wild and get tattoos.