Coming home: The Ugly

I realise I am making this longer than the blogs about the actual purpose of the trip but hey ho, It's my blog, what are you going to do?! 

Anyway, a few hours after my broccoli pizza, there I was at my gate ready for the Belfast flight. I've talked about how much I love this flight when I lived in NC. I still do but not for the ah-listen-to-our-lilty-accents-oh-she's-got-GHDed-hair' reasons anymore. It gets you home quicker, plain and simple. And I definitely love it a bit less after this last trip.

While at the gate, I bumped into someone I knew. And of course it was a Methodist minister! Typical eh?! Anyways, we chatted a bit and then were among the last to board the plane. I am quite particular about where I sit in planes, especially on long flights. I hate feeling trapped and asking people to get out at the whim of my bladder, so I always try to get an aisle seat. This trip home it was lucky seat 15C*!

[* Please note all seat numbers have been changed to protect the identities of the innocent.]

As my Methodist bud and I walked down the aisle (him sitting all the way at the back) I could see that every aisle seat was taken. 'Hmm, is someone sitting in my seat?'. I got down to row 15 and sure enough there was a woman already there.

'Em, excuse me, I think I'm in that seat' I politely said.

'No, I'm here' she replied.

'Oh, 15C?'

'No this is 15A' came the response.

Oh boy. I looked up to the little diagram for confirmation that I have not flown every flight of my life in the wrong seat.

'No, it goes A B C D E F' (gesturing with my hands to show window, middle, aisle, aisle, middle, window)

'No, it goes C B A D E F (gesturing with her hands to show window, middle, aisle, aisle, middle, window)

Seriously? People shouldn't be allowed a passport if they don't know their alphabet and can't understand a simple drawing of seats, windows and people.

Thankfully, my minister bud chipped in, as if an outsider, 'no she's right, that's 15C'. (Unfortunately he wasn't wearing his collar to add extra weight to his comment.)

'No, we asked for two seats together (pointing to her friend in 15D) and she couldn't give us that so she gave us two aisle seats', came the retort.

'Yeah, except that she didn't' I wanted to say.

At this point 15B man chirps up 'well if you want my seat, I'll sit in 15D and you two can sit in 15A and B'. 

This seems mutually acceptable to all parties and the move began. Of course this holds up the line some more and I look like the idiot. This wasn't helped by 15A woman going on and on in an under her breath kind of way (except loud enough for 4 rows to hear her) about how it's only a seat and how I made such a big deal about it, which I really didn't. I didn't make a fuss, I didn't call the hostess over and I definitely didn't say she was too thick to travel (although that last one was a struggle).

It became so awkward that I had to get my iPod out while people were still getting themselves situated. I noticed a few people help me out by giving me 'what are you going to do' faces which was nice, but really not the sort of vocal support I needed against thicko 15A.

Anyway, as time went on at the gate, 15B said to me how they were tired and just wanted to get home. I replied with a few 'don't we all' comments and tried to explain how it really was better to have me in the aisle. She then explained to me that they were supposed to leave New York two days previously but, get this, the taxi driver has taken them to JFK rather than Newark so missed their flight. And you thought I was being unfair when I said about being too stupid to have a passport?!

Finally we taxied out to the runway. Just as we were about to take off, 15B grabbed my hand and 15A's in a show of solidarity. Are you joking me?! I cannot abide it when people applaud the plane landing or when they hold hands when it takes off. Yet here I was holding hands like the sisterhood of the travelling simpletons! Nevermind that they made the previous 20 minutes so unbearable I seriously thought about requesting a seat change to anywhere else on the plane!

So you can imagine I let go pretty quick, well as quickly as was polite and the flight progressed in much the normal way. The trolley came down with the meals, chicken or beef as usual. I chose the beef (it's not really important to the story, but I like to add the extra details). I noticed when I was getting the knife and fork out that I also had a spoon, but no dessert on my tray. Hmm, but I munched away on my salad, before starting into the lasagne.  I then remembered (and convinced myself) that they come back down the aisle with ice cream. A bit later on I noticed a man (14D) eating Pepperidge Farm cookies and thought to myself, 'aww I love them, he must have brought them on with him. He doesn't know there's ice cream!'

A bit later on from that again I noticed 15D man also eating Pepperidge Farm cookies. 'Wait a minute!' I think to myself. I turned to 15B and sure enough she's just finished her packet of Pepperidge Farm cookies!

Taking out my head phones I say 'I didn't get a packet of those!'

'Uch did you not love?! They were lovely too! I got two packets!'

Seriously? You are frigging joking me, she ate my Pepperidge Farm cookies!

So that's why I have fallen a bit out of love with that flight. And I didn't even get to the bit about how they broke my head phones.

Coming home: The Good

The flight to New York was perhaps the nicest flight I have ever had. I say that mostly because of what preceded it and what followed it (we'll get to that). I had charming row mates. One man was going to Maine on holiday ('you have to have the seafood' my other rowmate helpfully told him), the other was going to Jerusalem on business which, as you can imagine opened up many conversation points. He sat in the middle and we talked pretty much the entire way. Although I did start to mark essays at one point and they both helpfully offered me alternate pens as mine suffered from some sort of vertigo and was leaking over my fingers causing some sort of pink tattoo gone wrong look.

At the end of the flight, passengers with short connecting flights got off first and as we were right at the back of the plane we sat on...and sat on...and sat on. Apparently none of us were in a rush. We bid each other farewell as we got our bags from the overhead compartments and I walked out on my merry way. In the terminal I thought it best to check the time of my next flight and as luck would have it there were screens right there. So I consulted them. Then I realised that beside me on one side stood Maine man and on the other was Mr. Jerusalem. It was like a reunion of our row, a mere two minutes after saying goodbye. Aw-kward.

'Ah my flight is on time. Bye bye...again'.

I half expected to see them around the airport, but alas, it wasn't to be. Instead I continued to mark essays and have dinner in my second favourite place to eat.

I say dinner, but it was more of a pre-dinner snack. It was an American diner style place. Kind of like the place Monica from Friends worked in on rollerskates. Disappointingly though, without the rollerskates. Probably against TSA rules.

Of course my favourite place to eat remain Broccoli Pizza Place.

I took this with Obama to show it's current! No library images here.

Obviously, unlike Panera, they have not heeded my letters requesting sweetcorn. Some day they'll be sorry when I don't go back.

Oh ok, that's an empty threat. You're right, I love it too much!

Coming home: The Bad

All good things must come to an end. And skiing was no exception, well it's the seasons isn't it?There wasn't a leg of my journey that wasn't eventful and the joyous news for you is I'm going to tell you about it! Yay!

So Megann and I had booked flights to leave Denver the same day, but due to airline timetabling constraints these were not around the same time. Mine left at 11.00am and Megann's at 4.00pm. So when we arrived at the airport and saw that mine was now delayed until 12.30pm that meant for bonus time with Megann while she waited with all her stuff to check in for her flight.

Now, I'm a big believer in Kathryn H's travel policy of go as far as you can, as early as you can. And before this I couldn't think of a situation where that doesn't work. If you're travelling on your own (as I usually seem to be), move on to the gate, nothing to see here folks. If you're travelling with someone, on you go, best foot forward. But when you're not travelling with someone but have that someone at the airport too? Well, I believe there was just cause to wait with them.

So tick tock...we camped out near the check in for Megann's flight. Mostly we people watched, but reminisced about our trip. As time went on I kept checking to make sure my flight time hadn't changed, and nada, 12.30pm it was. I had my boarding pass out and as the time reached 10.30am, my original boarding time, something inside of me (I think it was too many episodes of Airport wearing off) made me go up the desk and double check. The conversation went like this:

Me: I just wanted to check that my flight is still delayed.

Airline worker: No, the plane is there and as soon as we have crew we'll be ready to leave.

Me: But it's showing 12.30pm on the screen.

Airline worker: Yes, but we have the plane.

Me: Ok, so I really better go then?

Airline worker: Em, yes.

So cue scenes of me saying the quickest goodbye ever and running through Denver airport. Which, just by the way, isn't your 'left and right gate' type of airport, it has an underground train and everything. Of course the line at security was ridiculous, of course I was put in the slowest line with people in lanes beside me going at twice the speed, and of course my guy wanted to know what Ireland was like at the time of year, 'rainy, ha ha ha, am I set?!'. You daren't raise your voice to a TSA man. I have learnt that the hard way didn't I Atlanta?

Anyway, on the other side of security and train (which I rode while dressing myself from security, there's a classy look) I ran the 14 miles to the gate over moving walkways and pushing small children out of the way, only to discover that, yes you've guessed it, it was still delayed. What time did we board? Oh I'd say around 12.00pm. What time did we take off? 12.30pm.

So what did I do in the interim?

Oh yeah, Panda Express Orange Chicken.

Things were on the up.

That was nearly as bad as All Saints

Here is the actual under the bridge video (I like to think of it as the Red Hot Chilis version). Oops.

(Please be aware Brian that we still skied despite the obvious threat of avalanche. No cows in this one, but some shrieking bob cats.)

I did ski, honest

After I posted yesterday's blog I realised that there wasn't one photo of actual skiing. I did.

See.

I think in these photos, as in self shots with my goggles on, I look really like David.

Megann enjoyed the sunshine. Kind of.

My favourite run, well my favourite name of a run!

Videos also played a part in activities. In this one we're overly excited about skiing under a bridge!

Skiing stories

Well with nothing to do for tomorrow I though I'd come on here and share some skiing stories with y'all. With it being over a month since I got back there's a danger I may have forgotten some of them by now, well that and the knock to the head I suffered. But more about that later.

So Colorado then. Seriously, this is the place I am moving to next. Snow in winter and no mosquitoes in summer. Perfect.

That's a camera case in my hoodie pocket incase you wondered. Which you probably didn't.

It was brilliant to be back when the weather was distinctly warmer than -20F or whatever it was last year. The downside to that was the snow wasn't as cotton-wooly (yes, I have just made that a word). The upside was a sun tan. Fair enough, just on my hands but still.

And it was great to be back with the family again too. And we got to celebrate St. Patrick's day together.

Green waffles. Another piece of evidence to prove my point that St. Patrick's better out of the country.

We skied in a couple of new places too, including Steamboat which I think was my favourite. It's a really fun town. Maybe I liked it because it was a bit like Hicksville, NC. I've already told you about Bunny Ears, which had a certain homey charm, but the main street is way cool. Great little stores, including one we saw advertised every mile of the 50 mile journey. (Seriously, imagine the Glenshane Pass but 50 miles long and only yellow FM Light & Sons ads for entertainment. Oh and the mountains.) But the main street also had statues on it. This of course added to my statue poses album.

Albert Einstein and I reassuring the youngsters.

Benjamin Franklin invented manicures it seems.

Good job Abe remembered his top hat. I forgot mine.

This is the man that invented ski jumping or some such. So impressive, it required going back with my skis the next day. Oh yes I take the hobby of statue poses very seriously.

See. I'm far to serious, Carl looks so happy. No wonder, he's looking onto the mountains.

Better smile Tina but head the wrong way.

Anyhoo, back to the skiing. My fall count was seriously lower than last year. I'd like to put that down to the fact I am better, but actually it was more to do with these reasons:

- the snow wasn't as deep so it didn't eat your skis.

- I fell badly the 2nd day so really wasn't brave.

So my only 2 falls came on the same day. I went through trees which turned out being much more complicated than I thought. I went over roots and fell. But my skis came off at the same time and I landed on the bindings. Pain.

I got myself dusted off and skied on. Then to build up my confidence for trees I went through a really simple trail that turned out to have bumps at the end. I went into the first leaning too far back, totally didn't see them and wasn't ready for them, the second came and compacted the problem. I think was the fourth is one that brought me down. But the third? It was the third one I hit my head on. Bam.

We had been skiing down for lunch anyway and I definitely need the rest. I went out one more time that afternoon but I really wasn't at the match, or indeed on the piste, and totally had the fear.

As it turned out it was the same day that Natasha Richardson fell. So after my fall and hearing that sad news I really wasn't in the mood to be daring. Simple runs and no trees thank you. Next year I think I'll invest in an helmet. Actually I noticed an increase in the number of people wearing helmets. I think people that wear helmets look like they're really good, like they do jumps and what not. Not sure that's really me, but my brains are quite precious to me so I'll happily lead people on and have them think I'm super good too!

So that was skiing 09. Great trip, great friends, great times. Oh and great salad.

Panera obviously got my letters of complaint and put Fuji Apple on again. Oh happy days! There's another reason to move.

Travel service

Should you find yourself in Steamboat Springs, CO, may I recommend this motel.

Or as I like to call it, the Bunny Ears Motel. Quality lodging is right! It's very close to downtown Steamboat and the slopes. Family run (Dave Gorman could have stayed here in America Unchained) and value for money. Oh sure, you can have your Hampton Inn and Suites, or Super 8 Motel but nothing will quite match the Bunny Ears.

But you've got to ask for Suite 400.

It's better than this, honestly, just showing you the room number!

See! It took a whole 8 seconds to run across the room. And as you can see from the photo, there was a double bed, sofa and chair and TV. But wait, there's more...

Two bathrooms! Handily labelled so as you don't mistakenly go in to the wrong one. How embarrassing would that be if you walked into the wrong one and there was your room buddy sitting on the bowl?!

There was a little kitchen too. Microwave, check, sink, check, coffee machine, trash, check, check, fridge freezer, check. Cooker, well you can't have everything.

There was even a big family dining table.

But wait, there's more.

Not one, not two, not even three, there are 6 extra banqueting tables. Enough for all your Bunny Ears friends! And a spare bed!

And of course tables aren't much good without chairs. 35 of them in fact.

And if you want to have after dinner speakers, there was even a flip chart and screen in the closet. Along with another spare bed.

We laughed for about 10 minutes at the hilarity of the room. We couldn't work out why we had such a super sized room. It was made even funnier everytime we went out and saw other people's rooms. Oh sure all the necessities were there,  but they were just smidge smaller. Ok, they were a lot smaller. Not from your average hotel room, but compared to Suite 400, they were tiny.

All told, a great place to stay.

Hillsborough

Twenty years ago the worst stadium disaster in Britain happened. I have two memories associated with it.

My first comes on the day itself. I don't remember watching the game or the terrible aftermath, but I do remember seeing pictures of it, probably on the news that night. My little 8 year old brain couldn't deal with what I saw and it hit home when they showed a boy, maybe a teenager but still a child, lying on the pitch. It looked like he had died. I can't remember if I cried then or afterwards but to try to console me, my parents told me that they had said afterwards the boy was ok, he had survived.

Since then, when I've heard mention of Hillsborough I think about that boy. Deep down I know he was probably one of the 96.

My second memory comes when I was in my Politics class in U6th. Every lesson we'd start by talking about things that were in the news. It was our teacher's way of making sure we were keeping up with current affairs and getting the all important recent examples to litter our essays with.

The class was mostly boys and this part of the lesson usually descended into football chat. But this time was different somehow. Phil, a massive Liverpool fan, said 'ten years on and there's still no justice'.

His words hung in the air and no one knew what to say.

And ten years on from that, I still don't.

Playing to your strengths?

No funny church signs, but I did see this on my travels.

And hands up who doesn't want memories to last?!

Reasons why I could never be first lady

You might have missed the fact that Obama has been in the continent for the last week. But who cares about that as long as Michelle is with him?! And he did bring her, and her style! That woman could wear a potato sack and it'll still look good on her. Yet, if I were to wear nearly anything she wears I would look absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous.

Let me demonstrate this further.

I have noticed she has a certain penchant for pencil skirts and cardigans and I think I could carry that ok. The bottom of this dress looks to have a similar line to a pencil skirt but the high neck line and short sleeves would look awful on me.

Brave choice, even for Michelle. Any more 'wearable' from the side?

That's a no then.

It's really unfair to put Sarah in the same shot isn't it? My goodness! The short jacket drawing attention to her midrif? The tight fitting skirt? The 80 denier tights? And then by comparison there's Michelle, stylish Michelle. I tried a skirt like hers on once. Big mistake. Nearly as big as it made my hips look.

I think Sarah gave her a false sense of security for when it came to the style of first ladies of Europe. When they got to Strasbourg, Europe was ready to play her trump card, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. You have to wake up pretty early to out style a former supermodel...

Ok, so we'll call that a draw then. But back to me. I do not see tie bow jackets in my future.

Neither do I see big bow shirts.

While getting these photos I came across this article which quotes 'bigger name' designers bemoaning the fact that Michelle hasn't worn any of their designs. Oh boo hoo, my heart bleeds, as I'm sure yours does when I tell you it's struggling designers like Oscar de la Renta and Vera Wang.

There was one article with a more serious tone (although perhaps not obvious). It should serve to remind tall women around the world of the heavy price to be paid when falling in love with short men.

Is it my imagination or can you see it in her eyes she hates them?!

Things to do

Here is my actual to do list for this weekend. As you can see I have been less than successful. I'm hopeful of a turn around in the last few hours of the weekend though.

Perhaps a mite too close when I took this with my phone then.

Mark Q5

Work that is two weeks old should really be marked by now. But something that was more pressing was...

Application form and CV

It had an actual deadline and they seem to be pretty firm on those. Unlike my Year 2s who I can fend off with any old excuse.

Blog

Well I am, but not about what I want to - skiing stories.

Facebook photos

Normally I'm off like a shot in showing off my adventures but not this time. Work is the enemy of Facebook.

Lyon - register

Oh boys and girls there's a good blog about this coming too. I'm going there in the summer and I am v. excited about it. Ok, well I'm excited. Kind of. Alright, let me rephrase that. I'm going there in the summer (and we'll stop there). I did nearly manage to do this, but then my internet was being stupid and I lost it. Might need to try again before too long.

Other things I did this weekend that I resisted putting on my to do list were watching Grey's and Gossip Girl. Those were more extra-curricular activies.

Making their mommas proud

As a teacher, you get a bit of cheek each day. I mostly seem to get it from students that I don't teach. I think that's a good thing. Like today I was told my action 'wasn't appropriate' by a student (without going into detail, you can imagine my action was nothing but appropriate, theirs on the other hand...well you can guess). This was met with a Level Yellow response (firmly put in their place quickly without any need for further action, or indeed, me becoming enraged). 

We have weekly conversations about students answering back in the staffroom. No doubt about who we blame...the parents. In parent/teacher consultations some parents say things like 'he did what?!'...'well you dish out whatever you think is right'...'if she gives you any gip then...'. Then there's the others, which are largely quiet on parents' nights, but you'll soon know about them if they think their precious darling was wronged. 

Our staffroom needs to consider another influential group however. Footballers. I present Exhibit A.

Mature boys, very mature. Well done in accepting the punishment for your mistake.