mybigadventures.com

Whilst Dani has been finishing her marking, I thought I'd add a bit more content to the site. During our American adventure in 2013, the site was down and so there was no blog content. When I redeveloped the site a couple of years ago, I uploaded the photo albums but was a bit disappointed there was no description of our trip that I could link. However, on each of our big adventures -  Europe, America and Japan, we have kept a journal, which we've later turned into a photo book. So today I added the journal entries to the site and linked them into the relevant albums. It's still a work in progress, but should be complete over the next day or so, then I might look to do the same with Europe and Japan. You can find all the new entries under July and August 2013, or by following the tag #America2013

We've got one more week to go before the end of term, and despite losing lots of students and classes now that exams are over, things don't seem to have slowed down much. Dani is doing exam marking again this year which is keeping her busy in the evenings and we're also in the process of buying a house - we exchanged contracts today so the move should be on. I don't think either of us will be entirely convinced until we have the keys, having got burnt on the last one just before exchange. To help with all the stress and well, because Lego is awesome, we bought two new sets this month.

A couple of weeks ago, we bought the Lego London Bus (#10258) which technically isn't released until August. As a VIP member I received an email to let me know they were doing a special early release in their London stores, so we got to the shop just after opening to pick one up. It came with a special limited driving licence - which immediately after seemed to be selling on ebay for £15, so maybe it'll be worth something one day!.

Our newest set is the Lego Carousel (#10257) - its was a pretty epic build although there's a fair bit of repetition with 6 or 12 copies each small build finally culminating in quite an epic structure. I think the best bit is the animals around the side - they move up and down as the carousel turns, its so well engineered! Both sets are amazing and I highly recommend them if you're undecided. I've taken a few pictures to share them with everyone else. I hope you like them as much as me!

So, I’m writing this at what is essentially about 5 AM, after what felt like, and virtually is 24 hours of travel. We travelled all the way from the UK, flying from Manchester to Heathrow, and then Heathrow to America. We slept okay in the TraveLodge and got up around eight-ish to sort ourselves out. I had to empty out my carry-on bag, to ensure all the things that I had randomly stuffed in it yesterday were ‘safe’ to take on the plane.

Then we went to get on the shuttle bus (£7 for the two of us). The driver helped us load our stuff and checked that we wanted to get Terminal 3, to which we nodded, but we didn’t actually know for sure!

Turned out it was terminal three! Got checked in for our Heathrow flight and for our San Francisco flight. The very helpful lady at check-in gave us a printout of all of our flights on our ticket for us to refer to and then we had to go to a different place to deposit our rucksacks (as we did in Europe - they are classed as ‘soft’, although they’re pretty solid due to the amount of stuff!) We then wiggled through security. Ben’s bag got stopped for a ‘random check’ - the mini suitcase was swabbed for any chemicals used for bombs, etc. But, it passed the test, so we wiggled on.

Once through, we found a seat and scoffed the remaining chocolatines and a couple of bananas. We had a bit of a wander and found a better seat, with a view of the runway. Got a couple of bottles of water from WHSmith’s and sat. And waited. For a while…

We got the call for our gate and scuttled off. Got on the plane - to find we were almost the last people on, apparently - although we were there just after the call. Clearly, everybody else was super-prompt, as we got going ahead of schedule. The flight was pretty quick, with a complimentary drink and snack. We arrived at Heathrow 15 minutes early and followed the purple signs to meet our connection. Ben recognised the terminal when we arrived - having sat and waited there when he went to Spain (on a school trip) recently. We had a wander around and admired all the designer shops and the Harrods ‘boutique’, but were surprised by the lack of places to eat as we expected more variety; clearly, Heathrow is above such things as McDonald’s and Burger King! We sat down to share a toasted steak and cheese ciabatta, which was really nice, from EAT, and then, when our gate was called, we went on the little train to get to the gate. So far, so good.

Arrived at our gate and settled in at a window seat with a nice view, which was slightly hampered by a Polish couple, who stole my seat when I went to the toilet. But, when Ben went to the toilet, our row was called - it’s all go!

Got onto the plane and sat in our little couple seat (specially selected during online check-in yesterday) and Ben lined up the films he wanted to watch. As the flight got underway, we began watching, but the complimentary headphones didn’t do much to block out the noise of the plane. So, most of the dialogue went unheard! We decided to try the headphones from my MP3 player which worked much better, though obviously we only had one pair. So, we whiled away the 10 hour flight by watching films, going to the toilet and eating! First meal: a chicken and vegetable risotto, which was very nice - perhaps more like a savoury rice pudding, but tasty all the same. Had a mini bottle of wine for me and a mini keg of Heineken for Ben. Second meal: chicken Caesar sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and, weirdly, a mini tub of water! Saw some fantastic views as we flew over Canada - lots of mountain ranges complete with snowy blanket.

Landed at San Francisco - slightly panicky moment when looked for a minute like we were going to land on water! - but a very smooth landing. Everyone applauded when we landed - presumably due to the recent incident at San Francisco! (There was a recent crash landing at San Francisco airport, reported on the news - the wreckage was still visible from the runway where we landed). We disembarked, spent about 30 minutes queueing at customs, had to give fingerprints (!) and photos, and we were out!

Got the BART (train) into San Fran - a 25 minute journey ($8.25 each) and then walked - further than we anticipated - to the hotel. Had a rather strange experience at check-in, as the woman seemed to want to chat, but then alternated with trying to get rid of us. She worried us a little by asking us for a voucher for our stay - which we didn’t have - but, she reluctantly agreed to copy our itinerary instead, with all the necessary references and reservation numbers on.

Our room is on the 19th floor, commanding a good view of the city. We had a sit and then went out - at what felt like four in the morning, although it was actually only 8 PM US time. Bought some pizza slices from a nearby pizza place - $17 for four big slices. Started feeling very flaky, so wandered back to the hotel and turned in.