No, I did not forget you for a week...

I'm a little annoyed with Twitter for telling me [apparently] incorrect things about how to make text messages work while abroad, but more annoyed with Verizon for choosing to charge me for messages that seemingly disappeared into the ozone.

Leaving the bitterness behind, here's my London trip in Twitter posts:

July 16, 2:00 p.m. - Cheerio and g'afternoon my time! We've landed and are riding toward Paddington Station right now. Be jealous, it's under 80 degrees.

July 17, 7:19 p.m. - Fresh fruit, inflatable mini Tardis, sitting five rows from the stage at Billy Elliot...

July 18, 5:24 p.m. - Just watched Sirs Ian and Patrick do a soft shoe curtain call, and am now waiting at a stage door.

July 20, 5:43 a.m. - Last I saw Caleb he was sitting on the train to the airport. It's about twenty to six and I want to go back to sleep.

July 21, 6:11 p.m. - Sitting on the floor at the Royal Albert Hall waiting for this evening's Prom to begin...I feel like a concert hall groundling.

July 22, 9:40 a.m. - I don't want to pester anyone at 3 a.m., but I'm on a plane with a bag full of duty free kinder candy and mini toblerones. Cheerio, London!

hard to be on the timer when the keyboard is set up differently

I'll apparently have to back date all my twitter texts that I thought were going through, as I just checked and had last posted from a plane. *sigh*

My right ankle will probably never be the same again, and I have an awesome bruise cluster just above what's polite to show in society on my leg (art museum lift 1, Hannah 0), but I wouldn't trade 96% of this trip for anything. (I would take back getting lost for an hour yesterday and all the times I was grouchy with my brother, for the record.)

I'm so muddled on time at the moment, I'm not sure what time it is here (past midnight?) at home or anywhere else. So, generic greetings to you all.

Supposedly I can still twitter to the same number, even six hours into the future (aka, while in London). We'll see how that works.

I enjoyed the new Harry Potter, but would probably like it more upon a second viewing when I would not spend the movie thinking "wait, THAT didn't happen like that in the book...!" Do you think the costume shop would never notice if I didn't return the blue wig or awesome black jacket to them?

It's a little dangerous that I have so much room in Oscar (the big giant luggage) for souvenirs. (Related: I will never, ever be able to spell the word "souvenirs" without spellcheck.)

Two more hours to kill!

Did you know that I can check-in for my flight in thirty minutes?!?!?

I'm apparently going to spend the three hours before HP tonight (we're meeting at 9:00 to walk to the movie theater) by importing contacts into this phone, seeing as it won't shift them over from the old phone. BOO!

I need to go pick up the rest of my planned costume pieces for tonight.

Yesterday I used my Ike emergency money to trade in for British Pounds. For whatever reason, that's terribly amusing to me.

I almost just spilled a cup of lukewarm water all over my keyboard, so I'll call that good for now.

I SAY NO!

I was a little concerened early when I had blurry vision in my left eye, but I now think it was just the calm before the storm raging behind my right eye at the moment, and no amount of not-quite-yet-expired stage management kit drugs are helping it out.

[What does work: a constant smooth rubbing just above the right eyebrow, which--incidentally, makes it next to impossible to do anything else that my job requires at the moment.]

If I land in London and immediately fall ill, I'm calling the universe for a refund.

my hand smells like coffee

This is what I'm reduced to, and with five and a half days to go

TRAVIS: Hey, Hannah...London!
HANNAH: [bounces up and down]

also, a lovely tribute to Jesse James

Is it strange that I'm listening to (on somewhat constant repeat) a nostalgic song about Missouri right now? I think my London guidebooks are jealous.

listy listy list

There's still so much to do before this trip, especially now that it's only one week (one! week! !!) away. I like to put it in perspective and remind myself of how much more there would be to do if I were leaving the country for good (plus or minus a few years of life), but that mostly throws my brain off track.

And, to prove I am doing some work today: I don't know what alarms me more, the person in an over-sized robin costume for "The Secret Garden" or the invisible (but still very vocal) dog in The LIW Spectacular. The answer is neither. The winner is the animal puppet suit (complete with fake human arms!) for Dickon to bring a fox and lamb to visit Colin. Oh, Secret Garden, weren't the threatened drop boxes enough?

note to self: buy brownie fixings

Forget booking the flight, the hostel, or even the theatre tickets. It took asking for a ride to the airport to feel like this trip was going to actually happen.

the Important Things in Life

I tried a chocolate petit four (from last night's opening) again today, seeing as they'd been in a fridge for a sizeable period of time and would hopefully therefore not melt in your fingers upon being picked up. I guess my sugar gene was trying to tell me that I wasn't a true sugar addict if I preferred the vanilla to the chocolate.

Fourteen hours in the fridge, and it succeeded in being slightly less melty (except where attached to the paper doily, where it was suddenly suctioned down with chocolate glue) and didn't taste quite as much like pudding. I'm going to stick with vanilla.

Semi-related: I'm half tempted to make my own bowl of punch, and wish I had thought of that back when I first walked in. I don't think I can drink a whole bowl of pineapple ginger ale in an hour-fifteen, but I could've accomplished that with my full five hour shift.

Not related at all: I'm wearing multi-colored sequin shoes. (Of course I am.)

March - June, 2006

Is there anything quite as weird as reading blog posts from years ago and comparing the you of then to the you of now?

If nothing else, it's a great way to pass time between phone calls in the box office.

I'm about 5-2 for naming songs playing on the All Broadway station during the past half hour.

I pulled out a suitcase last night with the intention of seeing how things fit. The answer is that things are going to fit with room to spare for a small Dalek (hello, mild Doctor Who obsession!) and part of David Garrick's grave (hello, mild Hist&Lit II obsession) to spare.

I wish I had this suitcase the last time I went, when I tried to cram two weeks worth of clothes (plus shoes, since this is me) into the same family suitcase that has traveled with the Smiths for ages, despite it not being the most spacious piece of luggage you might hope for. (And then I had to figure out a way to get home everything I bought, because the snow globes and t-shirts and pirate flags and everything else couldn't not come home.)

This suitcase, which needs a name if I insist on taking it places where I will probably need to yell at it while dragging it up flights of stairs, is [as mentioned] large and lime green, which is another reason to take it places. It was bought two Christmases ago with the intention that I was about to take a trip. The fact that the NYC adventure was canceled due to team sports just means that I've delayed the grand debut of the monster bag.

So, I want to actually use this bag, if nothing else because it needs to be used for more than just storage in my closet. Maybe I'll pack all the shoes I actually want, rather than feel I'll need. Maybe I'll buy all the shoes I want. And maybe, sadly, I'll suck it up and use the size suitcase I actually need, and save the nameless green beast for another day.