I'm back...

I'm back home... but I wish I was still in England. Not to say I didn't miss you all and won't be glad to see you again -- but I feel like my place is there -- with Nick. Soon, though -- he'll be here in America, and we'll finally be together without having to say goodbye again.

London was quite cool, but it is a HUGE city. I didn't realize how huge it was when we were driving around last time, but wow -- we were walking this time and it was totally crazy. We found out, after getting all the way down to Trafalger sqaure, that the game was NOT being shown on the big screen. There was a big screen there, all right, but it was ballet. Nick was quite irritated and thought that was the dumbest thing -- to show ballet instead of the Euro 2004 finals. Poor Nick. Poor all of us -- we'd walked quite a distance to get to the square... :P OH well, we walked back and spotted a restaraunt that was showing the game live and managed, by complete luck, to get inside. IT was Hollywood Planet, the prices would have been totally outrageous, but luckily the restaraunt was packed; and the hostess told us we could wait in the bar til there was an opening. The bar was packed. Literally -- every seat was taken and there wasn't very much standing room, either -- we were packed liked sardines. At that point we didn't care where we were, we just wanted to see the game (even thought it was halftime when we got there, and the score was England 1, Switzerland 0), and that's all that mattered. To make a long story short, Rooney (Englands youngest player at only 18) hit two spectacular shots in and England secured a win at 3 - 0. I was screaming along with everyone else. Nick and I wore our England jerseys -- I bought one before the game, and that was fun. Soccer, I've found, is alot easier to follow than football. :) Hopefully, England will keep up with the good plays. :) Whoo hooo!!!!

Of course, we did tour London, and I even rode on the subway for the very first time in my life. This small town chick is stepping up. :P I got tons of souveneirs from all over, and now I'm basically totally broke -- with just enough money for gas until pay day. But, what's important is that I had the time of my life and I was with Nick for 9 wonderful days. :)

I already totally miss him, and if I hadn't had bills here, I really would have stayed. IT was all I could do, not to turn around and run back to him and not go back until he came with his visa. Life's complicated that way, though. I knew I had to keep my jobs and pay off the bills, or we'd have it much harder later. In the end though, it will be worth it, I know.

A word of caution when traveling...

Just avoid traveling with Continental and whatever you do, do NOT, I repeat, NOT go through the New Jersey Liberty Intl. airport. They totally do not have their act together.

We at least didn't miss our flight -- this time, but when I went to check in to return, I was informed that my flight had been cancelled. I was then informed that when people miss a flight, they cancel all other recurring flights that were booked for that person. That's nice. Especially when its the aiport's fault that the connecting flight was delayed (how I missed my flight the first time). So, even though I spent an hour trying to work things out at the Continental desk (only to be told that they couldn't really help me), my flight was still cancelled, even though they knew that I had missed my flight because of delays.

Then... you guessed it, Continental (at the Jersey airport of course lost my luggage -- again!!!!

At this point, it was about 5:30 pm, and I was supposed to have been off the plane at 4:10 and out of there (hopefully) by 4:30. No such luck. They'll send my bags to me. Hopefully they find them. I have a lot of souveniers in there. I hope customs didn't rip some stuff off. Grrrrrrr... I totally hate travelling. I like it once I'm THERE, but getting there -- that's totally crap.
So, we got stuck in Chicago rush hour traffic, but my sister drove and I tried to sleep. I was totally shattered though, by the time we'd arrived at her house around 9:30 pm. In England, it would have been 3:30 am, and I would have been up for almost 24 hours (we got up at 5:30 to get to the airport). So, I crashed at my sisters for 3 hours. Deanna was freaking out, because she wanted to get home and do laundry so she'd have clean clothes to hang out with her friends the next day. But she can't drive, so I have to do all the driving, and I couldn't drive on no sleep when I'd been up that long. And... there was no way we could spend the night at my sisters -- because I had to work the next day (well, today). She slept most of the way home, but I called my sister and she talked to me and called my mom for a 3 way phone convo for 4 hours so I wouldn't fall aleep.
I got home at 5 am this morning -- I had to drop Deanna off first. I totally fell into bed and I don't think I've ever slept that hard. Woke up at 9:15 this morning and took about a half hour shower to get the travel grime off and it felt sooo good. I felt human again. :P

Monty was glad to see me. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack, the way he was dancing around. I guess he really missed me while I was away. Poor baby. Mom said he moped around the whole time. Awwwww.

Will try to catch up with all of you soon. Having trouble with yahoo mail, so dont' know if i'll get replies to any emails right away.

Cheers!!!!

Nora