London Baby, Simple Plan & Pigeons

Hello!
It's been a very long while indeed and loads has happened. So here I am, catching up. And there's much to catch up on. I've been to 2 gigs in the span of 6 days, been to London and dully living life. Here goes, the interesting parts of the last few days.


Nov 25th.
This was a crazy day. A day before my trip, I had a ton of work to do. Seen as though it was the end of the month and there's always a lot of work at the end of a working month in insurance, I had to do the work of the coming 3 work-days all in one. So I sent too many letters to costumers, filed too many documents, answered too many calls, bought too many stamps at the post office and! Picked up my copy of the special edition "Everything In Transit" album by Jack's Mannequin, with its awesome DVD full of live footage of Andrew and co. performing the first 2 gigs Andrew did after his bone marrow transplant (the Dec 2nd LA, California show and the New York show that followed a while later). In the DVD, Andrew performs gems like "You Can Breathe", "Miss Delaney", "The Mixtape", "La La Lie", "Holiday From Real" and more. Brilliant DVD, and the album sounds somewhat better when played from a CD on my DVD player. So woo for that.
After I got out of work (half an hour later than I should) and got brutally injured from filing (I always get injured while filing, I have such a secretary's injuries - cuts from the files and shit), I left home to rest for a few before jetting off to "THE PLUCKER" to get my eyebrows done and my 'stache removed. Yes, it hurts being pretty. And it sucks being a woman.
Came back home and started a frenzied packing. I started getting stressed out that I still didn't know where to go to on my days by myself so I also did some websearching on how to get to all sorts of selected sites as well as prices of entrance and opening hours. That calmed me down a little but I still reasoned myself that if I buy a London travel book at the airport, I'd feel better. Then I went to sleep as early as possible...


Nov 26th.
Set my alarm clock to 5am. Didn't know there WAS such an hour. It was still dark outside as I headed upstairs to wake the parentals up and went down to get dressed and ready. Said my goodbyes to mother and sister (who woke up especially to say bye to me, bless her) and then dad took me to the train station. He wouldn't take me to the airport because he wanted to just go back to sleep and sooner the better. Lazy git.
At the train station, security went overboard and x-rayed my bags and went on to looking through my backpack for my camera, to make sure it's not a weapon of mass destruction. Sorry to disappoint, assholes. I've met a nice soldier girl on the platform that also got irritated by the train station security. We had a nice chat and I realized I STILL better relate to soldiers than anyone on the "outside world". She's a secretary just like I was and she thinks it sucks just like I did and we shared experiences and stories. It was a nice way to wait for the train. You know, rather than just stare gloomily at the dark platform.
The ride to the airport took about 10 minutes. That's the good thing about the train, it gets there fast. And the train was pretty deserted at such absurd times of the morning (5:52am) so I had where to sit, and seats for my bags as well. Heh. I soon found myself in the airport waiting in line for security check (you wouldn't believe how many there are).
All us "regular folks" (the "riff-raff") stood at our "regular folks line" while the slick business men strolled onto their first class line that should've been quicker only to be held and delayed more than the rest of us. That amused me to no end. So, first up, a nice lady from airport security came to check my passport and ask me various security questions. Answered honestly as that's always the best policy. When she was done with me, she gave me stickers to indicate I've been questioned and I proceeded to get my bags scanned AGAIN. When they saw all is well with them, they put even more stickers on them and I proceeded to get rid of my bags and get my plane ticket.
The nice dude gave me a window seat and weighted my bags and sent them off to be put on the plane as I headed through the doors and onto a shopping area in which escorts can say goodbye to the travelers. There was a massive window overlooking the airplanes outside. I wanted to take a picture but, you know, state security and all. I went on off into the personal security check where I had to scan my backup and empty my pockets as I walked through a metal detector.
After that, it was all smooth sailing to the duty free! I wandered around some, bought my London travel book, and headed into the James Richardson store for chocolates and loads of them. I got kitkats, skittles, Kinder Bueno, M&M's and candy boxes for the office and my grandmother. I bought a lot of stuff for little sister, because she gave me $50 and a list. Heh. After some more wander in the bookshop, I went and bought myself a repulsive sandwich at Arcafe and ate it unwillingly. I was hungry and I didn't know what I'll get on the plane.
Eventually, I headed to gate D6 to await my flight. The flight felt like it lasted forever. I read through my London travel book faithfully, making mental notes to where to go to. I also watched "Halfon Hill Is Not Answering", a classic Israeli movie from 1977 (I think). I've seen this movie countless of times, I can quote most of it, but I still laughed my ass off (the girl sitting next to me gave me weird stares). I also watched a bit of "The Dark Knight" and started re-reading "Invisible Monsters" by Chuck P. All the while I was keeping track of the flight anxiously through the channel on the plane's entertainment TV's (there were tiny screens on the seats in front of each of us and we could channel surf and pick whatever channel we wanted to watch) and counting down the minutes...


When I landed, I had this feeling of utter surrealness. I was in London, it was cold outside. Cold enough to wear a long-sleeved shirt, a hoodie and a coat. And I was in a different country. Alone. Without my parents. I was finally feeling like a real proper adult.
The plane took forever to park and let us off, a United airplane was taking our spot. When we finally got off it, I rushed towards passport check. There, the guy at passport check questioned me about my visit and when I told him I was going to see McFly at Wembley he went "McFly? How could they fill Wembley? They're rubbish!!" I told him I'm not going to argue with him, though I did find it highly amusing that a grown man was trying to pick such a childish fight.
After that, it was off to get my bags, not before buying a bottle of REAL mineral water at the airport. Not the crap we have here that are tap water in mineral water's bottles.
David was waiting for my outside, looking bored (and slightly handsome, I'll admit). He was surprised at the amount of luggage I had, despite the fact I warned him the night before about it!
We took the tube to my hotel. We took the Piccadilly line to Holborn and from there, changed onto the Central line to Marble Arch where my hotel, Mostyn hotel, was, just behind the glorious Oxford street. The trip took forever but David took comfort in the M&M's I got him and I took comfort in the view from outside (the train was cheating, it went above ground half the way).
After checking into the hotel, David and I headed out to the Imperial War Museum. It took a while to find the museum, and we got a bit lost.... but David assured me he knew where we are ("roughly... in London").
When we got there, we wandered off in the free part of the museum for a little while and went into a weird submarine sort of exhibition where we could see, hear and, er, smell stuff. An interactive sort of thing. I think David had a lot more fun than the kids roaming around the place.
We then proceeded into the Ian Fleming/James Bond exhibition where we played roulette, checked out international covers of James Bond (including an Israeli one), saw a picture of Eva Green and got utterly disappointing at the tiny Aston Martin model. We expected the real deal.
After we were done with that, we headed into the Holocaust exhibition, which was rather shit in comparison of other Holocaust exhibitions I've seen. And while at the James Bond exhibition David got to show off his knowledge, the Holocaust one was my turn to shine. Not that we got through it, because it was a quarter to 5pm and we were supposed to meet Uma at an undisclosed (read: unknown to all 3 of us) location at 5pm.
We went off back to Marble Arch to find out Uma was at Green Park for some reason. So we stood like two morons out in the cold outside KFC waiting for her for a good 15 minutes. When she got there, we took forever to decide where to eat, until eventually I allowed them to drag me halfway down Oxford street and into John Lewis, a department store that had a cafeteria. We (David and I) had horrible mashed potatos with horrible sausages with sauce poured on all of them (and coca cola in cool bottles) and Uma had the same horrible mashed potatos and sauce but with vegtables (vegans, go figure).
Whenever David left Uma and me alone, we instantly started talking Westlife, it was kind of funny. Uma was gutted that this Christmas is Westlife-less. I suggested she bought the DVD ("Live At Croke Park"). That was as far as we got before David got back from the loo.
After John Lewis, we rushed over to Wicked, "before the tickets melted", according to David. The tickets didn't melt, they were fine. And the show was fantastic! It was such a different experience, seeing a musical as a live show at the West End rather than at a movie. The crowd claps and cheers after each song, the set leaves you in awe at how elaborate and into details it is, the costumes and make up look fantastic (especially the green makeup of Miss Elphaba) and you can't help but get excited, laugh, and just have fun at the show. Big ups for Wicked! I had such a good time I've bought the book and am now reading it. And I prefer this story to the "Wizard of Oz" story any day.
We said goodbye to Miss Uma after Wicked, I was a bit sad about that because I got to spend, AGAIN, so little time with her. I wanted to see her more, but she's so busy! :( David escorted me back to the hotel (he can say he's not a gentleman as much as he wants, he is. He's British, the British politeness is imprinted in him whether he likes it or not) and exhausted I collapsed on the bed and went to sleep (I did shower... the shower there is crazy! I couldn't figure out how to mix the hot and cold water to be the way I wanted it to be. It was either freezing or boiling, nowhere in between) after being up for 20-21 hours!


Nov 27th.
David and I agreed on a late start, so I can sleep and recover, but I got up at around 8am anyway (despite planning on waking up at 9:30 at the very least). After watching some GMTV, talking to my mum and getting dressed and ready, I headed out to McDonalds and had my very first Egg McMuffin. The morning after, I went for the "Egg, sausage and cheese bagel". Behold, I took pictures.
David had texted me informing me he needs to help his boss with the computer, so we shall meet at midday. So off I went to explore Oxford street.
I went down the street and headed into Marks & Spencers and bought a bunch of Christmas-related snacks, in 2's, for both of my sisters. That included snowy balls (those were amazing), Santa-shaped chocolate, a Ginger-bread man, Jellybears and a stocking with choclate and marshmallows. After that (and geekily browsing through the supermarket-area of the store because I love observing other cultures and nothing teaches you more about a culture than their eating habits) I headed back outside and kept wandering on, eventually walking into HMV.
There, at HMV, is where the real fun began. I've bought the book "Rant" by Chuck Palahniuk, 2 copies of McFly's "Radio:ACTIVE" for 10 quid (both of them, the second copy is for my friend Hadar), a McFly 2009 calendar and a "Friends" 2009 calendar for my little sister (it was a "get one, get the other at half price" sort of sale and my little sis loves "Friends") and probably more stuff I can't actuallt remember at the moment. All in all I spent 40 quid at HMV and 20 more on breakfast and M&S. So 60 quid and that's before David ever got there!
When I headed back to Marble Arch at 20 minutes to 12, I went on the tube alone for the first time ever from Oxford Circus to Marble Arch (too lazy to walk) and when I got off the train and back where there's reception, I saw a text from David telling me he'll be there in 25 minutes. So I went to the nearest book shop to browse (proudly, I did not buy anything at that point).

When David finally showed up, we went to KFC to get the poor kid some lunch (which was the only thing he ate that day as far as I'm aware) and headed into Hyde Park for "Winter Wonderland". We went on a big-ass Ferris wheel and had a splendid view of the park. It cost us 7 quid each and we had 4 full spins. In quick math we figured we're not very good in quick math. Heh. After that we went wandering around the Winter Wonderland area and encountered a molesting Santa Claus (molesting his reindeer), a lot of German beer, cheese bagels and a lot of cool stuff offered on sale, including a pimp-hat for David and some ugly sweaters which he said he would wear. Brits, go figure. I also gave him the present I got him, 2 "Where's Wally?" books (regular one and one in Hollywood) in Hebrew, he collects them in many different languages (well not many but he's working on it). He already knew where Wally was in each picture!
Winter Wonderland also had an ice-skating rink, a slides area, flying chairs and elastic bands that sends you zooming into the air and back down and repeat.
After Winter Wonderland, we went wandering around department stores, looking at toys and Christmas stuff. Then, there was Elmo. A cute Elmo robot that talked and sang and danced like it was nobody's business. He told David he was his best friend and giggled. Eeeee! I WANT HIM!


Elmo - The Movie.




Some more snaps from our department store fun.


We went to McDonalds for lunch. I had the Chicken Select which we also have here, but also had Cheese Melt Wedges off the festive menu. It went with onion-and-something-else sauce and it was amazingly tastey. David had a strawberry milkshake. We sat at McDonalds for a while, just resting from the long day and getting ready for a long evening. We then went and dropped off my bag at the hotel because I didn't want to drag it all the way to the concert that night, and headed to John Lewis again to get gloves for David. As soon as he bought them, he never took them off!

We headed off on the Victoria tube line to Wembley Park station, glancing at random people on the train and guessing which of them are heading for the McFly concert. We were fairly accurate in our assessment.
When we got off, a brisk walk was all it took to get to the arena. It looked marvelous with colorful lights and a fountain. We went to the box office and got our tickets and then headed off inside.
Wembley looked smaller than I thought it'd be, but it was still wonderful and surreal being in there. Standing was not as crowded as I feared it would be and we managed to be pretty close without having to dive into the moshpit.
We saw Fletch (Matthew Fletcher, manager of McFly) coming out of the backstage area (we were right near the entrance, on Dougie's side) several times - at one point he even blocked David's view of Reemer, the support act. We also saw Tommy Jay (Smith, tour manager of McFly) a few times, he even bumped into me at some point.
We said hello to David's friend (Laura I think her name was) and saw Sophie, Alex and Sophie and Sophie's brother, as well as Carmen, Alex's friend. Carmen is totally awesome and a whole load of fun.
Avenue were the first of the support acts, they sucked and sang the song "Can You Feel It" previously done by V. Speaking of V, Ant from V was one of McFly's backup singers and got a chance to shine during McFly's set when they did a cover of Michael Jackson's "Black & White" and he rapped away as Danny was going from the B-stage back to the main stage. But more on that later.
Reemer were up next. They were better - their singer was quite the lively little thing and he had a thing for the guitar player, he kept throwing himself all over the guitarist. It was cute. They were decent, I actually enjoyed their set.
While waiting for the show to start, they put videos on the screen. Whenever McFly's logo came on the screen, people started screaming. They also screamed when an advert for the "Camp Rock" DVD came on (Jonas Brothers) and when some Beyonce video was on. Teenyboppers, go figure.
McFly were... brilliant. Dougie pretty much made my night. He looked incredibly handsome and adorable. He jumped around, he joked around (Tom: "I have an announcement to make" Dougie: "HE'S GAY!" Tom: "Apart from that..."), he cut off Harry ("Dougie, I'm not finished!" so dirty) introduced us to his new blue bass ("Benjamin, he's my favorite!" mine too, Doug) and rocked out. Danny was also surprisingly handsome in real life, and really pulled off "Black & White" all on his own and instrument-free. Tom was all hair rocking hard on his guitar and Harry was funny as ever, making fun of Danny for getting the text thing for Do Ya live wrong.
They played most of Radio:ACTIVE (not in order: "Lies", "One For The Radio", "Everybody Knows", "Do Ya", "Falling In Love", "POV", "Corrupted", "Going Through The Motions" and "The Last Song"), as well as "5 Colours In Her Hair" to wrap up the night, "Room On The 3rd Floor" (BEAUTIFUL!), "That Girl" and "Obviously" off the first album, "All About You" off Wonderland, and "Transylvania" and "Star Girl" (while flying on their flying stage) from Motion In The Ocean.
I had a good time singing along, attempting to take pictures and just smiling and laughing at the boys being random on stage. Dougie took liberty with his water bottle and splashed some at the audience. He then sprayed the audience with water from his mouth - gross! Dougie spit! When the audience sprayed Danny with water during 5 Colours, he looked shocked and mouthed "MOTHER FUCKER!" at them!
Fortunately, the entire show was filmed for the DVD, so I'll get to relive it. It was an awesome show and the boys were on top form. THANK YOU MCFLY! For making it worth it all. I just might have to do this whole thing again.

After the show we rushed over to the tube (with me nearly losing one of my gloves and paying way too much for a water bottle) not before buying a tour book (I asked David to "be tall" and go over the crowds and buy it, he ended up getting one for himself as well) and getting our tickets back as they were taken from us at the entrance (we got an ugly pink blood-flow-blocking bracelet instead). David and Carmen walked me to my hotel room and David grabbed his stuff that he left there (fake snow! Woo! And his Where's Wally? books) and we said our awkward goodbyes and off they went, leaving me exhausted yet again.

Nov 28th.
This was my real chance to prove that I'm a real grown up, all on my own in London. After watching some more GMTV and getting dressed and ready, I headed to McDonalds for that Egg, sausage and cheese bagel (as pictured above) and then to The London Dungeon where the guy at the entrance called out "we have a suicider here!" upon discovering I was in fact alone there and then I took part of the tour of the Dungeon, which proved to be a lot of fun with live actors and a chance to learn about Jack The Ripper and sit in Sweeney Todd's barber shop! There was also a ride I wouldn't normally go on, on which we sat in chairs strapped tight and it took us upwards where we saw a woman pull on a lever which sent us diving down really fast. I actually flew up in my chair, scared the crap outta me. But it was a lot of fun! The gift shop was also full of all sorts of cool neat (overpriced) stuff, I had a fun time prowling there.
After that I went across the street where a man gave me a 5 quid off discount cupon for the London Bridge Exhibition and pointed me in the right direction so I went there, got a ticket and had to wait a while for more folks to arrive. When there were about 10 of us (far less than the Dungeon tour that was a big group) we were taken in by a pretty cute actor who was the butler of the man who designed the bridge. We then met an actress who spoke in a funny accent and was a viking and another who was a chavvy lady from back in the days and was pretty funny. Learned a lot about the bridge but it wasn't really scary, just awkward at times (I'll admit, I kept being worried the actors would pick on me and put me on the spot... I'm an observer, not a participator). After that, a bald creepy guy dressed in normal London Exhibition tour uniform "tempted" us to go to the London Tombs, where we wore a helmet and shiny yellow vest and went into the tour in total and utter darkness where more live actors did mostly jumping at us and screaming in our direction. What made it creepy is the still darkness in which you couldn't see a damn thing. It did have a feature called "the great squeeze" in which you had to squeeze your way in a tight area (like massive poofy things you had to squeeze between), could get a bit claustrophobic.
After that, I went into an exhibition room there that had some more info on the bridge (everything we learned on the tour just in an extended version) and looked through the (again overpriced) gift shop and ended up deciding to head off to Leicester Square where, after getting a bit lost, I finally found the square but after going round it once and looking around, I decided to move on and walk to Covent Garden. There, I looked for the HMV forever till eventually giving up and texting David for help. As soon as I hit send on the message, I looked up and saw the HMV!! He did send me a very descriptive text so if I hadn't found it, I would've with his instructions. Longest text I ever got. Well, disappointment it was cause they didn't sell singles and I really went there looking for McFly's Children In Need single, "Do Ya" (HMV are supposed to sell CD1 & the DVD single while other stores only sold CD1). On my way out I found a shop selling t-shirts and hoodies with awesome prints on them so I got a "Spider Pig" shirt for my friend Maya who specifically asked for "a cool t-shirt", and a Cookie Monster t-shirt. Behold the image.

I also had lunch at the Covent Garden area McDonalds, which was a weird one as it hardly had any seats, it was mostly takeaway. Again, I disappointed with a predictable McNuggets but I was too cold and wet to be experimental.
After leaving Covent Garden (I did walk around it a bit browsing but most stuff were uninteresting and overpriced) I headed on a quest for McFly singles. So I went to Piccadilly Circus. When I got there, a girl was picking up a copy and left just one CD1 on the shelf. I was supposed to get 2 of each, one set for Shirley from my McFly forum, so I went to ask the HMV staff about the singles. The guy there told me the only place that had the DVDs in London close to us was Islington and showed me that on the tube map. He also said CD1 can be found in Oxford Circus (I've looked for that store the next day, didn't find it). So I bought a copy of "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire for 5 quid (not bad!) and left the store without getting that one copy of Do Ya CD1.
In the stupidest move in the history of EVER, I took the tube to Islington. I took the Victoria line, which sucked, to the Islington station, which sucked even more. It was dark by the time I got there and there were mostly foreigners on the streets and none of them even knew what HMV was let alone could direct me there. I've decided it was not worth it getting lost in Islington for McFly so I headed right back to Marble Arch where I collapsed, exhausted on my bed at the hotel. After resting and recovering and watching some shit telly, I went to get McDonalds for dinner. I got the same as I did the evening before - Chicken Select, fries, Cheese Melt Wedges and coca cola. They didn't give me a bag for my cola like they do here but with gloves on, I didn't mind carrying it. On my way back I've met Danny, one of the workers of the hotel, that helped me earlier with locking my door. He asked if he could have McDonalds with me. How cute. I told him there's not enough food to go around. Awww.
So I sat at my hotel room, had McDonalds, watched the news and caught up on the news of the terrorist attack in Mumbai (been a bit cut off from news these last few days) and then watched "A Question of Sports" some. I also watched some Paul O'Grady with the Sugababes as guests. Fortunately, I missed their performance.
I wrapped up the evening by reading "Wicked" till I got too tired to carry on, and went to sleep.

Nov 29th.
Bit of a sad day as it was my last. I got ready slowly, watching TMi (God that show is getting worse and worse... Sam & Mark did a "I'm A TMi Presenter, GET ME OUT OF HERE!" game) and packing my stuff, sorting through the room. Checked out at 20 minutes to 11am, so missed breakfast at McDonalds all together. Oh well.
Decided to head to Westminster Abby. The line to get my tube ticket that day was ridiculously long and frustrating but I braved through it. As I got there and got off the tube (had to take the circle line there because Jubilee in that area was closed for the weekend) I felt the utter freeze of being by the river Thames. I went into a Tesco's simply because I've never been in one (again my strange fascination with supermarkets) and then headed off flowing the mass flock of tourists to the Abby. On my way there, I could also see the Parliament and the Big Ben, not to mention a view of the river and some of the London Eye.

Some snaps of the Abby taken as I got there and while waiting in line to get in.

There were no cameras allowed inside but I assure you, the Abby looks spectacular from inside. So much history in there - graves of many kings and queens of England, the crowning chair (that has been collecting dust for a while, waiting for Prince Charles to finally have a stab at Kingness) and incredible works of art, with great attention to details. Like most big impressive churches, this one has lived up to the expectations of being marvelous. There was also a minute's prayer on the hour, every hour. I was there to one of them and it was so beautiful it made me tear up and choke, and I pride myself in being a none-believer! But it wasn't a preaching kind of prayer, more of a universal sort of sermon that speaks to everyone, no matter what their religion is or what they believe in.
After leaving the Abby, I decided to head for the British Museum for the Babylon exhibition. I didn't know exactly where to head but as if someone was watching me, I started receiving signs. As I walked into the tube from Westminster Abby, I saw a poster advertising the exhibition that said which stations to get off at! For some strange reason I decided, out of all the stops given, to get off at Holborn. I got outside and lo and behold, a McDonalds! A black one, which was strange, but in there I had a Chicken Delight I believe it was called, which really was delightful (here's me experimenting with new stuff on the menu) and after my well filling feast, I headed outside to see a Sainsbury's. Another sign, I thought, so I headed inside to see what the big deal about Sainsbury's is. I couldn't find it, but I did have a good time observing yet another supermarket (I'm deranged, I know) and getting some cute elf Cadbury's chocolate with popping candy inside.
After that I headed outside in search of the museum. I eventually found it. It was massive and beautiful and awe-strucking. I got inside only to be disappointed to learn they were only selling tickets for 4:10pm, which was too late for me considering I had to take the tube from Marble Arch at 6pm to get to Heathrow. So I ended up walking around the free areas of the museum, looking at mummys (Cleopatra herself was there... she was short), the Islam room (boring) and the Mayan culture room in there I met this friend:

And smack down below him, was this weird mask:

Under it, it said it's called "Ron Mueck Mask II". It was very life-like, it had actual stubble!

When I got bored of the museum, I decided to go back to Oxford and have one last wander around Oxford street. I got off at Oxford Circus under the intention of walking my way back to Marble Arch, but got into Regent for a while instead. The streets were PACKED with people. It was Saturday afternoon in Christmas-shopping season and there were people everywhere. Could hardly move. This is why I had a hard time properly looking for the HMV even though I knew I was in the right place.
At Regent, I attempted to get into Hamleys but again, it was so packed I gave up after a quick browse of the first floor, but I did get into the Apple store on Regent, which was very purdy with many MacBooks around for me to drool over. And drool I did.
Before leaving Regent street, I took time to marvel at the Regent Street lights (as turned on by McFly) and took some snaps on my phone.

After that I got back onto Oxford and worked my way back to Marble Arch, getting into John Lewis again to buy some cool socks I saw while there with David the other day (luckily for me, I got a 10p off discount on each of the pairs - got a pair for myself and both my sisters, three different pattens and I let them choose which they wanted). At HMV I got McFly's "Motion In The Ocean" album, as well as a "Where's Bin Laden?" book I've seen all voer London. It's a fun "Where's Wally?" sort of book, just with Bin Laden.
I then went into a book store and went book crazy. I've picked up "Lullaby" and "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk, "Lord of The Flies" and Westlife's autobiography "Westlife - Our Story". Since none of them were on sale, I managed to score a 20% off on full-priced books cupon and lower down the costs.
I got back to my hotel at Marble Arch, sat and rested in the lobby for a bit and then got my luggage and headed to the tube for a train to the airport. Took the Central line to Holborn and then hopped on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow. That was a long and tiring trip...

The security at the airport was somewhat absurd. After going through the El-Al team's security checks (the routine questions, the routine bag checks) I was told by the dude at the tickets place I am getting an aisle seat because he doesn't have window ones left, but that there won't be anyone in the middle seat, so that was a bit encouraging. After giving him my bags I went on to the physical security check where they made me take off my coat, put my stuff in a box and take off my shoes (that's new). When the grueling security tests were over, I headed into the duty free area. First thing I did was look for fast food joints. There weren't any. When a security lady confirmed there aren't any, I went into one of the restaurants at the airport only to find out they were too rich for my blood (after my book store adventure, I was left with only 20 quid) so I went into a store that sells freshly-made sandwiches and bought a sandwich and a coke. I took out all my small change and paid with that - just that I was missing something like 7p but the guy at the store let me have it for what I had. So I thanked him and went to find a place to sit and eat my dinner.
After I was done eating (avocado & chicken sandwich) I went into the WH Smiths book store at the airport and ended up buying 3 more books (got to chatting to one of the store workers and she recommended one book and I got a third one... eventually I got the first book at half price and a 3.5 quid off the other 2 because they were promotional priced books so it turned out I bought 3 books for the price of one in Israel) and with the 5 quid I had left, I went into the magazine WH Smiths and bought 2 cheesy teen mags for my little sister. With the change left from that, I went to the sandwich guy again and gave him all that was left - 72p. A bit more than what I owed him (and he never asked me to come back with the money) but I figured he can have it for a tip or something for being so nice to me. I had no use for 72p anyway.
After that it was off on the longest journey ever to the very last gate (65 I think it was) where El-Al security closed off the area and did some more passport checks on the way into the gate area. After that we waited some and boarded the plane.
The flight was unpleasant. It was cold, I could hardly sleep, it felt like it lasted forever and there were 3 morons that kept talking through half the flight. Well one of them did most of the talking, one was the "leader" sort of fella so he replied, and one ignored them both. Eventually they all fell asleep though so I had some peace and quiet and managed to sleep for a little bit.
When we landed, I practically ran through passport check, collecting my duty free shopping and getting my luggage (the Brits broke my suitcase! Fortunately it was just the holding handle). I was supposed to get the train back to Tel Aviv and get a taxi from there - would be cheaper - but I was so damn tired I just took a taxi from the airport, which was only 85 shekels instead of the 120 assessment my mother made so that was good. We pulled up back home around 6am just as the bus came up the street getting annoyed with the taxi for delaying it. Woops.
Got home, my little sister woke up to greet me. I gave her all her presents - the chocolates from the duty free, the Friends calendar, the socks from John Lewis, the Christmas candies, the teen mags - she loved them all! Think for a moment there I was the coolest sister ever. When my other sister, Lior, woke up - I gave her the things I got for her and she was also grateful (though still dazed and half asleep) and eventually after sorting through my stuff (couldn't go to sleep in that mess) I went to sleep at around 8am as Sharon went to school, Lior left to the army with dad giving her a lift on his way to work and mum going to work.

Dec 3rd.
The big day - Simple Plan playing a show at Hangar 11 in Tel Aviv! Mostly it was just another dull day at work, expect for Stalin coming to town and me having to deal with the pain caused by that (2 advil issued by my boss did the trick). When I left work, I ran off home, got ready and left to Tel Aviv Harbor with my sister. Between walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, riding it all the way to the last stop, and finding our way to the Hangar - it took us an hour to get there. When we found our way there, we got the tickets (not before the lame girls giving the tickets accused me of being too young for a credit card and that my credit card is after my mum's name. Who is called Sylvia. Israeli tramps, go figure), went and found a bathroom to use (we tried to go to Aroma but there was a massive line so we went into a sports store and the nice guy at the counter let me use the workers' toilets) and went and grabbed a sandwich at Aroma before the show.
We then went to the entrance line where millions (okay, only a couple hundreds) of people were already waiting at around 7:30pm. Which was strange as gates were supposed to be opened at 6pm. It turned out they closed the gates after it got a little "murder-in-the-mosh" inside and didn't open them again till after the support act ("Got No Shame", never heard of them). There was a stupid policeman outside yelling at us to get out of the line and onto the other side of the road. Eventually people listened, but I told Sharon (little sis) that we're not going anywhere, we just got us all the way to the front of the line. The cop went about his screaming and the show security told us the police "closed the event" and wouldn't say if they're actually planning on opening it again to let us in, which led to much anger and frustration.
Eventually, they opened the gates again and after much pushing and shoving and me falling against a barricade and blocking my sister's fall at that, we got inside... no, sorry, RAN inside. We made our way around till we found a place in which we had a decent view of the stage and stayed in that area, moving throughout the show to better our view all the time.
Simple Plan were FANTASTIC! Their bass player, David, wasn't there due to family emergency so the guitar player Seb played bass instead, and they played just the four of them. They played the following songs: "Generation" (opening the show), "Take My Hand", "Shut Up", "Jump", "When I'm Gone", "Addicted", "The End", "Me Against The World", "Your Love Is A Lie", "Time To Say Goodbye" (which they eventually changed to "time for me to say SHALOM!"), "Save You", a song about Israel ("Izrael... where the girls are pretty"), "Promise", a dance-songs medley (with "Low", "I Kissed A Girl" and another song I didn't recognize), "Welcome To My Life", "I'd Do Anything", "Untitled" (which Pierre sang on a b-stage at the back of the arena), "I'm Just A Kid" and "Perfect".
The show consisted of a lot of jumping, dancing, singing along and pumping my fist in the air and screaming like a maniac as Hayley from Paramore would put it. Sharon and I had a fantastic time. Especially with all of Pierre's attempts at Hebrew. He said there are "Banot yafot" (beautiful girls) in the audience, that "Ben zona poh halilah" (son of a bitch here tonight), "toda raba" (thank you very much), "shalom" (hello) and other bits and bobs. All in all they were charming, adorable, energetic and put on a great fun show.
Some fan videos of the good moments can be found on youtube: Israel song, Ben Zona Poh Halilah & Perfect, Doing "The Fergie".

Dec 4th.
It started out as just another work day when a pigeon flew into my mum's part of the office. She came into the room my boss and I sit at and went "I have a pigeon in my office, what do I do?" so I got up to shoo the bird away and it just wouldn't fly! It ran off to the filing room where I snapped a picture of the poor bird.

My boss Avital went hiding in her brother Avi's office "the only room with a door" she reasoned. She was living in some paranoia that this is going to be a Hitchcock movie and the bird would attack her. So Avi and I cornered the pigeon with two cardboard boxes and set her free. The whole ordeal didn't end with that, because Avi made a run into his office with the boxes and gave out a screetch as if he was setting the pigeon free in his office and at Avital - she bought it and gave out the mother of all screams. Freakin' hilarious how grown ups behave, it's as if I never left the army.
Then a bit later, one of our costumers called and started talking English to me. Knowing we do have costumers that can't speak Hebrew, I went along with it but picked up on his accent pretty quickly that he's Israeli :P So eventually I went "can you talk Hebrew and you're just making fun of me?" :P He was. He was trying to wind me up, problem is I can speak English better than anyone else in that office (I've heard my boss in action, that confirmed the matter) so he chose the wrong person to pick on. NER!

That is all the catching up, PHEW! It took me two days to write this blog, can you believe it? At present I am ill with a runny nose and a lot of sneezes and the general feeling of blah. Hopefully this improves. Oh, and I just spilled some M&M's on the floor. I wish I cleaned the floor earlier, that way I might've still been able to eat them :( I did not, however, so to the bin they go :(