Where's Oisin? *When*'s Oisin?

This is absolutely sweet, because I have just created a TIME MACHINE! No stupid 88 miles per hour for me, no moon splitting in half, no Borg to pansy up my day, no more running from Skynet and no more relying on my sonic screwdriver! (Uber nerd points if you get all of those references. But in advance: Andrea, watch more movies.) You see, I wrote a blog IN THE PAST . . . and have written and published a blog SINCE THEN . . . so what you are seeing is chronologically out of order, but still chronicles a recent trip of mine to the motherland. So break out the tea and crumpets, the Skips, the Monster Munch, the iced rolls and the urgent need for dentists (my grandfather would be rolling around in his grave if he knew how much coffee I drank . . . although it’s not real coffee from what the Italians tell me, so maybe he won’t roll so much as wobble) . . . it’s time for Huey Lewis!

‘That’s the power of love!’

Wrong song, lame-o. Maybe even the wrong band. Anyway . . .

I’m back, and fucking exhausted. On Tuesday I returned from uni and had a 2 hour nap, as I knew the next day or so would suck for sleep. And I was right. I left the house at 23.45, caught the last train, then the last metro to the airport, as the first metro starts up between 6 and 6.30, but my flight was at 6.30, so Spanish transport effeciency is, shall we say . . . on par with England’s (if I had known that at the time of booking tickets, sigh). There were a lot of all-nighter’s there, and so I bummed around reading a newspaper and doing a sudoku and staring off into space. But I was uber-pissed off with Ryanair when they charged me €10 to check in, even though I had done it online and wasn’t able to print out the piece of paper. I had to deal with that bullshit and try checking in again, but there was a snag. It went like this: checked in online, checked in at the counter, told to pay the office, paid the office, checked in for a third time at the counter, but because I was now checked in twice already and trying to do it a third time the computer and security were putting up a hissy fit. The first time at the counter I had to flirt with the gay guy, only to find that he wasn’t gay. Luckily I found a girl who was willing to smile at 5.30 in the morning and I got my flirt on. Still shy of €10, though.

We had a queen on the plane. He was on the announcer every 10 minutes giving us updates and trying to keep us company. Thanks, but at 6.30 in the morning, if you’re trying to keep me company then you better be wearing a dress and doing a striptease.

I arrived in London and jumped on a bus, didn’t sleep, panicked that the bus was late and that my connecting bus would leave, and through some luck the 55 minute delay was only a 25 minute delay, and I got to my bus with 5 min to spare. I arrived into Oxford 20 minutes early and waited for Elena, which now makes this COUNTRY NUMBER 5. For a non-family member, she’s tied with Olympia (Japan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia), but as Olympia and I were travelling together, it’s questionable if that counts on the same level. Not sure.

Oh yeah, why I’m in England: A while ago I was scrolling through the ryanair website and came across FREE tickets to England, with only €10 taxes each direction. And with Elena saying that I could crash at her place, it seemed like a perfect getaway, full of sun, scenary and sexy foreign accents. I did find 10 pounds on the bus, which helped for the €10 lost.

Elena showed me around the tiny city, which is basically the university (many colleges and no dedicated campus, and I got to see Harry Potter’s Great Hall (or where they film it, and I should’ve put something about a time-turner in my opening paragraph, to create a link, but didn’t think of that until now, but if I wrote this in the past, before my first paragraph, then . . . fuck! I should’ve put in something from Austin Powers!)) and the shops and restaurants there to keep the students alive. We caught up alot, and it was good to see a friend again and have a decent chat, as most of my life here is in Spanish where I’m not able to communicate as well as I’d like. We had pizza and were not kicked out of the restaurant when we had finished.

Must say, the English are nuts. In particular, the girls. It’s the middle of November and they’re wearing *very* short skirts, sometimes without stockings, and the only word that pops into my head is ‘respect’, because it’s difficult thinking straight in that weather.

I made it through 37 hours awake (aside from that 2 hour nap, which I’m not exactly counting, because I was partially conscious through most of it), and finally crashed out, sleeping for 12 hours, which didn’t bother Elena as she had things to do the next day and I woke up just as she was coming back home. The weather Wednesday was fantastic for England in November, but Thursday was disasterous, and we didn’t feel like going anywhere in the rain, except to the shops where I got my iced rolls, hula hoops, marmite, skips, etc, and then we went to a burger place which was great! We were asked by some guys for spare change so that they could get a hostel, and I said the weirdest thing you could say in an English accent: "sorry, I’m from Spain."

We then plunked ourselves down on the sofas and chatted for 6 hours straight until 1.30 snuck up on us, and my bus left at 2. So we dashed for the camera and took two bad photos, and then headed off where I’d have to do another all-nighter. Yeah, transport efficiency. I was in England for two nights, one of which was spent on a bus.

The bus trip lasted 1.20 hours and I was stuck at Heathrow’s bus terminal which was freezing. The benches were metallic and cold, and there were a dozen doors, half of which were fixed open, and there was nothing to do but wait for 2 hours and 20 minutes. As I was strolling around I accidentally caught a young woman peeing in a quiet area because they had blocked off the toilets, but I didn’t realise she was there until she stood and pulled her pants up, and yet I was close enough to almost touch her (that would’ve made a more interesting story, along with bruises and why I was still in England and in jail). I jumped on the next bus and passed out, and miraculously opened my eyes to find that we had stopped at my airport. There was no announcement, and I didn’t even feel the bus come to a stop. I just looked up and realised where I was and quickly left, wondering what might have happened if I had still been asleep.

And then I waited some more. There was an automated checkin thing which bumped me around, and I feared that I’d be charged checkin again but because there was a system fault they just gave me my boarding card and I was sweet. By now I had been up and about for 19 hours with 45 minutes of dozzing on the bus. And then I couldn’t believe it....the FUCKERS CONFISCATED MY MARMITE! (Insert airport security rant here). It wasn’t even open and they took it. Fuckers.

Plane – didn’t sleep. Very tired, uneventful except for the guy wearing a dress who was trying to do a striptease so that he could sell scratchies (this may contradict an earlier paragraph, but this was 8.30 in the morning, not 6.30 – big difference), got home at 1pm, awake for 24 hours again and promptly crashed for a few hours. There was a social thing Friday evening, but like hell was I going.

I am now thinking about the Trans-Siberian railway.

All in all, from Tuesday 8am until Saturday 2am (90 hours in total), I slept for 19 hours.

But at least my next couple of trips won’t require stupid hours of travelling. I will next find myself on a plane this Thursday.