a.k.a. England 2011
Before a take off I have the most terrible things in my head that can happen to the plane and the passangers. I usually travel on economy class where you can sit wherever you like. How are they supposed to indentify your burned corpse after a plane crash? (I know, I probably watch too much CSI.)
But anyway, the flight was okay, I got there in one piece, despite the fact that a woman's knee was in my back most of the time during the 2 and a half hour journey, but I thought she doesn't need some bloody Hungarian to tell her off already at the begining of her holiday, so I kept my mouth shut - which is a really, really big improvement.
After I caught the shuttle bus to Luton Airport Parkway Station, I "invaded" the train and the Tube to get to Shenfield. With London on my shoulders and a really heavy suitecase in my hands, it only took about 1 and a half hour to get to Shenfield and then to Hutton.
I was staying at the Bridge Residence as usual, and I was lucky enough to meet with the newest member of the family! The 6 months old Emily, who sometimes became quite cross when she couldn't roll over, was quite in a good mood when we first met, and she was smiling and giggling most of the time during my stay - especially when she got her bottle of wine [see picture below]. I think after a few days she started to like me and that's an achievement, isn't it? :)
On the first night I met the rest of the Bridges and we had a lovely dinner at Dan's parents place. I was really exhausted after the 2 and a half hour flight and the fact that I only slept about 3-4 hours didn't help much either, so I called it a night quite early, comparing to myself, to be fresh and energetic the next day.
The next day came earlier than I thought. After a quick breakfast with tea, we headed off to Mountfitchet Castle in Stansted. It was a fun day, I especially enjoyed the toy museum, where at last I saw a life-size TARDIS and a few characters of Doctor Who (except The Doctor himself, sadly), Star Wars and even the most horrible wax figures of The Zom-Beatles.
I also loved the Hauted Manor part, which gave me the creeps and I know I wanted to see it in the first place, yet I was shit scared :) Thank god Mel was there! :) But it also gave me some great ideas for my next Halloween party. Muhahahahaaa.. :)
We spent some time in the reconstructed Norman Village and disgusting birds were after us all the time! Look at that poor fella from the title...
I spent the evening at Phoenix FM first on Paul's show where
Jonny Cola and the A Grades were performing an acoustic set, later I presented some gibberish songs on Dan's birthday show.
The next day we went to Chelmsford. The city centre with the pedestrian street was really lovely. There was even a market and among many other things, they were selling English starberries! How unusual! :)
After the quick visit we attended the Chelmsford Beer Festival! It was great to see the Essexians in their natural habitat :) The couple of brewers I tried were kind of all right - the first cider I had was from Essex, and it was a bit below average. Sadly, Dan doesn't drink, and Mel is stil breastfeeding, so I was on my own when it came to drinking and that was a bit depressing. As my dad says: never drink alone! Amen. :)
The highlight of my trip was most definitely on Saturday, when we headed off to Hammersmith, London to see the mighty
Dylan Moran live at the Apollo Theatre, which is a lovely old venue. Thanks to the terrible Tube delays, we missed about 25 minutes of the first half of the show. It was quite weird when we arrived in the middle of his stand up - I had to concentrate really hard to get a glimpse what the hell he was talking about, but after a couple of minutes it was okay.
The show was really funny, although it wasn't as mind blowing as I've expected. I found that this drunken Irishman only rethought a couple of his jokes but the base were the same - his family life, and the "terrbile" things that come with it. In the second half you could sense that this was the last show of the tour. The audience was a bit too interactive and Dylan got distracted a few times, (especially when somebody asked the size of his cock) and when he sat down to check his notes with "jokes he never wanted to tell" I felt that he just wanted to get over with it really and "buy a ham and leave it in a lift". :)
I try not to be as sentimental as I usually am, but the more often I visit the UK, the more I feel the urge of moving there. And it's not only because my perverted attraction to Englishmen - obviously it has something to do with that too - but because I love the accents, the weather, the fact that the picture in my head of old fashioned, grumpy, tall men actually exist, or that people don't look weird when I ask for a cup of tea with milk in it. Hundreds of tiny, seemingly unimportant things that make you feel better, when you get out of the misery that Hungary usually means to me. How patriotic, eh? :)
Well, in spite of all this, believe it or not I'm a proud Hungarian but I'm not proud of most of my fellow citizens. We have such a terrible mentality towards basically everything, that it's a miracle that we haven't died of self-pity and envy ages ago.
Oh, this is really turning into a typical daily whining of a Hungarian, so I better finish now. :)
Visit the UK, you will fall in love. ;)
