It tastes like grass.

Being home is WEIRD.

Well, I actually haven't gone home yet. I am still at my parents' house and plan to go to my house later today, when I have finished doing my laundry and pulled myself out of bed.

Last night I fell asleep at 9 pm and today I woke up at 6 am. Jet lag is annoying.


Where did i leave off in my blogging.. hmm..

Right, so Monday morning I woke up in Johnny's hotel room in Camden, with Emma already long gone to get to her classes on time. Johnny and I headed over to the Marylebone station around noon so I could meet with Alex Hinksman, who is a friend of mine that I met through Luke Conard, since Alex helped out quite a bit with ALL CAPS and Spattergroit and is pretty much just a great person in general. We all then went to Barbican where we met Emma again for her lunch break and I got to experience Pizza Express.

Emma had to return to school and the two boys and I decided the adventure for the day would be Madame Tussaud's wax museum. We were bothered right away by how expensive it was (even using these 2-for-1 coupons I had!) but literally 5 minutes inside the doors we decided it was completely worth it. The wax sculptures were AMAZING. We spent all day taking photos with "celebrities", we got to sit inside the Big Brother interview room and talk to a voice who asked us questions and gave us challenges, and waited in line for the more "popular" celebrities, like Zac Efron, Michael Jackson, and Obama. xD

There was this scary part where we had to walk through a haunted house of sorts where real actors were inside jumping and snarling at us.. I warned the guys that am really, really wimpy and can't even walk through the Haunted Houses they make around Halloween time (the ones here sponsored by radio stations and stuff), but they were like "Kristina come on, it won't be that bad!"

…it was that bad.

I distinctly remember hearing both Johnny and Alex saying "This is really horrible. This is actually terrible," as we made our way through; I sandwiched myself between them and remember linking arms with Johnny and holding on to Alex's hand with a death grip. It was so, so scary. I can't even - WHY would they build that? Why would people walk through it? Never again. Traumatized. I'm not exaggerating.

Then the museum ended with an actual ride, in cars on a track like the ones at Disneyland for Peter Pan and Pinnochio and stuff. We sat in cars shaped like London taxis and got a history of Great Britain, about the plague and the Victorian era and everything, and since it was nearing my last day in the UK and I was trying to seep up as much British culture as I could before returning home, I really enjoyed it.

Then we met with Emma again, had dinner at an all you can eat Chinese buffet, and at this point Johnny left us to go work on Hat Trick things. The three of us remaining headed in to Covent Gardens to hang out in a pub and meet up with Chloe from "A Basilisk in Your Pasta". She was so fun! We had drinks and chatted for awhile, took a few pictures… it's always fun to meet someone from a fellow Wizard Rock band, especially one from another country!

That night I went back to Rosi's, where we watched 5-6 episodes of Gossip Girl from last season and chatted and I was able to have a casual, relaxing last evening in London. It was nice, and incredibly bittersweet.

Tuesday morning I woke up early, I showered (well, Rosi's shower is broken so I kind of shoved my head under the bath faucet and did the best I could) and then she took me to Kingston where I did some last minute shopping at Primark and Topshop and my other favorite store, Miso (or maybe it's called Republic, I can't remember now). I bought about 20 pounds worth of British candy (and Millennium shortbread, thank you blog readers for tipping me off about that!) to take home and either share with people or hoard all to myself, I haven't decided yet.

Then we went back to Rosi's town, meet up with Emma, and had the most fun at Vodka Revolutions that we possibly could have. We had 2-for-1 vouchers so we bought cocktails and pitchers (and more cocktails and pitchers) and we had a very proper leaving celebration (for me, but Rosi leaves for Exeter soon and Emma just started at Conti, so we're all starting new chapters of our lives). I am going to miss those two girls so much.

Emma took the bus with me over to Heathrow where we were going to just stay up until my flight the next morning (6:30 am) but we ended up sleeping in Starbucks for about 2 hours. Emma and I had a weepy and teary goodbye, and I started my journey home.

I barely remember even going to Amsterdam Schipol, but I hardly slept on the direct flight from there to Seattle. I had the little individual screen to watch movies (thank goodness) so I watched Adventureland (weird movie) and part of Monsters vs. Aliens (until I got bored) and then I watched a pretty good movie called Sunshine Cleaning or something about two sisters who clean up after crime scenes.

I cried when I saw my mom and dad. it was so overwhelming, being back at SeaTac, having someone to carry my bags for me for once, them taking me immediately to Denny's and buying me whatever I wanted, giving me the hugs I know they've been dying to give me for over a month now… it was so good to see them. My mom took me to Jamba Juice on the way home too.

I secretly made fun of the woman in front of us for ordering a wheatgrass shot to my mom… so when we got up to order and I said my usual "I'll have a Peach Pleasure", my mom threw in, "and a wheatgrass shot, please."

She drank it, looked at me and said, "It tastes like grass."

"I don't really know what you were expecting," I replied.


I'll continue on later. Being home so far has been fun. Weird and disorienting, but a lot more comfortable and a lot less lonely than I anticipated.