San Francisco Catch-Up!

So it’s now been a week since we arrived back in the country, and we still haven’t posted anything about what we got up to in San Francisco. Because we were packing in so much touristing in those few days, we didn’t get around to updating while we were there, so I’m going to do it now instead – as briefly as possible without forgetting anything important, hopefully!

Tuesday started with a fairly successful attempt to get out of the hostel for around 9am, and after a quick check with reception that our directions were correct, we headed off to buy a 3-day transport card and hop on the F Train to Pier 33 to visit Alcatraz. We were there around 10.10, and boarding for our scheduled trip (11am) didn’t start until after 10.30 so we grabbed some breakfast from the cafe-slash-gift store, and then waited to be let on. The ferry only took 10-15 minutes, and there was a brief safety/information talk before we were left to explore the island. We spent around 3 hours there, we started off just walking around, getting closer and closer to the top where the Cellhouse was. When we reached the Cellhouse, you’re given headphones and a little gadget, and there’s an audio tour that tells you where to go and what to look at. It was fascinating – some things had been set up specifically for the tour, such as a few cells that had prisoners perform a big escape, leaving fake heads in their beds so that it looked like they were there. The beds had fake heads in them so that we could see what the officers on duty had seen. There were also still marks in the floor from when grenades were dropped down during the Battle of Alcatraz – I really enjoyed the tour!

We got a ferry back around 2pm – the ferries out are booked, but you can return on any one you like – and headed down to Pier 39 for the Aquarium after a massive lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was quite small, but there were still lots of things to look at, including some amazing jellyfish and an awesome shark tunnel with sharks and rays etc. Quinn touched/poked/stroked a bat ray, starfish and a sea cucumber before we headed back to the hostel, absolutely tired out. I tried to watch White Collar but first it was on three hours earlier than I expected, at 6pm, and then when I tried to watch the reair at 9, some kind of circuity-fusey thing blew during the first ad break so I spent ten minutes telling the guy at the desk about it and getting him to have a look – so I missed some. I still picked up where it left off though, I didn’t want to not watch the rest!

Wednesday was another start of around 9am. We stopped for breakfast at a nice little crepe place we’d walked past every day that week – though I was getting a cold so couldn’t taste anything! – and then we went down to Pier 41 and hunted for a bike rental place. We ended up at Bike & Roll, who were all Irish – the perfect people to give our money to! Helmet-ed up, we set off with our bikes for the Golden Gate Bridge and had an amazing nine mile ride (and some walking – there were two big hills!) along the waterfront, over the bridge and back down the other side into Sausalito, where we got a ferry back to return our bikes. After that it was a quick trip on the train back towards the town, and then a Metro trip over to AT&T Park for the baseball game we had tickets for. (Quinn has a list of all the kinds of public transport we used on our trip, there was a lot!)

The game was SF Giants vs Florida Marlins. We did the proper experience and got hot dogs. Our seats were great, they had a wonderful view of the bay/sea as well as the match itself, and the Giants won, though they made hard work of it and took it into a 10th inning. We also got to see a splash hit when the ball went over and into McCovey Cove. There have only been 53 Splash Hits since the park opened ten years ago, so that was special!

We decided to walk back into town, to avoid the crowds on the train because it hadn’t seemed that far. It wasn’t too bad, but we expected to find places to eat on the way. We failed at this, and actually found ourselves taking a table in a restaurant far too fancy for us, with expensive food and nothing we really wanted. We both ended up ordering Caesar salad with jacket potato (me) and onions (Quinn) and it was the cheapest meal of our trip! It didn’t have any meat in it though, so I can’t really count it as a meal. Quinn was super excited though, as it turned out the restaurant had the Maltese Falcon in it, which meant nothing to me but made Quinn freak out like a fangirl so it was worth going in! When we made it back to the hostel, we packed and then crashed into bed!

Thursday involved another 9am start, this time to get the shuttle to the airport for our 12.35pm flight. We landed at LAX on time, after claiming our bags had around 7 hours to kill. Luckily as we’d already checked in online, Virgin were happy for us to do bag drop with our cases at 4pm, even though our flight wasn’t til after 9 that night.

We went to The Encounter restaurant and I had a spicy cheeseburger, which was so spicy it had jalapenos covered in spicy breadcrumbs! I loved it. We also had dessert, since we had plenty of time to kill and it was the last meal we’d order on the trip. Then we headed back over to the airport, went through security and settled ourselves with Quinn’s laptop and some episodes of Glee. The time passed fairly quickly – the fact that there was over an hour delay because the plane had been late arriving in to LA from the previous flight didn’t help though. It was almost 11 by the time we got in the air – this time with seats together – and then Quinn went to sleep, while I had a lovely beef stew and watched The Bounty Hunter. I was determined to watch something this time since it was so much fail on the way out! We landed a bit late and Quinn had a huge rush to make her connection, but she did. I opted for the Heathrow Express this time which was comfortable but expensive and didn’t save me much time, so I won’t do that again. Tube all the way! I checked in to the hostel and then met Tim, Kat and Jaina for a lovely post-holiday drink/trip to Wagamama. Slept all the way to Leeds on the coach on Saturday, and then Dad gave me a lift back home.

My photos are all in this collection, the holiday parts, the Comic Con parts, the lot.

And that’s it! Trip done. Now to planning for SDCC next year, which despite deciding before this trip that I definitely wouldn’t be going, I found myself walking around San Diego going “Yeah, I can’t imagine not being here!”

Holiday Quotes

So, we’re back and we went our separate ways. Toad stayed in London for last night and I flew into Dublin – thankfully not missing my connecting flight.

San Francisco was awesome. I love that city. No end of fantastic buildings and sights! Alcatraz was fantastic and really interesting (I spent a fair bit in the gift shop). And the cycling over the bridge was amazing That was a really good call on Toad’s part! My bum still hurts though. I’m just finishing uploading the pictures that I have left over and then I’m done with all the photos!

So the purpose of this post was a quote list. I’m sure Toad and I will remember more when I post this!

—

“Not an urban myth – Rural myth! With cows and townies!”

“Bing bong, don’t leave yer bags!”

On our approach to LAX:
“We are now beginning our decent into London Heathrow.”

“We have stopped but we haven’t yet reached the stand as LAX doesn’t trust us to taxi to the gate so we’re waiting for a tow.”

“We apologise for the delay but some muppet has parked his truck in our space and gone for a tea break.”

“You don’t need to be entertained! I’m entertaining your face. With my face!”

“Is your key handy?”
“It couldn’t be handier!”
“It could be footier though!”

“My key is pockety.”
“My key is pursey, which is baggy.”

“San Francisco is a great city – you’ll love it there!” – Said by anyone that asked where we are going.

“I want to shout something like: BISHOPTHORPE!”
“Coastliner!”
“A64!”
“Tadcaster!”

Tiny bathroom.

Originally uploaded by vagueonthehow

We are here in San Francisco! After 5 days walking along the corridor to the bathroom, having our own bathroom is luxury! However, it’s tiny and hilarious! So small the toilet roll holder is on the back of the door because there’s nowhere else to put it! Showering without clothes all getting wet will be funny.

The hostel itself is ace! So many amenities and good free internet! Fridge! Microwave! All without leaving the room.

San Diego Airport – Gate Four

So here we are in the airport for our flight out to San Francisco. Free wifi is awesome!

This isn’t a blog post about the flight though but more specifically the security. The line was LONG. Not as long as some of the lines that we’ve been in this weekend but still, very long for an airport security line at least.

We get through ID check with one security officer asking us where we’ve come from WITH A SMILE. Memo to UK airport security workers – smiling doesn’t hurt you know.

Then baggage scanning. I pulled shoes off, jumper off, checked my pockets for change and took the laptop out. What I didn’t anticipate was the squirty bottle of suncream I had left IN my bag.

I was so embarrassed. Really. They scanned and rescanned and then asked me if I had something in there. I couldn’t remember putting any liquid in there at all! I felt so dumb. But the security guy was so nice! All of them were! They let Toad come with me when I had the bag searched and swabbed. He told us he lived in the UK for 18 months while he was in the military. In Newquay. He loved our accents

International incident averted I just want to say that the security guys here in the US are miles better than any of the security I’ve had to deal with in the UK. Manchester, Leeds, London (Gatwick and Heathrow) and I’m sorry to say – Cork! He was chatty, he talked to us, he told me not to be so embarrassed by leaving a bottle as it happens to everyone. He was what every security guy SHOULD be like. Toad then said to him: “If it was in the UK I would have had to leave her. They would have told me to go upstairs and wait!” Then a random guard appeared and said to our friendly one: “Wait, you didn’t send her upstairs to wait?” And we all laughed.

IN CONCLUSION. US Airport security ROCKS.

San Diego Comic Con – Days 2-4

I wrote this in the queue this morning on my phone, which it then ate. So apologies to anybody who saw a title but no post before I managed to delete it earlier.

Friday was a nice lazy day. Quinn and I started the day together, as she mentioned, and then I spent most of the day (well, 4 hours or so) queueing for Scott Pilgrim related things I won’t go into here because these are details to be told to Tim in person! Suffice to say he’s going to be very happy with the amount of Swag I managed to snag for him!

After that amount of queueing, I headed back over to the main center to sit on the floor for a bit. My legs were very sore! When I finally managed to stand up, I went inside to find Quinn and then we toddled off to see Clare Kramer. I haven’t seen Clare since 2007 so it was lovely to get to chat to her again – her line wasn’t busy at all, so we chatted for about ten minutes about England and food and drinks and San Francisco and her kids and all sorts of stuff. It was lovely! After that Quinn and I had a wander up to Horton Plaza to look for some food – I ate from Panda Express and she was still full from her lunch, so just watched me eat.

We went back and got in line for the TV Guide Sci Fi Hot List panel. The line seemed long but as expected, when True Blood’s panel was done Ballroom 20 basically emptied and we got seats about halfway up. First thing I noticed – and I’m still not over the shock – Morena Baccarin’s hair is now WHITE. WHITE. I mean… WHITE!!! Apparently she’ll be dying it back in a few weeks to start shooting for V again though.

After that, we wandered in the general direction of 6A to think about going in for the Eureka screening. It was still an hour away and we were reluctant to go in for the event before, which was some random Klingon thing. Luckily that finished early and we managed to snag good seats. Jaime Paglia, Salli Richardson, James Callis and Wil Wheaton came out to introduce the ep, and then Eric Balfour talked for a moment about Haven which was going to air right after. It was ace watching the episode in a room with so many people who also enjoyed it, and we managed to finish watching it about 25 minutes ahead of the actual West Coast airing.

After that, it was time for bed. I was asleep around 10 and up at 3.30 to get in line for the Chuck panel. I ended up with great seats, almost dead centre in the fifth row. Jeffster dancing to Bad Romance was amazing and it was great to see everybody together again. Yvonne even said more than two words this year! After the Chuck panel the room emptied out, though this time I didn’t even try to get into the signing (good thing – apparently the line had closed before the panel even started) but I did go to lurk around for the Vampire Diaries screening. It became a big scrum and meant standing in the general area for almost 4 hours, but I got in! I fought through a popular WB signing and won my fight! I was very happy. Ian Somerhalder asked where I’m from and said he loves my accent. Paul Wesley was a bit too busy drawing on Julie Plec to talk to the people, but he was still very pretty. Nina Dobrev was very bubbly, and Matt Davis was very chatty too! Michael Trevino went to the toilet right before me, so my poster is missing his sig but never mind. Also got to see Malese Jow up close, who had just stopped by to visit everybody, and managed to be the cause of yet another distraction for everybody as the line was going by!

After that I thought I’d see if I could get in for the Vampire Diaries panel, and I managed it. I love when the signing is before the panel, you have a realistic chance of doing both things! Their panel was great, and at the end we got a 5 minute teaser for the season two premiere, which they’d just finished shooting on Friday and the editor worked all night to put it together for us. It looks awesome. I came back, and Quinn & I went out to Sammy’s again for more awesome food. This time Quinn had Ryan’s awesome cheeseburgers, and I had the chicken tequila fettucine (mmmm!).

This morning was another super early start. I went to bed around 9 last night and once again was in line by 4, except this time, some people had literally been there since 9 last night, camping out. Crazy Gleeks! I made friends with a couple of girls in the line, we were still pretty close to the front (about row 12 – in a 4500 seater room) and managed to move slightly closer between each panel. The Smallville panel was super emotional even though I don’t watch the show, and the Supernatural one was just awesome fun. Jensen introduced the teaser to the episode he directed, which is all about Bobby and the bit we saw was literally just Bobby and Mark Sheppard. We also got gag reel-age at the end!

American Dad continues to have a cool cast but be an unfunny show. Was awesome seeing Scott Grimes though! Then up came the Glee panel. It was a bit disappointing that they wasted 20 minutes showing badly edited super long clips from season one, but the cast came out while the video was playing and it was cool watching them dancing along and stuff (in the dark) while they watched. They were all awesome and hilarious, and it was a total highlight of the weekend.

I met up with Quinn and we hit up the Exhibit Hall (checking for any last freebies) and then we went to the fulfilment room to get our American Dad (a badge) and Glee (foam hand) goodies for being in the panel. Then it was Panda Express time, and we came back and had a power nap, which turned into a 3 hour sleep. I was sooooo tired. We’ve just got done packing (I am actually probably going to have to put a couple of things in Quinn’s suitcase because of the amount of swag, this will be fun to try and get home!) and we leave for San Francisco at 9.40 tomorrow morning! I’m so excited but also very sad SDCC is over!

Barney Miller is on right now. Ron Glass!

The lift is trying to kill me…

… This is just a quick post as I really don’t have anything else to report from today seeing as I took this opportunity to catch up on sleep that has been dogging me since we got here. I feel SO much better for the lie in. Really.

So we have a lift here in the hotel. Two lifts if you want to be exact and they’re both as bad as each other. First I shall tell you that Toad and I theorise that both lifts work only if one of the computers in the lobby are broken. So if both computers are fixed then one lift will be bust.

When you summon the lift by pushing a rather retro looking button the pale green doors open into a pale green box of death. You step in and press the button for your floor- in our case it’s number 5. Both lifts shake and squeak when it goes up. Not left to right shaking, no. Up and down shaking. And then when either of them stops you go through the sensation you’re falling for about 2 seconds before the door opens. Oh and that’s not everything. The lift still hasn’t reached the floor by the time the door opens! No! I am not kidding! The door opens and then the lift reaches the floor!

THEN today I was greeted by a bemused American wandering around on our floor. She got back onto the lift and pushed three. The lift stopped at four. I pushed one and she pushed three, again. The lift stopped on two. IT DOESN’T LIKE THE NUMBER THREE.

Oh yeah. Scary lifts. They warranted a whole post for themselves. Damnit I’m even going to take photos of them. Not now because I’ll look like a weirdo (ok, more of a weirdo) and I’ve had a horrid knack of jinxing this holiday as it is…

Well, I’m done…!

I shall start with my version of yesterday and then tell you all about today…!

I had a bit of a lie in and was up and about when Toad came back from her early morning sojourn. We then joined forces and pottered back to the convention center where we then split up and I disappeared down towards the comic book booths and away from the studio ones.

I bought a fair number of comics and got myself to the Blind Ferret booth where I spent something ridiculous like $100 on various Looking For Group merch. It was at this point that I had somehow managed to get myself an invite back the following day for lunch. “Turn up just before noon tomorrow.” So this I planned to do!

Most of my day was a mixture of wandering and telling myself not to buy anything else. I eventually made my way back to the hotel where I putzed around waiting for Toad before heading out again for dinner and the previously mentioned tipping incident.

Roll around today and we both get up together to wander around to the convention center and I leave Toad with the queue for Scot Pilgrim things so I can make my appearance at booth number 1330.

$66 of someone else’s money, a semi-lost stroll around San Diego with new friend and two Panda Express feasts later and I’m back at the Blind Ferret booth making myself ill with too much Beef and Broccoli stir fry and steamed rice and noodles. Eating with a bunch of hilarious, strange, sometimes worrying, but still awesome people. I felt that I did slightly overstay my welcome… mainly because I was just sitting around and laughing along at all the daft things that were happening. I hope I helped out with the foot rub though Sohmer? We shall see…!

Toad then appeared and wowed the group with her English accent (She said something which made them all happy) before I made my departure and we both left the center for sustenance. We stopped off at Panda Express for something for Toad and we then came back to the hotel for the briefest of stop overs before heading back.

This is a bit of a quick post as I am really tired. I apologise…!

Any way on our return we queued for Ballroom … something… I don’t pay attention much, it’s why I’m here with Toad. And we watched a panel that was a mixture of shows that are all starting up or going back in for another season. It was funny! A bit short I thought but any longer and we would have struggled with getting to the Eureka screening! It was great fun to watch with all the people in the room as well. I felt really bad when Haven came on and more than half the room left!

Now I’m back at the hotel, Toad is trying to sleep (and I’m here clattering away on my laptop keyboard..) as she is going to be up and queueing for 4am…! Tomorrow is another lie in day for me as I have nothing planned at all. Sunday is Glee though – and I’m looking forward to that

I’ll say tatty bye now, but just finish by saying that I had the most amazing day today. It really was the icing on the SDCC cake.

Adventures in Tipping!

We just got back from a lovely meal at Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza, and had hilarity when trying to figure out how to tip. We’ve been tipping well this whole time, paying in cash – except tonight, Quinn was going to pay on card and I gave her my share in cash. Should be fine. He charged the card, brought the receipt back, and there was a little place to fill in “tip”. We stared at it for ages and eventually had to call a different waitress over to ask what the hell we were supposed to do with it! We ended up just leaving the cash in actual money, and she seemed to think it was brilliant that we’d actually bothered to ask so all stories have a happy ending!

Skipping back to yesterday – we went for breakfast at Mel’s Drive-In and I got the bacon/eggs/pancakes I’d been craving for the last 6 months while planning this trip! Then we checked out and headed off for the train! When we got to Union Station, we met up with our new friends Jan and Ellie (accidentally!), the ones we met on the WB tour.

The train was comfortable and relatively painless. There’s so much leg room! I went to sleep for most of the journey, just to kill some time. When we got here to San Diego, Quinn’s handle broke on her suitcase, so that’s some shopping we need to do before Monday! We managed to get it up the street to our hotel without incident (after some seriously MacGuyver work of Quinn’s!) and checked in. The room is all we need – two beds, TV with cable, and plenty of floor space to dump our swag. We don’t have a private bathroom but the shared ones are so cool – you use your electric chip key thing to get into an individual shower/toilet room. No chance of being pounced on randomly while showering!

We walked to SDCC after that, to register. It’s around twice the distance we walked last year, I’d say – if you walk from the convention center to the condo we stayed in, it’s about the same length of time again. Not too far to be doable, which is nice. Registration was a breeze – straight in, done, and out. We went back to the hotel via Ralph’s to get some snacks and drinks (and ice) and then relaxed watching random episodes of Sabrina/Full House/That 70s Show on ABC Family before heading back out to Preview Night.

We spent maybe an hour in the exhibition hall, just looking at things and getting info about stuff. We got a few free things, but not much. I asked at the FOX booth about the White Collar signing that was due to be today – last year, FOX were giving out signing tickets the day before (so, tickets for a Saturday signing were given out Friday afternoon) but obviously that wasn’t possible for a Thursday signing. I was told it was first come first served to the booth when the hall opened this morning.

After we’d done some wandering, located all of the main booths we needed etc, we headed out to Cafe Diem (aka Hard Rock Cafe) for some Eureka style food. I had a Jack Carter sandwich – scrambled eggs, ham and cheese – and it was delicious. We headed back to the hotel, watched the Eureka S4 premiere which Quinn hadn’t seen, and then went to sleep!

I was up at 6.30 this morning, and down at the Convention Center by 7. I got in a ridiculously long line to get inside, which was still quite long by the time we got inside even though it had split into various other lines by then. I was pretty convinced I wasn’t going to be one of the first 75 people at the FOX booth to get a ticket for the White Collar signing, and I was right. When we finally got in, I saw the girl give a ticket out for White Collar, and then discovered that had been the last one. I took a bunch of free posters and was just off to the side arranging the best way to carry them when the girl beside me announced “I have one free ticket for White Collar, who wants it?” My “ME!!!!” with my hand shot in the air meant I had the ticket in my hand basically before she finished speaking. Hooray!

I got in a couple of swag lines and then headed back to the hotel to dump my new swag. Heavy swag. I was not thinking about packing when I took all of this stuff! Anyway, I’ll cross that bridge on Sunday! Quinn was up by this point, so we went back down to the con together, via Ralph’s, and then went our separate ways inside the Exhibit Hall. I hung around for an age, and then finally the White Collar signing began. Marsha Thomason was super excited about me being English, and even told Sharif Atkins to “shush, we’re having a moment!” when he tried to comment that he liked my Cookie Monster shirt. Marsha dated a guy from York once, apparently.

Matt Bomer is a very very very attractive man. This is not news, but seriously. Wow. And he was so nice – asked my name, told me his, shook my hand and also once I was out of the line, I went back around the front to take some pictures as I didn’t have time in the line and he saw me and pulled a kooky pose for me. Siiiigh, wibble, etc! Tim DeKay was also really chatty – though more so when he spotted the guy behind me who had worked with Tim for six months on his very first TV gig!

Once I was done there, I headed up to Ballroom 20 to try and get into the White Collar panel. I made it! That cast are amazing, and the special Comic Con video they played beforehand was absolutely fantastic. They were all talking about how they were going to be ignored at Comic Con because nobody cares about the show that much, and Willie Garson went around and called everybody by the cult characters they’ve played – “Are you kidding me? THE Bryce Larkin from Chuck! Gary Navarro from The 4400! Naomi from Lost!” So much win. Then I stayed for the Psych panel because I was too tired to move, before heading down to Room 6A to watch Peter Serafinowicz be generally hilarious for an hour with Robert Popper.

I toddled off to the Fulfilment Room, and then came back to share stories with Quinn. And then we went for dinner… and then it’s now! Toodles!

Oh, and Stan Lee walked past me when I was in a queue!

That’s All Folks!

We have just got in from the most amazing thing ever. Toad and I had a discussion before we left on holiday about what our “big” thing would be. Not talking about SDCC of course. And we decided that our money would go on the Warner Brother’s Deluxe VIP tour. That was $225 each well spent!

There were the usual shenanigans getting up, we wizzed past the breakfast set up in the hotel and I grabbed a banana and a croisant and we got in a cab to WB.

I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of the whole tour as it did take most of the day! I’ve uploaded about 100 pictures to Flickr from the tour. Most of them are outside set pictures as no photos were allowed on the sound stages themselves.

The one thing that blew my mind though? I was on a street that was in Cloverfield AND IT LOOKED LIKE IT. I was stood RIGHT THERE. Mind. Blown.

There are two dedicated sound stages – one to Friends and the other to ER, and out side each sound stage is a plaque that lists the shows that filmed in there. We also saw the cars that appeared on screen (see flickr) and went onto Ellen’s sound stage and the Pretty Little Things’ sound stage. It is so weird being able to watch the show later and go “I was there!”. We also went on The Mentalist sound stage and The Big Bang Theory one too

The lunch was amazing. Have I mentioned that? I had the best chicken sweet ‘n’ sour. Toad had the most tasty looking steak and potato skins.

And I almost forgot! We saw The Mentalist filming! And I saw Simon Baker! HE WAS RIGHT THERE! Hahaha! So awesome!

We met two people on our tour also going to San Diego, that are also going on our train but they’ve reserved seats in first class, we’re slumming it. They’re also going to San Francisco too! Small. World.

This evening we went swimming again and went out to buy some more summer stuff. Tops and what not so I’m already finding things to buy. I also found a Hello Kitty shop! Wee!

I’m going to leave it at that! Next stop, San Diego!