| We are back from an awesome 50-hour (from the plane touching down and lifting off in London) trip! It was super fun. The flight from LAX/xSFO/LHR is very smooth. We got to LHR 30 minutes early. Since we are in the first rows in coach (yes. I swear I was breaking out in hives), we got through immigration and custom very quickly. London traffic was pretty bad as they close off some freeways. So, we had to take the slower bus to Cambridge. For some reason, we were not that tired. The overwhelming sensation is defintiely the coldness there. We had some very tasty Turkish and hung out with the Ags. The Ags is, as usual, extremely hilarious. Had a couple of beer with them before heading to sleep.
GRADUATION DAY was next! Woke up an hour late because Saucy's cell phone was still set at GMT instead of the summer time. So, we ended up sleeping in because of that. Beni and I went to pick up the hood for Saucy while she went around town to get tickets for the ceremony. Everyone got all dressed up and we then went to King's for brunch after the 'rehersal' (it was more like a briefing). I had my black pudding (Excuse me... black pudding is TASTY!) and beans. Then, we needed a caffeine boost and off the graduation ceremony we go. They only allowed 3-4 tickets per graduate and so Beni and I had to sneak in. The ceremony was pretty short as that particular session only has 4 colleges in it (Sidney, Girton, Downing and Newnham... HAHAH NEWNHAM!). It basically includes one esteemed faculty in each college to present the graduates in Latin while each of the graduate was holding onto one of his/her finger (so they can only do 4 at a time). Then, you have to kneel in front of the chancellor (Duncan Robinson, aka santa as he was wearing furry robe and has a big belly sitting in a throne). Then, he cupped your hands as your hands are in the prayer position and he again said in Latin something about how he is now a Master in philosophy in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost (and of course, you can ask them to skip the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost part). And then, you are officially a MPhil. Cantab.
Went out for some Thai in apparently Stephen Hawking's favorite restaurant. Rumors say it that he will get drunk there and he will autopilot his wheelchair home. How true is that rumor? doubtful. But, I was secretly hoping to see him drunk. hehe
Since everything and their mother were closed on Sunday in Cambridge, we had to get a Subway sub for the bus ride down to LHR. It was a fun ride despite of the heavy traffic here and there because the Ags are also on the bus. As always, terminal 3 in LHR is not fun to battle as United is all the way to the end of the terminal. So, we had to fight the crowd that are coming out of Emirates or some mid-eastern airline counter until we reach ours. The operational upgraded us to C (thank god!) and we were slipping champagne an hour later on our way back to ORD. The service on board was okay. I was happy because I got my free booze and my favorite tea sandwiches and scones.
Then the funny farm begins. Got to ORD and had no problem with the immigration line, although the custom man was really weird and had some issues with me and Saucy (he said to Saucy that I am goofy). We transferred ourselves from the Internataionl terminal to the domestic terminal. We then got on the ORD LAX flight. They then announced that they had problems with loading the luggage and we ended up logging in a one hour delay. To make matter worse, once we get into LAX, there were no gates available to us. We had to wait for the gate before we can start heading there. Then, we head to wait for that plane to leave the galley before ours can go in. So, we finally got home at midnight, exhausted but happy... GREAT TRIP!
(thank you Ireland for the late night ride... really appreciated) |
