Disneyland, Paris/Back to England

We woke up early this morning (or slightly earlier than usual) because we had our flight back to England. Umma wanted us to leave a little earlier because we wanted to walk around the Disneyland, Paris area. We had gone to this park like fifteen years ago or something like that. Back when we went there, the park wasn't even called Disneyland, Paris. It was called EuroDisney. Anyway, that's why we were leaving earlier than usual.

Since it was a Sunday, the market was closed, so we couldn't get more of those sausage sticks that we liked. As you may or may not tell, this was a very upsetting experience. Truly, it was. We got on the road and headed back in the direction of Paris. We traveled relatively problem-free towards Paris, stopping once to get more gas, use the restroom and get snacks at a gas station. Once we got to the general Paris area, I had to figure out how to get us to Disneyland, Paris. I was more or less successful, except for when I got us onto one freeway going in the opposite direction of our destination and we had to go. We won't talk about that though. All in all, it was about 1-ish when we got to the general Disneyland area. As we entered the area, we passed by the hotel that we stayed at way back when, which was some Western-themed resort. I thought that was cool. We parked in some parking lot and walked over to the Disney Village, which seems to be the equivalent of Downtown Disney.

So, when we went to this park way back in the day, we ate at some seafood-ish restaurant in that little village area. They gave everyone hammers and would tell everyone to pound on the tables with said hammers to scare away sharks. Gianni loved this restaurant when we went there, so we spent a while trying to find it even though we knew that it was very likely no longer there. We were right. I think it's a Rainforest Cafe now. Now that we were disappointed and depressed, we all went to the bathroom and looked at a few of the stores. Since it was lunch time, we also looked for a restaurant that was not as overpriced as the other restaurants so we could eat lunch. We ended up settling on this New York-themed place but ended up just taking our food to go when we realized that we were semi-late for our flight.

It took us a lot less time than we had expected to get from Disneyland to the airport and because they are both two major areas, it was not hard to get from point a to b. We stopped at a gas station along the way, where Oppa found a crumpled 20 Euro note on the ground. Cool stuff. It almost negated the gas that we just spent. Not quite. We got to the airport and circled around a while trying to find the right terminal. We returned the car and then headed towards the terminal with two hours to spare.

We found the desk for our airline, thinking we had to check in there. They shooed us away to another place, where we had to wait for like 40 minutes in this long line to check in. We get to the check in counter only to have them tell us that Halmony needed to check in at the counter outside. Obviously this was both upsetting and annoying, especially after having been shooed away by the first counter. There was yelling and stress that went back and forth, but it kind of all worked out. Oppa checked everyone else in while Umma took Halmony back outside to do whatever they had to do. Then they just let us go up and check Halmony in. There was almost a fight with Oppa and the man at the counter in the process, but we managed to successfully get through that line.

Next we stood in the passport control line for another 15 minutes. It probably would have been faster if it wasn't for the fact that people take about four times as long to check Gianni because his beard probably either tags him as a drug smuggler or a terrorist. We've had this problem for a while, actually. If we were to ever carry anything suspicious (not that our family of all people would), Gianni would not be the one to carry it as he's the one most frequently tagged for the random check. Anyway...

We get through the passport line and then have to go through the security line. This was actually annoying for eco-geek me. They make you throw your bottles away in a little trash can. This is standard procedure, yes, but you usually don't see a recycling bin on the other side of the security line that taunts you. Even though there aren't any vending machines or anything, there are actually like twenty recycling bins in the gate. I don't know.

Anyway, we were in with ten minutes to spare before they started boarding. Except we didn't board. There was some sort of delay with the plane. The pilot actually started explaining it on the plane, mumbled something that I couldn't understand and said nevermind it's not important. Anyway, it meant that it was another 30 or so minutes until they started boarding. We didn't board directly onto the plane. We all got into little extremely stuffy buses that took us over to the plane. We all fit into two buses and even though they have this strict order in which they load people onto the plane, the fact that we got into these buses together that jumbled us up kind of defeated the purpose. Though, for all I know, there could have been a special bus that took all the special passengers on first. All I know is that the A and B people seemed to get jumbled, which worked in our favor. We got separated from Umma and Halmony, who went on the first bus. As we were waiting for the first bus to unload all of the people, we saw the two of them shuffle over to the save spots for the rest of us. The plane took off almost an hour late and after of this stress, I've decided that I don't like the Charles de Gaulle airport.

The flight itself was not particularly exciting. I did some of those fill it in puzzles and read my book, while Mia and Halmony slept on both sides of me. I felt like there was significantly less leg room on this plane than the one we took to Paris, but that was probably my imagination.

Because the plane took off so late, we arrived to the Lutton Airport somewhat stressed. We got in at 6:20 and our shuttle to the Heathrow Airport left at 6:40. This gave us very little time to get to the bus stop. We got off of the plane as soon as we could and then stood in line to get through customs. Even though the line for the non-EU passport holders was shorter than the EU passport line, they had less people working on it and only took one person at a time. They wouldnt' take us as a group even though every other airport I've been to does and I'm sure that since they all asked us more or less the same questions, it would have saved them time too. Actually, they didn't ask us all the same questions. I got the standard questions. The guy Mia had asked her slightly more complicated questions that I think she failed. Gianni got asked a ton of questions, including ones that asked where he went to school and what he studied there. Lol at my brother.

Once through customs, we ran to the bus station and got there right at 6:40. We got there right on time, only to find out that the bus we were on was very late, so we ended up waiting another 30 or so minutes for it to come. The problem was that we arrived right at rush hour, so the bus was stuck in traffic on the way here. The bus ride to Heathrow took a lot longer than the one that we took from there. Part of this was traffic, which was pretty intense. Also, to avoid traffic for the majority of the trip, our driver took us through a lot of surface roads. It was definitely a very scenic trip, but we got to Heathrow over an hour after we were scheduled to arrive.

The initial plan for the night, since Umma and I had bus tickets to go to Reading was to see The Dark Knight at the Oracle in Reading. The Oracle is this big shopping mall in reading, by the way. Anyway, by the time we got to Heathrow, we were very tired. Oppa took everyone to get the rental car and drive to Reading and Umma and I took the bus and we were just going to meet at the Oracle. The bus ride over was long due to it being rush hour and a traffic accident along the way. The bus was also very stuffy and the AC was not working, so we were dying for most of the trip. Some guy eventually opened the emergency hatch or something to get air into the bus.

We eventually got there and made our way to the Oracle to meet everyone else who seemed to have been waiting there for a while. We were still going to get TDK tickets, but found out that kids under a certain age are not allowed to be at the theaters after some certain time, meaning that James could not see it with us. We decided to just wait a day to see it then.

We did notice, however, that they had a Yo Sushi at the Oracle. Let me explain. When we went to England like 6 years ago, we went to this sushi restaurant in London called Yo Sushi. The sushi isn't really that great compared to what we can find in like California, but James was in love with this place for whatever reason. In fact, part of the reason we were going to go to London the next day was so that James could be reunited with his beloved restaurant. The fact that it was in the Oracle was very convenient for us and we ended up just canceling the London plans so that we could have a more relaxing packing/laundry/Batman day. Anyway, we got to Yo Sushi very shortly before closing, so there really wasn't much of a variety. I have to admit that I was a lot more impressed with the place this time around. Possibly because I avoided the sushi, but for a pound you also get unlimited fizzy water and I really liked the fried rice that I had. Also, I got avocado rolls and I haven't had avocado in forever (other than that one day I managed to find guacamole in the Windjammer Cafe). After we ate, we all squished into the car to go to Oppa's place and stayed up a while to watch Love Actually on TV before going to bed.