So time has come to wrap 2013 up with the last travel report, the fifth one of the year. This time it was again off to England, to Heathrow, but then up north to Newcastle to see the lovely Union J. (As I write this I'm watching/listening their X Factor journey and I'm sick so I'm basically crying my eyes out just now.)
SOOOOOOOO on the 27th December we headed to airport again with Jenna and Iida. I'd got a new phone as a Christmas present so what would be better first pic on a new phone than this:
The theme of the trip was selfies - and we lived up to it. I don't think I've ever taken that many selfies in four days. And again I'm wearing my Stay Great Apparel crew neck, never travelling without it (in fact I think they should sponsor me a new one cos this is quite worn already).
You don't need the flight socks (is that the word) if you warm up properly before the flight.
Flight was horrible, turbulences and all and I'm not super keen of flying anyway. Finally landed and time for the first selfie in London.
No teeth since 1992. I feel my eyebrows in this.
Training ballet with Iida.
Train took us to London, where we changed stations with an underground and boarded our first train and the five ish hour trip to north began.
Stop at Doncaster was important. Hello Louis (who actually probably was home that day).
We had to change from bus to train in … Huntingdon ? Anyway from there we got a bus to Grantham and then another train to Newcastle. Luckily a Burger King was open at the station at 11pm and via that we started to our hotel, Jury's Inn Newcastle. Hotel was okay, about a 20 minute walk to city centre and St. James' Park, and a 10 minute walk to train station. Sound resistance was non existing and the bathroom floor was ice cold. Beds were comfy and you could use the window sill as a fridge cos it had a … "door" and it was indeed very cold. Jenna had a dream the Union J boys climbed to our window (on the third floor) and offered us vip tickets. Sadly, a dream.
So after a good and needed sleep we hit the town to browse the shops and also visited St. James' Park (it's a football station. I didn't know either). Here we are, all ready to go (and without breakfast).
On our way to the city centre we saw this poster that I guess has been on that wall since 2010. X Factor just is our fate.
In the city there was this HUGE shopping centre with basically every shop in the world but Forever 21. Seems to me there's like one F21 in England.
Jenna set this as the background on all the iPhones in that phone shop. Soz EE !
World is so small though - in New Look I was sure this girl looked familiar and turns out she actually was one of my Twitter friends. Hello Haneen ! (Also Greg James' been born and raised in Ncl.) Some pounds poorer and stomachs filled with Nando's (and a brekkie we had at place called JJ's cos it fit the theme) we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the show. It's been exactly a week today and I still am not sure I actually saw Union J live. We had a pre party in our room with some 4.99£ cava and black eyeshadow. I ripped the dress I bought for the show months ago and had to change outfit which turned out to be a very clever move. In my opinion nothing is better than a hotel room pre party before basically anything.
UJ had four support acts. FOUR. I've never heard anyone have more than three (and that was Metallica who did), and cos we are narrow minded shits we didn't go see any of them. Or mostly just because we had so much more fun dancing to Conor Maynard in our hotel room.
So when we arrived at the venue (Newcastle City Hall) there already were quite a lot people - mostly girls under 18 with their parents, can you imagine. The venue was very small so even our seats were second last row we had a good view - and to be honest, I wouldn't have changed our JJ seats to anything but maybe front row. (A person who I follow on twitter was sad that UJ don't pick their Amaze me girls from front row. So appaz you can find cons in front row too, so JJ was just amazing.) So here is Jenna, I and JJ. I wish
There was a little girl on the seat before me who just kept staring us blank in the eye. Okay we get it we are too old (still younger than half the members of the band you're seeing, Miss Little Girl !) and we speak a language you don't understand, but pls.
I love you so much and instead of counting dollas I'd count stars with you any day.
Our white angels telling us that Loving you is easy. Likewise, honey bugs !
So the show started at the minute it was planned. When was the last time I was at a concert where the act started when they were supposed to ???!??!?! Not including festivals, I say it's been years. Literally Iida showed her phone like "look it's 9pm they should start no-" and the lights went out. And the boys KILLED IT. With Jenna we had slight suspicions of their live singing abilities (how, after watching them on XF, I don't know either) but oh how I love to be wrong these kinds of things ! The atmosphere was amazing, boys were relaxed even with half of them sick, audience took part. To me it was interesting that even they are a four-piece act, they all did a solo song. George's cover of Katy Perry was nice and got people going cos 80% of Union J fans are George girls. Jaymi blew the roof off the place with Beyonce's Listen - damn I love that boy ! My angel thing JJ sang OneRepublic's Counting Stars and was tons better than I thought and I just cried like. Josh did Emeli Sande's Beneath your beautiful and was breath taking as always. The boys played all their album songs, starting with my faves, Lucky Ones, Beethoven and Where are you now. Taylor Swift medley and Skyscraper by ms. Lovato were included too.
I am so happy I came up with this ridiculous idea to travel to a place I'd never heard of before (or at least had no idea where it was) and to blow another bunch of euros to a band. After the show we waited outside about two hours to get a glimpse of the boys. JJ and Jaymi went to their bus and we didn't see them (but Jaymi's quiff thru the bus window, I say it counts). But after some time our wait was rewarded as Josh and George walked out the venue past us, literally less than a metre away with no one else but us three on that door. Iida got to hug George and they said hi so it was deffo worth the freezing. I said earlier it was clever to change the dress to jeans and yeah, I'd be dead by now if I'd stood there in that Geordie look for hours. Geordie shore is a super realistic show btw, everyone there looks like the people on the show. And there actually were girls waiting outside for hours wearing nothing but leggings and tops. No jacket no scarf no nothing and it was December ! My motherly side would have been worried if the said girls weren't just about the most annoying thing I'd ever encountered.
On our way back to the hotel we saw tons of party-ready Geordie people and a few bobbies Jenna wanted a pic with, and that turned out very nice.
Geordie survivors. "Feels like we're still flying high"
I've deffo seen better pics of myself even after a show but yeah. Post Union J morning selfie in Starbucks that was empty. Crazy I know. After a few hours of sleep it was time to roll our bags out and go get brekkie before a new train trip, this time back to London where we stayed for two days. Trains in England are expensive af, so if you travel buy the tickets a lot in advance and you can save hundreds of pounds. Coaches aren't that expensive, but took ages. We paid only fifty ish pounds of return tix London-Ncl-Ldn. A site called Q Jump is good for train tickets or just the train lines' own sites.
Bye pal ! Might even see ya again !
On the way back monopoly was too much so card time. And loads of bottled water…. A little girl sitting next to us sang a song with amazing lyrics "we're driving through a tunnel can I get an iPad" and I loved it. Train trip with no changes took a bit less than three hours to London Kings Cross.
Wait… KINGS CROSS you said ?!?
Oh yeah, Kings Cross.
After queuing for 35 minutes for the pic above it was time to go find our hotel. And what a hotel it was… Hyde Park Suite Apartments sounds all fancy and cool but when the receptionist doesn't know there's stairs in the hotel he works in and re-places us in an basement flat…. well. If the sound resistance in Ncl was bad it was nothing to compared to this. As I said we had a small flat with kitchen and people who were renovating the room above us. Also every spoken word from the street pierced our windows and it got pretty noisy at times. In a more quiet and warmer flat this coulda been a nice stay, as the hotel was located next to Queensway and Bayswater ug stations and a few grocery stores so the environment was nice.
On sunday evening we went to stroll on Oxford Street (and had some more Nando's). The christmas lights above Oxford and Regent street were magical.
On Monday we headed to Westfield Shepherd's Bush at quite an early hour which turned out to be a good choice as there weren't that many people yet. Breakfast at Pret again then killing the time in the shops was what I call the good life.
Feeling it on the underground. My friend said I look "chic" in this and on some twisted level I agree with her.
I haven't often seen a person more bored with their job than the guy working in that shop when Jenna asked him to take this pic. I can't blame him.
These Brits really know their crimbo light game. We also went for a lunch with my friend Ryan and just talked about weird long Finnish words for like three hours. His favourite was "muikku."
Dear whoever is in charge of this, bring Pret to Finland. Can't get enough of their stuff.
On the last night we popped another bottle of some cheap Sainsbury's sparkling wine and took pics of what we had bough and stroked Union J's faces. From a book.
As you can see we had three of them so it was more than okay pastime.
… But Iida still won this. All rings bought from the trip.
Again no sleep for the weak - got up ridiculously early on tuesday that was New Year's Eve and headed to the airport. I'd been looking for a new iPhone case for my new phone all trip but couldn't find one so I was mega happy to find this Ted number from Heathrow. It was about half price too.
Not the freshest people heading home. Oi Stay Great I wore the jumper again ! Thank you Jenna and Iida for our trip, I kind of like you somewhat lot. You still amaze me and all that.
Travellin in the tightest midi skirt isn't the most clever outfit decision I've made. But it looked nice okay.
So now it's been a week since the concert and I can proudly announce I'm not suffering of PCD like if you know me you know I always do. I had the normal "I hate life and just want to travel" feeling for like two days but this time I'm just genuinely SO HAPPY I GOT TO SEE UNION J. Just now they're passed even One Direction and cos I don't know how this lasts I'll just ride the wave before it settles.
http://instagram.com/p/eX0fBVy9RL/ is my new favourite thing, everyone else please go home. Show is over, but my love for my boys and girls J and I isn't. Laters pals.
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Bring it !