Against the odds

What can I say - I've had an incrdebly busy couple of days, but we've actually managed to do pretty much everything we set out to do.

On Friday we set out early - the plan was that we would leave around ten and be in Sheffield around three... then take a shower, hang out - maybe meet Rel and Woja and boys and go to the gig later on. As it turned out, gods of traffic were against us and we were stuck on M1 when it turned into a parking lot instead of a motorway we assumed it would be. After about two hours on a maybe 10 mile strech, we took the first exit out and headed for the longer route. This took us trough little roads trough little villages - nice on it's own right, and although by this time we were hitting the Friday traffic we had planned to avoid, at least we were moving.

So then we were approaching Sheffield from another direction that we had planned on - and the maps we had were of little use. We drove trough the suburbia following some random signs to the arena and city center, and basically just drove around aimlessly until we spotted the hotel. It was high up on a cliff, and although we drove around the hotel, there didn't seem to be any way to get up there - the instructions from the hotel itself didn't seem to bear any resemblance to reality either. After some searching - and by this time we had last time eaten breakfast, been on the road for nine hours, were stressed, hungry, tired and in a desperate need of a bathroom - we managed to find a ramp from very far away that allowed us to drive to the hotel.

Hotel itself was a disapointment - it was very fancy hotel, but the service was most mediacore. We got into our room around six-ish and we had barely time to take a shower before we had to be on our way to the stadium - although when I booked the hotel they had claimed they were next to the stadium (and I notice that that page seems to be removed now) they were most certainly not. So, at this point we decided to take a taxi instead of getting on the road again - and this seemed at the time like a very sensible decision as there were about 15 000 other people trying to park on Hallam FM arena... just stepping out of the cab seemed very simple.

(I'll write about the gig some other time, but it's enough to say now that all we suffered was most definetly worth it. A perfect crowd, the card and performances were top notch.)

We had planned to hitch a ride back to the hotel with Woja and his friends - but Woja wasn't driving, and his friend - rather assholed'ly if you ask me - refused to give us a ride as he was "in a hurry". So we, among another hundred fans tried to get a cab. I had dressed up quite lightly as it gets very hot on the gig: t-shirt, jacket, no gloves or a hat. It was cold, and windy. The queue was long and taxis were few and far between as the arena wasn't a good pick-up point due to the 15 000 fans now all leaving at the same time. So we waited, and froze and waited a bit more (the only thing that could have made the wait worse would have been stuck in the cold with kids - so we let the lady with her pint-sized kids behind us to get in the queue beofre us).

When we finally made it back to the hotel around midnight - now even more hungry and tired and frozen to the bone - the hotel room service had a two hour wait for food. We had now calculated that we would need to wake up around five to get to the airport in time, so we decided to pass and head straight to bed. This wasn't really that bad for me as eating in a very hyped state I was in has always been very difficult for me, but poor Chu who needs her regular meals was quite unhappy.

I just went out like a light, and it seemed like the alarm went off immediately. Getting up at five is difficult at any time, but after having such a hard previous day it was next to impossible. However the fear of missing the plane was enough of a motivator for me - and we managed to stay on schedule and check out around six. By this time we were not totally surprised that the breakfast boxes the hotel had promised would be waiting for us in the reception didn't materialise, and we waited as the receptionist went to make us breakfast. I think we left rather rude feedback for them, but to be honest at that point my fuse wasn't very long.

The previous days experience made me very nervous about the time I had estimated it would take us to get to the airport, but the sacrifice we had made for the god of traffic the previous day bore fruit and we had next to no problems getting to Heathrow (finding the parking was a bit tricky as there were roadworks, but it was more about having to divert than being really difficult). We parked, got on the bus, checked in - timing was pretty perfect as we didn't really have extra time before the flight was called (and on time too). Chu slept most of the way, I only managed to get about half an hours sleep.

In Finland my mom had invited my sister to have lunch (Dragon was visiting his grandmother) so we had a nice family lunch that we probably haven't done in years. I'm very tired, but extremely happy - the little road trip was very much worth all the effort.

Later: if you want to read about WrestleMania Revenge gig in Sheffield, read my entry in Jawbreaker.

Posted by kolibri at 20 March 17:02, 2004