2 Days, 2 Liverpool Tix, 1 Open School, 1 New GPS, 0 Historic England Passes, -1 Hotel and 9.5 million British Kids on Holiday!

I admit that I generally stress out before we go on a trip.  This is exacerbated this time by the fact that we have open school day and night tomorrow, Thursday.  We leave Friday.  Did I mention that?


I have been slaving over trying to make a parent newsletter using Apple's Pages.  After messing around with it, using a template and getting some help, I have been pretty successful.  I went to Staples to make 150 back to back colored copies.  It's the first one, it looks nice, I said why not, buck up and get 'em.  I go and order them and the girl tells me "They'll be ready at 8."  No problem, I'll go home and pack up, since I am going to have to use the big suitcase instead of the small one.  For some reason, short trips in the winter require more sit than six weeks in the summer.  I watched the Arsenal beat Barca while I did some other work and headed on my merry way to get my $70 copies.  I get there and she opens up the box and they're in black and white.  Not artsy black and white, just fucking black and white that I could have done in my building for no money.  So I say, "Um, I ordered them in color." And she's like, "Oh I must have misunderstood."  So I ask how much for them in color and the price is now at a whopping $316.  Really?  So I respond, "Yeah, uh, no way. If I knew that it was $70 just for the black and white I would have just done them at work."  Thankfully, she apologized and said she would just do 'em up in color for $70 since it as her mistake, so I got 300 copies, color and non-artsy black and whites for $70.  Not too bad.


My new GPS arrived - the Garmin Oregon 550t - it's a touch screen and since I'm doing all this Mac and touch business I thought it would be a good idea.  I admit, it was expensive and a bit of a luxury right now but I can also say that I usually keep the same GPS for 5 years so I think it's worth it - also, considering that it's 20 pounds a day to rent a GPS, why not get the Europe maps and have them as well.  This damn GPS has the US Topos already pre-loaded, and a camera so now I will just have to get the North American streets as well and we're good.  So I've made my dinner and now just have to get the GPS working.  Shouldn't be a problem since I have done it with two others, right?  In order to register, you need the serial number.  So I try the number on the box.  That's not it.  I look up on their site where the serial number is and it says, inside the battery compartment.  I look find it and enter it.  Nope, not it either.  WTF!  We leave Friday.  Did I mention that?


I try banging it in again.  It doesn't work.  I'm having flashbacks of my ATM card disappearing again in Spain.  Fucking BBVA.  (Side note:  I just looked up BBVA on google just to make sure of the name and what happens?  The laptop freezes for the first time.  I fucking hate BBVA!)  I unplug it a few times, check the number again, it has to be it - try it again and BAM - it works, finally.  So now I need to finish registering it and buy the Europe maps.  I start to download them and it says there's not enough room.  I need a micro SD.  We leave Friday.  Did I mention that?


So I know I have an SD card but I think it's too small.  (Side note: downloading failed, WTF!)  I keep looking at it then put it back, it's defo too small.  I text Jess that I'm bugging and she says, "I TOLD you the website said you needed one.  You said you had it."  Really?  I'm pretty sure that's not what I want to hear right now.


I go back and find the stupid card again and get it in there.  Ok we're good, but as stated above, it failed, so the verdict is still out on this one as I write.  We leave Friday.  Did I mention that?


Did I mention we have Liverpool tickets?  I'm pretty sure I did.


Now, we also tried to get the Historic England Pass, which gets you some discounts on certain sites and you can get it for the week and skip to the front of the line.  The problem, the website wasn't taking orders or had information on it until at least into February.  We can only pick them up in London, and we're trying to avoid the city when we get there so we calculated where we were going and then how much it would cost to express ship it to here and it would be about the same if we payed for each site directly.  Only, it's too late and we can't.  But it's the off season so it shouldn't be too bad, right?  Wrong. There are 9.5 million Brit school children off for holiday that week.  I fucking love long lines too.  I can't wait!  Oh yeah, and we're waiting on one more hotel.  We leave Friday.  Did I mention that?


But in all seriousness, I am getting excited.  It should be cool provided the weather holds.  But so far it looks like a lot of fucking rain in London.  This GPS is taking forever, only 6% uploaded.  We're about to find out just how rugged it is.  I'm still not packed.


We leave Friday.  Did I mention that?