In October 2022 I was in London to see the event "Madly Deeply: The Celebration of Alan Rickman" (+ a book launch of his diaries), some places connected to him in London and Juliet Stevenson's theatre play! :D
So of course that I want to have a description of this on my blog! :D
I went to see those events together with some other fans and these descriptions, that I'll post here, are already on a sort of public place (public can have access, access is not controlled as far as I know) and/but I thought that it would be the best to post it here in the form in which it's there and anonymize it as much as I can. Because now I'm confused about some things, if I interpret/interpreted some things that happened correctly, so I'm not active on that place and/but there were really nice things so I thought that my aforementioned solution would be the best. :)
Tips for organizing things in your luggage + 30 September 2022 + 1 October 2022
Ladies and gentleman (
), I’d like to invite you to the unique opportunity to experience my trip with me! And I hope that everyone posts their reports in detail.
So I’d probably like to start by describing a few tips about how I prepared for my trip. I found out that the best way to get there should be by plane, because of the distance of the Czech Republic from the UK and because if I used other means of transport, it would probably be too tiring and annoying and I would be fuming.
I haven’t flown before, this was to be my first time (during school trips we used a bus) and alone!
And some of you probably know or you would find it out by yourself, but I’d like to share what I found useful.
Organizing things in your cabin luggage (plane)
- It is to put the things, that you will have to and/or you would like to show during security control separately, into one pocket/next to each other/that they are easily accessible.
- Things that you will have to put out of your luggage and show separately during security control = notebook, tablet, powerbank, phone, (I count also wireless headphones), bag with liquids.
- You don’t have to show cables or adapters and I didn’t show wired headphones.
- But you may decide that you would like to show other things separately during security control. Especially if they are metal, because they might look weird in the X-ray machine and it might be better if you show it to them directly immediatelly.
- For me it was badges that I created as presents for others from our ??? group who traveled, so I put them with another presents and paper envelopes into plastic bag, unwrapped, so that they could see it well.(How to wrap presents afterward, right, when one shouldn’t bring scissors? Well, you could buy what you need after your arrival, cut pieces of ribbon beforehand or you could cut pieces of tape beforehand, stick them back to the tape so they should be sticky still, put it into your bag and you could use them after your arrival.)
- You have to have your electronics charged so they could test it.
- If you have to pour your liquids into 100 ml bottles, it may be better if the producer already engraved „100 ml“ into it.
So now let’s move to the day before the flight.
I realized that it could be better if I could be in the city from which I planned to fly, Prague, already during that day so the travelling day could be calmer for me, I wouldn’t need to worry about traffic jams, transport delays. So I thought about asking friends if I could stay at their place but it didn’t happen so I stayed at a hotel.
Currency exchange
On the trip to the hotel I wanted to exchange money. I knew about banks and currency exchanges but that was it. But I didn’t want to travel much to do it as I wanted to arrive early to the hotel to have a lot of time to sleep (and I didn’t want to travel extra to do it in another day) and I didn’t find on the internet that my bank offers currencies. After some time I found trustworthy seeming recommendations of legit currency exchanges (youtubers/journalists from Honest Guide channel who posted it also on a Czech news website) so I was thinking about going there.
But then I was told about a much better place that I didn’t find on the internet (but then, I probably could’ve been searching more)!
Czech Railways offer currency exchange service at some of railway stations! So I recommend checking if this is similar in your country as it can be 1 of 2 best places to change currency (banks + railway companies‘ service at railway stations).
After I arrived at the railway station with my mum (who accompanied me until boarding pass control), we immediatelly went to try to change money. We went there 3 minutes before the employee responsible of currency exchange had a break but the lady still sat there but on the board, sign there was written that the exchange is closed. She looked the other way, she even looked very unsympathetic and because of her behaviour I’ll admit that I found her looking like a frog. 
So I was a bit worried but I knew that after the break someone should have to allow us the exchange.
So I was a bit worried but I knew that after the break someone should have to allow us the exchange.We waited and came again and after some time another lady came and she changed the money but with the closed board/sign still there, but she did it which was good.
So at the hotel the plan was to get ready to bed as soon as possible so I had a lot of time to sleep.
At first, I was very excited about the hotel. Then I used the bath…
And when I climbed inside I noticed that there were spots after someone’s anti-slip pad, that’s what I remembered… Then my shampoo fell into the bath twice from some height… And then I noticed that in the area where it fell was a hole – a paint peeled off! And I didn’t remember if it was there already before my shampoo fell there or if I caused it!
So I got scared! That maybe I damaged the bath and that they would probably want a lot of money for a new one! I saw that there were the spots after someone’s anti-slip pad, also marks of make-up on the walls and a fixed hole in the door frame, but this hole in the bath’s paint was very visible and maybe potentially dangerous so I wasn’t sure if they would let it go.
I was thinking about it a lot! But I didn’t want to tell anyone before we left the hotel to ask if they might want money, because I just hoped that they would overlook it.
Also then there was air conditioning with seemingly no button to turn it off and it was humming loudly, we even later joked that like a plane (I was later to find that it was true). But there was a button for increasing temperature which was fine because it was cold and I had only pyjamas in my suitcase and I didn’t want to unpack it, I didn’t want to touch anything (but then I had to, my hair brush) because I was glad that I fit my things there somehow.
Also, another tip for packing your luggage:
- I recommend to put your clothes into vaccuuming bags and to vaccuum the air out but that was not what I did because we don’t have special things for that and I didn’t search if I could do it with a regular vaccuumer and a regular bag.
- What I did was that I rolled my clothes and put similar things into plastic bags and before closing them I sat with my full weight (= legs up in the air), jumped and rolled on it to push the air out. It helps a lot! The things are flatter after that significantly!
- When I was organising those things in my bag I found that the air sometime returned into the bags so I had to untie them and sit with my full weight on some of them again some times.
- Then after putting things into my suitcase I sat on everything with my full weight and jumped on top of it. And then on the top of the closed suitcase.
- I reccommend leaving some space for baked products (and while packing before putting fresh food to stuff it with something else) so you have something to eat.
- Don’t count on buying something after landing, you may not have time.
- But you should check if you can bring this into your plane into the country – EU citizens can bring rolls into the UK.
Because getting ready took me a long time during that day, the time that I had for sleeping was less than I planned, like 8 hours. Someone might find it enough but I wanted more extra time. It didn’t help that I was worrying about the bath. So it was around 4 hours until I had to wake up and I was still awake. I decided to change getting up time to an hour later. Then I managed to fall asleep and slept 4 hours which I found awesome! Because it allowed me to be hopefully OK for my flight and for the play in the evening!
In the morning, I confided to my mum about the bath and according to her a plastic bottle couldn’t have caused it. I just remember what I remember and don’t remember what I don’t remember, I’m not sure if I did it.
We ate, got ready and left the hotel.
And because it's already long and it would be better if it was separated, I'll split it and write more in next posts.
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Heee-e-ey baby! :D