The World Wide Web

I have about four draft bloggs in my little drafts folder and I am sick to death of looking at them so I am absolutely determined to actually finish this one! I feel inspired to document something and then something interrupts me and then the next time I come back to that piece it almost doesn't have any relevance or weight anymore so it just sits there gathering dust (or the electronic equivalent) which just makes me feel sad and defeated when ever I look at them.... So, if you are reading this then consider me a raging success because I actually managed to commit to writing something for longer than 30 minutes!

OK, literally as I finished that sentence the laptop I am using just randomly switched itself off! I figured that was the Universe trying to tell me to STOP TRYING TO WRITE A BLOGG NO ONE CARES...but because the internet is so very, very clever and useful when I logged back on it had saved my work automatically, marvelous!

This actually leads me nicely on to the topic I wish to discuss in this blogg; that magical force of (anti) nature that we all revolve our lives around, that endless supply of information, that portal of access to the lives of our friends, families and people who don't even know, the thing that we, as human beings seem to not be able to function without (second to oxygen)- THE INTERNET!

I know that this isn't exactly a new take on the subject, I feel like many of us are well aware of the fact that the internet, although it has revolutionized the way we live our lives, has also made so many of us socially inept, unable to communicate with others or survive without a WiFi connection! This being said, until my monster commute between Costa Rica and Missouri last Saturday, I hadn't been in a situation recently where this problem had been so screamingly obvious. While making this journey I couldn't help but be actively aware of how frantic and absurd people behave when for some reason the internet is not available to them. The sad thing is, if I too had not been denied the delicious internet connection that we were all deprived of I probably wouldn't have taken a second glance at what the other travelers were doing! Sad, but probably true!

Apparently it takes longer door to door to get from San Jose, Costa Rica to Kansas City, Missouri than it does to get from London to NYC, that is if you have the appalling connections that I had booked myself on! There was no direct flights from A to B even if you had a million dollars to blow on flights so I settled for a flight with one connection, so two planes in total. It is one of those things that I am sure everybody has done (or at least I hope I'm not the only person that is guilty of not fully reading the itinerary/times/fine details....?) where you book something way in advance of actually doing it and then you forget about what it is you have actually booked yourself to do. In my defense, saving for this trip for a year and factoring in a total of 8 flights, one mega road trip, a greyhound and various other buses and taxi shuttles I think I can forgive myself for not know wtf was going on the entire time! Anyway,I digress. So the journey plan was as follows:

Saturday
3:00pm- Shuttle bus from Tamerindo to San Jose (5hrs)
8:00pm-Arrive at San Jose Airport (it's small, by the way) (5hrs waiting)
00:55am- Flight from San Jose to Houston Texas (4hrs 30 mins)

Sunday
5:00am-Land in Texas
7:00am- Finally get through security/customs/immigration (2 bloody hours!!!) (followed by a 4hr 30min wait for the connection...)
11:35am-Flight to Kansas City, Missouri (2 hrs)
2:30pm- Land in Kansas, get greeted by the most beautiful red head and most strapping Spaniard in town! #madetheentireordealtotallyworthit

So to save you all working out the ratio of flying time to waiting time it was roughly 17 hours dicking about and 6 hours in the air! So that is 23 hours in total and it took an hour or so to get o back to Em and Jaime's place so that is literally 24 HOURS and I slept for about 3 of them (2 on the plane, 1 in Houston Airport)

My point is, with all that waiting around on my own I was bored, tired and uncomfortable...so what do you do to alleviate these feelings? Well, you check Facebook of course, you watch YouTube videos of course, you play music from Spoitfy Premium of course! But all of that does my actual head in after a while because the mindless scrolling and swiping around the phone makes my brain feel numb and my eyes hurt so I made sure I had my book to read and my not book to write in too. Lucky I did...

I was fortunate enough to sit next to a friendly guy from Chicago on the first shuttle bus to the airport, who had the sensible idea of bringing a four pack for the journey. The driver made a joke when he got on that he had already started drinking so I said something like "you're not allowed to drink beer unless you've got one for everyone" to which he replied "you can have one, they're only going to get warm!" Legend. So we had a good chat for the first hour or so of the journey so that kept me entertained internet free, then we had a pit stop, then I listened to some music (offline, I was clever and learned how to download playlists so you can listen to them offline- I have Courteney to thank for that!) then we had another chat then we were pretty much at the airport so that part of the journey was pretty painless, nicely air-conditioned and internet free!

I was starving by the time I got to the airport and seeing as I was a million hours early I decided to get some food in the only cafe in the terminal and I couldn't help but notice the enormous sign that stated FREE WIFI FOR OUR CUSTOMERS. The only thing left to eat was a weird chicken lasagna which I reluctantly paid 10 dollars for and consumed while people watching around the cafe. Next to me was a young hippy looking couple from with their tatty backpacks and a laptop, across the way was a glam looking older lady on her tablet and over the other side was a Costa Rican girl about my age on her phone. All of them online (I presumed). After eating the odd lasagna and drinking the disgusting fluorescent 'Fanta' I switched on my WiFi, entered the password LAVAZZA123 and watched the screen as it 'obtained IP address...verified password....searched the galaxy for a signal'. It wouldn't let me go online so I assumed I was being my usual technologically inept self and asked the waiter for the password again in case I had gotten it wrong. To my dismay, I had in fact entered the password correctly, the guy just said "Sorry, sometime we have problems with the connection here, sometimes: "the internet just doesn't work..." Dun dun duuuunnnn!

Over hearing this prompted the couple next to me to say, in a kind of jittery manor that I can liken to cold turkey crack head in need of a fix, "We...we can't got on either...it's...just, well, it's just not working...um...some people over that side of the room managed to get on it....um...yeah...I dunno..there's just no wifi...!!" The older lady over heard this and said to the Costa Rican girl "Are you online? I can't seem to connect, it just says IP address not found or something", Costa Rica girl replies, "No, I've been trying to get on this whole time, but *sigh* I can't..." (so just bare in mind that the whole 20 mins it took me to wait for and eat my dinner all four of these people were staring at a screen clicking the WiFi on and off, entering and re-entering the password...the whole 20 mins!)

My initial thought when he said there was no WiFi was:

 "Oh...hmmmm...that's a pain in the arse...it's going to be a long 5 hours without a film to watch"

Then I said to the couple on the table across with their laptop:

 "Wow, no internet, what a nightmare, I guess we could always do something crazy like talk to each other..." (now, if you know me then you will know the tone in which I said this to them was a tone that was meant to provoke amusement and subsequently a conversation)

The couple looked at me, awkwardly smiled, then completely ignored me! They literally did not know how to respond to someone actually asking them if they wanted to chat in order to help the time pass quicker! I couldn't believe this (pretty rude of them, right?!) so I then said:

"Well, I have a pack of cards in my hand luggage so if you want to play cards or something.... *trail off*" - they had already gone back to gazing longingly into the screen of their laptop - Refresh, re-load, Refresh, re-load......

My point is not that I desperately needed to have a deep and meaningful with these people, I was just a bit bored and restless. I just found it so baffling how rude, closed off and weird everyone in that cafe behaved.

We exist online and chat away to millions of people, posting pictures of our holiday, replying to comments, sending emails, updating instagram, tweeting about god knows what (I don't have twitter but I am of course guilty of FB and Instagram). Online we are infallible, online we can say and do whatever the hell we want because we feel untouchable, we don't feel embarrassed; I would go as far to say that we feel a sense of power and righteousness when we are telling everyone who know (and loads of people we don't) things like:

'The cat fell off the sofa this morning LOL!' or
'OMG, worst week ever! Sad Emojii :( ' or
'Can't wait to get home and curl up on the sofa and watch Netflix with my baby- Love you Babes!' or 'Downstairs toilet is finally finished, [insert photo of the loo under the stairs] love the new tile colour' #thisisaphotoofwhereishiteveryday

This is all perfectly normal, reasonable behavior for us nowadays BUT...... a perfectly friendly fellow traveler stuck in the same cafe with nothing to do and a five hour wait with no WiFi trying to have a conversation with you in real life- HELL NO! Literally blew their tiny minds.

Here comes the real ridiculousness and irony.

After reading my book for an hour or so the check in desk had opened so I made my way down to put my bag on board and go through security. The conversation went like this:

United Airlines Man:Just checking in one bag?
Me: Yes, just this one.
United Airlines Man: Do you have your customs form for the USA?
Me: Yes, here it is.

United Airlines Man:Thanks, Oh....have you got a forwarding address for Missouri?
Me: No, sorry I don't, that's why I just put Kansas City Missouri. I am staying with a friend but she is collecting me from the airport so I didn't think to ask for it.

United Airlines Man: OK, the problem is when you arrive at US customs they will question you on it if you don't have an address so you will need to provide one.
Me: OK, the problem is I have no way of contacting my friend right now as the WiFi isn't working.

United Airlines Man: THE WIFI ISN'T WORKING? WHAT? NOT IN THE CAFE? YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET THE INTERNET IN THE CAFE?!
Me: Nope, no one could get on so I can't send her a whatsapp and my phone doesn't work in Costa Rica so I can't call.

United Airlines Man: OK, what I can do is put Kansas Missouri on the computer for now and when you get through security you should be able to get on to the Wifi over that side as the signal is really strong there. When you get signal then message your friend straight away to get the address and come and see one of us at the desk before you board the plane and we can update your information.
Me: That's fine, thanks for doing that....but what am I going to do if I can't get on the WiFi? Then I have no way of finding out the address until I get there.
United Airlines Man: In that case, it is unlikely they will let you into the USA...
Me: Brilliant...lets hope the bloody WiFi works then!

So there you have it! I was literally in a situation where I could not exist without an internet connection! Without the internet I couldn't get into the USA. Unbelievable!

Lucky for me, as you have probably gathered the WiFi was fine in the departure lounge, I whatsapped Emma and Jaime, got the address and gave it to the United Airlines Man. Then I sat down on the floor, looked around me and saw literally EVERYONE who wasn't sleeping on their phones- eagerly swiping through the vital information they may have missed in the last hour sin internet.

I made a pillow out of my bag and Will's hoody, shut my eyes and waited for my flight to be called.

***Optimism triumphs over Pessimism in 2015****

I must be feeling inspired...
This started it's life as a facebook status and now here we are in blogg land :) Nice one 2015!

Now that I can actually see straight.... last night panned out go be everything I wanted and more :) After suffering massive NYE anxiety syndrome for the whole month leading up to it - (its going to be be shit, I've got no enthusiasm for it, why do I care anyway? This isnt like me...I might just stay in... wahwahwah)
I am glad to say that I was completly wrong and Norwich came through for the win!

I ate in an Italian restaurant...well done Kel, you can do it..baby steps haha!) with such incredible company, great service and lush cocktails. I was thrilled to be with my darling lil bro, Ryan Page, his gorgeous girl Lauren Williamson , her awesome mate Zoe, the strapping Mr. Kris Holman, the dapper Mr. Jamie Michael Smith and his lovely family.
Plus one other (who I was lucky enough to sit opposite) -my all time favourite Job Jobs Lizzy Jobbins; who wore a black sparkley dress that made her look like she had just stepped off the red carpet at the Oscars... I had the privilage of teaming up with her for the night (our team won btw...) She looked a million dollars, always has, always will!

"A night to remember forward slash have patchy memory of sponsered by: Cosmopolitans, vodkas, Jaegermiester (you foul fiend) and 5am Desperados...."

We were stuck on the line for Gonzo T. Room...ONE IN.ONE OUT...got to the front by 11:45pm to be told that 5 people could go in (there were 6 of us) so I volunteered to be the one left out in the cold. My thoughts were that surely no bouncer, however big his ego, however much he thrives off of a power trip, would never leave a girl separated from all her friends and family on NYE... surely? He kept me standing behind that rope until 11:59. I ran (literally) in to the sound track of The Final Countdown and pounced on everyone just as it turned midnight! Epic. Dramatic. Love it.

The music was just divine- 90's- 00's classics and anthems...  like "I'm a dreeeeaaaammmeeerrr!!"  &"Smack my bitch up" .
When "Groove is in the heart" came on I recall the most sensational group of drag queens coming in and joining me on the dancefloor. They were all so sparkley and theatrical and marvellous, I think there were 6 of them and I kissed them all!

Then the night took a delightful turn that only the small world of Norwich could provide. Lizzy and I were standing at the bar waiting to be served and who is behind me? Steve-n and Joey Morgan! Bloody love those guys and I have'nt seen them in years! Naturally we did shots. They were partying with two more excellent blasts from the past- the adorable Jimmy Hood and the lady who's kind words of encouragement inspired me to write this little piece- Holly Lampe. The two of them are an item now, a very beautiful, well matched item ♡

We danced, we drank, we partied on the roof and talked about life, love and the Universe :)

Lizzy is one of those people who has the ability to knows when to call it a night (especially when she has a nine year old's birthday party to attend on New Year's day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIA ♡) so around 3:00am she left..
I stayed. Cue arrival more excellent Norfolk royalty :) Everybody loves the Nham crew, I will always have a place in my heart for you lot! I remember saying to George- "It's wierd.... I may not be super close with you guys...but we go way back, so many memories have been made and it's night's like this that bring everyone together in that way.." #soppybuttrue #norfolk #home

I am feeling so much more optistic now that the new year is finally upon me. I know it sounds really generic, but last year presented me with such incredible highs and such fatal lows that I really am just reeling from it all. I think the new year, new start culture that we live by is such a great thing because it provides people with a solid benchmark for positive change, forward motion along with the reason and drive to progress positivly in life.

I haven't made any resolutions as such (but I do want to make a 'rememberloutions jar' -look it up on buzzfeed if you are someone that likes arts n crafts and can't throw stuff away!) I just want to take care of myself, learn how to deal with the pressures of life and to be happy being me. I think thst is kind of what everyone wants really.

I hope that everyone I know and love is feeling optimistic about the future and the adventures it will bring us...

2015, so far you are really fun, unpredictable, safe and inspiring, thank you :)

Thank you for reading the ramblings of a hungover lady snuggled up in bed writing this whole thing on her phone, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have writing it!