A flight and baseball world champions

Today has been one of the greatest ways to start a trip like this (apart from having to wake up at 4.45am).

So with our flight set to leave for 11am, we (we being me and Soph – I failed to mention her in my first blog…oops!) were due at Heathrow Airport for 8am. Annoyingly, following the loss of our reserved seats because of Virgin messing up our booking we were directed to a small Chinese lady who at first appeared to know absolutely nothing about the procedures, however fortunately for us she managed to reserve us seats with extra leg room (or so she said she had). Following this short delay and a brief bite to eat, we set off to finding our departure gate where we noticed a number of Virgin ladies (that is employees of Sir Richard Branson of course) directing signs for the San Francisco 49ers to our plane. Obviously being the modest and not so smug character, I decided not to put this as my Facebook status.

So we boarded the plane and surprise surprise the confused Chinese lady was indeed confused. The seats she had reserved were for a Boeing 747 rather than the Airbus A330 we were on. Thus my ridiculously long legs struggled for room. therefore the only comfort taken during the 11 hour flight was a mixture of films, and oh yeh, the San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders sitting in the two rows in front of us (although I don’t think Soph was as interested as myself – since her only comment was that “they have really nice eyebrows”). Following hours of torment, ranging from an endless queue of people going to the toilet (which again, conveniently was next to us) as well as the cheerleaders putting on British accents we arrived safe if not sound in San Francisco International Airport.

Having spent a few dollars on public transport as well as a few calories on carrying both mine and Soph’s bags up what seemed like an endless staircase, we eventually found our way to the Renoir Hotel. Having heard cheering from the Civic Centre, we decided to investigate what was happening where we discovered that the San Francisco Giants had won the World Series of Baseball against the Texas Rangers. For the next couple of hours we set out on joining in with the rabble as we took to the streets (not necessarily fitting in with the baggy jean wearing, cap slanting fans) where we discovered why sporting events are so well received over here. It was amazing to see so many different cultures mixing together to celebrate what was described as 51 years of hurt. I heard some passers by describing the day as a blessing, appearing to imply that the city has had its troubles between the different cultures in recent times. Finally I’d like to say “Let’s go GIANTS” – not Leicester Tigers as Soph thought…