The Manhattan Dolls take England
Alexes, Andys and Air Force; Oh My!Day One: Why are there two pedals?
Our tale begins on the hottest day of the year so far. June 24, New York City. All six Dolls in a poorly ventilated warehouse for a photo shoot. Every one of us would be gone from New York in less than twenty four hours.
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| Copyright © Cathryn Lynne Photography |
If it was ninety degrees outside, it was one hundred in the warehouse. With curls falling and makeup dripping down our faces, we managed to pull off over twenty combinations of lovely ladies in four different dresses, in less than two hours- and we look cool as cucumbers in every shot.
Heather, Sarah, and I leave Sheila, Shannon and Mallorie to their fun in the freight elevator and high-tail it to Queens to pick up our suitcases and fight the traffic to JFK. Despite the parking lot which is the Van Wyck, we arrive perfectly two hours before our scheduled departure time (thanks Dad!), exchange our money, and head to the gate. Delays. Even after we finally board the plane, we taxied and sat on the tarmac another hour of two. In total, we left the ground about three hours after we were supposed to. I could have washed my hair.
I thought eight hours overnight regardless of how uncomfortable I was, my body would find a way to sleep- especially with the help of a Tylenol PM. Oh, no. No, no sleeping. I was so miserable (and still drugged) when we arrived at Heathrow that I honest to God thought the trip wasn’t even going to be worth it. Then I saw the Cadbury machine.
How could I forget? In the midst of my packing and ordering the global phone, and the searching for adapters, somehow forget that England is the land of Cadbury chocolate? Cadbury is apparently so commonplace there that they have vending machines full of it. They are as common as Starbucks in Manhattan. Suddenly my sleepless flight was a distant memory. With chocolate and fabulous espresso in hand, I was a new woman. We set off on our first trip on the tube to find our flat.
On the way, we examined our maps and I played Heather and Sarah the good old London Underground song. We arrive at Knightsbridge, walk past Harrods, past ridiculously fancy houses, through the most beautiful neighborhood I have ever seen and arrive at our flat. Our jaws hit the floor. There is even a washer and dryer. Heaven.
Drop off suitcase, pack an overnight bag and head to Piccadilly Circus to scope out the club for the following night. We find the Pigalle Club directly across from the statue of Eros. We find a car park (that’s parking garage to you Yankees) down the street and head back to Heathrow to pick up the rental car. Off to Trowbridge!
Did you know they drive on the left side of the road in England? The steering wheel is on the right and the roads are narrower than Wall Street. Heather has always wanted to drive on the other side so she gets behind the wheel and sets off. Well, almost. Obviously we knew about the other side of the road thing. Heather just didn’t know that an overwhelming majority of European cars have manual transmission. She sat in the driver’s seat and bless her overtired heart, she said, “Why are there three pedals? There’s only supposed to be two.” We marched right back into Enterprise and got an automatic.
Three hours later and missing a piece of the side view mirror, we arrive at our Bed and Breakfast in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. When we arrive at nine, dinner has been all cleaned up but Kate gives us a handful of delivery menus. Our rooms are adorable! We shower, order Chinese, tip the guy much to his dismay and surprise, and pass out at about ten o’clock. We have been traveling for twenty four hours. Thank the “sweet baby Jesus” for a bed.
British things we have discovered so far:
-Do not tip
-No AC
-No top sheets
-The plumbing is leftover from Queen Victoria’s reign
-Wimpy pillows
-Narrow roads
-Really nice people
Day Two, Saturday June 26, 2010: The Spotted Dick
After ten or eleven hours completely comatose at the Bed and Breakfast, I awoke like a sunshine-y bird. Heather being severely jet-lagged barely napped. We’ve swapped places it seems. Downstairs there is a lovely English Breakfast on lovely china, in a lovely room with an even lovelier view.
Stonehenge!! Our first sight seeing venture. Not only did we take the tour but the Druids were having a ceremony inside the circle of stones. I don’t know what it was or why but I’m assuming it had something to do with how close we were to the solstice. Regardless, it was very cool.
We all have a few must-hits while we are here.
Annemarie: Stonehenge and the Tower of London
Sarah: The Millennium Bridge
Heather: pubs and beer
We pass a Rose & Crown. Really? I make us stop. We walk in to a completely empty restaurant. The barkeep says, “Park your bums wherever you like.” We chose the least dingy looking booth we can find, pick up menus and instantly our eyes go to the desserts. Not because we’ve got a sweet tooth. No, no. There is a dish called, “the spotted dick” on the menu. I’m afraid to ask. Instead I opt for the beef pie and I drink my first Strongbow of the trip.
Trowbridge. In our travels this day, we drive through truly the loveliest and most beautiful countryside a city girl could hope for. We arrive at the festival grounds for the British Armed Forces Celebration and are shown to the hottest room in the building to be our dressing room. We abandon ship in about fifteen minutes and find a facility closer to the stage. We get dressed, take some photos, find our first cute boy and head up to the stage. There are three servicemen sitting in the front loving every second of our adorable little show. Foreshadowing…really just keep reading.
Before we know it, we pile into the car in our costumes and bolt back to London. We are meeting the Jive Aces tonight at the Pigalle Club. Obviously we got stuck in massive amounts of Saturday night city traffic. I had to use the facilities so badly that as soon as the club was in sight, I got out of the car in my teeny tiny carwash dress and walked through Piccadilly Circus to the Pigalle to use the toilet (bathroom). I met Grazia, the manager for the band and she leads me across a balcony for my first glimpse of the Jive Aces. They are onstage. Ian looks up at me and winks. I wave and they all look up and smile. I feel the spark of musical magic and I suddenly realize, our tour has officially begun!
Between sets, we “rehearse.” A word about the Jive Aces: These guys do not use music. No charts, no nothing. Their musical director, Vince, wrote out chord symbols for us to learn Shoo Shoo Baby. Heather is a genius and created three part harmony for us from these letters on a page. Theoretically this song should work out fine. In The Mood, Benny Goodman version, so pretty standard. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy had the most discussion. “Do you do the trumpet solo?”
“Yes.”
“Do you do ‘ba ba bad a doo dah da?”
“Yes four times.”
Good. Let’s go.
They vamp the intro to Bugle Boy while Ian introduces us. “All the way from America, The United States of America, from New York, The Manhattan Dolls!” The club is packed. My old roommate and best friend from college is there with her boyfriend. She is studying abroad and brings a welcome taste of home. It is late. It is the third set. Everyone is already very drunk and having a ball. The dance floor is jumping. We do our three songs. Everything is smoother than we could have expected. We’ve never had so much fun. Ever.
Afterwards we celebrate with our first real company drink. I have a Jameson, Sarah has wine and Heather has a martini. Again with the no tipping…weird. At some point on this trip we each have a personal moment of, “wow this is really happening.” For Heather, it was this. Poor thing was exhausted and this was the first second that she could really sit back and breathe. She got a little teary; we all said “cheers” and drank to a fabulous first weekend in the United Kingdom. The Aces drive us back to Knightsbridge and ask us to join them the following day. Do we want to sing with them again? Oh, let me think about it. Ok, yes!
Day Three, Sunday June 27, 2010: The Hottest Keys
We meet the Aces by their hotel in Luton and follow them up to Coleville, Leistershire for the Festival in the Park.
I will take this opportunity to describe exactly what it is that Vince does to a piano. My words will fall short but I cannot allow this to go unsaid. Please see video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY7OC_pLk_s) Vince is just about the best thing on the keys that ever existed. He is jumping and dancing along; kicking his legs. Higher, higher…between beats, he is slowly moving back his microphone to make room for the following action. He jumps, kicks his legs behind him, jumps again into a straddle (dancer boys, this is a Russian to you) hits the keys with his feet and eventually lands in a split. If it sounds insane, it is. I am not exaggerating a word. Seriously, see video. As if nothing could top this, their encore ends with all of the instruments, except piano and drums, upside down, physically balanced on their faces.
After the show, we go out for Chinese, and Ken drags me to the candy shop next door so I can stock up on Cadbury. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve got two bars stashed in my bag already. I feed them to the girls in the car. It has become our proverbial “spoonful of sugar.” Once we make our way back to the flat, we realize the entire day is gone. We finally get some sleep the night before our well earned, much anticipated day off.
Day Four, Monday June 28, 2010: The Dolls Take London
We are apparently still very jet lagged because we don’t make it out of the flat until two in the afternoon. We go straight to the Bus Tour- not without first walking the wrong way. Yea, that was my fault. We are ecstatic to just sit and be driven around. We get off in Covent Garden and look around at the shops. We find a pub for lunch and have the most delicious pasties. I had pork and apple. They came with fantastic potato wedges, another Strongbow and a super cute bartender! Yum! We almost took him with us but lost track of time and had to bolt back to the bus and back to the flat. We then decide to do our own pub crawl!
We leave at about 8:45 or 9pm and it is still clear and bright as day. This is not helping with the jet lag. We find a pub in SoHo for the first drink, thinking we will move on so I don’t order dinner. Then these guys show up and buy us drinks so we feel obligated to stay. All of a sudden, the pub was closing so we headed to some weird underground place with red lighting.
More British things we have discovered:
-Pubs close at 11:00pm
-The tube closes around 12 or 12:30am
-There are underground joints with no windows that stay open later
-You don’t want to take a taxi
-They also love gay pride, especially in SoHo, just like in NY!
Day Five, Tuesday June 29, 2010: Swinging with Alex and Alex
Get back on the tour bus, walk across the Millennium Bridge, eat lunch by the Globe and see the Tower of London! The matinee had just begun so we couldn’t take the Globe tour. I had a lovely steak sandwich though. Heather and Sarah walk me over to the Tower and then bugger off to the Victoria and Albert museum. I was just in time for the guided tour! I got to see the spot where Anne Boylen got her head cut off and the Prisoner’s Gate where soon to be Queen Elizabeth the first was rowed in as a prisoner. I also saw the chapel and the crown jewels. Complete success!
I met the girls back at the flat and then we headed around the corner to meet our benefactor, Cliff. Sooozie is attending to an injured relative so she could not be there and yes, her name is spelled with three “o”s. They had both come to the Pigalle the night we were singing there and they left us a note on the door to our flat. To thank them, we bring a bottle off wine but somehow end up going home with three bottles. Cliff served us the most fantastic wine out of the most fantastic crystal wine glasses. We sat out in his garden and sang him some “Apple Blossom Time.” He offered the flat again next year and we all left very happy. A collage of our photos is now mounted on the wall in the flat.
We meet Alex from the Jive Aces at some random part of London to an underground swing joint. We are there to meet a chap called Simon. There are thousands of them here. He teaches swing dance and apparently sometimes books musical acts. We meet him and for some reason he is wearing a bowling shirt that says “Flloyd.” I am more than a bit confused. The place is packed and everyone knows how to dance. The best part is, almost everyone is young! Twenties and thirties young. I am astounded. Now, my ex-roommate Halina is not the only person I know that lives in London. What are the odds that I meet someone I know? Apparently not as likely as meeting Alex Campkin. We met him there at the club. He went to school with Matt Brown, the photographer that we used on our first photo shoot. We bring him home, serve some of Cliff and Sooozie’s wine and quickly get onto Skype with Matt. Looks like London is just as small as I was wondering it might be after all.Day 6, Wednesday June 30, 2010: We’re too excited to sleep!
Alex, trombone player Jive Ace, Alex, graciously volunteered to be our photographer for the day. We trotted around Buckingham Palace, Parliament, and the guards on horse all in our matching military dresses. Alex had us in and out of phone booths, on war tank, and up on walls. Not gonna lie, we got a lot of stares.
We head home, get changed and meet the band at the pizza place in SoHo. The food is delicious, as if Grazia would take us for bad Italian…and we head out. As soon as we set foot outside, we collide with a band of wand’ring minstrels and Ian whips out the ukulele. Some other guy walks by toting a djambe on his back. I call it by name and he is impressed enough to take it out and join the party. No, this is not a cartoon.
As if life couldn’t get any better, we go for gelato. Sarah feels about ice cream the way I feel about chocolate. I haven’t ever seen her this happy. Our cones are arranged in the style of a flower and they even gave me a couple of complimentary pistachios.
As if life still couldn’t get any better, we headed to BBC studios. We change in the bathroom, trot past the sports desk and into the studio with Joannie. After we sing, we are interviewed and we all get a chance to speak. She asks what I like most about London and the only thing I can think of to say is that they have better chocolate. I must say we felt pretty fabulous when she asked if we got to see the Jive Aces at the Pigalle club and we got to say, “We sang with the Jive Aces at the Pigalle Club.”
When we get home, we are way too excited to sleep. We call Heather’s husband and my mother all still in full makeup.
Things we learned about London:
-Londoners are not immune to strange things like three girls dressed alike sitting on walls. New Yorkers would at least pretend not to care.
-Everyone is lying about the weather to prevent overcrowding due to everyone falling in love with this city.
-Everyone is lying about the food. Everything I have put in my mouth is delicious.
-Bad teeth only occur in the rural country where dental care must be harder to come by. Just like the states…
Day 7, Thursday July 1, 2010: City of London Festival
We arrive at Guildhall yard in the City of London on Gresham St. For all you Americans, the City of London is akin to below Canal Street in Manhattan. It’s the oldest part of the city and used to be surrounded by the Roman wall. Really, really old. We get our bags scanned and head downstairs to look for our dressing area. A wrong turn through an underground crypt, across what looks like Hogwart’s Dining room and finally we find a restroom. Did I mention the whole bathroom/restroom/loo conundrum? I knew no one said bathroom but I thought at least “restroom” was okay. No, no, you are not taking a bath, you are not having a rest; you are using the toilet. We were told that even “loo” is a specifically Liverpool term. Heather kept saying “loo” and everyone kept laughing at the tall blonde American saying “loo” to Londoners. She could not make herself say “toilet.” I get it. I mean, it is none of anyone’s business what it is I am doing in there. For all they know, I am simply powdering my nose. Eventually we learned to “spend a penny” but we didn’t get there yet.
Goodness, I’m getting ahead of myself. We get dressed and head out of the crypt into another lovely summer day in London and meet one of the other entertainers for the day. Enter Cody Lee.
Cody is a jive pianist. He studies with Vince. He was dressed in black trousers, a white button up shirt and a keyboard tie. He firmly shook hands with each one of us as his manager passed out business cards. During the show, he confidently strode over to me, asked me for a dance and led me through a solid lindy hop.
Cody is twelve. I had to make some accommodations for height but otherwise, his dancing was very advanced. He was throwing in moves I had only learned two nights ago at the swing club. If I didn’t know any better I would have been completely swept off my feet. After a teary goodbye, I run off to Oxford Circus to meet up with Halina. She has free tickets to see Holding the Man at Trafalgar Studios. We stop for bangers and mash. Halina makes me eat some mashy peas to compliment my sausages. The theater at Trafalgar was a lot like Second Stage in New York but it was still considered West End. It was an Australian import but hey, it was free. Despite the fact that the theater was not air conditioned, it was the first time I forgot I was in another country. Midway through the second act, someone two rows back passed out; probably from the heat.
After the show, Halina and Adam came with me to meet up with Heather, Sarah and composer Alex at a bar in SoHo. They were all sitting at an outdoor table. We join them and order so much as one drink and all of a sudden, they start closing. What? This is one of the leading most powerful cities in the world and pubs close at 11:00. I felt like Cinderella rushing back to the pumpkin. No, at least she had until midnight. We had been sitting outside so they said we could finish up inside the bar while they cleaned up the outside tables. I’ve got to say, some of us have been kicked out of bars but we have never been kicked in. Twenty minutes later the lights come on and about ten minutes after that, we all get kicked out for good. 11:30.
Our time in London is now complete. We have been here almost a solid week and have had the time of our lives thus far. I do wish we had gotten more time to sight see but the real treat was running around Southern England singing with the one and only Jive Aces. We have absolutely fallen in love and feel like we could never want a better band. I never got into the Globe, or ate fish and chips, or went shopping but I did eat lots of yummy food, drink Strongbow everyday, see a show and find those random places we never would have seen on a regular vacation. We loved everything about it, were devastated to leave and felt as if we didn’t even want to go on to the next step. But then we landed in Waddington.
Day 8, Friday July 2, 2010: Americans! You took my car keys!
On an early morning, we use our oyster cards for the last time on our way to Heathrow to pick up another rental car. Once we get there we stop at Costa for espresso and egg sandwiches. Don’t worry about me; I already had cereal at the flat. I took to eating a bowl of cereal before we left for breakfast and after we got home at night to supplement meals not eaten.
Heather has long since given up the wheel in favor of Sarah’s calm control. A word about the car...up until today, I have been in the backseat-mostly in charge of filming the antics up front. Such antics include sightseeing, picture taking, gawking at a man with a facial mole larger than my thumb nail, following the Jive Aces and much ridiculous singing to the radio. Ten days in England and we had heard no Elton John, no Rolling Stones and NO BEATLES! Really?!
When we are what we think is about forty five minutes away, we call Barry for more local directions to the base. Heather passes me the phone after about three seconds of, “’alo, you alright?” and I talk to him from here on out. The local directions go something like this: “go down a hill on a windy road, past the tank on the left. Go through the town; make a left at the T junction…” Two hours later, we pull into the base.
Dost my eyes deceive me? It must be a mirage. Perhaps I’m dehydrated. The first thing we see is about ten extra sexy shirtless soldiers climbing up metal beams as they build a scaffolding with their bare hands. This is going to be a good weekend.
We meet Barry. Heather has a much easier time with his speech in person. We watch a bit of the band’s rehearsal and spot “sweet butter man.” You know who you are…multi talented instrumentalist with a voice as smooth as butter. We rehearse. Looks like enough changes are being made that we have to burn a new CD. Before we deal with actual business my cranky stomach needs food so we make a quick visit into town where we meet yet another adorably edible bartender who serves me something delicious and my daily Strongbow. I love it here. After dinner, we head to the University of Lincoln where we are staying in the dorms and discover that Heather’s CD burner does not work. Luckily we meet some guys in the rooms below us who are willing to let us use their computer. They’re hanging around, boozing and having a few laughs…one is ironing. Sarah makes the mistake of saying, “Thank you so much for letting us use your burner. Can I thank you by ironing your pants for you?” Sarah is our costume mistress and a whiz with an iron. Regardless, there were multiple gasps and guffaws from every Brit in that room over which I exclaimed, “she will do absolutely nothing to your pants!” Trousers, Sarah. Trousers. For you Americans who still have not caught on, “pants” means underwear on the other side of the pond.
May I mention that some of these gentlemen were Welsh? Those who were from the main island were mostly Northern; Manchester and North Country types. Every one of them had different inflections although our Manchester friend, James probably had the flattest accent there. Poor Heather. She really did master it by the end of the week in London but we are in the North now. Big difference. I was literally translating full sentences.
We burn our CDs, thank them in the proper vocabulary and go upstairs to rehearse. Uh oh, Sarah took the wrong keys. She took Mark’s car keys. She runs downstairs to catch him but they are already all gone out to the pub. We leave a note, “we have your car keys by mistake. We’ll be in hangar five tomorrow.” Not good.
About 2:30am, there is a call at our windows. This is less Shakespearean and more, well, crazy drunk Welshman. “Americans! You took my car keys!” Then he comes up to bang on the door to our suite. I am silently begging Sarah to wake up and even more begging her not to open the door. I am clutching the global phone for dear life. Does 911 work in this country?
She woke up. After she dropped the keys out the window, there was a bit more yelling and then a meeker, “thank you,” and finally, “You’re all fit.” I’ve been called “fit” exactly three times in my life. Let’s just say it’s a compliment. When we saw him the next evening he didn’t remember a thing. He was embarrassed, sorry and hung-over. That didn’t seem to stop him from drinking again the following day, of course not. That would be a sin against all the drunken Welshmen who fought the English five hundred years ago. We all know how well that went.
More British things we have learned:
-Once you get out of the city, it is customary giving directions using landmarks.
-They don’t care for their own classic rock music.
-All bartenders are hot.
-Make sure to take your own keys.
Day 9, Saturday July 3, 2010: You could carry me for miles across a desert…
Free breakfast at the dorm! I do believe I haven’t paid for more than two meals this whole trip. After arriving on base, we sound check and start to make our rounds. Plane after plane, pilot after luscious pilot; photos and flirting, we invited about thirty of the most attractive servicemen to our show. We hung around Ollie and Luke a bit longer than most. We were telling Ollie of our travels thus far. Sarah, “where did you fly into for the show this weekend?”
Ollie, “oh, right here.”
Us, “right, you flew this plane, of course…”Heather, “He just flew that big black honey right on over here. Just by himself…like it’s his car or something.” All three of us now have a pin of “the black honey” on the back of our caps.
We had been performing during the Red Arrows portion of the show so unfortunately we missed the formation flying but David was generous enough to supply us with merchandise. Thanks Dave! We did get to see the Vulcan display though. You heard me correctly. The Vulcan was not only there but it flew.
Plenty of these lads did in fact show up but there were two who kept hanging around a bit more than the others. Enter Andy and Andy. Andy Sadd and Andy Johnson are crewmen for the British Army Air Corp. They fly the surveillance planes and “scope out the baddies.” They have done a few tours overseas and are going back in January. They had some pretty bad timing with us the first day. They were present for most of our shows but we couldn’t find them afterwards to thank them for coming so we promised ourselves that if we were able to find them later on at the pub that we would at least have one drink with them. We went back to the dorm to change after the show and followed a very large crowd into the city of Lincoln. We head into what seems like the noisiest bar in the world where a group of guys (who did not come to our show) buy us our first round. About fifteen minutes later, the Andys walk in. They get our second round and we slowly inch away from the first group. It got to be too noisy to talk so we left and started climbing the steepest hill on the planet. It was unpaved; Cobblestone road, old shop windows, just old world like I had stepped directly into a Phillipa Gregory novel. We stopped at one bar just to see the well. The bar had been built on top of an old well. They simply laid Plexiglas on top of the well and built around it. One of the guys led us slightly out of the way so we could see the Cathedral. Our breath instantly left our bodies. The Cathedral of Lincoln was consecrated in 1092 during the reign of William the Conqueror of the Norman Conquests. This and the Tower of London are by far the oldest complete structures (excluding ruins) I have ever seen but the Cathedral is certainly much more beautiful than the Tower. Of all our actual tours during this trip, we have seen nothing quite like Lincoln.
Our last stop is another bar at the very top of this huge hill. The Andys and crew tell us of their travels in the Middle Eastern deserts and we drink until the early hour of 11:00 when we get kicked out as usual. We start to make our way down the hill and at some point I give up in favor of a piggyback ride. I make some sort of joke about the possibility that I am getting heavy and then I realize-this guy is in the army. “Wait, you could probably carry me for miles across a desert.” His response? “Well, I don’t know about miles…” Conclusion: yes he could.
Day 10, Sunday July 4, 2010: Why did we fight for independence again?
The Andys worked some magic and somehow got us clearance to take individual pictures in the Spitfire. I went last and I even got to turn it on! After our shows it was Pimm’s o’clock! The Andys and now Mike brought us over to the Pimms stand. We had pitchers and pitchers of it. It is a concoction of liqueurs and fruit extract mixed with lemonade and fruit juices and poured over ice. It is positively THE most refreshing way to end a summer afternoon.
We had an early evening date with the automobiles. The man who owned the LeMaire and the Jaguars was ill. The first day we took some pictures in the cars. Today, those pictures had been printed. We signed and kissed them and in return we got driven around the base in these antiques like regular celebrities. After we got out, the first and only raindrops of our entire trip began to fall. Sarah threw herself across the open convertible in a ridiculous and futile attempt to protect the interior. After these brief seconds of rain, there was actually a rainbow. Do they really have Leprechauns here too?
I made the error of going to the “toilet” by myself and on the way out was positively swarmed by the Scandinavian team. Of course, the other two Dolls joined and we took pictures. Literally, us and about twenty pilots which is a perfect segue way into the hangar party!
It is the fourth of July and we finally found the Americans. Let’s have a drink to celebrate independence from the British while we are in Great Britain. Well, I don’t like beer and I haven’t had my daily Strongbow since Friday so I ask for a cider. He returns with beer. Americans. I wander away and find Andy just waiting for us to come to our senses. I admit I let the American boy buy me a drink and how badly that had turned out. He takes the offending beer from my disappointed hands, “Let me take care of it.” Less than sixty seconds later he returns with a giant cider. My hero! The singer booked for the party wants us to come onstage and sing some impromptu backup so there we are huddled around one microphone. During an instrumental, Sarah jumps off the stage and offers herself as a dance partner. Unfortunately, she didn’t think to choose just one so about six leapt at the opportunity. Heather and I immediately jumped down to take some of the overflow. I must say, these guys are not half as good dancers as the chaps in London proper. Sorry fellas.
I go to replenish my drink but get stopped by a bunch of more than halfway drunk Geordies. One of them (luckily the best looking one) was more sober and a lot nicer than the others. I said pretty sarcastically, “well it was lovely meeting all of you but we’re going to get a drink. Bye.” I grabbed his arm and took him directly to the bar. He bought me a drink and then turned out to be the only guy there who actually knew how to dance.
There was another band, some pilots exchanged flight suits and we left our lipstick marks on our favorites. Mike ended up looking a bit like Popeye. The party ends and we are all kicked off base. We pack Mike, the Andys and one more into our car and take them back to the dorms. We talk for a bit but eventually the night must end. We are leaving at 3:30 in the morning. Sarah has decided to stay up with a coffee so she can safely drive us but it is about 1:00 and I realize I am fading fast. I need a nap to even be able to get in the car let alone navigate. We bid the boys good night and they disappear into the cool English night. We awake two hours later to begin the long trip home.
Day 11, July 5, 2010: The End
We rise when it is still very dark. I’ve barely napped and it is time to get in the car again. Heather instantly conks out in the backseat. Sarah has been up since yesterday and she confidently gets behind the wheel, coffee in hand. By the time we hit city traffic about an hour outside the city, Sarah starts fading. I feed her energy bars and apples like a nurse in an OR. Upon arrival at Heathrow the roles reverse. Heather awakens nearly refreshed and Sarah completely shuts down mere seconds after stepping out of the car. She was upright. I’ll give her that.
We apparently have not had enough fun because Heather and I both got “randomly chosen” for body scans. We had to stand on the little feet outlines while some fancy machine apparently scanned our bodies. There was supposedly a woman somewhere hidden investigating beneath our clothes. Well, we made show of it, posing in ridiculous positions and thoroughly entertaining our otherwise miserable airport security officer. After our ordeal, we find Sarah asleep and pick her up to find our gate. I sat next to a sleeping Sarah the whole way home while I watch about three movies.
I realize that I have come to the end of our tour. I want to keep writing just as I wish we could have gone on to the next city, the next adventure but I know there is more traveling in store for us Daring Dolls; more planes to fly, more countries to conquer and more soldiers to swoon over. Toodle-oo and Cheerio.
*For Behind the Scenes clips of The Manhattan Dolls' 2010 UK Tour, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeaKm6bBbA
Until we sing again,
Annemarie Rosano, Manhattan Doll
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