Hi!!
Its Sunday evening and I'm in my PJ's after just getting quite emotional having just watched Junior bake-off final lol.
Its been a busy weekend! and in a couple of hours I'll be watching the Jacksonville Jaguars play the Titans. The Titans are in our division and we are currently at the bottom of the division! I hope the game is not as depressing as last week...
So...this weekend was a War of the Worlds (WOTW) experience with Helen and Paul. We all love WOTW - although I think Helen doesn't know it as well as the rest of us. I was pretty obsessed with it when I was around 14-15 years old, and have listened to it lots since - and watched the film. So, we read about the experience in London and decided to go for it - despite the fact that's its quite expensive to get there, to stay in London, to eat out in London - and pay for the tickets! We bought Pauls ticket for his birthday.
So Saturday morning, Helen and Paul got on the train in Paignton, and were trying to save seats for us at the table they had got, so we could sit together and they were getting very stressed as the train filled up before we got on in Taunton. By the time we got on the other seats were taken and there was only standing room left! We stood up until we got to Bristol and then we were able to sit with them! They then got out bread and hummus, olives, sausage rolls and prosecco! lol. It was pretty awesome - and quite typical of them to be so organised and thoughtful! We had a really good laugh the rest of the way - which was another couple of hours or so!
When we got to London we made our way to the hotel - all just following Andy as usual! We stayed at the Strand Palace, and we upgraded to a renovated room - not sure why - think they were doing it with everybody. It was nice enough if not a little small - but it is central London! We just dumped our stuff really and then headed to the WOTW event. We got there early (as planned) and had a little food and a drinky poos....and the pub was really good! They had moving pictures and WOTW stuff about...
We then went, with 8 other people - into the the event. We were taken through to a room where we watched a hologram of two ppl explaining about the aliens landing etc. with a bit of the music.... Paul got told off for messing about lol...we were then taken through to another room where telescopes were set up...there was an actor saying...welcome to the observatory...it then became obvious that something had gone wrong and a voice came through asking the actors not to proceed. It was then a little awkward and I was really worried that we wouldn't be able to proceed at all and we'd come so far and spent so much...but a few minutes later things seemed to be back to normal - although there was a scene played through the telescopes but not on mine or Pauls...
We went into another room and it was the Horsell common scene where Professor Ogilvy tries to make friends with the aliens and gets set alight! The special effects for this was quite good. A soldier then takes us through to an area where we put VR headsets on - and we walk around a room - all the other people with headsets on are represented by a character - Andy was a maid hahah - he told me afterwards that I was a black guy wearing a top hat hehe. My VR headset wouldn't work properly, so a guy had to take it off me and sort it out - then the sound was really faint so that was a little disappointing. With the headsets still on we were taken out on a bridge where there was a whole scene of the aliens burning up ships and artillery trying to fight them - eventually fire engulfs us and we all run away! Another soldier then takes us down a spiral staircase and we try and get into a house - they open and window and as the first few ppl start climbing through the open the door lol. Its a big dining room and we all sat around it. An actress/maid plays out a scene until it all goes dark and loud - and then we see her grabbed by an alien - and again we all run off!. We all got into boats and again put headsets on - the boat was moving in time to the scene that we could see - it was really good but this time my headphones wouldn't work properly and it ruined the soundtrack - and my fave song! We were taken up into the air by the aliens - and eventually let go again....the graphics were pretty good - Helen and Paul were sat in front of me which was really funny as Paul was represented by a woman who was constantly smiling - even though we were being attacked from all side hahah and Helen was a young boy!
After this we had a 20 minute break in a bar! So we had a drink - and I complained about my equipment constantly letting down - Andy was questioning if I had it on properly - which I did! This was to come back and haunt me as ppl kept trying to wind me up and claim it was my error! lol.
From the bar we went into a room where another actress was in a grave yard - she was touching Andy's face saying she didn't think we were real - that we were ghosts! She said we should pray and confess our sins - we were then all put into a confession box - with the VR headsets again! We could see a priest who was telling us we were all doomed and the aliens were actually demons! (obviously following the story of WOTW) we could then see a scene where we were in one of the alien ships and there were long arm things - that actually took off the priest - again the visuals were really good and this time my headset and headphones worked really well! As the arms of this alien were coming close to us we were actually grabbed lol - this made me jump!
We then went into this room (4 at a time so it was us 4) and we sat on a round bench thing - looking upwards at a scene that made us all feel quite queasy!
We then followed an actor again - and he was going through his speel and heading into a room - and Helen pushed me towards him! I was trying not to go into him/the room - and I got told off!! lol. We all thought that was quite funny! We had to try and find blueprints for something - and the actor starting talking to Andy (and the whole room - carrying on the story line) - and Helen threw a rag at Andy that hit him in the neck - and Andy just didn't react because the guy was talking to him - again we all found it quite funny!
After this we went into hot air balloons - 2 to each one - so me and Andy were together - we put headsets on again and could see a whole scene around us as we went up in these hot air balloons - I cant really remember what we were seeing but it was good!!
After this we had to go down a slide thing which was fun! and I think we then saw the last woman actor who kept telling ppl off and it was quite annoying because it was for minor things and she was more like a school teacher rather than somebody who was supposed to be entertaining us! It was at this point I think that we went through the last door and back out into the bar!
So - all in all I was a little disappointed - at times it was quite amateur and I was let down quite a few times by the technology - but on the other hand we did have a good time and a good laugh!!
We left here and headed back towards our hotel and Leicester square - we had a drink in a packed pub - then left to find a comedy club - which we found straight away and bought tickets and went in - we ended up on the front row but off to the side - much to Pauls disappointment - he didn't want to be at the front at all - but me and Helen did! hahah so he lost! Andy and Paul went to the bar and got 2 crap warm beers and 2 double vodka and coke in a small plastic glass and it was £38! So were were not impressed with that!! We saw 3 comedians - a blind guy first - then an Asian guy, then a Nigerian guy - all were really funny - the last two were mainly talking about their heritage or being black in London - we laughed a lot which was awesome!
We were starving afterwards and Paul wanted to see if Burger king had the new vegan burger - they didn't but me and Andy got a burger - only to realise that Helen was quite upset because she thought we were going for a meal. So I ate my chicken burger - and then went for a meal hahah. It was Thai food and awesome - didn't have loads tbh - and I got cocktails (buy one get one free) I got Expresso Martini and it was disgusting! It was all very expensive - wherever we went, but that's London for you! We headed back to the hotel after this and got to bed - think it must have been about 12.30am....I was knackered and got straight to sleep - had been a busy day - and a very fun one!
The next morning I got up and got a shower and we met H&P in reception at 9.30am and headed back to the train station - we all got some food for the journey and when we got on the train we managed to get a table between us again - so it was a fun journey again! We discussed the WOTW experience and we were also trying to remember the details of when we went on a zombie experience - and discussed xmas etc. Very chilled and fun...made our way home....
So - a great weekend - great company, all good and happy - but skint lol.
