anubisgrrl is now thoroughly married.We arrived in Charlottesville about 7.15pm on Friday after braving Dulles Friday afternoon traffic - had the quickest run through a US airport I've managed yet, with two people in front of us at the immigration desk, and our luggage making its appearance just as we walked up to the carousel. Dollar then managed to hold us up with faffing (mutter, mutter) but eventually we escaped. Met up with most of the rest of the UK posse at the motel and then went out for a Mexican. Large raspberry-flavoured margaritas and yummy burritos cure most ills.
Saturday started out with big breakfasts at the Waffle House next door to the motel, and then
rotwang went off to be useful ferrying people between the motel and the camp where the wedding was. I went off to be less useful - shopping. Well, actually I was fairly useful because I bought several people's Christmas presents (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Oh, and a hat. I don't really do hats but this one just seemed to work... and, well, I had a wedding to go to.The wedding itself was scheduled to start at 1330 but was a bit late getting going due to various people having troubles getting there. Eventually
anubisgrrl and her chap tied the knot, she wearing a rather gorgeous white dress with a marabou trimming thingammy, he wearing a green velvet frock-coat made by caffeine_fairy. There was then much eating, drinking (soft drinks), speechifying and then DJ chomper99 took to the decks... er, boombox... to entertain the masses. Most of those dancing were English but we did have some enthusiastic American support. We proved that it is possible to do the Conga to the Pet Shop Boys, others proved that you can do Scottish sword dances to Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Sadly I can't remember what the musical accompaniment was to the Gay Gordons.Once the site had been cleared up after the end of the festivities, the UK posse mostly gathered with nibbles and beer in one of our rooms, and chilled for the rest of the evening until we fell asleep.
On Sunday, the Waffle House was sadly packed to the gills, so we went down the road to Hardee's for breakfast, which was okay. Then packed up and headed back to Washington, looking for the Fair Oaks mall, about which we had heard good things. The directions we had were not the best - we'd been told that it was off exit 50 of route 66, which would have made a lot more sense if there was an exit 50... oh well. Eventually, after much driving back and forth, we eventually discovered it hiding off junction 57B or thereabouts. I bought some clothes and an ideal Christmas present for my newly-encarred sister (not saying what - she might read this...). Returned the car, checked in for the flight, stood in the world's longest security checking line (at least it was moving fairly quickly), spent some time in the lounge and then attempted to sleep through the not-all-that-long flight home. I managed an hour or three's doze after failing to watch Blackball due to having about 0.75 channels of stereo sound.
We had to hang around a lot for baggage until it transpired that
chomper99's bag really wasn't there. Hopefully it'll turn up. 