LONDON LETTERS: mumford&sons. huddersfield.

the day has arrived. today i will see marcus mumford & sons in the flesh. hear their voices. feel the thumping of the bass, the strum of the banjo. today is the day my ridiculous birthday present happens.

and today i can't sleep past 4:30am.

it's cold. i keep checking my phone watching the minutes crawl by. the sun's already out... is it really only 4:30? i think maybe my phone didn't adjust to the time change... where's my watch? 4:30... is it really that light out? pull back the curtains... yes, the sun is up at 4:30 in the morning. and it's cold. freezing. our window is covered in a layer of dewy moisture because our heater doesn't work. i need to sleep a little longer...

5:30 still need to sleep longer...
... zzzzz
6:00 seriously, it's only been a 1/2 hr. dear stefani, sleep looooonger.
... zzzzzz
6:45 check facebook, instagram, read a little bit of pride and prejudice on my iphone...
... zzzz
7:20 what time does the breakfast buffet open?? what time does it close? i don't want slim pickings... maybe we should go at the beginning. how can casey still be sleeping? itʻs full-on daylight out there... this is crazy. in 12 hrs. i'll be watching Mumford & Sons live in england. i'm crazy. this is crazy. i need more sleep.
... z
7:30 i'm taking a shower. and then i'm waking up casey. maybe i'll lay out our outfits first. and do my hair and make-up and all that.

8:00 i'm waking up casey.

we just had our first english breakfast... eggs, beans, bacon (but not like american bacon), sausage (but not like american sausage), and there was the continental all-you-can eat bar where we grabbed a couple croissants and fruit&yogurt bowls, maybe some frosted flakes too. oh and complimentary hot cocoa... mmmmm. tummies full, it's time to find markers and posterboard to make "the sign". 

"the sign" has been part of the plan all along. i mean, how i am going to get on stage with Mumford & Sons if they don't know i exist? and how can i let them know i exist when they're on stage and i'm down with the huge sea of audience peoples? and what would get their attention?

a poster.

a poster exhibiting the fact that we have flown, literally, to the other side of the world to see them perform live in their home country. HI2UK12, that was my catchphrase/hashtag for the trip... Hawaii to United Kingdom in 2012 - HI2UK12. big deal, right? like seriously, big deal. so hereʻs the plan... find a spot near the front, close to the stage. hoist the sign at the perfect time when Marcus will see it, read it, and say something like, "oh really, you flew all the way from Hawaii to hear us?! that's brilliant! come on up here!" (make sure you read that in a british accent...) then we'll chit-chat on stage, he'll ask what i do back in hawaii, "oh i teach piano."

"oh so you're a musician? you ever play any of our songs?"

"yah! i did 'the cave' at the spring recital last year, and i've done 'awake my soul'. y'all are amazing!!"

"well, how about we do one together, whadya say?"

and that's how it's all gonna pan out. so i need to find a store that sells markers and posterboard so i can make a sign. the sign. and would you believe that Staples is in the UK?! (no wonder Dunder Mifflin never stood a chance... michael scott? the office? anyone... bueller... ) we made the sign right there at checkout... took up an entire register area to do it. 

next stop: Huddersfield. Greenhead Park.

drive. park. pay for parking. find bathroom. find venue. arrival time: 2ish. Mumford & Sons goes on just before 9. in the interim: stroll around Huddersfield.

eat fish and chips.

man these are good fish and chips. and i had a coke too. but coke is coke no matter where you are... do you see these fish and chips?? amazing... greasy. and amazing. i don't know how they got a chunk of fish that big!

oh look, a cute little random man smiling at me from his front step. *click click

and back to the festival...

buy tshirts. check.

look at the booths... they all sell different brews of beer. no hot cocoa. check.

find a good spot. check.

hmmm... the stage is well guarded. there's no way to access it from the audience area. like, there's the audience, then a fence, then security guards, then the stage. all stairs and stage access are backstage. my plan can't work... they can't call me up on stage. it's literally impossible. and i never came up with a plan B.

plan B: have casey hold our spot and i'll go be all chatty with the security guard that's at the backstage access area. tell her our story... get in. 

i approach the security guard... female. in her 40s. looks nice.

smile. smile big. 

i tell our story... flew allthewayfromhawaii because we adore Mumford & Sons, young parents first time away from kids, fellow musicians, we love England, Yorkshire sure is beautiful... 

"no, love. but good on you for trying!" (everybody calls everybody 'love', it's great.)

then Ben walks by.

Ben, the pianist/keyboardist for Mumford & Sons.

walks right by me. like less than 2 ft. from me.

and i walk back to Casey, tell him the bad news, but that i saw Ben. i point to Ben. "see, he's right over there?"

"well, why don't we go say hi to him?" says Casey.

duh. of course.

so we did.

me: "we flew all the way from Hawaii to see you guys!"

ben: "why?!"

me: "because you're amazing! inspiring! some of the best music i've ever heard!"

ben: "wow, well are you enjoying the festival?"

me and case: words of affirmation.

we said something else... i'm not sure what it was. it was surreal. then we walked away, and someone attacked him for a picture, and i realized we didn't get a picture. so we did.

my one regret: i should've said, "can we come backstage and meet everybody?"

i'm sure he would have said yes. oh well... HI2UK13! jk jk

after several hours in some drizzly rain, which was awesome by the way, the time came. and this guy came to the stage to announce the band...

and then it began...

(FYI: no that is NOT me you hear singing/screaming at the beginning and such...)

and here are a couple more for those who love Mumford & Sons' music as much as i do...

Thistles and Weeds

Awake My Soul

and a few pics of the concert...

in one word: epic.

LONDON LETTERS: prep and leave

camping. we had already planned on camping from fri - wed. and the kids were super stoked about it, so i wasn't gonna bail on the idea. that just meant a little less prep time. we went to the passport office on friday and handed in our paperwork, spent the weekend camping, then hit up the memorial day sales for some cold-weather clothes. (NOTE: hawaii does not sell jackets. probably never, but definitely not in June. also, no long-sleeved white shirts. seems simple, right? yah, not so much. i ended up going to sports authority and just buying some under armor shirts...) we decided to pack-up camp monday night, so i had 36ish hours to unpack camping gear/clothes/food, do laundry, clean the house, pack kids suitcases and grown-ups suitcases... oh yah, and pick up our passports.

wednesday night. our plane didn't leave until 10:30. we dropped of the kiddos at 6:30, threw our bags in the car, and headed out. (i'm really proud of the fact that we packed super light... i might mention it a few times. we packed super light.) our route took us to LAX then Washington/Dulles, then Manchester, England. FLIGHT 1: 5ish hours. FLIGHT 2: 5ish hours. FLIGHT 3: 7ish hours. Total fly time from point A to point B: 17 hrs. ish. Total travel time from point A to point B: 24 hrs. ish... oh, and we almost missed our flight to Manchester... no joke. we were chilling in Washington/Dulles... i had already begun my hot cocoa addiction, which lasted for the duration of the trip. i was rubbing essential oils on my feet because i was determined to A) defy all past experience and not get sick with all the flying (ps. jackie k. if you read this, i want you to know we were constantly putting neosporin in our noses. totally works!)  B) chill-out my asthma before arriving in a new climate/environment, etc. we were sitting 20 feet from our gate... and we thought it was weird that there was a flight to Paris leaving 30 minutes before our flight to Manchester, U.K. was supposed to leave. We kept saying how that was some magic to get one plane taxied out and another in, unloaded, cleaned, loaded and on its way in only 30 minutes. It got closer and closer to leave time and the flight to Paris was obviously running late.... we were uber confused. NOTE: ALWAYS CHECK THE SCREENS!! I mean, everyone knows this. We know this. But for same brainless reason we were just going by our tickets... As I'm sure you've figured out, our gate had been changed. To be more correct, our terminal had been changed. IT WAS INTENSE!! We grabbed our small carry-ons (we packed super light... so cool) and booked it! When we arrived at the correct gate it was on last boarding call! We walked in, buckled up, and left. Like I said, intense!

We arrived in Manchester, England, Friday morning at 9:30, picked up our rental car, and started driving. On the left side of the road. Through the most insane driving situations ever... let's all say "rounadbout" together... And an hour or so later we were in Skipton, home of Skipton Castle.

LONDON LETTERS: badminton

on tuesday, may 22nd i got an email from Mumford and Sons... because we're bff and we txt and email and comment on each others FB statuses and stuff, right... and mostly because i'm signed up on their fan club lists. i skimmed over it with a tear in my eye... something about their very own series of festivals called "stopovers" and the first one was in two weeks in a place called Huddersfield... tickets still available. WHAT?!?! ticket still... what?!? a little bubble bounced around inside of me thinking, "maybe we could go!! there are still tickets??!! what is this? who am i kidding... IT'S IN 10 DAYS!!!???!" then i google-mapped Huddersfield and lo.and.behold it's about 3 hours north of London.

i think this is when i exploded. in a good way...

i called casey. explained the situation. he thought i was insane, because that would be a normal response. i looked up plane ticket prices, train ticket prices, hotel stay prices, car rental prices... then i called casey again. with the figures in hand he thought i was insaner. then i texted my friends echo and becca, and talked to my other friends ezinne and brian... it was pretty equally divided between, "girl, you cray." and "DO IT!!!" all of this happened on tuesday.

i had a moment tuesday afternoon when i realized this was utterly ridiculous and of course we weren't going to spontaneously leave for england next week and whatthecrazywasithinking, and me and my iphone went in the shower (with it's waterproof case, mind you) and i cried my little eyes out while i listened to Mumford and Sons in the shower. (seriously can't believe i just admitted that... so SO corny.) i wrote it off and dismissed this whole business of spontaneous world travelling. really now, i'm an adult.

WEDNESDAY the 23rd:

wednesday i woke up with the whole mess behind me. did i still want to go? well hello, of course. but i'm just not the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of gal. i plan things out. i'm careful with the monies. i make responsible decision. i'm almost 30 for crying out loud!!! i don't follow bands around paying too much money to watch them sweat and strum on stage... c'mon now! wednesday i was normal again. i put on my running shoes, dropped the girls off at their respective places of education, and headed to the bike path for a jog. but then i decided to call mom and dad. mom didn't answer, so i called dad. and we chatted. and he said i was crazy if i didn't go. he said, i quote, "GO! and call me when you get there!" then just after that mom called me back... she was on the "girl, you cray!" side of things. so i badmintoned the idea back and forth, back and forth.

right shoulder voice: live the dream!  left shoulder voice: be practical.

right shoulder voice: once in a lifetime crazy spontaneous opportunity? left shoulder voice: be practical!

right shoulder voice: you only turn 30 once...  left shoulder voice: be practical!

and then there were the real, honest-to-goodness roadblocks...

OBSTACLES:
#1 expired passports: can we even get them renewed in time?? it's memorial day weekend... that's one less business day before we would be leaving... we would be leaving in 7 days, only 3 business days!! this is impossible...
#2 the plane ticket prices were bouncing all over the place... if i couldn't get them for the cheap end of things, i WAS NOT going to pay the higher price.
#3 if we could get the passports renewed AND get the plane tickets at the cheap prices, were the concert tickets still available??? what if i paid for the crazy plane tickets and BOOM no concert tickets?!?!
#4 am i really going to spend an exorbitant amount of money to go to a concert?? (justification: not just a concert, a country. i'm unreasonably fascinated with england...)
#5 last, but not least, child care. could i find people to watch my lovely little humans for that long of a time?? i mean, i think they're adorable and pleasurable and easy to handle... when well fed. but would other people??

i called casey again and we talked it over... he gave me the go-ahead. well, basically he said if i could really pull it off, then go for it. but i shouldn't start counting any chickens, if you know what i mean... and he still thought i was insane. (side note: he loves mumford & sons just as much as me... and he likes castles. so, you know, just saying this wasn't a one-sided wonderland. it's like a 80/20 wonderland...)

RESOLUTIONS:
#1 i called the passport office in honolulu and had the shock of my life when they said they could expedite a passport renewal and it could be done in 3 BUSINESS DAYS!!! (they did it in 2 for us because we smiled a lot.)  CHECK
#2 after confirming that we were in the clear for the passports i jumped back on every travel sight you've ever heard of, and Wednesday early-afternoon the tickets dropped to the lowest they had been the entire time... and i went for it. CHECK
#3 almost simultaneously, on another open window, i clicked the "purchase" button for the Mumford & Sons Huddersfield, U.K. Stopover tickets. we were officially ticketed, intended-attendees to a Mumford & Sons concert IN THE U.K. CHECK
#4 yes. i am. CHECK
#5 we called grandma (who, by the way, does not actually live in HI) to see if she'd like to fly over... unavailable. checked with several family friends who we've known since moving here... it seems like people like to leave the rock in the summer, and everyone was in fact leaving the rock... i had had a few friends who had already offered to child-watch if we decided to go, but one was coming sick, another was literally having a baby... literally. another was traveling right after we got back... just bad timing all around. but somehow, miraculously, three amazing families sprang up to the rescue to watch my women. CHECK

right shoulder voice: we're going to england! left shoulder voice: mumford & sons!!

and so the countdown started... T-minus 6 days to departure. and holycrapwe'regoingtoengland...nextweek started to set-in.

LONDON LETTERS: the let-down

so remember that one time i said i wanted to go to london and see Mumford and Sons perform live? i mean, i wanted to go to london anyways... to england in general. let's be honest, i want to move there. (yes, really.) and so i scoured their website, Mumford and Sons, and eagerly awaited concert dates in london. really anywhere in england that was closeish to london would do.

i looked daily. literally. shows in denmark, scotland, sweden, germany, america, the netherlands... lots and lots of shows. none in england. i think sometime in late march - early april i slackened on my daily vigil and it became more of a weekly vigil. i even facebooked them and explained my situation... 30th birthday coming. want to see them. london, england. etc. etc. (i didn't expect a response, and didn't get one.) i just needed a show date so that i could start working out plane tickets and hotels and all those little details.

i was kind of getting disheartened. maybe they weren't planning on touring the lovely great britain this year. maybe they wouldn't post show dates with enough time for me to plan the trip, buy tickets for everything, etc. maybe it wasn't meant to be... (let's all have a collective sigh together.) then i got the fortune cookie... now generally i'm not a big believer in fortune cookies. but this was a sign, people! seriously... it was MY fortune in MY fortune cookie. it came to me.

hope.

so i kept checking show dates, tour schedules, i looked everywhere! sometime in late april - early may i checked their website after a week or two of slacking and low and behold SHOWS IN ENGLAND!! none right in london, but hey, close enough! so i searched through each show individually looking at concert dates and available tickets... annnnnddddd

every.single.one.

sold out.

what? how? whyyyyy?!?!

i searched the interwebs and learned that they had all sold-out within 20 minutes!! and were being sold on ebay for way too much money. i was desperate so i went to ebay... they were sold-out there too. and let me tell you, they were going for WAY too much money.

so i clung to my little fortune of hope and decided i'd check again in a few weeks to see if they would post any shows for the fall. maybe, just maybe, more shows in the u.k. or maybe answer my desperate facebook message... or, you know, somehow learn of my desperate plight and just fly over here and do a show right in my backyard! (maybe this is what casey had up his sleeve the whole time??!!)

but somewhere down deep in the back of my head i knew i had missed my chance.
and this year was not the year.