London - Summer 2007

Seven and a half hour plane rides are no fun. From waiting an extra hour to depart from the Houston airport, to being worried I would miss my connecting flight to Manchester at O'Hare in Chicago, planes are just no fun. But I made it all the way to England at 8 a.m. Tuesday, June 4, and was escorted off the plane like an unaccompanied minor straight through customs and baggage claim to Martin, Steph and Evee, who is the cutest baby ever!

Once in England, we drove to Butch and Su's house in Witness, about a half hour, and chatted and ate breakfast. I managed to stay awake for over 24 hours, then crashed. On Wednesday Su took me on a tour of Witness, Hale, this picturesque English village with thatched roofs, and Liverpool. It might be home of the Beatles, but other than that it is not really that pretty, just industrial.

I also had my first experience with the English version of Wal-Mart, ASDA. They own in and it is the same, only more expensive. The 2-to-1 exchange rate is killer as the cheapest thing I have found is about 2 pounds, or $4. Then the 'riffraff' as Su called them came over and I meet great-Aunt Bridget, who left the house to come and meet me which I was told was a big deal, Maureen and her kids Deborah and Allison, and Lorene, her husband Tony and their daughter Helen and her fiancée. They were all very nice and I learned all about the black sheep brother of the family.

Thursday I explored the outdoor shopping in Witness and experienced public transportation for the first time: buses. And also English food. The first night there we walked to the chippery and had fish and chips, then I opted out of steak and kidney pie for pizza. But every morning I had toast and every evening tea and scones.

Friday Steph and Evee came and picked me up and took me to their house and then to the Trafford Center in Manchester, by Old Trafford, which is the Manchester United futbol stadium. This was the coolest mall I have ever seen. It was upscale like the Galleria, but in the food court there were different areas for each country, so China town looked like a Chinese street, and New Orleans, Aztec, Egyptian, and the middle was built just like a cruise ship, complete with pool and life boats.

On Saturday, June 9 Su and I boarded a train to London at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at the Euston station at 11:30. We got a taxi to our hotel, the Thisel Westminster, and checked in. I found out that in order to be a taxi driver here you have to study for two years and take this huge test called the Knowledge. They know their way around the city like the back of their hand and will run people down. We even hit a biker who wouldn't move out of our way.

After discovering that in London air conditioning is non-existent, we walked to Buckingham Palace in time to see the practice of the Trooping of the Color, the official birthday of the Queen, which is June 16. I saw the entire British army household staff from 6 different divisions in full dress uniforms complete with bear skin hats. We then walked to Big Ben and the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abby. We had sandwiches by the Thames river and walked back down Whitehall past Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives, and into the Horse Palaces Guard and saw the changing of the horses and where the official Trooping of the Color will occur. Then a stroll through St. James Park, the Queen’s front garden, and back to the hotel to get ready for the Lion King.

The theatre itself was gorgeous, with doomed decorated ceilings and Victorian architecture. But the music and the costumes were even better! Just the way they make the animals move and the characters British accents! It was great!

On Sunday morning Su dropped me off at Vandon House, my home for the next eight weeks, and I settled in. They use it as a dorm during the year when more people are in the program, but in the summer it is also a hotel. We really are a five minute walk from the Palace in one direction and a seven minute walk to Parliament in the other. In between there is Westminster Chapel, Sutton Ground (a variety of local food stores) and a high end shopping row. Will write more at another time about my first week in London!