18 July, 2013 London

Because there have been no reports of plane crashes you all know we have arrived, but beyond that I'm sure all of you were wondering if we had become victims of a Jack the Ripper copycat.  Rest assured, we are safe and sound.  My phone has absolutely no Internet, and since all the photos I've taken so far were with my phone, I have none to show you.  I'll be taking them with my camera from here on out.

We left Tampa at 1:30 on Tuesday, and I sat beside a pleasant-enough looking woman who reeked of alcohol.  She continued to drink during our short journey to North Carolina, but there was no ruckus from her, no fights with the flight attendants, no storming of the cock-pit, so all was well.

Our connecting flight to England was delayed by an hour, stretching our four hour layover to a five hour layover.  I was thankful for the extra time though, because they kept moving our gate.  The first move was across the airport.
 Hannah kept begging me to take her on an escalator, but there weren't any, save the "moving sidewalks", so we took three of them.  I wouldn't have minded, but Hannah wouldn't walk on them, and I felt lazy just standing on this silly moving sidewalk, while people whizzed past me walking the old fashioned way.

Hannah doesn't like to sit next to strangers.  For those of you who know her, this is probably a shock to read, because she's one of the most gregarious kids I've ever known, and I've known a lot of kids, but really, she doesn't.  Once we got on the plane I had to sit beside our neighbour, which wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that he kept squishing into my seat (he was a normal sized man who is oblivious to the idea of personal space), and AND he kept making this gross snorting noise.  Yep, you got it, 7 1/2 hours of being squished and grossed out.  As if those two things weren't bad enough, he didn't laugh at even one of my jokes!  His wife laughed at them and I kept hoping they would switch seats, but that never happened.  All through the night they kept spilling drinks.  I think it was only water but all night I'd hear, SPLASH, "Oh (expletive redacted)!"

The woman sitting across from us had a constant smile on her face and it was so nice to look at her.  Every time I glanced in her direction I would see her smiling.  About five hours into the trip I realized that her face is just always in that position.  She wasn't smiling at all.  For all I know she could've been grimacing, thinking, "Again with the flipping kids!  How do I always get stuck sitting near noisy kids?"

We finally landed, and honestly, that was the smoothest landing I've ever experienced.  Really, for a second I actually wondered if we had landed, but the people around me were all saying the same thing.  We got through customs quickly, because an employee opened a second line just as we walked up, and there were only two families in front of us.  Then realized that she only let families with children, and seniors into the line.  The family of six, in front of us, seemed to be taking FOREVER, and I had expected something similar, but our turn was lickety split.  I think the other people must have been better looking, and the agent just wanted to keep them around longer.

We gathered our bags, and transferred some stuff from our backpacks into our luggage.  I had, what I thought, was a well thought-out plan.  We were taking the tube/underground/subway to the boat, so I needed to lighten our backpacks, for what promised to be at least an hour's journey.  Here was the problem I had failed to anticipate:  before the transfer of contents, my bag weighed 25 pounds.  Afterwards it probably weighed 30, and I had to lug it up and down multiple flights of stairs, while Hannah lugged hers.  Most times a friendly man would approach and ask if I would like some help, MOST times.  One time there was no one around, so Hannah just had to lug hers up and I had to lug mine up, about thirty long steps.  Why is it that stairs suddenly become longer when you're carrying something?

When one enters the underground system they use a pass called the Oyster Card.  It lets them into and out of the station.  You cannot leave without the card, and they have turn-styles preventing people from going through without paying.  Hannah does not need one because of her age, so we have to go through quickly, but I knew we were never going to make it out with our bags.  I was right.  My bag got stuck.  I was tempted to leave it, but I didn't want to wear dirty clothes for a month, and it wasn't fair to the people behind me, who would have to climb over my bag to get out.  So, I stuck around trying to get that damn thing out.  The woman behind me lifted it and passed it to me. Then I turned to discover that Hannah had left.  She took her bag and high-tailed it out of there leaving me in her wake of dust.  I think she was embarrassed to be seen with the woman who couldn't get her bag out.  I called her, and she just happened to walk back in at the very moment.  

The woman whose boat we are renting sent me THIRTEEN pages of directions, replete with pictures.  "Turn right here, go past the medieval restaurant, skip across the hop scotch board chanting mother-may-I, make an immediate left, spin three quarters of a turn clockwise, you're almost there..." kind of directions.  Except without the spinning, hop scotch, kind of stuff.  I thought we had arrived, but I was wrong.  I saw a man who looked like he knew what he was doing and asked if he knew where the Lady Three lives.  He said indeed he did and would gladly escort us there. When he opened the gate for us to leave the marina, I thought surely he was going to lure us into a dark alley and hack us up into fish food.  I was wrong.  There is a west and east marina, and we were in the wrong one.  We met up with the owner of the boat just as we approached the west marina, and he passed us off onto her.  Our boat wasn't ready, but she rents out the one beside it as well, and that one was empty. so we slept in it for a little while.

We have spent our first full day here in jolly ol' England, and today we are ready to see some of the sights, complete some of our goals, make a few waves, and have a good time.  I'll keep you posted.  One more thing; it was hot yesterday, cool last night.  It promises to be hot again today.  I packed for cooler weather.