Almost the End

So, my trip to England is almost over.  Wow.  I don't even know what to say.  London was so wonderful.  Wells is so wonderful.  They are so different, but both so English!  I still have to go back and fill in some things, like Bath, but I thought I should write tonight...my last night in England.  It was wonderful...I went to town with Mrs. Marilyn and we went in some shops, then had tea.  Then she went to run some more errands and home to make phone calls and I wandered around the village a bit more.  It is really small...if I knew the way I could walk from one end of it to the other in a day...probably less.  The other day we went to Glastonbury and went up on the "tor", which is the "legendary burial place of King Arthur".  (that's the tower in the picture post)  From the top where the tower was you could see Wells...six miles away!

Anyhow, after wandering the shops a bit I went back to the house and left a couple things I had bought and headed out to the fields.  There's a great footpath right down the road (it leads right into the city) with a field beside it (the picture of close-up grass with field in the background).  I went through the field instead of the paved walkway, and then got an ice cream cone and started out on the little path which actually leads to the next village.  It's a big open field with a little paved path through it.  I went a ways down that (I could still see the gate back into Wells) and then sat under a big tree for a while and wrote in my journal.  Then I headed back to town and went in a bunch more shops.  I got a lovely black with white polkadots dress and some earrings before I decided I should go home before I buy anything else!! 

So, I came home, called some people, watered the grass (just got new sod), and had dinner (great rice with "spanish chicken" sauce and veggies), watered the garden, had dessert (biscuits with clotted cream and strawberries!) and just emailed and such until now. 

Tomorrow: leaving here at 7:30, arriving at the London airport around 10, plane leaves at 12:20, arrive Chicago around 3:30, leave Chicago around 6:15, arrive Nashville about 8.  Sleep.  :)

^^The Cemetery in Oxford where we ate lunch^^

Isn't it gorgeous??

Bath: The Prologue

We went to Bath today.  It was great.  So pretty.  I'll have to write a big long post on it, but right now i am sleepy and need to go to bed so I can go wander the countryside tomorrow.  Open fields, big trees, tall grass, my journal, and a good book...sounds like bliss.  If only I had a horse and buggy...  :)

Wells

Just some pictures from Wells.  I am in love.

In Love With This Day

 "I am in love with this day!" ~India Mayer (6-17-10)

Today was good and sad.  Lillie and Mrs. Shepherd left us at 8:00, and we had breakfast and headed to the market around 9:15.  We spent a while at the market (LOVE markets!) and then Mr. D and I went back to the hotel to get my luggage and go to Paddington station.  We got to Paddington and I bought some flowers for the Paynes (they look lovely on the table...sitting in a teapot with some other flowers from their garden!!) and hopped on the train at 12:20.  The train pulled out of the station at 12:35 (so close to 12:40!!).  It was sad to be leaving London, but I will be going back there to the airport, so it's not goodbye yet.  :)  And I was glad about the lovely ride through the beautiful countryside and staying with the Paynes.  The land is so gorgeous! I could be here a whole month every summer and never get tired of it!! 

Anyhow, when I got off the train at Castle Cary I turned around and Mr. Payne was standing right there!  How perfect!  So, we drove through Castle Cary (they actually live in Wells, which is a little way from the station).  We went by their son's house, which is enchanting.  It used to be an old mill, so it is just wonderful, plus there is a huge field right out the front door and a lovely garden where their son is getting married in a few weeks!  We had a cup of tea and looked around a bit before heading home.  We put together some lunch and took it to the cathedral green.  It was a lovely walk, and there is a castle-type building (that I just forgot the name of!) with a moat around it!!  It is just a *perfect* English countryside town. 

We ate on the green (big open field/courtyard) and then Mrs. Payne and I went to Evensong at the cathedral.  There was a boy's choir, which was wonderful.  After that we wandered around the town a little, looking at shops (which were all closed, but we looked in the windows) and almost going to a coffee shop, but it was closed.  The city is called Wells because there are little springs everywhere that used to be wells.  There is a kind of drainage path/moat thing in the sidewalk for the water that is constantly running through the city. 

So, we had dinner and watched a Hercule Poirot (written by Agatha Christie...I know, I sound like a broken record...) movie.  I had some strawberries with meringue and clotted cream...**love**.

Tomorrow we're going to church, then there is a lunch at the church, then I'm not sure what we'll do.  I think we may go to Bath, but there's several options of things to do around here and I'm not doing well at keeping them straight!  :)  Night!

The V&A, Burrough Market, Dickens House, and High Tea

Today we left the hotel at 9:30 and headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum (museum of art and design).  The kids were in charge today so we had to figure out all the tube stops and such, as the parents weren't talking!  (they did help some later in the day, because we changed our route a bit) 

The V&A was pretty amazing.  We looked around a tiny bit waiting to start an introductory tour.  The guide talked for fifteen minutes about one rug, and then took us to a painting and talked about herself and the museum and the painting for at least fifteen minutes, so we decided to abandon the tour and look around for ourselves.  We went in the fashion exhibit, which was wonderful.  So many beautiful clothes!!  After that we went upstairs to the jewelry, which was incredible.  They had a whole bunch of pocket watches that all had so much detail I just wanted to stare at them for...a long time.  Then me and Lillie went in the Japan exhibit, and then we went up to the theatre and performance exhibit.  **LOVE**  We didn't have much time, so it was pretty whistle-stop, but good.  The theatre part had a bunch of costumes set up from tons of different shows.  It made me show-sick (you know, like homesick, but for shows!).

When we left the museum we went to the Burrough market and got lunch.  The plan was to eat there and shop some, but the whole thing (as far as we could tell) was food.  So, we just got some lunch and then headed toward the Dickens house.  I got a sandwich with some kind of French sausage on it. 

The Dickens house was cool.  The first thing we did was watch a thirty-minute movie about Dickens, and I nodded off a bit.  I was sitting on the floor in the corner of the wall and a cabinet!!  Apparently Mr. D was nodding too, and India, Tim, Mary Beth, and Lillie were laughing at him.  Mary Beth's chair was right beside-in front of me, Tim was standing between Mary Beth's chair and the wall, and a guy was sitting in a chair smack in front, so I was a bit pinned in the corner.  Haha.

After the Dickens house we had high tea at a fancy hotel.  It. Was. Awesome.  Tea, scones with clotted cream and fruit preserves, tea cakes, carrot spice cake with lemon icing, and little sandwiches (ham and mustard, cucumber, egg salad, and smoked salmon).  It was...Heaven.  BTW, clotted cream is the best thing in the world!!  It's like whipped cream but the consistency of butter...wow-ness. 

We sat around and talked a while after tea and then headed back to the hotel.  We spent the evening repacking for tomorrow and just hanging out.  We went down to the lounge and had some pizza around 9:30 and talked about what our favorite part of the trip was. 

Tomorrow Lillie and Mrs. Shepherd are leaving around 8, and the rest of us are going to the Portabello Street market for a while.  I have to be at the train station around 12, so I guess we'll come back and get luggage before then.  I am taking a train out to Castle Cary to meet the Paynes, and the Durhams, India, and Mary Beth are taking a later train to Paris.  Should be fun!

Oxford

Today we went to Oxford.  We left the hotel at 9:00 and took the tube to Paddington (!).  From Paddington we took a train to Oxford, which took about an hour and fifteen minutes.  I was kind of sleepy (yeah, what else is new!), so I slept a bit and read my new Agatha Christie book.  Near the end we talked to a British lady sitting across from me. 

When we got to Oxford we started out for the Blackwell's bookshop, which is apparently pretty famous and Lewis and Tolkien would have bought books there.  It was enormous...it looked tiny from the outside, but when we went in the staircases went in every direction.  We went up to the fourth floor to the used book section, which was amazing.  I got another Agatha Christie (The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side), and some of the others got some old books.  They had hundred year old books for 2 pounds!!  But the fun really began on the trip down...

The lift (elevator) had an 8 person limit, and since we have 8 people in our group, we all got on.  And...it got stuck on the way down!  We had just started down from the fourth floor (which is like our fifth), and it jolted and stopped.  It was really hot in there, and we were really close together.  We started pushing the bell button and nobody answered, so we started banging on the door and yelling, and nobody answered for a few minutes.  Someone finally came and said they had to go get a key and turn something off and back on, and that it would be five to ten minutes!  We'd already been in there for at least five minutes!  It was really hot, and we just laughed a lot.  They finally got the door open and the ceiling of the third floor was about waist high and they had a little step ladder for us to get down.  The guy in charge offered us drinks for free in their coffee shop, but as we were heading out for lunch we didn't take him up on that.  It was quite the adventure. 

We got lunch at the tiniest little place I've ever been.  It was incredibly efficient.  I got a ham, mozzarella and tomato paninni.  We took our lunches and went to find a park-ish place to sit and eat.  There was none where we thought we were going, so we ended up eating in a graveyard.  Weird, I know.  Charles Williams (one of the Inklings and friend of Lewis) is buried there, and the guy who wrote The Wind in the Willows, whose name I can't remember at present.  It was a lovely place with shady trees, small clearings and tall grass.  I took a bunch of pictures.  It really was beautiful. 

We went punting on the river, which is the Thames but under a different name.  It was lovely.  We went round an island kind of thing where some school kids (high school equivalent) were playing "football".  We saw some who were either rehearsing for a play or auditioning, but I thought they were auditioning.  In their suits out under huge trees...what a fabulous idea!!  It was very beautiful.

We did a walking "tour" of Oxford, sort of.  We just got a pamphlet that told us about things and Mr. D led us around and talked about it.  It was great to see all those places.  We saw some of Oxford college, and two or three others that I can't remember the names of.  We saw places where Lewis taught and Tolkien taught and went to school.  It was wonderful. 

We had supper at the Eagle and Child, where the Inklings met to discuss their works.  It was fantabulous.  I got "Lincolnshire Whirl", which I had no idea what it was.  It only said what it was made with and what came with it, but not what it actually was!  It was a pile of mashed potatoes with little onion "rings" on top and a big (but thin) sausage wrapped up like a cinnamon bun!  It came with a bowl of gravy, and was amazing. 

After dinner we just hopped back on the train and headed home!  When we got back we had a pow-wow about tomorrow, as the kids are planning it.  We sat around in the lounge for a while and figured things out. 

Tomorrow: a walk through Hyde Park (again...unless we take the tube), the Victoria and Albert museum, The Burroghs Market, The Charles Dickens house, and High Tea at a fancy hotel.

pictures

just added pics to the "a day in pictures" post...hope that will satisfy until I can get more on here, hopefully tomorrow!!

Trafalgar, National Gallery, The Globe, St. Paul's, and Hyde Park...on Jetlag!

So I have never been so sleepy as I was today.  Never.  Ever.  When I stood up I thought I might fall over, and when I sat down I only lasted a few seconds without nodding off!  That is not the way to see the National Gallery, or hear Evensong at St. Paul's cathedral.  That said, here's what we did today:

9:00...leaving for the National Gallery.  Took the tube (underground) and got off near Trafalgar Square, where we took pictures with the lions.  :)  That was great.  It was an...interesting...climb to get up there, but we made it!  That was really hilarious...us trying to climb up.  Everyone around was laughing at us. 

The National Gallery (art museum) is right on the Square, so that's where we went next.  I was too sleepy to really enjoy it, but I did see the original painting of Van Gogh's sunflowers, and a few others I recognized.  The place is immense.  There were a bunch of school groups there, some as young as Lexie, I thought!  There was a guy leading one group who was really fun to listen to. He knew how to make it interesting!  And I have officially decided that little kids with British accents are about the cutest thing I ever heard!!

We left the Gallery and got some lunch at a pub just off Covent Gardens.  It was really nice.  I had broccoli and cheddar soup with garlic bread. 

After lunch we actually split up!  Mrs. Becky and I went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and the others went to the Westley House.  I haven't heard all about the House, but I think it was great.  The Globe was nice.  We couldn't actually go inside the theatre because a showing of Macbeth was going on.  They have shows in the afternoons because it is open-air and using the sunlight is just what they did at the original Globe.  However, they also do evening shows because we have electricity.  :)  We did a walking tour and went to the site of the original Globe and saw the remains of the Rose Theatre, the Globe's right-next-door rival.  (the "a rose by any other name" bit was a jab at the Rose Theatre's sewage which apparently stunk to high Heaven!).  The Rose remains are under a great big modern building.  The remains were found during construction, and there was such a big fuss about not ruining them that the only way the new building could be built was on the condition that the remains remained intact ("remains remained"...I don't know...).  It's actually under a bit of water, and the remains are marked with rope lights.  The guide told us a bunch about the theatre of the time and why it was built the was it was.  It was quite informative.  :)  So, I have walked where William Shakespeare walked and seen where he performed (he performed at the Rose).  Epic.  :)

After the Globe we walked across a bridge over the Thames and met the others at St. Paul's for the Evensong service.  It is HUGE!!  And so ornate and gorgeous!!  The choir was a men's choir, and when they started singing the halls echoed beautifully.  It was so awesome, and I was nodding off every time we sat down!  Grr...  It was a 45-minute service, and it was really beautiful.  I hated to be falling asleep...but when you're sitting down after just being so sleepy you "can't stand it!" all day and this wonderful men's choir is singing the same repetitious tune for 10 minutes straight while the halls echo with the music...no matter how great it is or how much you like it you just can't stay awake. 

So, we left the cathedral and headed for a much-needed tea.  I got coffee, actually, and a big blueberry muffin (...I wanted the chocolate muffin, but Mary Beth and India got the last two! haha.).  That was nice.  We talked for a while about what we want to do on Friday.  The kids are planning Friday, so we can make sure we know how the tube and everything works and so we can see whatever we really don't want to miss and haven't already covered. 

After that we went to get some dinner to take to a park (we talked for a long time, so it wasn't really eating right after eating, and "eating" with tea is just a muffin or such).  I got...don't kill me!...McDonald's!!  I really wanted to see if it was different, and it was right down the street from Pret A Manger (that's French) where everyone else was getting something (we've been there twice before today, so I knew I wasn't missing anything I just had to have...and we'll probably go there again anyhow).  So McD's was really different.  I don't really know what it was, but the meat and cheese tasted much different.  The meat was definitely higher-quality tasting, I think.  Very interesting...

Tim and Mary Beth (and India) played some "football" with three little boys at a park where we ate.  Then we walked through Hyde Park to get home.  We took some pictures at a courtyard with fountains.  The park is so lovely!!  It's huge, and it's mostly walking paths in the middle of big fields of grass and trees.  It really is so beautiful.  Haha!!  I just remembered that I have flowers from the park in my hair!  Pretty blue flowers...

So, we got back to the hotel and I've been trying to get myself up to date with journaling and pictures and all. 

Tomorrow: Taking a train from Paddington Station (!) to Oxford (!!), probably taking a C.S. Lewis tour (!!!) and eating at the Eagle and Child (aka "bird and baby", where the Inklings met) (!!!!).  So excited.  I don't know when we're getting back or if we're doing anything else, but I am super excited!!!!!  (...as I"m sure you gather from all my !!!!!!'s)  :)

~Westminster and Wicked~

Alright, I got the pictures sorted out, and I'll try to get them on here tomorrow.  I am plum tuckered out tonight!!  I'm sleepy and the battery is running down, so this will be short and sweet. 

This morning we went to Westminster Abbey.  They don't allow pictures in there, regrettably, so I can't show you the inside.  :(  I have some pics of the outside though.  :)  It was A-Mazing.  There are so many tombs and monuments in there! You can't walk through the building without walking over people's graves.  I stood on the graves of William Wilberforce, William Pitt, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, and Gorge Frederick Handel.  And lots of others, but I can't remember all of them.  Some were worn away so much from people walking on them that they couldn't be read.  There were monuments to Jane Austin, William Shakespeare, and Isaac Newton (and many more!).  We spent almost 3 hours in there...there's really that much to see!  I walked across the path to where sovereigns have been crowned for hundreds of years (Elizabeth II was crowned there).  Wow-ness.  There is so much history in there it is unbelievable.  When you walk in you just think of all the thousands of people who have been there and their huge impact on the world.  Mary and Elizabeth Tudor (and I think their brothers, Henry and Edward) are buried there.  It's insane. 

Anyhow, after Westminster we grabbed some lunch and headed back to the hotel.  We ate in the hotel lounge, and then we had about 4 hours to rest and get ready to see Wicked. 

We had dinner at a lovely French place right near the theatre.  I got "lemon and herb chicken" with salad and french fries (under an alias!), and creme brulee for dessert.  Wow...goodness. 

Wicked was wonderful.  I was so happy...I cried a little.  :)  It wasn't from just pure happiness, but still.  Rachel Tucker was Elphaba and Louise Dearmann was Glinda, if you want to Youtube them.  :)  The costumes are **amazing** and the choreography is spectacular, not to mention the acting and singing...

Alrighty...that's about it.  Tomorrow: A museum, I think, and one or two other things.  We didn't really decide what we are doing and the adults talked about it after we came upstairs, and I don't remember what the options were!!  I just need to sleep...LOVE!

An Interesting Day

Today: London Eye, River Cruise down the Thames, Tower of London, (Starbucks!), Herrod's, and The Prince of Wales (Pub). 

This morning we set out for the London Eye while the weather was clear and beautiful.  We got there and climbed aboard the ever-moving, Ferris wheel-like observation wheel.  It was...wow.  We could see FOREVER!!  The sky was wonderfully clear and I took so many pictures (you'll see some soon, I hope!).  It took about 30 minutes to make the full loop. 

After that we went to ride the river "cruise" that came free with the bus tour tickets.  On the way across the bridge we met a guy playing bagpipes and I took a picture with him.  He asked where we were from and when I told him he started playing Auld Lang Syne!! 

The cruise was a open boat ride down the Thames with a guide who told us what we were looking at.  It had gotten really cold and somewhat windy and sprinkly, so it was a little rough.  We saw lots of places on the hour long trip!!  We went from the Eye to the Tower Bridge.

We left the boat and got some lunch right near the Tower of London.  It was fish and chips, but they were "a little less authentic then we could get", according to Mrs. Becky.  I spent way too long trying to find change so I could use the loo :) and everyone was half done when I got to order mine.  Then they guy was just making a new batch so I had to wait for it.  Then it was super-duper hot so I couldn't eat fast now that everyone else was done!!  Then we noticed what time it was and that we had five minutes to get to the Tower for a tour...so I just took it with me and ate (most of) it on the way. 

The Tower was spectacular.  The tour was an hour long, and the guide was hilarious.  We saw the place where the prisoners were executed, the chapel, the white tower (the original tower), and the crown jewels!  The jewels were insanely beautiful and mostly quite impractical.  :)  We went in the white tower, where prisoners were held in the upper part and "officially tortured" in the lower part.  There was, apparently, "official" torture and "unofficial" torture!  Crazy.  The tower is like a museum, with tons of armour and weapons.  The lower level is a gift shop!  The guide said "the only thing burning down there now will be your wallet!"  

After the tower we went across the street to Starbucks and hung out a bit while deciding what to do next.  We were thinking about going to evensong, but they weren't having it.  We ended up going to Herrod's, which is, it seems, THE store to visit in London.  "If you only visit one store in London, you have to make it Herrod's, even if it is just to look."  It was pretty massive.  Five floors of anything you could want at way too high a price!!  But I did find a book...Murder on the Orient Express...and yes, that IS Agatha Christie, so I had to get it.  It wasn't too pricey.  :) :)

After that we went to the Prince of Wales Pub.  Wow.  I always knew I loved English pubs!  It was so lovely.  Funny, though, for some reason they didn't bring my food (fish and chips again...I was hoping for the real deal...and got it!) until everyone was almost finished!  Then it was piping hot, so I couldn't eat it fast.   (sound familiar??)Then everyone was done and just sitting around talking, which was fine, but eventually everyone but Mr. D went back to the hotel.  He stayed until I finished and then we walked back to the hotel.

So...that's about it!  It was fabulous, and I really have to get to sleep now...

Tomorrow: Westminster Abbey, A Museum (British Museum, National Gallery, or both, and maybe something else), rest at the hotel and then...Wicked!!  :)

A Day In Pictures

Alright, the pictures are being stupid again, so I'll just write this for now and put them on here when I get a minute. 

~~6-13-10~~

In the morning: the market. It's mostly just on Saturday, but some vendors were out on Sunday. They said it was only a tiny bit of the Saturday market. :( But it was really cool. There were all sorts of things for sale. One guy tried to sell me some Agatha Christie books (which I had been looking for anyhow), but they cost 40 pounds!! that's around 60 dollars. They were rare old copies, but I told him that I would have to get a copy I could read instead of one that had to sit on the shelf. :)

Went to Paddington Station to get tickets for the bus tour. Really cool place, that. There IS a 12:40 from Paddington, just like in And Then There Were None!! That made my day...so far. We walked to Trafalgar Square and had lunch in a place across the street. A-mazing.

On the bus tour we saw:

Big Ben/Houses of Parliament

The London Eye

St. Paul's Cathedral

The Tower Bridge

The Tower of London

Buckingham Palace

Hyde Park

Westminster Abbey

Trafalgar Square

And lots of other really cool things. All from the open top deck of a double decker bus!! It was incredible.

 

In the middle of the bus tour (you could get on and off at frequent stops) we went to Buckingham Palace, had tea, met an Austrian Nun (Sister Alberta) who had just spoken at Speakers Corner, went to Speakers Corner, and walked through Hyde Park a bit. Then we went to Church at Holy Trinity. That was quite interesting.

{speakers corner}

{Holy Trinity}

Then we had dinner at an Italian place (I know, Italian again! But it was fantabulous), and then went back to the hotel and crashed!

Tomorrow: London Eye, River "Cruise", the Tower of London.

A little note:

After rummaging through several hundred pictures, I am falling asleep in the middle of it and will do my "A Day In Pictures" post about today tomorrow...hopefully in the morning before I go get another xxxx amount of pictures!! And I'll add pics to the first posts that have been going without.

Great day today, and the jet lag is pretty non-existant for me right now. I woke up this morning and just started running. It's really good that I'm tired because it is bed time!! See y'all tomorrow...

In London

Alright...

Left the hotel at 6. Shuttled to airport, through security (Tim got his bag searched through by an intensely strict lady because of toothpaste!), got some breakfast, boarded plane at 7:40.

The plane was HUGE. I was by Tim, who was by India, and Mary Beth was across the aisle on the same row. Mr. D was 5 rows ahead of me. All the flight attendants had British accents!! They were really cheerful and helpful and efficient. We had "Brunch" which consisted of Lasanga (either that or sesame seed chicken), orange juice, mango and passionfruit cheesecake (with chocolate chips on top), watermelon and grapes, a roll with butter, and a chocolate square. And hot tea (or coffee). I did not have the orange juice, or the cheesecake (which was in a little cup like jello). Orange juice and lasagna?? Uhhh...no.

Anyhow, the flight was about 6 hours, I think. I watched movies some, listened to opera (in French I think), slept...probably too much, watched people, and beat Tim at cards. :) We also had a snack (first introduced as "afternoon tea"). It was some interesting looking pasta, apple juice, a ham and cheese wrap, a kit-kat, and our choice of cold and/or hot drink. I only ate some of the wrap and the chocolate, and had ginger ale and hot tea (not at the same time!).

There were a few times when we had a fair amount of turbulence, but it wasn't scary. The flight was great. I wasn't going to sleep, but the chairs were so comfortable (and I was listening to opera!) that is just kind of happened.

So. Arrived at the airport and went to customs. We went through as a group (all except India, who went to a different desk before the lady told us to go together), and the man at the desk said that since we were under 21 Mr. D should have had a signed letter from our parents, but he gave us our stamps and let us go through anyhow.

We got our luggage (which arrived when we did) and headed for the tube station. We rode two tubes (picture the kids in the beginning of Prince Caspian!!) and then walked a block to the hotel. Dropped stuff in our rooms and went to eat.

Ate at a lovely Italian place. We all got pizza, which was A-mazing. We sat by a window that looks out on the back side of the hotel. Mr. D talked to the staff in Italian, and the people at the table next to us were obviously listening to us talk (turns out they are from Paris, I think!). So, we were there for a while, then we came back and I finally finished finding my way around the room and getting all my crazy things in the right place. My roomie is all tuckered out from staying up all night (she had a different flight, and she got here at lunch time), so I hope I didn't wake her up too much bumping around!! I have to get to sleep soon so I can get up tomorrow...waiting for the ipod to charge enough to trust it as the alarm for the morning. There are a bunch of people in the street right outside the window (we're on the second floor) who are probably drunk and definitely being way too loud.

I think I heard every other language besides ENGLISH on the way here!! Since getting off the plane it's been crazy...I think I hear French most, but since I don't understand any of it I could be wrong. I did hear a few English accents. :) :)

I haven't really seen much of the land yet. We went past some on the tube, and it's just like Mary Poppins!! All the houses joined together...I can imagine Polly and Digory romping through the attic tunnels!! So awesome. I can come up with more and better descriptions, but I'm trying to hurry and get to sleep...

Tomorrow: hotel breakfast at 8, church at 9:30, probably market after that and then a bus tour. We have 24 hours to do the bus tour after we get tickets, so we can stop places and get out and look. We may not start that until Monday, or we may to it over two days.

Okay, so I have to try and go to sleep now...I don't think I'll like getting up in the morning, but hey, it has to happen some time, right?? :)

In Boston:

Okay, this will be fast and furious...and slightly vague. Comment if you're confused (or curious) and I'll clear you up. :)

Arrived at airport at 4:00. Flight to Chicago cancelled because of Chicago weather. We are re-routed to DC to Boston, and then London.

Flew to DC. Sat by Tim. He drew in a coloring book and I read some. Talked about Fiddler (I had pictures) and where we've travelled and the civil war a bit. Arrived in DC and left a half hour later for Boston.

Flew to Boston. Sat with Farah from Bangladesh on plane. Really nice hour and a half chat. :) She's 17 and just graduated high school, spending time with family in Los Angeles (had lunch in Anaheim yesterday!) and Boston.

Arrived in Boston. Took shuttle..the all-to-familiar 15 passenger van. :) And the driver was crazy! Sat by India, talked about tour last year.

At hotel (like, 9.5 of 10 on the niceness scale!). India, Mary Beth and I are in a room together...I got the couch (very intentially!).

Luggage is apparently going to London before we are, so I have backpack with laptop and other non-useful-in-odd-circumstances things.

Going to bed so I can leave at 5:45 to get to the airport for 7:30 (local time!)boarding to London. We should get to London at about 7:00pm (or 18:00).

Tomorrow: London or bust!!

To Bring You Up To Date:

So. School ended May 3, and I dove into the reprise production of And Then There Were None with Consider This Productions (CTP). Consider This was founded by Barry Hardy, who taught drama at school last year and directed the play last fall. Anyhow, Jonathan and I were in it in the same roles as in the fall and I was also the assistant director of both casts and did makeup for CTP. Fun times. We did three shows of our reprised cast and then had more rehearsals for the CTP cast. We did six shows of the CTP cast (two weekends), but with a bit of a twist. The morning of the second to last show, Mr. Barry called me and said that the lady who played Emily Brent (the Bible-thumping, holier-than-thou, young-people-are-disgusting lady) had had a death in the family and would not be able to do the last two shows. He said he was trying to think of who could do it or even how to cut it from the script. I said there's no way you can cut it...I'll do it. :) Now, you have to understand that I am the one who always knows everything that happens during any show. Especially with this show, which we'd already done last fall and then had a two weekend run. If you just stopped the show anywhere I could tell you either what the next line was or who said it, but usually both. Everyone always makes fun of me for knowing everyone else's part, but hey, it sure came in handy! :) So, I played Emily Brent for two shows. It was...interesting...but really cool. I happened to be babysitting that day, so I had to learn the part and watch kids...craziness. I let them watch TV and play in the tent in the backyard all day, but their mom knew and was okay with it. :) So, after that ended (which was May 29) attention went to my graduation on June 5. It was crazy, but in the end it was a great day. I have a picture I'll put on here (yeah right...famous last words!). But anyhow, the big reason for updating (besides not doing it in FOREVER and just wanting to) is that I am going to LONDON!! Leaving Friday, arriving Saturday (June 12) and coming back June 23. It's a group of 8, all homeschool kids and parents. The guy in charge played Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof in January. It's him and his (real) wife :) and son and another girl who was in Fiddler and another girl and her mom and one more girl! That sounds awful. I could have written that better...but I'll get pics of everyone and say "this is so-and-so"...you know. So, three parents, five kids...one boy and four girls. That can suffice for now. :) After everyone else leaves London for either home or Paris, I am going to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Payne at their house in Wells, which is about two hours from London. And yes, that't the David Payne Drama Paynes. :) Should be great. So, I'll update while in London...that is if I can get online, so hopefully the not-being-able-to-get-online plague will not follow me there. :) Check back!!