The Detailed Version (scroll below for the short one.)

We woke up in Houston at 5:30 AM CST on August 24, 2009, finished packing and headed off to the air port. We went in two cars. Trey rode with his parents who loaded their luggage into their SUV and I rode with my Mom. We got to bring one 50 lb bag for free but the second for each of us was $50.00. We had prepaid this when we checked in online so we were able to check in curbside and head to security where Trey went straight through but I had to get a full pat down. Right when we got to Starbucks for breakfast I realized I had forgotten my sweater so I had to promptly leave the secured area to search for it. I found it in the parking lot near the curb side check in and, thus, got to go through security twice.

We did ultimately get to have our Starbucks and made our way back to the gate in plenty of time. Our plane to Atlanta was very, very small and both Trey and I had to check one of our carryon bags each. This sent me into mild hysterics as some of you may recall I had had a piece of luggage stolen earlier that year and learned the FFA did not reimburse for any item “deemed valuable.” I carefully packed all of my jewelry, 2 years worth of contact lenses, a retainer etc. into my carryon to avoid another snafu and now they were telling me I couldn’t take it on the plane with me; thank you pregnancy hormones. I managed to pull myself together before entering the cabin of the plane but not before a Stewardess had the opportunity to see… so embarrassing. Our flight was pretty quick and uneventful after my breakdown.

We landed in the Atlanta airport – which is very spread out, about half a mile between each terminal – and road the train to our next terminal. We had about 4 hours to spend so we ate a leisurely lunch, toured around the duty free area, asked for an upgrade to business class (they were completely full, I asked if I could purchase a discounted upgrade and nothing was available) and meandered to our gate. We sat at our gate for about an hour. There was a flight ahead of us heading to Rome so it was pretty crowded. Once their flight departed it still seemed like so few people were around for a completely booked flight. Trey decided to make a currency exchange and when he walked by the desk saw there was no flight info up. He asked the stewardess where our flight was and she said it had been moved. There was no announcement, probably because we were the only people making a connection from Houston who had the old gate number. He ran over and got me and we began to hurry to our new gate. They yelled after us that boarding had begun. The gate was probably about three blocks away (we had to go back through the main concourse) and when we walked up all of the students we would be hosting along with their professor were standing there wondering where we were. Ultimately, probably due to many of your prayers, the mistake was corrected and we boarded right away once we arrived at the new gate.

Our plane to London was seated so that there were two on the outside of each and 4 across the inside. Trey and I had our own row in the back cabin of the plan about two rows from the main bathrooms in the center of the cabin. They had some movies available we hadn’t seen, one of which we had both been dying to see, Wolverine. We promptly started our movie thinking we would watch it through dinner then go to sleep. Wrong. We ate dinner which was pretty much the plane food you expect and the lights in the cabin remained on with very active passengers and the lights were not turned down until about 4 hours into the flight. By then we had watched another movie. At the end of the second movie we both wrapped up, I got my sleep mask on and we got positioned for sleep moments before a passenger behind us launched into a series of full blown sleep apnea snoring attacks and the guy in front of us decided it was the perfect time to catch up on his crossword puzzles. Between the two it was a lost cause. We gave up and watched a third in flight movie (The Soloist.) After that it was time to get ready to be stuck in your seat for descent. We got a small breakfast before landing and arrived at Gatwick 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We sat on the mat waiting for a gate until our scheduled arrival time. We grabbed our carryon bags, assembled with the students and headed to customs where we stood in line for an hour. The customs officer gave Trey the full inquisition, I guess because our visas were for three years. When I went through he didn’t ask me anything but our address so I asked “what you don’t want to hear more about my husband’s line of study?” He replied “No thank you, I almost fell asleep the first time through.” Once through customs we did a quick exchange for the cash we had on hand, bought some bottled water and headed through the second phase of customs which was quick because we had nothing to declare. We met Kathy, who would be guiding us through the orientation process so we would be equipped to guide the students by ourselves for the next rounds of trips, and loaded our suitcases onto a waiting bus. There was an enormous amount of congestion which turned the hour and a half bus ride into a three hour bus ride. I was about to come out of my chair by the time we arrived at the house. The bus blocked the street at our house so we had to throw everything onto the sidewalk and rushed it into the house. (Pictures to come soon; it is on the to-do list right after unpacking which we won’t have time to do until Saturday. I could be doing it now but my feet are tired from all the walking!)

Our room is small but large compared to the student’s rooms. It is probably about twice the size of my college dorm room. There is a queen bed with a night stand on one side and a small table on the other side of the bed just to your left as you walks in the door. Across from the door (and the bed) is a large built in wardrobe which contains two armoire sized closets for hanging clothes which flank a built in three drawer dresser, a T.V. atop that, some open shelving atop that and across the top extending the whole wall are high cabinets. They go up about two feet from the ceiling. (The room has 20 foot ceilings which do a lot to make it feel spacious.) Next to the built in is a vanity area containing more storage. On the intersecting wall there is a narrow desk below a large window. The window is barred (the bars have a lock and key so we can open them up in an emergency) and remains open as there is no central air in the house. There are nice two inch blinds as well as heavy curtains which we keep closed often as you would otherwise be able to see in our room from the kitchen. Our room opens above the courtyard which is not as poetic as it sounds because there are a lot of pipes, roofs and building we face but it is still nice and lets in a lot of light. There is a small chair for the desk and no matter where you put it, it blocks something (my hopes of getting a glider for breastfeeding are being dashed but are not yet crushed.) One of my favorite things about the room is the high ceilings which are surrounded by about a foot and a half of deteriorating but beautiful molding. In the center of the ceiling is a ceiling fan which has another set of beautiful molding about a foot and a half in diameter. (The ceiling fan was very nice to have with no AC. When we arrived Kathy had left us some beautiful flowers along with a note welcoming us to our new home and a schedule of the week’s events. It made us feel very welcomed and more at home.

Our room is on the ground floor along with the parlor, great space for reading with a large bay window and a piano, the office, the stair case, one guest room, our bathroom and our shower. To go to the bathroom, we have to leave our room and immediately after turning left the two closest doors are the bathroom and the shower. I am already missing the way my toilet flushed back home. You sometimes have to pump the toilet to get it to flush. The sinks all have the old style faucets with the hot water coming out the spout on the right and the cold coming out the spout on the left. Our shower is kind of a half shower, half tub hybrid.

We had about 45 minutes to put our things away and get settled before meeting downstairs in the kitchen for lunch which was provided by Samford. We had sandwiches and chips and, so far, I like the bread here much better. It seems denser than bread in America. We went through the first phase of orientation which included distribution of our cell phones (you can “top them off” and are like a pay as you go phone but we will probably rely mostly on Skype and calling cards as two quick calls home cost us about £3.50.), learned how to run the dishwasher and the system in the kitchen, the gate code, talked briefly about safety and the schedule for the week. We were then given about 20 minutes before a neighborhood walk to the grocery store and to the tube station to purchase Oyster cards. At this point we had been up for 24 hours and I opted out of the walk and took a 2 hour nap as I was getting dizzy and starting to get a headache. Trey went on as filling the day with activity is a tool to help the students keep from succumbing to jet lag. He came back what felt like minutes later and told me I had five minutes before we were leaving to make a practice run on understanding the tube and hit a few highlight stops.

The rest of the day I was pretty well a zombie. Trey did better than I did until dinner but at dinner was literally falling asleep at the table. We briefly walked around the outside of Parliament, took a walk down the Thames River, walked to Westminster then took the tube home. We had an hour break before community dinner at a restaurant right down the street which I failed to catch the name of but was perfect for the end of the day. I had ¼ lemon and herb chicken, corn on the cob, garlic bread and Sprite. Trey had a chicken pita, rice and Dr. Pepper. It is kind of like a fast food place but a lot tastier. You get your menu, walk down and order then they bring the meal to your table. It is one of the few places you can get free refills and all the ice you want and I have a feeling it will be a local favorite for Trey and I. It is only about a block and a half away. We ate with Kathy, the 5 undergrad students studying here for the semester, the professor and her daughter and a pharmacy student who will be here through October. Walking home from dinner there was this beautiful Porsche convertible who had turned down a two way street and a Bus who had turned down the same street going the opposite direction. There were cars lining the street so there wasn’t enough room for them to pass each other. The driver of the car was up out of his car and the bus driver was out of his seat and they were yelling at each other. Being from Texas my first instinct was to get out of there as fast as possible before someone was shot but everyone on the streets just stopped and watched… like it was a little street theater. We returned to the house about 8 PM and went to our rooms. I began typing this blog and we went to bed around 9. We slept through our alarm and woke up, late, at 8 AM on August 26th. but that’s for another entry. Sorry for so many mundane details but I wanted to remember these first few weeks so I will try to update every day. I will probably slack off as we get settled into a routine. We love friends and family back home and I am sure we would miss you if we’d been given the time to think about it!