On the way to Exeter...

After school ended on Wednesday, I loaded up and headed home to get Remus. Naturally, as soon as I made it to turn left onto 83, I remembered I left my iPad at school. A "quick" 20 minute trip there and back and I headed home as originally planned. Andrew met me there and taxied Remus to the kennel and me to the Chows. I was there a good hour earlier than I needed to be. We were aiming to leave at 5:30, but we then found out our flight from Harrisburg to Dulles had been delayed so significantly that we would miss our connecting flight to Heathrow. So, we very quickly loaded the kids and luggage into the car and drove to Dulles. Fortunately, we did not hit traffic and made it with enough time to check in and go through security. It's a good thing we have Global Entry status, or we would not have made it. Boarded the plane, aaaaand say on the runway for an hour and forty minutes waiting for a severe thunderstorm to pass. Finally we got up in the air. Not too much sleep for me...about seven hours later we landed at Heathrow (10:40 am in the UK, 5:40 am in PA). Global entry allowed us to fly through customs and we headed to get our rental car. A little over an hour later, we had it. We stopped for some lunch:

 Then came the best (sarcasm) part of the day: sitting in the mid-back of a mini van and driving for 5+ hours in a manual van on backwards streets. My head is still kind of spinning. Our route from Heathrow to Exeter took us past  Highclere Castle and Stonehenge. We went to the castle first (closed to the public till July), then we went to Stonehenge (by appointment only). I think we are making an appointment for another day though :)

Around 6:40 we finally made it to our beautiful hotel in Exeter (pictures to come!). Even just briefly walking around the town has convinced me that the travel troubles were worth it. When i get home, I'll have to edit the positioning of the pictures in these posts; the blogger app is a little less flexible. Cheers!

Off to England!

Soon. Very soon. 

In about five hours, I will be on my way to the airport to head across the pond to the UK. While it sucks that today is my last day at East, I'm happy for it to be because I'm travelling. That's not even to mention that I get to travel with the G, La, Q, and V. I spent most of today making note cards for my NY State English Content Exam so I can study them on the immensely long plane rides (if the kids aren't sleeping--if they are, I'll hopefully be asleep instead. By this time tomorrow, I will have seen Highclere Castle and Stonehenge. I am so very excited. I am a little disappointed that I'll only have my old phone with me; the camera on that is not nearly as nice as the one on my new phone. I realize that is definitively a first world problem, but I kinda want to be able to clearly see what I'm photographing.