When Chandeliers Light Up The Engine Room: The adventure begins! (also know as the longest blog post of all time)

So! Here we sit! Jessica, Ruth and I have made it safely to out gate and await boarding. Woot! The Raleigh airport is being rather problematic and refuses to let me post this unless I pay for Internet which is silly so I'll just type it now and send when I can. (as a note I am now writing this on the plane at 10 thousand feet!) We had a lovey morning, we were picked up early by the lovely and obliging Anna and Jasmine who kindly took to Raleigh. We stopes off this fantastic restaurant called The Oxford (very apt indeed) for a lovely lunch and then it was off to the airport. It only took us about half an hour to get checked in and through security. Now we are winging our way to the coast and then, the mother country. :). We did a quick video blog while waiting to board so if I can get it figured out I'll link it below. In the meantime enjoy this rather grainy picture of Ruth, me and Jessica in out very cool if slightly dim booth at lunch. :)

Well the Boston airport was no more helpful in the Internet department ( I do think if you're going to be an international airport you might give folks free wifi.) so here we are on the final plane! It's hugeI the biggest I've ever been on. We have the three middle seats and it is lovely.A mere seven-ish hours later and I'm watching the sun rise outside the plane window as we sit just half an hour out from landing in London. I haven't slept much, but that's OK because I think I have more than enough excitement to get me through this first day. As soon as we land we will head to Oxford to poke around Ruth and Mary Elizabeth's (and Lewis and Tolkien's!) old stomping grounds. Still not sure when I'll be able to update so until then I'll just keep typing away. Here is a rather bad picture of the in flight map, see how close we are!?

How blessed have we been on this trip already?! We made it through customs in less than half an hour, collected our bags, had a cup of tea at a coffee shop (oh the tea here!) and away we went...out into the pouring rain. I suppose it was a proper English welcome. The getting to Victoria Crossing from Heathrow was about as hairy as it's been. We took the metro to Heathrow Central and there took a bus to Victoria. By this time I was feeling pretty ragged and we were wet and tired and worn. We finally made it to the Oxford Tube and as we were paying for our tickets we heard a voice coming from the top deck and low and behold who should come down from the upper deck of our bus but dear Mary Elizabeth herself! She had just boarded so that she could meet us at our room at Trinity College! It was wonderful!

After we made it into our rooms we took a quick nap and then set out to wander Oxford! We saw so many wonderful things, here are a very few of them...

After our wander we went to eat dinner (and maybe have a pint) at the Eagle and Child which is the pub where Lewis, Tolkien and others of the Inklings would meet. Awesome!

Tomorrow we head to Lewis' home and then to the perch and trout. Tomorrow night we'll be back in London and we'll stay there at Mary Elizabeth's until Monday morning when we head to Cardiff.

I'll post again when I can. We are having a wonderful time!