April 29--The Arrival
The plane trip was entirely uneventful. I think I was conscious for a grand total of 30 minutes--and that was largely when we took off and landed. Thanks to the pillow and blanket provided, I was even mostly comfortable. They served us a tortellini dinner around 11:30 at night (not sure why) and then a complimentary breakfast (for those of us who are really irritable when we don't get food). It wasn't so bad. There was a lot of turbulence as we went up the coast toward New England, but thanks to the Dramamine, I didn't get sick to my stomach like I normally do--however, it didn't do much for my nerves. I slept the rest of the time and it was mostly dark when we were over the Atlantic, so I didn't see much. This was my first look at England!
Hee hee... check out those clouds! Naturally, it was raining when we landed.
Look! I do believe we flew over Windsor Castle! Sorry the picture is blurry.
Not sure what city this is, but it is cool!
We went on our first Walk that afternoon, even though all of us were exhausted and it was raining and cold (it's London... surprise surprise! oh, also, we have a booklet with 17 London walks in it that we have to complete before we leave. It's part of our London Walking class--it makes it so we get out and see a lot of things, so when I say we went on a "Walk" with a capital letter, this is what I am referring to). It helped to keep us awake. It was only a tour of our neighborhood, but it was nice. We got a little turned around, however. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the place I live, really. But in case any of you are curious, it is 27 Palace Court, London, UK W2 4LP (that is the zip code--it means we live in the county of Westminster (hence the W) but I can't tell you what the rest of it means. Anyway, it's a pretty posh place to live. Kind of silly how large some of the homes are. However, in most places in London (Palace Ct included) people tend to build up instead of out. There simply isn't room for building outward, unless you have the money. Hear is a picture of our street. I will post more later when I get around to taking some.
Palace Court. This is taken from the North end, facing south--the Russian Embassy is south of us, as is Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and Kensington Palace.
Speaking of money, down the street from us is the Russian Embassy, and if you go down the road the Embassy is on you run into the really really ritzy homes--there are three other embassy's, plus the back of Kensington Palace. We were walking down this street yesterday (05-02-08) and passed one of the embassy's---next to the gate was a guard in a black trench coat and sunglasses (it was cloudy at the time and nearing dark). He also had a ponytail and his hands were clasped in front of him. I said hi to him and he looked a little startled that I had spoken, then tried to hide a slight smile. He didn't say anything in response. On our way back home, we passed the embassy again and I was trying to get a pebble out of my shoe, so I stopped for a moment. The guard nonchalantly began to move over to the gate... You know, just in case I was going to do something I guess. It was an interesting experience.
