Monday, August 30, 2010

Arrival in London

Quick rundown of our travels so far;

August 27 - Flight from SLC to Chicago. On this flight we dropped Richard's wallet and phone on the ground. We knew exactly where we were when we dropped the two items so we went right back there within one minute. In that one minute someone had sneakily grabbed the wallet. The flight was awful and stressful as we tried to figure out where the wallet went. After the plane landed we searched it high and low (pretty small plane) for about 30 minutes. We couldn't find it. We left and went to file a lost-item report at the desk and as we were doing this the cleaning lady found the wallet. Richard opened the wallet to give her a reward only to find that the cash had been taken (about $30). So someone took the wallet when they saw us drop it, then they took the cash, and on their way out of the plane they stashed it in a weird spot. Marijke looked each passenger in the eye and asked them "have you seen our brown wallet?" and every single passenger said no. We're pretty sure we know who did it (not that it matters at this point).

We were relieved to get the wallet back and we had a great time in Chicago (see above, somehow these posts switched places).

Aug 28 - Flight from Chicago to London. This 8-hour flight wasn't too bad. We were on a row of 5 seats with only 3 people. We watched a pretty good British film called The Ghost Writer and did our best to sleep the flight away. Despite taking sleeping pills we couldn't really sleep much, maybe an hour each. We watched another movie called Diary of a Wimpy Kid which was really stupid but we were exhausted and full of sleeping pills so there were 5 or 6 parts that made us really laugh.




Aug 29 - Landed in London. Heathrow is one of the highest traffic airports in the world, but the passport/customs area is probably the ugliest piece of airport either of us have ever seen. The carpets were all torn to bits and it looked like we were at a bargain basement sale at the South Towne Expo Center. We got through the slow-moving line and went to rent a car. It's a Vauxhall Meriva.  It's actually bigger than it looks, it's the only car that had enough head and leg room for Rich.  Richard is awesome at driving and feels like he left his mission yesterday.  Thank goodness because driving opposite + in a large city = too overwhelming for me...maybe on a country road.  Our official advice to anyone looking to rent a car: be 25 or older. Richard is only 24 so the rental was about 40% more expensive than it would have been otherwise (all things considered we still think the car rental was/is worth it for us).
"Toad Hall"

Lovely View from our Room
Stair way and 2nd level.  The front door is to the bottom left of the chandelier


We drove to the Nygaard's house near Weybridge. Richard's brother Ben knew the Nygaards when he was an LDS missionary in the London South Mission. The Nygaards are an awesome family and they live in an amazing home. The Nygaards had a room ready for us which was so nice to come to after two days of traveling and practically no sleep the second night.  We got ready for church and went with them. We were tired but wanted to see how long we could force ourselves to stay up to try and align ourselves with the local time. Church at the Addlestone ward was really nice and the ward seemed great. We were really tired and by the third meeting Richard started falling asleep every few minutes. We came home and the Nygaards had prepared a great dinner for us. After dinner walked around their beautiful yard we took a 2 hour nap.

After our nap we headed into the city to meet Chris Cooke, the Bishop of the Clapham Common ward. Chris is also one of Ben's friends from his mission. When we met Chris it felt like we already knew him as he is incredibly nice and fun to be around.
Sunset as we left to meet Chris Cooke
Kiki came to the window to say goodbye
The Nygaards have been so generous to us and it has been a wonderful place to stay while combating jet lag.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll be fully over the jet lag and on our way to Scotland!

Kiki became our friend while we were staying with the Nygaards.  She refuses to drink out of a bowl.

4 comments:

Shauna said...

I'm gong to love this blog and Alison and I are the closest to your time zone! Love you!!

Alison said...

Mom is right. Distance wise we might even be closer now than when you were in SLC. I'd have to look that up to verify. Sounds like you're already having quite the adventure. Keep the info coming. I love it.

Lori Smith said...

The cat completely cracks me up that it drinks out of the water stream in the sink and I got a kick out of the cat lying on Richard's tummy when he layed on the ground. The estate is so beautiful.It reminds me of a "Pride and Prejudice" movie...what nice people the Nygaards are.

annalisa said...

Wow that place is awesome!! I love all the pictures. Keep em' coming!