Patience pays off

January 6, 2009 and January 7, 2009

So, the morning started early on Tuesday with my mom waking us up convinced we needed to go back to Charlotte to catch that flight to Gatwick. Little did we know that when we'd get there, we'd go to check in in the domestic section of the USAirways check point to be told that our best bet was to stay in Philadephia because they were cancelling arriving flights due to potential bad weather. So, between me and Olivia all 150+ lbs of just my luggage not to mention hers too down past (outside too) all of the other ticket counters to make it to the international check points for USAirways. Half way there I realized that I'd need to have muscles like Popeye to make it the rest of the way and decided I had to somehow figure out an easier way. So, I went into the American Airlines area and asked to borrow a large luggage cart, but the TSA man told me to just use one of those luggage carts that are usually paid for, but he had a few that people didn't return, so I piled all of my bags on and finally pushed to check them in. Then we spent all day in the airport, shopped at the GAP, ate lunch and dinner and even enjoyed a few movies. Well, ironically during one of the movies my mom told me that my other sister called and she dropped and broke her lap top (also a dell). Which is awful, but ironically comes in handy. Well, so somehow we aren't really sure how my charger to my dell fell out of my bag, there was a point when these two gentlemen who were both going in opposite directions and didn't even know each other both ran into me at the exact same time, well that's when it may have fallen, who knows. All I know is I asked every security and information person there was and no one had been handed one. I didn't have time to look for that long since we did(!) make it on the flight to Gatwick. You know that you've been in the airport too long when people start to know who you are. All of the gate agents from the day before kept telling me when they saw me that they'd keep an eye out for me and make sure that I got to England. It was a cool feeling. And they'd all ask me how my search was coming for my charger, and half of them I don't even remember asking. Anyways very nice people, and we made it!
The flight was around 7 hours with taxing and de-icing. I sat in between a 16 year old boy from the city that I'm going to be studying in, which was really cool. And on the other side was a gentleman from Asheville, so since I was just there we were able to talk about Asheville. Granted I slept and read most of the time, all and all it was a good flight except for the time change which meant I was up at 4am and ready to get to my hotel. We made it to the hotel, and around 3pm London time headed straight for downtown London. It was a long hour to get there by train, but much shorter to get back. We saw Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, the Buckingham Palace, and went into Harrod's. We got this delicious Pastys for dinner, which I was skeptical about at first, but my oh my were they good. Maybe even better because it was practically all we ate all day. Waking up so early we forgot to eat! Anyways tomorrow we head to Wales. I'm excited!
I'm very thankful that God made it possible for us to get here, because we were starting to wonder if only I'd be able to go, which would have been frightening.

Much Love, Andrea