Travel Day

What a long day.
Leaving my parents at the airport couldn’t have been more saddening. People could have thought I was leaving for 2 years the way my tears were flowing. I was standing in the xray line and Im pretty sure I was getting stares as I tried to sniffle silently. Once I met up with Laurel and Colette I started to feel a little bit better. Our adventure had begun!
The flight to New Jersey was uneventful if you don’t include our pilot who looked like he was a die hard nascar fan (mullet/beerbelly and everything) playng dress up for the day in a pilot costume. Almost like a mail-order pilot- if those exist. The best part of the flight was flying into Newark with a left handed window seat and seeing New York City as we landed- probably the coolest view ever…and then there was Windermere. But I’ll get to that later.

Once we got on the plane leaving for Manchester I found my seat in 16 A. Once I had settled all of my things properly above in the overhead bins I awkwardly scooted my way over and in doing so noticed hundreds of tiny illuminations of heaven equally centered in every seatback in front of me. I looked like a little kid on Christmas. My eyes immediately light up and I began shouting to my friends in different rows to notice the greatness I had discovered. Not like they didn’t see it already. The t.v. was MINE-inches before me for 7 hours..ALL MINE! It was touch screen and had 20 different movies, 20 different tv shows, games and music choices. I felt very first class. Way to go Continental. My movies of choice were What Happens in Vegas, Chaos Theory, Leatherheads. Choas Theory was my favorite if you haven’t seen it, please do.
I sat next to some sweet but very impatient British people that were very quick to inform me to get some “wooly jumpers” and “wellies”.

We landed in Manchester at around 2 am Dallas time but it was 8 am England time. Cute little George picked us up from the airport and we found him with no problem. Driving on the other side of the road wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be but this was only because we were on the highway. One lane/two way roads are a different story. Driving through the country side of England is so different. Sheep line the roads kept in by stone fences. These fences are not just along the road, they go miles into the country side and are their main material for fencing- since the fences have been there for centuries.

George took us to the Legge’s main house who own the cottage we will be renting. The most adorable family cooked and served us lunch and treated us like they are our own. Being as hospitable as they are, they wanted us to have tea and chat for hours. Laura (who met up with us later) was the only one awake enough to talk. Apparantly my eyes were shutting and that is when Mrs. Legge decided to take us to our cottage.

THE COTTAGE.
First of all it is a gravel alley off park road. And our literal address is the evergreen cottage off park road. The downstairs is perfect. Just enough space. Upstairs is a different story. There is one room at the top of the stairs that is big enough for a bed and for someone to stand beside it. The other room fits two single beds snuggly with a narrow closet the size of a small person (me) and a set of drawers. Laura and I are sharing this at the moment. Then there is the master room with a double bed and a huge closet that all of us get to use. One problem- no hangers. This will hopefully be resolved tomorrow with a trip to town.
The only bathroom does not have a shower curtain and the showerhead comes up to my thigh. It was an interesting shower- that first go. We all sat down shivering beneath this shower head. HA! The Adrian (our landlord) is supposed to be fixing that soon. On top of all of this I would like to point out a few things
1) We have 4 British Channels not one containing the news
2) The dvd player does not play American dvds
3) They do not have a Blockbuster type store
4) We do not have the internet
5) The school has filtered internet that does not allow gmail, my blog or facebook as sites we are allowed to go to
6) The school us up a highway through a pasture of sheep, over a creek, along a tiny footpath over looking a cliff, up a rocky hill and then back on a tiny one lane/two way highway that is windy and curvy and has no shoulder. Oh did I mention it is about 40 minutes and that it rains here?

Needless to say this is not the best option for our internet and that we are going to a nearby town tomorrow to get internet.