Hello there! I'm writing from 3 o'clock in the afternoon here in London--I finally made it! Two longs flights, lots of little cups of coke, orange juice, and those little airline ice cubes, and I arrived in London at about 6:30 am local time. If you're playing the home game, that puts me at being awake for 27 hours since I rose to first leave for the airport back in Portland. I didn't sleep much on either flight, maybe a total of an hour between the two. I was WAY too excited. Also, I only slept about an hour and a half before I woke up to drive to the airport from Portland, so I'm severely behind on sleep, but it doesn't matter. The goal, to combat jet-lag, is to stay up until at least 7 or 8 tonight and then just fall asleep and get as much sleep as my body needs, waking up whenever I wake up tomorrow. Currently we don't have plans for then. So, if anything in this post doesn't make sense, there's a reason haha.

The first picture here is from the airport this morning with my mom, who was wonderful enough to get up so early to take me out there. Thanks mom! You're the best :). The next picture is from a little excursion we took today out to Windsor Castle and the surrounding area, and thats Chelsea (Kyle's sister), Kyle, and myself. This was the Crooked House. Its a little hard to tell from the photo, but the entire building is actually built at a slant--we don't know why. Weird stuff. There was something going on today at the castle and noone was allowed in, but we'll be back sometime again before I leave to check it out. Tomorrow begins the Royal Ascot Races, which is a 5 day horse racing event in the nearby town of Ascot. The Queen comes to this, so we're assuming the reason we weren't allowed in is because she is currently staying there. The races are a huge deal over here, and people from all over England will be coming in to visit.
After that we simply walked around more of Windsor and Eton, getting a feel for the small town, and we found a little pub off the beaten path where there weren't tons of tourists around. I had my first batch of REAL fish and chips, and they were delicious.

My flights to get here went without error, and I would definitely fly with Continental Airlines again. I still haven't slept since being here, and am running on way too few hours of sleep and way too many hours awake. I have officially made it this far in the evening (its almost 9 here) and I'm going to bed real soon to get a full nights rest and just wake up whenever tomorrow. I'm very much looking forward to sleeping, and I feel I'll be able to post a more interesting tale of the days events. There should be pictures from today up on Facebook soon!

Thorn - Being awake for sooooooooo long and not being able to fall asleep on the plane.

Rose - GETTING TO LONDON!!

Bud - Getting to see the Queen up close tomorrow during her transfer from a Bentley to a horse drawn carriage.

AT out