A Very Good Place to Start

We're talking about the beginning kids. I know it's been eons since I have blogged. Oh well. This is the beginning of my amazing London trip that involved sickness, weddings and livin' it up in the city.

I woke up the morning I was supposed to leave for London with an aching body. It took me forever to get out of bed. Once out of bed I could tell that I had chills and decided to take my temperature. The thermometer read 101 degrees and my first thought was "oh no!!! They aren't going to let me in the country!!!" I took a handful of ibuprofen and finished packing. After a bit the chills weren't as bad and I decided that I would definitely go. There was no way I could bail out on my trip.

Maddalena and Brian were sweet enough to drive me to Reagan so I didn't have to mess with the metro. It was all jammed up since the day before there was a major accident that killed seven people. We left the house at noon since my flight was leaving at 3:30pm. Apparently you don't really need to get to the airport three hours early for an international flight when the first leg is not an international airport. I sat for hours. Luckily, I had a little business to take care of while I waited.

Charlotte was the next stop on my journey to London. The ibuprofen had worn off by the time I landed. I realized I had packed the pills I brought with me in the luggage I checked. As I updated The Pam on my health status I feverishly (haha true in so many ways) searched the news stands for packets of Advil. After I took care of that business I was off to the gate. A long line at the gate had already formed when I arrived. This made sense. I only had about a 45 minute layover in Charlotte. I soon found out that this line was for the meal vouchers that they were giving passengers on my flight since it was delayed for three hours due to engine trouble. I was texting Will while I waited giving him updates. He and Miriam had planned to pick me up at 8am London time when I was supposed to land. They had plans to go sight seeing at 11am and I didn't want to upset their plans.

We boarded the plane and pulled away from the gate and then...pulled back to the gate. Oh yes, another delay. This time there was trouble with the generator. That meant no air while we waited for them to fix the problem. We weren't really getting updates. We just sat there on the hot plane thinking we would be leaving in a few minutes. Three hours later with only one water service, the plane finally took off. After sitting on the plane for 11 hours I was so happy to land at Gatwick. To find out if someone was there to meet me, stay tuned.