Windsor!

Here are a few pictures from our arrival in London and Windsor Castle. I'm only going to put a few up because there's not much time until we leave for Westminster Abbey. Tonight, we're going to the London Philharmonic, I think... they're performing Mahler and Elgar, and I'm really excited!

I woke up this morning feeling better all around, really, but my throat is all swollen and yucky. Hopefully, it will all be better by tomorrow.

In London!!!

Amazingly, shortly after my last post, we boarded the airplane. We were ALL on the standby list (over 30 people) and we ALL got on the same flight (which was overbooked!) My seat partner was a lady named Rita from Australia. She was almost 70 years old and going to London for holiday after finishing up classes. The people to the right of me were two boys who didn't say anything, except to make fun of my sleeping habits. Apparently, they were jealous that I could so easily curl up in my seat!

Pretty soon after we took off, I started feeling sick. The icky-ness lasted all the way until landing, where it got about a billion times worse. After getting off of the plane, we headed by coach to Windsor Castle. I made it all the way to Queen Mary's dollhouse and then decided it was time to head back to the bus. As our tourguide Charlie put it so nicely, I was "about to meet my friend Ralph." However, once I made it down to the coach station, I realized that our bus wasn't there. I had to walk ALL the way back up and sit next to the statue by myself for a bit... there was a lot to look at, but then it started to rain. Of course, I had left my umbrella on the bus, so I went and bought an umbrella for 3 pounds. I think it turned inside-out about sixty-thousand times today. I met up with a few people from the group within a few minutes and we went to The Horse and Groom for lunch, right across from Windsor Castle.

Dad, I ate Shepherd's Pie there. Mom... yours is about a billion times better. I'm going to try it somewhere else too, but I'll keep you updated. I have yet to try steak and kidney pie; I think I'll tackle that tomorrow. The string section (Jackie, Rachel, Rachel, Beth, Maggie, Dan, and I) went out for dinner with our tour guide, Charlie. We went to an Indian restaurant, so I suppose I've accomplished my "Indian Food in London" goal as well. I thought of Melissa while I ate there. :)

So much for having a pint my first night in London! We all decided to stay in tonight.

It's 9:09 PM, so 3:09 PM where my family is... I'm thinking about all of you loads. Thanks for all the great comments! I have a bunch of pictures to put up, but only 24 hours to post them; it costs 10 pounds for 24 hours of internet service in our hotel. This post and tomorrow's may be London's only posts, but I will definitely get some internet in Scotland. Hopefully. Maybe I shouldn't have said "definitely."

For now, though, I'm going to bed. I may decide to put those pictures up after all tonight... there are a lot of good 'uns of Windsor. The Queen wasn't home today, though. :)

Love you all!

Chicago

So, our flight was delayed out of Lambert for about... oh... ever! We JUST got into Chicago (about 3 hours late) and now we hear that we aren't going to make this next flight to London. Hopefully, we'll make the 9 pm flight out of here, but chances are looking slim. Cross your fingers for us!!

Lambert Airport

15 Hours Til Takeoff :)

I think I've been dancing all day! I am so excited to board the plane and begin the trek to London.

What did I get accomplished today?

- 3 new pairs of shoes
- 2 pairs of capris
- 4 shirts
- 1 skirt
- Power adapter
- Packed my suitcase and ended up well under the 50 lb weight maximum
- Managed to fit all of my shower and makeup items in the same SMALL bag
- Discovered that my laptop fits really nicely in the front of my carry-on!
- Ate a lot of food (I will truly be enormous by the time I get back home)
- Played with the kids... but forgot to tell them that I'm leaving!

Hopefully, my contact lenses will come in the mail before about noon tomorrow... otherwise, I'm going to run the risk of being blind or having to wear my glasses for a lot of the trip.

I should be able to write from the hotel when I arrive on Wednesday.

Leaving Tomorrow!!

I decided I'd start up a little blog to document my trip to the UK.

SIUE's orchestra is travelling abroad to play in London, Edinburgh, and Chester. We have 7 string players, a choir, and a brass quartet. It's really going to be a great time, but I have a lot to do to prepare still... and I leave on Tuesday!

Tonight, I drove from my parents' house out to Edwardsville to grab everything (hopefully!) I need to pack. It was really difficult to decide what to bring with me back to O'Fallon as far as clothes were concerned. So, I brought pretty much everything. That way, I can pick and choose tomorrow and I won't have to drive back to my apartment if I change my mind about my wardrobe.

It's almost 1 AM, but I'm so excited about getting ready tomorrow that it's pretty hard to fall asleep. I'm going to wake up at 8:30 so that I can start packing... then I've got to go to the bank to let them know that they don't have to block my credit card when purchases come up from the UK! I'm going to go to Target and get some cute, comfy flats to wear, and maybe a few more skirts.

My friend Kelly just got back from London and she says it's pretty warm over there; let's cross our fingers for nice weather!!