Safe Arrival and Uneventful Travel

Praise the Lord we've actually made it to Ashburnham with everything we started out with. The flight from Cleveland was only 2/3 full so Karen and I were blessed by the additional room in our row. We didn't get much sleep during the 7 1/2 hour flight, but the flight itself was fine.

We arrived safely at Gatwick at 6:22 AM local time and made it through immigration in about thirty minutes. From there we picked up our bags, rode the shuttle train to the South Terminal where we had breakfast at "Joe's". Karen had French Toast made of "Bloom" bread and a very large "regular" cup of Twining's Classic English Tea. I had the Vegetarian Breakfast: eggs scrambled on toast with grilled tomatoes, grilled Portabella mushrooms and a cup of "Americano" coffee which was wonderfully thick and a frothy rich, rich brown in color. The prices were very reasonable at first glance, but then we remembered we have to double every price because of the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound. So, French Toast and scrambled eggs ended up costing over $25. Not a complaint, just a reality we need to remember.

After breakfast we found our way around the terminal to where the trains were, purchased our tickets, found the right platform, called ahead to reserve a taxi at Battle Station (our end destination) and caught the right train. We did have something of a hitch in our comprehension of the train schedules and platform marquis which caused us to miss the immediate connection, but once we learned the system we caught the next "right" train 34 minutes later.

Ashburnham Place is only a few minutes from Battle Station. An interesting component of driving, besides driving on the left instead of the right, is that many two-way streets are only one car wide. It's like driving at a high rate of speed down an ally blind curves lined with bushes, or parked cars, or buildings. I'd experienced that before on my trip over in 2001, but Karen found it all rather thrilling. We had a great taxi driver who enjoyed his job and did it well.

The photographs are of me waiting to catch the train outbound from Gatwick, the main hall at Ashburnham Place, and Karen on the steps in front of the main hall.

We look forward to staying in touch as we move through this trip. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to blog, but we'll blog as often as we can.

Thanks for your prayers! We're well and trying to stay awake so we can adjust to the five hour time difference before the MAF orientation classes begin Monday morning.