Day -1: The night before

Ok, you must keep in mind that when I began counting, I anticipated having no Day 0. That means that today (Monday) is Day -1 and tomorrow (Tuesday) is Day 1. I'm sure that Lisa, Rob, or even Chris could tell me the name of some kind of mathematical counting system that doesn't have a 0, but frankly...

So instead of packing furiously up until seconds before walking out the door (par for me), I'm actually ready. I've packed. I've charged everything that needs to be charged--phone, international phone, iPod Touch (thanks, HPU!), iPod Nano, Eee notebook (it's so cute). I've washed everything that stinks, including last week's dishes (kidding, sort of). And I've triple-checked all of my many lists, which means that I'm definitely forgetting something; I just don't know yet what it is.

Now I'm waiting for the sugar and caffeine from my CookOut coke float to wear off, so I can fall asleep for the next... hmm... 4 hours! Then 30-minute cab to the airport, 2-hour wait, 1.5-hour flight to Newark, 1.5-hour layover, 7.5-hour flight to London, 5-minute walk, and collapse in the hotel room! Thank goodness it's not an overnight flight!

Next time, I'll either be reporting that things are going very well, or that we were asked to leave the airplane after an unscheduled landing in Greenland and are now in search of tranquilizers for Mom. I'd like to think that I'm giving her a harder time than she deserves, but just in case... I'm preparing for the worst and hoping for the best!


A follow-up to the original post... DAY 1: Getting There!

No international incidences, no emergency stops in Greenland, although we did see the eastern tip of Nova Scotia on our way out. We arrived about 20 minutes early and then spent 45 minutes in line for immigration. By that time, our luggage was waiting on us.


A very nice cab driver took us to our hotel, since it is most decidedly NOT accessible by foot. That's what you get with an airport that is 8 miles wide. Everyone can say they are connected to the airport (only a brisk 4-mile walk through runway construction, a few major intersections, and a really big ditch! And of course, we landed in the one terminal without Hoppa service!

It's 20 pounds per day for internet and television access, so we're going low-tech, typing the blog offline, and purchasing internet time by the hour (only 5 pounds).

We walked down to the McDonald's which had closed its dining room 30 minutes before we arrived and on down to a Texaco where we bought 2 500ml of Coke and a pint of semi-skimmed, British pasturised milk for only 1.5 pounds. Not bad.

Our next great adventure will be tomorrow morning, finding the tube station. We have a pretty good idea of where to start looking, but I'm still trying to get a handle on how the bus and tube systems interact with one another. I can't wait to get to Oxford, where I can drive and spend most of our time in the outlying areas!