Blimey...!

We arrived safe and sound. Our "host," Philip, met us at the airport, and I immediately made the mistake of starting to get into the car on the driver's side (Alex, providing me with running commentary, said "strike one").

Anna had starting giggling about the accents before we even "alighted" from the airplane. Alex later confessed he barely contained himself when Philip used the word "blimey" in regular conversation. And they are both learning lots about British spelling.

We are all settled in at the flat and beginning to recover from jet lag. The kids could not help but take a nap that first afternoon, which meant they were up all night. But they pushed through a first day of sightseeing, utterly exhausted, and so are hopefully sleeping through the night. (I am already so adjusted to the time change that I woke up at my usual 3 a.m. tonight, our second full night here.)

The first night, despite my complete terror at the thought of driving, I did venture out because I realized I did not have the right plug-shape adapter for my computer, and it was out of battery. I was completely cut off! (Except for my iPod touch.) So I researched what I thought was a shopping center and how to get there (on my tiny iPod map), and Anna and I headed out (Alex was too tired to get up from his nap). I bumped a few curbs and drove way too slow for the locals, but I didn't get in any accidents. Still, once we made it to the giant round-about where I thought I would find the shopping center, I had to try every exit before even slightly figuring out which was the right one (and I'm not sure I did find exactly the shopping center I was looking for). That is a lot of circling around, and around, and around. We ultimately found what I needed (and some KFC, beer, and candybars---just what tired travelers require!) and headed home.

We spent our first full day sightseeing in London. Some pics of those adventures later.