Traveling is sometimes yucky

Alright, we've arrived in Manchester, and I finally have time to sit down and post. I've uploaded a fresh batch of pictures- mind you I'm still learning how to use my new camera, as unfortunately mastery of photographic prowess is not something you can achieve by osmosis.

To begin with, let me just say that I love to travel, except for the traveling part. What I mean is, I love being new places and meeting new people, trying exotic foods and beverages and having experiences I never would at home. But I hate flying. I don't hate it with a passion, because when I'm flying I don't even have enough energy or soul to muster up any passion. Waiting is not my forte, and basically air travel is all waiting, plus bad food, cramped seating, bad smelling air, dehydration, and constipation. I do it though, for all those reasons I mentioned above.

Secondly, I'd like to introduce you to the third member of our traveling party, Mirabelle. Here she is resting up after bravely facing the TSA security screening at PDX. I just want to mention here that Mirabelle was provided by my wonderful crew at New Seasons, Jarod, DeeAnna, and Nikki, who thought we needed more companionship.

So our journey began at two o'clock in the afternoon on Monday. We were (for good reason) pretty excited.

We had a quick hop up to Seattle and settled in for our unfortunately long 4 1/2 hour layover. Only we quickly found out that bad weather in London had delayed our flight, and we ended up with an 8 hour layover.

Here's Fritz in the most boring room in the world:

And here, he is sharpie-ing in the annoying yellow stripes on his new shoes. Yes, we were bored.

Mirabelle decided to throw a fit. (Note to the New Seasons Crew: Maybe do a background check or at least a psychological profile before choosing peoples traveling companions)

After the epic layover in Seattle, we had a 8 1/2 hour flight to London. We left at 11:00 pm and flew through the night. I got an hour and a half of sleep. Blech. When we arrived in London we had, of course, missed our connecting flight to Manchester. Had to finagle a new flight, and received a lecture about booking all our flights together instead of separately. Blah, blah, but they didn't charge us to change, thankfully.

So once we arrived in Manchester, things improved greatly. We were received by very kind hosts, and have been resting up and exploring the neighborhood. They've just come home and need to use the computer, so I'll sign off for now and tell you more about Dave and Linda and our wanderings in Manchester soon.