Today!

Here we are in London!  It's rainy and cool, just like I'd always heard London described, and I am perfectly content to stay in weather like this all summer.  Our travels were for the most part uneventful (slight flightplan adjustment, layover in Denver instead of Chicago in order to make a better connecting flight to London, leading to one very short flight and one very long one, during which we watched movies on our personal screens, read our books, were fed two-ish meals and had plenty of leg room, though not much of a window view, in the exit row), but the real fun started once we landed.  There were some minor issues with paperwork and documentation at the UK border, but once we proved that Julie and Caity (her co-worker) were indeed here to work, and that their situation had been organized by a London company, and that they were doing work that they had been trained for, we were on our way with a minor specification marked in our passports that will require we get a little more paperwork from The Wife's employer...  So we found our temporary lodgings at Pembridge Palace Hotel, settled into our tiny rooms and took a little walk around nearby Notting Hill.  There were shops all over the place, and we were all surprised at how surprised we were to see so many types of people around (London is a very international type of city after all, I guess).  We had a quick bite to eat, then thought we would come home to crash, but then decided we better try to get on the local schedule (it's strange to suddenly miss seven hours of your life!  Where did it go?), so we went back out!  We bought passes for the Underground and took a little turn on the Circle Line, ending up (where else??) at King's Cross station, where with just a little snooping we finally came across Platform 9 3/4.  Up until this point we had felt kind of like we were just in another big city.  Now at last we were in LONDON.

After that, we came home, and THEN we crashed.  Today so far we've sampled the delightful complimentary breakfast (hard-boiled eggs, toast aplenty with cheese or jam, cold cereal and fruit cocktail), settled in for work (internet is available for a nominal hourly or daily fee, and the girls are meeting for training this afternoon), and wondered why none of our kin or co-workers are online (until I realized it's close to 4 in the morning back home).  It's crazy to think we're just... here... in England.  I'm sure once we see a few more landmarks, things will start to hit home (as it were), but we are already having a great time, and things can only get better once we get a few more hours of sleep...