New Years Road Trip to the Continent!

Back in Milton Keynes with all of my precious gifts and American beer intact, the first thing I had to do after work on Monday was hang up this beauty.

'Murica

This was another gift from my parents.  It’s funny, the things you want when you move abroad!  Your move, Will.  I expect a Union Jack to be painted on the ceiling or something.

I worked on Tuesday as well, and then Hope flew in on Wednesday morning!  We decided to spend New Year’s together and to finally get some proper traveling in.  After recovering from the flight in, we exchanged gifts.  Mostly we gave each other some food and clothing items, little luxuries, deciding that more money should go to traveling.  To me, nothing beats the experiences you gain from traveling.  After gifts, we went out to London late to watch the fireworks from Primrose Hill.  We made it with six minutes to spare!

Amazing firework display in London, viewed with a fun crowd from Primrose Hill

No Place Like Home

Well, it’s been a while!  I got caught up in the holiday and took some time off, being a bit lazy at getting back to this.  I suppose you could call it the off-season for my writing.  But it’s definitely been an exciting time as of late!

Jumping back for a moment to the week of Christmas, I flew home to be with my family for a week.  I've really missed them.  Being abroad can be hard like that, especially because I hadn’t expected to see most of my family for at least a year.  As I begin to pay back student loans and put money into savings, I don’t have the extra cash to fly back to the United States, even for Christmas.  So, Santa was very generous to gift that!

Jason was also nice enough to drop me off at Milton Keynes Central in the wee morning hours on Sunday, and I took the train to the Tube to the airport.  When I got to Heathrow, it was mayhem.  Since the luggage conveyors were not working, everything had to be handled manually (aka slowly), causing the line to stack up throughout the departures terminal.  Despite getting there a few hours early, passengers for my flight and other earlier US Airways flights had to be escorted to the front of the line to get luggage checked in on time and make the planes.  Though uncertain and somewhat stressful, I did make my flight.

Dad waiting at arrivals in Philly

When I arrived in Philadelphia many hours later, my first news was that my luggage, containing all of my gifts for my family, was left behind in London.  Same story with at least 30 more passengers.  My parents waited for me at arrivals, and we shared some warm embraces.  To continue the happiness, we went straight to the luggage claims office and waited in line for about an hour to give details on where to deliver my luggage.  I was estimated to receive the luggage by the next day (Monday) or Tuesday.  Luckily, I had all of the really important stuff I needed for the next few days with me, so this wasn’t as troubling as it could have been.  Finally we went home, and my mom cooked a really nice meal of chicken marsala while we caught up.  It felt great to be home!