Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Arrival.....check!

We made it! Josh's parents and my mom were going to drive us to Cinci for our flight on Monday. Lois had made a joke that yes, they would drive us up but who was going to drive them back - apparently she meant it! Josh's parents surprised us at the last minute as an H2 Limo pulled up to their Firethorn home. It was honestly a good thing because at that moment Josh and I were trying to fit all the luggage in the back of the Highlander and it was not fitting. I was silently panicking thinking "oh no, we are going to have to use the back seat for luggage, not everyone is going to fit in the vehicle, who would we leave behind, ahhhh!" In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense. I was wondering why Kenny, Lois, my mom and my dad were all standing there in the driveway and none of them were noticing that the luggage was not going to fit - by far - and why none of them were offering any suggestions on how to resolve the issue - especially my dad, the engineer!

Josh had turned around and saw the huge H2 limo trying to make it around the traffic circle and laughed "ha, too bad that's not our ride"....and then it stopped right in front of the house. Lois announced that this WAS our ride...and that they would not be accompanying us. They wanted us to have a nice relaxing ride to the airport. We said our tearful goodbyes and climbed in to the H2 limo. As sad as it was that they did not come with us - we decided later that it would have been much harder to say the goodbyes in front of the airport and then try to check in. We had a nice ride up to Cinci enjoying our last Mountain Dew and Ale-8 - at least for a while. (We did not find any Mountain Dew here while we were visiting in early March and we all know they aren't going to have Ale-8).

We made it to the airport in plenty of time and had a nice flight over...although not much sleep - but who can really sleep well on an airplane?!

When we arrived, we got a minivan cab to Redhill and had one grumpy taxi driver. He was immune to Josh's friendly conversation. We had to swing by our estate agent's office to sign the apartment lease and Josh came running in saying "are you done? The driver is getting upset telling me to tell you to hurry"! haha! After he dropped us off at the apartment he ran straight into this metal pole laying on the ground (used to prop up to block your parking space). We got a little chuckle out of that since he was not-so-nice.

We've now settled in to our apartment, cleaned a bit and we have already gone to the grocery twice. It is colder here, we are back in our winter coats - although I here you all are too in KY.

And thanks to someone around here having an unsecure wireless network we have had internet since arrival! It has been awesome because Skype is the only way we can make a decent phone call - without having to go to a payphone or pay $0.40+/minute to use our cell phones.

Wednesday, we woke up at 1:30pm. Yep, pm. We were sitting in the living room having a bowl of the Frosted Flakes equivalent when we actually realized it was 1:30pm. It's amazing how waking up that late messes up your day. It's even a bigger mess in England. We walked to town center at 6:30pm and it felt much like a ghost town - all retail businesses were gates down, lights out, closed - except for restaurants. Kind of weird. But Sainsbury's - the grocery store - was open so we went grocery shopping again.

Now, it's almost 2am our time and we need to get to bed to try to adjust to London time. So, we'll talk with you all later. In case you don't have it - our Skype phone number is 859-648-0344. It's a local call for you and it rings our computer...there is voicemail if we are not home. Depending on your phone, you may have to dial "1-859-648-0344", "859-648-0344" or just "648-0344". I think it depends on your phone (cell versus landline versus location, not sure, but start with just 648, then keep adding prefixes until it works). :) Also, if you use Skype (internet chat and video chat) look for username "josh.noland".

5 comments:

  1. Hey guys, hope you are settling in ok.

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  2. I didn't know you were in Surrey, Tehzeen says that there is an excellent Fish and Chips restaurant in Surrey, I guess that is Brit version of Burger and fries, ha ha.

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  3. So glad you are settling in! I had to chuckle over your taxi driver!
    Steph, I am sure you can imagine my response to him. What goes around comes around! We are thinking of you!!!! Love, Kathy

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  4. Email me the fish and chips place. I want to check it out.

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  5. So glad to see your Blog is up and going. This should keep all of us entertained for two years. Surrey looks very interesting - Josh, check out all the good places to eat before we start crossing the pond. I love you two 04/06/07

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