Of Or-e-gon to Cam-br-idge They Wende

I am sitting for the first time at our dining room table with my dad's most excellent laptop and I am entering our first item from abroad. The girls have just finished writing in their journals on our first night, after "negotiating" bedspace and closet space in their very cozy, I mean cosy, room.

We had our first European outing today after arriving an hour early (thank you, Bruce, no really, thanks for getting us here) -- ahead of our landlords. Not by much, thank goodness, as we did see a small thunderstorm in the distance, and the eaves here didn't come close to sheltering our luggage from the weather. In our enthusiasm to leave the airport, we managed to pick up an extra bag (hard to believe with 9 bags of our own). I'm sure Bruce can explain how that happened (It wasn't my fault. I have not yet figured out exactly how it wasn't my fault, and, incidentally, United Airlines insists that it was my fault, but, anyway, it doesn't feel like my fault. There were just so many black bags . . . black bags everywhere, and so I started grabbing them and putting them on my cart. And I got them all. Every one.)

So there we were in an empty house, no food, no car, no bike, no Euros (or pounds for that matter), and barely adequate warm clothing, so we walked to the nearest grocery store. Our landlords were kind enough to point the way. The rain stopped soon enough for us to return by 8 dry, and plenty hungry for frozen pizza. Eating out will be much more of a treat here in England with the prices and the exchange rate. We had gotten kind of used to it at home where the construction sometimes impeded our ability to dine in. I managed to take a few pictures on the trip over, none of us at the house yet. Let's see if I can post to the blog. More soon.

Let's see. We left the house (truck wouldn't start). Dropped of Dusty. Went to the airport (I locked the keys in the Van with all the luggage just as we were leaving, but that wasn't my fault either). Got on the planes (without boarding passes for the second leg; and that was certainly not my fault). Got off of the planes, through customs (thank goodness I accidentally brought my work permit) and drove 2 hours to the house (with the extra bag, which, miraculously fit with all the other luggage in the taxi). Went shopping, ate, journaled, and now to bed.