One Lost Passport, One Hour in Iceland, and One Afternoon in London

Hello from the UK!  We have finally made it here after a long and stressful journey.  We left Boston yesterday evening after saying goodbye to the Hadelers.  We had a great time venturing around the Boston area and look forward to seeing them again soon, maybe they will come see us in London!?!?

Saying Goodbye to Caitlin and Chris

We then boarded a plane to Reykjavik, Iceland.  The flight left at 9:30 PM and was five hours long.  In order to board the flight we had to show our passports (this is important to the story later...).  On board, each seat had its very own TV screen, so you could choose your own entertainment.  I chose to re-watch a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory to calm my nerves and laugh a bit, then tried to get a little sleep.  Once the flight landed in Iceland (at a chilling 6 degrees Celsius, around 42 F) we unloaded the plane. We knew we had a little over an hour in the airport, so we took our time.  As we found a seat to wait, I started looking for my passport just to double check that I had it and could not find it!!  So I calmly took a deep breath and quickly found an information desk to tell them that I had probably left it on the plane. As I mentioned earlier, I needed it to board the plane so I knew it must be there.  As I began explaining what happened to the nice lady at the desk I start tearing up and loosing my control.  She radioed the plane and after a few tense minutes they were able to retrieve my passport.  At least I made the mistake now and will be more careful with it in the future!

Anyway, the Iceland airport was very nice.  A small friendly airport that has very updated facilities.  I wish we could have stayed longer and actually seen a bit of the country (they advertised hotsprings, volcanoes and glaciers!), but that may be its own separate adventure someday.

So we boarded our next flight to London Gatwick (the little known south London airport) at around 7:45AM Iceland Time, for another 3 hour flight.  This plane did not have the fancy personal TV screens, so I tried to sleep through most of the flight.  Finally we landed in London at noon local time, which messed with my head because it felt like 4AM.  After clearing customs (thankfully with my passport/visa in hand!) and getting our bags (which we have a lot of...) we made our way through the crowded airport to the express train into town, to Victoria station.  At Victoria station we hailed a classic black taxi and made our way to our hotel room.

We are both pretty exhausted at this point so we decided to take a quick nap and freshen up a bit, then head out into town.  It was a beautiful day in London, slightly cloudy and around 64F and we wanted to enjoy the weather because there is rain in the forecast for the next three days...  We decided to start in Oxford Circus in search of mobile phones.  After buying a cheap pay-as-you-go phone (can't get a "smart" phone without a bank account, can't get a bank account without an address, and can't get an address without a phone....such a conundrum....) we decided to walk around London.  Without boring you more with specifics here are some pics of what we saw on our first afternoon in our new city.

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben and the UK Parliament Building

Thames River and Parliament Building, Brandon is blocking Big Ben...

London Eye

Our first meal in London, at a French Bistro, panini sandwiches, coke and sparkling limonade -
not very British but tasty all the same!

Tomorrow we have plans to look at a few housing options and the next week we will be on the search for a new home.  Check back for more postings on our international house hunt and London adventures.