We were very tired

It is the morning of Friday the 12^th as I am writing.

Waiting in Denver

 The first day, June 9,  was crazy long. At 12:30pm we left from various origin points for the Airport. On the way to the airport, one car broke down. Thankfully we had enough redundancy in the system, that the stranded folks got picked up and everyone made it to the airport on time.

The darkest it got on the plane

The flight left at 5:40pm. We headed for Reykjavik. It is so far north that the darkest it got overnight was this.

Photo Op

Few slept on the plane at all.  We landed in Reykjavik tired but ready for the next flight out. Our plane to London left just a little over an hour later. Difficult traffic from the airport to the center of London lead us to switch up our plans. We had lunch near Piccadilly Circus in small groups.  We had a photo op with a phone booth.

 

Westminster

Following lunch, we headed straight to Westminster. We were out of sorts a bit, seriously tired, but still amazed to see the insides of such a famous building.  I took a particular delight in finding the grave of Charles Darwin very near the grave of Issac Newton. It is a good thing that we celebrate science in the Anglican Communion. No pictures were taken inside Westminster because of their rules, but many of us attended the evening prayer at Westminster. We also took the time to ask questions of the docents. We learned many interesting details – such as statues of people reclining indicated they were exceptionally wealthy. 

In the Eye

After Westminster, the bus dropped us at our Hostel. With very little time to spare we headed straight out again. We walked several blocks and caught a double decker bus that carried us near to the EYE. Another brief walk and we stood at the base of this spectacular wheel. We rode up in our own pod. There are advantages of traveling in a group of 25, having our own pod is one of them. 

We took time on the eye to celebrate many of our friends back home who have helped make this trip possible.  So here, my friends, are some of those people: 

Daya with Dean

Tristan with Mary Lou

JJ with Charlie

Sarah with Diane

Carl with Jim

Cole with Nancy

Jacob with Spook

Sally with Dean and Vivki

Dean and Vicki at the top of the Eye

Dean and Vicki! YAY!

Sunset from the Eye

We saw the sun set during our ride on the Eye. Then we watched it sneak above the horizon as we got to the top. And as we came back down the sun set for us the last time. We made our way back via double decker bus to our lodgings. We got off a stop early and then went to find dinner in our small groups. It works out better with groups this size to split up. After dinner and a short walk we finally fell into our beds at 11:30Pm local time. That is 4PM Colorado time and just a little over 30 hours from the time of our departure from Colorado Springs.

Next post will be sooner than the last post. Sorry for the delay