One Year to the Day...

On June 21, 2008, one year to the day of my last chemo (although radiation still came later), Mike and I left Tucson to vacation for *three weeks* in England and Wales. Since my last post, which was about six months ago, I returned to work full-time for the Spring semester. The semester was busy, but went very well. I stayed ahead of my fatigue & took care of myself until mid March, when I very unfairly got the stupid flu. That derailed me for several weeks and I don't think I ever quite caught up after that. Still, I got to teach one of my favorite courses and my TA was someone I really enjoy working with. So you can see that things are smoothing out after our very bumpy ride last year. And our trip abroad is a treat to ourselves - a major splurge, in fact. But our motto over these last seven years (since Cancer No. 1) has been: you only live once. Today, Mike added: and travel every year that you are healthy! I think I'm good with that!

It is now June 23rd and there's a lot to say about our trip so far.

Getting there (June 21 and 22): June 21 -We left dear little Ernie in Tracey's (pet-sitter) hands and headed for London via Houston. We missed our connection in Houston because our plane, get this, RAN OUT OF GAS, while in a holding pattern over Podunk, Texas - waiting for storms to clear out of Tucson. We had to divert to College Station, which looked like a Lego-sized version of an airport (one runway total). On the plus side, we flew over Texas A&M, which was interesting. We got to Houston to find out that our connecting flight had also been delayed and we had exactly 15 minutes to get from our arrival gate and terminal to our gate in the international terminal. Watching me run couldn't have been good for anyone! Needless to say, we did not make it; the plane left the gate at 6:54 and we arrived at the gate at 6:59. They booked us on another flight and we had to kill three hours or so in the airport. Someone very kindly told us that if you skulked around the President's club you could get free wireless and so that's what we did as we needed to send email to our B&B in Canterbury saying we might be arriving late.

Our flight was uneventful. We went to sleep immediately - missing out on what smelled through the haze of sleep like a really unappetizing dinner. As we'd already eaten in the airport, I'd say it was a good call to sleep through it! We slept off and on for most of the flight, waking up a couple of hours before landing to a soggy croissant and some fruit. Tasted pretty good actually.

June 22 - Arrived in Heathrow a little early, got through customs and got our luggage with no trouble, changed some US dollars for a pitiful amount of British pounds (the exchange is 2-to-1, not in our favor), and bought a SIM card for a borrowed cell phone. The latter exchange was one where Mike was clearly having English-dialect-adjustment problems! Had no trouble getting to the underground as it was just one floor down from where we were, although negotiating our luggage up and down stairs really sucked. And, yes, through all this I'm sure we looked exactly like what we are: bumbling American tourists! Still, we met some very nice people on the subway who helped us with our cell phone. Negotiated Victoria Station in London just fine, although we had to run *again* for our train to Canterbury. Finally on the train we thought we could sit tight and relax only to discover that the train was going to SPLIT IN HALF at some point. A very nice young woman (a teacher of Spanish, actually, who looked all of 18) helped us figure out whether we were in the right set of cars - and thankfully we were. All the travel from the airport - subway and train - took about 4 hours. We made it to Canterbury by 5:30, had no trouble walking to and finding our hotel - although we did go in through the wrong door! Can anyone else see the big "L" on our foreheads, I wonder.

After checking in, we wandered around Canterbury in an exhausted jet-lagged fog. Stumbling upon a CLOSED chocolate store (never fear, we'll return to this later!), several street musicians (two of whom had a really cute and good doggie), and into the Cathedral area. It was closed but we gawked at it from outside and then made our way to the Old Weaver's House for dinner. Sat in the garden near a tributary from the River Stour. It was very picturesque and if we hadn't been half-asleep, we might have appreciated the ambience a bit more. We both had hard cider and Mike had Shepherd's Pie and I had a chicken & bacon pie (w/ undercooked chips=french fries). Still, it was a nice way to end the evening and from there we stumbled back to our room where we made ourselves stay awake until 9:00 PM.