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This is really a combination Day 1 / Day 2 report, since I left home Saturday afternoon, and it is now Sunday evening, but it seems as if only one day has passed. A very long one, true, but just one.

I am now watching Trivial Pursuit game show on the British verion of CBN's Family Channel. It is no Jeopardy, but it is fun, and the commercials are even better.

I wrote a lot while waiting at airports and flying, but, on review, I find that it is completely lacking in entertainment value. Here is the one highlight:

"The moving walkways in the Detroit airport actually have a yellow line painted down the center, with "WALK" witten periodically on the left and "STAND" written on the right. This did not stop a group in front of me from blocking it."

My flight was delayed in Detroit for over an hour, but I did manage a few hours of sleep during the flight. I breezed through customs at Gatwick, failing to declare the Oreos, Reese's, bagels, and peanut butter I was smuggling.

Debs and her Brit hubby Jon were waiting patiently for me at the airport. (You may remember Deblette from my rubber stamp picture and such exciting travelogues as "A Brief Jaunt To New England and Back", "REM in Columbus On My Birthday", and "Janis Gets Sick at the Flats".)

There's something unsettling about being a passenger in the front left seat of a car and not being the driver. I eventually adjusted to almost all of it except the rear view mirror.

We dropped off my stuff at their flat, then headed for London to meet a large group of online acquantances for lunch.

We met at Chili's. Yes, this is a unit of the same chain that appears all over the US, featuring Tex Mex food in a brass and fern setting. The food tasted about the same (I visited the Rockford Chili's last week for comparison).

Trish, the only member of the group who had not met any others, was the only person there when we arrived a fashionable fifteen minutes late. If it had been me, I might have thought that I was the target of a cruel practical joke, but she wasn't concerned.

After a couple of rounds at the bar waiting (I was drinking Coke), jet lag began to settle in, just as Niamh and lucy arrived. They seemed entirely too chipper for this early in the morning. I gave them Halloween Pez dispensers and Oreos, and all was right with the world.

Finally Mr. S- and Ms. T- arrived, we got a table, and ordered. The chicken wings were good if a bit short in heat.

S- brought his (or, rather, T-'s) digital camera, and we had fun with that.

That's about it for day 1. Tomorrow is planned through to Edinburgh in the early afternoon. Beyond that I have no idea.

I did find out that I need some odd phone cord to do this. There is one here, but I don't know how future reports will work.

Love, Craig