going to india!

Our journey has gone very well so far. We left Des Moines at 4:38pm
on Monday and got to London yesterday at 10am. (There's a 6 hour
difference between London time and US Central time, so we were a
bit tired by the time we got there.) The flight was super nice, though.
We each had our own personal entertainment center in the seat in
front of us; we got a pillow, blanket, and headphones; and we got
dinner, breakfast, and several drink services. The seats were bigger
than the small planes that fly out of Des Moines (it was a 777) and
there was actually a relatively nice amount of leg room. I even managed
to get about 3 hours of sleep.

When we got to London, we got our bags, got some pounds ($2 is
about the same as 1 pound) and took a train the Paddington station where
my cousin Dave met us at Starbucks. (I found it ironic that the first thing
Kim and I did in London was eat at Starbucks.) After taking the train to
Richmond, where my cousins live, Kim and I took a nap, ate dinner, and
then we all headed into downtown London to walk around a bit.

Today Kim and I went exploring. We went to go see the Tower Bridge
and then walked around some of the other monuments and attractions.
Everything closes very early...usually between 4 and 6...and we didn't
get into London until close to 2pm. We did get to see a lot of churches,
thought, which was really cool. (Although it is weird to see people
walking around a church listening to audio tours!)

It was really fun just being able to wander around, not really having any
place that we needed to be. We didn't necessarily know where we were
going the whole time, but that was ok. We always had maps, my cousin's
phone number, and friendly shopkeepers to ask directions if we needed.

I am very glad that we were able to come to London. Our original plans
were to go straight through from Des Moines - Chicago - London - Calcutta
without stopping. We saw, however, that there was about a 5-hour layover
in London, so asked the travel agent if we could just stay there for a few
days and we could, which was great!

Kim made a Yahoo! Photo account and has uploaded some of the photos
we took today. We'll try to keep that updated as much as possible! You
can see them at this website, which I highly recommend!

Anyway, thank you all for your wonderful emails and your prayers! Know
that I am praying for each of you and hope you are doing well!

God bless you!

Kat