europe archive 3/31/07: london, baby!

Hey everyone!

We've safely arrived in England and made it to Surrey to stay with Mel and Mo's cousins, who are all wonderful.

The airports and flights and customs went quite well. I made a friend, Melissa from Hawaii, who accompanied me on a quest for a travel pillow prior to boarding the first flight- which I promptly left in the waiting area and had to ask the flight attendent for permission to run back off the plane and get it. Whoops! But it all worked out fine, fortunately, and I didn't lost my tickets or my passport or anything at all (yet!). The flights themselves were alright, with some very exciting turbulence and some pretty terrible food, but I got a window seat on both, and Mel, Mo, Jill and I all got seats together on the second.

My favorite moment so far was a few minutes after landing, walking through the terminal, when we passed some construction workers and Jill whispered what we were all thinking: "You guys...everyone's speaking in British accents!"

Today will be a light day, since we are all a bit jet-lagged (hard to say how badly yet...it's nearly noon here, so *hopefully* we will be able to stay up until at least 8 or so, if we're lucky.) Everyone's taking showers, then we're having lunch at the house, then we're taking a walk and going out to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. Tomorrow we're going either to Windsor Castle or London- we haven't decided for sure yet but it's just so cool to say:-D

Hope everyone is doing well back home!

Love to all,
Sara

europe archive 3/30/07: leaving on a jet plane

Hey everyone!

My flight leaves in...four hours, so I'm leaving for the airport at 5. I'm packed and ready, I think. Hopefully I will be able to sleep to minimize jet lag.

Attached is a picture of my new pink highlights- with thanks to Aunt Joanne and Uncle Dean, and photo courtesy of Julie:-) Gotta carpe the diem, you know!

love to all,
Sara

europe archive 3/25/07: bonjour and things

Hi everyone!

If you're reading this, you are currently on a mailing list for the
group emails I'm going to be sending out from Europe. If you don't
want to be on this list or want a different address added to the list
instead, or if you know the email of someone else who might want to be
on here, etc., please write back and let me know!

(...specifically, I need current email addresses for Michael and Theo
Fram, Melissa Hayden, Londyn Thomas, Eddie Corcoran, Sam Toia, and
Betsy Klein)

As most of you know, I will be leaving for Europe for seven weeks with
friends Mel, Mo, and Jill a.k.a. "The Quad" on Friday morning. The
schedule (subject to mild changes) is:

LAX to JFK (Delta flight DL 0148) at 8:00 a.m. on Friday, March 30th
(arrive 4:19 p.m.)
JFK to London Gatwick, UK (Delta flight DL 0001) at 7:45 p.m., arrive
8:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 31st.

3/31-4/9: Great Britain, including London, Stonehenge, Guildford, and
Carshalton where we will be staying with Mo and Mel's cousins.

4/9-4/12: Ireland, mainly Dublin.

4/12-4/17: Germany, Hamburg and Berlin.

4/17-4/19: Poland, setting up camp in Krakow and visiting Auschwitz.

4/19-4/24: Czech Republic, mainly visiting Prague where our friend
Stephanie Brooks is on exchange.

4/24-4/26: The Netherlands- Amsterdam, for Jill's birthday!

4/26-4/28: France, relaxing in Paris (where the Quad first traveled together.)

4/28: Possible overnight stay in Germany (Freiburg im Breisgau), en
route to Austria.

4/29-5/4: Austria- Vienna and Salzburg.

5/4-5/21: Italy- many days, many cities: Venice, Rome, Florence,
possibly Modena/Pompei/Trieste, and Milan.

Milan, Italy (MXP) to Atlanta, Georgia (ATL) on Monday, May 21st
(Delta flight DL 0075) at 11:00 a.m., arrive 3:35 p.m.
ATL to LAX same day, same flight at 5:30 p.m. and arrive home at 7:21
p.m., terrifically jetlagged, at terminal 5.

Hooray!

During this period, I expect that email will be the best way to reach
me (based on previous travels, I'll probably be able to check it about
twice a week), though if there is an emergency you can contact my
momma, Stephanie, at (818) 541-0233 since I will be keeping her
updated with various contact numbers.

Also, group emails will be sent either specifically from me via this
email address, or from the Quad as a whole via
le.quad.goes.to.europe@gmail.com, so don't be confused if that changes
back and forth:-)

Love to all,
Sara