WE'RE HERE!!!! (but here is not where you think it is!)

Big Ben

The London Eye

Mily Cyrus at Madame Tussand





Across the couryard from our flat at Regent's Park College

The sidewalk leading to our flat.

We arrived yesterday at 7:30am England time. Let me just say that the airport in London was an experience and I don't mean that in a very positive way. I have heard all my life that the airpoint in Paris is the worst for a large international airport. Well, I want to set the record straight. My first impression of London was NOT good. They are getting ready to remodel, so maybe there is hope. We FINALLY found the bus ticket station and were told it would take over an hour to get to our destination. I slept the entire ride since I did very little sleeping on the plane. (can sleep like a baby in the car, but a plane is a totally different story).

After arriving at the college, we kept having trouble getting our questions about London answered and were completely confused when we left the bus station after purchasing our Oyster card (for public transportation). I went to bed fairly early last night and some time after I fell asleep, Darryl had a revelation.....we are NOT London, but rather Oxford. All along we thought we would be at Regent's College in London. Up until I typed the first blog, I didn't even realize that Park was part of the title. It never really made sense to me that Oxford University was so far away from the theological arm of the school, but I blew it off as some weird European thing and never said anything. I wondered yesterday why the trip from the airport was going to take so long, but was too tired to question anyone. Had I not slept all the way, MAYBE it would have become a little clearer to me then.

Well, this revelation caused some major complications to our world. It cost WAY too much to ride the bus back and forth to London each day. Darryl decided to rent a car fo the entire month. That opens up an entirely new set of problems. One being, Oxford has VERY strick laws about parking here in order to keep out all the commuting traffic. Now we are not sure where he will park the thing each night. Please pray that the city council will have pity on us tomorrow and grant him a temporary pass. Also, pray for our safety. He only got in the wrong lane once and for only a split second, but it is still very disconcerting to me to be riding on the wrong side of the road.

Our flat is tiny but will do just fine. In some ways, it is nicer than the apartment we had in Rome when we were there for a mission trip in 2005. No a/c, but that has not been a problem so far.

I don't know how to upload my pictures so that they are in the correct order. I tried to move them around and had no success, so for now, pictures attached may not be in order. The bottom two are picturs at the college where we are staying. If any of you bloggers out there can help me, please let me know.

Tomorrow we are going to Shakespeare's The Globe to see Romeo and Juliet. I'm looking forward to that. We keep being told that the weather is unusally beautiful right now. I pray it continues that way. We could not have asked for better weather thus far!

Keep us in your prayers. I miss my sons terribly and hate that I am not able to communicate with him. (THOUGHT we had that all worked out, but nooooooo..... I will be paying AT&T a little visit as soon as I get home!!!)) And yes, I miss my dogs too! Keep Darryl and his writing process in your prayers.

Hope you are all having a great summer!