June 19: Monday

My journey to London began at Linn’s house; she is my old girl scout leader and Lia’s mother. The other members of the group were Emily, her mother Shelly, Nicole, her mother Sandy, Kathi, Alisha, and me! From Linn’s house a mini-bus took us to the airport. We flew British Airways on a Boeing 747-400; I sat in row 47 seat C, the isle seat. It was the biggest plane I have ever been on, 50+ rows and three sections of seats across. There was an upstairs to the plane as well, but you couldn’t go up there unless you were first class, or as British Airways calls it ‘World Traveler Plus.’ We were slumming it to London in the coach section. Coach was actually very nice.

The initial flight announcements included words that made very little sense to me. The flight attendants said they would provide life “cocks” to babies in the events of an emergency. If there is a real emergency who has time to acquire a better life jacket?

There were video screens in the back of each seat. The screens were formatted in such a way that I couldn’t see what the person next to you was watching. My neighbors were very quite, they told me it was there first time across the Atlantic or “across the pond” as well.

The TV was not working. Then I discovered…ooo … it’s a touch screen! I could choose from 60+ movies as well as listen to music cds and watch the moving flight progress map. I brought a mini-dvd player with me but I didn’t end up using it on the plane.

Because we went through a tour company we were unable to choose seats ahead of time, I couldn’t even see my friends from my seat. They were in the wing section, I was near the tail.

The British stewardesses have a different sense of space than there American counterparts. They don’t ask if they can move your seat, they just do it. Later in London I noticed this difference again, Europeans have much smaller space bubbles.


The food was interesting, asked for fish, and got (I think) chicken accompanied by a weird corn thing and some bad vegetables. Dessert was cheesecake, that was good…and some sugar coated in chocolate… and fresh mozzarella.

Later on they fed us breakfast. I barely slept on the plane.