A Wee Bit of Travel

Starting with the plane ride: I was as comfortable as one can be in economy class breathing recycled air while turbulence shook the plane like jello on a card table. Really, it's painful to see how people have to squeeze themselves into the tiny airplane seats, and I don't think some of them could even fit into the miniscule cupboard they call a bathroom. Anyway, my flights went through without any problems, and after eight hours in the air I arrived at London Heathrow airport at 7am London time, 1am Nebraska time.




Customs also went smoothly, though the customs officer made me nervous, asking questions like I was out to destroy the UK. But they let me in in the end. Providentially I saw my bag going by as soon as I stepped out of customs. I am ashamed to say that from this point on even with only a backpack and thirty pound bag, walking was very painful. Then I had the adventure of figuring out I was in terminal 3, and I needed to get to terminal 5, and that was my first ride on the public transport system.



At Terminal 5 I met up with my hosts, the W family. At this point(3am NE time) things were getting a bit foggy for me, so I should have been relaxing, but I couldn't figure out if it was 9am or 10am and that made me worry about missing my friends and then what would I do? But it turned out it was 9am and they arrived right on time. We hauled our collective luggage back to the railway and zipped over to Paddington Station. We wrestled our bags to an authentic London taxi with an authentic London taxi driver(he looked like an action movie assassin, as all London taxi drivers should), and after being strategically crammed in subsequently drove backwards in the London way to King's Cross station. We dragged our bags inside and left on time at 12:30 London time.



Thus commenced our eight hour train ride to Inverness, Scotland. I am so very thankful we were in first class. We all dozed a bit. We arrived on time at the Inverness station to be picked up by friends of my friends for the almost two hour drive to Helmsdale. At this point we were all fried, and we went to bed promptly upon arrival(10pm-ish Scotland time, 3pm-ish Ne time) at our manse(i.e. Parsonage).
 

First sunset in Scotland, taken from the train.