Saturday, June 14, 2008

Westminster Trip Days 1 & 2

June 14, 2008 – 14:35 Local Time

Well, it’s already been a long haul, and we’re still only in London, but it’s been a blast so far. Technically, we should be on a bus tour in Prague right now, but we would probably all be sleeping through it anyway, haha. So, I suppose I should start at the beginning –



Surprisingly, everyone arrived at the Nashville airport in plenty of time. There were no complications in distributing tickets, checking baggage, and getting through security. The initial plan had been for the large group (80 or so) to split up into American Airlines (my flight) and Delta Airlines. We would take the two flight plans, all get to Prague about an hour apart, and then continue on our merry way. However, Fate decided to step in and alter that a bit. The Delta folks were off peacefully to Atlanta, and considering that John Semingson (the director) was on that flight (and naturally inclined to hypertension), that was for the best. Our group, however, wasn’t quite so lucky. The severe weather in the Chicago area caused our plane to be sent back. For a very long time, we weren’t sure what the new plan was going to be, but the extremely helpful gentleman with American took amazing care of our 31-member chunk of people. He arranged for us to take a later flight (about 2.5 hours after our original departure time) to LaGuardia, he secured us a private bus from LaGuardia to JFK, we stayed at JFK for about four hours, then took an overnight flight “across the pond” to London Heathrow. From here, it gets a fraction more complicated, but nothing terrible. To get to Prague, we were required to be on two separate flights (20 and 11, I think). One flight (mine and Nathan’s) leaves at about 3:20pm, and the other flight leaves somewhere around 6:00pm. Contrary to the overall consensus, we are going to get to Prague today, and be able to have a good night’s rest before starting our concert/church service schedule, not to mention sight-seeing and food!!! I’m not yet certain if John knows the story of his “lost sheep,” but it’s my fondest hope that he won’t have an out-and-out panic attack, haha.





How's that last one for an illegal photo, eh? *Pats himself on back* I'm really looking forward to actually starting this trip tomorrow. We begin the day by singing a church service, and then we have a long tour of Prague.

Attention British Airways passengers, we are proud to announce our initial boarding for Flight BA856 with service to Prague…” Well, that’s my cue! More later! ~AJR

2 comments:

Ben Grimwood said...

You are so cute... lol :P

Ben Grimwood said...

Also when you were talking about "lost sheep," I instantly thought of Handel's "All We Like Sheep" hehehe Kind of appropriate with your current surroundings haha