Greetings from London!

We arrived at Heaththrow tonight around 9pm local time. Chris and I were both very surprised at how fast and nice the flight was (we didn't even need any of the vodka we snuck in). Chris had an aisle seat while I was sandwiched in between him and my twelve year old cousin Samir. I slept most of the time while Chris kept himself occupied with games on his iPhone and the in-flight entertainment. During lunch, we watched the movie "Hachi" together. It is about a dog (an Akita) who waited for his owner to return every day, even 10 years after his death. I don't know why Chris let me watch it because of course in the end I was crying my eyes out on the plane and everyone was laughing at me.

Once we landed, we waited in line at customs for about 45 minutes. It went quickly though because we were people watching and trying to figure out where everyone else was from. We came to the conclusion that there had to be a flight from China and India, but lots of other nationalities mixed in too. After we were checked by a very nice man who was joking with us about teaching being a family business, we made our way to baggage claim. You could tell we were definitely held up because all of our bags were off of the carousel waiting. Issa arranged for a 6 passenger van to pick us up and shuttle us to our hotel. It was a tight fit, but we managed. The best part was that since our hotel was on the opposite side of London from the airport, we got to go through Central London and see many of the famous sights. By the time we got to the hotel and checked in, we were starving. Luckily there is an Italian Restaurant a block from our hotel. The service was a little slow, but it was nice to sit down and relax and talk about our upcoming days. We shared some pizza and a ravioli dish, and by the time we finished it was midnight local time, but only 7pm at home, so none of us were really tired. Although I really can't remember falling asleep, once my head hit the pillow...