Harrogate, our home away from home.

So I'll start with our journey over to England:

Brandon's travels over here were pretty uneventful. Everything went fairly smooth and as planned. Me, on the other hand, well... I have a good story to tell. So I'm at the Indianapolis airport catching my flight from Indy to Chicago. We were flying on some real little, dinky plane and had to walk outside to board. Literally, the moment I stepped outside it started pouring. I ran to the plane with my carry-ons, dropped off my "oversized carry-on" at the bottom of the plane to be put in storage below, and stood in line waiting to board as I continued to get drenched. I finally got on and sat down wet, cold, and miserable. I sat there for the next 10 minutes and watched my bag get completely soaked before they decided it would be a good idea to get the bags out of the rain. To say the least, a huge storm developed and we were delayed on the runway for an hour! I was freaking out because I thought I was going to miss my next flight for sure... darn Indiana weather! I had a one hour layover between my flights and was going to be cutting it close! We finally took off, landed in Chicago 50 minutes later, and I started booking it to my next gate. This was my international flight from Chicago to London so I REALLY didn't want to miss it!! I checked the tv monitors and realized my gate was, of course, on a different terminal of the airport. I found the shuttles to take me to terminal 3 and waited for it to arrive as I was anxiously staring at my watch. At this point there was only about 12 minutes until my flight took off and I was in a complete panic. The shuttle finally arrived and I had the SLOWEST driver in the entire Chicago airport. I kept yelling out "Come on!" and "Hurry it up!" to the driver as the clock kept getting closer and closer to 4:13 PM. We arrived at the terminal and the running continued. I got inside the airport and instantly heard my name being called over the intercom. "Would L.Rigg please report immediately to gate C 16. L.Rigg, please report IMMEDIATELY to gate C 16! " I'm like oh crap... "I'm coming, I'm coming, please wait for me!" I ran to the gate and some lady called out from across the room "Miss Rigg?" (I'm thinking well, that's MRS. RIgg actually, but close enough) "YES, that's me!" I yelled back. I handed her my boarding pass and I walked down the tunnel onto the plane. I made my way to row 38, still feeling a little wet and gross from my previous rain experience, and took my seat. I immediately called Brandon and told him I just BARELY made my flight and didn't have more than 60 seconds to spare before we took off.

Wow, what a way to start my trip to England!

After that whole fiasco, things went much smoother for me. I continued on from London to Leeds, and then to Harrogate. 12 hours later, after catching my International flight, I was happily crawling into our new bed for a much needed 6 hour nap.

Brandon arrived 8 hours after me. We ate dinner at a local restaurant, Wetherspoons, and went to bed. Poor Brandon had to start work the VERY next morning at 6:45 AM! I don't know how he managed to do it.

The weather here is a little chilly and very rainy; low of 50s, high of 65. Although I heard it's supposed to warm up in the next couple weeks! All I can say is that it's a good thing it's still summer here; I should be enjoying this great weather while it lasts! :(

Our flat is very lovely and cozy. It's bigger than our apartment back in California! We live close enough to the center of town that we walk everywhere; it's a very different lifestyle than L.A.! Brandon walked to go get a haircut and we walk to get dinner or do some shopping. It's really fun for the most part. The only time it's a downer is when it's raining. So who wants to come visit us and be able to experience this lifestyle for yourself? We have a 2nd bedroom just waiting for some guests and a 5 month window available to work with your schedule. Just let us know!!!

This past weekend was somewhat low key. We were contemplating Scotland or Bath, but decided on a few local towns instead. On Saturday we made a 45 minute drive to Richmond where a famous castle is located. Unfortunately, we forgot to take the camera on both Saturday and Sunday's adventures. So sorry, no pictures this time. The castle was cool; it had the typical set of 120 stairs or so you climb for the very best lookout spot in the city. So we did that and had some amazing views of everything little, English town entails.

On Sunday, we went to Leeds which is known for really good shopping. We took the bus there and walked the city streets to see what the new place had to offer. It reminded me a lot of Munich, Germany actually. Both places have wide brick streets lined with shops and packed with pedestrians going up and down the blocks. It was a neat town. We enjoyed shopping at H&M which some of you might be familiar with. It's a clothing store that has great picks for cheap prices. It was just about the only place we could afford anything seeing as how the pound is so pricey! That evening we went to the theatre and saw Pirates of the Carribbean.

It was a good first weekend in England... and now another week begins. Thanks for reading and I hope to get some pictures up next time. Cheers.