lots of work... & some fun stuff!

So. I've been out of the country for almost 2 weeks now - had to head over the pond for parts of a project. It didn't start auspiciously: at 4:30 a.m. a disembodied-voice told me that my flight had been canceled (I was heading out the door to catch the bus down to O'Hare), and I'd been re-booked on the evening flight out. No problem - I head back to bed, caught the little man's first soccer game for the season, hung out with my boys, and THEN hopped on the bus to O'Hare... Check-in went fine. Immigration went fine. Sat next to this dude who worked audio for Metallica's concerts. Couldn't sleep.

Got into Heathrow at 7:30 a.m., took about 40 minutes for luggage & immigration. Another 45 minutes to get to Oxford & check in at the hotel. Hopped in the shower & changed. Found the train station & caught the next train to London, where I met up with two of my 3 cousins who live in London, whom I haven't seen in 10 years...


After walking around London with them (thanks, guys!)I headed back to the hotel, unpacked, and crashed. Only to be woken at 3:30 a.m. by a group celebrating a 21st birthday, down in the streets. Ugh. Monday morning was rough. Working 11 hours was REALLY rough. On Thursday I had dinner with another cousin, and we got lost walking around Oxford looking for this little restaurant... =) But how fun it is to catch up!

After a looooong week, I headed to Paris for the weekend. We skippeth-d out of work early (after still working an 8-hour day) and headed to the airport. Where we found out that they couldn't check anyone in because they got virus'd. So they had to print off lists and scratch your name off the list when you got up to the counter. We finally left London at 10 (3 hours late!) and got into Paris by midnight! =)

And then, ah! Paris! What a beautiful city! Absolutely enchanting & entertaining!