From 8 Jan -- Well,

From 8 Jan --

Well, the trip is so far so good. I left at 8.30 this morning, and I am writing this as we are flying over the Atlantic. The guy I'm sitting next to is great, he insisted that I have my first legal beer with him, then with dinner he insisted on another. Needless to say, I found out he was an alcoholic. He must have had 8 or 9 little bottles of Vodka and a couple of beers, and he bought a couple hundred dollars worth of hard liquor duty- free. I found out that his name is Tommy Nelson and he's from Belfast. He wasn't the most cheerful guy, but he did make this the best flight I've ever had. The plane was packed, and it took forever to be served, but I had the best airline meal I've ever had. Thanks Air Canada. My flight from Minneapolis to Toronto was just a 52 seater, and there no more than 15 people on the flight, so no wonder Air Canada is having problems. The Toronto airport wasn't as nice as I thought it would be, but the London airport is great, it is clean and looks really nice. It is snowing out now, quite a bit. It was really cool flying into the city, and Dublin looked really nice right before sunrise. I am totally wiped out, I could hardly sleep on the flight from Toronto, and it feels like it is 4 AM, but it is really 10. I'll sleep an hour on the British Midlands flight to Manchester, and another hour on the train. I am getting rather sick of travel. There is an English family here that I overheard was kept two extra days in the states because American overbooked their flight, and they received no compensation at all. The flight attendants for BMI wear the strangest hats, kinda like bullfighter hats. Not very appealing. I love hearing the natives speak, they're a very plain people, and there ain't no shame in that! I love walking by the Asian groups touring together and they all have the EXACT same bag. Like 20 of them lined up in a row. They were nice bags too. Things seem quite costly in the airport, but what airport is cheap? I got $7 worth of duty-free chocolate on the flight, the Toblerone stuff, never tried it before, but I have a lot of it now! I really want to just go to bed right now, but I have at least another 3 or 4 hours of travel ahead of me, I hope I can take a nap before the orientation tonite. Everybody here has a cell phone, and they all play games on them. Hmm, maybe I should eat now, but I really don't know if I'm hungry. It should be noted that I used a trolly and rode a lift today, how exotic! I got sick of the whole French thing in Canada, EVERYTHING took twice as long. They had to show the news twice once in English, then in French, why don't they just dub it? Eh, doesn't matter. I'm going to eat!