Back in the UK with the brothers

Hi! I completely neglected posting anything while I was in Minnesota. The trip absolutely FLEW by. I couldn't believe it had been two weeks when it was time to pack my bags again. I'll outline the trip with some pictures another evening, but I wanted to post a HILARIOUS picture of Josh (my brother) and David (Philip's brother). Today I took them into Ely and we went on a tour of the cathedral there and walked around town. We really wanted to see Oliver Cromwell's house but we ran out of time (we had to get back to base to pick Philip up from work).

This picture is in the Lady's chapel (the room all about Mary always found in a cathedral - this particular cathedral boasts the largest Lady's chapel in the UK) and the guide explained that people generally stood for service until they were in very poor health and about to croak and simply COULDN'T stand - then you could sit on these benches on the perimeter. So here the gentlemen are, looking like little misbehaving Catholic boys put in the invalid-on-your-way-out corner seat :)

We all arived yesterday. Eventually. But safe and sound (all that matters). My flight out of MSP was delayed as we sat in the plane at the gate for an hour and a half. This made my Newark connection really tight (it was one of those sprinting through the airport to get to the gate things). It was a pain because I had to take the train to another terminal and go through security again to get to my gate out of Newark. After getting there in the nick of time, I boarded and AGAIN had the wonderful experience of sitting on the plan without moving for an hour and a half.

I got to Heathrow to find out that David (who was supposed to arrive at 9 am) was delayed to 9 pm. So, Philip & I waited a few hours for Josh to land and we took the Underground back to the station at Epping and drove back to the house. We ate, chatted and I studied and cleaned (Philip explained it well when he described his upkeep of the house for my return, "I got the house Philip clean but not Joy clean" - last night I couldn't rest until it was Joy clean - it's still not 100% but I can sleep now) Later, Philip went back to Epping to pick David up last night after he navigated through London, and they returned to the house around midnight. I was proud of myself - I had fallen alseep but after I woke up to say hi to David I was able to maintain energy to study for about an hour (a lot of that needs to happen in the next two weeks as I finish one class and start two).

After Philip & David finish Xboxing, we're going to head into town for a walk this evening.