Our trip to jolly ol' England

Well...another few weeks have gone by and there is still nothing exciting to report so I thought that I would share the adventures we encountered this last Christmas.

Mike and I decided last summer that Christmas would be a great time to go visit his parents. So we saved up, bought some tickets and planned the whole trip out. We were scheduled to leave on December 23 and arrive in Manchester the following day (Christmas eve) at 8am. When we left on the 23rd it all seemed to be going as planned until we started nearing our connecting flight destination in Chicago. The weather was really bad and so we ended up landing in the O'Hare airport a half hour late. This meant that we had 45 minutes to reach our connecting flight to Manchester...normally you'd think 45 minutes would be fine but for any of you who have been to the Chicago, O'Hare airport knows better. It's HUGE and you have to take little trains in order to get to different terminals. Well, it was just our luck that the connecting flight was in terminal 3-- the farthest from where we were. So we ran as fast as we could and found the train station then hoped on the next train that came by. Unfortunately it was almost a 20 minute ride to the terminal so time was getting even shorter. However we met about 6 others all trying to reach the same flight as us. As soon as the train stopped we had about 15 minutes to make it to our gate and so our little group bolted out the doors and rushed to the customs line. However, it was too late by the time we got there. The woman at the gate said they had already boarded our plane and we would have to find another way. After this news our little crew of 8 (I was the only American) made it's way to the Scandinavian airlines desk(we were told they were the ones who would most likely be able to get us there the fastest) and tried to work something out. We ended up staying there for three hours until eventually we learned that the quickest we could make it to Manchester was to get there at 8pm on Christmas eve. Well...it was the best option at that point so we took it. The only catch was that we now had to fly from Chicago to Denmark and the from Denmark to Switzerland and then from Switzerland to Manchester. It was crazy!!!!!

Well...it ended up working out really good in the end and here is why. On the long flight (9 hours from Chicago to Denmark) it was so empty that we all got to have our own row. That's right...our own row which meant we could lay out and sleep across the seats. Additionally, the service was great! Seriously if any of you ever need to fly to Copenhagen, Scandinavian Air is the way to go. Anyway, probably the coolest thing was that Mike and I got to meet a neat guy named Ben. At first we were a bit annoyed because we were sitting next to each other in our own row with plenty of empty seats available and right before take off some guy comes running on coughing and hacking up a storm and he took a seat right next to me. Why?! There were empty seats everywhere?! Anyway, he was super friendly and he started chatting to me even before take off. Well, right away he found out I was from Utah and he immediately asked if I was a Mormon, I told him I was and he started asking all kinds of questions. Seriously....I have never had an experience like this before and I could tell by the questions he was asking that he had heard of the Church. Through the course of the conversation I eventually learned that his girlfriend is a Mormon and that she had been inactive but had recently been trying to go back. This was causing some strain on their relationship because Ben was a firm agnostic. We ended up talking for almost 5 hours about his beliefs and our beliefs and it eventually ended with him saying that he would try and find out more from his girlfriend and the missionaries (who happened to live next door to him). I wonder what happened with that and I hope the absolute best for Ben...but it was a great experience for me and helped Mike and I both realize the importance of always being prepared for missionary experiences.

Well, after that we ended up making the rest of our connecting flights (although we almost didn't in Switzerland...fortunately we were lucky) and we arrived in Machester at 8pm on Christmas Eve. Mikes parents were waiting for us and it was wonderful...so wonderful to see them and to be on solid ground after 24 hours of flying. We then made a nice four hour trip back to their house in Northumblerland and slept for what seemed like days. The rest of our time in England was fantastic! We got to see some great sights including the castle they use as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies and some cool roman ruins (Hadrians wall). The best thing, however, was just spending time with the family and enjoying the beautiful countryside. Seriously...it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and all in all it was such a blessing to go!

I have posted some pictures and I can't figure out how do make a caption for each one so I'll first apologize by saying please disregard our clothes. With all the crazy flights we had to take, our luggage was lost for about 5 days so half the trip we were wearing the same things. I know...GROSS! Anyway, the pictures show Mike, myself and his parents visiting some castles and some roman ruins as well as some pretty pictures of the countryside. :-)