Rachel, Jenny, and me on our first day in London.



The trip to London was somewhat grueling...



First, we had to awaken at about 2am on Tuesday morning so that we could get ready and make the 3 hour drive to the airport in San Francisco in time to get through parking, ticketing and security to make our 6:50am flight. Which would normally be fine, except that Jenny was working all night Monday night so that she could have enough stuff done to leave on the trip in the first place. So Jenny actually pulled an all-nighter and got home right around the time Rachel and I needed to wake up to get ready. And of course, we had gone to bed late and hadn't slept well. I'd really only managed to get a couple hours sleep. Jenny was able to nap a bit on the drive to San fran, but in all, we started the trip on little or no sleep to begin with.



Then, there was security at the airport. I must have looked like a terrorist, because I got the almost-strip-searched treatment and had to remove basically every article of clothing short of exposing myself. When they asked me to remove my belt, I had a chilling realization that the security personnel might wear those latex gloves for a reason...



Jenny didn't see them grab me by the ear and drag me off to the side, so when she and Rachel were done breezing through security, I was nowhere to be seen. Jenny was in a panic, running around the terminal looking for me, thinking I'd rushed through ahead of them and run off. Neither of us were being very civil for a while. Jenny, because of lack of sleep, and me because I'd just had my first experience with being publicly humiliated at airport security.



But we got over it and got on the first of two flights to England.The first across the the US to Philadelphia, the next across the Atlantic to Gatwick airport in London.



Basically, the timing and the earth rotation worked out so that we arrived in London at 6am England time, which is almost exactly one calendar day after we departed San Francisco, even though it was about 32 actual hours. And we had gotten little more than cat-naps on the flights over because the airlines insist on plying you with snacks, drinks, meals, and movies for the entire time.



But we had only one full day to spend in London on our itinerary, and we were determined to (a) make the most of it, and (b) get over the jet lag as soon as possible. So we got settled into the hotel by about 9am and set the travel alarm for Noon. A 3 hour nap, followed by the most difficult waking-up we ever forced ourselves to do, and we were out on the town. At (according to the timestamp on this photo, which was set by the camera which was on US-pacific time still) what our bodies considered to be 4:39 AM.



Boy, after reviewing what I just wrote, the fact that we're not complete zombies in this photo is rather amazing.