The first ice cream.

Well friends, I made it!

I am writing to you now from my swanky hostel in London! I can hardly believe I'm actually doing this! Unfortunately, even though it is only 9:00 here, I'm exhausted, so I think I might be the lame kid who goes to bed early.

It feels like I've lived three days since I left the El Paso airport but I'll try to give you a brief summary. Oh, and I have been taking pictures but I can't upload them here, so those will have to wait.

The plane ride was fine, it is nearly impossible to find a comfortable position but that is to be expected. I sat next to two nice British ladies. As we were landing, I looked out the window as we were flying over miles of green pasture. Being the southwestern kid that I am, I remarked to her how incredible the green was. She laughed at me...

Two hours after we landed, I finally left the airport. I guess three huge flights from the United States must have all landed at exactly the same time because the line to get through immigration was ridiculous. But the good news is I got some reading done while standing in line!

Then I spent the afternoon wander around London. This is the point were I have to tell you about my challenge for the trip. My goal is to eat ice cream at least once in every city I visit and have a chocolate croissant for breakfast when I'm in France. My dear friend Emily then challenged me to document this task and take pictures of the ice creams I eat. Maybe I'll publish a book: "The Ice Creams of Europe: A Review". But anyway, check London off the list! It wasn't the best ice cream I've ever had (it was soft serve) but they put a chocolate stick in the top which was a really nice touch!

The coolest thing I did today was going to an Evensong service at St. Paul's Cathedral. It is a beautiful building and the choir was amazing. It was hard to understand the words they were singing, but the melodies and chords were breathtaking. The President of the Methodist Community or whatever you call it was there because they were celebrating the conversion of their founder. He gave a short little homily about how the founder of the Methodist church (I've forgotten his name) wanted to bring Christ to the people and that priests should worship Christ with the people. It was a little ironic seeing as he was preaching at pulpit in front of a glided cross at least 100 yards away from where the other worshipers and I were sitting . But hey, I hadn't had my dose of irony for the day.

So, sorry this is so long, most of my posts probably wont be this bad. I hope that you all are doing fabulously and I'll post again soon!

P.S. British keyboards are funny...for instance, while trying to type one of these ", I typed this @ 5 times before I finally looked at my fingers. I'll blame it on the jet lag :)