First day in London

Thank you all for all your thoughts and prayers for our trip- everything went very well. The only trouble was a late gate change, which took us on another quarter mile hike through O’Hare, but we made up the time by breezing through customs when we arrived. Not many of the guys were able to sleep, Ian Hoagland takes the prize for most hours (2-3) logged while in the air, which made today a marathon.

We met our tour guide, Ross, who is a great guy, at the airport and boarded a beautiful coach bus and headed back to the hotel. The hotel doesn’t do much for the eyes from the outside, but is quite nice once you navigate the round about doors. We were able to get into our rooms, with one exception, at 8am- which was really nice to get a shower and swap clothes to make us at least feel a little more prepared for our day long tour of London. We also meet up seamlessly with Mr. and Dean Svigos, who had flown in the day before, and the group took on the hour- due to traffic- trip to the city. Ross took us on a guided tour of all the main attractions around London- first Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard, Westminster Abby, Big Ben and the Parliament building, we passed on waiting on the London wheel/eye and spent the afternoon around Trafalgar Square, Tower of London and London Bridge and shopping in Piccadilly Circus and finished at 6:15 at Covent Garden. The weather was incredible, it was a bit overcast to start, but the sun came through and provided a perfect atmosphere to soak in the rich tradition and culture of London.

I believe every last one of us caught some shut eye on the bus ride back to our hotel by the airport. We just finished having dinner together at a perfectly set up buffet that we have been able to experience for breakfast and dinner- I’m serious- it’s pretty good… for being English.

A couple updates:

We checked into calling cards back to the US and they are really expensive- 2 dollars a minute- plus. And here at the hotel we have to pay for internet access- 12 dollars an hour. Yea, everything here is very expensive… but I’m proud to report that your boys found the sales to their liking this afternoon and came away with a lot of great gifts. We will have access to the internet- so if you have Skype or Vonage set up, I would highly recommend using that as a way to talk if email doesn’t work. We will have only one pay phone at the University to use, so we’re told, but we will have access to a computer lab.

Tomorrow we are going to give the guys some time to sleep in and then we’re going to tour the Chealsea Academy to see how they run their club. Then we’ll be spending the middle part of the day on the bus to Liverpool, we’ll get a tour, meet with the coaches there and have a light kick around at their academy before we call it a night… or so we thinkJ

We’ll give you the full story tomorrow. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them under the comment section right below the entry.

Coach Douglass and Coach Parry