Back in the UK

We've safely returned to the UK, without any hassles from immigration, thank you very much. After a too-short Christmas holiday with my family in Coral Springs, we hopped back on a big ol' British Airways 747 yesterday evening. The flight was almost two hours faster than our flight over because of the jet-stream and we actually got in a little bit of sleep. We landed at Heathrow at 9:45am and walked out with our bags by 10:45. Then we had to wait for our 11:35 National Express bus to take us down to Bournemouth. We got in our front door around 2.

It's great to be back in our apartment, but we regret not being able to stay in Florida longer. We really enjoyed spending time with my family, relaxing in the warm weather, and enjoying the constant stream of homecooked food my mom slaved over the entire time. And my sister was able to take most of the month off. I was happy to spend some time with her.

The only unfortunate events during the trip was the giant fine I had to pay to reinstate my greencard and K's horrendous bout of food poisoning which meant she missed about 4 days of the vacation because she kept herself sequestered in the bedroom and bathroom.

We've come back with quite a haul of Christmas gifts and other stuff we bought while we were there (lots of clothes from Old Navy and the Gap). Our two large and two small suitcases stuffed! Luckily, the weight restriction per bag is still 70 lbs. The bags are laying in our entry hall right now, partially unpacked. What's the hurry? I'm not due in at work until the 3rd and K is doing her PhD full time now so she doesn't have to go to the office at all. So relieved that I will have a couple of days to get over the jet lag.

It feels a bit lonely to be back here in England all by ourselves. I think we've gotten a bit of the post-vacation blues. We've gone from being around family for a couple of weeks to our somewhat solitary existence over here in England so it's a bit of a shock. All compounded by the jet lag.

I realize it's New Year's Eve today, but we'll definitely not make it to midnight. We'll be lucky if we can stay awake until 7! So perhaps we should say HAPPY NEW YEAR now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Best wishes for 2007!