First day in England

We finally made it to England! I am glad to be here, but it is weird to think that I wont be back in the U.S. until December. I am incredibly tired, so forgive me if this post doesn't make sense.

When we arrived at the airport, we grabbed our luggage and hopped on a bus to pick up a rental car that my dad reserved. First thing you should know is that my dad LOVES to drive...for hours. He planned that we would drive around Essex county, which is where some english villages that our ancestors came from are, and look at old cemeteries. We got in our rental car awkwardly because the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car. After we were all seated, my dad proudly took out his GPS that was going to guide us all over Europe. He told me to put in the address of our hotel, however as I was typing in the address the GPS had no idea where England even was. My dad didn't download the right maps for England prior to arriving. Dad started saying, "Sheesh sakes! This dang thing doesn't even work!" I just started laughing uncontrollably, probably because of how tired I was. Dad ran back into the car rental place and got a good old paper map of England from a rental car employee. As he was unfolding it like a blanket over him, my sister, Laura, suggested that maybe we should just use the GPS on his iPhone. We typed in the address and thankfully it worked.

We drove around for a couple hours asking my dad about his mission in England before we made it to Rayleigh, England. We got some fish and chips and continued onto the churches. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. We went to three different villages that our ancestors came from and got to stop and visit with an 83-year-old historian who gave a little history lesson in the front room of her house that used to be a school house. I learned so much that now I feel like I have been on an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

(sorry for the crappy image quality. I forgot to put an SD card in my SLR. All pictures taken and edited on my iPhone.)