Day 1

Tuesday, July 11, my mother toted me to the Lubbock airport. I got there about 9:00am and Gordon checked to make sure I had my tux, music and passport. I boarded the Southwest Airlines plane for Love field. At Love, the extension group with which I was traveling loaded our stuff onto the "Busses by Bill" shuttle bus to DFW. A few of us ate lunch at the Friday's restaurant in the airport. I had a club sandwich. At about 4:00pm our group took off for London Gatwick. Many of us tried to catch a few winks because we knew we would miss a whole night's sleep if we didn't. This was the shortest day of the trip.

Day 2

Wednesday, July 12, our extension group arrived at London's Gatwick airport about 7:30am London time. We went through customs and gathered by a big column outside the arrivals gate where some volunteers in our group watched our luggage so the others of us could explore the airport shops and upper level shopping mall. It was a short 1 1/2 hours before the main group arrived to join us. We all hopped on the two busses provided by Bennett's of Gloucester to take us to Hartpury College, our base of operations for the next week. Bennett's was our bus provider for the duration of the tour, and they did a fine job of getting us where we needed to be in a timely manner. It was rather overcast and unseasonably cool, which was great! We arrived at the college about 2:00pm to a welcome of sandwiches prepared for us by the college. We received the keys to our dorm rooms and had about two hours to get the lay of the land and get our bags into the rooms before our first rehearsal at the same reception hall where we ate the sandwiches. The rehearsal went very well, considering many of us had been up for about 24 hours+ by then. After dinner in the modern Hartpury cafeteria, I imagine most everyone went to their rooms and went to bed. I know I sure did.

Just a note about the dorm. These were modern, newly built two story modular buildings with, I think, about 20 rooms in each one. Our group took four or five of these buildings. Most everyone had their own room. (There were a few larger rooms for some of the couples traveling with us.) Each building had it's own little tea/coffee room with sink, tea bags, instant coffee, sugar, milk, automatic water heater pitcher, refrigerator and a couple of small sofas or chairs and a coffee table. The rooms were rather Spartan (concrete block wall decor). and small, with no tv or radio (who had time for that anyway?). The bathroom was tiled and had the toilet, sink and shower all there together, with a shower curtain so you wouldn't spray the toilet when you showered. The drain, of course was in the floor, but mine was a little mis-aligned, so all the water did not drain out, a minor irritation. There was a sign on the wall about not drinking the tap water that I didn't see until after I had drunk a big bottle of it and brushed my teeth. I had no ill effects from the water, and even continued using it for brushing throughout our stay. The bed was a single, two pillows and a bottom sheet in place. A sheet wrapped comforter was folded down the center of the bed. People said this is common in most European countries. I know it worked great for me. I was very comfortable in my second story room overlooking the front sidewalk.

End day 2