Quick Update

I'm at an internet cafe right now in London, so we have made it.....however the method in which we made it was not as pretty as we expected.

As you know we had plans to take the bus from Manchester to London at midnight. The thinking here was that we wouldn't have to then pay for a hotel on Saturday night and it would be okay because there wouldn't be anyone else on the bus so we could lay across the seats and sleep.....oh not so much.

The bus was full. Full full. While we were waiting for the bus to leave the initial station the guy next to us was picking and scratching at his feet and digging inbetween his toes and then....proceeded to smell his hand. NASTY.

But we tried to ignore the noise and the craziness on the bus and fall asleep. Fine, we are rolling through town....and get to the next station on the route....all the lights go back on people shuffle on and off the bus. I am starting to realize sleep is going to be a far away thing. Then we leave another station about an hour later and all of a sudden there is this really really loud hissing air noise coming from the front of the bus.

I mean really loud.

ok, ok fine....just ignore it. It's just some white noise....try and go back to sleep.

What's happening now? We are pulling into like a rest area. WTF?!?!?!

The hissing keeps stopping and then starting, stopping and starting. All of a sudden another bus pulls up along side us and we are told that since the bus is obviously having some mechanical problems we have to move onto this other bus (Jason: apparently the driver's seat was leaking. Really? That happens?). Ok fine.

We get to the second bus and it's much smaller than the first. Both Jason and I are hitting our knees on the seat in front of us. Ok, it's going to be fine, just lean against something and drop off to sleep. About 30 minutes later we get to yet another station and are informed that the bus is back on time and so we have 15 minutes to walk around and stretch our legs and be back on the bus by 3am. So we are sitting there....3:10 comes around 3:15 and then an anouncement that they are waiting for a passenger who is coming by TAXI.

What is going on over here. The flippin' bus was supposed to leave at 3am. It's just waiting for someone? WHAT!!! (Jason: The British are sometimes too damn polite for their own good. It's called a schedule for a reason) We end up not leaving until about 3:30 and then we are back on it.

During the next 3 hours there was a mix of Jason and I trying to use each other as pillows and my legs falling completly asleep. Some guy a couple rows back was sawing logs so loud that we didn't know if the noise of him snoring was more annoying or the fact that he was actually getting some sleep. Other small things: a guy kept sniffing really loud and flemmy....GET A KLEENEX.....someone else was playing music for the entire bus via his headphones that we up really loud.....

So all in all, we got here, but we didn't sleep much. We can't check into our hotel until 2pm so we have just been walking around in town in a daze. I finally told Jason I had to shut my eyes for a few minutes so I fell asleep on a bench along the South Bank. 15 mintues of shut eye and I felt better for about an hour. I have some funny pictures of the bus and more pictures of our adventure here so far, but they'll have to wait till I can get to my laptop. No running for the next week because of travel and some 16 hour work shifts when we get home....but I am really looking foward to getting back into it and here's to hoping that I remember how!