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Yesterday we traveled all day. With the layover in Texas it is about a 16 hour trip. The flight was uneventful except the movie channel was not working correctly. The most interesting thing to watch was the monitor that showed you exactly where we were.

We arrived at Gatwick Airport in the A.M. today. Gatwick is a small airport and I would definitely recommend it. Not far from London but so much easier than a large airport like Seattle or Houston/Fort Worth. Customs was a little interesting since my daughter was not there to meet us and I did not have her address handy to show the agent. He eventually let us go on. I had not thought of it ahead of time but after I wondered about how easy it is for someone to enter a country. We were questioned about where we were staying but when I did not have that info he let us go on anyway.

While in England we are lucky to be able to stay in the home where my daughter is boarding. It is in the village of Merstham. It is a very small community but Redhill is a very short train ride and has everything you need. The apartment is only a small block from the train station. Merstham is about 16 miles from London. My daughter is 22 and would probably like to live in London but I can appreciate the slow pace of life in the village yet how close it is to the large city.

We decided to stay close since we were so tired from the trip. It turned out to be a wise decision and we did not really do too much today. We took the train to Redhill and looked around. It was cooler that I thought (nippy I was told) and I bought a track jacket at a charity shop. We went to the little mall (Belfry). It was quite small but had clothing stores, engraving, drug store, food shops, etc. The post office was also in the mall and that seems like a great idea.Redhill is a medium sized town with everything a family would need. The elderly woman we are staying with says she never goes into London anymore and most of her friends do not. The first business I saw after getting off the train was a McDonalds so I guess it would be considered a modern town. We did not eat lunch there but tried the local chips shop across the street. The fish was not that good to my American tastes. I am used to piece of white meat with coating deep fried. They leave the skin on the fish and all the bones were intact. Different! It seemed to smell bad in the resturant to me (very small space, kitchen close) but my daughter who has been in Europe several months thought it was fine.

We stopped in the local grocery store just to look at some products. Many interesting things but would you like to eat something called “digestives”. I guess it is a treat but it brought to mind medicine for me. We were too tired after the trip and returned to the apartment.