First bump in the road!

After four weeks of smooth sailing over in England, we finally encountered our first bit of adversity as we began our journey home.  We were up early and at the airport in Bristol on time (yes, even Carla!).  Our flight to Amsterdam was on time and smooth sailing, but when we headed to the gate to board our flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, we discovered that they were doing maintenance on one of the engines and we were going to have to wait.  What originally began as an hour and a half delay, soon turned into a five hour delay.  The trip over the pond seemed very long for all five of us and when we landed we discovered that we had missed the connection to Regina.  Northwest airlines had arranged for hotel vouchers (five of us, three different hotels???), a breakfast voucher, a $200 travel certificate and a new flight today.

Kristin bunked in with Carla at the same hotel that Andre was allocated and Dana and I stayed at the Ramada.  We will be meeting at the airport this morning at around 10:00am for our 11:50am flight home to Regina.  We are all looking forward to getting home to our friends and families so that we can share this wonderful experience with all of you.

Cory

Back to the mainland!

After a very brief visit to the island of Jersey in the English Channel, the team is returning to the mainland later today.  We attended the Rotary District 1200 opening plenary session on Saturday morning and did our presentation for the attendees.  Andre and I visited the War Tunnels Museum, while the girls did a bit of shopping.  The island of Jersey was occupied by the Germans during WWII and the tunnels were built by prisoners to be used as an underground hospital in the event of an Allied invasion.  The island was never invaded by the Allies and thus, the underground hospital was never needed and is now a very moving museum.

We spent the evening at the black tie banquet, Andre and I were slightly under-dressed but the girls looked wonderful.  Another fantastic meal and a bit of entertainment before heading back to our rooms to relax and turn in early.

We are off to the airport here in Jersey for our 12:55pm flight back to Bristol.  We will be spending the next three nights in Bath, with our farewell evening planned for Tuesday evening at the Bath Cricket Club.  We are all looking forward to getting back together with some of our hosts from earlier in the trip and we are also looking forward to getting home to our friends and families!

Cory

Off to Jersey for District Conference!

Andre and I had a bit of time this morning as we are waiting to head to the airport in Bristol for our flight to Jersey.  We will be spending the next two nights on the Channel Island of Jersey as we attend the Rotary District 1200 Conference.  We are looking forward to our presentation tomorrow morning and to spending some time as a team taking it easy!

This past week has been quite busy as we did the “high tour” of Wells Cathedral, attended the Wells Rotary Club luncheon meeting and played a round of golf at the Wells Golf and Country Club on Monday.  Tuesday was a vocational day for the team as we went our separate ways.  On Wednesday we had some fun while touring the Thatcher’s Cider orchards and manufacturing facility…we even got to sample the various varieties of Thatcher’s Cider!  Wednesday evening we did our GSE presentation for the Mendip and Wrington Vale Rotary Clubs.  Thursday was the day we transferred to the Bath Avon Rotary club host families and we had an opportunity to tour some of the shops in Bath before attending their evening Rotary meeting at the Bath Hilton.

A special thanks to our hosts from the Mendip Rotary club in Cheddar, we had an amazing stay with them and their hospitality was amazing!  We look forward to seeing many of our previous host families at the farewell evening on Tuesday next week.

Cory

Even More Pictures

One week left :0(

Good morning all!

We haven’t had a chance to blog for awhile and they let us have an hour to ourselves this morning so we thought we should say a quick hello.

Yesterday we all had our separate vocational days which were all very exciting.  Cory went to Lloyds, Kristin went with a probation officer, Andre went to a cheese factory, Carla spent the day with a newspaper editor and Somerset Council and I went to a sandwich factory.  All of which were very cool!

Today we are off with the Wrington Vale Club.  It sounds like they are taking us to a cider factory to tell us how to brew the good stuff.

Tonight is the 5th of our 7 presentations.  I’m up to be the emcee.  There are going to be about 85 in attendance so I’m a little nervous.  The rest of the group has already had their turn and all have done a wonderful job so it should be fine.

Tomorrow morning we leave these host families and we are off back to Bath so we are making our way back up North.  Friday we fly out to Jersey Island.  Off Shore tax free shopping here we come!

Our days are numbered and they are starting to fly by.  Our Farewell party is being held on Tuesday night in Bath.  I’m sure there will be plenty of tears.

We hope that this post finds everyone well back home.

We miss every one of you and we’ll see you in one week!

Dana

Pictures, ’cause you asked for some :-)

I could go on and on about the wonderful time we are having and about all the amazing sites we are getting to see but I think you would rather that I show you so here you go….

what — no — yes!

IT HAS BEEN QUITE THE FEW DAYS!!  Things have been busy thats for sure.  went on my vocational visits — one to hinkley point nuclear power station and one to swallowfield — both very different from eachother — but both very amazing.

we did a few tours yesterday — one on Horner Hollow and the other in a coastal village of Linton.  (sorry if i got the spelling incorrect).  the gse team got to see the high tide coming in — which was a first for all of us.  it was quite amazing — even saw some surfers.

we were i would say — over tired — and excited to spend some time in a vehicle yesterday — and we seem to feed off of eachothers energy.  Wendy, a rotarian from the Sedgemoor club drew the short straw to transport us in her People Carrier (mini van) — we were laughing hysterically  — over what — im not quite sure.   wendy was quick to mention that she often drives a 3 year old in the mini van and all he says is WHAT, NO, and YES.    what wendy didnt realize is that only added fuel to our fire — so the rest of the van ride home — you guessed it — all wendy heard were those three words.  We cracked up again today when it was brought up again.

today was the transfter from one group to the other.  The new group Mendip — bbq’d for us — and boy was it tasty.  we also took some time this morning /afternoon to work on our presentation for the district conference.  we spent some time with our hosts too.  we’re off for another day of touring tomorrow morning — and we are going GOLFING tomorrow afternoon!  we are all very excited!

thats it for now — keep the comments coming folks!

carla