The State of Suspended Animation, also known as England.

After one last night at home, consisting of dinner with the parents and grandmother, giggles with the friends, and packing, my dad drove me to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport to catch my flight to London.

The problem was, back in February, I bought a flight to London for the end of September, thinking I would have my visa for Portugal by then [I was planning on buying the flight from London to Porto closer to the time]. As it turned out, I didn't have it by then. But it cost far too much to cancel the flight, so instead of hunkering down at my parents', I decided to twiddle my thumbs in England until I get the go-ahead for Portugal.

I almost had to turn back around to Eau Claire, anyway - the check-in people at the airport almost didn't let me on the plane. I had no return flight and no long-term visa [yet!], so they were concerned that England would turn me away, and they didn't want to be responsible for getting me back to the US. After a few phone calls and reassurances that Germany had trusted me enough to give me plenty of visas, they grudgingly let me check in.

Of course, I spent the course of the trip terrified that I would indeed be yelled at and told to turn right back around the minute I stepped foot on British soil.

Of course, the passport person barely glanced at me, asked a few perfunctory questions, and waved me into Her Majesty's United Kingdom.

Since then, I've been crashing at Ella's, working a little, sleeping a lot, getting back into running, reading, meeting some incredible people from around the world [including enough Portuguese people to make my own Little Portugal right here in Norwich], and, perhaps most importantly, watching every single episode of How I Met Your Mother.

Also, some other stuff. But that's for future posts.