Leaving on Three Jetplanes

After a lovely Chick-Fil-A breakfast and prayer time with the family, we all headed to the airport.  On the way in we passed some police dogs sniffing some baggage and subsequently a policeman rolling along a dolly full of money, so that was exciting.  Even more exciting was that United let us check two bags that were half a pound and one pound overweight AND that they let us check them for $35 a piece instead of the usual $50 due to a glitch in the computer.  

Nathan's slightly-larger-than-recommended-carry-on-dimension-bag (pictured above) was full of books and weighed well over 70 lbs, and on two of the three planes it had to be placed underneath the aircraft.  He apologized to the baggage handlers every time, warning them of the enormous weight.  The one in Atlanta said, "Awww MAN!  Whatchyou got in here?!"  The pockets of his two coats he carried on were also full of books, and he carried in his hands the allowed "reasonable amount of reading material," which meant the three books resting on top of his carry-on, each amounting to over 1000 pages each.

I was moaning to my friend Allison about his "reasonable amount of reading material" on the phone in the airport, when she asked, "Is Calvin's Institutes one of them?"  "Guilty," I said.  "You know him so well."

And here he is at the airport in D.C., enjoying his "reasonable amount of reading material."  We had just savored some Chipotle, and I totally didn't mind paying extra for my guacamole, knowing it would be my last for a while.  Our lay-over was about four hours, and it wasn't until evening that we took off for Copenhagen, Denmark.

The next morning - well, still the middle of the night in Atlanta - we arrived in Copenhagen.  The landscape was so beautiful and unusual that I had to take a picture.

In Copenhagen we waited another five hours for our flight to Newcastle.  I tried to sleep a little, but the chairs tried to keep me from doing so because the cushion jutted out between the seats.  Anyway, time went by relatively quickly, and soon we were on our way.

Here we are on the ground in Denmark getting ready to fly to England.

The clouds were so beautiful on that last flight.

Here are all of our earthly belongings on two trolleys.  They were free, thankfully, and so we scooted out through customs and caught a cab to Durham.  Our driver was so kind and helped us get acquainted with the place.  The folks at Enterprise (the car rental place) were "absolutely top drawer," as Luke would say, and actually got all of this luggage into a tiny European rental car, and in the boot (trunk) no less (with the seats folded down in the back).