Made it back into the U.S. early on Saturday morning. By early I mean it was 4:30 a.m. when we finally made it back to Floyd and into bed. We had a wonderful time on our 3 week vacation over too England and Norway, with lots of fun contra dancing, seeing new places, meeting new people and eating new and interesting food.
   It has been a bit slow since then getting back into the groove here in Virginia. It rained the first couple of days here and it was somewhat depressing after all the good weather we had in Europe. But I am now pretty much unpacked and I have gotten my laundry done and have even managed to down load my pictures. So there is plenty of things to talk about and I will get around to posting a lot of pictures over the next couple of weeks. But it is going to take some time for me to go through them all and get them  fixed up and ready to post. That being said; here is the very first picture I took in Ely England.

Vacation in Ely England and Norway

Ely England Contra Dance - April 2015

Rima and I had a good trip over to England the first day. After getting up way to early to get to the airport in Roanoke, we connected in Dulles and took the 6-7 hour flight across the Atlantic, landing at Heathrow at what was about 7:30 a.m. local time. From there we found our way to the 'Underground' train and headed into the city where we transferred to the high speed train too Ely at Kings Cross Station. Lucky for us the British believe in putting up lots of signs and other than having minor problems buying tickets because our credit cards didn't work in the machines, we made it onto the correct train without too many problems.
   Another hour and half brought us into the station at Ely and we got off the train and made our way out. Our leader, Gwyn, had given us directions and a map to his mom's place where we were to meet, so we just decided to walk as it was only a half mile or so from the station. We got about halfway there when we ran across this little park at the top of a hill. Time for a break and a few pictures. Little did we realize that this little park is nearly in the middle of the school campus that we would be staying at for the next week. In the distance is the Ely Cathedral which overshadows the whole town of Ely. We would get to know it, and the rest of the town pretty well in the next week. But for this moment I just found it charming that the Brits still manage to have real public phones around the community and that they actually still have their iconic phone booth.

brk*