British Beware!

We are going across the "pond" to visit Jolly Ole England...land of our forefathers and all that. There are 2 main reasons for going. First, I am attending the British Contact Lens Assn. meeting in Manchester the end of May/first of June. As an excuse for going that far to hear some of the world's best minds in optometry we are also going for Meg's "16th birthday trip". Yes, it is a bit late. Anneka and Richard opted for cruises. Lori was urging Meg to go to NY and see theatre on Broadway. I figured she might want to see theatre in London.
We will fly to Paris and spend 2 1/2 days before taking the Chunnel to London. Then pick up a car in London(we'll see how the left side of the road feels...not to mention the right side of the car) and head to Manchester for my conference. We will stay a week in Manchester at an apartment/flat that we have rented and do some evening trips or Lori, Meg, and Charles can take the train to some northern sites. Then we'll spend a couple of days seeing the Lakes District and Preston where there are some LDS Church historical sites as well as on of our Temples. We'll head south to Bath and hit a couple more Church sites and end up in London for the last week. I'll dump the car then as I have no desire to drive on the wrong side of the street in a "town" of 12 million. We have tickets for "Wicked" that Meg REALLY wants to see, a musical version of "Lord of the Rings"(we're not sure about that, but it sound "interesting"), and we'll go to the New Globe Theatre for a Shakespeare play. All this while staying at another flat we have rented for a week in Soho. We will be gone almost 3 weeks and will be the biggest trip we have ever taken. Thank goodness my plane fare is paid for as is 5 nights of lodging, 5 days of food, and 5 days of the car thanks to the benefits I get at work. I never thought that would happen.
Well, our passports are good and we are just waiting for the 25 of May. We'll for sure have some things to report afterwards. Cheerie-O!!