London, Day One

After a ten hour flight, we made it to London around 1:00pm this afternoon.  The flight went really well, actually.  The folks from Virgin Atlantic were great-the only real snag we hit was getting on the plane.  The ground crew from SFO used their own aisle chiar to get J to his seat, and it was a bit too wide to get past the first class seats (sadly, they did not upgrade us, as we have heard some airlines will do...).  Eventually, we got to our seats, but Jason had to transfer in with something of an audience.  I'd hoped they would wait for us to at least get to our seats before letting the rest of the passengers onboard, but no such luck.

The flight itself was uneventful...we both slept through much of it.  After arriving at Heathrow, we made our way to the hotel.  I was worried about how accessible the room would be since there is no ADA here, and no real regulations/guidelines for accessibility.  The room seems to work for us, though.  The shower could have been better designed, but we'll make it work.  Not sure how other SCI-ers would stay here on their own.

We did have quite the funny (not so funny at the time) moment.  In the bathroom, there is a big red pull-string...presumably to be used in case of an emergency.  Anyway, I accidentally pulled it while Jason was in the shower.  I tried to run to the phone to call the front desk to let them know it was an accident, but...before I could get through, we had people banging at the door (It's good to know that, should there be an accident, we'll have help quite quickly).  I tried yelling to tell them we were fine, and no need to worry, but they insisted on coming in....so, I got to answer the door in a towel (oh, yes, did I forget to mention that I was still getting ready post-shower when I pulled the damn cord).  I barely kept them out of the bathroom (where J was still showering)....I guess they took my word that all was okay.  I now know how to disable the alarm...so that's good to know.

After all that excitement, we decided to venture out to see how accessible this city is.  It's not too bad (not great, but Jason should be okay).  He got quite the workout going up and down hills, over uneven pavement.  J also had to navigate large crowds, which isn't something that happens too much in Fremont!

We don't have too much officially planned for tomorrow, other than we'd like to find our way to the center where the Selenium conference is being held.  Then we can decide whether it's "rollable" or if J will need a taxi each morning (all of which are accessible...why don't we have that in the US??).

I hope you all are doing well!

Lots of love,

Ashley