Arriving in Bristol

We have arrived!  After a few screw ups we made it to Bristol.  When we got to Shannon, Ireland, they made us go down and get our passports stamped.  We did not understand why but we did as asked.  Shannon amazed me because there was almost no security in the whole airport at 5am in the morning.  After a couple hour wait, we jumped over to England on our shortest ever international flight of a full 55 minutes.

What really threw us was that we never went through customs again.  We exited Terminal 1 at Heathrow and found that we were “free” to go as we wished.  This put us on edge a bit because we had to register with customs and get our visa stamped but apparently it is not a big deal.

Our next trouble came trying to find the meeting point in Terminal 2.  Sadly, I have learned that England is a bit like Armenia in that you cannot take the first answer you get and you must check that answer every time.  We spent 45 minutes waiting at the wrong place but thankfully we realized this in enough time.  We were to meet representatives from The University of the West of England because it offers a free pick up service.  Why pay £65 ($130) if you can get it for free with no hassle?  So we took the offer.  After a 2 hour bus ride, we made it to Bristol.