England..the first couple of days

I'm finally here in England. The culmination of a year's worth of training is near. It's kind of bittersweet to be ending my training but I'm looking forward to doing other things. My whole family including my grandparents will be coming with me. My friend/training partner extraordinare Leore Geller and her family are also coming. Leore has also been training all year with me and she will be my pacer. This was the first international flight I have ever been on, so I've never really experienced jet lag before. This was why it was recommended to me to arrive as early as possible. We are staying in Folkestone, which is in the County of Kent. Its about 15-20 mins from Dover, depending on how fast you drive. The hotel I am staying at is called the Langhorne Garden Hotel. It is great place to stay because the owners are quite accomdating and it is about a 5-10 min walk from a lovely beach. The beaches here are all made out of pebbles instead of sand so the water is really clear. There is a place called "the Sands," which is a beach made from imported sand. The first full day that I was here it was overcast, but still warm compared to the Berkeley weather. When its overcast its usually not windy, so I'll probably be swimming on a day like that because the water will be really calm. Our first dip in the English Channel was beautiful. And luckily I only saw one jellyfish. The next day the water became quite rough because the wind was up. We (Leore and I) went to "the Sands" to swim because the water was way too rough. I had NEVER seen water this choppy. After swimming for about 45 mins we bodysurfed in the waves. The waves at "the Sands" were still quite large. Today we went to Dover to swim. On the weekends groups of Channel swimmers gather to train together. It was still choppy today but not as bad because we were swimming in a harbour. Right after we got out, it started to rain lightly and the wind picked up. The weather here is quite unpredictable.