On the Road with KIT

Writing to you from Edinburgh, Scotland where I have had a weekend of R&R in between on site visits and trainings. This has been an eventful trip! In the best possible way, of course. After a couple of days in NYC where I had meetings with some brilliant researchers, we (my husband and I) flew to London's Heathrow airport. We arrived at 9:30pm after a delay out of NYC, but were still hoping to be at our hotel and asleep by 11pm to get a jump start on adjusting to the time change. Unfortunately, the customs line at Heathrow took two and a half hours! It was midnight before we were through it and able to leave the airport. We walked outside to the taxi stand and found 50 or so people waiting in line for....no cabs!! One cab came every fifteen minutes, and since it was after midnight there were no other transportation options for getting to our hotel. We finally got there about 2:30am. A rough start!

The next day we had lunch with Stephen Frost, Head of Diversity & Inclusion for the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics. He shared a lot of interesting information about preparing for the event. They have 2,000 volunteers with disabilities lined up.

By that afternoon we were at the first of three Air Force bases we will visit, RAF Alconbury. The staff there was incredibly welcoming and hospitable. In addition to the trainings and classroom consultations I conducted I had the absolute honor to be the keynote speaker for their Women's History Month event, attended by the leadership of the base and adjoining bases. I was so moved when in the invocation the chaplain asked God to "watch over Torrie as she goes out and does her positive work in the world." I almost lost it at that point!

Tomorrow we are headed to RAF Lakenheath and looking forward to conducting a training on positive behavior for parents! And I hear that some of our friends from Alconbury have organized a carpool to attend the training.

Hopefully I will be able to check in one more time with an update before taking the 11+ hour flight back to San Diego.