London – L & L Shenanigans

The last few days have been hectic! We awoke on Sunday morning with the power having gone out again… which meant no wifi, but thankfully Lewis had been able to check us in the night before in the window that the power was on. We had to leave the house by 5:30am, so we were re-packing and bathing and dressing in the dark at 4:30am. The sweet Chichaya girls got up to see us off, it was hard to say goodbye.

We made good time getting ready and hit the road by 5:15am. It’s actually a good thing we left a little early, we made it to check-in exactly at the time we had planned, so we needed the cushion.

Check-in at the Harare airport is… different? I don’t know why I made that a question, other than it was a little perplexing. There weren’t specific areas for different airlines, they seem to be assigned anew each day, so we had to look on the board to find our airline to tell us which of the counters to go to, but they’re all together. It’s just different.

Then we had to go have our passports checked. There’s this little counter where three people were sitting, we walked over and handed our passports to the first person, they handed it off to the next person, and then they handed it off to the third person. Then they handed them back to us, and sent us to another counter adjacent to the first counter. The gentleman looked at our passports, stamped our boarding passes, and then sent us back to the original counter, where we once again handed our passports and boarding passes to the first person, who rifled through it, handed it to the next person, who also rifled through it, who then handed it to the next person, who rifled through it and then handed it right back to us.

We hadn’t even gotten to security. The squinty-eyed, flat mouthed emoji would fit perfectly here. So we go through first security, no problems, head to immigration, thankfully again, no problems, where we actually had our passports stamped, and then we had to go through security again where we had to take off our shoes and remove our laptops and all that jazz.

It was nice having the Chichayas to travel with. We had plenty of time before our flight so we were able to have breakfast at a nice little cafe. Everyone but me had a traditional English breakfast. I chose poorly and had a very, very subpar pesto chicken sandwich… imagine, if you will, a delicious green pesto, mixed to perfection, the earthy basil mixing with the olive oil to create a creamy sauce, with the slight crunch of pine nuts adding a nice texture that would pair perfectly with fresh tomato and grilled chicken. Now imagine that you take that perfection and you dump 1/4 cup of off-brand miracle whip in it, mix it a little and throw it on a soggy focaccia bread with cold chicken. That’s what I mean by subpar. It was a travesty.

But, guys! By Sunday morning it had been nearly 24 hours since I had taken a Pepto-Bismol, so win! Thankfully the disgusting sandwich didn’t cause my stomach any problems… probably because I couldn’t stomach eating the whole thing.

We left the cafe to sit near our gate. We were all preoccupied with checking email with the little internet we had left, when I looked up and saw that our flight was boarding, and the line was snaking around the waiting area. We learned a valuable lesson, they don’t call flights to board in the Harare airport, you just have to pay attention to see when they start to board.

The flight was short and we arrived right on time. As we stood in line at immigration we could see Gracious and Loney Mpilangwe and Cephas and Patricia Chapamba waiting at the baggage carousel. Their flight had landed shortly before ours. We were just missing Haiton Thungula. And there he was getting ready to approach the immigration agent. After breezing through immigration we collected our bags (we were ready before the Malawians were) and headed out. We were greeted by Isella and Neil Wallace in the arrivals hall. So nice to see friendly faces!

There were 45 people at this conference, with seven countries represented: Angola, Brazil, Malawi, South Africa, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Lewis and I got to eat several meals with our Angolan brethren where we muddled through with a combination of Spanish (us) and Portuguese (them) and google translate to fill in the gaps. It was delightful, and what a blessing it is to have technology to do all this.

Unfortunately a number of people came down with a cough during the conference, myself included. I’m feeling better now, but being sick, especially in a foreign land is never fun.

I had to leave the conference early (to prepare to leave for northwest camp), so Tuesday night I had my bags packed, and I headed it out. Anyone who knows me, knows that I tend to be a crier. I cried altogether too much saying goodbye to Lewis. Partly because this is the longest solo flight I’ve ever taken (11.5 hours from Johannesburg to London and eight hours from London to NYC), and partly because Lewis and I won’t see each other for 13 days. He’s my favorite person in the entire world, and I hate every time we have to travel solo, but we do what we must. My flights home were uneventful, and on time and after 24 hours travel and a nice hot shower I was able to sleep in my own bed.

And that, dear readers, brings my African adventure of 2024 to a close. With thankfully few misadventures. I’ll be off-grid for the next two weeks, but I should be back with a new Tourist Tuesday post then.

I was terrible about taking photos on this trip… I don’t think I took a single one at the conference, so all photos are courtesy of Lewis and Madhu.

We arrived EARLY on Monday morning, bleary-eyed from an overnight with snippets of sleep through the night. But we were ready to make the most of our time.

Some of Lewis and my most intense “discussions” happen when we are first figuring out the train system when we travel to a new place, and London was no exception. But we managed to get our excess luggage stored, oyster cards (public transport cards) topped up, and on the train to the Isle of Dogs. Don’t let the name fool you… I only saw two dogs on this Isle during our entire stay… as misleading and disappointing as our drive through alligator alley in Florida, but that’s a story from a previous trip.

Lewis House near our Airbnb on the Isle of Dogs

Our Airbnb was a quaint old house with rickety stairs and drafty, splintery floors; it was quite lovely. After dropping off our carry-on luggage and freshening up just a bit we hit the town. The underground is pretty easy to maneuver and we were soon in the bustle of the city. First stop, London Bridge. I’m not going to lie, it was a little underwhelming, just a flat wide bridge spanning the Thames, much less spectacular than the Tower Bridge just downriver.

And then I got to fulfill a lifelong (okay … maybe 1/2 lifelong… teenaged??) dream of touring the Globe Theater. It was beautiful and exciting, but then we found out they had a show that very evening and we could get a buy one get one floor ticket for just 5£. I may or may not have teared up a little bit when we took our position at the corner of the stage. We saw a phenomenal performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was so funny, and beautifully executed.

Tuesday we had an invite from David Elliott and Hannah Ellams to spend the evening with their family and drive to Atonement services the next day. One of the most beautiful things about God’s church is having connections across the globe. We had never met Hanna and David before, but they willingly and graciously opened their home and their life to us. It was a pleasure to get to know their family; to talk with them, to learn a little of their story, and to reflect on God’s church, and His plan… plus, David cooked us delicious food before the start of Atonement.

Wednesday we drove to London and had the lovely opportunity to fellowship and worship with God’s people on His Holy Day. By the time we made it back to the Isle of Dogs we were cold, tired, and hungry. We broke our fast with sparkling water and chocolate, finally mustering the energy two hours after the fast ended to walk to town to get some food, and we finally found fish and chips! The fish was perfectly crispy on the outside and flaky on the inside, unfortunately the restaurant (Goodman’s Field) was a little stingy with the lemons (I like A LOT of lemon on my fish), and seating/ordering was a little chaotic and confusing (no signs indicating if you should sit yourself or wait for someone to seat you, or whether you should sit at a table to order, or order at the bar first), but, even with our nutrient starved brains we eventually figured it out. And then we saw London Tower and London Tower Bridge before calling it a night.

Our last day in London we slept later than we hoped (7:30ish in the morning) and repacked our bags, and we were off to meet Mary Roscoe (an old friend from out West also in town on her way to the Feast). She was checking into a lovely little B&B in central London, Lynton Hotel on Ebury Street. The host was friendly, helpful, and super accommodating and allowed us to store our luggage despite not being guests there; just from that interaction I give their inn a 10/10. And then we went to Westminster Abbey. We were just going to walk around the outside, but Mary, very kindly, bought us tickets to take a tour. It was a great decision, much to my disappointment there was no photography allowed inside the building. I don’t know that I have the vocabulary to adequately describe the architecture, the art, the MANY tombs throughout… but I’ll give you some adjectives: soaring (seriously, the ceilings were so high, and vaulted, and ornate), extravagant, dim, somber, old (I mean seriously, they started portions of the Abbey in A.D. 929 — Edward the Confessor was buried there in A.D. 1066!!). Truly a magnificent structure with awesome architecture, history, and detail. I’ll tell you all about our airport adventure in my next blog.