Leaving for London, 2013

Well, we made it to London. As I write this, Kathy is unpacking our suitcases and we're getting ready for a little sleep. It's been a pretty great day (or two, depending on how you count things.)

Sunday morning was a steady stream of tasks to be completed-checking off the things we couldn't forget (tickets, check-money, check, passport, check), and all the little things that go into packing. When we finished up around noon, Kathy's suitcase weighted in at 22.2 pounds, and mine at 26.5 pounds.

Hosanna and Patrick came over to say goodbye; I played with Phoenix for one last time, and Judah loaded up our suitcases in Kathy's car and we set out for LAX, where we found:

• no traffic or trouble on the freeway; we made it there by 2:45
• no trouble getting our boarding passes (well maybe a little trouble; we had to ask someone to help us use the scanner. The helpful young lady did exactly what I had done, and our reservation popped up.)
• no trouble going through security
• no trouble getting on the plane (it left right on time)

Once we took off, it was fun to see that United Airlines uses Linux for their in-flight entertainment system. While everyone else was watching the takeoff video on their seat-backs, our row and the row in front of us were watching Tux the Penguin (the Linux mascot) as the system rebooted itself three times.

Coming into Heathrow was very pretty. There were a lot of very high, almost monsoonal clouds, but you could see the ground through them. It looked a lot like a movie. 

Just before we landed, we flew low over the city, so we could see all of the sights: Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, and so on.

When we got off the plane I forgot my backpack, so I had to go back and get it. After that, we took our time making our way over to immigration (border control here). It was kind of eerie walking through the miles of Heathrow corridors almost completely alone.

Because I had to go back and get my backpack, we were near the end of the short line for entering the UK. When we got to the head of the line, the Border Agent asked what we were doing in the UK. We said we were visiting friends in London, and then heading to Cornwall for a festival called CreationFest. He noticed (from my entry card) that I was a professor, and asked if I was speaking there. I told him no, not at all, but we'd be happy to volunteer to take out the trash or anything like that needed to get done.

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. If you are going to volunteer to do anything, you need a different kind of visa. The agent was very nice though, and told us, "I'm sure that you mean you just intend to go to the festival to look around, right?". Kathy and I looked at each other, and then back at the Border agent. "That sounds right", we both said.

On to London

Once we got through immigration, we headed downstairs to get on the Tube. We stopped off for a "toastie" at Costa on the way--a tomato and cheese toasted sandwich, just to take the edge off. We stood in line to get two Oyster Cards (the subway-bus-mass-transit pass) and then caught the Picadilly line to downtown.

We're staying with Debbie and Marshall Alnutt here in London; Marshall is the pastor of Calvary Chapel of the Docklands, which now meets in City Temple in downtown London. Debbie and Marshall live on the Isle of Dogs over past Canary Wharf, so we had to change tubes to the Jubilee line, and finally to the DLR train (Docklands Light Rail).

It sounds a lot more exhausting than it was. It was more like sightseeing (although we both kept drifting off every few minutes). When we finally got to the street Marshall and Debbie live on, the weather was beautiful and we could see across the Thames to Greenwich and the Cutty Sark.

When we got to the Alnutt's, it looked as if they weren't at home. (They actually were at home, but couldn't hear us because we didn't know how to use an English-style door-buzzer. We just kept pressing and letting up, generating no sound at all, instead of holding the buzzer button down.) We asked the property concierge if he would call Debbie's mobile for us, but that didn't work either. (It turned out, we'd written the number down twice, once incorrectly. The number we called was the incorrect one.)

After about an hour, we decided to head back to Canary Wharf to try and pick up a SIM card for the inexpensive Quad-Band GSM phone we'd purchased from Amazon before we left. (It's called a BLU Jenney). We found a store that sold SIM cards, about 10 pounds for 40 minutes of UK calling, and tried Debbie's phone again; that's when (with the help of a nice phone-store employee) we found the phone number mistake.

Once we got through to Marshall and Debbie, they headed on over to Canary Wharf (where we'd been planning to have dinner anyway.) We all when out for noodles at Wagamama's (I think that's right), and then headed back home. 

It's been a wonderful day!