Jeff writing here. Sorry for the few day delay in posts. We
have been going from morning until night and haven’t had the chance for a
proper post. Settle in, because this is kind of long.
First stop—London. What an awesome city and a great start to
our adventures! We arrived at Heathrow around noon after a night of fitful
sleep but ready for the day. Let me step back—even the plane ride was fun. Who
gets their own personal screen with hundreds of movies and shows on it? And
they bring you food on the plane!? Wow is all I heard from the smallest seats. J
One thing we were a bit worried about on our trip
there—would our bags arrive in Cape Town safely? How would we know they got
there? Well, never fear—we found out that because of our long layover in
London, our bags were only checked to Heathrow! So after gathering all of our
bags and checking them into the “bag hotel” at the airport (I won’t tell you
how much that cost), we headed off on our first of many Tube rides into the
city.
One of our stated goals of our trip was to make sure and
lean into the adventure. It was quite to a thrill getting off the Tube at our
stop, and just having to figure out where our hotel was. But in the process it
made us come to one of the many conclusions we made about our experience in
London—everyone here is so bloomin’ nice. Everyone we talked to was happy to
help us out, give us directions, and led us in the right direction. We probably
asked for directions 15 times in 30 hours, and every time people were happy to
help and even go out of their way to make sure we knew what to do. We stayed at the Presidential Apartments in
Kensington (thanks Aunt Nancy for the recommendation!) and it was just perfect.
After we checked in to our two rooms, we set out on our walk to have Afternoon
Tea.
We loved walking around London; the thin streets, the cool
taxis, the beauty of the buildings. We couldn’t have asked for better weather
as well. The place we had Tea was called the Harry Nichols Tea Room. It was not
quite high tea with white gloves and hats (cue the “Jeff cost saving measures”
sound); it was more like the Nordstroms Café—on the 5th floor of a
cool department store with very hip people eating posh food and smoking cigarettes
on the balcony. But it was fun! Everyone tried their fill of sandwiches and
everyone loved the tea (even Violet). It was a great time.
After tea, our original plan was to head back to the hotel,
relax and get some rest. But…how often are you in a world class city, right? So
instead, everyone caught a second wind and we decided to go for it—we strolled
to Hyde Park, ducked into Herrods, and ultimately jumped in a cab and set out
for the London Eye, not really knowing if we would get on or not (we heard the
wait time was typically horrible). It turns out that 7:30 on a Wednesday night
is the perfect time to go! No lines—and we saw London in all of its glory.
There was even dancing on the ride—but not the kind you would think, as Violet
had to go to the bathroom so bad she danced around and finally peed her pants,
right there on the London Eye. Ah, memories. So much fun. After the Eye we were
officially tuckered out and went back to the Hotel for a wonderful
jet-lag-busting night’s sleep.
Thursday was incredible as well. We started it off with
another first—the classic English Breakfast eaten in a pub. First of all—kids
in a pub? All the time apparently! And baked beans for breakfast? I say Yeah,
Baby! From there we caught the subway to head to Buckingham Palace for the
changing of the guard. Unbeknownst to us, others decided that they too would
like to see this daily event. And so even though we were plenty early, we
mostly saw the backs of the people in front of us. But it was fun being there
on a beautiful day.
After that, we went to our big activity of the day, an open
air double decker bus tour. Our tour guide, Alan (for whom Violets new London
bear is now named after) was a funny chap who had fun with us. We saw all the
things we were supposed to see—Westminster Abbey, St. Johns, Big Ben,
Parliament, the Tower of London; we even took a quick river boat on the Thames.
All in all it we decided it was a great way to see the city on short notice and
get to sit down at the same time (which by that point was important, because
were fading fast). To end our day, however, we checked another thing off the
London adventure bucket list—fish and chips in a London Pub. The one we
stumbled into was perfect. Food, beer, and…USA Soccer (aka Football) on as we
entered! One of the things we noticed
was how many people were there right after work with their work mates (at 5p.m.
mind you). We were commenting how that doesn’t really seem to happen in America
(both getting off at 5 or going to have a beer with work friends before heading
home). Maybe that is because we have four kids, maybe because we aren’t hip
enough, but we thought it was neat how many people of all ages were hanging
out. We also had fun talking to our 19 Hungarian waitress who was in London to
find a new life and adventure herself. It seemed like a great end to a
wonderful day. All of us agreed this was a splendid stop and hit the nail on
the head as to our Sabbatical hopes and dreams. We want to come back.
On a personal note as parents, it was also fun to see our
kids hanging out and having fun together. One of the pieces of this Sabbatical
that was important to us was to get to do this as a family, and seeing them
together, linking up with each other (different pairs at different times), and
helping each other (mostly) is part of this whole thing, too.
After hitting the Tube one last time, we made our way to our
gate for the next part of our journey—Cape Town. I will stop here and let
someone else catch you up on our first day in South Africa—it too was filled
with adventures (some harrowing!). Stay tuned.
