Friday, April 3--Arrival in London

Almost a year ago, we learned that I would have hip repair surgery last July, and we had to cancel our big out-West camping trip with friends that summer. I felt sorry for myself, as I am inclined to do, and so I decided to make it up to myself by finding the big deal for this spring break. I went online to play with our frequent flyer mile account, and somehow landed on tickets to London for 20,000 miles each on American Airlines. I couldn’t get to L.A. or D.C. but all 5 of us could go to London for the miles in our account. I still don’t get why, but who cared? We were going to London!

And so, yesterday morning, we packed our van and drove to Chicago O’Hare to catch our flight.

Andrew and Natalie each took a turn driving the highway from Michigan through Indiana. Some of you may understand when I say that this is an intense way to begin a family vacation.

We stopped at the Indiana Welcome Center for a quick bathroom break, where a somewhat lonely attendant made sure we knew about the historic car collection that we could not help but notice on our own, and then she pointed us to the display of chairs that have been hand decorated by different people in a contest to raise awareness for Child Abuse, “Chair-ish your Children.” After that she practically begged me to fill out a computer survey. She knows a sucker when she sees one. I feel guilty letting anyone down, and 15 minutes after stopping we finally left. It was notable that one of the survey questions related to the friendliness of the attendant.

In a miraculous turn of events, we arrived near the airport an hour early. That never happens. This worked out perfectly as we had already identified two things that we had forgotten to take. We found a Best Buy and completed our packing.

Finally got to the gate to wait on our flight. Unfortunately it was running late as they were checking to see what was causing multiple problems, “brake problems and some other things.” A few delays later they told us they would be using a replacement plane, about 3 hours late. When it was time to board they told us they’d been able to fix the problems and we’d be using the original plane. Um, ok. Allison had been worried about the mechanical problems, and somehow she didn’t understand that we were boarding the original plane, so her nerves were saved from the strain. She figured it out after we landed at Heathrow and was happy in her ignorance. I, on the other hand, was somehow expecting to see the wing rip off at any time. On second thought, I feel that way on most flights, so nothing new there.

Brian slept a good portion of the 8 hour flight, which was a good thing because you need someone lucid when you are trying to find your way around a big new city. Especially since I can’t do it even when I’m lucid. The Quist party was no party on the two different trains we took to our rental. Allison fell asleep for most of the ride. The house is in an outer neighborhood called Stratford. The area benefited from some updated facilities recently because the London Olympics were held there. We see the Olympic torch and stadium on our walk around the neighborhood.

We’re guessing that our 6-bedroom rental house was fixed up in a basic way for the Olympics, only to be left to slowly disintegrate ever since. The subfloor on the ground level seems to be rotting, so there are spots where you sort of sink into the ground with the carpet or the cracked kitchen tile, and things are not particularly clean. But it is pretty cheap, and the grocery stores around it are inexpensive too. Plus it allows us to get a feel for what a more average citizen of the area may experience.

Six bedrooms you say??? Yes. Because we are joining some friends for the first portion of our trip. We met Carsten Vingborg in Nigeria when the three of us were in our early 20s; he and Brian were both temporary staff of Hillcrest School. We traveled together there because Carsten had a car and we had gas money. He and Brian hit it off, and they both tolerate me well enough.

A few years later he and his wife Birte visited the US, when both Birte and I were pregnant with our first children. In 2006, we visited Carsten and his three children in Denmark, a year after Birte passed away suddenly. In 2009, Carsten and his soon-to-be second wife Louise visited the US and came to Grand Rapids. Then we met up with them in Rome in 2011 on the trip for which I created this blog. 

Now here we are again, sharing a house with Carsten, Louise, his original three girls (same ages as our kids) and the two little boys (2 and 3) that Carsten and Louise have since added to the family. So the 12 of us have filled the house.

After a quick, rainy trip to see the outside the Tower of London, the river, etc., we ordered pizza for the lot of us and finally went to sleep to recover some semblance of humanity. I seem to be unable to add photos at this point, so hopefully I can go back and add them later.