#4 - "...but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to"

10/22 - I started typing this just over a week ago, and thought i'd include my reflections of the journey as well, but now i believe i'm going to do a separate post about that. So here's the continuation of the day-to-day happenings for the last 2 weeks of the journey in Europe:

10/14 - As i type this we are about to fly over the southern tip of Greenland. Nearly 8 hours left till we land in L.A.  

I haven’t been able to update this blog in over 2 weeks partly because we’ve been overwhelmed with travel complications and partly because we’ve just been busy. But here’s a quick run-down of our life since the last entry. (P.S. Ok, maybe it wasn't so quick.)

Monday 9/28 - made our way by bus, ferry, and bus from Annan, Scotland through Belfast, Northern Ireland and down to Dublin. Arrived in downtown Dublin to find the train to our hosts’ house at about 10 pm with no euros and no way to get euros. Ticket machine wouldn’t accept our bank card. I looked at Randall and was just saying that we needed to find a place to sit down while we wait for God to work something out, when one of the station employees walked up to us to see how we were doing, and when we told him the machine wouldn’t accept our card, he escorted us to the ticket gate where the employee there let us through for free and told us which platform to go to for our destination. Seriously. Then Craig was at the stop to meet us and take us basically just around the corner to where he and Merschon live. Did i mention that we didn't know Craig & Merschon till just now? And that we’d only given them about 2 days notice that we were coming? They are friends of our friends, Scott & Denise, who’d been living in Dublin for the last 5 years and just moved back to the States this last February. 

I didn't have much of a chance to get photos of Belfast because i was whisked onto a bus to Dublin before i had a chance to catch my breath. But this proves we were there for 2 seconds. (There's no reason to think there was any kind of tift over this between Randall & me)

Tuesday - Craig & Merschon gave us some insider tips on what to see & do in Dublin, so we spent the day around downtown. Meltdowns before lunch (from Andrew, not me), Cornish pasties (McDonald’s for Andrew) for lunch, Dublin Museum with Viking stuff, Chester Beatty Library, Museum of Ireland Archaeology, groceries at Tesco’s, and discovering a wonderful park on the way back to the train station were all part of our dream day in Dublin. Fun times.

Inside the Dublin Museum

I tried to get all the different colored doors in one shot; they really are all different colors.

I hesitated to add this photo, but have decided to at least for a while. This was during the middle of his meltdown. Was all over in a couple of hours. See park pics below.

Playtime and picnic in the Giant's Garden

I just thought a pic of this train conductor was cool.

That evening Randall sat in on an English grammar class that C & M lead in their home. Six different nationalities were present.

Wednesday - C & M drove us a few minutes east to hike along the coast of the Irish Sea and have a picnic. Very surprised at how uncharacteristically energetic i was for this venture. Nothing we would have planned for ourselves, but loads of fun!

This is what he did all along the hike: up, down, forward a little ways,  up, down...

He and i also ate blackberries all along the way.

Picnic at the top. Can't believe i didn't get more of Craig & Merschon in this pic.

Thursday-Saturday - took the bus to Kilkenny, but spent most of the time we were there trying to sort out travel plans. Any plans, just SOMETHING PLEASE! Tried 5 times to book tickets through Ryan Air to Italy - failed every time -no explanation. Tried all over Italy. Tried Albania. Nothing working. After having dinner at an Irish pub with live music, got a text from our friend that we thought we were staying with in Italy, and his itinerary for the next week was NOT going to work with our plans. Dead end. Randall handed me the bank card and told me to look for tickets back home - tired of the closed doors. Found some super-cheap tickets leaving over the next several days (???), but not wanting to make any rash decisions, i decided to put it on hold till morning. Went to bed wondering why the only open door was back home already.

Oh YES they are! (purveyors of happiness, that is.) Best iced mocha to be bought anywhere.

The view of Kilkenny from our hotel window

And looking the other way, toward the river

One happy boy. I won't tell how much we spent on that root beer, but i told him it'd be his only one till we got back home.

Pasties=one of my favs. Would be happy to have one of these everyday.

What i had for breakfast: bread, cheese, juice, mocha = so European.

What the boys had for breakfast = a typical Irish breakfast (or an English breakfast, or a Scottish breakfast, with slight variation.)

The Kilkenny Castle is just to the right of center.

We had dinner at a pub so we could experience traditional Irish pub music, and our table was right here next to them.

Saturday - checked the plane ticket prices again first thing in the morning - still cheap. Had to catch the 7:45 bus back to Dublin because we’d left most of our stuff at C & M's home. Wifi not working on the bus. Spent the entire time texting Bethan about possibility of coming back to London before leaving Europe. As soon as we got to Dublin, headed for McDonald’s for a wifi connection. Unbelievably, every affordable ticket back to U.S. was through a site only for college students. Spent 2 hours trying to find something. Finally purchased tickets through Aer Lingus to London for that night. For the first time during ALL my attempts at finding a hotel in/near Woolwich since July, one was available, but only for the next 2 nights. Attempted to book it, but wouldn’t accept our bank card, for some reason. The Sams offered to book it and we’d pay them back. Arrived in London at 10:20 pm, and Oliver offered to pick us up at the airport and drive us to our hotel. We are spoiled.

This area of Dublin was VERY crowded with pedestrians.

Merschon & Craig

Sunday - another Lord’s day spent soaking up the Olivers and Sams. As soon as Bethan knew we’d be coming to London, she asked if we wanted to have lunch at the church with them again - yes, please! Church, lunch of baked potatoes with chili, —over to the Olivers for wifi so we can figure out what to do when we have to check out of our hotel tomorrow morning - OH, Olivers’ invite us to go with them to Bedford from tomorrow till Thursday - YES, YES, YES! - back to church for tea & treats, church, more tea & cakes, back to Olivers’ for fun times, then finally off to hotel to bed.

Once again, walking to church, or actually, to Tesco's to meet Leah so she can drive us to church in Woolwich.

Is it shameless of me to keep posting photos of all this cuteness?

I saw one of these being used by the cleaning staff at one of our hotels and i thought they just added the face themselves, but turns out they come like that, with different names & faces!

When i asked Leah if she wanted me to make my chili for one of the meals.

Monday 10/5- we make our way to St. Pancras International Train Station to take a train to Bedford; Oliver picks us up at station. (There wasn’t enough room in their van for us to drive up there with them; they are a family of 9, after all). Their good friends, another Christian homeschool family with lots of children, invited the Oliver to stay at their house while they are away on holiday. The Olivers might plan to move to Bedford soon, so have some homes to look at, and they have a home improvement/organizational project they want to do for a surprise at their friends’ house that we’re all staying at.

St. Pancras International Train Station. If you zoom in and look toward the back of the crowd you can see Andrew sitting off by himself, having another crisis.

Tuesday - Mrs. C is not as adept at housekeeping as she is at homeschooling or other areas, so Randall, Amber (oldest Oliver child - she’s nearly 14), and i go to work on the refrigerator. We start out with a pretty nice system: Randall empties the fridge and puts all the contents on the table by category & takes out the shelves & drawers for me to wash, and Olivia wipes out the fridge. Till she gets about halfway down, and then she hits a wall. (I can't blame her - it was pretty nasty.) Now it’s just me & Randall. Takes us all morning to just do the fridge; we never even got to the freezer. But yay for us! We did accomplish the fridge, and it was a beautiful sight. Should have taken a picture. 

Cleaning the fridge

Otherwise, we’re just herding cats-er kids, loving on and cuddling with Lois, trying to find plane tickets, washing laundry, making chili and biscuits, griping at Andrew for being so uncooperative with school, and going out on a late-night chocolate run with Leah. And a little more travel plan stress for Randall & me. 

Making the chili

And lovin' on Lois - more shameless photos

In case you didn't see this on fb, Joash & i inadvertently wore matching shirts, so i grabbed my "matching" scarf, then sent Emily the pic for her morning greeting. She sent me the pic of her (yes, she did choose that outfit on purpose, based on me & Joash)

At the end of Wednesday we booked plane tickets from Brussels, Belgium through Miami and Denver and finally to Fayetteville, but hey, they were cheap. They said they’d let us know in 240 minutes if our tickets were confirmed. 240 minutes came and went - no confirmation. Went to bed not knowing. Woke up still not knowing. Not long after getting up, email came in saying that due to some complication with the airline, our tickets could not be booked, and our $ would be credited back to our account within the obligatory 7-10 business days. Did i mention that we had just used all the $ in our account to buy those tickets? (Now we did have some cash with us still, so we’re not completely broke, but we also know that there’s too much unknown at this point, plus there’s still that whole sorry-exchange-rate-with-the-pound thing).

The Bakers; no doubt Oliver just said something cheeky.

Thursday - we very reluctantly say goodbye to the Olivers for what we assume will be the last time for a while, and Oliver drops us off at the station to catch the train back to London St. Pancras. We’re too tied up in knots with stress to eat any lunch before we leave, but by the time we arrive at St. Pancras we’re considerably calmer and more at peace. Randall looked up phone numbers of 2 churches he’d heard about and left messages, plus messaged a Park Plaza friend for suggestions on London contacts, and Keith gave him a name to try, so Randall sent a friend request on facebook, and we sat down at St. Pancras to wait on God to provide. We literally did not know where to go or what to do.

Literally waiting on God at St. Pancras Station

(I will address this more in the next "reflections" post.)

Alan comes to St. Pancras at about 8:30 pm to take us to a hotel; a very nice one, i might add. Nice enough that you’re kind of sorry that you don’t get checked in till 9:30 so you don’t have much time to enjoy it.

Friday - we check out of the hotel, leave our luggage with them while we walk into the little “village” nearby. (We’re on the outskirts of London; Bethan referred to it as “the sticks.”) Alan comes to pick us up and drop us off at Ikea while he finishes some errands. Picks us up at Ikea and takes us to the garden center where his wife, Sarah, works. No ordinary garden center, this place has all manner of stuff, and even has a cafe/tearoom. So we get cream tea while we wait for Sarah to get off work. Then we go their flat. This is where we stay for the next 5 nights. 

Saturday - Randall has a migraine, so he stays home while Andrew & i go on an outing with the Sams. I had requested to spend one more day with them, so they picked us up and we went to Belhus Wood Park, which was a big woodsy park. We had a picnic and walked around; it was a beautiful fall day. Then we went to Ikea for coffee & hot chocolate. By the time they dropped us off, Randall had plane tickets. For real and for true this time. London to L.A. Not my first choice, but at least it’s something. His dad & stepmom live near L.A., so we’ll stay with them for a few days while we figure a way back to Oklahoma & Arkansas. 

The Sams

Sunday - Randall preaches at the Thamesmead church of Christ. 

Monday - made chili for Alan & Sarah.
Tuesday - spent the day doing a few things in London that we hadn't had a chance to yet: the British Library (one of only 4 known copies of the Magna Carta), walking through Hyde Park and over to Kensington Palace (yes, my eyes were peeled for signs of Will and Kate), then over to Covent Garden to meet Alan & Sarah, who had the distinguished honor of singing with their choir at the season opening performance at the Royal Opera House.

And that brings us to the night before flying out of London to Los Angeles, staying with Randall's dad for 3 days, then hiring a car and making our way from California to Arkansas.

Sunday morning we went to the Oxnard Church of Christ where Randall's family went till he was 4; he hadn't been back since, so the preacher asked him to come up and tell about himself.

#3 or "I no longer know how long we've been traveling."

As i write this, we’ve just boarded a cruise ship bound for Ireland. Also known as a ferry, but hey, it’s as good as a cruise ship to me! We have enjoyed our short stay in bonnie Scotland, and i do mean bonnie. Traveling over highways has always lulled me to sleep, but it’s hard to allow myself to sleep when there’s so much beauty everywhere. So here’s my recap of this last week:

Tuesday: in Northampton; Richard picked us up and drove us to the bus station, where i said goodbye to my 2 boys as they headed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to start their hike of Hadrian’s Wall. Rainy morning. The bus station was in the towne centre, so i spent a couple of hours exploring the mall, the market, and the pedestrian street as far as Tesco’s (grocery store). Bought a bunch of tasty cherry tomato’s for 1GBP at the market. Ate early lunch at Subway (going for the cheap). Took bus back home to Elaine’s. Spent the rest of my time till Wednesday evening at home sorting out my own travel arrangements and watching the Beth Moore simulcast.

The Northampton Town Centre Market

Northampton Town Centre

Pal on his second European journey with his buddy Andrew

Wednesday: Richard’s wife, Denise, picked me up late afternoon to take me back to their home for dinner and company (yay!). She made some kind of yumminess-casserole with chipolata (similar to sausage links but not as greasy), “rasher” bacon, red onion, leeks, butter beans, and topped with bread crumbs. I couldn’t get enough. 

     Meanwhile, after spending the night in a cheap hotel, Randall & Andrew caught a bus to the Sagedunum Roman Fort museum to learn about Roman life on the frontier of the empire, toured the actual ruins of a Roman fort, saw a reconstructed section of the wall, and got to watch archaeologists actually uncovering parts of the wall. They officially started their hike around noon and made it 8 miles before Randall's knee gave out, then he hobbled for 3 more before stopping for the night. They pitched their tent along the path, literally, just off to the side. By this time Randall’s knee was in so much pain that he was doubtful about continuing on with the hike.

At the Sagedunum Roman fort museum

They literally set up their tent by the path. Andrew sent me this text:  "Just like in The Way - we're sleeping on the path."

Thursday: Had a text from Randall waiting for me when i woke up saying he'd spent the night in excruciating pain so there was no way he’d be able to continue on with the hike, and they’d be catching a bus to meet me in Annan, Scotland. Richard drove all my luggage and me to the train station to begin my journey. Missed my stop in Carlisle because in my distraction of trying to maneuver all my luggage around this guy standing in the doorway with a large buggy, i didn’t realize i needed to push the button to open the door and i couldn’t see past him to even see whether we’d pulled into the station. All this time on this trip we’d never gone more than about 20 minutes between stops. So when the lady at the snack bar said we’d already pulled out of the Carlisle station and that the next stop was Glasgow 1 1/2 hours away, i got a little unnerved. She called the conductor, who helped me/all my luggage find another seat, looked up the information to get me on a return train to Annan, then brought me Pepsis and treats. When we got off at Glasgow, she led me to an employee and explained the situation, and he took me to the first class lounge to wait the 45 minutes, then he came back to escort me to my train. It was all quite delightful, almost. Because here i was, mistakenly in Glasgow and not able to stay. 

     But i did eventually make it to Annan a few hours after my boys arrived, so they’d already had time to check into the b&b, shower and eat dinner before i arrived. My dinner after arrival? Steak pie at Cafe Royal=yumminess!

The Annan train station

Friday:  explored town, went to the Annan museum. While Andrew & i were upstairs looking around, Randall was chatting with the curator downstairs about his family history research. Then a lady walked in, and the curator exclaimed, “Now here’s just the person you need to talk to!” To say the 82-year-old Mary R. is an expert on Scottish history and family geneology would be an understatement. She whisked him off to the library for some research while i went down the street in search of a mocha at the coffee shop. When Randall finally caught up with me, he said she’d offered to take us to Dumfries the next day for some further research, and she’d pick us up at 10:45. 

     Following her suggestion, we walked over and up to Mott and Bailey, where Robert the Bruce used to have his fort. 

We went through this gate to reach the top of Robert the Bruce's Mott and Bailey

The River Annan

    

  Ate dinner at Cafe Royal again. Trying to frequent the same places as much as possible in order to get to know people better. Best. Fish & chips. Ever.

This plaque is on the wall outside the Cafe Royal restaurant entrance. Robert Burns 

Saturday: Well Ms. R. is quite the authority! She drove us all over the countryside today, and there was not one thing Randall pointed to that she didn’t know something about; not one house, one field, one hill, one barn, and she has family connections to nearly everything. They never did have any luck with the family history research, but we definitely got a tour of the Dumfries-Moffat-Lockerbie area. She even pulled the car off the side of the road, went up to a tower house that her ancestors had some connection with, and asked the lady there if we could see the inside! Turns out the lady there was the one who had renovated it and was waiting on a potential renter to look at it. It was quite posh on the inside.

This photo doesn't do justice to the full height of the tower house.

An Ecclefechan Tart, anyone? (short e-klu-fe-kun {the u's are shwas}. Ms. R. gave us each one of these; it has  fruit & nuts in it, and is named for the town near Annan.

     When i finally told her i was ready to call it a day because i had laundry to figure out, she offered to let us do our washing at her house. Then while the second load was in the dryer, we all went to Cafe Royal again for dinner. 

     Now, i have no idea why the Lord provided that opportunity in Annan, but we sure weren’t seeking it out. I asked her if she goes to church anywhere because we were uncertain about where we’d go the next day, but she said no, she’s a member at one of them but never goes.

Sunday:  Went to church just a few paces down the street from our b&b, St. Andrew’s Parish Church of Scotland (nearly every Church of Scotland we saw was named after St. Andrew - he is Scotland’s favorite). Had no idea what to expect, but it was surprisingly similar to our services in the U.S. (except for the robed minister and the organ). We stayed afterward for tea and biscuits (cookies) and had a very pleasant visit with the minister till everyone was gone. 

Walking to church, which is just on the other side of the trees in front of Randall's head. I'm thinking we can document Andrew's growth on this trip by watching his pant length, because he wears the same pair of pants to church every Sunday. :-)

Today was their Harvest Sunday, so towards the end of the service they had the children come out to do a special presentation of food items they brought for the "harvest table." It was really cute.

     

Spent the afternoon trying to make travel arrangements for our next journey. Not easy! I enjoy traveling from place to place, and i enjoy exploring a place for a time, but i’m finding out that making the arrangements is a pain in the neck. It’s difficult to do this on an extremely limited budget and as we go. This way of traveling is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

     Had dinner one more time at Cafe Royal, then stopped by the church to say hiya/goodbye to the minister. (People here say hiya for hi.)

And that brings us to today. Got on a bus in Annan for Dumfries, got on another bus to Strenraer, got on another bus to the ferry, and now we’re on the ferry to Belfast. Then we’ll have to figure out where to go to get on the bus to Dublin. And i kid you not, as i live and breathe, while i was on the ferry typing this, a lady walked up to us and said, “I know you; you go to Mt. Comfort, don’t you?” (in Fayetteville) “Well, not anymore, but we used to.” She’s Susie Lamb. We didn’t know her, but she recognized us. Craziness! On the ferry between Scotland and Ireland.

Random thoughts from this last week:

- I'm quite certain that the sheep outnumber the people in England & Scotland

- Overall, people in England & Scotland are just super-nice and helpful

- It is mostly impossible, i believe, to capture the exquisite beauty that is everywhere - every bridge, every river/creek/babbling brook, every hillside, every blade of grass - with a camera. 

- I love the actual traveling around from place to place, mostly, and i love being in a new place, but i strongly dislike working out the logistics of getting from one place to another. Also laundry. Laundry is hard when traveling.

- Twenty days is how long it took me to "hit a wall" with traveling like this. Today is day 21.