In a word: Incredible

"The breeze in the air bears a slight chill, but the sky is clear, the sun is shining and my train is on time. My immediate person is adorned with my train ticket, travel card, cell phone and money belt containing cash, passport, ID and insurance information, so I have all the confidence in the world that I’ve crossed my t’s, dotted my i’s, and that everything will run smooth as butter."

Silly, silly me. When will I ever learn that trips like this never go smooth "as butter"? More like smooth as chunky peanut butter. Here is my tale of London:

My train to London Victoria arrived right on time and entering into the lively station centre made my heart quicken a beat. In the main section, where there wasn’t a shop, the walls were all old brick and looked more like the outside of a building, so the whole area had the appearance of being inverted. After a quick ride, I emerged from the underground at Oxford Circus Station on Oxford Street, a well known shopping destination, and 5 minutes later I arrived at Selfridges; our rendezvous point. It was so amazing to take those first steps through London and a smile inadvertently crept over my face as I took in the buildings, the sea of people, the buses and cars and the madness of it all. I arrived about 15 minutes before our meeting time, so I took off my pack, sat down and took refuge in the shade of Selfridge’s main entrance. Right on time, I turned my head to see Nina walking towards me with a smile and a look of recognition on her face. We hugged and greeted like old friends, but little did I realize then how deliberate our meeting was and how prolific it would be. We were joined immediately by Lauren, another au pair from Australia, who Nina met because Lauren will be taking over for her and came by to meet the family beforehand. Lauren will be traveling for the remainder of the summer and there’s a chance that I might meet up with her somewhere for my last weekend before going to Scotland. We met up with Margareta, the au pair from Austria, a couple hours later. Most of the day was spent wandering along Oxford Street, in and out of shops, getting to know eachother. I’m not much of a shopper (ask my mom, she’ll tell you), so this wasn’t the most engaging of all activities, but it was still an experience and I was just happy to be in the company of people my own age. Margareta had plans to meet a friend at a pub in Coventry Gardens at about 8:30 in the evening, so we all decided to separate, check into our hostels and then meet back up with Lauren for dinner at 7:00. Our hostel provided a free shuttle service from Victoria Station so we made our way there a bit before 6:00. After calling the driver, I was informed that it would take him about 20-30 minutes to arrive. I called back about 40 minutes later and was told of a slight bit of traffic. He called us back about 15 minutes later announcing his arrival, but was no where in sight. Apparently, the pick up location is the Victoria coach station, not the train station; why he hadn’t mentioned that minor detail to begin with is beyond me. As it was nearly our meeting time and we couldn’t get a hold of Lauren, Margareta suggested that she go straight on ahead to Coventry Gardens and that we take her bag and get settled into our hostel. We agreed that this was a fine idea and went our separate ways. We met up with our driver about 10 minutes later, after a couple more phone calls, when he came and flagged us down at the end of a side street where he had parked. Our ride was a smelly, junky, 14 passenger van and our driver was a greasy, long-haired French man, but we arrived safely and he was indeed very nice. During the conversation on our ride over, it came out that Nina was a Christian and had recently started going back to a Lutheran church back home where she lives, in Helsinki. She proceeded to share with me her testimony, so to speak, and I in return shared a bit of my own story. This was the first time we had spent any time speaking alone, and this conversation set our budding friendship in stone. Our first impression of the hostel included a good look at the building, a look at eachother and consequent laughter from both of us. It didn’t look too promising and the smell of cigarette smoke that greeted us as we walked through the front door wasn’t any more encouraging. The common room was dim and smoky and the feeling of being inspected by 5 or 6 pairs of male eyes was a little unnerving, but after checking in, we were delighted to find that the bedroom and bathrooms were clean and the sheets were fresh. We were, however, incredibly amused to find that our coed room had a shower in the corner. It was just a small standing shower, so if you weren’t comfortable coming out butt naked in front of a few strange men, you’d still have to open the door slightly to grab your towel. I had plans to use it that evening before going to bed, hopefully while the room was still relatively unoccupied. It was about 9:30 when all was said and done, and Nina and I had figured out the best way to get to our destination. After finding our bus stop, getting on a bus just to have the bus driver inform us that that particular bus would be heading in the opposite of our intended direction, we crossed the street and boarded the appropriate bus. While waiting, Nina and I both agreed that we really did not feel like hanging out in a pub and that all we wanted to do was find a restaurant, sit down and have a nice dinner; so when we arrived in Trafalgar Square, with the last bits of light fading behind the British Museum, we called Lauren and Margareta to see if they’d eaten and if they would like to join us. They declined, so we found a quaint little restaurant called Garfunkle’s just down the street from the square, looked over the menu by the door, decided it was within our budget and were shown our table. Nina and I sat there long after our plates had been cleared talking about our friends, our families, our spiritual lives, and our lives back home. We both expressed that though we had only met that late morning, we felt as though we’d known eachother forever, and our conversation reflected that. We talked about how we felt that our respective trips were clearly predestined and part of a much larger plan and how her time has been one of growth and revelation as well and she was looking forward to getting home to see how much she has changed; there is only a few weeks left to her stay. Our time together that night was so awesome and I know she felt, as well as I did, that our meeting was not by chance. You know when you’re driving somewhere, following directions, and you start to wonder if you’re going the right way or if you’ve missed a turn along the way? But then you see an aforementioned street or landmark and you know that you’re on the right track. I think life is like that sometimes; wondering if you’re heading in the right direction, but then you have an experience that you know God has intended and is a part of, consequently affirming the belief that you are, in fact, on the path he has chosen. My meeting Nina was one of those experiences. This trip has been one of those experiences. We left a bit after midnight, went back to the bus stop and enjoyed, possibly, the most exciting bus ride I’ll ever experience. We sat at the front of the upper level as we made our way, slowly, through Piccadilly Circus and the centre of London, all lit up and crawling with life; then to avoid missing our stop, relocating to the bottom level as we sped (and I mean sped) through the residential streets. At one point, while I was just thinking to myself how if we hit something at this speed we’d be in a horrible state, the driver pressed firmly on the brakes and laid on his horn, narrowly missing a car that had turned out in front of us; no doubt having misjudged our speed. We arrived at our stop unscathed, but the walk back to our hostel included a proposed conversation with a couple young men out wandering the streets and narrowly being run over by a bicycle on the sidewalk. Margareta was just 10 minutes or so behind us. My hopes of having a shower were dashed by the late hour of our arrival and by the darkened, inhabited state of our bedroom. After retrieving our bags and getting ourselves ready in the bathroom, we crept in and crawled into our bunks. In the process of ascending, I was quite surprised to find that one of the guys had hung presumably washed socks and underwear on mine and Nina’s bunk; where is the logic in that? As the bottom half of the windows were frosted, it wasn’t until Margareta and I were both situated on our top bunks that she pointed out the lovely view: an old lit up cemetery just behind the building, very cool. I felt so icky when we woke up because the room had been stifling, but with half its occupants still asleep, I just couldn’t get myself to use the shower. So we just got ourselves ready, enjoyed a complimentary breakfast of toast and cereal and went on our merry way. The three of us (Martmarie decided not to come) had a lovely morning hopping around town seeing the sights; including Buckingham Palace, the Parliament buildings, St. James Park and the Tower Bridge, where we said goodbye to Margareta. Nina and I then walked across and caught a bus back into the centre of the city, found a Tesco Express (a mini version of a Tesco grocery store) and carried on to Trafalgar Square where we sat on a bench overlooking the fountain and enjoyed our chosen lunches; a fresh fruit salad and croissant for me, strawberries and a sandwich for Nina. It’s only in the last year that Nina’s been proficient at the English language, so she requested that I correct her when appropriate; which felt extremely rude. After hearing her talk about how hard it is to express herself and be herself in English, I have so much empathy for people who speak it on a daily basis when it’s not their mother tongue. It was during this time, though, that she accurately described just how comfortable we were with eachother by identifiying the simple fact that we ate together with barely a word spoken without a smidge of awkwardness. We proceeded to write our personal information along with short letters in each others journals and then spent a bit more time walking around before apprehensively parting ways at the train station. I made my way over to my own designated station on the underground just in time for the next train back to Epsom and waited just a few short minutes before the Potter’s pulled in, kids included, to pick me up. I went straight upstairs to have a shower so I didn’t have a chance to properly greet the kids, but a little while later while they were all settling in for bed, Tom came up behind my while I was talking to Catherine and wrapped his arms around my legs. The other two boys proceeded to come out of the room to give me a hug; Edward even came back for a kiss. It’s funny how the one child that I had the most resistance from in the beginning is the child who I’ve grown closest to. We spent a good 8 hours each day wandering around with our packs on, so my feet are extremely angry with me, but what a glorious weekend it was.

Because of a website that I’m signed up on, every day I receive a Bible verse in my email. This was the verse that was waiting for me when I got back: Isaiah 66:18-19, "I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; that they shall come and see my glory. From them I will send survivors to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations." Often I lead Tom around by placing my hand ever so gently on his shoulder blade or on the back of his head; now and again, I feel like God’s doing the same thing to me.