London & the end

London

Well, we made it to the end of our journey...almost. We took a shuttle from Arusha to Nairobi the day after our safari ended. We had to cross the Tanzania/Kenya border, which was a nightmare. We've done a lot of border crossings on this trip, and they've all been pretty smooth and easy. This was Sunday afternoon at 5pm, there were many buses that came at the same time, and there was a strike by the truck drivers all at the same time. What should have taken 15 minutes ended up taking almost 2 hours. 

There was absolutely no order to the process whatsoever. This mass of people show up at the same time, but they continue to only have 3 windows open, while a couple guys in uniforms sit in the back reading the paper. There were no lines really, just an amoeba of people pushing their way towards the windows, and if you weren't pushy enough, you didn't get there. We were behind a nice guy from Norway and were making jokes the whole time, because what else are you going to do?  There was a box on the wall with "suggestion box" written on it. I looked more carefully at the box and there was no slot or any way to put a suggestion into the suggestion box. It was just a box nailed shut and screwed to the wall. I guess somewhere, someone said, "You must have a suggestion box." And so they do...sort of??

We finally got to the airport and had an easy but cramped flight to London that left Nairobi at 11:30pm and got into London at 6am. London was our first destination where we were "couch surfing." (Couch surfing - www.couchsurfing.com - is basically a way for people to open their homes to travelers for a night or two, and give them a place to sleep and a friend in the new town to show them around.) We made our way on The Tube and then a bus to Helen and Tony's lovely home in northern London. Since it was 8am on a Monday morning, they were heading out to work after welcoming us. And we were headed out to find our friend, Dan, who had come down from Scotland to see us. He was staying in a nearby hotel, so we gradually made our way to Hyde Park and found him.  The weather was absolutely beautiful (and totally abnormal, from what we heard.) It was sunny and only a little chilly - hot by Londoners' standards but pretty cold compared to what we've been used to. 

We found Dan and slowly got him up and ready to go and went out to explore the city. We walked through Hyde Park, found a great sushi place for lunch and then headed for the museums. We went to the Natural History museum and the Science Museum. We then found Dan a cute B&B right by our house and settled him in there. We had dinner at an awesome pub near our house. Jonathan got to have fish & chips, and I had incredibly delicious bangers & mash. 

The next day we walked around some more and saw many of the famous sites - Big Ben, parliament, Westminster Abbey, and loads of lovely parks. The weather was incredible again and all the food we had was super, even though I always hear that British food is not the greatest. 

Yesterday we flew out mid day and luckily had a direct flight to Raleigh. We even managed to talk our way into getting an upgrade to first class!  Fantastic way to end a trip.  As we got closer to home, I got more and more excited about getting back to work, seeing our friends and family, and especially our animals. But it will be sad to no longer have these amazing adventures everyday. 

We have so many people to thank for helping us and allowing us to go on this journey. I will not list them all here, because surely I will forget someone!  But to all of you who supported us, please know how grateful we are. This was absolutely the experience of a lifetime.