Southern Africa Installment ONE

Southern Africa: Installment ONE

We have returned from one of the most adventurous trips of our lifetime.

Departing on March 17th, foregoing all St. Patrick's Day festivities, we took a very long and weary route to Lesotho. As you can imagine, a two-week trip to Southern Africa is not a "one post" kind of blog update...so over the next few weeks you'll be seeing the different installments which will be our "show and tell" for our trip. Ryan has even been toying with the idea of posting, so it is worth "watching" the blog for new updates.

Let's begin this adventure with crossing the Atlantic and the preparations one has to make in order to do so. First, you must understand that flights across the Atlantic are really not so bad. In fact, they are quite bearable if you can make yourself tired enough beforehand in order to sleep during the flight. This is what we did. On Thursday night we stayed up late and on Friday morning we got up early……so early it was before dawn.

When we landed in London on Saturday March 18th at 7:00 AM (UK time…2 AM to our bodies), we'd both had a bit of rest and while somewhat groggy (but NOT crabby) we took all of our carry-ons (two large backpacks and one duffle bag) through immigration and out of customs at the Gatwick airport. We wound our way up to the entrance to the "underground" system which would lead us into the heart of London.

I know what you're thinking – we are either crazy or stupid for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Carry-on luggage is a major pain – especially if you plan on two layovers to metropolitan cities where you'd like to do some sightseeing.
2. Layovers of 5 hours where you will only get 2 hours of sightseeing means that the airport is a better bet than getting lost in a foreign country and missing your only chance to visit Africa
3. Sleep deprivation does terrible things to the decision-making process
4. Poor nutrition (aka airline food) contributes to poor decision-making, crabbiness and one's general wellbeing

I'd like to address these points for the record:

1. Our friend Paul who lives in Lesotho described the Johannesburg airport baggage handlers as "thieving scoundrels".
1. Now, would you trust your luggage to unknown thieving scoundrels? No. Especially not when you have to survive in a developing nation (politically correct term for the OLD term of "third world" country) where the local fashion is a heavy woolen blanket draped over your shoulders. The likelihood that I'd find a shopping mall that carried anything besides a high-style woolen blanket seemed absurd to me...carry-on luggage seemed like the best option.
2. Would you "check" your luggage even when you were planning on briefly touring both London and Frankfurt on your layovers? Well, quite possibly. Good thing you weren't traveling with us or you would have been outnumbered.
2. Two hours of sightseeing is pretty tight, but if you are on a mission then you forsake all other worldly opinions and go for the goal. Ryan had never been to London….were we going to let time stop us? Discourage us? Taunt us with fun and run away? I think not.
3. Sleep deprivation really does skew your ability to make good decisions, but with JUST enough delirium you can find almost any situation funny enough that you can stand the biting cold and being covered in whipped cream. More on that later….
4. Poor nutrition would be a deterrent, except for the fact that we had Kit-Kats and power bars! Nothing is impossible with Kit-Kats and power bars. Just ask tri-athletes and marathon runners. Enough said.

Back to the story……we took the train from the airport in to London...I slept, Ryan remained alert trying to see as much of the landscape as he could. We took the train to Green Park station and emerged above ground to find that London in the middle of March is a windy, cold, and some what dreary place in spite of the green grass and daffodils. "Team Lincoln" donned its warmest gear including gloves and a snow hat. We walked through a lovely park

to wind up at Buckingham Palace.

The Queen was not home…but the guards in their wool coats and puffy black hats were at attention anyway.

There wasn't much to see quite frankly, other than a lot of other Americans so we headed in the direction of Westminster Abby.

We didn't have a map that clearly oriented us, so we walked in what we thought was the general direction, with our big backpacks and duffle bag. Sheesh – the carry on luggage was not the best idea, but as you now know, our choices were pretty slim so I'll stop whining for a while.

Back to London…we wandered around some lovely side streets passing by various embassies, a London police station with all of its officers climbing into a van. We passed the "Fuller's Pub" which is home to one of Ryan's favorite beers, "Fuller's London Porter" but alas it was about 8:45 AM and even THEY wouldn't serve a beer that early. (Just one reason why Ireland is so much cooler than England)

At long last, and after asking directions from a guy with a turban and a lovely English accent, we found Westminster Abby. What a delight, a thrill, and then a complete shock as we saw the hordes of people lined up to get inside. We rounded the corner and were struck not only by the crowd, but by the assemblage of protesters gearing up across the street in the shadow of Big Ben and the Parliament building.

What a GREAT occasion!! Protesting! Big Ben! Parliament! Westminster Abby - all at once!!!

Not knowing where to start – obviously the options had really opened up quite a bit with all of these new sights. I scuttled up to the front of the line at the Abby to see what the financial damage would be to get inside – it is a wonderful place to visit, full of old stuff, dead bodies of the famous and infamous, statues, incense - all the stuff that generally makes historical destinations cool and worth paying money to see. But they wanted 10 pounds EACH! And they wanted it in cash. Having just made our entry into the country, we had about 8 pounds total and no plans to get more European currency the next 7 hours were planned on strict adherence to earning air-miles on the American Express card.

We looked around for an ATM but found nothing. Eventually we decided that a walk over to Big Ben and a better view of the protesters would be a more efficient use of our time and energy. You see, by now we were getting a little weary….and perhaps a little crabby (at least one of us was kind of crabby) and maybe even a little delirious.

The protest was about George Bush and Tony Blair. Big surprise. I kind of wanted to snag one of their signs, but I already had enough to carry. We approached the river Thames and to our delight we found a crepe stand right on the corner.

Now, if you will remember, the weather is stinking cold. We were fully bundled in our warmest gear – and as we approached the river the wind really started to kick up. The crepes however were SO tempting that we simply couldn't resist. So we carefully added up the amount of cash we did have and spent it so well that we walked away from the crepe stand with out 30 pence. We also walked away with giant crepes, Ryan's so full of whipped cream that he got it on his shirt, his hands, his face – just about everywhere.

Remember I said one of us was getting crabby? Well the whipped cream and cold didn't help. One of us had to take charge and clean the other person up, walk them to a sheltered area (which turned out to be another subway station) so the eating of crepes could continue in peace. This is where the delirium hit…I started to laugh so hard I thought I would need to find a restroom in order to change my garments. It was both a funny and not so funny moment. I was on my knees shuddering with laughter – doing my best not to attract attention from the others in the subway station. Ryan was holding my crepe and starting to giggle…we needed to get our acts together. We needed a plan.

We hopped back on the subway and took the train to Picadilly – where I fully expected to see the standard "punk" crowd gathered to look cool. Wild hair, clothes, piercing and tattoos….well, the punk crowd was still at home sleeping. It was only 9:30 AM.

We got back on the subway and headed for Heathrow– I slept, Ryan stayed awake to catch the final glimpses of London.

As we arrived at the airport we found the Lufthansa staff very friendly and helpful. They allowed us to carry on our big bags (one of them was questionable when it came to weight) and we proceeded through security and to a teeny-tiny gate where we would board our flight to Frankfurt Germany.

Neither of us seems to remember this flight – all I know is that I got the best airline pillow I've ever had. I wanted to take it with me but again, like the protester's signs, I just had too much to carry. This was a mistake. I should have stolen that pillow as it would have been a wonderful asset during the rest of the trip. I will never pass up the opportunity to steal a feather pillow from the airlines again.

We landed in Frankfurt and were delighted to find THE nicest airport either of us have ever been in.

(The Minneapolis airport is a close runner-up though.) After a little confusion (it's a nice place but the signage isn't so clear when you're really-really tired) we made our way to the train connection that would take us into downtown Frankfurt.

Our neighbor Sebastian is from Frankfurt and he'd laid out a nice travel itinerary for the few hours we'd have available. We boarded the train and after about 3 stops, I noticed an enormous crowd of soccer fans out the right-hand window. I thought "phew – so glad they can't get on this train!" and then our train stopped and out the other window to the left I saw one of the largest and most drunk crowds of sweaty and overweight men I have ever seen…that is, the largest crowd I'd seen outside of Boston. (You know those Red Sox fans …they can be very big and very drunk, sweaty too)

And then they piled onto the train. That wasn't the worst part though – the worst part was that we had NO way of knowing what they were talking about. At first this may not seem like a very important bit of information, but when you are "in the moment" and that big sweaty drunk guy on your left starts talking about how ill he feels as the train lurches forward and he careens dangerously close, the importance of having a common language becomes very important. That or good sign language. Fortunately nobody tossed their cookies…but you can't predict that "in the moment".

After a few minutes of worrisome travel, we pulled into a large station and we were all forced to disembark. This meant however that Ryan and I needed to find our next train, and sadly, his year of courses in "theological German" didn't help him decipher things like "this way to the center of Frankfurt" or "this way to catch the train withOUT drunk soccer fans."

Had the station had signs saying things like "this way to God" or "the ontological awareness of current Christians will take place on platform 3" we might have been okay. But we did our best, and we only got lost once.

At last we arrived in the business-center of Frankfurt and realized that many of the shops were similar to those we have here at home. The fashion trends were pretty much the same, though the "fast food" stands were very different. Sausage is a very popular food. And apparently very quickly served.

After about 45 minutes we decided to return to the airport, but not before we were greeted by another seemingly drunken fellow who was very interested in sharing his gummy bears with us. He kept trying to talk to us in gibberish which we later learned was Greek (sorry Konstantinos). Our conversation consisted of him tyring to figure out where we were from by listing of names of political leaders….

"Gibberish" said the man to Liz

"Nein Deutsch" said Liz, forgetting that she wasn't saying she didn't speak German, but rather was saying "NO Germans"

"Gibberish" said the man again.

"Margaret Thatcher? Tony Blair?" said the man hoping to get a response.

"No…we're American" said Liz.

" Michael Dukakees? Beel Cleenton?" said the man.

"Yes!!" said Liz

"George Bush??" said the man.

"NOOOOO." Said Liz, giving a thumbs-down sign.

This evoked a VERY hearty laugh, and assured our new friend that we were the Americans he had heard about, but rarely seen. The ones who did not vote for George W. Bush.

And then his train arrived and off he lumbered, leaving an unopened packet of gummy bears in my hands. I offered them to Ryan. He loves gummy bears, but apparently he'd lost his appetite.

After returning to the Frankfurt airport and accessing Samsung's free internet booth, we made it through the very regimented but efficient security process and boarded our flight. On the jet-way I saw a man that looked like my brother in law Dan. We later saw the same guy during our game drive in South Africa. The world is really small, just like the song at Disneyland tells you, after all.

Now…this flight we were boarding was going to be interesting. It was 10 hours in length and we were bound and determined to sleep. We were tired, but we were also armed with prescription medications!

Our doctor had written us a prescription for a "sleeping" medication called Ambien. We had five in total....mostly because they cost $5 each and I'm cheap.

Some of you may have heard about Ambien. It's been in the NY times recently because people who take it do weird things. Some drive in their sleep, some gorge themselves with food while in their sleep. They even (after driving and then crashing their cars into trees) will yell at police and urinate in the streets, all while they are sleeping. They wake up in jail and have no idea how they got there.

Before the flight, I toyed with the idea of making signs to hang around our necks which said "I have taken Ambien. If I do something stupid, please send me back to my seat and forgive me when I wake up. I will be really sorry."

I didn't make these signs, and neither Ryan or I knew what would happen once we swallowed the pills. I made a promise to Ryan that I wouldn't let him stand in the aisle and tear off his shirt "Hulk Hogan style" and he promised he wouldn't let me do anything stupid either. The medication was intended to provide 7-8 hours of sleep, so we waited until we hit 30,000 feet, gave each other a quick good luck and good night kiss, and popped our pills. Then we closed our eyes and waited for the sweetness of sleep to fall.

Zzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzz

Zzzzzz

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