A day and a Half

So we finally arrived in London! As we walked to border control Lyndsay and I got separated as she has a British Passport so she got to go into a different queue. When it was finally my turn I was told by this old Indian man to go to a specific teller and he pointed in the a direction. So I did, when I got to the teller he promptly told me he wasn’t ready and I should go back and he will call me when he is. I thought yeah the English are great. Then I walked back and the Indian guy sent me to another teller who again sent me away… At this point I was starting to get annoyed and I began to wonder if this Indian guy even worked there as he had no idea what was happening. After a third attempt I eventually was let into the country, to find Lyndsay waiting for me.

As we walked out of terminal four from Heathrow airport the biggest airport in the world. We realized that Jono wasn’t there. He was supposed to meet us due to his flight arriving an hour earlier. Not only that where was Sandra? So after fretting a bit, and a few sms’s later and thinking about quickly buying a sim card entered Sandra dressed in a big coat with fur round the side of the hoodie. Shew we were saved! But where was Jono? Lyndsay could call out and wasn’t answering his sms’s. Gail said he landed the same time we did, so hopefully we will see him shortly. There he was and we were all together and we could all breathe for a minute. Sandra came alone which was good because we had to put one of our bags on our lap. Lyndsay got the brunt of this as she had the wheels poking into her. So after a good chat, Joe telling me in his very knowledgeable opinion of 35 years guitar playing that all rock guitarists were rubbish. Including Led Zepplin, BB King and Eric Claptin. Who am I to argue. He also let me attempt to play his Gibson R90 000 guitar, I could see the fear in his eyes as I picked it up. Sandra mean while got Jono to work as her washing machine broke and was no longer letter the water drain. Jono promptly started to pull the whole machine apart which clearly stressed Sandra out a bit, however she was reassured when we told her that Jono had done this a hundred times before. Sandra made us a delightful Lasagna so we all sat down and had a meal round 19:00 which was weird because it was dark by 16::00 so by the time dinner came it felt like 00:00. Ryan and Natalie then arrived for a quick visit. It was great to see them again. We a had a good chat and a couple of laughs. Joe told how dodge the government is here hand Natalie informed us that White people were no longer the majority in England. Then Haley Sandra’s Daughter arrived with her boyfriend James, a really nice guy who is self employed as an electrician. Still the night continued and we had pretty good time until all three of us decided we really needed to go bed at that point. Day 2 Day two arrived at the crack of dawn as we needed to catch the Euro star from London to France at 08:30 so in order to do that we had to catch the train from Bushy (Watford) to Euston, then we took the underground ( my first underground experience) to St Pancras Kings Cross. Fortunately Sandra mentioned it was on the North Line because we had to decipher the underground map. If it was up to Jono and I ,we would have been on the wrong road to Kings Cross. Fortunately for us Lyndsay was awake and managed to get us to the Eurostar a bit earlier. This was good because we waited in line for ages to get to the end of the queue only to be told we were in the wrong one and we had to go somewhere else. Now, we went to teller number 4 only to be told to go to number 5 and then back to number 3 where we asked the supervisor. He said wait here, we need to prioritize other passengers first for an earlier train. So we did, then he disappeared and we stood around like monkeys.

Eventually someone came past and said are you waiting for something or someone. So we told him and he helped us get through. This was the first time I really felt like a foreigner. Then I had to go through another border control. Where the teller gave me upheaval about my passport photo saying why isn’t it clear. Blame SA home affairs how am I supposed to know. After a little bit of third degree however he let me pass where I then set off the metal detector and had to be searched. Travelling really isn’t easy for a South African! Well we made it onto the Eurostar eventually for a one hour train ride to France. Let the Holiday begin!