Touch Down

And we're back. The entire return journey was very tiresome. We left Windsor at 4pm, thinking that would leave us enough time to check in for our 7pm flight, but what we always underestimate in England is traveling time. We realised at this point, that missing our international flight was inevitable...tempers flared up and fights broke out due to pure exhaustion and hopelessness. Sitting on the floor of one of the many trains we took, giving each other the silent treatment or barely acknowledging their existence, my dad received an SMS telling us that our international flight had been delayed by three hours. We did not know that this was an absolute blessing in disguise since we had not realised at this point that we would have missed our flight had it not been delayed, so we all gave out a sigh of desperation knowing that this delay would cause us to miss our domestic flight the next day. But God knew EXACTLY what he was doing.

We grudgingly stepped off the train, dragging our stuffed bags behind us, and walked to the nearest bus stop since we were no longer in a huge rush to be at the airport by 5pm for check-in. We waited fifteen minutes, twelve of those amounting to how late our bus was to pick us up. At this moment, since none of us were talking to each other, I made out a whisper next to me. A young man, probably a few years older than me was trying to tell me something, but I did not quite understand his accent. I asked him to repeat himself and he told us all that the bus driver told him to tell us that we had to walk to another bus stop because the bus we were expecting was stuck in traffic due to an accident. He said he was busing to Heathrow too and was trying to return to his home in Moscow. He ended up waiting with us for the next bus, helping us with our bags at every stop. He was unbelievably kind and chatty. Definitely an earthly Angel sent to help us and give us a message.
So of course, at the end of the day we realised that the plane had been delayed so that we could make the flight at all, and the young, Russian man had been sent to guide us to the correct bus stop. Obviously this can all be taken as luck, coincidence, or even as nothing at all, especially not a gift from God...but then if it was that easy to decipher why certain things happen, there would be no such thing as faith would there?

What I will miss the most about this trip will be the grass growing on the roofs of most Baltic homes; the decadent food on the cruise; feeding all the furry and feathery creatures at various stops; the vicious and merciless cyclists on the roads; and even though I found it tough at times, seeing God in every situation...bad, good or absolutely hopeless. But, all in all, it is good to be home.

Our cats think so too.

Activities and aching feet

The last few days have been so jam-packed with walking to and from different activities that our swollen, little feet burn even to get out of bed to brush our teeth. Nicole is assured that if she even attempted to put her takkies back on, her toes would cling on to the sides of the shoe in protest. But I guess that that is traveling for you...we've all decided that next time we will leave the luxurious cruise for last.

We visited the London Sea Life Aquarium ended up becoming a favourite attraction for some of us in London overall. We saw sharks and turtles and luminous jelly fish. But the best part was walking through the all-glass tunnel, and watching the enormous Great White sharks swim beneath you.
We then took a train to Oxford street where we tasted our first cookie from Ben's Cookies. This is a huge, moist, milk-chocolate-melt-in-your-mouth cookie with various other ingredients. Jules had peanut butter added and Nix and I added orange peel chips. That same day we took two underground tubes and one overground train to Windsor where we decided to retire early to prepare us for our super exciting day the next day where we had an absolutely amazing time at Legoland. We all decided that the wet rides were the best since it was so hot that day. However, Miniland was extremely impressive too. To think that Lego builders have built these huge model replicas merely out of Lego, blows one's mind. I tried to capture as many of these models as possible, but the pictures do not do them justice.

For our last day in Windsor we walked around the town, checking out all the hospice shops for anything vintage to buy. Unfortunately, their prices in hospice shops are equal to our prices in a normal store, like Edgars. Nothing for R5 that used to be worn by some 80 year old woman back in her teen years...
We fed a few hundred more swans,geese, ducks and cheeky pigeons and then spoiled ourselves to a traditional British pasty (basically a delicious Cornish pie) and the most amaaaazing milkshakes that have ever existed at Shakeaway. I had a chocolate fudge brownie with crushed After Midnight and Aero chocolates (I know right); Jules had a Ferrero Rocher balls, Kinder Bueno and Flake mixture and Nicole had a strawberry cheesecake marshmallow and Oreo concoction. This place had more than 140 different flavours with odd human names...Julianne's was called Dave for some reason. However, the funniest one was called "Wicked Wendy" and consisted of frozen peas, pickled onions and whipped cream...I'm not sure if they were joking or not...

Tomorrow we return to South Africa. We have all been saying that we are ready to go home now, as one usually feels when they have left boyfriends, family, pets and goldfish behind, but I know that we will not feel that way tomorrow...even though we return to the place called home, it is always more difficult when the actual moment arises to leave.