In honour of our impending arrival, this week’s Travelling Tuesday Shot is one Mark took in South Africa. Â We’ll actually be in the middle of our travels when this hits the web — in Dubai on our way to Johannesburg! Â Enjoy the photo, and the backstory is below!
Hi guys and gals. Thanks for your prayers. We’ve made it safely to Scotland! We just had one slight delay on our long flight from New Jersey to Edinburgh, so we hung out in the airport there for a wee while. Asher was, as usual an absolute star traveller. He didn’t get to sleep until 11 pm Wednesday night and was still his sweet lil’ self yesterday. We’ve been welcomed to Edinburgh with temps in the 50s (Fahrenheit), rain, clouds, wind and darkness. It feels like a confirmation from the Lord that this is not where He wants us anymore. Sure is a cold confirmation! Here’s the top travel story from this adventure:
So you know how the computers at the airport have the touch screens on the front side that are connected to the travel assistant’s computer behind the counter? Well…at our departure from RDU, I swiped my passport to start checking us in, and it didn’t come up as having a travel itinerary, so the flight attendant came to swipe Mark’s and help sort us out. Our computer sort of froze, so she switched to the other touch screen, but went behind the counter to start searching because I still wasn’t coming up on the itinerary. Â Someone else came along to check in and started using the front side of the computer while was she was still busy searching for our itinerary at the back. I tried to say, “I think she’s using that one…” but the lady had a Continental assistant helping her, and they didn’t seem bothered and just kept on checking her in. I thought, guess it’s not a problem then. Eventually the lady helping us found me in the itinerary, checked us in, took our bags, gave us our boarding passes and we were off to se-cur-ity (a la Bon Qui Qui).
But guess what? Â When we arrived in Edinburgh, two of our bags were missing. Where have they gone, you might ask? Well, they were tagged with the labels for the other lady who was using the computer in front of the counter while the flight attendant was taking care of our stuff on the other side! If they’d only listened! So they’re in Portland. Yeah, that’s Oregon. Mark is without all of his clothing, and we’re minus our toiletries, half the baby’s clothes, most of my shoes, and some other stuff. They are supposed to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully Mark can make it in his shorts until then. Thankfully, a lot of our stuff did make it, and nothing is lost per se.
So, yay, we’ve arrived safely. As I’m finishing this, the sun is beginning to break from the clouds. We’re looking forward to seeing our friends around here again. We’ll be here through the weekend and then the journey to South Africa will begin!
xCC
This is a “Traveling Wednesday” because we are actually traveling today, and a wee ways into tomorrow. Mark, Asher and I are on our way to Scotland for a few days before the journey to South Africa begins. Having a round trip ticket looks better to the US government (since Mark is in the middle of the spousal visa process) and it was cheaper to get a one way from Edinburgh than from North Carolina. (AND we get to say hello and goodbye to our dear friends in Edinburgh again!) We take off tomorrow afternoon and arrive in Scotland Thursday morning. If you fancy praying for us, feel free to pray that Asher will be happy and peaceful, we won’t have any delays and things will go smoothly, our stuff will arrive safely, we’ll get upgraded to better seats and have lots of room, and that there will be warm weather in Scotland when we arrive! =) (No reason not to ask, hey?)
We’ll leave Scotland September 7th, arrive in Johannesburg September 8th, and fly to Cape Town September 9th. Perhaps let’s add in one more prayer — that Asher’s teeth, who are long overdue, won’t decide now’s the time to make their grand appearance. Praise the Lord who is with us in every circumstance and holds all things together…airplanes, suitcases…and even teeth!
xCC
I’ve decided to bring a new wee feature to the blog, for your viewership enjoyment, which will be Traveling Tuesdays. My dear friend Rob likes to spell travelling with two l’s, which is totally okay, according to my Mac Dictionary, and sort of makes sense, because the two-l spelling is chiefly British, and so is he, in a Zimbabwean sort of way. This isn’t really a problem unless he sets up your wireless router for you, and tells you ‘travelling’ is the password, without spelling it. I’m sure you can figure out where the trouble comes in.
Since we’re doing a good bit of ‘travelling’ these days, and Mark and I have both had some good opportunities to travel in the past, I thought you might enjoy a few snapshots from here and there. I was thinking of letting you guess where each one is from, but that seems a bit trite. Feel free to give feedback. I’ll try to include a story with each pic if it has a good one.
Without further ado, let the Travelling Tuesdays…begin.
This is possibly one of my most favourite travel shots ever.
Hopefully, you can guess the location. The backstory: Mark and I were closing accounts in Edinburgh before our move to South Africa, and discovered we had enough miles on our Airmiles card to head to either Dublin or Paris. It was either use ’em or lose ’em and we couldn’t use them towards our upcoming flights to America or South Africa, so we said, well thanks very much, I guess we’ll make the most of ’em! Â We were able to go over our second anniversary, and the trip was amazing, wonderful, and super special. How many kids can say they made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower before their first birthday? 🙂
xCC
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