I'm back in the good old USA and home from the motherland! I had such an awesome trip! I'm sorry that I didn't post more often but I didn't have time or constant internet access. I did survive though because I had my crackberry, although you would be proud of me that I didn't check it every ten minutes!
But I had a great time! I was there for 12 days and still didn't get a chance to see everything! It rained most every day but that didn't stop us! We went to the Tower of London, which is a bit of a misnomer since it's a village and not just a tower! I had to keep reminding myself that we were not at Busch Gardens but the REAL thing! We saw the Crown Jewels and the tower of torture where prisoners carved things into the wall over FIVE hundred years ago. I thought about trying to carve "Becky was here" but I'm pretty sure the security would have caught me before I got through the 'B'.
We also went to All Souls Church on Sunday and then had tea at Kensington Gardens. I don't drink tea or coffee but I did pay 7 pounds for a small croissant. That basically meant every time I took a bite, it cost me 2 dollars. But I guess I was paying for the experience! It was beautiful! We also toured Kensington Palace which is where Princess Diana lived. Most of the tour focused on Queen Victoria and people who lived hundreds of years ago but I did get my Diana fix in the two rooms of her dresses.
On Monday, Ashley and I went to see Westminster Abbey. We had run inside for a brief moment the previous week but I wanted to do the tour. It was absolutely beautiful! We were there for more than two hours taking in all the beauty and history! I also learned a lot but I have to tell you, there is SOOO much English history to keep track of! I love history but my mind starts to go to mush when thinking of one thousand years of history with different people who all have one of about six names. My favorite line of all the royal tours was "Queen (insert any queen) met her husband at the family reunion"! I heard it more than once!
Tuesday we saw the Clarence House which is the London home of Prince Wales and the Duchess of Cormwall (Charles and Camilla) as well as Princes William and Harry. They weren't there and in fact when we asked about them, the very British tour guide Anita rolled her eyes at us. She said with a pure British accent "All these young girls want to do is see the pictures of the Princes." Finally some old lady came to our defense and said "I do too!" She called Prince William "dishy" and invited us to come see her because she lived nine miles from some royal estate where the young princes played in a treehouse. Maybe one day I'll take her up on that offer!
Sorry this post is so long but I did want to share a little bit about my trip. The real reason we were there was to minister to Mslims visiting from the Arabian Peninsula. Over twelve days, we handed out almost 3000 copies of the Bible in Arabic and one man prayed to receive Christ. It was awesome! I was out of my comfort zone but in a purely good way. My team was wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know people from all across the world, but especially Ashley and Kristen from Tech who are such great people. I'm not sure what it says about me that I got along great with girls who are a decade younger than me... I'm sure I'm immature at times but these girls are phenomenal!
Now I'm trying to get back to the real world. I left London a day before the rest of the team because I was supposed to go to Texas with POTUS this morning. But without checking with me first, he decided to postpone his trip to deal with the crisis in Georgia (the country not the state). So I'll have the extra bonus of sleeping in my bed more than one night before I head back out on the road for a while!!
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