Sally had to go home on Wednesday night, but Kara and I continued sightseeing on Thursday. We covered a lot of ground in the morning: we walked up ALL of the stairs at St. Paul's Cathedral, fought the crowds to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and then went over the London Bridge to have lunch with SUE TICQUET!
Sue was in charge of the Counselor-in-Training program at Pleasant Valley when I was 15, in 1997. She's been living in England and South Africa, though, so we haven't seen each other in 11 years! I actually thought that Sue was still in South Africa, and only realized she was in London and got in touch the night before. She is exactly how I remember her, and I'm so glad we got to catch up!
After lunch, Kara and I walked back over the Thames on the Tower Bridge. We looked at the Tower of London from the outside, but decided that we didn't have time to go in since I had to get to the airport. We headed back to the hostel to pick up bags, and I got on an airport shuttle bus.
That's when things started to unravel. The ride was supposed to take about an hour (to Stansted, just outside of London in Essex). We ended up being stuck in horrendous rush hour traffic, all the way through the city and then all the way to the airport. I saw a few accidents, so that may have been part of it. In the end, it took us two hours and 40 minutes to get to Stansted. By the time we arrived, I had missed my flight to Amsterdam. I had realized that this would happen while on the bus, and figured that I could just take the next flight… but didn't realize that Stansted is such a small airport, many of the last flights of the day are around 7pm (when mine was). The next flight to Amsterdam wasn't until the following morning, and was scheduled to arrive there at 9:40…. An hour and 30 minutes before my flight to Uganda left! I was really nervous about this because I had to collect my luggage and go through customs and immigration, and then go back around to check in, check bags, go through security, etc. If I missed the flight on Friday to Uganda, the next one wouldn't be until Sunday. But, there was literally no other way to get to Amsterdam so I switched my ticket to that flight. I had the last available seat on the flight.
I stayed at a hotel at the airport for the night, and found out that many other people had also missed flights due to the traffic that afternoon. Apparently, every hotel in a fairly wide radius was fully booked—so I guess I was lucky to be able to get a room! Kara also ended up coming to Stansted on Thursday night, because she was scheduled to fly out early on Friday morning.
We were at the airport at 5:10am on Friday morning, and it was already packed. Every airline had enormous lines to check in. Luckily, I got onto my flight to Amsterdam without any more issues, besides having to pay a completely exorbitant baggage fee (which would have been avoided had I had more time in Amsterdam on Tuesday to store my bigger suitcase). Things in Amsterdam moved pretty quickly, and thankfully, I was able to make it to my gate before boarding began! I have never been so happy to be standing in a security line.
Next up… London pictures and the beginning of Uganda!
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