Travels with Tammy/Wisdom from Watson

**My Mom visited over Easter, and it was wonderful! She offered to author a blog post on it. Without further ado I present...Travels with Tammy**

    I’ve learned from different friends that alliteration helps people remember. That’s why I can still remember the “ROYER REPORT” and “REV RAG” even though I haven’t read either one for close to two decades. Let me explain the two titles for this blog, then we can get to the actual content.

    When Corrie left for London last August, I gave her a huge hug and figured that I’d see her again in a year. Samuel had plans to visit. Dave, her Dad, might end up over there on a work trip and would have a chance to say "hi" to her, and that would be enough. Then my wonderful husband took a look at all of the air miles that he had accrued. To him it made more sense for me to go and spend several days then for him to show up and share a meal. Made sense to me, so that’s how I ended up traveling across the ocean and spending Easter in London with Corrie. The other title came from Corrie...in a way. As a proud mom, and the mission board chair, I keep encouraging (nagging) Corrie to update her blog. She shares these incredible stories with me! I just want everyone one hear them! She commented that I could be Watson to her Sherlock. She could live the life that God’s given her and I could report on it. Somehow, I think that she figured since she wasn’t here, life would stop for me. (Her dad and 4 brothers might take offense at that, but as the only girl, she gets a lot of leeway.) So there you go. The blog will probably be more “Travels” than “Wisdom,” but I’ll start typing and we’ll see what happens.

    I’ll start this by saying that the trip was in God’s timing, not mine. As usual. My plan was to go in May and get home just in time for Mother’s Day. That way the boys would REALLY appreciate me. But when Dave started looking at his miles, it worked out that he could send me business class a month earlier. Of course, I’d have to fly through Frankfurt but business class sounded really good so why not? Then we got the actual dates. It came right after a very busy time for our family. We wrapped up our 6th performance of “The King and I” on Sunday, April 9th, cleaned up the church on Monday, April 10th, and I was on the plane Tuesday, April 11th. It worked out perfectly because I was too tired to be stressed about the travel part.

    I got on the plane (“Hello, Mrs. Greenidge. Would you like orange juice, water, or champagne while we wait to take off? Here’s a menu. I’ll be by later to hear your selections."), had a nice meal, reclined the seat all the way back, put in my head phones, and slept. Colony House, Switchfoot, and John Forman sang me across the ocean.

    Customs was a new experience but not a bad one. The international travelers in my family told me to keep answers short and clear. I might have said a little to much. When the scary man sitting on a platform where I had to look up to him, asked me why I was in London, I said, “To visit my daughter.” So far so good. “Why is your daughter here?” That one caught me a little off guard. “Oh! She’s interning with LCM in Central London. It’s a...” I was getting ready to continue when he rolled his eyes, stamped my passport, and told me to move on.

    Again, my wise, world traveling husband helped me out by encouraging me to pack carry on, so I didn’t have to deal with baggage claim. I get through the gate and there she is! My Neeka! (Yes, it’s one of her many nicknames. Don’t ask me why. We started calling her that when she was a baby, and it stuck. It’s short for “Corneeka,” A nickname for Cornelia. Our family is a little wacky when it comes to nicknames.”)
    Back to the travels...Corrie has learned to have people take time to eat before the long tube ride to the hostel where she lives. (More on the hostel later.) We had some tea – London, right – and a snack. Then it’s on to the tube, after putting money on our oyster cards. Corrie laughed at me because I kept comparing the Tube to the El in Chicago. The Tube is wider and cleaner, just sayin’. She planned the route so that when we exited the station, the first thing I saw was the Tower of London. Very cool. Sad history but amazing architecture. Her goal at this point was to keep me awake, so we walked across Tower Bridge to get to the hostel, exchanged gifts, went for another walk, and grabbed Thai food for dinner. (Because, I hadn’t been exposed to enough Thai culture lately.) We stopped by a grocery store then headed back to the hostel. After she cleaned the bathrooms (it was her turn), I got a shower and crashed for the night.

    There you go – day one. Don’t worry. I’m not going to do any other days like this. One reason is because it all runs together. We would wake up in the morning, decide what we wanted to do that day, and go from there. There were only two things scheduled, so we had plenty of time to rest. The entire trip was excellent, but there are several that really stand out.  

    The first one was having Good Friday dinner with Yordan and Kalina. I also got to meet their lovely daughter, Pavlina. Corrie knows me well,  so was concerned that I would be anxious about being thrown into a new situation. I had total peace about having dinner with them. They love Jesus and enjoy my daughter. It doesn’t get much better than that! We had tea, snacks, dinner, and dessert while conversing over a couple of different languages and more than a couple of different cultures. A friend of Kalina’s from medical school was visiting from Bulgaria. She doesn’t speak as much English as Yordan and Kalina, but I think she understands quite a bit. She laughed and seemed to enjoy the conversation, with Yordan and Kalina providing translation for all of us. We spent several hours there and I could have stayed longer, except for the whole jet lag thing. Corrie told me once that this is the couple that she could picture Dave and I sitting on our back porch discussing Jesus, kids, life, and missions with...I think that she’s right. I would love to get to know this family better and feel like we only scratched the surface.

    The second scheduled activity was church. After all, it was Easter Sunday! A solid gospel message was presented along with hot cross buns and champagne. You’d have to talk with someone from England to understand the relationship between the church and the government. Evidently, separation of the two is not a bad thing. A survey was taken that week of people who regularly attend church in England. The question was asked, “What do you associate most with Easter?” Hot cross buns came before the resurrection of Jesus. A definite mission field and in the church.

The one thing I regret is not visiting Ridley Christian Center. Samuel got to spend some time there in January and meet the people. The time just seemed to get away from us.

Other adventures/highlights:

-Many walks along the Thames

-Watching Beauty and the Beast with Angelica and Corrie, then going out for a fabulous curry dinner

-Dumping American candy on Elie’s bed

-Discussing food and Lord of the Rings with Quinn

-Getting to meet Aaron who spent his first 12 years in Longmont (It IS a small world)

-Getting to meet Jonathon who was recovering from a cold and not catching me at my best.

-Going to see a west end musical “Half a Six Pence”

-Having the traditional fish and chips. (I didn’t need to eat anything else the rest of the day.)
-Watching a couple of movies and Big Bang Theory while eating pizza and ice cream.

-Finding Harley t-shirts for cousin John 

-Seeing Buckingham Palace but really just needing to find a toilet.

-Paying to use one in St. James Park

-A lot of walking, talking, praying, and even a little crying with one of my all time favorite people

This ends TRAVELS WITH TAMMY.

I’ll do another one that covers Corrie and WISDOM FROM WATSON.

Corrie said she’s looking forward to it...”Watson understood and appreciated Sherlock’s genius.”

Her many adventures will be coming your way soon. Hopefully, I’ll do the title justice.