Somehow, by some ridiculous stroke of luck, I made it to Oxford. The angst level was actually the highest in Minneapolis, rather than London like I'd anticipated. It's not that I had any reason to be angsty, but boy was I.



I had decided against taking the fake crutches in an attempt to get the airport people to steer me around on their golf cart, so I now knew for sure that I would die alone in the London airport and that the airport people would think that my collapsed corpse was a cavity for an illegal drug transfer and would chop me up in search of drugs and bombs.



Fortunately, none of that happened.



I in fact did find my luggage quite easily and promptly grabbed a trolley that had presumably been set aside for my travel pleasure. I quickly learned, however, that the trolley had not been put there for me by God, but likely angrily shoved aside by a frustrated traveler that realized that one of the dumb wheels didn't work. Nonetheless, I persevered with the dumb wheel trolley, telling myself that the burn in my arms felt good and the evolutionary ape stance I resorted to in order to push the dumb thing made me look like I was walking with confidence.



Luckily, I had arrived in terminal 4.

The only terminal that my information packet provided no instructions for.

Thus, I had to make it to my pick of teminal 1, 2, 3, or 5.



Now, if you know me well, you know that I have no common sense to speak of. None. At all. This is important to remember as you picture me trying to make my way around the airport with the dumb wheel trolley.

So, I know Jesus says to take the "narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it" (Matthew 7:13), but well, I decided to take whatever gate my bags fit through. Thus, I started to just get on trains for awhile. Just for the heck of it. I mean, I kind of liked being ridiculously hot and lugging the dumb wheeel trolley around. So after I did the train thing for awhile, I then decided I should maybe be more purposeful about getting to a fruitful destination (aka, the right terminal).

Thus, I leaned over the man on my left and asked him if he could please tell me what terminal I was currently at. It was at this point that I befriended Taj, who helped me eventually get out of the airport. I don't know that he worked at the airport. He may have, but gosh I don't know. Anyway, he was very insistent on helping me carry my luggage so I prayed fervently that he was not going to make a break for it (considering that bag contained my white board!). Luckily, Taj was just a friendly man. In fact, he insisted that he give me his email and phone number and offered to come pick me up at Oxford and drive me into London for coffee sometime.

We'll see, Taj, we'll see.

Anyway, then I stood there and missed 3 of the buses I was supposed to get on. That part wasn't my fault, the bus drivers kept telling us they didn't have enough room for our luggage. Then I pulled/carried roughly 100 pounds of luggage for a really long time--uphill--on a road with many potholes. I was going to lie down on the street and let death just take me there, but I persisted.

Now, I reckon I'm here. It is weird.

We had a house orientation where they told us things that sounded to me like: "YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN ATTEMPT TO FIGURE ANYTHING OUT, BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE HERE ANYWAY."

So that part was stressful.

"Sara, would you like a rape whistle to blow while you get routinely attacked on the 35 minute walk on the non-lit, wooded path home?" "Why yes, yes I would please." (Don't worry mom, I'm exaggerating). But I've decided against buying a bike because you have to ride in the street with all of the buses, and most people die when they do this. (again, mom).

Throughout the next week, I think all we do is get overloaded with information about how we don't know how to do anything and are thus going to die. Angst. Bloody angst.

Well, I reckon I'd better go because I don't yet have an adaptor for my laptop and thus need to conserve power.

Best,

Sara