Punting in Cambridge

What a perfectly delightful day we had in Cambridge! The history is of this great University of the World is fascinating and unending! The sights of early spring with the baby green leaves, fields of daffodils and magnificent architecture is one of the most awe-inspiring in the world.

 

 

After a walk through delightful Clare College we were thrilled with the King’s College Chapel. What a place on earth! The cornerstone was laid on Palm Sunday in 1444 which makes this building over 550 years old (although it took 1000 years to complete). The stained glass was commissioned by Henry VIII. The organ case bears his name along with Anne Boleyn, whom he had beheaded 20 years later. The kids perk up whenever Henry VIII is mentioned because they have been studying British history and he is one of their favorites. If you ask Charlie to tell you about the fate of Henry VIII’s six wives, he instantly replies, “Died, Divorced, De-headed, Died, Divorced, Survived!”

As we walked through the King’s College Chapel Dad whistled (which we later found was against the rules) the theme from Chariots of Fire as we were practically next door to where one of our all time favorite movies was filmed.

 

BUT the hit of the day for the kids was PUNTING!  That means we joined the throngs of people who were enjoying the spectacular sites of Cambridge from a little boat, steered by a guy with a long pole in the manner of Venice minus the charm of the gondola. 

We were all in awe!

Back on solid ground the kids started posing for us. Cuties!

That baby,even though he was all stuffed up, so an ANGEL!

This is how we all felt about our day in Cambridge:

A day never to be forgotten!

Adventures in the Green and Pleasant Land

After hungrily learning about the Berlin Wall on our two hour layover in Berlin, we boarded a plane for England and were so excited to be with the Shumways. The moment we hit British soil, we were in for a wild adventure!

After standing behind about a thousand people in the immigration line that snaked forward about the pace of a very sick turtle, we saw, to our delight, a tall couple in the front of the line who looked familiar.  Rick’s brother Chris and wife Hedy!  We knew that they were coming for a conference at Oxford and that we were going to spend time with them on Monday but we had no idea when they would arrive. We filled the bill for the” Ugly Americans” as we shouted their names across the crowd and it was fun to wave “across a crowded room”. 

Forty five minutes later,we finally met up with Saydi who had gone to the wrong terminal because they had changed which airline we were coming on and didn’t tell us until we got to the airport. She was there with all four kids and a big smile, even though the battery in their “new” car had died and she and Hazel and Charlie (7 and 6)  had helped her push the car into a parking spot and pull on the brake. Jeff, whom we thought would be staying with the kids at home, was at a week-long conference in Boston.

Luckily by the time we got to the car, for some unknown reason, it started and we wended our merry way back on the M25 (the giant freeway circling London) when the car started acting up again. Lights started flashing and it jolted and started losing power. We slipped off the road and luckily ended up at a service station before it actually died. Dead. 

Saydi called her recovery service (for the third time in the month since they got the car) and we walked through a beautiful little village to a lovely old Indian Restaurant where we gorged on that fabulous British/Indian food and waited for the tow truck.. Cute Tim, the tow truck driver happily helped us load all the kids and the car into his giant tow truck and we were off!  In our hurry not to keep him waiting I only got the picture of us in the tow truck and not the car loaded on the back. Darn. You’ll get the idea!

The following picture was taken through a dirty window and zoomed in from the back seat of the tow truck but I want to remember this nice little restaurant that rescued us from some pretty hungry kids. Saydi left after two bites to lead the tow truck driver to the car and finally got some dinner when we got home about 11 p.m.

 

I was in the back with the kids and Dad and Saydi directed the driver toward where we were to drop the car over by the Shumway’s house for our very long drive home. (Dad taking the picture of that funny site!)

 

After we got the kids to bed and something for Saydi to eat, Jeff arrived from his long day on a plane and we filled each other in on details. He had a terrible sore thoat and swollen gland and wasn’t feeling well anyway so the car was just one more complication! They are ready to ask for a refund on the car. Saydi was going through all the “wouda, coulda, shouda” options when they squashed us into a loaner car so we could get to church in the morning. Hazel piped up from the back seat and said, “Mom, you’re over thinking this!”  Ah, so Hazel/Jeff-esque!  She was right of course. It is what it is, but this has been such a quandary for them. She also kept reminding us that “it’s all part of the adventure".  Ah so Hazel/Saydi-esque. 

 

The next morning we proceeded to have a wonderful time at their ward. Beautiful church with more than half black members and a black bishop. What a joy to see that after being there all those years ago when the change in policy had been announced. I stopped the young man from Nigeria playing the organ so beautifully afterward to ask him how he learned to play the organ. He said that he taught himself to play the piano on his mission and then just converted to the organ when he got home. So fun to meet so many lovely people from all over the world in a ward that had 24 baptisms last year. Amazing! 

 

That after noon we headed for Cambridge where we had another grand adventure which will be posted next!

Whirlwind through Germany

From the Polish airport we flew to Munich where the sweetest lady, Sister Irmgard Reiser, who had persuaded us to come to Nuernberg, Germany to do a fireside for the church was waiting for us. She had bravely come by herself and we think this may have been one of the few journeys she has taken like this when she assigned herself to be the guide. We traveled from the plane to about 45 minutes on the subway to the train station where we boarded a bullet train to Nuernberg. Then a dash to the car park and a whirlwind trip through the city, whizzing past the buildings where the Nuremberg Trials after World War II occurred and on to the fireside to a church building about 25 minutes away, We raced to the rest rooms, changed quickly and devoured a lovely little dinner that the senior missionaries had prepared for us in the kitchen and dashed into the chapel about five minutes late. Whew!

They were a fun audience and we had a great time spending some time with them as a fantastic translator translated simultaneously to several people with head phones as we spoke.  

It was a delight to see so many lovely people, many who were military families who were stationed there and whose husbands had been deployed for a up to a year and some who were just getting ready to be deployed. There were single moms, single women, lots of converts and some who were working for the church in the area.

Our favorite had to be the daughter of one of our best missionaries, Elder Hawkes and her darling family. They have two kids 14 months apart and had been having a ball traveling all over Europe just before he would be deployed to Afghanistan next week as a helicopter pilot. Thinking of that young man deploying to a war zone just takes my breath away but it was his lifelong dream!

Bless them!

 

Irmgard didn’t want her picture taken, but she is truly a champion. As the German Stake Relief Society President she has also served a mission as a young woman in Texas, spoke fluent English was caring for her disabled husband who served in the Viet Nam War and has three accomplished grown children. Her daughter is working at the US Embassy in Bagdad, another son is living in South Carolina and another near her in Germany.  The stories that poured out of people afterward were amazing as well as heart-rending!

A senior couple, Brother and Sister Archibald (Arch’s second cousin I think) not only prepared dinner for us dinner but took us back to the most beautiful Holiday Inn we’d ever seen in Nurenberg after the fireside and then picked us up this morning for a quick walk through what must be one of the most be one of the most spectacular examples of a Medieval town in the whole world before dropping us off at the airport.  Here are a few of the things we saw:

Directions to the site of the Nuernberg Trials and the buildings themselves (this is the town where Hitler held many of his rallies in a giant stadium.

 

The village inside the huge city wall:

 

An enormous fountain about the different phases of a family. We decided that the guy who sculpted it didn’t care much for family life! Interesting!

FOREVER CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY!

ENCHANTING!  On to Berlin for a stop-over and then our second home:  ENGLAND!