Would you fancy a cup of tea?

I always saw scenes of people running through the airport in movies or when I’ve walked through the airport. In these scenes I imagine people with big backpacks and grand plans of adventure, normally having corresponding colored clothes and running through the airport because of some intense reason, maybe they just saved a child or let someone take their seat on the bus. My mind has woven stories and I’ve thought, “How wonderful that must be, how exciting and adventurous. I want to do that and run through the airport. I'll add it to my bucket list.” After it happens to you your thoughts change; it becomes less of a desirable situation, though the adventure aspect of it remains just as I imagined it. Your blood pumps just as I imagined, you sweat just as much, and the feeling of relief when you sit down on the plane is just as sweet.

Robin and I went to Bristol, England this weekend. While in Europe we wanted to pick a random place and go and the place ended up being Britain, though that was not the original plan. From the beginning, the trip was a little stressful. The primary reason to go to Bristol was to meet up with one of Robin’s closest friends. The night before we left, this friend cancelled her flight unexpectedly. We were all packed and left right after class, planning on arriving to the bus station with plenty of time to spare. The two-hour bus to the airport that we were planning to take was full so we waited an hour for the next one. At the airport we hurried through everything and made it to our gate with 15 minutes to spare. “Whoo, we made it!” I thought as we were in the boarding line for our flight that was leaving at 9.40. I looked over and for another outbound flight a man showed up while the sign flashed “Last Call”. I turned to Robin, “Wow, that guy cut it close, I’m glad he’s going to make it.” Little did I know that we would cut it even closer. We got up to the gate attendant, it was 9:18. She tells us that we needed a visa stamp on our boarding pass that we didn’t have and that we need to go get it. It was before security and she didn’t know if we would make it. The funny thing was that two people before her had checked both our boarding passes and our passports and said nothing of the matter. We looked at each other in panic and took off. We ended up going all the way one direction where a guy directed us at first and it was the wrong way; we continued all the way out of security to the random counter to get the stamp and all the way back through. While running I was thinking to myself what lesson Jesus was trying to teach me, maybe one about how money doesn’t matter, thinking I was going to miss my flight and loose a couple hundred dollars, or about how His plans are different than mine…I still for sure don't know how this played into what Jesus was teaching me this weekend. 

We ended up arriving to our gate for the second time sweaty and out of breath at 9.38 “espera, espera!” “Wait, wait!” we shouted. We made it, walked on the plane a pile of sweat and bags and relief. The rest of the weekend continued in adventure with our interesting hostel experience, talking in British accents the whole weekend, and enjoying scones and tea.

We returned home last night around midnight and leave tonight for Morocco for 6 days. Wow. So many different cultural experiences being thrown at me and I’m loving it.