Skipping over the ocean, like a stone...

Now that my incessant status reporting on our blizzard can come to an end (I've been a bit giddy today, I must admit), I want to share a couple fun moments of my travels home.

I left LCC on Monday afternoon, with a flight to London, where I had to stay overnight before catching my flight to Denver on Tuesday. Fortunately, since it is the tradition of newly minted LCC grads to move to London to seek their fame & fortune, I have no shortage of friends to stay with there now! One of my friends from Miesto Baznycia (my church in Klaipeda) graciously hosted me. Egle and I enjoyed a wonderful, typically English morning walk along the Thames before I joined the crushing crowd on the Tube out to Heathrow.

Since it's the week before Christmas, the happy Picadilly line trains are currently jammed with holiday travelers (I counted what looked to be several parent with child pairings, probably students whose parent had come to join up with them at term end). I happend at first to get on a train that terminated earlier than I needed, and so at one point had to jump across the platform and onto the right train.

As I slid into the empty seat, I heard a guy say "Wow, I guess I must be more popular than I thought!" - and I looked up to see a guy with a guitar, who began playing "Jingle Bells" as the train took off. His words were something like, "Dashing to Heathrow... on a Picadilly train... " etc. It was hilarious because he'd interrupt the song at points to say things like, "welcome folks to the only show that is literally driving people out of London!"

I looked around at the faces of people on the train, everyone trying not to look at each other, but smiles clearly itching in the corners of their eyes, twitching at the corners of mouths. The guitarist began playing an old song (whose title I admit I had to look up), "Everybody's Talking At Me" - which has the most perfect traveling lyrics possible: "skipping over the ocean, like a stone."

It was one of those moments in life when it seemed like everyone there was feeling the same way, that for a moment everybody was lifted out of the crowded stress of the city and the hurry of making a connection and the worry about being on time - music pulled us all up out of the situation enough that we could see its beauty. Here we all are on a train, and a guy is playing music, and its Christmas time, and we're all on our way home, together.

One additional note: Though you may be in London, one of the fashion capitals ofthe world, but you will know that you're waiting for a flight to Colorado when you count no less that 10 people wearing North Face jackets, in addition to those people wearing fleeces, hooded CSU sweatshirts, or Mountain Hardwear equipment!