Our last stop in the UK was a visit to London. We stayed with some friends in the suburb of Hounslow which is close to Heathrow Airport. Julia and her friend met when they did a semester in Europe together while in university. She and her husband serve as missionaries in Hounslow to the very large immigrant and asylum population which have settled in the Hounslow area. We have visited them once before, a long time ago, and it was good to reconnect.
They had a busy weekend with us being there! We overlapped one night with a large church group from the US that was there to help out for the week before, they had a Sunday prayer walk planned with the church that we participated in, and they had a send off party for a couple that had been there serving for the past month. In spite of that, we had time to just hang out, play games (Times Ups!), and still see some of the sites.
Downtown
We took the Underground into downtown London for a quick tour of some of the sites. The rain held off while we were in the Tower of London area and when we went up the Sky Garden tower, but after that it rained for a good spell which made our times at Westminster and Buckingham Palace a bit shorter.
Tower bridge.
The Tower of London.
View of downtown London from Sky Garden.
Big Ben and Westminster.
The London Eye.
Buckingham Palace.
Windsor Castle
On a sunnier day, we decided to visit Windsor Castle. Since we didn’t tour anything in London, we opted to do the audio tour here. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but it was pretty interesting to see such a large and still functional castle.
The model of Windsor Castle from 1317 which isn’t too far off from the current configuration. A painting depicting St. George’s Hall from 1830-1992. There was a massive fire in 1992 and most of the hall was destroyed. The reconstruction did a pretty good job of restoring what it was before.
Final Good-byes
The ’98 YA from Zambia lives in London and was originally going to meet us in Cardiff with the YA from Hong Kong. However, there were issues with the trains so she couldn’t make it. Thankfully we had a bit of time in the morning before our flight and we met her for a quick coffee/tea before heading to the airport. She was also in the prayer group with Julia during COVID, but this was the first time they met in person so it was another special meeting!
(As a fun aside, this picture was taken at a garden center which in the London area is more than just a garden center. It is a mix of all sorts of things, like clothes, household items, toys, etc. but most importantly a large restaurant with decent scones and coffee and lots of free parking making it an ideal meeting place.)