Just one week ago I was living it up in London! The pupose of my trip was to attend a recruitment fair at Oxford University but of course I took advantage of my time and enjoyed seeing friends. I landed Wednesday morning and took the Heathrow express to Paddington where I was staying at the Hilton there. It would not be my choice if I were on holiday but for work it was convenient to be at the train station. One of my college friends from Boston, Jennifer Puccetti, took her niece Cathryn to London for her high school graduation gift and it happened to coincide with my time there. We met for lunch at a little outdoor brasserie where I enjoyed a croque monseiur (yeah for ham!) and a glass of wine. This was Cathryn's first trip to London. She will be heading off to UMASS Amherst in the fall to study nutrition science. Her family owns Wright's Dairy Farm and Bakery in Rhode Island and her goal is to open an ice cream shop. Check out their website: www.wrightsdairyfarm.com. I can confirm that their Hermits are amazing! My friend Jennifer works for Partners In Health- for any of you who may have read Mountains Beyond Mountains about Paul Framer's work in Haiti. Jennifer works with Paul! And she will tell you if you haven't read Mountains Beyond Mountains you should and I second it as a must read. The weather was absolutely perfect- blue skys and not too hot or too cool. After a bit of walking we decided to take a double decker bus tour. It has been some time since I was a real tourist in London. So much fun to see Big Ben and the Eye and Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus and Marble Arch...
Now what to do on a Wednesday evening in London in July? Spend it with my friend Oz Mustafa watching the World Cup! Oz is in the field of education marketing and started his own company- Future Student USA a little over a year ago: www.futurestudentusa.com. He works with universities in the US to recruit international students and we met at a conference in 2001. We watched Roger Federer at the US Open that same year and always say we brought him luck and made him the tennis star he is today. Oz will be moving to NYC for the summer to do some work with a conference planning orgainzation that is looking to break into the education market. We watched Uruguay beat South Africa at the Sports Cafe near Picadilly where I was wishing I had a vuvuzela. After cheering with the Spanish fans we walked to Covent Gardens for delicious Mexican food- not something I eat in Saudi Arabia unless I am making tacos at home. Oh and there was a bit of a detour into an arcade casino that was quite good people watching. Thank you Oz for a fun night out on London town and see you in NYC!
With a bit of a heavy head Thursday morning I made my way to Oxford. It is a quick one hour train ride from London and a lovely quaint town. I arrived early enough to walk around a bit, take some pictures and have lunch. The program was held in the Town Hall which is a beautiful building. I spoke to a number of students- mostly in the area of Applied Maths as KAUST partners with Oxford in this area. By evening I was headed back to London and a night out with my friend Bill Straughn. Bill works for Boston University with the Alumni Relations and Development Office so we worked closely when I was at BU. You may recognize him from a previous blog as he covers the Gulf and Middle East so when I was in Riyadh earlier in the year he was also there. How fortunate that he was invited to the Deutsche Bank Summer Party at the Wallace Collection- a national museum in a London townhouse. Over-the-top doesn't begin to describe the party. My friend Carol Easton always advises to travel with a cocktail dress because you never know when you are going to be invited to an event. Well I ALWAYS heed her advice. However, since I was only going to be in London for two nights I mistakenly did not pack a cocktail dress...and did I ever regret it. In addition to the incredible decor- torches and luminaries outside, a glass roofed courtyard, flower arrangements and limes! The catering/food would put Martha Stewart to shame. Passed hors d'oeuvres included mini tarts with quail eggs, potato crisps served standing on edge, tomato soup served in miniature bottles with straws, and others. There was a pasta station that had about 10 differnt kinds of pasta served in little bowls and a dessert station to die for. Mini canning jars had tiramisu or chocolate cherry cake, pink marshmallows on sticks, truffles on sticks, mini passion fruit tarts. Let's just say there was no need to go out to dinner! And the champagne just kept flowing. What a great event- Thank you for inviting me as your guest Bill!
Little did I know when I left for the airport Friday morning that it would be quite the trip home. My flight leaving London was delayed so I missed my connection to Jeddah in Frankfurt- by all of about 10 minutes. I got to the gate just as the plane was taxiing and the Lufthansa check-in crew were leaving. Had they been kind enough to delay the flight for 15 minutes I would have made it. Lufthansa was 'kind' enough to rebook me on Egyptair to Cairo and then Saudi Arabian Airlines to Jeddah getting me in at midnight so really only 4 hours later that expected. But the new route was quite the adventure. And do you really think my luggage is going to adjust to the new route? Cairo is not my favorite city- not my least favorite but not even in the top 20. Lufthansa would only issue a boarding pass for the Cairo flight so I had to get a boarding pass once I got to Cairo. I also had to change terminals. This involved surrendering my passport to an Egyptair employee and waiting in a transit area for a shuttle bus. Luckily there was a very nice German man who was not on my flights but also switching terminals. I sat anxiously waiting, keeping the man with my passport always in my sight. I hate not holding my passport when I travel. We were eventually taken out to a minivan which took us to the other terminal where we went through what I would call, 'very loose' security. An Egyptian police officer took our passports and showed us to the transit lounge where we would wait for our respective airline employees to come get us. I only had about an hour before my flight left but the poor German guy was on a Delta flight to NYC at 1:00 in the morning so he has a few hours to wait. And they wouldn't let him go to the business class lounge without his boarding pass. He was very interesting- works for the UN and most recently lived in Geneva. He moved to NY with his wife from the Ivory Coast and daughter a year ago and their son was just born in NY last fall. He had also lived in Cairo as a teenager. In any event, eventually a Saudi Arabian Airline employee came and got me. We went to the police officer where he got my passport, filled out some carbon multiple page form which was stamped a few times by the police officer. Then he asked me to go back to the transit lounge and wait for five more minutes. Ten minutes later and about 20 minutes before my flight departure he returned and we went back to the police officer where more papers were stamped and a an entry was written in a big ledger book. As the nice man from Saudi Arabian Airlines was walking me to the gate he mentioned that he couldn't locate my baggage number anywhere. Oh my gosh this was the oldest plane I have ever been on. There were still ash trays and numbers written in magic marker on the arms of the seats. Some of the seats were in permanent recline position and the little pillows were all stained and yellow. I even saw electric tape holding one set together. Now, when I was in Frankfurt, Lufthansa told me that this flight's business class was full but I wanted to get home so I said I would be just fine in ecomonly class. In actuality, there was no business class and it was open seating. It was the first time I was glad to put on my abaya so that my clothing wouldn't touch the seat and I didn't even put my head back. Most certainly an awful two hours. My luggage was missing from the carousel as expected but of course I had to wait around for it all to come up before I could file my lost luggage claim. By now it was 1:00 am and the nice man took my number and said he would text me when my luggage arrived. I really had no faith. The form he completed had so little information. But now for the happy ending to this long story... the next afternoon I received a text message that my luggage had been located and arrived in Jeddah! It did involve a trip to the airport- which I am not sure if I have mentioned before- but is one hour each way. Luckily Jamal was leaving for the US after work so I had company on my way to the airport, successful luggage retrieval and return trip home.
It is the weekend thank goodness. Lots of laundry to do and on Sunday I leave for St. Petersburg, Russia. This will be a holiday with my friend Chris Watson- former BU colleague and current Dean of Admissions at Northwestern University in Chicago. I do fly Lufthansa through Frankfurt but have a safe 7 hour layover.
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