Rob and Anna's travel adventure

Anna’s entry:

May 31, 2007

There we were… 7:00 a.m. London Heathrow International Airport, not a single piece of luggage made it, and the most important pieces were our two bicycles which we brought all the way from the US… We started our journey in Lincoln, NE where we pedaled to the airport with all our cycling belongings, we had to disassemble our bikes and prepare them for the transatlantic flight, which created the whole show for the airport security. Some were very curious about our planned trip, some were puzzled, some were guarded. At any rate, several airport TSA (transportation safety administration) employees gathered around our “packing station” to make sure that we are not adding “anything that doesn’t belong” in our huge bike boxes. They were very pleased at the end, and send our bikes on the way… After arriving at Heathrow (London, UK), we had to claim our missing luggage, and it took two days for our bikes and other bike panniers, tools, etc. to track them and arrive (we still don’t know why, but the bikes were sent on wrong flights around the world).

Prior to our arrival to London, UK we arranged several stays with local families, who similarly to us are SERVAS member (SERVAS is an independent branch of the UN, which goal is to promote peace and cultural diversity). We spent first two nights in Woking (about an hour away from London) with a local family Clair and Clemens, very progressive and environmentally conscious young couple, who we spent long hours talking and discussing various world issues. A couple of days later we took a train to London – the place I dreamed of visiting since my childhood.