London Heathrow

We made it to Heathrow airport on schedule. On the plane, we chatted briefly with a man from Montana, travelling with his wife and late-teen, early-20s children. We later stood in line with him at the South African Airways desk, gettting our boarding passes for South Africa.

We had planned to hook up with Sam at Heathrow - his flight from Seattle arrived within 10 minutes of ours. However, Heathrow makes O'Hare airport and the Atlanta airport, which are approximately as busy, seem compact and well-organized. We took the bus from Terminal 4, where we landed, to terminal 5, where Sam landed. Sam was continuing on British Airways, so he did not need to leave terminal 5. We, however, were not allowed into terminal 5 because we did not have a British Airways boarding pass, and Terminal 5 is all British all the time. We asked the friendly but firm agents to get a message to Sam that we would meet him in Johannesburg, aka Jozi.

Then we took another long bus ride to Terminal 1, where South African Airways is. We shared a quesadilla at a restaurant named "Giraffe" and sat next to an Honduran named George Coleman. (I know, you'd think he would be a politician from St. Paul, but he was actually from Honduras.) He captains a ship that supplies the Angola oil fields, and was on his way to work, 60 days on and 45 days off. George invited us to visit him in Honduras - he lives on a Carribean island there. I gave him my email address, hoping he renews his invitation by email.

We are now halfway through our 7-hour layover. The Nigeria-Argentina game is on TV in the waiting room. Argentina is leading, 1-0. We are excited to continue with the last leg of our trip. We will be on the plane during the USA-England game. I hope the pilot gives us regular updates!