Hey! I've Been There!

Brad, Rich and Jon on Hadrian's Wall.

 During my final year at Concordia Seminary, my friends Jon, Brad, and I would find ourselves watching Travels in Europe with Rick Steves on PBS, after midnight.  That year, quite a few episodes followed Rick through Great Britain.  

 

And nearly every night, at some moment (or moments!) Jon would exclaim, "Hey!  I've been there!"  You see, before seminary, Jon had spent an academic term as an exchange student from Concordia College Ann Arbor at Oak Hill College in the northern suburbs of London.   

 

As that year went on, and in the year that followed, the dreams grew and developed.  I purchased DK's Eyewitness Travel books on Great Britain and London, studying and listing my hoped-for sites.  Jon spent another exchange year, this time at Westfield House (the Lutheran house of studies at Cambridge University.)  So the day after Easter, Brad met me in Chicago, we boarded a Red Eye flight with American Airlines to Heathrow, and met Jon for a two-week holiday.

Using a post box created during the reign of my hero King George VI.

 

We spent a week in London, visiting Christian sites like St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, touring fabulous museums like the British Museum, and Churchill's War Rooms, and enjoying literary locations like 

84 Charing Cross Road and 221b Baker Street.  Numerous parks, memorials and monuments, and self-guided walking tours filled these days.

The following week, we rented a car and put 1000 miles on it!  Westfield House was our home base, and we took day trip excursions to Canterbury, Dover, Glastonbury and Stonehenge, and a couple days in Scotland to see Edinburgh and Inverness. 

So many locations found us recalling a Travels in Europe episode, and one of us would blurt out, "Hey! I've been there!"  It was a thrill (even if a little obnoxious) to show a little glee and exclaim that phrase.  It was celebrating the moment of experience.  I am so thankful we did this in the era before we are all so absorbed in our cell phones, and actually appreciated it all, "present" and focused together.

My hope and prayer for those who travel with me is that they too can enjoy and savor the God-given experinece, and have a little youthful joy in sharing (but not bragging), "Hey! I've been there!"

Brad and Rich on a lion at Trafalger Square.