Homeward Bound
Early on July 13, 2011 (Adam's 37th birthday), we left on our homeward journey from Xi’an around the world through Russia, England, Canada, Washington DC, and finally to Salt Lake City. We bade farewell to our home-sweet-hovel and to Mr. Chen, who had come to see us off in the early morning hours after arranging for and loading us and our luggage into a luxury car. We eased back for the drive to the Xi'anyang airport, where we boarded our China Eastern flight for Pudong (Shanghai), where we were to meet our connecting flight to Moscow.
We had determined to take this route home for several good reasons: First, we wanted to avoid even the thoughts of an 18-hour-plane ride from Xi’an to Salt Lake City; second, we looked forward to seeing places we had never seen as well as visiting Stephen and Corinne Sorenson, who have been presiding over the Russia Moscow Mission. Both they and we had been looking forward for literally months to our upcoming visit with them, when they were going to show us their Moscow.
Then just the weekend before we were to leave we received an urgent email message from Steve to call him ASAP. Upon doing so we learned that he had just been released from a 5-day stint in the hospital with blood clots on his lungs. Furthermore, while there the doctors had found a large tumor in his abdomen and he was being flown to Utah on Monday on a medical emergency—two days before we were due to arrive! They were disappointed, as were we, but our concern was far more that he get the medical attention he needed. We assured him we would find a place to stay and still have a great time while missing them.
Thanks to the Internet (of course), I quickly lined up a K-vart apartment in Moscow (for a better price and better situation than the typically expensive Moscow hotel) and President Sorenson arranged to have his assistant pick up tickets for a wonderful evening of music and dance—tickets for only $17 each, thanks to these Russian-speaking elders’ picking them up for us instead of our paying the usual $172 price charge when an English speaker tries to purchase the same thing online. We appreciated his efforts for us, especially when he really needed to be focused on getting himself squared away with his own needs. We look forward to seeing them in Utah.
My mental image of Moscow had been that we would find it a big, dreary and grey city. I was surprised to find it a city that really appealed to me in many ways: We loved the Metro (once we got the hang of the Cyrillic signs) with trains for which we never had to wait more than a minute as they came continuously to collect the millions of people waiting in beautiful marble underground stations. Missing a train was no problem there!
We enjoyed a bus tour of the city to see the sites of the Kremlin with its onion-domed churches, Red Square, the University, and much more. We had perfectly cool weather and found the people to be helpful and interesting, with the food expensive, but good. The sky was blue (so unlike China’s grey), and the city sparkled with vistas. To be sure we saw sad reminders of the Soviet past on all sides of us, but even still, I liked Moscow.
After a tour of Red Square (“red” means beautiful, we were told) and a close-up view of just the exterior of the amazing St. Basil’s Cathedral, we took a metro train out to the suburbs to see a famed Russian shopping area. There we found wonderful groceries and interesting Russian crafts. Our luggage was maxed out at 50 pounds per bag so we were not in the market to buy anything but it was such fun to see the handmade jewelry, pottery, embroidery, and fur items. Seeing such areas, however, always gives me a feel for an area beyond the typical sightseeing stops.
Having successfully connected with the elders who purchased our show tickets for us, on our last night we went to see Kostroma—an amazingly colorful performance of Russian music and dance.
The Muscovites have a unique system of “taxis,” which we loved. If you want to go somewhere you can just hail any car and they will pull over, quote you a standard price (which we learned is set by the government at 200 rubles), and take you to your destination. Thought they have a number of official taxis around, just about anyone with a car, new or old, is in the transportation business. It was a kick. When we left at 5:30 am for the train station, from where we were to depart for our next destination, upon seeing us pulling our bags up the street, literally five private cars pulled over simultaneously to so offer us a ride. Unfortunately, the first one to reach us was a beat-up old Datsun (a close relative to our old “Blaum”) and the other four were nice new cars. Though we felt obligated to stick with the first one (sigh!), we arrived at the station in good order for our Sapsan train to St. Petersburg. The train—a modern, express, bullet train—was wonderful and we flew by the scenery at 250 miles an hour! We loved it!
Arriving in St. Petersburg we found ourselves in a downpour but nonetheless managed to negotiate our way to our hotel with the help of a taxi driver (no private transport here!) who acted as an impromptu tour guide, pointing out this and that along the way as we went. We had arranged for a room at the Herzen House mini-hotel, which turned out to be a very delightful choice, centrally located near just about everything we want to see, and a lot less expensive than the normal tourist-type hotels. St. Petersburg, even in the rain, is lovely—very European in feel, with a touch of Russia thrown in. It is a walkable city in many ways so we felt we had been guided in making the arrangements we did.
In St. Petersburg we also took a bus tour to get the lay of the land and then walked and walked to just enjoy the places we especially wanted to see—the Winter Palace of the Hermitage, the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood (built on the spot where the assassination of one of the czars took place), the Peter and Paul Fortress, and meandering along the river and canals that earn this city the nickname “Venice of the North.”
Saturday evening we attended a stunning performance of Swan Lake ballet at the Conservatory of Music. It was worth the trip!
Sunday, July 17, was my 65th birthday and we celebrated by searching out on the metro the St. Petersburg branches and attending a block of meetings. We didn’t understand much but the Spirit was there. Later that day we went for dinner at an Armenian restaurant recommended to us by a Russian couple we met in Suzhou, China.
Monday we said goodbye to Russia, leaving for the airport and our flight to London’s Gatwick airport. Our trip on Russian Air was without incident and we found it strange to suddenly find ourselves in a city were everyone spoke English.
We took a cab to the London temple, where we stayed over night in their “Accommodations Centre.” It was a lovely evening and so nice to be at a temple again.
Tuesday morning we attended the first endowment session before taking a cab to Felbridge, then a bus to Southampton. We arrived in the afternoon, found the Linden House B&B, and enjoyed dinner at a Persian restaurant—yummy!—before turning in for the night.
In the morning after a nice English breakfast we took a taxi to the pier to await our boarding of the Queen Mary 2 for our voyage home. John had sailed home from his mission 45 years ago and longed to do it again. We loved being able to set our clocks forward one hour a day rather than struggle with jet lag because of an all-at-once time change of 14 hours.
The ship was amazing, regal, and wonderfully cared for, as were we. The food was delicious (though too much, of course), and the educational offerings very worth while. I took multiple computer classes along the way.
The QM2 has 5 formal nights along the way, which we were ill-prepared for (John’s tux didn’t make the trip to China) but we did fine and met some pleasant people. This would be an ideal trip with a group of family or friends!
It was grand to pull into New York harbor in the early morning hours of July 27th after being away for nearly 12 months. Seeing the American flags waving and the Statue of Liberty in the morning light was a wonderful reminder of the blessing of being Americans.
From Brooklyn port we bused to Newark Airport to catch our flight to Toronto for three days of family history on the Laing line. John commented that we were following the same journey his third-great-grandparents had made from England by ship, then to Ontario, Canada, where the family settled until later son Charles Grierson and two of his siblings went to the States while the rest of the 11 children remained in Canada. A couple of years ago John made contact with a distant cousin, Hugh Laing, who had inherited a tin box of documents and other family items from his grandfather, William Charles Laing.
His ancestor, John Laing—who was the eldest brother of Charles Grierson—was the first to come to Ontario, arriving there in 1837 reportedly with his uncle Adam Laing, a brother of his father, William. John’s farm is still there, though no longer in the family. We were almost overawed as we looked around the beautiful 200-acre family farm. Later, in 1848, William the rest of his family made the same trip. In the course of the three days we were in the Guelph area we met other distant cousins, toured family cemeteries, the Wellington County Archives, and other relevant sites.
The day before we left we found the ruins of the actual farm that William and family had lived on—which is now part of government-owned conservation lands. It was a blast for both of us to spend this time with Hugh Laing as well as other cousins he surprised us with meeting. It was a marvelous chance to see this area through new eyes. John and I had gone to Guelph on another occasion and found nothing. Boy, does it ever make a difference to meet people in an ancestral area who know the lay of the land and are anxiously engaged in turning their hearts to their fathers, too.
We left Saturday morning, July 30, and retraced our trek back to Newark, where we caught a train to Washington, DC. We were delayed due to a medical emergency of another passenger but all worked out well and we arrived in DC and were met by Clyde and Pat Jupiter, who whisked us off to dinner at a Mexican restaurant right across the street from the townhouse we used to own, and then to their home to stay overnight. Sunday morning we attended church in our former ward, Derwood Ward, and saw many wonderful friends there. It was awesome to attend Clyde’s Gospel Essentials Sunday School class. After some 26 years of patiently waiting, Clyde joined the Church just over a year ago and he and Pat were sealed in May of this year—one year to the day! Happy day for both of them! We were their home teachers for years and years when we lived here. It was just neat to see them now equally yoked.
Patrick happened to be in Maryland doing some sales training for his company and had hoped to join us for church but got mixed up on the time. He managed to join us at Jupiters’ for dinner and a visit.
After Brookside we drove to the temple and spent a few minutes in the Visitors’ Center and ate dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant before Patrick took us to our hotel. So nice to have had a good visit! We made plans to meet to attend the temple Tuesday night after John’s NIH visit before our flight home on Wednesday.
Monday morning early we took a shuttle from the hotel to NIH’s Safra Family Lodge and checked in before heading back to the clinic for his blood work, exams, and MRIs. It was great to see Dr. Bennett and to learn that John is actually doing very well. There is some muscular loss due to the pressure of the syrinx that necessitated John’s spinal cord surgery in April 2009. This causes him to be a little unstable but we have been so blessed in so many ways we can’t really complain. It is good for John to just know all is well so he can accept the limitations he has and then do all he can in spite of them. He is a good one.
Monday night after his last MRI at 5:45 we met Tamanahas, who picked us up and took us to dinner at a Thai restaurant. Maurice drove and Boyd and Charlotte and their little boy (all living with Izumi and Tom as Boyd waits to see if he is admitted to med school) came too. It is always fun to have our annual visits. Izumi has had a hip replacement and a back fusing this year. Poor dear!
Tuesday we met again with Dr. Bennett for the review of the MRIs and had another good report. We picked up a year’s supply of John’s drug and then spent the afternoon working on our laptops at the lodge until meeting Patrick at 6:00 for dinner at China Gourmet and a wonderful temple session—our first at DC for some years. It was special to be there with our #1 son. He was so sweet with helping John up and down the stairs at the temple. It has been a special time with him. We will pick him up next week for the reunion and possibly—if he can work it out—for Anderson’s baptism. We hope he can figure it out.
Wednesday August 3 is finally here and we are on the way for our final leg home. We left NIH at 7:00 this morning and took the Metro to Reagan Airport, from where we flew to Chicago, and we’re just now being called for our Salt Lake City flight! All has gone very well with our long trip, we have been blessed repeatedly, and we are looking forward to seeing family this afternoon. Kathy and Brent—bless them!—will meet us at the airport and Chi, David, and family, as well as Adam, will come to celebrate Asia’s birthday and our homecoming. AND we get to meet Kymora. What a happy thing!
It has been a remarkable year for us in so many ways. We feel blessed beyond measure for the health and safety we have experienced. Grateful to family for all their efforts in our behalf. Grateful for the challenges and the opportunities that have been ours.
It will be a short turnaround before we leave on our mission to Germany in six weeks and they will be fully packed. But that is all good.
