Why can't we bring a rolling suitcase to Africa again?

So.. the flight to London was amazing... tons of food, champagne & lay flat seats... but getting from the airport to the hotel in London... Ug!

See the attached photos for explanation... :)

So, I guess it was early on in our planning for this journey that our friends with Africa experience told us to get backpacks instead of the big rolling suitcases.  I guess backpacks are less likely to get stolen... and I'm sure there are other reason

s... but after trucking through the London airports/trains/train stations carrying three awkward bags totaling maybe 90 pounds ... well I was cursing those friends (Sorry Mica, Sean, Mallie, & the Higgens!).  Backpacks were NOT made for London :)  I'll let you know if it was good advice once we get to Sierra Leone.. but for now...

Ok, so this may be the most trivial post you read on this blog... but I figure my close personal friends and family will find our struggles amusing.  

We have finally made it to our hotel in London (with aching backs and lots of sweat) and are stoked to be on this journey again.

Oh, and did I mention our Typhoid adventure?  So... we had to keep our typhoid vaccine refrigerated until it was time to take it this afternoon... take a look at the photo.  I think it was brilliant (if I don't say so myself), but I packed it in frozen rice (since you can't take frozen liquid on the plane).  So everywhere we stopped on our journey from San Jose to London, we had to find a place to keep it cool... On ice in our plane from SJ to Seattle, in a bar fridge while eating diner at the seattle airport, in

 the fridge on the plane to London, and on ice again through customs and on the t

rain into London.... oh.. and it can't be smashed in any way... so we had to carry that random bag of rice separately everywhere we went... needless to say, we w

ere stoked to finally be able to take the medicine and get rid of our rice bag.  I can't tell you how many times we forgot out little rice bag somewhere and had to RUSH back and get it!

Ah, the randomness of traveling to a third world country :)

So, I'm pretty delirious right now... and apologize if I'm not making much sense... but tune in tomorrow for our next adventure (likely more coherent after a full nights sleep).  

BTW tomorrow we go to diamond school at De Beers where we'll learn how to sort rough diamonds and meet some of the most amazing people in the world (people who's careers actually change the world)  More on that tomorrow!

Cheers.