Hellooooo! Did you miss me terribly last week while I was gadding about London? I missed you! Unless the “you” in question is Dice or a member of his family, in which case I did not miss you. And anyway, I didn’t really miss any of you at all because I was having such a good time.

So London was fabulous! We did a lot of things and saw a lot of things and ate a lot of things. We celebrated Dice’s mother’s birthday in fine style. I think the highlight of the trip, for me, was high tea at Claridge’s, for many reasons. Firstly because it was something different from going out for an expensive dinner. But also, more personally, it combined cultural factors, like having tea, which is something foreign to me as an American but which I’ve read so much about and wished I could experience, and historical factors, like how having tea came about, and the food that goes into it, and the order in which it is served. And then it was incredibly fancy, a very delicate undertaking. For me it held a romance that cannot be described, whereas for a Brit perhaps it was just very fancy tea, even though most people don’t keep up the practice of having tea. And of course, it involved food as well, which is my favorite thing. Although I knew what kinds of food were historically served at tea, it never hit me before that tea is basically breakfast and dessert, with a small modicum of tiny finger sandwiches for propriety’s sake. It started out with darling little finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off, then scones served with clotted cream and homemade marmalade, then pastries and chocolates. Is your mouth watering? It should be. Here we are enjoying scones.

We did a lot of the touristy things people do while in London. We walked around Leister Square, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Hyde Park and Kensington. We took a double-decker bus tour of all the big tourist attractions that lasted at least 2 hours. We went to Westminster Abbey. And we had more than our share of meat pie, beers, and local culture at little pubs called weird names like the Cheshire Cheese Pub, the Lamb and Flag, and the Seven Stars. We went to see a new version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that was just fabulous. Oh yeah, and we got to share some quality time with Dice’s family.

Westminster Abbey was one of the more fascinating things for me. Because London was bombed to bits in WWII most of its architecture is modern, but some few bastions of antiquity were spared, Westminster being one of them. They don’t know for sure if it was built in the 7th century or the 12th century but either way you slice it, that’s old. We saw the tombs of famous kings and queens (Mary Queen of Scots!) and most interesting, the Poet’s Corner, which is a section where giants of the literary tradition are either buried or have a memorial. Chaucer, Milton, Dryden and Shakespeare are the biggest hits. Others from other eras, but of course my favorites are the Victorians: Jane Austen, Dickens, all three Bronte sisters, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Henry James. All of these authors I’ve read and enjoyed, and it was a real treat for me to see their memorials.

Along those same lines, another adventure we had was to visit the Kensal Green Cemetery in northwest London where Anthony Trollope is buried. We spent almost two hours tramping through the cold, wet grass before finally breaking down and asking the attendant. It’s a good thing we did, because he was buried in a section we thought we had gone over. Here I am at his grave, which joins my Famous Dead People collection.

London is a truly international city. I think we met just as many people from various other countries (most notably, Poland) as Brits. I heard accents from all over the world. It’s one of those spontaneous pleasures of travel that you feel more worldly as you experience new cultures. Not to knock the south (well, just a little) but the truth is that the majority of people I meet during my everyday life are well, not well-travelled, to put it kindly. It’s refreshing to experience a more international city for a little while.

Foodwise I totally let loose and just ate whatever I felt like. Oh, yeah. Breakfast always included coffee with cream or milk in it (usually I drink it black and bitter), cereal with fruit, a roll, a croissant either plain or with cheese, meat and mustard, a creamy yogurt, and sometimes also a bowl of fruit. Then mid-morning we would stop for coffee. Then lunch usually consisted of a pork pie or a bowl of soup at the cafe in which ever museum we were visiting at the time. And dinner was whatever the group decided. The first night we had Italian, where I had my first taste of whitebait, which consists of tiny sardine-like fish grilled whole with spices. You pop the whole fish right in your mouth. It was pretty good, although the idea of the wee fish brains being chomped between my teeth held me back from enjoying very many. Another night we had pizza. Another night I had a steak, mushroom and Guinness pie with mashed potatoes. Another night we had Lebanese/generic Middle Eastern which was incredible. And our last night I had another piece of steak pie with mashed potatoes and gravy. Oh, we went to an Irish bar and had sausages and colcannon, too (also sometimes called bangers and mash). The tragedy of the food experience was that I didn’t get a chance to have any hot sticky toffee pudding! TRAGEDY! If any readers have been to the UK and never tried the hot sticky toffee pudding, you totally missed out. And if any readers ever do happen to go, get the hot sticky toffee pudding! It’s seriously to die for. At any rate, we didn’t have too much in the way of dessert. The chocolate over there is much better quality than you can find here, so at one point Dice and I made a trip to Sainsbury’s (a grocery store) and got some Cadbury’s chocolate and had little bits of it in our hotel room before bed. You know, for that extra caloric kick before sleeping.

Possibly the most annoying thing was that many parts of the city were already decorated for Christmas. Outrageous! I took a photo of a full Christmas tree on display at Gatwick airport, but it came out too dark. The airport is really where all cultures collide, and I’ve come to regard it as a necessary evil. Whereas airports used to hold such an air of promise in my eyes, now they are an unavoidable series of clashes with people of various levels of courtesy. The return trip had the potential to be the best flight we’ve ever taken because Dice and I had the whole row to ourselves and got to spread out, but it turned out to be a nightmareish 9 hours of a 4 year old boy kicking me in the back, grabbing my seat back, and yelling. Along with his 3 year old brother. At one point I turned around and asked the mother, very politely, if she would please restrain her son from constantly kicking me in the back. She proceeded to do nothing of the sort, continued playing with the boys, and then gave me a half-hearted apology for her sons’ behavior about a half an hour before we were due to land. As I’ve said before on many occasions, we all have to live together in this crowded world. It’s parents’ responsibility to teach their children how to be polite and courteous to other people in situations of forced proximity. It is absolutely unacceptable to completely ignore someone else’s request that your child cease gouging her in the back. Especially since it’s not like I immediately turned around and snapped at her. I endured it for over 3 hours, and then turned around and apologized for having to complain about it! Then endured it for another 6 hours. The world looks down on Americans because we are perceived as being crass and discourteous. Some of us are, but I can tell you that discourtesy and impoliteness are international traits. After we landed, I was bitter towards all foreigners. Especially ones with funny accents who try to navigate US immigrations. Exskooze me pliss, I like to go to Tampa now? Okay, go ahead!

And that’s basically me after being awake and traveling for over 20 hours. It is fortunate, both for me and the world in general, that no one can actually hear what goes on in my head during times like that. Let’s just say that I was very happy to be home last night. And what did we do as soon as we got home and squared the cats away? You guessed it, we went for cheese dip. Cheese dip makes up for any unendurable oversea flight. And thus the universe is again aligned.

And of course, the best thing that happened? The Sox WON THE WORLD SERIES! Swept it in four games. Yayyyyyyyyyyy! GO SOX, best team in baseball! GOOOOOO SOX!