London: Big Finish

It was our last day in London today, and it was a big one. Here's what we did:

• Houses of Parliament/Big Ben
• Westminster Abbey
• St. Paul's Cathedral
• Tried (and failed) to see the Temple of Mithras
• Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
• Harrod's

We got started fairly early and made it out of the hotel by 9:30. We stopped to buy a muffin for me and a Coke for Brock, and then we walked to the Houses of Parliament. We didn't go in, but Brock got some really nice pictures. It's funny; I thought I'd kind of gotten used to seeing Big Ben off in the distance, but up close it is really spectacular. There's not a square inch (or centimeter or whatever) on the whole Houses of Parliament that doesn't have some kind of detail going on. I told Brock I thought it was from the "more is more" school of architecture, but that sort of sums up London, really.

Westminster Abbey is right across the street from Parliament, and we were both really excited about going there. I wrote in my journal that the weight of history there is overwhelming, and it really is...I mean, you're walking where people have walked for centuries, and every place you turn is a tomb or monument to some fantastically famous person from the past. It was a little awkward...at first I tried to avoid walking on the tombs, but it's sort of impossible. So, sorry famous dead people buried in Westminster Abbey. I tried.

Anyway, Westminster Abbey was by far my favorite stop on this entire trip. It's totally Gothic and spectacularly beautiful, and I still sort of can't believe I saw where Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots and Henry VIII and all these other people I've read about in books are buried. We got the audio tour, and I'm so glad, because without it I don't think I would have known where to look or what I was looking at half the time. It's really too bad you can't take pictures inside, although of course I understand why. One of the sort of amusing things to see there was "the oldest door in Britain," which dates from 1050 (!). We also saw the room where they used to keep the country's gold standard, which I think was from around 1090. I just can't believe I was walking around someplace that's been around for almost 1,000 years. Whoa.

After the Abbey, we got on the Tube and made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place across the street, and Brock gave me a hard time because I was teasing him for considering pizza for lunch yesterday (given that we're from one of the world's great pizza-eating regions). However, today pizza sounded good, so it wasn't silly anymore. :)

St. Paul's is also beautiful and amazing, with the added dimension of being really tiring. We climbed all 530 very tight, mostly spiraling steps to see the Whispering Gallery, the Stone Gallery and then the Golden Gallery all the way at the top. It was worth it, but if you had a vertigo problem you'd never make it! The views were awesome and again, Brock took some great pictures. Like the Abbey, you can't take pictures inside, so we just bought a bunch of post cards and a snow globe for Hannah.

After that, we attempted to find the Temple of Mithras, but we're pretty sure it was obscured in a construction area so we didn't get to see it. We walked all around, but didn't find anything that looked remotely like the ruins of an ancient Persian god. Just a lot of cranes and large construction equipment. Bummer.

Next up was a walk across the Thames to go to the Globe Theatre, which was a little touristy but worth the trip. We had a nice tour and learned that they built the theatre using Elizabethan materials and methods, which was one of the reasons it took so long to construct. I'm sure that builders in Elizabethan times knew just what to do with plaster that had cow's hair in it, but I imagine modern tradesmen had some trouble dealing with it. :)

Then we had to walk over to the London Bridge Tube station, and I got a little wiggy because we got out of the bustling tourist areas and into some quieter parts of town...Brock pointed out that I should probably be more nervous IN the busy tourist areas, but I generally feel more comfortable knowing I'm among bunches of other people who also "aren't from around here" and probably don't know where they're going any better than I do.

We took the Tube to Harrod's, mostly because I just wanted to see it since it's so famous. It is huge and overwhelming, and I don't see how people normally shop there. We didn't buy anything because it was already expensive, and the exchange rate is awful. We did, however, stumble across the Chocolate Bar, where I had the very best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. It was "Italian hot chocolate" and was just dark chocolate and cream. It was very thick and very rich and very delicious. That perked me up, because I was getting pretty tired by that point and my feet had started tingling from all the walking. We did find Toy World on the fourth floor, and I took a picture of Brock with a giant crocodile hand puppet.

After that, it was back toward the hotel. We stopped for some "take away" dinner and then came back to the hotel to put our feet up. We ended up going out again for a short time to check out the London souvenir shop around the corner, but it was all pretty cheesy tourist stuff. I mean, if you know someone who collects teapots or something, it's fine, but otherwise there's not much reason to bother.

So...tomorrow we're heading home. It's been a wonderful trip, and I can't think of a single thing I want to do that we haven't done. If we had more time here I'm sure we could explore much more, but we managed to pack a whole bunch of really cool stuff into three days. And I miss Hannah, so I'm looking forward to seeing her tomorrow and giving her the souvenirs we bought for her. Hopefully she a) remembers who we are and b) isn't too mad that we left her.

More observations:

• I'm not sure why, but every time you order a Coke in a restaurant they put a slice of lemon in it. I like lemon in Coke, but it's different. As a side note, Coke in Europe is YUMMY because they put real sugar in it. But like Brock says, you definitely feel like you have to brush your teeth afterward.
• Brock's sense of direction and map-reading abilities are mind-boggling. I would literally have been lost without him, because I have no sense of direction whatsoever. He just walks around like he knows exactly where he's going. We never got lost once.
• I really wish I had a British accent. Everyone here sounds SO COOL. I was sort of thinking in a British accent after awhile, but I tried to make myself stop because it even sounded silly in my head. *chuckle*
• Avoid the Tube at rush hour. It is quite overwhelming.

London is my kind of town. :)

London, Day 2

I LOVE London.

Today's highlights included:

• King's Cross Station - Platform 9 3/4
• Lunch with Andy
• Covent Garden
• The National Gallery
• Buckingham Palace
• The London Eye

We started off a little later than we'd expected, since we slept about 12 hours last night. We were really tired and jet-lagged, I guess. Anyway, we made our way to King's Cross (using the trusty Tube) so I could get my picture taken at Platform 9 3/4. Since there's really not a wall between Platforms 9 and 10, as it says in the Harry Potter books, the brilliant people at King's Cross just made Platform 9 3/4 out of a nearby wall. There's even a "trolley" sticking halfway out of it, which I thought was clever. So Brock took my picture looking like I was trying to make it on the Hogwarts Express:

We had a little break back at the hotel, then Andy, whom Brock knows from the online game he plays and who lives about 2 hours away, came to meet us for lunch. He and Brock had never met in person, so that was cool. He was very nice and even treated us to lunch at a yummy Italian restaurant (thanks, Andy!). Then he showed us around Covent Garden, which is a really fun shopping district that hadn't even been on our list of things to see, so that was a good treat. There were several very interesting street performers there. :)

After Covent Garden, Andy left, and Brock and I went to the National Gallery. If you were really, really into art, that place would be heaven, but Brock and I know just enough to appreciate most of it, so we were able to see all we wanted to see in just a couple of hours. It was cool seeing such old, famous paintings, though. Our favorite was a "cartoon" (drawing made prior to making an actual painting) by Leonardo da Vinci. Neither one of us can really articulate why. It was just really cool. And we saw paintings by Michaelangelo, Renoir, van Eyck, Monet, van Gogh and a bunch of other famous guys.

We took a break in the Gallery's cafe after that for some treats and a rest. Brock had chocolate cake, and I had treacle tart. I got it because I read about it in Harry Potter. I didn't know what it really was. Actually, even after eating a whole slab of treacle tart, I still wasn't sure what it was, but it was tasty. (Later, on the phone with my parents, my dad looked it up and said it's molasses, which makes sense in retrospect. For some reason, while I was eating it I thought it sort of tasted like a lemon bar.)

After the Gallery, we walked through St. James's Park (I would have skipped the second s, but that's how it's written on our London map) to go to Buckingham Palace. It was very pretty and peaceful, even though it was dark by that point. The Palace looked very pretty all lit up. It's hard to believe people live there. I think it would be very weird having people outside your home taking pictures all day. Of course, it would also be weird having a monument to Queen Victoria in your front yard, so I guess I can't really relate to the royal family at all. Anyway, it was neat.

And our last stop of the day (after another rest period - our legs were getting tired) was the absolute coolest: we rode the London Eye! Wow, was that awesome. Even though it was dark (because we just couldn't fit in riding it in the daylight, especially since it gets dark at like 4:00), the views of the city were spectacular. Brock got some really good pictures. And since it wasn't at all crowded, there were only about eight people in our carriage/pod thing and we had plenty of room to walk around and check out the views. It was a little scary if you looked down or up too much, but if you just looked straight out, it was great. My favorite thing we did today, definitely. :)

We did call home to see how Hannah was doing. She was taking a nap, so we didn't get to talk to her, but she apparently thinks I'm at work and hasn't asked about Brock yet. So I guess she's having fun. She also said she wants to go to London. We'll definitely have to bring her someday...after our bank account has a chance to recover.

Some observations:

• American credit card technology is pretty far behind the times, it seems. Everyone's card here has some special chip in it, and they don't have to sign for anything. (This confused the clerk at King's Cross when we were buying snacks today, because Brock's primitive American card doesn't have a chip.) Also, when you pay with your card at a restaurant, they bring a little card reader right to your table, and you can punch in the tip yourself. They don't have to take your card anywhere.
• Today's Fun British Phrase is "Way Out." Nothing says "Exit" here; it's all "Way Out." I love that.
• I don't know how people drive in London. The streets are really small, and they don't make any sense, and there are a million giant double-decker buses to contend with. I'll stick to walking or the train, thank you.
• The light switches in our hotel room are backwards; you flip them down to turn them on. It also took me awhile to figure out how to work the hair dryer this morning because you have to hold a little trigger button to get it to work. This seemed unnecessary and also made my finger tired.
• Treacle tart is very yummy; no wonder Harry Potter likes it.

I can't believe tomorrow's already our last day...but we're having such a great time!!

LONDON, Baby, Yeah!

You're supposed to read the title of this post a la Austin Powers. Go ahead, read it again. :)

We're in London! Wahoo! So, that's my surprise vacation destination, and I still kind of can't believe it.

Today we got to our hotel about 1:00 local time, I think...and we're both tired, so we just went to see a few things this afternoon. We saw the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, and London Bridge (it's not falling down; it's also, unexpectedly, just a regular bridge), and we walked around Trafalgar Square for a bit. I had real English fish and chips for dinner (preserved for posterity in the photo here), which was AWESOME (but also not that much unlike fish and chips at home...except that these were in LONDON). Also, I found it funny that that tiny patch of green on my plate was considered a "mixed salad." It was like three lettuce leaves and a cucumber. I guess perhaps they're not so into the lettuce here.

Tomorrow, we're having lunch with one of Brock's friends, and I think we're going to check out the National Gallery. The National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery are really close to our hotel. When we were walking from the Underground station to our hotel, we saw Big Ben. I almost fainted. Okay, not really, but wow - that was the moment I really felt like I was in London.

My favorite phrase from today is, "Mind the gap." The recorded voice on the Tube says this at almost every stop, and it just makes me laugh. It's so British and polite to "mind the gap." We minded the gap very well and negotiated the Tube without any real trouble. Brock has this weirdly accurate, innate sense of direction that enabled us to find everything we were looking for, and once you find the right station, the train is pretty easy to figure out. You just have to mind the gap. :)

My husband is the best ever. Period.

Oh, my bags are packed...

...I'm ready to go...somewhere...

I can't believe I still don't know where we're going!!

I get one more hint tomorrow, and the last one on Thanksgiving. The good news (for me) is that I now get to find out where we're going before we get to the airport, because Brock wants to ask me some sort of mysterious question about the mysterious mystery place we're going on vacation.

But that means, as of now, I still don't know where we're going. I have to say, the suspense is really starting to get to me. :)

Surprise vacation

We are very, very near the departure date for our vacation. I haven't blogged about it at all, because frankly, I couldn't stand to think about it too much...I really need a vacation, and it seemed better not to get too worked up about it until it was almost time to go. But...it's almost here, and I am now not just daily, but basically hourly, bugging Brock to tell me where we're going. This is because he booked the trip in August and wants the destination to be a surprise! How cool and amazing is that? But it means I am in quite a lot of suspense. (Although, if you do happen to know where we're going, DON'T TELL ME. I love surprises and I don't want to ruin this one.)

I have gotten several clues:

• Brock knows someone who lives near our destination (not terribly helpful; he knows someone almost everywhere)
• He's never been there before
  
• It takes more than 2 hours to fly there
• It's not warm there
  
• It's not Las Vegas or Portland (long story about Portland, but I know it's not Portland)
• The people who live there have "distinctive accents"
• We're taking public transportation while we're there

So I figure it has to be a fairly large city, at least. There is a vocal contingent of people at work who are sure we're going to New York City, but I'm not completely sure about that - Brock used to know someone in New York, but she moved to Tokyo. Plus I think the person he knows who applies to this trip is a guy. And I don't think he knows any guys in New York, but I'm not certain. I really don't know where we're going, though.

I get my final clue on Thanksgiving...Brock says it will either be really helpful in narrowing things down, or it will totally confuse me.

This is way fun!

Adam Viniateri

Dude, I thought you knew how to kick a football.

I was wrong.

To the Colts offense, I say: Valiant effort at the end there, guys. I know you tried hard.

To the defense, I say: You were awesome.

And to the amazing number of injured Colts, I say: Please get well soon. Or at least use your down time to somehow punish Adam Viniateri. Maybe write mean things on his locker, or hide his helmet, or soak his socks in mayonnaise.

I think it might do him some good to have to hitch a ride back to Indy. From San Diego. Give him some time to think.

It's really so much simpler when you have no hope of winning. But to have hope, and to have "the best kicker of our time" on your team, and to have him miss a kick that someone's grandma could probably make on a good day, is just mean. :P

An open letter to the Indianapolis Colts

Dear Colts,
I'm watching you "play" against the San Diego Chargers right now. I'm sure you know this, but you're not doing very well. Okay, you're really playing terribly. LaDainian Tomlinson just scored a touchdown to make it 23-0 and I think it's not even halfway through the second quarter. Peyton Manning has thrown, at current count, four interceptions. Or maybe it's 40. Or maybe it just feels like 40. Anyway, you're kind of sucking.

I was mostly okay after last week's loss to the New England Patriots. Really, I was. It was a good game, you played pretty well (could have been better, of course) and you at least showed what happens when the Patriots actually have to play a good team - they have to fight to win, which they haven't had to do all season. I was glad you made them do that.

But this? This is not cool. I'm not even paying attention to this game anymore. It's too painful. I mean, who are these people on the field in Colts uniforms? What's going on? I really think the defense is doing okay, but at this rate, they're all going to be dead tired by the third quarter. And the offense is...really bad. Surprisingly bad.

So get with the program, okay? Think of me. I've been a Colts fan for more than 20 years. I lived through the infamous 1-15 season and ALL of the Jeff George years. I know you won a Super Bowl last year, which was awesome, but I hope you don't think that was actually enough to repay me for my years of suffering. So please, please...whatever you did to get ready for the game this week, NEVER do that again. You're allowed to be a little "off" once in awhile, but this is not acceptable.

And here's a special message for the "special" teams: you guys need to practice harder. Seriously.

One more thing about the oven

Brock went to make dinner Wednesday night (chicken stir fry - yum!), and the middle burner wouldn't light. He's pretty sure all the burners worked when the oven was delivered.

Stupid oven. Good thing the new one comes tomorrow!

Why I love Backyardigans

Because my sick child, who is stuck feeling miserable with a virus, loves Backyardigans. And they make her giggle, even though her nose is running, and she's coughing, and she has a fever. So kudos to you, Backyardigans, and keep it up. Hooray for Pablo, Tyrone, Uniqua, Tasha and Austin. You all rock.

Admitting you made a mistake

We got a new oven a couple of weeks ago (the last of the appliances we had to replace after The Incident involving the installation of our new floor in June). Last night, I finally admitted to myself - and to Brock - that I hate it. I HATE IT.

The oven in question is a Premier 36-in. gas range. It replaced our dead Tappan 36-in. gas range because that model, when we went to replace it, had gone up in price $200 from when we bought it four years ago, and we had to buy a fridge, dryer, microwave and toaster all in the last four months. (I know toasters and microwaves aren't expensive, but it's the principle of the thing.) It just seemed like too much money. So we decided to try something new.

Did I mention I HATE IT?

It started at delivery: a weird, very faint gas smell emanating from the range. We had them come fix it, no problem. Also, the griddle cover that came with it was all beat-up and peeling, which was weird, so we called the store and asked them to send a replacement. No problem.

So, then we used the stove. The burners are really touchy, and there's not much room between High and Off. Hmm. Guess we can learn to deal with that.

Then we used the oven. It took more than 30 minutes for it to reach 350 degrees, which seemed a bit excessive. Also, the entire oven got so hot; I mean, you could very easily burn your hand on the outside of the door. This made us both very nervous about having Hannah even in the kitchen while we were cooking. We've always kept her away from the oven, anyway, but our old one didn't get hot on the outside, to the point where you thought it might start melting things nearby. Hmm. Pretty annoying.

Thursday night, I made taco casserole. I turned the oven on at 5:50. By 6:20, it hadn't reached the desired temperature yet. Hmm. Still annoying.

Yesterday, the replacement griddle cover came. It was just as beat-up and awful-looking as the first one. So I called the store again and told them the story. I talked to a nice guy in the parts department who ended up being the same person I talked to when I ordered the replacement. He said he had to call Premier to get it, and they said the peeling white stuff was actually just a cover. It was supposed to come off. I told him, "Okay, what's under the peeling white cover is silver. My oven is white. That makes absolutely no sense. Either this part doesn't come in white, which is stupid, or somebody is lying to you." He told me I should call Premier myself and explain the situation, that maybe they'd just shipped the wrong thing - twice (once with the oven, and once separately). He said they were probably closed for the weekend, but I tried the number he gave me anyway. It was a cell phone.

And that's when something snapped in my brain. I did not want this oven. I wanted this oven gone.

I called Brock at work (it was early evening, and he wasn't home yet) and told him what was going on, and how stupid it all was, and how I wished we'd just sucked it up and bought the other oven because I really didn't like this one. He said, "I wonder what their return policy is."

So I called the store back and asked. They said 30 days, and it didn't matter if you'd used the appliance.

I called Brock again. I said, "I'm still mad, and we can return this stupid oven and get a different one. Let's go tomorrow and do it." He said okay. I would have gone right then if I could (I'm one of those people who finally makes up her mind to do something and then can't stand waiting to do it), but Hannah needed dinner and it just wasn't practical.

Then I called my mom and complained about the oven some more. Brock came home. We called his mom and I complained about the oven even more. I really hate this oven. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone - ever - and if anyone from Premier happens to get this on their Google blog alerts, I sincerely hope they think to question why they're even selling an oven that gets so hot on the outside it could send you to the emergency room if you weren't careful.

We bought our ovens - all three of them, now - from Abt Electronics. As much as I hate this Premier oven, I LOVE Abt. Everyone should go there and buy appliances. They have free, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies on Saturdays and Sundays. Their salespeople are helpful and know what they're talking about. They have a ridiculously huge selection of just about anything that plugs in. And today, when I walked up to the customer service counter and said, "We got this oven, and we're not very happy with it, and we want to exchange it for a different one," they didn't question me at all. Our original sales guy came back to help us and just said, "No problem, we'll get it taken care of." I didn't have to give a lengthy explanation (as I have here) about why I hate the oven. He just wrote, "Customer doesn't like oven" in the account notes, put in the order for our new oven, and handed us the receipt to take to the checkout. No questions asked. The best part was that the new-new oven was on sale, so we actually, in the long run, saved a couple hundred bucks by buying the wrong oven first, then going back to get this one. Hooray for Abt! Buy stuff there. They treat you right.

Our new-new oven is coming on Saturday. It's an exact replacement of our original one, so I anticipate being happy with it. And then, maybe, I'll make cookies. :)

Whose bright idea was this?

Oh, wait...it was mine. The bright idea I'm referring to was painting our bedroom blue with a striped wall four years ago when we moved into our house. Okay, actually, it was a supercool paint job, worthy of Trading Spaces, if I do say so myself. I really liked it a lot. And because Brock, Robin and I all worked on painting it at the time, it really didn't take very long to do.

But this summer, we got a really fab, new, chocolate brown microsuede duvet and awesome red sheets (keep your comments about red sheets to yourself; they rock and I don't care what you think about them). Chocolate brown and red don't go with medium blue, dark blue and green stripes. They just don't. And last weekend, I finally hit the critical point where I decided it was time to suck it up and paint the bedroom, as I'd been intending to do for months, so that, well, everything would match.

I took Halloween off from work so I could work on this project (I was planning to take the afternoon off, anyway, to take Hannah to the kids' Halloween party at Brock's office, so I just made a day of it). I actually kind of needed a mental health day, anyway, and there really is something therapeutic about being in the house ALONE (which I hardly ever am), with MY music cranked up really loud, doing something that requires absolutely no thought.

I went to Home Depot in the morning and picked a beautiful, medium beige-y kind of color called "oat cake." That may be my favorite paint name ever, just because it's fun to say and really sort of nonsensical. I have no idea what an oat cake looks like...but I guess it's the color of my bedroom. Anyway, picking up the paint and supplies went very smoothly. There was a really funny moment when a man asked the guy at the paint counter why they only carried white paint. I have no idea how you get to be in your 40s (which is about how old this guy looked) without knowing that paint colors have to be mixed. I tried not to laugh out loud.

Anyway, the reason I was kind of cursing the blue color (and the stripes) was because I was painting beige over it, which is significantly lighter. So I had to prime the whole room. By the time I finished that, it was time to get some lunch (almost 1:30 already) and then get ready to pick Hannah up from daycare. (I really enjoyed my Taco Supremes from Taco Bell, by the way.)

That meant I was putting the first coat of actual paint on at 8:30 Halloween night. I finished about 11:00. Brock and I slept on the couch since our bedroom 1) smelled like paint and 2) was covered in plastic drop cloths.

So I put the second coat of paint on Thursday night, starting about 8:00. Finished up at 10:30, decided two coats was enough, and cleaned up. I was done around 11:00 again. We slept on the couch again Thursday night.

So basically, I painted our room three times. However, it does look very pretty, and I like it a lot. It looks, somehow, more grown up than it did before - which I think is good, but also maybe a little sad. Like I'm too old for crazy stripes on my wall anymore. We're going to have to get some artwork, and I asked my mom to make us some red curtains, and then it will be perfect. If I had more energy, I'd take a picture and post it, but I don't really feel like it. *chuckle*

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our closet: thanks for being there, and for taking up a whole lot of space on one of the long walls, so that I wouldn't have to paint quite so much. I saved that wall for last all three times, and it was nice to have it go quickly.

I don't feel like painting anymore for awhile.