Home Sweet Home

I returned from the UK last night. I'm still not sure what continent I'm on. My body is very, very confused about when to eat and sleep. Being up for 21 straight hours didn't help, either. But I wouldn't have missed it!

I'm sure our holiday will be the subject of more than a few blogs, so sorry in advance if it gets old.

We roamed around the English country-side for a week. We spent some time in London. We stayed with friends that live near the North Sea, so we got to see England from a few different perspectives.

I made a few astute observations via these perspectives. Here are a few -- in no particular order.

1. I've been cursing like an Englishman since we've been home. "Bloody" to the English is like the F-word here. I love walking around calling everything a "bloody this" or "bloody that" and no one in the States realizing that I'm just having a juvenile good time with my new 6-letter word.

2. London is the most expensive place I've ever been. Five of us ate pizza. Each of us had one of those little indy pizzas and a soda or water. The bill? 50 pounds. Doesn't sound bad until you convert that at the $2.10 per pound conversion rate, making our pizza lunch over $100 dollars. We dropped $500 in London in one day. Can anyone say bloody hell?

3. We visited Westminster Abbey. Beautiful. In the Abbey, there is a Poet's Corner where Geoffrey Chaucer is burried. Other poets and writers are remembered there. I had to pause. Rudyard Kipling. He wrote "If" which is my favorite poem. See my previous post. Dylan Thomas. He wrote "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" -- another favorite. Lord Byron -- I have a lit snob friend. She's a huge Lord Byron fan. Charles Dickens. To name a few. Very cool area. I milled around. We talked books -- one of my favorite topics of discussion.

4. I acquired an illness there. It's called the travel bug. I'm afraid the only cure is another trip. Rome at Christmas (I couldn't be more excited about this since my little bro just moved there and I just read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert), Dallas for RWA, some island somewhere this summer for a weekend to celebrate Marcus's belated 41st b-day, hopefully a trip next summer to Iceland (one of the hubby's top 10 want-to-go places), and if I'm lucky a trip to South Africa to work with AIDS education with a group sponsored by my church from Thrive Africa. Yep. I think it's chronic. I'm going to need lots of treatments.

....and finally, astute observation #5. Perhaps these should have been random observations. I'm not sure any of them have been astute.

5. I arrived in London from the country on a train into King's Cross station. (Can you see my excitement? A few of you are getting excited, too. Those of you that aren't excited about King's Cross probably have no idea of the release date for the next Harry Potter, either.) Below is my picture at Platform 9 3/4. Now if only I could have managed to catch the Hogwart's Express. Bloody hell.

Macy