I’m now sitting on the plane at 31,000 feet in -40º air traveling at 520 mph. I’ve had a wonderful vacation! With oil prices constantly rising, I may not be able to travel again for some time.
A few things as I reflect back on the last few days:
- Toilets in the UK are the devil to flush. I had only about a 25% success rate on the first attempt. What’s up with that?!
- I’ve never seen a greener country with such clear blue skies (when it’s not raining).
- The Brits are very friendly people. A little boy on the Tube was asking his mother if he could ride the Tube by himself to go see the science museum. She told him no. I told him he had to wait until he was 25. The child was duly horrified. Mom thanked me for making her the hero when she told him he could go when he was 18.
- Cadbury chocolate is fabulous. And, I couldn’t find the mint flavored Kit Kats that John had!
- Pubs are “brilliant” even though I don’t drink.
- The concept of old takes on new meaning in the Cotswalds.
- Hundreds of years ago people were much shorter.
- I knew that people in the UK drove on the opposite side of the road. However, I didn’t also realize that zippers zipped on the opposite side, and windshield wipers wiped from the opposite direction as well.
- If the city fathers had neglected to paint “Look Right –>” and “<– Look Left” on the streets of London, I would not be posting this post.
- Cold takes on a new meaning at Stonehenge!
- Ice cubes are a rarity.
- The concept of space in Europe is significantly different from our own.
- The cost of living is high or the US economy is in the toilet.
- Realtors frequently post signs for property “To Let.” I always wanted to paint in the letter “i.”
- The British have a disturbing habit of posting the number of people killed on certain stretches of roadway over the last year or so. However, this does not seem to slow them down from speeding insanely down one lane roads.
- London is an incredibly busy city with an untold number of people milling about.
- I love their concepts of Greenbelts, Common Ways, and Public Paths as well as the whole notion of deferred college enrollment.
- The outskirts of London look old (well, hello, they are!), run down, and cramped in the extreme.
- I liked the following words: car park (parking lot), roundabout (a treacherous device designed to kill people from the USA), mind the kerb (take care stepping off of the curb), bonnet (car trunk), boot (car hood), petrol, schoolmaster, holiday (as in, I was on one), football (soccer), match (game), result (end score of the match), walkover (as in beat them badly), fouling (as in don’t allow your dog to fowl the cemetery), fizzy and still water (carbonated or not), dormitory town (bedroom community), mind the gap (don’t fall into the space between the platform and the train), Tube (the underground rail system), give way (yield), Motorway (Interstate).
- I’m not sure why British bathtubs are so thin and so high off the floor of the bathroom.
- I was incredibly busy during this trip and probably just couldn’t have squeezed anything else into the itinerary! What a blast!!
And finally, this morning in London I realized I accidentally left my house and car keys on the conveyor belt in security check in at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta a week ago today when I departed. I was beside myself. Well, upon landing I went to Lost & Found. I spotted my keys in a large box of lost keys. The very first ones I saw were mine! Amazing!!