We’re back! And we had the best time on our trip to England. I’ve always found it hard to recap a ten-day trip so I’m going to take it in bite-sized pieces… which is quite fitting. But we’ll cover that later.
After a stop in Phoenix where Nate noticed our busser’s name was Jaimie, we made it to London bleary-eyed and broken-necked. My cell phone didn’t seem to work, despite my pre-planning, so instead of Uber we opted for the Piccadilly line. Where we waited for a trespasser to be chased off the tracks. And then for permission to go. And then for the train to start. And then finally when we were on our way, we were kicked off the train and it was taken out of service. Fortunately this extended journey allowed me to find the setting that was preventing my phone from working– as Jacob recently coined, via “the Guess and Press,” perfectly capturing my philosophy for all electronics, kiosks, and automobiles. I can still feel James swatting my hand away from the buttons and knobs in his Audi.
So we board a second train and then finally collapse with our belongings in our hotel room. Where I proceed to open my suitcase and find my pants and shorts soaked in face wash. It has exploded and then breached the Ziploc bag that’s been stabbed by the pointy corner of a tube. I desoapify my entire bag of toiletries and then rinse my pants in the bathtub. Fortunately there’s a heated towel bar.
This is when I decide a nice cuppa would be good to wake me up. The electric kettle doesn’t work. The Nespresso seems dead. Our lights are on, but the boys tell me the plugs have stopped charging. I call down and we’re rescued a few minutes later. The front desk receptionist expertly employs the Press and Guess, problem-solving the situation and determining that the kettle is blowing the fuse. She uses a key to remove the front of the electrical panel, resets the fuse, and carts the kettle away.
We gather our wits and our appetites and head to the lobby for dinner with the Purnells. Great dinner, greater company. We get home that night and I go to open the safe to get my iPad that is securely locked-up with our passports. It’s a variation of the standard hotel safe with an unnecessary wheeley thing. I try to open it, mmmm, like maybe 5 times. Regretfully, I have to call the front desk to be rescued again. This is embarrassing.
Fortunately it’s a new hotel receptionist and she breaks into the safe and then trains me. I’m sitting on the floor as she stands over me, making me practice a few times. As Jake would say… cringe. Fortunately it’s bedtime and I don’t care.
The next morning I wake-up first and beeline it to the Nespresso machine. Whereby the pod jams in the machine, like, bad. I fight it. I shimmy it. I question what I’m doing with my life. Finally I take it into the bathroom, shut the door, place it on the floor, and wrestle that bloody thing into submission. I absolutely cannot call the front reception again. I emerge, quietly victorious, only having stained the bathmat with watered-down coffee.
Later that night, we’ve walked 20,000 steps and lay out our dinner picnic from Harrods on my side of the bed. I admonish Nate not to spill anything on my covers as he eats. As I open the salad Nicoise box, the jammy hard boiled egg comes tumbling out, directly onto my side of the covers, leaving a round yellow stain.
Nate and I replay the rescue calls and this entire sequence of events– losing ourselves in a delirious fit of giggles. I top off my bed picnic dinner with the most delicious dessert I couldn’t stop talking about– a British confection called Eton Mess.
Yes, yes it was.