My birthday is coming up and my MIL has been asking me what I wanted…with me leaving soon, I’ve been finding it hard to think about something like what I want for my birthday - especially since I won’t even be here.

We spent today shopping - the Navy Exchange (NEX) was actually open today (they’re always closed on Mondays but were open for us today for Memorial Day) and we went to the clothes store, the mini mart, and the furniture store. When I was at the clothes store, I found two things I just loved - a pair of great-fitting jeans and a pair of really, really cute shoes.

High heeled shoes.

I don’t wear high heels, you see, but in the last couple of months I’ve been thinking I really ought to get a pair or two, but I just can’t buy online and the NEX never has shoes in my size. So imagine my surprise today when I was meandering along the 5′ long shoe aisle and found a pair of really cute shoes - in (almost!) my size!

WHY CAN’T SHOE MANUFACTURERS MAKE SIZE 10½??

Anyway, I tried on the 10s and I was just in love - they were so cute and comfortable, even, and the heel wasn’t too high and they just looked right on me. And - score - they were almost 50% off the regular price! Even still, I probably wouldn’t have bought them for myself, but then I saw my MIL who had asked me just before we left what I wanted for my birthday and that was how these really cute shoes became my first pair of high heels in at least 8 years.

A week from today I will be gone.  My flight leaves in the early morning, so in fact, in less than a week I will be gone.

I’m trying (without too much effort) to figure out what to bring with me.  I have been told I will get a LOT of stuff (like 3 giant bags) so not to pack much of my own stuff since I have to carry everything myself.  So right now, I basically have the following on my list of things to pack:

• Toothbrush, facewash, lotion, travel toothpaste, floss
• Brush, hair ties, foundation, lip gloss, eyebrow pencil
• Laptop, camera
• Medicine
• Underwear, one outfit, a few things to exercise in, tennies
• A book to read through my 3 flights over 20 hours of flying
• My travel journal
• My iPod - and CHARGER this time!!

And then when I get there I’ll buy some shampoo/conditioner (why travel with it when you can buy Suave for 97¢?), a couple of towels (they don’t provide any) and a folding blowdryer.

I’m starting to get a bit anxious, mostly because I’m concerned about my ability to cope with the heat when I’m doing strenuous activity - it’s been in the 90s here several times and I enjoy it sitting on the porch swing in the shade, but running around in the woods in training?  Hmm.

Since my MIL has been here, B and I have gotten to spend a lot of nice time together - we went snorkeling around some Roman ruins, we’ve gone out for coffee several times, for walks, for bike rides, shopping together without having to worry about the kiddos…it’s been nice to spend the time with him.  And since I’m on leave, I’ve been able to spend more time with the kids which is nice.  I’m glad my MIL is here; I think it’ll help the transition when I’m gone.  She’ll be here until the end of June, and then they’ll all go back to Iceland and spend the summer there and then come back here alone just in time for school to start.  By then, I’ll be halfway through my time there and it should be - hopefully - easy on the kids to be without me.

I’ll miss…

• Our anniversary
• My birthday
• Our trip to Iceland we’ve planned for about 3 years
• Anja’s first day of school
• Anja losing her first tooth (it’s just getting wiggly now)
• Isak starting the TAG program (talented and gifted)
• B’s birthday
• Halloween
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
• 400 bedtime chats
• 1000 hugs
• 10,000 kisses

I just hope all that I’ll miss will be balanced by…something?

I thought it funny that after reading this page, there came this post script:

Lovingly handcrafted HTML, using VIM.
Best viewed with a computer.

Now that my hair is starting to get a little longer, I’ve taken to wearing it in low pigtails to keep it out of my face.  It’s generally very tame as I do it when it’s still wet and it dries nicely.  But if I put it in when my hair is already dry, it sticks out badly and I look like a two-year-old Leta.  Similarly, if my hair dries quietly but then is somehow disrupted through the day, say by laying on it for a few hours, climbing through a tent and getting your hair stuck in the zipper, and rolling around on a trampoline with a 7-year-old, it becomes repositioned in awkward angles on the side of your head.

My daughter, who now bears an enormous tan teardrop on her back courtesy of a criss-cross backed swimming suit coupled with 90° days coupled with failures of parents that only apply sunblock before going out instead of every 30 minutes, and a gash in her scalp from her loving big brother’s misdirected rock, was standing on the toilet tonight getting slathered with coconut and almond scented lotion from Boots Pharmacy in England and looks adoringly into my eyes and says, “Mamma, you look like someone in a movie at (her friend’s) house!”  Tickled, I asked her what the movie was about since I figured she wouldn’t know the name.  She enthusiastically exclaimed, “Boo!  From Monster’s Inc!”

At this rate, I will be going through puberty instead of menopause and bearing children when I’m drawing social security.  30 is the new 2!

I was too tired on Friday night to do anything productive like packing. Instead, I set my alarm for 5 figuring that would give me enough time to shower and pack and get to the gate with my stuff by 6:30 to meet my cab.
Of course, setting my alarm for 5 meant I actually got up at 5:20, and I had forgotten that I still had to check out, plus I had to walk to the gate with 2 bulky pieces of luggage, my laptop, my purse, and a shopping bag.

But I made it.

About an hour into the hour and a half ride to Heathrow, I had dozed off over my book and suddenly startled awake: I did not pack my passport.

I was sure I didn’t pack it. I would’ve remembered packing that. I even remembered looking at the paper I had kept it in that I’d thrown on the vanity before I left, figuring I didn’t need that paper anymore since that was my arrival itinerary.

I nearly had a panic attack in the backseat. I blinked back tears for 10 minutes, causing myself an emotional headache. The next 20 minutes were spent retracing all my steps and my steps for the last week involving my passport. It occurred to me a few minutes before we arrived at the airport that there was a chance that I’d put it in my luggage the first day so it wouldn’t be out where the housekeepers could see it, but I didn’t remember doing that. But from that point until we pulled up at the airport, I kept repeating, “Please let me have put it in the pocket of my suitcase. Please let me have put it in the pocket of my suitcase. Please let me have put it in the pocket of my suitcase.”

We got out and I hoped that if it wasn’t there, aliens would come and abduct me right then and there, because that would be easier to explain than “I forgot my passport an hour and a half away.” I held my breath and reached in the pocket of my suitcase and nearly fainted from the sheer relief of feeling the leather cover in my hands.

I finally got back to Madrid, and I could dedicate an entire post about how stupid Iberia airlines is but I’ll spare you that for now. When I made it into Jerez airport, I got off the plane feeling very grateful that I was there at all, and was greeted on the runway by a stack of sherry barrels.

If I’d had a drill, I would’ve made a hole and laid under it with my mouth open.

I started out in Huntingdon where I caught a train into London. It was apparently the slow train, because every couple of minutes we’d be passed by an orange and blue train going so fast that when it passed us, the air would suck us closer with a loud “THUMP” and I was sure we’d just been hit. A bit paranoid? I took the train into King’s Cross where I got off and went to search for the right train to start my wandering around London. What a surprise when I turned the corner and was right in front of…

Platform 9¾!

I hopped on an escalator and was greeted with beautiful violin music - there were musicians in almost every Tube station playing such great music. I headed to Piccadilly Circus because that was first thing that popped into my head since one of my brothers had lived in the Piccadilly Apartments…in Milwaukee. But still.

I got off and was in awe - the buildings were so beautiful and everything was just packed in.

It was a bit overwhelming - I didn’t know where to go, which direction, what to see. And I had not prepared - at ALL, no books, no websites, nothing. So I just started walking. I found that Piccadilly seemed to be kind of the Broadway part of town - tons of theaters with shows like The Crucible, Billy Elliott, Phantom of the Opera…big, gorgeous theaters that I would’ve loved to have gone to a show in but not only did I not have the time with this being a one-day excursion, but my GOD, London is expensive!! Tickets would’ve cost me an arm, a leg, and a couple of my children. So instead I continued wandering…

After wandering aimlessly for a while, I asked a guy picking his nose what was close by that I could walk to. He suggested Trafalgar Square and pointed at a building and grunted, “Thataway,” and I headed off.

Trafalgar Square was the first place I found where I could sit down and eat the sandwich and banana I’d bought at King’s Cross. I sat on some steps at the foot of the National Gallery and pulled out my Ploughman’s sandwich and started eating and was beseiged by the pigeons. So of course I shared my sandwich, because who can turn down a London pigeon?

From there, I asked a nice gentleman in a suit where I could walk to from there and he pointed at another building and said, “Buckingham palace is that way.” So I started walking again and passed through some buildings, under a beautiful bridge, and into St. James Park - finally, a park!

There were pelicans there! They were huge! Their feet were almost as big as mine!

At the end of the park was Buckingham Palace…alas, no princes or queens were standing by to invite me in for tea.

After Buckingham Palace, I walked back to the Tube…

And took it to Oxford Circus. I got off and stopped at Borders - 4 floors of books! - and bought a few things for the kiddies and then stopped at a few more small stores before finding myself back where I started this whole thing, Piccadilly Circus. On my way, though, I found this:

The Soho Cabaret with a girl in hot pants and boots positioned right next to the Soho Parish School where I could hear the little schoolgirls singing their playground songs. Weird.

Next I took the Tube to Hyde Park which was…just a park. Maybe it was because it had started pouring (I, of course, did not have an umbrella) but it was just trees and grass. So I skipped that and chatted up a bus driver who was between routes who let me stand in the bus while the rain passed over and told me about some places close by. I was in a kind of inconvenient place where I could go North and see Madame Toussaud’s wax museum or go South and see Westminster Abbey and further to London Bridge, but unfortunately, I couldn’t go to both because of the time. So I decided to go South and headed back to the Tube and took it to Westminster.

The first thing I saw was the Parliament - enormous and beautiful.

There was a beautiful green field on one end of it, so I stopped and took off my shoes - which by now were killing me - and ate my banana and stretched out for a while. I couldn’t stop too long because despite my pleas, time refused to slow down so I could wander around more. On my way out of the park, I saw this statue, which from my angle, appeard to have one guy with roaming hands…

Westminster Abbey was, as so many places in London were, breathtaking. The churches in Spain are beautiful, too, but there’s something about the historic buildings in England that were somewhat different.

After this, I followed the signs to take me to Victoria Station so I could take another train somewhere else, but along the way I saw House of Fraser which drew me in with its displays of Oasis clothes and signs for tea in its restaurant. I made my way upstairs with the requisite stops in the shoe department, jewelry section, housewares and stationery section, and had tea - tea with scones, jelly and clotted cream.

Clotted cream was one of those things that I never had a burning desire to try - the only thing “clotted” reminded me of was a song in 8th grade…and for the sake of all that is good, I will not go there.

But clotted cream, not nearly as bad. In fact, it was pretty good. It’s kind of in between whipped cream and butter. Heavier than whipped cream, not as heavy as butter. It was very good. And my tea - for the first time, I had my tea with cream and sugar, and I have to say - I liked it! I turned my nose up at at the thought of adding cream to my tea but when I was given a spread that included tea, I figured what the hell…and so I added it. Soooo much better. The clotted cream in the picture looks bright yellow but it was actually almost white.

I read some of my book and let my feet relax for a while and then I headed back. My last stop was to London Bridge. I didn’t see a sign, so I just picked a direction and started walking. Having not read any information on London before I went, I didn’t know what anything looked like, and I saw a bridge down the way and figured it was London Bridge. It was not. It was Tower Bridge. London Bridge was very boring and, like Hyde Park was just a park, London Bridge was just a bridge.

Tower Bridge:

London Bridge:

Tower Bridge was gorgeous, and just next to the bridge was HMS Belfast, a floating museum of their Naval heritage. I walked back up the River Thames all the way to London Bridge, but the whole way I was looking for the Tower of London so I could see the Crown Jewels that were on display.

So I walked from the station (which ended up being right by London Bridge) all the way down to Tower Bridge, back up to London Bridge, and back down almost all the way back to Tower Bridge in search of the Tower. When I finally found the Tower, just my luck - it was closed for the night.

I hobbled back all the way up to London Bridge in my too-small shoes, stopping right before the station to pick up another sandwich, banana and a Fanta to eat on my way back. I stopped for one last picture before the light started weakening, and it happened to be my favorite picture of the whole lot. Click for a larger picture.

Of course, my luck, I left my dinner on the Tube. And then I ran to catch my train, which ended up being a different train than I came in on (I was on the super fast orange and blue train), sat in the wrong cabin (first class), and got off on the wrong stop (St. Neots, the stop before Huntingdon). I waited for a half hour for the next train and got back on and into Huntingdon where I took a cab to the base, walked from the gate to my room, and crashed, hard, for the night.

For the first 6 days of my trip, I stayed on the base and would walk pretty much every day about a half mile up the road to the pink pub where I’d have bangers & mash for dinner - my new favorite! The cumberland sausages were more herby and much less greasy than any sausage I’ve had before, and the onion gravy was just right, and the potatoes were great and lumpy just the way I like them.

Just after I got out of the gate, there was this little stone marker on the side of the sidewalk, it was only about 2 feet high:

I thought this sign was funny - “Official Secrets Act”

Driving on the wrong side of the road…but in my American pickup truck (I hate pickup trucks!) that had the steering wheel on the left side

The pretty pink flowered trees on base

The Post Office I found on the side of a very quiet country road