The Oswalt Life: November 2009

London, England was our first stop on our 18 day vacation extraordinaire. While traveling on frequent flier miles has its benefits of being free, they make your traveling experience less than desirable! We had to travel from Austin to Dallas, Dallas to North Carolina, and North Carolina to London. We traveled over night and although I usually sleep well on planes, this trip was an exception. Kirk kept falling asleep and when he became relaxed, he had the sensation he was falling and would jerk awake, waking me at the same time! This made for a long flight for me, but I was thankful our flight had some good movies to watch in flight. I was taking jet lag pills during the entire flight every 2 hours to help me adjust to the time change when we arrived. While re-reading the instructions after we landed, to see how often I should take them once we landed.... I decided to read the ingredients to see what was helping me? To my horror, the first ingredient was lactose! I have been lactose intolerant my whole life!!! Yikes! I had a bad feeling I knew what was about to happen to me. We arrived in London around 7:00am London time and were wanting to start our sightseeing right off the bat. It had already been a long day of traveling, but we wanted to pump ourselves full of caffeine and hit the sights. Our first stop after checking into our hotel and cleaning up was the "changing of the guards" at Buckingham Palace. I gradually started feeling ill, and on our way to Buckingham Palace I felt worse and worse. By the time we got there, I couldn't stand up! I was a sick puppy.... I sat crouched on a curb and made Kirk brave the crowds with the camera. I suddenly felt someone hovering over me, and looked up in horror to discover a strange man straddling me while watching the parade. Too sick to care, I knew I could escape if I needed to. As Kirk approached me crouching with the weirdo above me, I looked up at him and told him I was okay. He asked the foreigner to switch places with him, and when he realized there was a language barrier he loudly said MOVE. The funny thing was that there was an open space next to us that he could have chosen to stand..... Creepy!!!

Our next stop was to have the traditional lunch of fish and chips. I gradually started feeling better and better, and decided I probably just needed some caffeine to help me through it. While I found a seat, Kirk went to the counter at the Pub to order. They obviously don't speak "Kirk" or "Texas" because Kirk kept looking at me to translate for him with the waitress! After he repeated "fish and chips" 3 or four times louder and slower after each question she asked him, I realized she asking if we wanted peas or smashed peas with our fish and chips. The waitress tried using sign language with Kirk showing him (in a very fast British accent) "its a little pea and we smash it up". It was very entertaining!

I felt back to normal after we ate, and we were off to Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and the Parliament building. We took the beautiful walk through St. James Park, and after drinking about 7 diet cokes at lunch, I can now tell you where every bathroom is in London and how much it costs to use it (yes you have to pay for some of them!)

We took some beautiful pictures of Westminster Abbey, and made the rounds to the Parliament and Big Ben. When we finished, and were heading back to the tube (subway), Kirk looking puzzled said..... "that was great babe, but where's big Ben?" I tried not to laugh too hard, remembering that he works so hard and didn't have time to help with any of the planning or itineraries! He now knows that "Big Ben" is the "Big Clock" we had been looking at and taking pictures of! We started getting tired around 4:00, but told ourselves we could NOT go to sleep until at least 6:00! We had now been up for roughly hours, and were starting to hit a wall. We headed back to our neighborhood by Paddington Station, and ate some delicious Mediterranean food. We stopped into a pub to grab a beer before bed, and went to bed at 6:30pm.

We woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day! We started at St. Paul's Cathedral, to climb to the top of the dome to get a bird's eye view of London. It was definitely a "foggy" day in London, and I'm sure Kirk was sick of hearing me sing Buble's version of that song! Next we were off to the Tower of London, and then to the TKTS booth to get Theater tickets for that night. We ate at Wagamama, went shopping in Piccadilly Circus at Top Shop, and even ran into Rachel Hunter there. (We sat next to her at dinner once in California when we lived there.... weird!) Later that night we saw Phantom of the Opera at her Majesty's Theater, a memory we will not soon forget!

The next morning we walked back through St. James Park on our way out of town. This time however, we remembered to buy a bag of peanuts to feed the squirrels. My BFF Andrea told me they will eat right out of your hands, and sure enough Kirk and I were entertained for about an hour feeding the squirrels by hand. One squirrel claimed us, and scarred away all the rest, so we sat there holding the peanut until he tugged it away from us gently and had a BLAST! Thanks Andrea for knowing we would love something like that!!! When the peanuts were gone, it was time to catch our Eurostar train to Paris.

Our highlights in London-

The Tube is so easy and efficient and CLEAN

Kirk liked how everyone dressed up for work

Friendly, Helpful Brits

Indian, Mediterranean, and Asian food

Phantom of the Opera

Feeding the squirrels

Stay tuned for our stories from Paris........