Our last day of the trip. Very sad, at least John and I were. The kids, it was mixed. Ava is excited to come home since she’s been gone since January. Lucia seemed a little excited to go back, but the littles were actually NOT excited—they wished we were going somewhere else. It’s hard to imagine we have no car to pack up, or a next destination arrival to plan out. The pattern is a little ingrained by now and it feels weird to do something different.
We tried to kick off early to maximize the day, and we did get off at a decent time. We started the morning out in Kensington (after taking a quick double decker bus ride), having smoothies and breakfast nibbles. We walked thru Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and then back to Mayfair and Marylebone. The parks were huge, and open but with a lot of trees and some areas that were sort of "wild". They weren't fussy, and felt inviting, with people sitting everywhere, chairs to rent, ponds, ducks, lots and lots of grass. We took the opportunity to plop down at one point and chill, just enjoying the place.
We found ourselves in front of a Whole Foods in Kensington, so I forced us to go in so I could get some “healthy” plane ride snacks. It was INCREDIBLE. Like 10x better than the Whole Foods at home (which until now I thought was pretty darn good.) No, in fact, comparatively it sucks. This WF had the yummiest looking prepared food section I’ve ever seen, and every specialty food thing you could possibly want. From a gluten free, wheat free, yeast free, sugar free seed bread (can't even imagine what's left to eliminate), to powdered raspberries for baking and probably 150+ different chocolates. I spent forever in there and still wasn’t done searching for treats (but everyone was about to kill me.)
John and I continued to snap simultaneous pictures, to which the standing joke now is that they are "divorce pictures." At some point during the trip as we snapped side by side on our phones I said, "you know we take the same pics right? I'm pretty sure that's not necessary." His response was that my pics often suck, and he didn't want to miss anything. I added that if we ever got a divorce it would sure be easier than trying to trade family pics too. It's a funny, but also not funny, joke. The upside is if we ever DID get a divorce, I'm not wrong...it would sure be easier that we both have a ton of family pictures on our individual iclouds. For the record, nothing is in the works, but if you had asked me on certain days of the trip, I'm not sure what I would have said. Insert big smile here.
Lunch was only one of many, many stops for food and drink. No different than any day I guess, someone is always hungry, someone always has to go to the bathroom, and John feels it's his fundamental duty to sample as much food as possible while traveling. We walked until literally the girls gave out, but just at that point we passed by a Ted Baker classic barber shop (didn't even know he had a barber shop too, but he does) so we sent the girls home in an Uber and John and Romeo (with me snapping pics) had the English barber experience. It was adorable. The guy that cut Romeo’s hair did a great job, and even though Romeo was very nervous about having any of his hair cut (he likes to look a little surfer-meets-delinquent-meets-rocker-boy), the guy was reassuring and took his time. John meanwhile got the full treatment from the guy next to him, and a fantastic hair cut (complete with ear wicking which is apparently a Turkish tradition where they take a long stick that basically has a ball of flame at the end and they wave it quickly around the ears to burn off any ear hair.) I know, crazy right? Gross that ear hair even exists, but kind of cool that they have devised something as dramatic as a ball of flame to eradicate it. I’ve never seen anything like it but it works brilliantly. Also looks like a major liability which I'm guessing is why I've never seen it before.
Eventually Romeo, John and I made it home and we quickly did some packing and organizing and then we all got dressed for the Phantom of the Opera. All I can say is, it was AMAZING. It was a flawless production, the quality of the actors/singers/dancers was amazing—I was completely and totally floored. Romeo and Gia started to fall asleep at some point, it was past 10:00 p.m. toward the end and that was late for them after the day of walking we had.
We grabbed one of the classic English cabs to get home, and then had a whole long discussion about melatonin. Lucia declared she was sleeping the entire way home on the plane the next day, and Ava said she was going to take 10 mg of melatonin. I told her that was WAY too much and then tried to explain how it actually worked in the brain (because I think they are under the impression it’s a sleeping pill while really it’s just helping the brain to be reminded to start the sleep cycle--it doesn’t actually DO anything to the sleep cycle itself.) Anyway, I argued with them about why they shouldn’t take such a high dose and Ava looked and me and said, “why mom? it’s not like it’s going to cause me to grow a penis.” To which Lucia replied, deadpan, “yeah, mom is going to walk in one day and spot a penis poking thru my pants and she’s going to shake her head and tell me, I told you so, it's your melatonin penis.” We laughed a lot, and I’ll say it now so I don’t have to say it later in case it really happens, I told you so girls, I told you so. Ava's fundamental philosophy in life seems to be more is always better which is frightening on so many levels.
Anyway, a good day and an end to a great trip with many ups and downs, laughs, cries, and a few almost-fist-fights. I hope one day we'll be telling stories about this trip like we tell stories about our last trips, remembering all the good and forgetting all the bad. There are so many moments on the trip that I think it's crazy, it's just TOO long, and it's TOO hard, but then it's over and I'm sad, and I think about all the awesome stuff we got to see. Yes, we had to endure some long days, some brutal tantrums, some so-so airbnb's, lots of food drama and fatigue overload, but in the end, it's still worth it. Really, really, worth it.
Signed, ME {lv}
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