Merry Richmas to All

Rich arrived without a hitch on December 24 (that is vair vair unlike us) and we set off to the lovely land of Reading. Rich thought he wouldn't feel the jetlag, so we made lots of plans for the day he landed, however after immediately entering my room we both collapsed and fell into a deep slumber (vair vair like us). We woke up about five hours later and decided to find something to eat and see the new Harry Potter movie. I have been complaining for weeks that there are no Mexican places to eat in England, yet 15 minutes on the street with Rich and he found a delicious Burrito place. He has since also managed to locate a Jamaican restaurant, which I have walked by every day and not observed. I have managed to locate Mark & Spencers, House of Fraser, McDonalds, Lush, Jamie Oliver's restaurant, and Boots...WASP to the core.

Since moving here, I have been reunited with my inner nerd and obsessively reading HP books and rewatching the movies. Much to Rich's delight, I sobbed loudly throughout the latest movie as J.K. Rowling decided to kill off as many characters as possible for her audience of children. If you thought I might have been handling the movie poorly, you should have seen the hovel of children in front of us sobbing into the sleeves of their Gap Kids sweaters. I will definitely be trying to seek out Miss Rowling to give her a piece of my mind and explain to her that my blog is a hit without me ever having to write about killing off my loved ones. Your welcome.

Rich and I also planned several day trips into London and to Stonehenge, however after planning our routes and hours of looking at maps, I discovered that the Reading train station is closed until January 4th while they fix some of the train tracks. This means that we have to take a bus to Maidenhead (up to 40 minutes depending on which bus you take) then catch a train to London (40 minutes also) adding a hefty amount of time to our journey considering if there were no repairs, we can catch a train that takes 30 minutes for us to get to London. I might also be inclined to mention the bus isn’t anything like in Canada. Seats seem to be much smaller, there is much less leg room, and people pack into small spaces without any regard for personal space. More often than not, I feel an affectionate touch, thinking Rich is being sweet however, it is often gigantic, sweaty men that have names like Jeb.

Our first day trip was to the British Museum, which is as close to heaven as I think I will get on earth. I love museums more than I love kittens, which says a lot as I fancy myself a soft kitten. The sheer size of the building is enough to put people in awe, but then stumbling into the Room of Enlightenment I felt like Indiana Jones or that chick from the Mummy. They had so many artifacts that they could not display them all and had to line the walls up to the ceiling and have a mini guide so you knew what they were. In Rich and my relationship, I have dragged him to a lot of museums (oh joy unbounded) however, we have been slightly disappointed with the quality of them in Canada. Several places we have been have displayed “replicas” of artifacts or fake animals. Why would anyone want to look at a replica of an artifact and why would said artifact be placed behind a glass case? If it’s fake, let me manhandle it to see what the real thing would look like up close. If you are going to cage a fake, I might as well google image that thing and use my zoom option to get a better gander. You don’t see Madame Tussaud putting her wax figures of Denzel or Cher behind a barrier. I can pose as inappropriately as I want with a waxy Bruce Willis or fist bump Obama. Anyway, at the British Museum, everything is totally, 100% legit. If it says I am looking at the Rosetta Stone, I can practically see the sweat from the palms of the stone chiseler.

The only drawback to going over Christmas, is the amount of tourists that ram themselves into the museum. We were bumped, shoved, groped, and violated in as many ways as you can imagine. My favourite part is lining up a perfect shot only to have someone step right into your frame and start taking 1000 photos per second…not. I tried to keep my patience and limit my temper, however one man pushed me to the limit. We had been at the museum for a solid hour when I found four statues I wanted to photograph. A man kept repeatedly stepping into my photos until I unleashed a rage of side comments that would make Sue Sylvester blush. He got the point and apologized, yet managed to dominate the photo again. Here is what I got:

Thanks buddy. Now when my children go through photos of my trip forty years from now, they will wonder who the strange man is that is in all my photographs. I am really glad he could take this journey with us...

Finally, two hilarious moments. Rich and I were talking about exports in the museum (we can no longer remember how this topic came about) however after being shoved multiple times, my darling, endlessly patient, and quite quiet boyfriend said aloud, “Well apparently manners are the main export of Canada.” People’s heads turned and I burst out laughing as they continue to shove him along.

Lastly, we were both winding down from traveling so far and walking all day, so our moods were somewhat somber as we entered the final room we were going to see that day. As we walked in, a man was holding his very young daughter's hand trying to navigate her through the crowd. She was not really looking where she was going and when he sidestepped a display of King Tut,  she was dragged directly into the glass case, making the distinct sound that occurs when a body (specifically the face) hits glass at high velocity. The sheer force of the collision, caused her to spin off the side of the display and roll into her father, who looked very sheepish as everyone was watching open-mouthed and making gasping-chortling laughter sounds. I, of course, am much less subtle and just shouted to Rich, “Did you see that??? AWESOME!” as he steered me away laughing loudly as well.

All in all, it has been a busy start to our holiday, but we are going to keep on. Tomorrow we are off to see the British Aquarium, the House of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace. Pip pip, cheerio!