Sniff

Today was our last day here.  Sniff.  What a great trip!

We saw the crown jewels and a diamond the size of an egg.  We saw great works of art: Dali, Picasso, Monet, Michelangelo and Kandinsky.  We saw the Rosetta Stone and the guardians of Assyria.  We saw castles and palaces.  We saw fireworks shot from the London Eye while anchored on the Thames.  We saw the Churchill War Rooms and Trafalgar Square.  We saw the train stations of west London and the tomb of Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton.  We heard (mostly) the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace and the bong, bong, bong of Big Ben.  We ate fish and chips and drank beer and whisky till we reeked.  We got hooked on a local game show called The Chase (you can probably watch it on netflix).  We rode first class on trains and crowded into packed Tube cars.  We bought souvenirs for friends and family and big warm Scottish sweaters for ourselves.  We met wonderful people from London, York, Edinburgh & Finland.  We soaked up history like sponges and spat out Americanisms to the delight of our new UK friends.

I will miss the British Isles.  I will not miss tiny cold Ladies' rooms!  But that's really about the only thing I won't miss.  Folks here are friendly and ready to share their cities and history with anyone who asks.  They easily launch into why their whisky is better than any we'll find stateside.  They are brilliant and funny, and helpful, and I feel like we will totally keep in touch with those we've met and know our paths will cross again.

There is one really weird thing...all this time I only heard one guy playing bagpipes.  My God, you'd think the bastards would be on every fucking corner, but, no.  They are no where in sight or earshot.  I mean, I hear the music in stores, but that's not the same.  Dammit!  I wanted to hear the pipes - mostly so I could bitch about them.  So very sad.

But it's time to come home...and, on some level, I'm okay with that.  Cheers from the UK.