Monday, September 28, 2015

Vacation slide show from hell.

So, I've been abroad.

No, not "a broad" in the Bea Arthur sense. "Abroad" in the fancypants sense.

My Guy has worked for his corporation for so long that he got a sabbatical. And so, we took this precious time to get off our couch and go to the United Kingdom. The trip destroyed my feet, gave me a new appreciation for free public toilets, and was generally perfect. Here are some highlights.

Instead of The Dollar Store or Dollar General, the UK has Poundland. This makes sense since they don't have dollars, but pounds. Except that we kept calling it "Poundtown," because both my husband and I are actually 12-year-old boys.
Man, I am really good at selfies.
In what I'm sure is a shock to my humanities professor, I was excited to point out the salient buttresses and flying buttresses of the chapels and abbeys. Basically, I specialized in buttri. Because those were the parts of architecture I remembered. But at least I remembered something, right? Right?
Bath Abbey has both salient and flying buttri. And my husband, listening to an audio guide and pretending it's an old-school cell phone and he's on a very important call, probably with the pope. Or Mayor McCheese.
I really missed the dogs. Luckily, I found this window display.
Your breath is amazing.
This is the Royal Crescent in Bath. It's where crescent rolls were invented.
People here were really on edge, never knowing when the giant tube was going to pop.
Edinburgh is the shit. It is the coolest. And looking over it all is Arthur's Seat. It doesn't look like much of a mountain/hill, but trust me when I tell you that there's an easy-ish way to get to the top and a Marital Death March way to get to the top. Guess which one we took?
This is a slight exaggeration of what we traversed, but not really. And we're still married!
We tried haggis, both regular and vegetarian. No photo. Because it was gross. Not in a gag-me-with-a-spoon way, but in a why-would-anyone-eat-this way.

Toward the end of any European trip, I think it's normal and perfectly fine to be castled and churched out. Here we are in front of the ruins of the Melrose Abbey. Yes, there's a fence between us and the abbey. Because we didn't feel like spending money to see yet another church and we decided to eat instead. It was kind of like in "Vacation" when they see the Grand Canyon - "Well, yep, there it is. Let's go!"
Even our eyes are like, "Obligation photo. Hope skipping this one doesn't make us bad Christians."
The U.S. is great, but can lack a certain panache. Case in point: I have yet to find this cereal back home. Now how am I supposed to become a bekilted Scott Bakula / Huey Lewis track and field star?
Step aside, haggis. This is the true taste of Scotland.
I'm not gonna lie. This trip was great, and such a blessing. Also? I'm really glad to be home. I know what coins are what here, and have a strong sense of how the toilets work.

Once the jet lag wears off, we want to start planning another trip. Where should we go? What destinations have you loved?

6 comments:

8 said...

It looks like you two had a great time! I visited London/Paris last year and it was amazing but feel your pain when it comes to the money situation, and the feet. We walked 10-15 miles per day and I was swollen all the time.
Go to Italy, Rome, Greece. I have not yet been but I hear it is beautiful and def on my top 5 list!

Kari said...

This looks like so much fun.
And Poundland so likes a place I need to go.

Violet said...

Vegetarian haggis? Isn't that an oxymoron??

And that is clearly Scott Bakula. I mean, they named it after him and everything.

So glad you had a fantastic trip!

Anonymous said...

What a swell trip you two had! Glad the "marriage buster" didn't deter you.
Poundtown. *snicker*

Dziesma said...

Sabbatical? Whoa, that is completely amazing - and envy-inducing! Sounds like a wonderful trip. As for suggestions - don't get me started... ;-)

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

This sounds like a dream vacation. So glad you could go! Also, I totally get it: the vacation weariness and love of free toilets... and your 12yo boy humor. (Even my own boys aren't as crass as I have been at times.)
However, haggis and porridge confuses me; I thought the taste of Scotland was shortbread and whisky.