I live in a sleepy town and sometimes I'm so grateful for the minute size of it, but tonight I'm feeling quite restless. I want to go here for a cup of coffee (because it reminds me of Heidelberg)...
It's nearing the end of the year. My kids want to go outside and quite frankly, so do I. I'm tired of marking and I've only marked one set of papers. Tomorrow night, a new batch follows. Sigh.
We're leaving on Saturday (after I tour Borough Market!) for a week-long drive through Ireland. We start in Dublin, move to Belfast, across to Dingle, down the coast to Galway, inland to Kilkenny, back out to some place I can't recall, down south to Cork, over to kiss the Blarney Stone, and back up to Dublin to fly out next Saturday. Phew! I'm psyched, as I'm sure I should be.
So I'm not tired, though the second phase of P90X has begun and I'm still on the diet plan from the first plan. My arms ache a little, but it's worth it. The other night, Aleisha and I looked VERY closely at the before and after-phase-1 shots: what a world of difference! It's super cool to see what you can accomplish physically after such a short time. And if my body can do something great, so too can my brain :)
More of the story, the saga, the how-I-ended-up-HERE tale when I have a little more time to write. I hope you're keeping well xxx
I fell into banking after
some very convincing phone calls, sound words of advice, and the best possible
contacts in the finest possible places.
My Aunt Erika once told me I was born with a horseshoe up my ass. I have to agree with her on this point:
it seems that every place I turned, if I put a modicum of effort into a
project, it worked out. I can’t
remember not getting my way until 2009, when my life fell apart. Then again, I suppose it was always me
getting my way: I created my own destiny every single step of the way and
blaming anyone else for that is just an exercise in futility.
My boss at the bank
thought I was some sort of protégé, so she excelled my education and allowed me
to take tests I must admit I wasn’t entirely ready for. I was studying all the time while in
the throws of a very intense, entirely wrong-for-me relationship; I was a
first-time homeowner, and I was working full time. I was in over my head.
I failed the test that would make me a financial advisor in a very short
time and I spiralled into a pit of self-pity and seemingly eternal doubt. What was I doing? My job wasn’t satisfying me and I was
miserable. My windshield was hit
by a brick-throwing punk (I need to sell this house and move, thought I on the
daily), rendering me completely dependent on someone else to get me where I
needed to be…it sucked. Though I
can’t completely remember in what order these things happened, I can add that I
was kicked by a horse (yes, a horse) in the lower abdominal region and suddenly
it dawned on me: I had to get out of this life.
Another branch of the
same bank was desperate for a financial advisor and would let me take the
two-week crash course in London, Ontario, where my alma mater was located. I took the job in a heartbeat, much to
the chagrin of the woman who thought she would “make me a financial star”, and
took the first opportunity to get on that course. It was the best two weeks of my life that I could
recall. I learned all day with
this entirely geeky financial guru, ate great food all the time, worked out
with people who became (and remain) friends, and studied well into the
night. I was hooked: I needed to
be back in the classroom. It came
as no surprise to me that I passed the test with flying colours and was officially
an FA. It was a great feeling to
be responsible for people’s personal fortunes, but I felt ever-thwarted at the
bank. Every trade I made had to be
checked and cross checked for compliance (I would thank the bank later when
Canada wasn’t hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis that helped the US crash
into a depression, but that’s another story), and I felt like my work didn’t
matter. This theme will recur over
and over again as this tale gets woven. I needed desperately for my work to matter.
Since I’d always been a
(very successful, entrepreneurial) math tutor, I continued doing this well into
my years of finance. One night, I
was tutoring a kid whose name slips my mind. He was a brooding teen I’d known for about a year who much
preferred the company of his video games to that of girls, and he rarely
cracked a grin. This evening
though, he was all-smiles for some reason. I looked at him as if for the first
time and said, “So-and-so, you got your braces off!”
“Yeah,” he replied
bleakly. “Like two years ago.”
Sh*t. Note I’d known this kid a YEAR and had
never known him NOT to have braces.
What a tool.
That night, I confessed
to his mother what had happened and laughing about it (because she certainly
didn’t miss a chance to have a giggle at this prize’s expense!) turned into
talking, which turned into sharing a pot of tea. She was a professor or accountant or physician or something
equally impressive, so I quite liked her company (poor kid wondered why I still
hadn’t gone home) and drank in this quality time. The conversation turned to the age-old question about
finding meaning in life (told you it’d come back) and she asked whether or not
I’d found it.
Nope.
This quickly turned to
tears as she coached me through many a scenario where I may have actually found
the meaning I so eagerly sought.
None was to be found.
“Why aren’t you a
teacher?” she asked me. “You’re so
good at it.”
We cried (cried! Together! Can you imagine?) about all
the lost opportunity and lost time, shared some stories, and I left thinking
hard about how things had shaped up.
After the failures and the kick by the horse, it seemed the only thing I
excelled at was making math fun for kids.
Ha!
That night, I talked to
Laura about going back to school.
I’d be a teacher, wouldn’t I?
And suddenly it was decided: I was going into education.
As of late, the weather has been devastatingly delightful and we've been spending every single moment outside. This means classes are outside, break times are spent in the sunshine (and kids are not being appropriately punished: so what?), lunch hours (35 minutes, let's be frank) are basked in daylight. Phew. It's been a long time coming.
Though I have a pretty substantial backyard ("garden" as the English say, though I can't really get over the expression, "we had dinner in the garden last night". IN the garden? In the dirt? It's hard to accept), it's not all that comfortable. These look far more inviting...
and the fact that I just completed Week 4 (of 13) of P90X in mind, I present to you what I just got suckered into signing up for on the last weekend of my year here in England.
My little cousin got married tonight. Sigh. I remember when she was on my grandparent's balcony, singing a song about cucumbers. I also recall the cutest little picture ever of her in a car seat, while her doting sister, posed in a charming, like only the red-headed gals can, ear-to-ear smile, protectively stood above her. I hate those "seems like only yesterday" comments, so I'll stop now. She looks happy (and beautiful!) and so does her new husband. That's what it's all about, isn't it?
My best friend, Laura, hates it when I quote the Weepies. Perhaps she doesn't know I'm quoting them when I say, "I want to live a simple life." Laura says that lives are for making an impact and being the change you want to see in the world, not for simplicity. But it's something more than that for me. After this long, involved story, you'll see that it's not an easy life I seek, but a clear, focused, and self-manifested one. It's different than easy...it's a life I've made for myself.
You see, I always had
this image, this vision, of my Future Home.It was a condo, but not a loft.It was spacious in that the large living room dominated the
main space, but it wasn’t huge.I
have a rather white-ish coloured couch with many a throw on top of it.There are doors that lead outside
behind the couch.On the hardwood,
there is an impressive Persian rug.It is red with flecks of gold.There is a soft yellow reading lamp that is illuminating what I can see
my Future Self reading: a magazine.There is jazz music playing in the background and the atmosphere is
warm-hearted, inviting, and quiet.It is a quiet life upon which I am looking.It’s the life I’ve always dreamed of living.I look very happy: I look like I belong
there.I always thought that in
order to get this home, I would need to depend on someone else to provide it
for me.I thought that a dual
life, a paired life, would allow these luxuries: warm light, magazines, and red
area rugs.Maybe I have to start
thinking about living the life I’ve always wanted to live…and just work at making
it happen.
I had an amazing weekend five days ago. After a long workout, I talked with Laura on Friday night, then got a much-needed long night's sleep. I visited the Dartford farmer's market, an actual delight, being that the produce stall folks are always so friendly to me, and tutored for a bit. I hung around, did some laundry, and did yet another heart-pounder before Frank came over with Season 4 of Parks and Recreation. It's the little things, folks. Sunday in London was awesome. The weather was great, the company I kept was great, and we squeezed in a late lunch at Kopapa at Seven Dials in Covent Garden. Bring on the spring summer, folks! I've also been writing a memoir of how I got here on the blog. I do hope you're enjoying it.
Gosh, now where do I
start this story?When I was in my
second year at university, I found it so incredibly challenging, so difficult,
that it was more often than not demoralizing.I couldn’t stand the structure of the year: way too many
students in a vast class with little TA support.I was drowning in a sea of hopeful doctors, each of us
dropping our dreams one by one as the microphages and pipetting mocked us more
and more from textbooks and labs.It was all too much.So my
dreams of being a doctor, those dreams I dreamed while hooked up to machines,
were very rapidly whisked out from under me.
Of course, there is a
rebuttal to this story: everyone went through what I did.Some of us persevered (even I got 88% on an Organic Chemistry
midterm!), while the rest of us just fell by the wayside.Some people rose to the occasion and
simply studied harder, but I, having found that failure was a very real
possibility for me, was catapulted into a state of depressed,
can’t-even-bear-to-study shock.Since
when was I just another brick in the wall?Wasn’t I the
special little bear my mother had promised I was?Wasn’t I the
smartest, wittiest, most deserving second-year university student?Turns out getting a reality check is
painful, necessary, and demobilizing. As a matter of fact, I’m only just getting over it now.
I got into the Canadian
College of Naturopathic Medicine after a gruelling application and interview
process (and by some small miracle, as we’ll see later might just be a giant
horseshoe).It meant a lot to me
at the time that I was going to be a part of Canada’s health revolution.Turns out, I wasn’t.Though my father put himself on the
line both emotionally and financially to support me, I decided at the last
minute to bow out.I couldn’t bear
the thought of people coming to me as a last-ditch effort to somehow rid them
of their systemic ailments, caused by years of neglect and abuse.How could I possibly be expected to
help anyone
who was first going to try every single solution before coming
to the one true healer?There I go
again…the special little bear, rearing her ugly head.I decided that being over $200,000 in debt with very little
to call my own save the potential debt from buying an existing naturopathic
practice was a little more than my tender 22-year old self could handle, and I
bowed out.Again.
There I was, a very
scared young woman, renting an apartment in the city I’d grown up in (but it
was in a totally great neighbourhood
[insert eye roll], which made me feel, at least temporarily, as though it was
the best place ever), working at a totally dead-end job that was handed to me from
university days, and thinking I had it all figured out (cue second eye
roll).Oh, and I was dating my
ex.How rich.
I just read this article about living abroad and thought it was an incredibly poignant piece. Take a look through and get a glimpse into why it is I find it so darn hard to come home...
To say it started in Stuttgart is wrong, because it
started long ago.It started when
I was a kid, hurt, on an intravenous, dependent on a stooped position to walk
even a step.My mother was beside
herself, my nurse was callous and cutting (read: hilarious), and I was starting
to figure out that school was far easier than I had ever dreamed it could
be.I was a smart girl, a really
smart girl.I understood material
faster than most (all?) of my classmates and completed tasks thoroughly and
with care.I didn’t buy the excuse
that because I was “bored” I could act up and become defiant. I used the opportunity in elementary
school to complete high school level math, read alot of books, and
explore the world of (slightly) higher education.When in hospital, my teacher couldn’t produce the work fast
enough: I would read it all, complete it all, check it all over to ensure I
hadn’t missed anything.Even
without the aid of a teacher, all on my own hooked up to all those machines, I
was whizzing through the work that my 12-year old peers more than likely
struggled with.It was
fascinating. I was intelligent.
I
fast forward to my current life, my current job: I see intelligent kids here
everyday.There aren’t many of
them, but they do exist.And do
you know what I think about every time I meet their acquaintance?I think, “They’re always going to be
intelligent.They can’t lose
that.”Somehow though, in my life,
I feel like (correction: I felt like)
I lost it.Imagine that.How utterly ridiculous.
My nurse’s name was
Nancy.She was a smoker, had a
deep, husky voice, 80’s hair, and made no bones about how it was she, they, the nurses, who did the work,
while the doctors got all the credit.It was they who were the suckers: the women who cleaned up, followed up,
paid very close attention, so that the doctors could make all the diagnoses and
“take all the credit”.Nancy told
me in no uncertain terms that during university, she was smart enough to be a
doctor.Then she met her husband,
they wanted kids, and she had kids, and became a nurse instead.It was quicker, it was easier, and she
had a family to think of.She had
regretted that decision since the day it was made.Nancy nodded eagerly when I told her my great idea: I would
become a doctor.She was excited
for me.And then her face
clouded over: “Do it now”, she advised (read: growled).“Do it now before you get married
and have kids and forget how smart you are.”I remember her these 18 years later.I remember the disdain, the contempt
for her former self in her voice and in her expressions.I remember, I have remembered, for all
these years.Somehow though, despite
all the remembering, I have managed to stifle Nancy and her words of
wisdom.I’ve managed to stifle
until now.
I
think it is time to face yourself again.
Then again, it is always time.
This all started in
Stuttgart.We arrived in April,
hungry, tired, and grossed out at the fact that we were staying in a place that
more resembled Hamilton, Ontario than any Google image of Germany we’d ever seen.We were disenchanted and, as with any good
disenchantment, I was starting to think of the cold, the dark, the dank: the
underbelly of my social conscience.Thankfully, the weather was nice, but Aleisha had just cracked her adult
camera, every “authentic” restaurant in the area was closed, and one of us was going to have to sleep on
a cot.It wasn’t exactly
ideal.I started to brood.
Kat
showed me this
article that really alerted me to the emergency situation that was my
life. It shook my existence. It
changed something inside me.
As some of you may know, my mom is writing a book. What isn't she doing? She asked me to write a short chapter about her, encompassing her style and her quirks. Gladly, I came up with this diddy...
...oh, and here is the most perfect picnic table EVER to brighten up my day\
Source sort of unknown! Click on Facebook to see if it'll work!
Without further ado...
My
Classy Mother
I struggle to find a starting point
for this story.I was in a
relationship, my heart was ripped out of my chest, not literally of course, but
don’t tell my 26-year old self that, we broke up, and I fell back in love
again.Oddly, this all has
something to do with my mother (what doesn’t?).When the New Man said he wanted to travel, to see the world,
to get out of this god-forsaken town, I was completely on board.After all, running away from the life I
used to lead sounded like a holiday I’d like to live for awhile instead of
visiting and inevitably having to relinquish.As it turned out, my should-have-been-one-year stint in
Europe with the New Man turned into a going-on-four-year life all over the
other side of the world.What an
adventure it’s been.
The
original plan is that Craig and I would travel to Italy and find work teaching
there.Unfortunately, employment
was hard to come by when one wasn’t a holder of the coveted EU passport, and
the search was far easier the further east we looked.Craig announced in January that it was Korea he’d chosen and
that I, too, should pack my bags and join him on this transcontinental
journey.It was mid-February when
I made the decision.I was on an
impromptu road trip through Texas of all places, when a giant billboard kept
appearing at the side of the road, “Go there, Lex”, it read.Sure that this was a sign, not for a
war memorial at Lexington, but to me to leave this place (North America) and
venture out to the Great East, I announced to my family that I would be going
with Craig to Korea.My father’s
response was priceless.“Asia?You can’t go to Asia!”
It
was settled: I was going.
I
wonder sometimes if I was truly just running from the past or if I was proving
to myself and to my people (family and friends at this point, for the term, “my
people” would come to mean something completely different one year later) that
I could do something amazingly risky; something so outside of the Hamilton,
Ontario life that I had signed up for when I said, “I do.”Either way, I was well on my way to
making sure this was going to be a risk worth taking.I thoroughly researched the school systems, the culture, and
packed my two enormous suitcases with every single prized possession I
owned.I was ready to join Craig,
who had left four months prior, and ready to start our awesome Korean lives…for
the next year anyway.
Before
I get to the hilarity of the airport, let me first say that Craig and I talked
once (once!) via Skype the whole time he was in Korea and I was at home.Once.I knew it was over and I knew it was never going to happen
for us, but I went anyway.I thought
that once I was there, he would remember the magic and we’d start the romantic
montage I’d dreamed of for four months.Somewhere deep down though, I knew it wouldn’t work out.Upon careful reflection, that is
probably why I went: knowing that there wasn’t a man waiting for me, preparing
to withstand yet another paralyzing blow to my ego, my heart, my life, I needed
to get away from the people who loved me so that I could grieve on my own.It was time for some independence and
time to feel this debilitating pain, again.
The
journey to Korea was not routine, but who would have thought it would have
been?My luggage was overweight
and I was completely broke, so my father had to bail me out.I was so embarrassed.Then because I was stopping over in
Chicago before continuing on to Seoul, I had to go through US Customs in the
Toronto airport.My parents had no
idea the mayhem that was about to unfold as they waived goodbye to their only
spawn.When asked on the customs
form if I was bringing in any weapons, fruits, seeds, meat, animal products,
weapons of mass destruction, terrorists, or live Ethiopian babies, I replied
frankly, “No.”The muffins my
mother had made for the trip over were in plain sight.As were the cherries she’d lovingly
washed and wrapped up.
Again I was prodded, “Are you sure you
don’t have any of these products?”
“Nope”, said rather glibly.
“No seeds or fruit?”
A strange look upon my face followed
by a slow and steady, “Noooo?”
I was asked to step into The Room on
the Left.Do whatever you can to
avoid The Room on the Left.It’s
where baby-kidnappers and machine-gun builders go when customs officers are sure
they’re the Bad Guys.And now I
was one of them.I still didn’t
understand the gravity of my situation until I was called up, some forty
minutes after arriving, some forty-five minutes after seeing my parents for the
last time for twelve months, to the booth to “explain myself”.I still thought this was a big
misunderstanding and, in fact, ate most of my flax seed-riddled muffins before
diving into the cherries…oh god.There are pits in the cherries.And seeds in the muffins.Seeds.In.the.Muffins.Clearly visible from the outside of their cellophane wrapper.What an idiot.
“I’m
terribly sorry, Sir”, I choked out.“I didn’t even realize I had these.My mom made them for my trip over to Korea and when the man
asked if I had any seeds, I naturally said no because I don’t have any seeds
and then I realized that I had a lot of seeds…there are seeds all over the
place in my hands right now and I completely realize now what I’ve done wrong
and…”
The
customs officer cut me off.
“Young
lady, you lied to a United States Customs Officer.Do you know what the fine is for such an offence?”
Offence?Come on.I just forgot about some damn seeds!Cherries!Since when are cherries a crime?!
“No,
Sir.”
“$200
to start with, but we can certainly detain you for an appropriate period of
time.”
Well
now I was sweating.My mouth was
dry.I was on the brink of tears
when I simply blurted out, “I’m moving to Korea to be with a guy who probably
doesn’t even want to be with me anymore.I’m completely out of money so much so that my father just had to pay
the Korean Air lady so that I could take all my precious belongings with me to
a foreign country.I have nothing
and I can’t give you anything.I
have nothing left.”I was
drained.I was tired.I was dejected.And the journey had only just begun.
He
gave me a stern warning and let me go.I walked so briskly away from the kidnappers and bomb-assemblers, it was
a miracle I didn’t trip.If this
was any indication of how the next 365 days were going to play out, I was
certainly in for a wild (read: awful) ride.Lessons learned: Read Carefully and Don’t be afraid to admit
defeat.In hindsight, though I had
“nothing”, I still had a enormous amount of gumption.And that’s really something.
Korea certainly wasn’t easy for
me.The first week was lonely and
fully challenging at every step.I
had a work colleague who was obligated to take me under his wing both at school
and with regards to my apartment, and because he was a decent, loving man, the
transition to making that teeny tiny place my own was far easier.He became known as My Man very soon
thereafter and I am to this day eternally grateful for the time and energy he
invested in my ignorant, intolerant self.
There was one other person who made a
big impact on my life in Korea: someone who showed me the intricacies of
traditional Korean life, and taught me that being gentle and open allows for
empathy and acceptance. Mrs. Lim (pronounced, “Yim”), who became known as my
Korean Mother, was instrumental in my transition from narrow-minded,
belligerent foreigner, to the woman who would grow to call Asians, “My
People”.With grace and pride, she
inculcated me with her culture and begged to know more, more, ever more about
mine.She tended to me when I was
sick: brought me to the swine flu clinic and held my likely disease-riddled
hand while a nurse stuck a probe so high up my nose I could swear it touched my
brain; delivered boxes of food she’d
cooked herself early that morning then carted on the hour-long bus ride right
to my house; picked up my favourite pumpkin soup with black beans when I called
in sick for the umpteenth time that month; and introduced me to my first Asian
acupuncturist.I trusted her
implicitly and was eager to help her in any way I could.
In one of our many conversations about
North American culture, which regularly centered on food, I told Mrs. Lim about
my mother’s disdain for the expression, “I’m full.”Finding this quite odd, Mrs. Lim needed to know more.
I started the story: “When I was
twelve, my mother planned a very ornate, beautiful trip across the Rockies from
Banff to Victoria, British Columbia.It was a breathtaking adventure that changed my Mom at every twist and turn
of the road.I was completely
oblivious to the beauty, however, or so my mother thought, because I was twelve
and vile and wanted to be at home with my best friend, talking about boys and
hair styles.”
This she could not believe: how could
anyone not want to experience the splendor of the Rockies?This woman had two very normal children
who, I’m sure, would have felt exactly the same way, but Korean culture
necessitated that they never speak or act disrespectfully to their elders,
rendering poor Mrs. Lim completely oblivious to the fact that her twelve-year-old kids were just like
twelve-year-old me: awful.
I continued.“One night, after a poignantly delicious meal at a fondue
restaurant of sorts, where a young, growing me ate all the meat she could eat,
and was on cloud nine for the first time during the trip, I leaned back, put my
hands on my engorged belly and replied, ‘I’m FULL!’Well, my mother was having no part in that.She
adamantly stuck up her index finger, waived it defiantly in my face, and said,
“You do NOT say, ‘I’m full’, young lady, you say, ‘I’m SATISFIED’, all the
while shaking her head disapprovingly.”
Well that hit Mrs. Lim in all the
right places.She was beaming: my
mother was just like her!But
there was one striking difference.This difference stayed with me, and with my mother, for all this time:
“Your mother is so classy!”
And so it began: my mother was classy
because she got rid of two coffee mugs after getting new ones as gifts instead
of letting the extra clutter her cupboards; she was classy because she planned
dinner menus by cutting out recipes and table setting options from magazines;
she was classy because she “had her colours done”, a service I don’t even think
Mrs. Lim fully understood.It’s
not that I don’t agree with Mrs. Lim: my mother is classy.It’s just
that My Korean Mother had a bit of a lady crush on my actual mother and it was
pretty hilarious.Everything my
mother did was classy in some way, shape, or form.Until one day…
As I’m sure you’ll read in this book,
my mother had a (ahem) “near death experience” involving The Boat in the
Burlington Bay.Because she had an
actual near-death experience
involving water, I was all-ears to hear the telling of this harrowing tale
after it first occurred.Fresh
were her wounds as she regaled me with a real-time account of how she –your one and onlyMother!—nearly died! I listened intently, sure that she must have
been calling from the hospital, poised to come home on the next Korean Air
flight out of Seoul.And then my
mother announced that she could stand in the four-foot deep water at the mouth
of Lake Ontario and all was just fine in the land of skippers and
captains.Oh, we did have a laugh
about that one.And I, in true
I-do-love-telling-a-great-story fashion, immediately told my expat friends in
Korea.Pealing with laughter, I
knew I had a keeper.
The following day, I told Mrs. Lim
that I had a vexing tale about My Classy Mother to tell her from that
weekend.
“It is a doozy”, I said.
“Doozy?What doozy?”
“Never mind.There’s no time to explain.Prepare yourself.”
I launched in, careful to ensure that
my facial expressions completely and utterly surpassed all levels of fright
from the original tale.Emotions
mounted to horror status as Mrs. Lim inched further and further toward the edge
of her chair, now fully in the know about Mom’s childhood water scare.She was on her feet when I told her
about the sailboat (“See?Your
mother is so classy!”) and the
adventures of getting certified to sail it.
“And brave, too!She so brave!”Oh brother.Was there no end to her devotion?
At long last, the moment of truth was
upon us: the punch line (of course not the end of a joke to Mrs. Lim, but the
climax, the pinnacle, the reason for her current standing and punching
[punching!] stance).Her eyebrows
were raised so high, her tiny Asian body tense in a wide-legged,
fight-or-flight position, fists clenched, jaw tight, when I told her:
“And then the man on the shore yelled,
‘Why don’t you just stand up?’ and she did!She was in four feet of water! Bwhahahahaahaha.”My enjoyment was palpable.
But Mrs. Lim, oh Mrs. Lim was another
story.She literally
collapsed.Well, she didn’t
actually fall, but her whole
demeanour plunged: her eyebrows remained raised, poised to accept that this
could not possibly be the end.Her
dreams, her classy lady crush…this couldn’t be happening.She straightened, brushed off her
trousers, and relaxed the tension in her face at long last.She was frazzled, I could tell.Perhaps telling a joke about my mother
wasn’t the thing to do.Did she
find me insulting?What did I want
her to say?“Ohhh…not so classy
anymore!?”Was I just awfully
cruel about my own Mother?Oh
dear.I’ve made a crucial error.
And then the corners of her mouth
curled up slowly, creeping dangerously toward what could only be described as a
grin-grimace hybrid.She pointed
at me and said in a clear mysterious voice,
The strangest thing happened with this new formatting: where I used to have to upload photographs in reverse order so that they appear in proper order, I now no longer have to do this. Winning. So if you will, please do view the pictures from the bottom up :)
Aleisha and I decided that a night away was in the cards for this long weekend, since it had been long enough since we'd been cooped up in Dartford. That and Ofsted was at school this week, watching us, grading us, judging us. It was very stressful. We have strictly adhered to the P90X diet and exercise regime, taking only Sunday as the obligatory day of rest. I have never been so physically and emotionally tired (burning a ga-gillion calories on four hours of sleep will do that to you): this week was one for the books.
Though Dad told me to take a car to Wales and see all of its splendour, Avis had none left and taking a train to Cardiff was about all we could muster the energy to plan. Thankfully, we booked this delightful B&B, so we didn't have to put up with the hoodlums that frequent ten-to-a-room hostels. Ew. Take a look at the time away...
The outside of Beaufort House on Upper Cathedral Street: beautiful bed and breakfast
The kid behind this park monstrosity reminded me this looked like Gruffolo. I had forgotten his name.
I could have SWORN this seagull was posing
Outside Cardiff Castle: my favourite picture of the weekend
We searched high and low (can you believe this small town has SIX Starbucks in their downtown?) for Wales mugs. And found 'em. Score.
Downtown Cardiff
The Cardiff Castle!
We figured the city must be the future site of an event in August
Bocce, Welsh styles
Where we dined on Saturday evening.
Breakfast in the beautifully appointed dining room
Dinner, Saturday night
Naturally, the footwear of choice.
Unfortunately, the picture does not do the room justice. The ENORMOUS bed with the most luxurious bedding was in the coziest room ever. Great find.
