Bouncing Round the Global Room

Apologies for the radio silence! Nevertheless, 4 flights, 18 days, 10,295 miles, 14 family visits, one graduation, one wedding, one dead duck, and many new grey hairs later, we have arrived back in London and blogging will resume! So stay tuned for updates and the most recent adventures of the Texpatriate clan.

Biblical Baptism

Confession: up until this point, Dillon had never been baptized. Although he received a blessing at Christmas mass, we hadn't gone through the traditional baptismal ritual to welcome him into the fold. I started feeling a bit remiss about the whole thing as I viewed the seemly endless stream of friends celebrating their newborns in hilarious ancient baptismal costumes with their families.  At the same time, I wanted the event to be special, rather than an impersonal arrangement with strangers at a London church I would probably never attend. So nothing ever happened... until this past Easter weekend when we just happened to drive by the site on the river Jordan where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. 

Whatever your beliefs or current involvement in the church might be, the site has a way of making you feel connected to a major religious milestone that occurred on these same river banks over 2000 years ago. So it was in the river Jordan, witnessed by godparents-in-waiting Michelle and Joseph, that Dillon was properly welcomed to this world and the next.  So now the only challenge remaining is how we are possibly going to match this with kid #2....

Jordanian Journey

Because we like to do things differently, we spent our first Easter as a family in a Muslim country (nevertheless, we actually managed to squeeze in a pretty special religious moment on the trip--more on that here). Visiting Michelle and Joseph in Amman, Jordan allowed us to explore a corner of the world to which we might not have otherwise ventured. After 32 years of friendship with Michelle and many previous trips under my belt, I had an idea that this probably would be a fun-filled whirlwind of a trip.
How an 8 month old would deal with this much excitement was the only mystery to be solved as Joseph had planned out an impressive 5 day tour of the country's highlights.

Awake after a very brief nap. Only 3:54 to go...

Luckily, Dillon rose to the challenge and was quickly nominated MVP for his ability to charm everyone in sight, obtain early hotel check ins and withstand the occasionally non-baby friendly portions of the trip (aka planes, multi-hour hikes, skipped nap times, etc.).







Here are a few photo highlights of the trip:

Our hosts' pad in Amman

Soaking in the Dead Sea's therapeutic mud 

Best buds

Camel Country

Guyz n Style

Not pictured highlights:

• The time when Michelle flagged down a random driver blaring Tupac to give us a ride. After the end o the jam, he inquired if we also liked Michael Buble and proceeded to blast those beats without noticing the slight inconsistency in his musical tastes.
• The time when we almost ran out of gas in the desert and stopped at a fire station for directions. Almost 20 firemen poured out of the building to help, bearing freshly baked treats and offering to siphon gas out of their personal cars. 
• When our personal dance party got so extreme we broke a bench which we then tried to blame on faulty construction

Overall....a trip of a lifetime with great memories and photos to match.

Royal Oak Roundabout

Taking advantage of the nice weather, we "hired" a car to drop Zambezi off for his trial visit at the Country Canine Retreat (more to come on this). Familiar with stylish Eurowagons unavailable stateside (reference our VW Polo or our all-time sexiest ride, the Honda Jazz), we were pretty happy with the Kia Cce'd and its dog friendly "boot."

Royal Oak Pub #1

The drive appeared to be a straight shot through the village of Dorking (actual name) and down a few country roads. True to stereotype, the directions to the country retreat were based around a local pub. I plotted our route on Google Maps and happily, the pub popped up right away. We arrived without a problem but the directions onward to the retreat didn't add up from there. After much circling around, several phone calls to the owner and consultations with local residents, we determined that we were a town over, at the wrong Royal Oak pub. I re-googled the location, not relying on the apparently-common pub name this time and typed in the street name instead. Off we went. To yet another wrong pub, on a street with the exact same name, again just a village over from our destination. Back in the car. Although the third time was in fact the charm, we weren't able to locate the country retreat without at least six more u-turns and one incident in which the driver might have been driving on the American side of the road (oops).  

This makes me feel a bit better...

Upon finally arriving at the retreat, we unloaded the dog and immediately headed back up to the nearest Royal Oak for a calming pint and much-overdue lunch. Unfortunately although the pub offered tractor races, pantomime horses and allowed guests to sleep in the back garden, there was no food on offer other than the basket of duck eggs on the bar (which the barkeep said you could take home, hatch, raise the duck, kill it, and then bring back in August for the DIY roast. True story.).

The final Royal Oak

Just a short few months until lunch will be served... 

We sat outside in the sunshine and made the best of the situation by enjoying a picnic lunch of crisps, peanuts, and Dillon's baby biscuits. We arrived back in London as the sun was setting- starving, yet assured that Zambezi was "a friendly chap" and confident we would be just fine without driving for another four months.  

The village's finest

A Nifty Little Mormon Trick

Celestial set for everyone's favorite all-American prophet

Last Thursday evening, we took the opportunity to experience London's famed theater district...with an American play. An absolutely hilarious American play. From the get-go, it was clear that the Book of Mormon's reputed offensive humor was right up our alley. Almost a week later, we are still singing along to some of the more memorable show tunes (Hello!) and highly recommend checking out this comic genius in the city nearest you and you won't ever think about those guys at your door the same way again. 

You & Me (But Mostly Me)

Memorable Mum's Day

March 31st (oh, sorry... 31 March) was Mum's Day in the UK and I thought I would share this lovely note I received "from" my darling son:

Mummy, 

You are the bee's knees!  Ace in every way and I appreciate all that you do for me each day.  I truly fancy the various schemes and bits & bobs you use to keep me prim and proper and away from all things dodgy. I can see that I often leave you knockered (zonked, really) and driven out on the piss. Me being the full can of beans that I am, its no surprise you have lost all those zeds. And lets not waffle, I become a rather pernickity lil' chap when I get buggered! But although I can be a ripe pain in your arse, you simply must know that I love you and am wonderfully chuffed to bits to have you as me mum!

Dillon

PS- Zambezi says "How are you"

Quite the British lad already, isn't he?

Joie de Vivre

For our first international excursion, we felt we had to head to the City of Lights. Armed with two additional helpers, Eurostar tickets and what we felt was the bare minimum amount of baby gear, we hit the road....er, tracks.

The journey from London to Paris takes just over two hours by train, with the highlight being the passage through the famed "chunnel."  Unfortunately, we were so excited about the existence of the bar car, that we didn't even notice the passage through the chunnel on the outbound voyage.  A bit anti-climatic but we were unphased.

We arrived into Paris on a beautiful spring day and were able to perceive an apparent difference in work ethic between Londoners and their Gallic cousins.  The parks were packed almost to capacity with people of all ages doing nothing other than sitting in chairs facing the sun.  On a Thursday. At 2 pm.  Clearly this was not a city where something as trivial as a traditional work day would get in the way of  excellent weather.

We quickly caught on to the local mentality and bought a bottle of Bordeaux for our sunset stroll around the Eiffel Tower (luckily no one in the group had any interest in waiting in a seemingly interminable line to actually go up into the tower).

For the next two days, we spent our time strolling around the city, eating and drinking well, and doing our best to get the Parisians to understand our incredibly basic French (i.e. about 7 words).  

I could tell you all of the wonderful things we ate, saw, and drank on our trip, but lets be honest--it would be better if you just booked a trip yourself. Overall, it was a great start to our, hopefully, many Eurotrips to come and gave us a taste of the famed joie de vivre just south of our new border. 

Just one instance of a member of the group witnessed skipping in delight

Shrieking in Support

A few weeks ago, we decided to mix up our evening routine (afternoon walk-> messy attempt at solid foods->playtime->gradual meltdown->bath->bedtime->incredibly relieved parents) to attend a vigil campaigning for the end of the Syrian crisis. Hosted in Trafalgar Square as well as in 40 other locations around the world on the third anniversary of the conflict, the #WithSyria event gained momentum thanks to the projection created by elusive street artist Banksy. By reworking his famous "Girl with a Balloon" piece to include a Syrian girl and a message of hope, the artist added a good deal of publicity to the candle-lit vigil. 

Although the extended bedtime meant our subway car was treated to some ear-splitting shrieks on the way home, it was totally worth it to go to show support for the cause-- not to mention a cool way to witness the debut of a reworked Banksy....

To learn more about Banksy, click here.
To help end the Syrian conflict and support the work of our two favorite international relief workers, click here. 

Glorious Grey Gardens

Soon after moving to London, I was chatting with my brother online, telling him how beautiful Kensington Gardens were, despite the grey weather. Being a native Texan, he had trouble processing how grey = pretty. I did a quick google search for pictures to try to demonstrate how lovely and striking the grey sky looked against the green grass and trees but came up blank. I couldn't believe that I couldn't find any images that had manage to capture the park's beauty with its frequently grey skies. So here are a few of my amateur iphone shots attempting to do just that:

A selection of orinthological discoveries

Light at the end of the tunnel

A mud-hound's delight

Should you be interested in checking out the grey gorgeousness for yourself, you shouldn't have any trouble finding the Kensington Court Crew as we spend A LOT of time in the park, strolling around, taking up a disproportionate amount of sidewalk space and keeping an eye out for Dillon's future bestie, "Georgie."

To Market We Go

Last weekend, we made our first trip to London's famed Borough Market.  Long time readers of our blog might be curious how it compares to the Biscuit Mill in Cape Town...well, lets just say it blows it out of the water, both in terms of sheer size and offerings. Unfortunately, expanded options aren't always a good thing if you arrive hungry and overwhelmed by the choices on offer. Luckily, we found some instant winners to hold us over until more substantial decisions had to be made: fresh oysters on the half shell and a pint of the market's finest.  A few highlights from the excursion: 

Enjoying some over-sized fresh oysters

Family fun with local wildlife outside the pub

Tanked out on the tube ride home

All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday with a couple thousand other Londoners....

Regal Readjustments

Now that we have begun to get settled in our new home and move past any major changes, little differences have begun to stick out.  For example, in England everything just feels a bit fancier.  A few examples:

Not regular mail, but royal mail is delivered by the postman

 

 

The toilet paper that was pre-stocked in our flat.  Not only is it lovely to look at, but a post-sneeze nose clearing reveled that it also appears to be scented.  Pina colada, maybe?

Our neighbors, who reside with us in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.  For those who might not immediately recognize this building, it is Kensington Palace.  We initially assumed it was just some historical palace not used since the 1700s, but we were wrong.  Residents include Wills, Kate, Harry and Prince George, who will obviously want to be friends with Dillon once he figures out we are right across the way.

Getting the Gang Back Together

That's right- our final family member has arrived! After a few weeks of hanging out with his best bud Ted, Zambezi took his first plane ride over the pond to join us here in London.  Happy reunions all around...

Luckily, Zambezi seems to have settled into his new lifestyle quite quickly.  He loves the weather, long walks in the park, and meeting all of the proper English hounds.  If only we could figure out how to get him to drag the stroller up our four flights of stairs, he would be a candidate for the Texpatriate of the Month award.