Brilliant Ideas

So for Tau’aho’s FIRST BIRTHDAY we decided to go on a trip to the United Kingdom for the celebration. I know, at one years old, he could care less where we are, but it gave us an excuse to travel. When I think of the United Kingdom there are several words that are iconic British English and one of them is “Brilliant.” It sounds so great when brilliant British people brilliantly pronounce brilliant!

In light of that, I want to share some of our brilliant ideas for the trip. (Some of them turned out to be not so brilliant). The first was to book our tickets early to the different attractions we wanted to see.  However after I had booked the first one we found out that there is a London Pass that for one fee lets you into a whole slew of attractions throughout the London Area. It was so worth it—if you are going you need to get one. But that meant I brilliantly spent an extra $40 than we needed.

The next was to book our car and hotel rooms. Ironically, I assumed that we were flying into Heathrow and the night before we left Lady saw that we actually fly in and out of Gatwick! YIKES! After a few calls and another booking we found a different rental close to the correct airport. Sadly, that brilliant idea too turned out not so brilliant. It was from a company far from the airport that nobody knew and it took us several times to find it. Then it was almost double than what we expected. Oh boy…

On the flight we ended up sitting apart so I took Tau’aho for the first part. As others were boarding I could smell that he needed to be changed. I brilliantly thought it would be easy to change him before the two people sitting next to me came. I was done quick and just in time for them to arrive. Then after we took off I could still smell poop and thought Tau’aho had gone again. He was restless so I pulled out some snacks to entertain him until we could go to the bathroom. They fell to the floor and I picked them up and when I did he grabbed it and started to shake his hand violently like he does when it is dirty and he doesn’t like it. I looked just as he went to lick his hand and saw it was poop! AHH!

I dropped the snack bin and reached for the wipes and saw that somehow the poop had come off  the diaper when I was changing him and it was on the floor below us and all over my sock and now the snack bin! AYE-YA-EYE! I worked so hard to clean it all up before the guys next to me realized there was poop smeared all over. I stuffed it all in the vomit bag…luckily I was too panicked to have my gag reflex start and I would need that bag!

To make it worse when the seat belt light went off I went to change him and when I laid him down he was ANGRY. I tried to work fast and in his squirming he wiped his still dirty but across my knee. I guess if we have it on my hands and sock, why not on my leg. I just threw away the sock and hoped for an uneventful rest of the flight.

We had a stop in Kiev and were impressed with the cleanly airport and the playgrounds for children. Tau'aho made several friends that were speaking all kinds of languages. (Amazing how children accept diversity so easily)

After we left the wretched car rental place, hungry and irritated, Lady Hiva gave me directions through the winding streets of London.  All of the little towns along the way reminded us of the random British shows we have been watching on Amazon Prime like “Keeping Up Appearances” and “Midsummer’s Murder.” We checked into our hotel just on the Thames. It was an old dock building converted into a Hilton. It was a perfect place for exploring the city by car, train or boat. We went right out to see the city.

A quick stop at Westminster to see the Parliament building and Big Ben and then after we walked down to St. James park and Buckingham Palace. It was fun to see it all. It was Lady Hiva’s first introduction to life in London. It was a beautiful day for a beautiful city. The first two things that stuck out to us was the cleanliness and order and the lack of smokers that we are used to in Istanbul.

The Hilton Dockside on the Thames

London Eye

Big Ben and Parliment

Buckingham Palace

St. James Park

We had the brilliant idea to stop at the park on the way back to let the Lucky Dragon enjoy it. We wanted to show him all the brilliant birds in the area until we saw that one of the large seagulls nearby was dragging a bloody pigeon that it was tearing to pieces. Another two pigeons were doing their “mating dance.” I guess we all need to learn about the circle of life at some point.

We left the birds to do their thing and walked to an area with swings and a sand pit and though it would be a brilliant idea to let him play until we saw a rat the size of a small cat scouting out cookies left by children throughout the day. So maybe Lucky will just stay on the grassy areas! HAHA.

We were excited to explore more of the city over the next few days! Stay tuned for more photos and blogs.