Castles, Cake, and Open Road

Well, Blogger keeps crashing so these posts are going to be little nuggets of each part of the day instead of long rambling multi-day epics.  On our first full day in London, we woke up early to conquer the Tower of London, only to find most roads in the city were closed because of a city-wide bike race. While a taxi did magically come by while we were wandering around looking for one, the rest of the day wasn't quite so lucky. The cab driver was a real character though--charming, voluble, and happy to point out everything from his favorite fish and chips place to the area where Jack the Ripper stalked his victims. His charm ebbed for me when he professed his love of Trump, for "not being a politician." That's right, he's a sociopath and a racist and a misogynist and a racist...the perfect candidate!  We reached the Tower of London only a bit late, though, and it's actually a castle and fortress complex dating back to the 11th century. It's also the infamo...

After the flight back from Italy (which I didn't post about but which involved about 12 straight hours of Elowen screaming), I was honestly dreading the flight to London. Like I'd rather have been in labor again during the brief rough period when my epidural wore off than ever do a flight like that again.  Repping Ohio at Buffalo Wild Wings in the airport But Elowen was an angel and didn't cry once, even though she only slept for about two hours. In fact, the woman in front of us was surprised at the end of the flight that a toddler was behind her. That Elowen, always keeping me on my toes with unwarranted anxiety. People were also just very kind throughout the day, from a woman handing us a bag of pretzels for Elowen to a group of older people telling the gate agent to let us onto the plane first to a Methodist minister with three kids encouraging me to travel often no matter what. ("Girl, let her scream! You just have a drink.") The fligh...