Our Trip to England PART EIGHT (Goodbye London)

We spent our last day here in London. In the morning, Portia and Bianca were watching cartoons. Their favorite was called Billy and was a British Charlie Brown (who was much less depressed than our Charlie Brown). During every commercial break, there was Lelli Kelly advertising their sparkly gem-clad shoes with make-up cell phone gift. So, Portia really wanted a pair of Lelli Kelly's. We spent our morning in London shopping at Piccadilly Circus, searching for Lelli Kelly's. I swear we walked for two hours looking for a pair and no one sold them. What's the point of all that advertising if I can't even find a pair. Eric was definitely in on the hunt and I tried not to mention too much that last year I had bought Portia a pair of Lelli Kelly's from Nordstrom's Rack but Eric made me return them because they were "hideous." Whatever--I guess Portia has him wrapped around her little finger after all.

The best part of the shopping was the book store, called WaterStones, where we lounged for an hour, looking a books (I love that all the covers in the UK are different from ours). We all bought some books. My pick was a UK edition of The Sky is Everywhere that was done so beautifully (colored plates with the poems in the book) I bought it even though I already have that book at home. [I ended up reading it on the long plane ride home the next day. I still love it!]

Long story short, we walked past Gucci, Prada, Anthropologie, Gap and could not find one store in Piccadilly Circus that sold Lelli Kelly's (and believe me, we asked). We finally gave up our efforts (I promised Portia I'd take her to Nordstrom's Rack when we got home and get her some) and jumped on a double-decker bus and then headed back to the underground and went to Buckingham Palace. This was something my mom really wanted to do. I wasn’t all that impressed. You can’t even go in. I did see the marching guards through the gate.

We ate in the late afternoon (nothing remarkable). The last thing we did for the day was visit The London Eye, the big ferris wheel where you can see most of London.

Instead of writing about the LONG plane ride home (9 hours from London to Atlanta; then another 3 to get to SLC), I'll mention the five things I wish I'd known before we went "on holiday" to England:

1. You don't have to tip at restaurants in England. The only place we needed to was in London (because they let you know you're supposed to).
2. Our plugs don't work there, so there's no reason to pack my flat iron. In fact, we spent three days searching for a plug adapter that had three prongs to recharge our laptops. I shouldn't have brought that either. Even with that one, my flat iron wouldn't work.
3. Flat sheets aren't done in England. They wash their comforters. That made me very uncomfortable at first, wondering if they did in fact wash the comforter.
4. I wish we'd looked at some British street signs before we started driving.
5. I wish we'd learned what the word "queue" meant before we left. That word still leaves me a little baffled.

I'll leave on the side-note that when I returned to Salt Lake City, Portia still wouldn't stop talking about Lelli Kelly's so I took her to Nordstrom's Rack. No Lelli Kelly's. Really, should I be surprised? Isn't that the way life works. Turned out, I ordered a pair off ebay--they're on their way from Hong Kong now. I know there's some irony there.