Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Day 1 in England: In Which Security Theater Flags My Lara Bars, And I Give My Life Over to Cadbury Chocolate

To England!

These teenagers of mine are getting so grown up that who knows how many more times I'll be able to pack them both with me on a big vacation, so I definitely made the most of their free time and their patience with my nonsense to plan out the vacation of my dreams with all my favorite people. 

It turns out that the vacation of my dreams consists of a week in London to see all the sights, go mudlarking, and see a West End show, followed by a week driving around the south of England in a rental car, hugging giant rocks and walking around castle ruins and hunting for fossils.

And all we had to do to get there was travel for 24 hours! 

I do not think that I have ever gone through airport security one time since 2001 without being flagged for extra scrutiny. I didn't get any pat-downs on this trip, hallelujah, but my luggage did get hand-searched Every. Single. Time. And I never had anything forbidden in it! In the Indianapolis airport, it was apparently my stash of four Lara bars that flagged the additional screening... so if you're planning to be short on time to make a flight, pack granola instead, I guess. Although even if I hadn't packed my Lara bars it wouldn't have saved us any time, since one of the teenagers got the pat-down I managed to avoid. After all these years together, Matt just rolls his eyes and collects our shoes and backpacks for us--I don't think he's ever been flagged in his life!

Here's the AirBnb that we stayed in. I was worried it would feel far away from everywhere we wanted to go, but actually it was perfect! Not gonna lie: I couldn't figure out the busses on that first day, AND I turned us in the wrong direction coming out of Battersea Park Station and walked us at least half a mile before Matt was all, "Ooh, look! The London Eye!," and I was all, "Shit! We shouldn't be walking towards the London Eye!", but fortunately everybody felt sorry for me and nobody murdered me and I handed Dr. Google over to Matt and he got us safely to Tim's flat. But the next day we figured out the bus schedule and from then on, we barely had to leave the flat before we had our choice of busses to take us to the train station or the Underground station or even right to the center of the city. We used the busses so much that we probably didn't even break even on our 7-Day Travelcards; they were still convenient to have, but Pay As You Go would have been cheaper overall, I think.

Dr. Google also got us safely to the Sainsbury Local, which is the only other adventure I'd planned for this day. Matt is pretty neutral about travel food, but for me and the kids, visiting a local grocery store and stocking up on new-to-us-snack foods is our collective favorite thing about travel. We still talk about Whippets and All-Dressed Ridgies from our Canada trip... not poutine, though. Poutine was disgusting.

Big wins from the Sainsbury Local on this day included Dark Chocolate Gingers, Walkers Cheese and Onion crisps, and Cadbury Popping Jelly bars.

You know that really gross scene in Breaking Dawn in which Jacob falls in love with a baby, and to act like this isn't the grossest, most fucked up thing that she could possibly write, Stephanie Meyer has him be all, "SHRUG! It used to be gravity holding me to the planet and now it's a newborn! It's totes not romantic! But you know, it also kinda is! But not in a weird way! Anyway, don't worry about it, lol! #specialbond!"

That's me and Cadbury chocolate. 

Not the Creme Eggs. That's the only kind of Cadbury I've had before, and I don't love them. But at the Sainsbury there were all new Cadbury choices, and in the two weeks we spent in England I'm pretty sure I mowed through every option. The Popping Jelly is far superior, followed closely by Oreo, which is followed closely by Orange. 

Matt was equally delighted to find new-to-him flavors of Strongbow, so after our grocery store trip we happily all sat out in Tim's garden, enjoying chocolate, crisps, and cider and watching planes heading to and from Heathrow:


The teenagers liked the Aero bars, but I'm sticking with my Cadbury!

I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to eat the Indian food Matt ordered us for dinner, but I'm pretty sure that I was sound asleep and snoring by all of 7:00 pm, and I don't think I so much as rolled over for the next twelve hours.

Next up: Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, and Six!

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