Month: July 2015

London Tourists

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We only had a limited time in the Old Smoke (confession: I Googled, “nickname for London” to find this) so we didn’t want to do our typical #ZellerTrip thing and spend a day in museums. We wanted the quick and dirty weekend in London – I want nothing but the highlights and quick.

So the first thing we did (after a lovely, relaxing tea time) was head over to Westminster Abbey, which is conveniently right next to Big Ben and conveniently close to the Palace of Westminster. We were able to get all the token tourist photos within a 30 minute span. Even some from a classic phone booth (note: do not go inside these things if you ever encounter one).

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The queen lives there. NBD.

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Obligatory guard photo.

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Oh, and a gang of nude bicyclists went by. So casual.

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Doing it Right: Tea Time on a Yacht

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Our good friends Phil and Jonathan have spent a year across the pond and we couldn’t pass the opportunity to visit them (we’ve really missed them in DC) and of course take advantage of a free place to stay.

Going into London we naïvely had no worries or concerns. They speak English, we knew things would be expensive and they do tea in the afternoon – what more did we need to Google-search before we went? We also knew our priorities for the visit would be simple: spend time with friends, ride a double-decker bus and drink tea with small sandwiches as a snack. OH and enjoy traditional pub fare. Live like the locals, right?

We were also pretty confident in our word-traveling-chops. Having flown across the ocean before, we knew not to make the same mistakes and arrive either exhausted (as we did in Italy, 2013) or hungover (as we did in Copenhagen, 2014). This plane ride we limited ourselves to exactly one movie and one glass of wine. It was sadly uneventful but we did arrive somewhat ready for a day of touristing.

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Thank god, too. The Tube line we needed to take to get to Wimbledon was down when we arrived so we quickly needed to figure out the bus system. The bus we needed was a double decker (!!) – check that one off the list! We were also on a time-crunch as Phil told us we were doing tea on a yacht and needed to meet Jonathan on the boat by a very specific time.

I was NOT going to miss this yacht-tea-event. Unfortunately the bus took for-freaking-ever to get around town. After about 30 minutes of weaving around narrow London streets I had had about enough of my double-decker experience and was ready to move on to the next item on my list. A few Dramamine pills later we were walking the streets of Wimbledon (note: it’s a neighborhood AND a tennis facility) on our way to the apartment.

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Heading to the yacht, Kyle and I were panicked. We were definitely running about 10 minutes late and the assumption was that Jonathan was about to sail off for tea-time without us.

And you know what they say about assumptions … it turns out the yacht doesn’t actually sail.

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Also, as you can tell from the photos, tea time in London is properly amazing. A perfect way to start this #ZellerTrip!

Keeping the Roof Over Our Heads … For Now

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Going into the Zeller #EruoTrip2k15 (note: I have never used that hashtag) we were saying this was the last “big” trip we’ll take in a while. We’re homeowners now, we have a mortgage, a new roof to buy and one day we’ll update the kitchen (and by “update” I mean tear it to shreds and put in something completely new). People who literally need a roof over their heads shouldn’t be spending their money on overseas travel!

And, we were totally okay with that plan. Seriously, we love being homeowners and happy that this is where our money and time is going… but about halfway through this trip we realized that we’re just as much in love with travel. I’ve been struggling ever since this moment to figure out why and how we could love so much these two very different things – the Zellers can’t be homebodies AND world travelers, can they?

Then it hit me why we love both so much. We aren’t really in love with travel or homeownership; we’re in love with solving problems.  And that’s just it, international travel is full of problem solving, it requires figuring out situations that back home require no thought at all (what on earth did I just order? Is that a sign for the bathroom or the kitchen? Is this stranger being nice to me, or insulting me?)

The above quote is true, however we literally need a roof over our heads. So, we’ll just have to live off of the 1,000 or so photos we took on our latest trip and continue the massive ongoing problem solving necessary for our house.