ninme

The wedding went very well. Everyone seemed to think it was all very lovely and Peter actually said that, cliche though he knows it is, he thinks it might actually have been the best day of his life. Which is rather nice, eh?

I was in a bit of an “eeeeeeeee” frame of mind, so I expect it won’t seem real until the photographer sends the photographs. At which point I’ll be all, “Oh yeah that happened, huh.”

I’m really looking forward to seeing the photographer’s photographs. The guy was awesome.

I can’t believe China actually thought they could pass those girls off as 16.

I like champagne. My plot of drinking nothing but champagne worked a dream. Peter had a bit of red wine with his dinner and was just slaughtered the next day. Quite the reversal of predictable fortunes, ah hah.

British Airways is a dream, and the British Taxpayer are to be congratulated for subsidising a wonderful airline for us Americans.

Lacoste makes a very nice tennis shoe. I bought a pair of smart black leather trainers at the Russell Bromley on Regent Street and wore them for miles and miles and 8 days straight and they were just perfect. Peter’s Converse, on the other hand, fell apart and made his feet hurt.

I wish I hadn’t missed Boris’ appearance at the Olympics. Hopefully Youtube will come through for me.

Harrods: Is there a more terrifying place on earth?

Trains are a wonderful thing. The train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley was just lovely and so much better than flying.

BMI is a completely incompetent and horrible airline. They delay a plane full of people with expensive long-haul connecting flights to catch — or not catch as the case may be — because of one girl with too much luggage because she didn’t want to spend a couple hundred pounds in excess baggage fees. What about the couple of thousands of pounds of airfare that was probably lost by the hundred or so other people on that plane? What if I never see my bags again? What if I never see my new shoes again?! Plus there’s my going-away dress (purple wool) which cost a pretty penny and is probably the nicest thing I own (the wedding dress doesn’t count).

The Brompton Oratory really knows how to put on a mass. We went to the Latin mass. The High Latin Mass. Gosh that was nice. And the homily? Was all about how important Peter was and how great the Pope is. Which is just, I mean, come on! If anyone knows if they put the sermons online somewhere, I’d appreciate a copy, but I’m not seeing anything online.

The most comfortable bed in Scotland is in room 430 at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh. Forget the room where JK Rowling finished Harry Potter, this is what you want to see at that hotel.

Gosh things are expensive in Britain.

How weird is this murder mystery in Shropshire? It’s awful, but it makes such a great conversation piece in airport waiting areas.

Sarah Palin: I expected exploding heads but everyone seems really quite thrilled. I could do without the creationist angle, though. And the fact that she looks exactly like Elaine in the pictures the BBC was running was a little disorienting.

I met the most lovely woman on the flight from Edinburgh to London (she bought me a tea (did you know BMI charges for tea? Tea!)): she spent 21 years in South Africa, and once she sailed there (with two young children) from Southampton to Cape Town. Took 2 weeks. Then her husband died this past year and she was on her way to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Ealing. Lovely woman. Very Scottish, too.

I never did find a tea set. I wanted to go to the UK and buy myself a proper tea set since we didn’t register for any dishes or anything like that, but I only really had a chance to look in Edinburgh (which one would have thought would have been a good place too look, and yet) but everything had the same dot-matrix printing thing and were the same companies as anything one would find at Macy’s. Maybe I should have just bought something so I’d have a souvenir, but I couldn’t bring myself to ship something I might probably end up tripping over next time I’m downtown.

Not having any luggage (hah), we took the bus home from the airport last night. Evidently Bumbershoot is going on (this festival thing) so the meth addicts were particularly populous yesterday. Wonderful coming-home reception. One thing I noticed on all the public transportation we’ve been doing the past couple weeks: for all the Telegraph’s moaning about benefits scammers and obesity, we didn’t see a single person in a wheelchair.

I bought a whole potful of Sunday papers at the airport yesterday. Being in the UK makes me want to read newspapers but we didn’t really have time while we were there.

Gosh we walked a lot.

UPS doesn’t have a mail-forwarding option so we were getting calls on our cell-phones, that we didn’t pick up naturally, every night from the front door from UPS delivery people trying to deliver our wedding gifts even though I told them we’d be away.

And lastly, Rueful Red makes an awfully good tour guide. And his restaurant reviews are top-notch and completely spot-on. I think we should organize a ninmates tour of the UK with him providing explanations. Honestly every town I brought up, besides Edinburgh, he had an interesting and eminently visitable (or avoidable) factoid about it. A resource like that should utilised!