Female friends are amazing and I went to London

I wrote a very long blog post yesterday about a particular friend of mine who recently got married. I went into detail about how we met, how we remained long distance friends before the Internet (and email, FB, text, etc) and where we ended up in life. However we've been friends for almost 25 years, so it was getting really long, and it was getting kind of sad towards the end which was NOT my intention at all.

So, to summarize my very long (now deleted) post, female friends are amazing. You have crappy ones in middle and high school who make you feel like you're a dumb (or too smart) fat, pimply loser with bad teeth and no personality (which sucks no matter where you may have fallen in that spectrum of truth), you have friends who you swear are BFF's but your friendship fizzles out with time, distance and/or life experiences. And then you have those friends who you may not talk to all the time, may not think about every day, but when you are together it's like time has stopped and you pick up the conversation right where you left off. THOSE are the friends I'm talking about. Those people are amazing. Everyone should have at least one. I highly recommend it.

To celebrate the most recent life event of said Forever Friend, a mutual girlfriend and I went to London, England for 6 days. We had a blast. I love the history mixed with modern that maps out this great city, the restaurants we went to were Ah-mazing! and London-towners are extremely friendly. I feel like I completely sabotaged two stereotypes I heard both from acquaintances when I told them I was going to London, as well as from fellow Americans on the way back. Plus my liver hasn't worked out that much in years.

On the Double Decker bus after the wedding. Unfortunately I couldn't find a pic of us in Middle School (or fortunately, I don't know if I want that floating around the Internet)

We took selfies everywhere. This was before the wedding with our Fascinators. We're almost locals. 

Other than the fact that I always have a good time when I visit her (pausing for a moment to recollect visits to Venice Beach, CA; NYC; Bali/Hong Kong; previous trip to London; the Denison, IA Pizza Hut to get white sauce for our breadsticks, etc), I didn't really get to spend much time with her this trip. She had a wedding in a few short days with 50 of her closest friends and family and there were a ton of visitors in town. As much as I'd like the trip to be all about me, she had other things going on. So we bonded with her siblings and some of the London friends.

But thinking back, here are some ways to have fantastic food and a really good time in London-town:

1. Know someone who lives there who can show you around. Failing this, find someone you know who has been there who can provide recommendations. Can't think of close friends or family who've been? Use Facebook, it's the new thing these days.
2. Stay at a nice hotel. This time we stayed at a boutique hotel, The Hoxton on Shoreditch, because that's where the groom and his friends were staying before the wedding. Other than regular amenities, people at the front desk are key in providing directions, where to find coffee shops, and instruction on how to use your converter (which in this case led to a conversation about how we're really intelligent women, contrary to what they might have been thinking). 
3. Stay away from chain restaurants. The worst food I've had in England has always been at chain restaurants. For lunch/coffee/afternoon snack places like Eat or Pret are fine (sandwiches, salads, etc) but if you're looking to sit down for a meal stay away from the chains. Would you recommend someone visiting the US go to Applebees? I wouldn't. Probably the best meal I had was at The Rivington Grill, which is "standard" English fare done up all fancy. I almost licked the bowl clean with my Shepard's Pie. 
4. To save money, use the tube. Our hotel gave us a map of London, which included a map of the tube. Sometimes I needed help from the front desk to point me to which stop I needed, but from there I could figure it out when/where I needed to make changes. The first time it was kind of intimidating, and we ended up going the wrong way, had to jump off and get on another train, but after that adventure it was no big deal. 
5. When you do have to use a cab (like you'll have to do 5 train transfers and it's going to take 2 hours...or it's late at night), use the black taxi's or hire a private car. Restaurants will often call a car for you, and the black taxi driver's have to pass certain tests with their knowledge of the city before they can drive. And all of them were extremely friendly. BTW, you can tell a taxi is for hire when their light is on, and just step towards the street with your arm all the way up to flag them down. In case you're from an area where taxi's aren't that prevalent (like me).
6. Hit up the tourist spots. Yes, you'll have to wait in line, but most of them are worth it. I have every intention of going to The Tower again, Borough Market, Trafalgar Square. I've done a double decker bus tour in Oxford, I would say do it once but guided tours get boring to me after a while. This time we went to Kensington Palace--and seriously, whenever am I going to get the opportunity to walk through a freaking palace again? (Probably next time I go to London to visit, but that's beside the point). 

   

   Kensington Palace. Where my new BFFs Prince William, Princess Kate and Prince George live.

   

   The Tower. It's awesome.

   
   

   

   Parliament and Big Ben

7. Don't be obnoxious. I'm not saying I'm never obnoxious, but don't be one of those people who stands in a large group right in the middle of where everyone else is trying to walk. Or expects everyone to speak exactly in American-style English. My travel partner and I would often joke to each other, "Why are things so hard?" and then laugh hysterically. London is a crowded city, so restaurants/bars are often loud, and when  you have difficulty understanding the dialect anyway...we smiled and nodded a lot. There are a lot of different nationalities and cultures living in London, so as long as you're not a jerk most people won't be one back. This can be said for pretty much everything though, regardless of where you might be in the world. 
8. Things can be harder than you think considering you're visiting an English-speaking, first-world country. Like the converter--did you know you need the third prong to be included? It's not like in the US where it's two prongs and the third one is optional. When paying, you get money back in actual change. Including single and double pounds (instead of dollar bills). I bought a coin purse to throw in my bag because it was all jangling around in the bottom of my purse, and my pockets were starting to bulge out. 
9. Be careful when going shopping, or buying pretty much anything. One, have a credit card with no international fees or you'll probably get hit with some kind of transaction fee for each thing you purchase. And two, remember about the currency exchange. It takes more per dollar to equal a pound. For example, piece of an actual conversation, "70 Pounds for this dress! Totally worth it!" Two seconds later, "Oh wait, what's that in dollars? Crap, is there Wi-Fi in this place so I can Google it?" I still am not quite sure how much I spent on that dress, but it was really cute and no one else here will have it, so totally worth it.
10. Last, but not least, is focus on having fun. Don't do things because you have to (i.e. the London Eye--if you don't like heights or ferris wheels, it's a total waste of money. I sat in the pub with a pint of cider beer while the fools I was with went up in that death trap. I don't like heights or ferris wheels.) At the end of the second day, walking around London in the rain, I was definitely wishing for a Hover Round but I was having a great time. We stopped and had Pimms at Borough Market, I bought an umbrella where the polka-dots change color in the rain (oh yeah, wear good walking shoes and bring an umbrella), we watched Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace in the rain...we had a GREAT TIME. It doesn't matter that it rained, or that we had to dress in layers because it was cold, or that we couldn't ever tell the temp because it was in Celsius. We were there to have fun, so we did. The rest just helps make it all a good story. 

I just like this picture

You can tell it's planting season when...

Every once in a while I see the lists people put together around being married to farmers. Honestly, I mainly see them because Vachel shows them to me. So I decided to do my own around planting season. The same may be said for Harvest as well, but as it's not yet Harvest I haven't really put a ton of thought into that one.

1. The answer to any attempt at making plans is, "Sure...if it rains." This is usually followed by me saying, "It's an outdoor event. If it's raining I don't want to go."
2. You start to make plans every weekend that include things you can take the kids to, and at some point have to remind yourself to invite your husband again because you get so used to running solo + 2. Speaking of this, the kids and I had a surprisingly good time at the Des Moines Farmer's Market last weekend. G loved it, and V loves any time she gets to hang out in the Baby Bjorn. Success!
3. You start to make plans with friends based on the weather report for the week. Example, "It looks like Thursday it's supposed to rain with possibilities of hail and severe weather. Can you watch the kids so I can go out to dinner with some friends?" 
4. You look outside to see your weed garden and try to calculate how bad it will be before he can watch the kids so you can go at it with a machete and back-hoe.

   

   You thought I was kidding about the weed garden.

5. Family Fun Night (Wednesday) is the best night of the week. I don't have to cook and we get ice cream sundaes. 

   

   Vachel and G making dinner for Family Fun Night.

6. You get to play chicken with tractors and planters driving down the gravel road. And when I say "play chicken," I mean pull over as far as possible to allow them the room they need. Let's be real people: car vs. giant tractor, car loses and people get hurt. Don't be a jackass. 
7. During severe weather alerts everyone runs around trying to put all of the trucks in whatever covered place they can. Why can't they use the garage? Because that's where the seed is.
8. While in the car together you have to turn the radio to NPR specifically to hear the crop report and % complete. And then listen to mutterings about where they are in comparison. He might actually be talking to me at this point instead of muttering to himself, but I don't really have a lot to add to the conversation so I may not be paying much attention. I imagine it's what he feels like when I talk about...never mind, I can't imagine what he feels like. Everything that comes out of my mouth is pure gold. 
9. You feel the need to buy all of your single-parent friends flowers and chocolates, because having to be the one responsible for kids all the time and still manage not to be a zombie at work is exhausting.
10. Sometimes you get tired of the whole working/taking care of kids/cooking/cleaning thing so you do stuff to cut corners. Such as not do any dishes for two days (with the exception of the bottles that need to be washed for day care) knowing that it will drive him crazy enough that when he comes in late at night he'll eventually just wash them all. Oh, is that just me?