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Day 18 - Up in the Air

Luckily, United had rescheduled our flight for 9am instead of the original 10:25am, which at least go usinto San Francisco by noon on Monday (just enough time for me to make my location scout for a shoot this week--I’m going to feel like a hundred dollars on that scout!). Now very familiar with Heathrow airport and terminal 2, we knew exactly what to expect and how to get through security. The biggest challenge came when we were checking in bags and Alex conveniently dropped his Lego T-Rex which broke into 7 pieces. It was the ultimately parent test--can you check in your family and simulateneously restore a broken Lego to its original assembled state? I’m proud to say, we passed that test. We breezed through security and spent a little time in the lounge, before approaching the gate. Quite a few passengers remained from yesterday’s flight, including some new ones who must have booked last minute, or been diverted from other flights. So now I am writing this with about 4 hours left in the air while we are currently above Northern Canada (there are no cities on the in-flight map near us so I must assume we are over the wilderness). Soon enough we will land and that will end this adventure. With the trip winding down, I wanted to hand out some awards to the various countries that fought hard to earn these accolades. In no particular order of importance:

And the award for FUNNIEST PEOPLE goes to: IRELAND--the folks we encountered were friendly, delightful, and typically very humorous and witty. As they call it in the country, having the “Craic” (yes, pronounced “Crack”) is Gaelic for basically going out, having fun, and enjoying good conversation. Although we didn’t really go out at night, I’d say our days were fairly Craic-filled. Overall, I really came to love the culture and it seemed like people in Dublin liked to have fun. The award for BEST ACCENT goes to: SCOTLAND--they were heavily favored in the first place, but some of the Sean Connery-esque sayings were just fantastic. And every time someone called Alex “the wee one”, I more and more realized that wasn’t slang--that’s just what you call a kid. The award for BEST FLAG goes to: WALES--I mean, a freaking red dragon? Seriously, you can’t beat that. Not even close. And the final award, for BEST HEALTH CARE goes to: THE NORTH COTSWOLDS HOSPITAL (ENGLAND). I know, that’s a little unfair, since we didn't have to go to hospitals anywhere else (and that's a good thing!). I couldn’t even compare the food and drink between the countries, because for the most part, it was all excellent and diverse. Some of our best meals though were in Edinburgh, so maybe that city would get a slight nod. Overall we would also say Edinburgh was our favorite to visit (with Dublin a close second). We can’t really count London in the mix because we barely spent any time there, and both Allison and I have visited multiple times and already love it. Cardiff was very interesting in a different way, but didn’t quite have the liveliness of the other major cities. Of course, we only spent a few days in each, and Edinburgh was packed to the gills for the festival season, so perhaps a future visit is in store at different times of year for better evaluation. There were so many other great moments on this trip, I now have to go back and read this blog just to jog our memories. It’s been a long 2.5 weeks and remembering back to the first few days feels like ages ago. Now back to reality. Although Alex had his 4-year old moments, he was a real trooper, slept phenomenally well, and only said “I wanna go home” about 32 times, which I think was a success actually. And now he does get to go home, though maybe tomorrow he’ll say he wants to go right back and eat some more fish and chips. If you took the time to read our whole blog, thank you! It’s as valuable to us as a memento of our trip as it is a way to share these adventures with our friends back home, which helps us feel not so far away. On behalf of the Eisenhardts (Bravehardts), signing off.

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Lego building at LHR

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Day 17 - Lightning Strikes Twice

Typically I would hope the travel day back home to be the least eventful of the entire trip. But if you read our blog from Iceland last year, you would know about our final travel day which turned into two due to a mechanical airplane issue, followed by an adventure through the hell of Delta customer service, that coincided with the making of great new friends on our plane. Today featured the worst of all that, but we didn't make any friends. We arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time, and a very tired child in tow. A new Lego seemed to turn things around pretty quickly as he assembled a pterodactyl in the lounge. And all was just splendid as we got on the plane, took our comfortable seats, and taxied to the runway. At a certain point, I realized that we hadn't moved for maybe 30 minutes, while other planes were passing us. Fast forward a few hours of sitting on the tarmac while maintenance crews fix a gas leak on the left wing--every 45 minutes, someone would announce that we would have a status update in 15 minutes. Then 45 minutes later we would hear something else was wrong. It was laughable, but as with any mechanical issue, understandable. From when we boarded the plane to when they finally told us the flight was canceled, we had spent 4.5 hours on the plane. Alex watched the entire Cars movie and quite a few TV shows in that time. So that wasn't absolutely terrible, but having been through this hell before, we were shocked and demoralized knowing what we were about to go through. With little guidance, we headed back through customs--welcome back to the UK! We picked up our luggage from baggage claim, and received vouchers for our hotel. Ironically, I had canceled our stay at the luxurious (joking) Radisson Blu Edwardian Heathrow for the night before, since we stayed at Zias flat. And guess where United sent us? You got it. We said screw it to the free bus they offered and just grabbed a cab. The hotel itself was fine and the meal vouchers were enough to keep our bellies full. Through the chaos of an entire Boeing 747 checking in at the same time, there was an Indian wedding happening too, so women with beautiful Indian dresses contrasted with weary international travelers. We finally settled in around 3pm and were thankful that we didn't have to go on the horrible escapade around Keflavik that we did last year with Delta. This was much more organized, but of course incredibly frustrating, as Allison and I scrambled to tie up all the loose ends of the various appointments we had scheduled for tomorrow. So now we have a 5am wake up call for a 9am flight tomorrow. We are two-for-two on canceled flights coming back from Europe in the last year. And that's all I will say about that.

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Day 16 - All Roads Lead to London

Our final morning at Lucknam Park was spent packing in order to head out to London for our last day of the trip. Still, we managed to sneak in another great breakfast and a very quick soccer/football game, where Alex played goalie most of the time. Sadly we had to leave Lucknam Park, just as we were getting in our groove--so we had a driver take us to London, and it was a relief to not be required to navigate the roads myself. Nonetheless, watching someone else drive here, I feel like I could jump right back in (hopefully I haven't forgotten how to drive on the right side!). It was going to be a relatively long drive--2.5 hours--so we worked in a quick bathroom break at a rest stop halfway through. And this was no ordinary rest stop, at least compared to what we expect in the states (usually a gas station, Taco Bell, and a Quiznos). We pulled into a huge parking lot, packed with cars (this is a Bank Holiday weekend, so everyone is traveling)--then walked into a gigantic building--basically in a mall--with all types of restaurants and souvenir shops. I'm starting to doubt whether we really were in a rest stop, or actually entered the Great Mall of Great Britain. We escaped without buying a thing, despite Alex's best efforts, and headed into the big city. Upon arrival, we were lucky enough to get to stay with our friend Christina and her co-worker Zia, who had an extra flat for us to use. When we first arrived, we were awarded with their generous hospitality and a spectacular and sunny view of London, where we enjoyed a champagne and sushi lunch (just like we have at home everyday). It was a relaxing and I think well-deserved afternoon. After that, I prepared for my evening movie engagement, the world premiere of the feature film I shot in Michigan in 2015, called "Ruin Me", an indie horror flick. Meanwhile, Allison, Christina, Zia, and Alex went to a restaurant called Beast, and from what I heard, Alex made friends with a giant crab, then the chef cooked it, then Alex ate it, and then insisted on bringing the carapace back home--not just to the flat, but home to San Francisco (not going to happen, though there will be tears). It did make it to the flat though. I would also like to reiterate that I was not at this dinner and cannot be held accountable for any of the aforementioned shenanigans. For the premiere, I took a cab over to Leicester Square where Horror Channel's FrightFest was playing all week. This was a big horror genre festival, taking over multiple theaters in the heavily tourist area. As I walked around, streams of horror movie aficionados, decked out with their favorite horror movie shirts, flooded the area with sheepish grins on their faces and merch in their arms. I was a little intimidated, even as I would consider myself particularly interested in the genre. Meeting up with the cast and crew and some friends, we enjoyed a lively screening to a full house, and even did a little Q&A session. Afterward we went out for dinner and drinks and discussed how we thought it all went--so far reviews have been very positive! Personally, it was a nice wrap up for what has been a long project in the making (though even longer for the production team involved). It was also incredibly lucky that I happened to be in London at this time for the premiere--that was a complete coincidence! When I returned home, Allison and Christina were still up and claimed they were going to wake up for the Mayweather/MacGregor fight (4 in the morning, before our 10:25am flight). Good luck with that ladies. I will sleep like a baby tonight.

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More from the Roman Baths

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Bath Abbey

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The Royal Crescent and Jane Austen House, Bath

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The Roman Baths, Bath, England

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More mist at Lucknam Park

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Lucknam Park

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Morning mist at Lucknam Park

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Afternoon bike ride at Lucknam Park. Somebody is camera shy all of a sudden.

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Lucknam Park--wish we could stay longer to finish reading all these books.

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Day 15 - Roman Holiday

Waking up this morning, I looked outside at what I assumed was a cloudy day given the hazy light coming in the window. Instead I found that the courtyard was shrouded in a thick ethereal mist. Quickly heading outside, I snapped some surreal pictures--soon the mist burned away, but the experience verged on the supernatural, especially with the similarities to the horror film "The Others", which features a ghostly fog surrounding a British manor, not too different from our own. Happily, no ghosts here (that we know about). After breakfast, we headed into Bath for an appointment with ancient history at the Roman Baths. I had last visited this attraction 9 years ago and I remember being impressed--but seeing it again, we were all really amazed, not just by the historical significance, but also by how well the curators have crafted the experience. We first entered into a grand building and walked around an upper promenade--this is actually at ground level of the city, but the baths themselves are 4 meters underneath this, so you begin by circling the main bath from this elevated area-getting a great view, yet not quite experiencing it up close (this is on purpose). We began to learn about the history through our free audio tour, and Alex had his own "kid" version too, which stunningly kept him interested through the entire 1.5 hour self-guided tour. Heading downstairs, you don't go directly to the main bath (of course not!), but instead you learn a lot about Roman history through the artifacts found in the area--coins, columns, altars, and "curse" letters (apparently when Romans were robbed or sleighted, they would write little curse notes to the gods to smote the perpetrators--these were etched in tin, and many are still well preserved). There are great video "windows" around the area that show what it might have looked like in Roman times, with costumed characters going about their daily lives. Of course, the ruins themselves were mostly on the ground floor, but recreations of the rest of the buildings are seamless and give a sense of the scope. Where the construction could not adequately recreate the ancient Roman buildings, computer simulations displayed this even more accurately. Finally, after our brains were full with facts about Romans, we emerged into the primary bath area--the water is steaming and green with algae--you can walk fully around the bath and get a sense of what it would have been like 2000 years ago, enjoying a true historical sauna experience. Side rooms off the baths served different purposes--a cold water bathing room, changing rooms, gender specific baths--it was a full service experience apparently. And this city in Roman times wasn't even that big, population-wise. But they had a sweet natural spring hot tub. At the very end, you have a chance to taste and/or touch the water. I tasted it (hot, sulfurous water isn't that good, I learned). Alex touched it. Allison did neither. Anyway, the whole exhibit was a full success for all of us. Directly across from the baths sits Bath Abbey, a gorgeous cathedral, that we sped through. I could try to explain it in detail, but I won't because I think we are all burnt out on cathedrals and at this point, I couldn't tell the difference between this one and every other we saw. But it was grand, and we took many pictures. After the Abbey, we walked around a bit, found a shoe store and bought Alex a new pair of Converse (gold and black), and settled into a coffee shop for a quick lunch. Heading up a hill, we found the Circus--not the circus we know, but a large and completely circular intersection with a park in the middle and curved apartments in every direction. Turning west, we headed to the Royal Crescent--a much larger, semi-circular neighborhood, clearly related to the Circus, yet more impressive. Just south of this massive expanse of buildings is a green grassy park, where everyone goes to relax and take pictures. It is so large, that everyone snapping photos had to stand at the very back of the tree line just to capture the whole building. We took a few pictures ourselves and some boomerangs with Alex. Finding a cab back to our hotel was not as easy as we planned, but eventually we said goodbye to Bath and were back on the road. Arriving at Lucknam Park, we immediately changed into our workout clothes and took a family bike ride down the long entrance path. This day was absolutely gorgeous, with only a few clouds in the sky--by the time we had biked over to the soccer/football field, we were all sweaty, possibly for the first time this trip. We played a little one-on-two soccer/football (Alex and Allison versus me), and it was intense. The game ended with what I thought should have clearly been a red card on Allison, which ended in the winning goal. After review, the referee, Alex (also a player), made a really questionable call saying there was no penalty on the play (could have also been a flop on my part, to be honest), and that ended it. Hey at least nobody faked an injury. Next up was our tea time at the hotel. We intentionally had a light lunch knowing we were going to feast on sandwiches, scones, and desserts, at 3:30 in the afternoon, which just felt wrong (and yet it was so right). Our stomachs also felt a little guilty from all the mid-afternoon sugar and caffeine intake, but nonetheless it was a unique cultural experience. I still don't completely get it, but really no complaints here. Alex and I headed back to the pool for a bit of fun, then headed for dinner (we had a lot of meals today), which was delightful as usual. We ended up sitting next to a woman from South Korea with her 3 year old daughter. The mother was fluent in English and we chatted for a bit--her daughter knew a little bit but that didn't stop her and Alex from pretending to be dinosaurs, exchanging candy, and coloring together. Alex kept trying to explain how to play certain games in his little travel kit, but that didn't really go as planned--he didn't get frustrated but it was hilarious watching him try to communicate. And on another, totally effing random note, Allison spent an hour this afternoon in an online queue trying to book tickets for the "Museum of Ice Cream" exhibit which is coming to San Francisco this October. Along the way, she was telling me how quickly this thing was selling out its entire two month run--as in, it sold out completely during this one hour of ticket sales for the whole thing. So, at dinner, when we are talking to this random woman from SOUTH KOREA, she tells us her cousin just bought tickets for them all to the Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco. WHAT IS GOING ON? It was crazy. It was random. It was crazy random. I guess this whole ice cream thing is catching on. Our evening ended with a heated game of Monopoly in the parlour, or was it the drawing room? It actually would have been better to play Clue in this building--as in playing clue for real, going from room to room, because this might as well be where the game takes place. It was the London version of Monopoly so all the properties were appropriate to this city (Leicester Square, Mayfair, etc.)--and it motivated us to try San Francisco-opoly when we get home, which is now in only two days time! Tomorrow we head into London to stay with a friend, and I get to attend the premiere of "Ruin Me", the feature film I shot in Michigan a couple of years ago. And that will be our last night of the trip!

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Day 14 - Are you Ready for Some Football (Soccer)?

This morning was the finish to our time in Wales, which we spent eating another monumental breakfast, followed by a brisk walk along the harbor to kill time rather than sit at the train station. Nonetheless, we still left for Cardiff Central Station a full hour before our planned train departure time--please note the station is about 5 minutes away. Still, there was a big variable on this trip, since we had not pre-purchased our tickets (gasp!) and had to buy them just minutes (45 to be exact) before our last train of the trip. Well, it took about 30 seconds to buy the tickets, and another 3 minutes to get to the platform, so we had PLENTY of time to wait around again. And for whatever reason, this was the shadiest of the platforms we encountered, not actual shade which would have been nice, but just completely out in the open and sketchy. So we sat there for who knows how long, still never quite knowing if we were in the right place or if our train would even show up and if we would have enough time to board. I still feared that somehow the doors would slam shut with a remaining bag (or child) still outside of the train. But, the train did arrive, and we had 15 full minutes to board. Of course there are no attendants or anybody the least bit helpful to guide you or relieve your fears of getting on the wrong train. Despite this, we did everything right, and after about an hour, we arrived at our destination: Bath Spa. So we went 4 for 4 on our trains this trip. Yay us. We quickly grabbed a cab outside to transport us to our hotel, Lucknam Park, about 25 minutes away. Well it took a little longer because 5 minutes into the journey, Alex declared he really had to use the bathroom and couldn't hold it. Our very polite cab driver stopped off at a Morrison's Supermarket and I rushed the child into the restroom. A few minutes later (and who knows how much that bathroom visit cost in taxi fare) we were back on the road. The drive was gorgeous and Bath will be fun to explore tomorrow when we return. But for now we were full-steam ahead for the hotel, which I had actually stayed at as a child, and we have been looking forward to as a highlight of our trip. Arriving at the hotel, we drove down a mile of tree lined road in the countryside, until the beautiful manor appeared on the horizon amidst the greenery. The view is straight out of a British period drama. I couldn't tell if the attendants at the entrance were just super fancy or slightly awkward (the jury is still out), but they showed us a little of the HUGE property, including a scale model of the new brasserie and spa. We had some time to kill before our room was ready so we grabbed a quick lunch and then wandered around the property. Luckily there was a children's play building called "The Hideaway" which certainly was hidden away amongst the brick and ivy covered houses, archways, and paths. It was just beyond the Equestrian Center, of course. Inside were multiple rooms with all types of kids playthings--Legos, costumes, action figures, XBOX, and even a "Sensor Floor" which was a projector on the ceiling that sees where you are and you play by moving around. That was a hit for Alex as he finally was able to play video game soccer (or football, if it pleases you). We also played a game of Foosball on a real table, so that counts too (but we weren't done just yet). Eventually our room was ready, but instead of hanging out and relaxing, we realized there was a real (although small) soccer/football field nearby! No more of these video and table games. This was the real thing. Not to miss any activities along the way, Alex and I decided to bike over there, which meant I would pedal while he rode in the trailer, all equipment provided by the hotel. That was a first for him (and I guess I'd never towed a bike trailer before either), so good times for all. Sadly there was no ball on the soccer field, but the playground was a hit, and also right next to a field with some beautiful horses. The views here, by the way, are stunning in every direction. So we biked back towards the main lobby to get the ball, but I decided why not try biking down that beautiful entrance path? It is a slight downhill slope away from the property, the only hazards being a few piles of horse manure along the way. Turning around, I realized how difficult it is to tow a 40 lbs child up a hill on a bike, even so slight. About halfway, I heard a distinct sound of some small piece of metal falling off the bike. Alex heard it too, but I figured maybe we just ran over something or perhaps a coin fell out of my pocket. So we paid it no more mind. We eventually picked up a soccer/football and headed back to the field for a rousing match (Alex won 10-2). I thought at some point on this trip, we would have a chance to play, but I didn't expect it would take two weeks to finally pull it off. Soon we headed back on the bike, but at that point I noticed that the safety pin that connects the trailer to the bicycle was indeed gone--and that must have been what fell out. So for quite a long ride, the trailer was only connected by friction without the pin. Luckily, we both made it through without disaster and I alerted the staff to the missing piece. Soon after, again instead of resting, we headed towards the spa for a swim. This is a beautifully designed building, with the main pool under an arching transparent roof, complete with saunas, thermal baths, and even a long fireplace next to the pool. Because every pool should have a fireplace of course! We swam and swam and Alex befriended a 7 year old boy who is British but lives in Dubai. They had a swimming race and Alex got schooled, but I would expect no different (at least he didn't cry about it, as he did when I stole the ball from him playing soccer). After our swim, we headed to dinner, again at the brasserie, for an excellent meal. Alex's new buddy was also there, and we spent half the meal hearing our boy complain that we weren't sitting close enough to his new friend. Eventually the boy invited Alex to go play some games on the iPad elsewhere in the restaurant, and for about 10 minutes, Allison and I had a real, adult dinner, with mature conversation, and nobody blowing milk bubbles. It was amazing and we had forgotten what that felt like. As our luck would have it, the weather was absolutely beautiful here today and we snapped a few phone photos of the property, but they don't do it justice. It's truly surreal and quiet and peaceful. We will enjoy it in our short time here before we head to London in a couple of days. But first, tomorrow morning we head to Bath to see the Roman Baths!

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National Museum Cardiff

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Cardiff Bay