What a wonderful vacation. Two weeks abroad in London and Ireland. Seeing the sights. Taking in the countryside. Exploring the rich traditions and culture that go back centuries. And trying to make sense of what clotted cream is, and why I can eat it by the bucketful.
There were so many highlights from our trip: Windsor Castle. Riding Connemara ponies in Ireland. A jaunting cart trek through the Gap of Dunloe. Knowing that Cadbury chocolate was never more than 5 feet away in any direction.
You can read in guidebooks about the sights you can see on a similar vacation, so I thought I would share with you some lesser known travel tips that will be invaluable if you choose to take your own journey:
• Never try to do currency conversion math in your head. It will cause you great embarrassment when you’re buying a bag of crisps, look at the price and scream, “This is highway robbery! I will never spend $3,200 on potato chips!” Use a calculator, dummy.
• Be prepared that when you tell people you are from Florida, they and 13 of their friends will immediately try to climb into your luggage in hopes that you will smuggle them in for warmer, sunnier weather. Also, when people ask what it’s like back home and you reply, “Well, the air is hotter than molten lava, the mosquitoes are the size of walnuts and snakes are known to eat alligators before they are in turn eaten by spiders,” they will likely respond, “Sounds brilliant! Do you have tea?”
• Don’t get separated from your family in Westminster Abbey. I still haven’t found them. I finally gave up looking, latched on to some nice-looking people from Holland and finished my vacation with them. I had no other choice!
• If you’re looking to make small talk with a Londoner, never ask anything along the lines of this: “So, what do you think about this whole Brexit thing?” You will have to extend your vacation by at least 7 days as you try to extract yourself from the angry conversation.
• Know that if you laugh at sheep because you think they look ridiculous and chew their cud like cartoon characters, they are also laughing at you because your fly is down, you’re lost in an Irish bog and three of their friends are stealing the luggage out of the back of your car while you’re being distracted by their chewing.
• When an Englishman, says “cheers,” they sound cool and proper and sophisticated. When you say “cheers,” you sound like a goofy hipster or someone who wants to start a cult. Not sure why that is, but it just doesn’t work on Americans.
• Most of all, don’t believe people who tell you that the jet lag is the worst part about coming home. It’s not. The worst is that blast of Florida hot air that greets you, and the instantaneous assault on your sinuses as your allergies flare back up. It’s moments like that which make you wonder why in the world we ever chose to live in this strange, toasty state of ours … and why so many Brits and Irishman are trying to stuff themselves into luggage to get here. I mean, you’ll probably get eaten by a snake or a spider here!