What I learned on my summer vacation...

Just got back from a trip to London with my mom and ten year old niece. My mom's treat! Nothing like being in the middle of the generation sandwich to remind you where you've been and give you a clue where you are headed. My niece- a really delightful kid, especially for a ten year old- seemed to have a blast. And when things were not going her way ("No really, you should LOOK at Westminster Abbey, at least, to say you've seen it!") because some things simply don't matter to a kid, she was polite enough to smile and say, "I saw it Grammy. I'll remember."

I reminded myself early on that this was not "my" trip- if it was we would have headed along at breakneck speed, days filled to the brim with stuff to do, exhausted jet lagged nights. We took a more solemn pace: my mom doesn't walk fast and she can't walk far, so right away that meant everything was done at a pace I haven't visited since I learned to walk, fall down, and get up on my own again. So, it forced me to slow down. To wait. To be patient. And maybe I saw a few things I might not otherwise have seen had I been moving head down, face in a street map, searching for the fastest route to the next "thing". As anyone who has been in my direct company in the past month will tell you, that was the exact prescription for this vacation. Stop. Doing. Stuff.

We ate dinner three out of four nights at the same (exceptional) Italian restaurant on Haymarket Street. Something I would NEVER have done on "my" trip. A new place every night, that's for me. But this time, we spent leisurely evenings speaking with the owner, getting treated as if we were "regulars" and enjoying some familiarity in a strange city so far from home. And the food was GREAT. And my niece- who can be a little fussy when it comes to food- ate what she ordered and loved it. Worth every penny not to have the "I don't like anything on this menu discussion."

We saw some cousins we hadn't seen in years (the highlight of the trip for me, surprisingly), witnessed a protest march of many thousands of people supporting the Tamil Tigers, and had lunch at an American Diner inside of Harrod's where the Austrian waitress told me "All you Americans ask for your salad dressing on the side. Its so funny!" Funny, like ordering a diet coke with apple pie a la mode, is what I think she meant.

We swam in the hotel's indoor pool (a rarity in London, from what I hear) and sat at the bar every night before bed, drinking a ginger ale, a scotch and cherry liqueur cocktail, and a glass of Shiraz (you can figure out who had what). We ate some kind of roasted mung bean snack, and played the game "How well do you know me?" which my niece made up. It consisted of asking the other two a question about yourself to see if they know the answer. If you wanted to, you could give three possible answers to help. It was how I learned she wanted to be a minister. Wow.

So, I learned a lot on my vacation. That I don't take enough vacations. That it is a rare treat to be able to spend time with people you don't get to see very much of even though you love them a lot. That its better to leave a place wanting to come back than it is to leave feeling like you wish you'd never been. That meeting new friends and saying goodbye after a short time is better than never knowing them at all. That coming home is still the best part of vacation...and a dog named Fish is waiting there.