Hiya! Looks like it's been 6 years since I last blogged... suppose I feel like it again because I have been living back home for the last few years and something about this travel feels like when I first started and I wanted to still be in touch with everyone without having the ability to call everyone though. I'm in England for 2 months and don't yet have plans but it's getting there. I've been staying with my sweet friend Adam and his lovely girlfriend Dani and their 2 wee bebes. Same Adam from below that helped me get that car. It's been pretty tame just hanging out in his house and playing with baby and watching back to back episodes of Escape to the Country with Dani. I've been trying to help with the washing and such but I can't sing my Mrs. Featherbottom song this time because they haven't seen Arrested Development, I asked. The water here tastes pretty weird, it's hard to stay hydrated because of it. I caught a cold my first few days which is what also happened when I was here almost 2 years ago. The kids are a little snotty and I for sure have drool on the outfit I've been wearing everyday. I bonded pretty hard with Sarah when I was here 2 years ago and she was 1 and a half. Now she's 3 and I was a little concerned about that and indeed 3 is a hard age for me. She's very cute and often says the darndest things but also... is just very much 3. When she gets frustrated (or sometimes when she's just playing hard?) she bunches her hands into fists, apparently she usued to also say "claw!!" which I like... of course she has a thick english accent, so do it in your head with that in mind. Luke is 6 months old which is more my speed. We hang out a lot and I've kinda got the hang of helping out with him except he uses reusable diapers so I can just sorta leave that for the other adults in the house. The most exciting adventure so far was just trying to get to Adam's house from the airport. My Whatsapp app stopped telling me when any texts had come through, which usually isn't that much of a problem I just have to think to open the app to check. Adam lives in the "country" about a 2 hour drive from the airport. He's usually pretty keen to do a pick up but he was working that day and couldn't, he mentioned his best friend Swain had offered to get me. It seemed like such a big ask that I assumed I would just figure out how to catch a train to an area about a 30 min drive to Adam's. I had aready been awake-ish for... roughly 30 hours? Maybe 24? Having had a very fun layover in New York for 10 hours where I got to see my friends Syvlie and Kat at a coffee shop near my old neighborhood. I was zombie-like getting off the plane in England but maybe more bold then normal because of it, so I followed to crowd to a tram that took me to another wing of the airport and then to a train station where I used an automatic machine to get the cheapest ticket to Salsibury I saw, which was still 30 pound. With the ticket in hand I asked someone working there how to figure out what platform to go to, she looked up my ticket on a phone and said this one has 3 transfers, and to come with her so she could cancel it. So on a computer she did that and looked up a better ticket which was 60 pounds, which is what I saw originally. I thanked her and said I just needed to call my friend and think about that. When I opened Whatsapp to call Adam for advice I had a missed text from him, "Swain is at the airport to get you, he saw your flight touch down". Thank the heavens!! I turned around and got back on the tram back to my original terminal chuckling the whole way about how I must've just walked right past him in my fugue state and feeling so grateful to not have to figure out the train system just yet. Here are some pictures from the car ride back to Adam's. And then also some pictures of the cute wee babies I've been hanging out with. Also pictured, the night we went to a pub trivia and they asked what a traditional American dessert for Thanksgiving was, when I told my table that we also eat turkey and mashed potatoes they were absolutely gobsmacked that we eat mashed potatoes as a celebratory meal and not like, as an emergency. Cherio! -Aurelia