Day 7 - Milan

I'm typing this as quietly as possible, while crouched down behind a barricade of furniture and suitcases. No, I'm not protecting myself from sniper fire, although that's how it looks. The enemy attack will come from within - within the barricade, that is. It's Darcey's bed.

We chose not to bring a portable crib, since the three nights in Milan are the only ones where we won't have one available and we didn't want to drag one with us for three weeks. So last night we built a makeshift crib area for Darcey and had some limited success in getting her to sleep there. It is true that the more tired a child gets, the more difficult it is for them to sleep. Poor Darcey has been dragged all over the world during her naps this week and she is definitely feeling the effects of it.

We came home this afternoon so she could take a nap, and as soon as we laid her down, we all hid behind beds, or the barricade, so she wouldn't see us and be distracted. We looked like complete idiots, uncomfortable idiots to be sure, laying on the floor when there were perfectly good beds right above us. As always, it comes down to cost. We could have gotten two rooms, one for them and one for us, and even though we still would have had to do the barricade thing, we could at least have some dignity in the other room. But that was pretty much our only option, and I'd rather suffer on the floor and spend the money on something else.

Milan is a little prettier than my first impression of it, thank goodness. We conquered the Metro system today, and that gives me a feeling of empowerment that sadly the lack of any Italian takes right back from me. But at least we know how to get places, and that feels good.

We went to the Piazza del Duomo today, and the Duomo is just as grand and beautiful as the pictures looked. Except for the two giant billboards hanging on the front of it. And the sound and lighting system that is being set up for some show right in front. What is the deal with that? Don't they know that yokels like me want to see the whole thing, not just most of it? Seriously, would we do this in America? Could you imagine the Lincoln Memorial with giant banners out front, saying it's being renovated? No, put up the scaffolding, get the work done - we'll get the idea that it's not supposed to look like that. We're not idiots. I say this as I'm sitting on the floor behind a suitcase barricade with a towel now around my shoulders because the A/C is cold and my sweatshirt is missing. Yeah, right, we're not idiots.



The Piazza is covered with two things, and I leave you to guess which is more annoying. 1) Con artists and 2) Pigeons.
I personally prefer the pigeons, even though there are literally hundreds of them and they have no fear of people, will climb right up them if you let them. I have a feeling they will also not move if Zack tries to kick them, but I don't have proof. (He spent a while kicking at pigeons later that day.)

The con artists are what make me nuts. They come up to you with friendship bracelets and say "Free! Free!" while they grab your arm, or your kid's arm, and tie them on. I knew about this trick from Rick Steve's guidebooks, but somehow it feels different when the guy is in front of you, saying that they are free. Then, once it's on, they ask for a donation. Why didn't I follow my instincts and continue to say no? I knew it couldn't be free, I had read about this, but they kept saying "free, free" so I thought, stupidly, that this must be different friendship bracelet people. We hustled on out of there and yanked them off as quickly as we could, so that everyone around us wouldn't see the scarlet friendship bracelet, branding us as suckers. There were also people attempting to take our pictures with a polaroid, giving us popcorn to feed the pigeons, anything that would part us from our money. We wised up quickly and left, which is too bad because we're surrounded by some truly beautiful buildings and can't take the time to appreciate them without being approached by someone who wants our money. Why couldn't it just be pigeons?

Here's us in front of the other gorgeous building on the piazza - The Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele. It was built in honor of Emmanuele the Somethingth who was victorious doing something I can't remember. The Italians were so grateful, what did they build him? A shopping mall. A gorgeous one, but a shopping mall nonetheless. Geez, imagine what they would have built if he wasn't victorious?

We picked a different vantage point for the Duomo, though - just outside of a gelateria, which is the italian word for "best ice cream you will ever eat." What Ryan likes about Milan is that getting food is extremely quick - there are a zillion cafes and all you have to do is pop into one and order a panini or gelato or pizza and go. I like that the food all tastes so good. Last night we ate real italian food (or, as they call it here, food) and it was delicious. I had pappardelle with pesto and Ryan and Zack had pizza. The pizza tastes different than ours, but Zack ate almost all of his, so it must not have been too weird. Today we tried gelato, and it was fantastic. It's like ice cream, well, it is basically ice cream but it is rich and creamy and soft and smooth. I don't know what makes it different from our ice cream, but it is really tasty. Zack got vanilla and I got lemon and strawberry. At the end of our walk, we got more - this time I got chocolate to share with Ryan and Zack, well, Zack is a vanilla boy. Both times the scooper said, "Just vanilla? Only?" Yep, that's my boy. Today is Zack's birthday, so we told him that this was birthday gelato. He seemed to like that idea, he kept chanting "birthday gelato, birthday gelato" over and over again.


We considered this a reconnaissance day - figure out the city, where things are and how to get there, and tomorrow we'll do our serious sightseeing. But more than anything, I want to just enjoy myself while we are here. Relax, eat good food, watch Zack kicking pigeons (he never seems to get one, but not for lack of trying), let Darcey charm the locals, who stop her and say "Ciao!" everywhere we go. We took a long walk, just kind of aimless but with an eye on the map, stopped in a piazza with a statue of Leonardo Da Vinci (for pigeon kicking) and enjoyed ourselves.


We headed back to the hotel for the aforementioned nap, and after Ryan slept he took an antsy Zack out to track down a snack. He came back with a loaf of buttery foccacia and a third ice cream cone for Zack. We're going to go back out for dinner shortly, and possibly walk down Corsa Buenos Aires, which is a main shopping street with big name fashion stores. They won't let me in with my sneakers, I'm sure, but that's okay, I couldn't afford anything they sell anyhow. But it will be fun to look.

Day Six - Plane Day Revisited, or Vacation Math

I'm seeing the flaw in my master plan, and that is this: the traveling part of a vacation isn't any fun. Once we are somewhere, I think it works better for us to stay at that place than to keep attempting to go other places. Which is bad for us to realize on leg two of our four leg trip. We've still got two more legs, plus the ride home. Scary.

The plane ride today from England to Milan, Italy wasn't so bad. The flight was 2 hours, left exactly on time and despite the ultra-no-frills that Ryanair promised, it was perfectly safe and comfortable. That is, if "comfortable as an airplane" is an apt sentence.

The problem was that our flight left at 11:50, but the only train that could get us there took three hours and left Harrogate at 6:06 a.m. Once we got to Milan, we were actually in Bergamo and had to take a bus for an hour to get to our hotel, which is outside the Milano Centrale railway station. But the station is gargantuan, and the bus dropped us off on the wrong side, so we had to hike around three sides of the building, dragging all of our stuff. I'm okay with all of this - we weren't lost, I found a map outside the bus stop and figured out where we were going, and that felt pretty good for someone as directionally challenged as myself. But by the time we got checked in and up to our hotel room, we had been on the move for 11 hours.

And this is why planning a trip on paper is nothing like the actual trip itself. Who could have predicted an eleven hour day when looking at a two hour flight that left from an airport maybe an hour and a half from my parent's house? This is what's called Vacation Math, when two plus two adds up to eleven. Or when traveling with four kids is eight times harder than traveling with one. Or when you have to pay movie theater prices for airplane food, without any actual entertainment (2.50 pounds for a water bottle, or about $5 US). Or how the exact same belongings don't fit into the exact same suitcase by the end of the trip. The clothes didn't gain weight, it's Vacation math. I think we'll see a lot more of it.

Milan, so far, has been a disappointment. All we have seen so far is the area around the train station, and I know why this is not the area they put on the cover of the Visit Lovely Milan brochure. It's like judging Los Angeles by Union Station.

But Milan seems a lot like Los Angeles in a lot of ways. When you visit L.A., you don't actually visit L.A. You visit Hollywood, and Disneyland, and the beach, but Los Angeles is a working city, so most of it is businesses and apartment buildings and office towers. Run down strip malls and such.

Milan around the train station is the same. Harrogate and York were wall-to-wall charm, but Milan is wall-to-wall walls. I'm learning that what I really want in a vacation spot is history, beautiful old buildings, and ambiance. I'm hoping that when we go out on Tuesday, we'll get to that part of town. The part that they show on brochures. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Day Five - Quiet Day at Home

Today is Sunday, which we naturally assume to be a day of rest. And except for a brief trip to the emergency room, it was.

It wasn't a big deal, really. Noah (of course it was Noah, Noah is the one most likely to be injured so it had to be him that injures himself on our trip) and Brad were on a see-saw and somehow Noah cracked his chin. I think he had come off of the thing, and then after it hit the ground it bounced back up. When Zack hit his chin falling off the sink, he just got a major goose egg. Noah got a tiny split in his chin.

It was bulgy and kind of hung open, and we had heard (over our many trips to get stitches for these kids) that when the edges don't meet, that's when you need stitches. Ryan was the parent on duty, and it was his call that it needed stitches. I lost all credibility on the stitches-yea-or-nay front when I slapped a band-aid on Brad's chin when he split it open on the driveway. It was so bad it still had pebbles in it, and he needed internal and external stitches to sew him together. So I defer to Ryan on these matters.

It's too bad that I never put "authentic British hospital" or "use the National Health Service" on my list of things to see in England, because now I don't even have anything to cross off. But we had a lovely half hour in the waiting room as they wheeled the ambulance arrivals on gurneys right past us. I averted my eyes - I don't like the tv show ER because it is too graphic, and I didn't want to live that show on my vacation.

After 30 minutes, we were called into triage, where a nurse looked at his wound and decided that it did not need stitches. They would just put a bandage on it and send us home. In three hours. It would be at least three hours before they could slap a band-aid on my kid's chin. Well, free health care or no, I figured this was something I could handle myself, so we left. Noah thought it meant that it would take them three hours to put the bandage on, which left him an amusing picture of how slowly they'd have to move in order to take so long. Even with his chin bleeding, he's still a funny kid.

So that was our not-so-adventurous trip to the ER. It sounds a lot scarier and more interesting than it actually was. But I had to put it in there. Noah wouldn't let me take a picture of his chin, or else you know I would have.

We went to church in the morning, and it was pretty standard. Darcey was wiggly and loud, so we took turns with her out in the hallway. Sunday school got a little interesting when they started talking about government and politics, but I'm all for a controversy when it's not my ward. The worst part was that I was so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open. They'd close, and then I'd wrestle them back open, and the room would be blurry and spin while my brain fought to focus. Oh, it hurt to be awake! I was actually contemplating how embarrassed I'd be if I fell asleep - old guys do it all the time, surely it wouldn't be that bad, right? Ryan pointed out that you never see young mothers randomly falling asleep in church, but you know what? Why not? We have every reason in the world to fall asleep in public. That should be one more mark of our sacrifice - that we don't.

After the ER visit and dinner, all interested parties were taken to Knaresborough to visit a castle ruins. I was interested, but soooo tired plus I had a lot of repacking to do, so I stayed behind with Darcey, Zack, and Noah, all of whom were similarly bushed and were put to bed early. Drew and Kim took Ryan and Brad, and they came back with some beautiful pictures. I'm sorry to have missed it, but as my mom and I keep saying, we'll have to do it next time I come!




I stayed home and re-packed, and of course the amount of clothing I had to squish into my suitcases somehow multiplied so that all of a sudden there was no room for it all. More precisely, there was room for it, but Ryanair's weigh allowance per bag is only 15 kg, which is roughly 30 pounds. My biggest bag was 48 pounds in Salt Lake, but my smallest was only 12, so I figured with enough shuffling I could get it to work.

No dice. After what seemed like eternity of packing, zipping up the bags, hoisting them (and myself) onto the scale over and over and realizing that either the bags or me had to lose 15 pounds right now, I finally got the spare duffel bag out and shoved stuff in it, willy-nilly. Bingo, each bag was light enough, although now I had to pay an extra $16 to check another bag. (That was better than the $20 per kilo fee if the bags were overweight.)

I also repacked our carry-ons. On our first flight, I started making a list of what I wish I had packed now that I was actually on the plane.

What I Wished I Had Packed:
A spare change of clothes (or two) for Darcey - for when her diaper leaked, twice
A spare pair of pants for me
Way more diapers
More formula
More real food for Darcey, not just snacks
Benadryl, or maybe Xanax

What I Packed That Was A Complete Waste:
My ipod
My backup ipod, just in case of the first ipod's failure (or more likely, so one of the kids could use it if bored)
My crossword puzzle book
Books to read with Noah or Zack
My jacket - it was about a thousand degrees on the plane
My inflatable neck pillow
Pretty much anything meant to entertain me, since I was nothing but entertainment for Darcey

When we put Brad and Noah to bed, we said See you on Thursday, because they were leaving tomorrow too, to go to Berlin with my parents and Tim. While I love being independent and I love the idea of having independent children, it still hurts to let them leave. I had a thousand ideas of what could go drastically wrong while we are separated. I think that comes with being a mother, though, and being a grown-up means letting them go. I'm hoping to get the boys to do a guest blog about Berlin while they are gone, we'll see.

And that was it. My parents and I watched an episode of Top Chef then I finished throwing the last few things in the duffel bag and went to bed. It was too quick, this leg of the trip. It was too brief, I didn't eat fish and chips or see a bobby or try yorkshire pudding or attempt to drive on the wrong side of the road. I saw no heather, no moors, I didn't figure out what a "mews" is or go in a British food market. I'm regretting not staying longer. My parents always talk about where they live as being no big deal, just a pit stop on your way to the real fun in the rest of Europe. But there's something about seeing regular life in such a charming small town that I just love. Maybe I wouldn't want to live here, but I definitely thought it was a great place to visit.

Day Four - York

1. Sleepless in Harrogate - I feel completely adjusted to this time zone except for one thing - I'm about three hours off. I can't seem to even feel tired before 1 a.m. and morning doesn't start before 9:00. Which would be great if we were home and there was nothing interesting to go see. But when we sleep in until 9:30 here, we're burning daylight that could be spent doing some doing serious sightseeing. At least my kids are on the same schedule - we're just rolling with it for now. On Monday, our train to the airport leaves that the ridiculous hour of 6:00, so we'd better readjust ourselves to normal sleep times soon.

2. Hometown Internet Cafe - This is my family, in a nutshell.


We are done for the evening, so we plop down on the couches and everyone grabs a laptop and we fiddle with whatever while we gab. "Gab" is a word of my mom's - I don't know why, but whenever I use that word, I think of her. Not that she's a huge gabber, but maybe it's because the rest of us gab so well that I remember her using it a lot. In this picture, I'm uploading photos for a blog entry, Drew is trying to fix my dad's internet connection, and I have no idea what my dad is doing. Whenever my dad visits me, he spends a decent amount of time fiddling with the pc we keep downstairs. We rarely use it anymore, but we keep it around so my dad has a hobby when he comes over. Apparently, Drew is doing the same thing at my parent's house now.

3. I love the way the Brits name things. I assume these are all really old names, that there's not some modern naming committee that is coming up with these things. I've decided that I want to live in a house with a name - we visited Windmill Cottage, and there was nary a windmill in sight. Here is a list of my favorite British names:

Nether Poppleton
Flaxby Moor
Pudney Shuttleworth

If I ever have a dog, I want to name him Pudney Shuttleworth. Oh my gosh, I just love that name so much. I saw a road called Dragon Crescent today, but it reminded me of Crescent Dragonwagon, who is an author but her name sounds all hippie and dopy and as such ruined the road name Dragon Crescent for me forever. But Pudney Shuttleworth lives on.

Oh, and there are some fantastic signs here. One is some instructions for driving an "articulated car" through a roundabout. Ryan said an articulated car is one like in Knight Rider. And there was this sign that I absolutely adore:

I didn't have a chance to take this picture, so I snagged this one on the internet which feels a little insincere but whatever. I saw a sign like this on the way to York yesterday. It reminds me of the signs you see on the freeway around San Diego that warn you of people running across the road with a sign that shows two parents basically dragging a child behind them - I wondered what it would look like if the two signs merged, like the parents are dragging the elderly people while they run across the freeway. Love this.

4. Old York - If New York was named after something, the city of York in England was it. Old York, as I like to think of it, was so crawling with history that I kept stepping on it. York had about 2,000 people living there under the rule of the Anglo-Saxons until 866 A.D. when it was captured by the Vikings. They called the town Jorvik (pronounced yor-vik) which is where the name York came from. Vikings ruled for about 200 years until it was captured by some guy named Norman, and then it was called the Norman period.

If downtown Harrogate is every city's dream of what Main Street should look like, then downtown York is what every Renaissance Festival should look like. I expected to see people in period dress walking around and street hawkers selling giant turkey legs and a guy in the stocks in the town square, instead of an ATM machine around the corner from the McDonald's. It was so old-feeling and old-looking that it didn't feel modern at all. It was great, like stepping back in time.

Let's take a quick pictorial tour of York.

This is what the streets look like. Ryan says it looks like Disneyland, except this is the authentic stuff Disney is trying to copy.
The area is tons of shops and pubs and restaurants and, obviously, people. I would have liked to browse in these stores for hours, but there were eight of us traveling as a pack, so anytime we entered a store we pretty much filled it. It looks uncomfortably crowded, but I didn't have too hard a time navigating the stroller, and the Brits aren't very effusive in their "excuse me's" so when I bumped into people I didn't feel too bad. They didn't feel too bad when they bumped into me, after all, so it must be okay. My mom finds the Brits kind of rude in that, but I haven't noticed it much.
Here's just some old church, smack dab in the middle of this shopping street. I can't believe how beautiful they are, these churches. Something about the stonework and the arches and the pointy tops I can't get enough of. Notice the Starbucks sign immediately across the street.

Here are some pictures of one that's not just some old church - this is York Minster.



Isn't that beautiful? A Minster is like a cathedral - the difference is that a cathedral is the seat for a bishop, while a minster doesn't. Or something like that. York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. My biggest disappointment is that the Minster was closed for a wedding, so we couldn't go in. Who gets married in York Minster? It's not exactly reserving the local chapel, now, is it?


We were heading off to our next destination when we pulled over right next to an ice cream cart to look at a map. Instantly the kids were asking, "Can we have ice cream? I want some ice cream! Is it ice cream time?" I was shushing them and telling them no and trying to drag them away, when I all of a sudden realized, Hey! We're on vacation! Let's have ice cream! I ordered some cones and we hung out in this tiny park for about 15 minutes, enjoying the atmosphere and the views while listening to some guy play broadways hits on a harpsichord. The best part of a vacation is when you just sit, I think.
This is what I get when I hand Ryan my camera - pictures of statues that are actually straight! Mine always end up crooked. When I hand the camera to Brad, I get pictures of pigeons.


Tim and I were sitting together, teaching Darcey how to hold out her tongue so I could swipe it with her first ice cream cone. We realized that we looked more like "the happy couple" than brother and sister, which happened frequently when we went places together last summer.

This house is crooked, I don't know if you can see it. It reminded me of a house in, like, Sleeping Beauty or something.
This street is called The Shambles. It has been around forever, and was rebuilt in 1400, which is when it took on this character. Some of the houses lean together so closely that you could touch one from the upper window of the other.
These are the houses, they are maybe six feet apart. Maybe it's Pinocchio I'm thinking about.
Look at how that house bows in the middle. Of course it's all shops now, but I wonder if people still live up there? We had to move out of the way for a car to pull into a garage at one point.
Okay, I've spent all stinking day doing this, and I've got to call it quits. Remind me some time to tell you about having tea at Betty's, the Viking museum, and the horrid public nudity incident, which thankfully I did not see nor did any of my family participate. More tomorrow.

Day Three - Harrogate

Today we learned a little more about life in a small-ish town in England. Here is a list of what we learned.

1.Water/plumbing situation - Modern plumbing has not arrived in England, apparently the boat with plumbers on it that left America in 1922 never made it. In the upstairs bathroom sink, the hot water comes out of a tap on the left hand side of the sink, and the cold water comes out of its own tap on the right. There's no warm to speak of; you'd have to run your hands back and forth from the Fire of Hades water over to the Glacial Run-off side and back. The kitchen tap is a little better - it comes out of the same tap, but you can still feel the hot side and the cold side if you think about it. The shower water fluctuates between those two temperatures, although Tim's answer to that is to leave the hot water tap in the sink running to moderate how much hot water gets to the shower. An American plumber would make a mint over here, selling our new-fangled pipe systems.

2. Sheep - they're everywhere and they are so picturesque it's almost unreal. If Hollywood wanted to stage Pastoral England, they'd take some grass and sprinkle it with sheep. In real life, it's not a sprinkle of sheep - they're everywhere. And here's what you don't know - so is the smell. I haven't particularly noticed it, but apparently during certain season, farmers (or someone, I guess) spreads slurry on the fields. As my dad so quaintly puts it, "I don't care what they call it, it's still poop." But the sheep are still cute. My brother Drew just moved here and both he and my mom have had scary driving moments because they were distracted by the sheep. My dad came home from hiking with Brad and told us about the cutest little lamb he saw. You just don't have those conversations in Orem.

3. Just An Old Church - We went into downtown Harrogate today and looked around the shops. I mentioned yesterday that it is the Main Street that every modern city is trying to replicate, and it is, although according to dad it's only from the turn of the century. So that's still, what, 80 or 100 years old? The buildings are stone or brick and most of them have that weathered, soot-streaky look that says "Ye Olde Building" and I love it. We passed an old church that was just so pretty I had to ask my mom what it was called. She replied, "That's just an old church." Old pretty churches are a dime a dozen around here, so many that they don't even merit any more than "just an old church." I love that, too.

4. Speed Limit - I drove with Drew and his wife Kim to Fountains Abbey yesterday, and they gave me a little education about driving in England. Kim had just passed her drivers license test, but Drew was the only one insured to drive their rental car, even though he hadn't taken the test yet. Between them, they are one whole legal driver. The speed limit on these twisty little two lane roads is like 60 miles an hour (although I'm sure they do it in kilometers; Drew was translating it into american for my sake). Dad says that there aren't even too many accidents, either, even with such an insane speed limit. Maybe people are aware that they are driving too fast, so they are more conscious about it. Or maybe seeing the sheep triggers some kind of "hey, pay attention, dope" reflex.

5. Crossing The Street - Driving on the other side of the street is just as bizarre a feeling as I thought it would be (even though I'm just the passenger), but I didn't expect crossing the street to be different. Generally, you are accustomed to looking the way that traffic is most likely to hit you before you step off the curb and maybe take a cursory glance in the other direction. Beware, though - chances are you are looking leisurely off into the distance while you step straight into oncoming traffic. You'll only notice when you make the routine, just out of habit, over-your-shoulder look - right at the car that's driving 60 and about to hit you. I now take jaywalking much more seriously.

6. Kick About - We had just finished dinner and were going to eat some of the ice cream that Drew and Kim had brought over (which is not nearly as good as American ice cream, btw - they've got our butts kicked in ambiance but we've got the corner market on ice cream) when there was a knock on the front door. A little boy was standing outside and said "I saw a boy come into your house and I wondered if he'd kick about with me." Brad was called over and asked if he wanted to "kick about" which means kick a soccer ball around, with this boy named James. He did, and so did Noah, so they left - without eating their ice cream, I might add, and not out of protest for the ice cream, just because they were happy to play with someone. Isn't that sweet? I went out a little bit later to see what they were doing, and I think Noah might have been having a little more fun than Brad - James was 9 and Noah loves playing with older kids. I took a picture of them playing with their ripsticks and James' skateboard.

Zack is playing in a little pavillion area in Harrogate.


A little gazebo at the far end of the pavillion area. The other end had a statue. I'm thinking Orem has a serious lack of statues. Although maybe we are too uncultured to be trusted with them - remember the head of the Christ statue getting stolen from the Orem Cemetary last year?
This picture (and the next few) are the shopping area in Harrogate. So quaint, I love it.


This was a not-so-good picture of the "just an old church" in Harrogate.
Okay, I must have really liked this pavillion area. The big building behind it is a shopping mall. I don't know what it used to be, it's too pretty to have started life as a mall. That's the first building I saw when we got off the train here yesterday - good first impression.
I'm looking a little bleached out here - I could have used some lipstick and jewelry and some liposuction, too. I was thinking this morning that I'm going to hate all of these pictures of myself on this trip because I still have baby weight to lose. So I decided I'm just going to have to come back when I'm thin again!

Coming up tomorrow: York, and tea at Betty's. And I need to eat some British food, just to say that I have.

Day Two - The Plane Day, Continued

Fountains Abbey, the picture of the day


It was a really long day. I don't know how anyone does this frequently, because this flight has sapped me of not only energy but almost of any interest in having energy again. It comes back to me in flashes occasionally, but for the most part, I'm just beat.

Our flight came in two hours late, so it was about 9:30 a.m. when we finally stumbled off, last ones off the plane of course because I had to crawl around to get every last toy and Lego Indiana Jones's hat from under the seats. Zack fell asleep and stayed asleep until we were landed - he got about five hours of sleep, and he ended up being the most chipper the whole day. I got scolded by the immigrations person because I only knew my parent's mailing address and not their actual address - welcome to England, I thought.

The best part about getting off the plane so late is that our luggage is already there waiting for us, along with my dad who came to pick us up. I'm glad he did, because we took a train from the airport and I was happy to just shut my brain off and go where someone told me to. Wee took one train from Manchester to Leeds, and then a second, older train to Harrogate. From there, my mom picked up me, Ryan, Darcey, and Brad and drove us 5 minutes to their house, while my dad, Noah, and Zack took a bus.

My parents have lived in Harrogate for 6 1/2 years, and the picture in my head of where they lived was basically a typical American suburb. I didn't really have another frame of reference for it, I was picturing Eldersburg (our small hometown in Maryland) just with a pub instead of Denny's. Driving through the town, though, I was stunned. This town is absolutely charming! The main street we drove down is exactly what every Main Street in America wants to be, but doesn't quite get. It's the authentic Main Street that America tries to recreate, but ours is just a fake copy. I wished my camera had been out to take pictures, but we'll go back on Day Three and walk around. I didn't know I'd be this excited for Harrogate!

We got to my parent's house and immediately invaded with all of our stuff. I hate that about visiting - feeling like I've dumped my stuff all over, and no matter how hard I try our stuff is still everywhere. Since we outnumber my parents' family 2-to-1, it's not hard to feel like we are overwhelming their house.

The day passed in a blur of napping and talking. Ryan and the boys napped on and off, I sat and talked to my family. Man, do I love talking to my family. At 6:00 I left Ryan, Noah, Brad, and Darcey (all asleep) and took Zack with my parents to my brother Tim's high school graduation. Zack had been the surprise - all day, he'd been happy as a clam, bouncing around, no naps at all and showing no sign of fatigue. Since everyone else was sleeping when we left, we took Zack with us. Naturally, he fell asleep in the car. But when we got to Fountains Abbey, where the graduation was taking place, he popped right back up and was pleasant and happy the whole time.

Fountains Abbey was built in around 1200 and it was so beautiful! It was exactly what I came to Europe to see - old, old buildings in old fields surrounded by nothing. I love this! There is no history like this in America! The East Coast has buildings that are maybe 300 years old, but in Utah and California, 100 years is a long time. This is almost a thousand years old! I don't know why, but I love this.

This picture is Fountains Abbey, off in the distance. Isn't this what you picture when you think of England?Zack was trotting down this long aisle, I joked with my brother Drew and his wife Kim that all he needs is a couple of coconuts to bang together, Monty Python style.

This is the outside of Fountains Abbey. Funny, I never saw any fountains there.

Tim, one of 22 graduates in his class. The principal mentioned a personal story with every single graduate. Never would have happened at good ol' Liberty High when I was there.

My brother Drew with Zack. My kids love their uncles.

After the graduation, there was a party up on the base, but I stayed home to finally get some sleep. Ryan had woken up Brad and Noah so that they could sleep later in the evening, so when I got home he was putting them back to bed. Darcey stayed asleep right up until the second my head hit the pillow, then she woke up screaming.

I had held the tiredness at bay the whole day, but once I let my guard down the tiredness hit me like a punch in the face. I couldn't walk in a straight line, everything felt like it was spinning. I got Darcey, let Ryan sleep for a little while, and then made him switch with me because I just couldn't handle it. He put her back down later, but at 12:30 she woke back up, screaming again. I let her cry for a few minutes but couldn't listen to it anymore and picked her up.

I decided that if you have an enemy, what you need to do is keep them awake for 32 hours, then hand them is a Sissy Screams-A-Lot doll. It's a doll that screams unless you hold it just right, with both hands, and alternate between bouncing, swaying, and patting. It needs to be held completely vertical, and if the doll ends up the slightest bit horizontal, it starts screaming again. That's the kind of torture they wouldn't even consider using at Gitmo.

It'll get better, but this just hurts!

Day One - The Plane Day

Now I get it. Now I understand why every single person I told that I was taking four kids to Europe said to me "That's brave." Now I know why they said that. And I know that what they were really thinking was "That's stupid!"

Today was a lot of hurrying to wait. We rushed to the airport, leaving 30 minutes later than we had hoped, cutting it too close for my comfort getting through the check-in line and security, rushing to our gate with only 30 minutes to spare. Scratch that - make that one hour, 45 minutes to spare. Once on the plane, we taxied out to the runway, only to sit for another half hour. Our three-hour layover in Newark ended up being one hour, due to the previous delays, so we rushed again through security and a zillion miles to the gate. Again we had about 30 minutes to spare - scratch that, make it an hour. Plus another hour and a half sitting on the plane. Once the plane started to move away from the gate we were going so slow that if I craned my neck looking out the window I could just see the team of oxen that were pulling the plane. I wanted to offer to get out and push if that would help.

None of that would have been a big deal if I were alone, some business traveler on the way across the pond to close a deal with some bigwig. It's a completely different story when you've got four kids with you.

I thought the first leg of the trip was hard - a 4 hour or so flight from Salt Lake to Newark. There were several empty seats on the flight, so I asked to sit next to one, so Darcey could sit there. Without a car seat, though, an empty seat meant nothing, and a one year old is not nearly as compliant as the same child was at two months old, flying internationally.

It was like Sacrament meeting, except without any praying (other than the people who were praying that my kid would shut up already). She crawled all over me, whacked me in the head, grabbed my glasses, tried to pull my earrings off, or failing that, my whole ear. But overall, it was manageable. People around me were friendly and picked up the things Darcey dropped, and no one gave me the evil eye or applauded when we finally got off the plane.

By the time we got onto the second flight, I had pretty much run out of patience altogether, which made it a supremely bad decision to sit Noah and Zack on either side of me and Darcey. Take Darcey's previous complaining and multiply it by the number of hours of sleep she had missed (roughly four) then add Zack dropping things and not being able to reach them, over and over, plus Noah shoving my arm off our "shared" armrest, plus Zack not being able to hook the headphones over his ears by himself, and you start to get the quantity of horribleness I endured. And that was just when we first got on the plane and thought we had a chance of actually leaving sometime in the near future.

Once the pilot announced that there was a problem with the engine and they were getting some mechanics out to fix it, Noah and Zack were able to start watching their movies and they calmed down. But Darcey was just fried from no sleep and started crying. And crying. And crying.

This is where it stops being like Sacrament meeting. Because at church I can walk out in the foyer, or hand the baby off to Ryan, and almost every single person in the room either doesn't mind the noise or has been/is currently dealing with their own kids, and so won't judge me so harshly. In church I'm not surrounded by 200 strangers wedged into a portable metal cylinder, trying desperately to maintain the American ideal of personal space while sharing a two inch wide armrest with the person next to them, listening to my baby scream and judging the distance they'd have to toss their 3 oz or less bottle of liquid in order to knock the kid unconscious. In church I don't have to worry that the entire congregation will revolt and charge me with their blunt objects and assorted carry-on items. Heck, in church I could always just leave.

No, the second plane ride was not like Sacrament meeting, unless it is like Sacrament meeting in Hell, which is a concept I might have to think more deeply about. And I was so exhausted and frustrated by Darcey that I snapped at Noah and Zack and that kindly gentleman who sat behind us and played peek-a-boo with Darcey. That kind, calm gentleman that Brad was sitting next to, who was obviously relaxed and enjoying himself and who strangely enough bore a very strong resemblance to my children. Funny.

Anyhow, I got angry and snappy and was so worried about Darcey's crying bothering everyone on the plane that I ended up crying, too. Not the loud, screaming sobs that Darcey did, but enough to maybe relieve a little bit of the tension. I don't cry often, but being frustrated with the kids is one thing that usually does the trick.

Four hours after our flight was supposed to leave, and two hours after it actually did leave, Darcey fell asleep. I had asked for a bassinet, but she hated it and I could only lay here in it when I knew she would stay asleep. After an hour in it, and when everyone else on the plane was asleep too, she woke up screaming and I ended up holding her for the last four hours of the flight.

Somehow, though, now that it's morning and I've had a thoroughly mediocre croissant for breakfast, I feel a lot better about the whole situation. Maybe it's because I know the worst is behind me, or maybe it's because what's ahead is so close. Or maybe it's just the leftover good feeling after watching "The Other Boleyn Girl," which is just as lighthearted and upbeat as the real story of Henry and Anne Boleyn. (That was meant as sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.) Or quite possibly, I'm punch-drunk from being awake for so long. Whatever. All I know is, the long, dark night of Plane Day (as Noah called it) is over - the sun is shining over whatever today is going to be called, Train Day maybe, and I'm happy. If nothing else, 15 hours on planes with 4 children makes you really in need of a vacation.