Do chinchillas make you glittery?

After two weeks of complete nostalgia and reminiscence, connecting the old with my better halves, we three arrive safetly back into the States. With us just getting over the jetlag our sleeping habits have temporarily aged a few decades – sleeping at 9:30pm and waking up at 6:30am. Considering the more hours of sunlight I’m receiving, I feel that I’m typing this a little bit prematurely; but so, a blog post nonetheless.
Me and Amy were shuddersome of Sebastian screaming and crying on the plane like the stereotypical kids who kick the back of someone else’s seat, and who could blame him? Especially with the tubes in his ears, who knows the caliber of pain that he could be feeling? Hell, even though I love flying, I’m a wuss when the pressure change completely defiles my ears. I curl up into the fetal position and everything! Surprisingly, Sebastian did the exact opposite. He was laughing and clapping on the plane, and he especially loved the bumpy landing. At the stop-over in Atlanta, he felt the best out of the three of us, with a constant smile on his face and an urge to see all the planes at the airport. He even fell asleep on the plane to England, accumulating more sleep, in quantity and quality, than me and Amy put together. As soon as he arrived into England, he was almost heartbroken to know that we were not going to ride another one for a two weeks..!
Yes, that boy sure loves flying!
Having to take 6 hours to arrive back to the house from the airport, thanks to roadworks on the way back from Heathrow, we were still able to enjoy to mosey on up town the next day, enjoying the refurbished park at the Walks, with a zipline that hit Amy in the head and Sebastian enjoying new park toys that look quite deadly. We were bumping into old friends left and right which was very comforting. Everyone was very sweet to Sebastian and very nice to Amy, which means a lot to me and to them. We are a little family after all!
I was kind of surprised how much things have changed in the town centre – maybe you guys don’t notice it because you’ve been going there more often than I, but to me it seemed like a significant change. Everything just seemed to be more modern, and I guess that’s somewhat sad in a way. I missed to antique look of Lynn, and I still look down and speed pace pass Cancer Research where I used to work!
We met old friends on their work break, and strolled around town spending an ungodly amount of money at Topshop/Topman. As town was closing, we quickly went and got some bread to feed the ducks at the Walks for old time sakes. Sebastian liked feeding them whole pieces of bread unaware of the squabble that would proceed.
We spent the next day in Lincoln where my sister goes to uni, A quaint little city, full of history and extremely crazy roads with the ballsiest drivers. For whatever reason, Primark just happens to be a ‘must visit’ for those out of the country. I myself didn’t go, maybe because I watch that documentary on where the clothes came from and how all the clothes were made, maybe because I bought a pair of terribly fitting but cheap jeans that washed its colour out after the first wash, or maybe because I didn’t feel like getting lost in a habilimental maze of mediocre clothing. Either way, after feeding the Queen’s swans, and noticing how mean they are by biting the younger swans’ necks, we went for the local cultural landmark – the Lincoln Cathedral. I guess I never realised this before but I took for granted the castles, the cathedrals and the churches of England. The elaborative architecture, the bounty historical value, the cultural atmosphere – something that you don’t get to fully appreciate until you’ve been away from it for a while I suppose.
Legal drinking was a definite plus as we celebrated Sam’s birthday. It was Amy’s first night out, which included a lot of conversations and dancing. We brought Amy to the poor-excuse-for-a-night-club, but I guess it’s the best that King’s Lynn can offer. It’s not like we binged as such, it’s just a nice feeling of being able to do something, to be less restricted to something like alcohol. Yep, I jumped on the ’18 should be the drinking age not 21′ band wagon.
Staying in a traditional cottage that was converted from a barn (I really shouldn’t have fed the dogs so much bread), we visited Windsor castle: a castle where they should have taken us in History class, rather than the one with the ‘best perserved staircase in the whole of England’. We arrived pretty late so we couldn’t see as much as we wanted too, but we still got our money’s worth. The cloakroom itself was walled with dishware from all over the world and from different time periods – Greek, Chinese, etc. We toured through the rooms where they would have taken their guests, and marvelled at how disgustingly rich the place was. Velvet drapes and tapestry-ed walls and portraits galore! Now I feel kind of old for liking it all! Sebastian had enjoyed watching the Queen’s guards march back and forth flipping their bayonet rifles. As curious as children are, I had to refrain from Sebastian touching them.
Whilst in Windsor, we wanted to do something suitable for Sebastian, and what better destination than Legoland! I went before when I was a little older than Sebastian but all I remembered was the bus ride over there; hopefully Sebastian will remember more. Unfortunately for him, he was too young to get his Lego driver’s license but we worked our way around that. We started off at miniland and Sebastian was bent on seeing the miniature trains going around the plastic bricks of Scotland and Wales, while both Amys lived in a bubble for all of 5 minutes. There seems to be a growing trend in people paying a ridiculous amount of money to be put in an inflatable bubble that rests on a pool of water. You’ve got all the kids that start getting up and running like a hamster in a ball, and then you’ve got both Amys struggling to get on their feet and falling down hilariously. It looks fun and it is for the first three minutes but then you start noticing the smell of other people’s feet and feeling of a small scale greenhouse effect enough to make someone pass out.
We went on the fairy tale ride for Sebastian where they quite originally mix and matched the generations – the Big Bad Wolf watching television, Little Red Riding Hood talking on her mobile phone. For some reason it just completely cracked me up. Soon after, and as peculiar as it sound, Amy felt like she was molested by a red brick. It was one of those guys in costumes, and Amy specifically said to my mum that she was always afraid of those people because she always had bad experiences with them as a child. Sebastian was too scared to take a picture with ‘it’ (I don’t think Lego blocks are subjected to gender) so Amy filled in the gap. Sure enough, when she stood next to ‘it’, it placed it’s hand over Amy’s face ‘playfully’, making it slightly more difficult for her to breathe.Ending our Windsor trip was a quick day stop to London. Considering to be quite the city-boy myself, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop by the capital for the old tyme favourite Camden market and a nice dinner in China town. I was depressed to find out that I grew out of pretty much everything in Camden. No more band t-shirts or ‘gothic’ designs. I didn’t even feel like walking into Cyberdog because I knew I wasn’t going to buy anything. I would be kidding myself if I pretended to still like that sort of thing. To make it a trip worth while down there I impulsively bought 3 shirts for £33 that were alright at best. Amy feels similarly and we both agreed that it was better the last time we went together back in the winter of ’08. However, Chinatown was a nice pick up, being able to buy qwirky trinkets that would be hard to find in shops and too figity and overly expensive to find online. Ramune made everything better, and so did Amy and Sebastian’s favourite koala cookies (filled with chocolate, not guts!).
Next on the agenda was to visit my extended family in Doncaster to parade Amy and Sebastian around, to show how successful and happy we are, and to break the news of the marriage in April next year. The atmosphere was high especially with my cousin Alex’s graduation the day before. Amy and Carly hit it off and words were spoken until it became dark and raining. Human centipedes afoot.Hunstanton is always a must visit since it’s only 20 or so minutes away – I somewhat was used to the fact that the beach was only 15 miles away. Batty drove us three and we visited the Sea Life Centre. I know it’s expensive yet tacky, and kinda lame, but I mainly did it for Sebastian’s sake. Knowing our luck the air conditioner was broken and with it being so miserably humid inside, it was hard to enjoy my £40 worth within. But still, Sebastian had fun looking at all the different types of rays, sharks, but fairly repelled by the crustaceans due to their freaky look. He was keen on seeing the random things – the penguin rubbish bins that he thought were real. Now he thinks it’s okay to feed real penguins plastic bottles and pieces of paper! And finally, the day ended with an intensive battle of air hockey between Amy and Batty, that put innocent bystanders in danger (Air Hockey isn’t just a game, it’s serious business).
As quick as the two weeks went by, it was already time for us to depart back to America. As ever, I threw a little shindig that was kid friendly, and I was happy to see everybody playing Legos with Sebastian, making friendships with Amy, and Scott working the barbeque, which was a load off my hands! It was a pretty good turn out, and I was happy to see a lot of familiar faces. The planning was fairly rushed, I must admit, since it was planned the night before we left, but it just means that the memories were kept fresh. We are still talk about the holiday and we’re still in the process of distributing souvenirs.
Who knows when we’ll be back in England, but everyone is more than welcome to come for the wedding in April. We’re planning the wedding right now, and Amt’s mum has already bought the ring bearer’s pillow, and bubbles to go along with the invitations. We’re planning to have the wedding at a vineyard close to Amy’s old house, and though it’s going to be a small and relatively cheap wedding, it will be beautifully enchanting, artful and picturesque. Yes, I’ll leave the women to plan the wedding!
So, for those who saw us, it was great to see you again, and for those we missed, apologies. Until next time, then ~

Advertisement