Day 100!

 9/19: Today we are celebrating Day 100 of our adventure together!

1-0-0!

We started the day with a walk to get pastries, schoolwork, and then lap swim for the kids at the local pool. Bob and I took a walk while they swam. We are enjoying Richmond more and more all the time. Sunshine always helps!

Bob and I passed a Unitarian church along the way and took a picture of the bulletin outside to discuss with the kids later. More good thoughts:

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude your bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens" - Kahil Gibran

The happy swimmers - they have loved living near a pool for a few weeks.

My favorite people walking home for post swim lunch, schoolwork, and then out for HH and dinner to celebrate!

A beverage on the banks of the Thames - we've seen this a few times - see you at the baaa...

This baaa on the Thames advertises that if the water is too high (it's tidal) you can order your beer online and they'll bring 'wellies' to you so you can pick them up!

We walked the kids past the main area/bar where Ted Lasso was filmed. I think we'll at least start watching the series with them; we'll see how far we get!

Pizza/pasta dinner around the corner from our place.

We revisited our goals for the trip: explore to the fullest while we're all mobile, learn together, strengthen our family bond, get the kids excited about travel, and experience different cultures/languages/foods. We all agreed we feel like we're on track! We thought about what we've noticed so far:

Quinn: more smoking everywhere, doesn’t miss home as much as he thought, but misses biking to school and friends. He very much misses Kraft Mac n cheese. He has everything he needs with him (packed all he needs but not too much!).

Simone: finds herself appreciating Bob and me and all we do (unsolicited!), Europe seems to have fresher fruit/food/less pesticides/artificial additives, but more smoking. Misses home less than she thought, but very much misses our physical home (her bed!) and especially biking to school with Ellie.

Bob: never had such an easy time traveling, public transport is awesome: bikes, ferries, subway. Maps on our phones make getting place to place so easy. Apple Pay everywhere, sometimes can’t use cash. Misses mountain biking and tennis.

Kristin: so much smoking - vaping especially. How did the terrible images on cigarette packages come to be, but there is little regulation on where you can smoke (ie it's allowed in restaurant outdoor spaces) Yankees hats everywhere (is that because when people visit the US do they more often go to NY?). People wearing puffy coats even though we’re wearing shorts/t-shirts. Almost no Amazon trucks! At home we joke it's multiple times/day just on our street. In Richmond where we are now every little district has its own small grocery, barber, seamstress. I’ll miss the public transport in London for sure. When we arrive in new towns, in order to find the grocery store, we need to google 'grocery', but also 'supermarket' (Our Richmond place is so noisy at night, and we hadn't been able to figure out why - then we stumbled on a 'supermarket' behind our place that we didn't know about - they must be unloading at night!). I miss my workouts in our basement, sparking water options, but most importantly my career and the intense fulfillment it gives me.

I am so grateful for these days together, when a lot of our usual day to day commitments at home are gone and we have time to discuss topics and ideas that interest us and that come up during travel:

-while we were staying at Paul and Victoria's house, Bob and I ended up having a casual conversation over the fence with their neighbor. At the end of our brief interaction, I happened to ask him what his career was prior to retirement. He told us he was a British Ambassador for the UN to facilitate relations between Israel and Gaza. Whoa! So our conversation did not end, but continued for the next 45 minutes. This topic already was very interesting to me, and it was fascinating to hear his perspective. I am left with a desire to dig in and learn more.

-At the Tower of London, we barely scratched the surface of England's long history. So many Kings and beheadings! The Beefeaters at the Tower were so knowledgeable, and I asked them for a good book/s to help me gain a better understanding from the start. He said there were probably too many out there, but suggested I look into the history of Lady Jane Grey.

-We see a lot of women wearing head scarfs, and a few wearing burqas. Simone has asked me what the difference is - I look forward to learning and discussing with her

-Simone has asked about Princess Diana and why everyone loved her - we will learn together

-while we were at the Ted Lasso pub, an older gentleman came and shared the picnic table outside where I was sitting. Bob had gone inside and separately ended up striking up a conversation with some locals. This man and I had a lovely conversation about his work with a developer who was trying to renovate a huge block of apartment buildings downtown, but it had been 3 years and they had made almost no progress. Half of the building was privately owned, but the other half was rent subsidized about 50 years ago and this half was in such disrepair that it was dangerous to live in. However, the Historical Society of London is so strict with what they allow/don't allow to be done to a building that his company could make almost no meaningful changes. His work sounded so incredibly frustrating - but it was really nice to connect with a local in the community. He was a father and a grandfather and also loved hearing about our journey - he thought it sounded great, and said he wondered what pieces will stand out the most to our kids in the future - that perhaps some pieces/experiences that they will remember the best won't be the ones we expect...?

-I love my heightened awareness for history/people/events/happenings in the places that we've visited. I have much more context for the past, and appreciation for current day events. I love the feeling of wanting to learn more about so many things.