Thursday, February 28, 2008

Flashback…

Ms. M’s comment about coming to visit her made me think of the last time I visited Ms. M. Picture it, 2003, Ms. M and her family were living about an hour outside of London. I had just finished three months in Ireland and was on my three month travel session. I took advantage of as many free places to stay as possible. I ended up crashing at Ms. M’s for about two weeks. The entire two weeks were great. Some of the time was just spent hanging out with Ms. M, who I went to high school with and amazing through a mutual friend and the wonder of the internet had kept in contact with, but until 2003 had not really seen and spent time Ms. M in almost 10 years.

There were many great experiences from those two weeks. One that makes me smile everything I think of it and I think of it often because it does make me instantly smile, involved a trip into London. It was a Saturday morning. Ms. M, her little sister (not really little at that point, 16, I think), and Ms. M’s son (9ish, I think), and I all jumped the train into the city. We were headed for a full day of shenanigans in London. At some point we found ourselves on Portabella Road in the market, just like in the movie Notting Hill. Yes, at the time, I was even thinking where is my Hugh Grant? Is he in one of the little shops? We were walking around as three women will, window shopping and looking at all the items the street vendors had to offer. I’m not really a shopper, but in this instance you have to experience the moment and take it all in. I know we spent a good bit of time in the shoe shops. I love shoes, love them. I didn’t buy any that day, but did another time during the trip. Anyway, poor Ms. M’s son, he had done so well for a 9 year old with three women walking around shopping in the open market. However, after a few hours, he had hit his limit. He is a terribly good kid. I’m not just saying that because Ms. M will eventually likely read this blog, he really is a good kid. He is very polite and travelled on all our crazy adventures. Heck, if I was a kid in that situation, I would be in high protest, but he was a trooper.

When he hit his breaking point, he simply seemed to lag behind, not really complaining, but making his mom aware he was not having fun. Ms. M was apologetic that we might have to cut the trip a bit short. Well, I was a pre-school teacher for 3 years; I thought what can I do to help this situation. Well, I can make an ass of myself and amuse the child, then we can all continue to have a blast. In order to make the trip more fun for M. M’s son, I created a human train. I was in the lead. The market was a busy place, but we weaved in and out of people as fast as our little feet would take us. We exited the main part of the market place. Ms. M’s son was now giggling and smiling and we decided a bit of food would put us all in good spirits.

I don’t remember the restaurant we ate at, but I do remember I order chicken fajitas. I missed Mexican, even Mexican American food desperately when I was in Europe. They don’t really have it too many places. I remember the fajitas were very tasty and we all enjoyed a nice meal off of Portabella Road.

Again, this is not the most adventurous story ever, but it’s one that for some reason makes me very happy. I’ve been very negative the last few days and this nice story is a good way to turn this around. So, thanks, Ms. M for reminding me of this moment in time this morning. Oh and I am coming to visit you, just need a long weekend or will use some vacation time this summer. You can’t escape me, I need a tour guide for DC, you know I’ve never been there. This is super sad because I was Poli Sci undergrad major.

One more day until FRIDAY!!!!

1 comment:

Jonathan and Michelle said...

I totally LOVE this memory. It had never occured to me to make a human train, and Morgan was thrilled by it. What an awesome day it was!! But I thought is was my shoe fetish that made us go into those shoe shops?! (-: