{"id":17430,"date":"2026-07-20T11:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/?p=17430"},"modified":"2026-07-20T11:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:46:10","slug":"summer-vacation-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/2026\/07\/20\/summer-vacation-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Vacation 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years after our first family vacation to Europe, we again jetted across the pond last week, splitting it between London and Dublin. It was a pretty good trip, although there were two significant bummers and a couple other smaller disappointments that kept this from surpassing either Italy<\/a> or Hawaii<\/a> as our #1 ranked family vacation.<\/p>\n

\n

London<\/h3>\n

Our first stop was London. Last Saturday we flew from Indy to Chicago, then Chicago to Heathrow overnight. As I learned four years ago, I cannot sleep for extended periods on planes. That proved true again. I was in-and-out for roughly three hours of the eight hour flight, but never full-on slept. When we landed at 7:30 AM, I was pretty fried. As was the rest of the family. We headed to our hotel hoping that our request for an early check-in would be granted.<\/p>\n

As tired as we all were, we were also buzzing a little. M had spent the previous two days with a sorority sister who lives north of London. While we drove into the city, she was on a train approaching central London. We made it to our hotel, the Rubens at the Palace, directly across from Buckingham Palace, and got checked in, then she arrived a few minutes later. A big round of hugs when we all saw her for the first time in two months.<\/p>\n

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We started the day paying for a very, very expensive breakfast in the hotel restaurant[1]<\/a> We strolled around St. James\u2019s Park. We snoozed a bit in the hotel\u2019s tiny lobby.[2]<\/a> Took another walk and then finally got into our rooms around 1:30. We had time for quick naps and freshening up before we headed out for our first scheduled event of the trip.<\/p>\n

That was a Jack The Ripper tour through London\u2019s East End. It was interesting if a little odd. It was more telling about the history of Jack The Ripper while strolling through the general area he operated than being a true sight-seeing tour. Oh well, it was a nice way to ease into the trip as we were all struggling to focus. After striking out a couple times – apparently a lot of London restaurants close early on Sundays – we popped into a little pizza place for our dinner. Then it was back to the hotel where we all collapsed.<\/p>\n

Sunday was a big lesson for us: either find a way to fly over during the day, or pay for an extra night in your room so you can go straight to bed after arriving on a red eye. We\u2019re too old for getting off the plane and being immediately busy. Hell our girls couldn\u2019t handle it, either, so maybe age has nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n

Monday we had a St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral\/Changing of the Guards\/Buckingham Palace tour scheduled. Only we woke up with two people a little under the weather. The entire family got on the bus but two of us bailed and grabbed an Uber back to the hotel when we got to St. Paul\u2019s. Of the three of us who remained, two thought St. Paul\u2019s was more impressive than St. Peter\u2019s in Rome. I leaned St. Peter\u2019s but still really liked St. Paul\u2019s. But it\u2019s hard to discount the Vatican Museums when comparing them.<\/p>\n

We enjoyed this part of the tour.<\/p>\n

The rest? Eh.<\/p>\n

We assumed the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace meant we would actually see the guards being changed. Nope. Our guide just crowded us into the area where hundreds of others were lined up and we watched the new guard troop march through the area and then into the Palace grounds. But we didn\u2019t get to see the actual exchange.<\/p>\n

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Our two missing family members rallied and re-joined us before we entered the Palace grounds for that tour. We all were a bit letdown by this as well. First off, it was very warm and the Palace was packed with people, so the rooms were rather stifling. Second, with all those people it was hard to find a spot to stand and take things in while listening to the audio tour so it was coherent. I was often too busy making sure I wasn\u2019t running into someone or blocking their view to connect the narration with what I was looking at.[3]<\/a> Finally, I\u2019m a bit of a Royal hater, and the fact that this is an active royal site bugged me.<\/p>\n

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So this whole tour was kind of a letdown. The only saving grace was that we paid for this tour with a credit that came with our Costco Travel package, so we weren\u2019t actually out any money for something we didn\u2019t fully enjoy.<\/p>\n

Funny side note from the morning. As we got off the bus at St. Paul\u2019s a gentleman with a pronounced Chicago accent asked if we were from the States too. We ended up chatting much of the morning. He and his wife are South Siders, but knew the Indy area well. Later an older fellow came over and said, \u201cDid I hear you say you live in Carmel?\u201d I corrected him that I lived near Carmel and he informed me he had lived on the west side of city 20 years earlier. Small world.<\/p>\n

After a brief rest we went to the Covent Garden area to explore its shops. L especially was on the lookout for clothes for her senior pictures, and she walked out with several new items. Two different employees at our hotel recommended a pub called Punch and Judy\u2019s if we wanted to grab a drink. As it was late afternoon we turned it into an early dinner. Two of us got our first fish and chips of the week. Again, they were slightly disappointing. They did something different with the batter and were much blander than what we are used to. We made a loop through Trafalgar Square on the walk home. After another brief rest we walked to Victoria Station and got some good gelato that we ate outside.<\/p>\n

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This is a perfect stopping point to mention the weather. Since we scheduled this trip we were wondering how we would pack for London and Dublin in the summer. Would we need to worry about rain? Would the heat waves of recent years be in place again?<\/p>\n

Well, we timed it damn near perfectly. We didn\u2019t get a drop of rain in either city. We missed the more intense heat they had a week or two earlier. It was in the mid\u201380s in London each day and perfectly pleasant in the mornings and evenings. In fact, I\u2019m disappointed we didn\u2019t take better advantage of the evenings. The city seemed to be hopping in these hours, but we were often too tired to explore the city then. Dublin was high 70s, low 80s. Brilliant summer weather.<\/p>\n

Our favorite tour on our Italy trip was the Eating Europe<\/a> food tour of Trastevere. We scheduled an EE tour of London\u2019s East End for Tuesday. Once again, it was likely the highlight of our trip.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

We had a fantastic guide, a young man called Max, that I hit it off with, discussing music and the World Cup during our walks. I think he also preferred our daughters to the cranky older ladies and two big nerds who also made up our group. There was one woman closer in age to M than to the other ladies who not so subtly joined our family pod after she realized that we were the cool ones.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, the tour was as much about the history of immigration to London as the food itself. We began with amazing breakfast sandwiches at a shop run by Italians in Spitalfields Market. Before our second stop we stood outside an old soup kitchen that had been established for Jewish immigrants in the 1800s and heard the story of how the East End had always been the landing point for immigrants. Then we ate Chinese custard pastries. Next was traditional fish and chips, much better than what we had the day before. Stop four was a selection of three different curries at an Indian restaurant. These were all terrific! Meal five was a spectacular, fresh bagel with a large hunk of boiled brisket on it. Finally, we capped it off with a very modern take on a traditional English crumble.<\/p>\n

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It was about three hours of fantastic food, super interesting history, and some good company.<\/p>\n

Back to the hotel for rest then another walk, this time to the Big Ben\/Westminster Abbey area. We tried to find a couple bars on our list to stop for a drink, but as it was early evening and the France-Spain game was about to begin, they were all packed. So we headed towards our hotel and popped into The Phoenix<\/a>, a cool looking spot we had noticed Sunday. It turned out to be really nice. Elevated bar food, good drinks, and a proper local who served as both waitress and bartender. She even had really fucked up teeth and a nearly impenetrable accent! And she called us all \u201clovelies\u201d each time she spoke to us.<\/p>\n

We were all still pretty full from the food tour so kept it more to snacks and appetizers. But it was nice to sit inside, in a cozy room, with the World Cup game on where we could see it but not have to focus on it.<\/p>\n

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Wednesday was our final day in London-town. After checking out of our hotel and storing our bags, we headed to the Tower of London. We had a lunch reservation so had to be careful with time. Because of that, we did the tour at 1.5x speed, and I think it suffered because of that. Also, and I don\u2019t share this to be mean, there was a very large woman near us when we explored the White Tower section. We were behind her a couple times going up the stairs. We knew at the end you exited via a long, spiral staircase that went down several levels without a break. We honestly feared if we didn\u2019t make it there before her, she might have an episode and block it so we couldn\u2019t get out. Thus we blew through some of the exhibits to make sure we were ahead of her. We did enjoy the signs warning that the ravens could bite. In its Welsh origin, my last name translates to raven.<\/p>\n

The Crown Jewels again triggered my anti-royalty defenses.<\/p>\n

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Lunch was at Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese chain that M went to when she visited a friend in California last summer. It was excellent! Since it is a chain, it doesn\u2019t necessarily represent something unique about London\u2019s melting pot, but it fit the general vibe of the city that I enjoyed most.<\/p>\n

London was pretty amazing, even with some letdowns in how our tours went. I knew that it was a massive, multicultural, salad bowl of a city. To experience it gives an entirely different perspective. You think of London being as English as it gets, with all the royal and governmental trappings scattered through the city. But, in fact, it is more a monument to the legacy of the British Empire, with tangible elements of every part of the world the Empire touched. It is a constantly fascinating combination of the native and the imported coming together to create something unavailable anywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reached the point where I begin to share the true negatives of the week. Monday night\/Tuesday morning, I kept waking up with a scratchy throat. This happens occasionally; something irritates it while I\u2019m sleeping but the next morning after I drink some water it is gone. Not this time. By Wednesday I had a full-blown cold, my first one in at least two years. L was also coming down with it.<\/p>\n

On our ride to the airport, our driver told us that traffic might be bad, so he was taking a different route than he would normally take. Since the England-Argentina game was that evening, he said a lot of people in the city would be leaving work early. We did have to fight some gridlock in Victoria and Chelsea, but arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time to relax. In fact, we had to wait an hour before we could even drop our bags.<\/p>\n

Our flight sat at the gate an extra 15 minutes. The pilot announced that we were holding to get a few extra bags loaded. He mentioned that \u201cfor some reason\u201d they were having a hard time getting everything into the cargo hold. I may have imagined it, but I thought I heard a chuckle in there. Ahhh, the lads were calling in sick so they could watch the game! Glad we dropped our bags early!<\/p>\n

(Narrator: They didn\u2019t drop them early enough.)<\/p>\n

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Dublin<\/h3>\n

A quick flight across the Irish Sea and we arrived in Dublin just as the World Cup semifinal was beginning. The Dublin airport seemed largely empty, as if even all the Irish were home watching the game. Rooting for Argentina no doubt.<\/p>\n

We waited for our bags. And waited. And waited. We saw a few people from our flight grab theirs, but dozens of other people were standing around with us. We checked other carousels but didn\u2019t see our luggage on any of them. Finally, after nearly 45 minutes, a guy walked over and said all the bags that had been on our plane were off.<\/p>\n

Apparently the lads back in London didn\u2019t bother to load any checked bags for our flight, only those that were dropped at the gate made it on.<\/p>\n

Motherfuckers.<\/p>\n

Now we waited in line to submit our claims for delayed baggage. A very nice and overwhelmed Aer Lingus agent helped us get ours in. He insisted that our bags would arrive in Dublin the next day – for some reason on two different flights – and then be delivered to our hotel.<\/p>\n

So we emerged tired and hungry and a little pissed to meet our transfer driver, Tony. He had been texting me while we waited and ensured me he would hang out as long as we needed. Tony was a local, likely in his mid\u201360s, with a gorgeous Irish accent and tons of stories. We spent about 30 minutes with him and loved every second. Just a delightful way to be driven into town.<\/p>\n

Our hotel was the rather bougie Anantara The Marker<\/a>, not too far from Temple Bar and Trinity College. As we were checking in a roar went up from the hotel bar and restaurant: Argentina had just tied the game. Given that our bags were still in London, I was suddenly a huge Argentina fan. I was more pleased when we got to our rooms and saw they had taken the lead. I really enjoyed watching first the Irish network\u2019s breakdown of how the English blew it, and then switching over to the BBC to see former English players rip their coach. Almost saved the night for me!<\/p>\n

We ordered some room service, which was surprisingly good, and tried to figure out how to navigate the next day with limited clothes and toiletries. Fortunately our rooms had robes and M had some extra clothes in her bag, so we could all shower and Febreeze our stuff and allow them to air out overnight.<\/p>\n

Thursday we had a walking tour of central Dublin. Temple Bar, Dublin Castle, a couple churches, Trinity College. However, Ireland currently holds the EU presidency, so some of the sites were shut down for government activities and we didn\u2019t get to go into them. Another bummer. But our guide was good and we got a decent chunk of Irish history crammed into his two-plus hour spiel. I was the only member of our group that could identify why the Dublin band The Hype was important,[6]<\/a> so he took a liking to me and we had a few side conversations. The girls love how I always end up talking music or sports or history with our tour guides.<\/p>\n

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When the tour ended we strolled over to Darkey Kelly\u2019s, a pub my man Sean M had suggested to us. I had some fine Guinness stew to prep for touring the Guinness Storehouse later in the afternoon. The Storehouse was indeed cool. If, again, very crowded. And my cold was kind of kicking my ass so I was not full of energy. But I did drink my complimentary Guinness, and I think it was tastier than they are at home. My taste buds weren\u2019t 100% and I think I had a slight fever, so tough to be sure.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

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While we had been out, I checked the AirTags on our bags and they showed as being at the Dublin airport. However, they had still not been delivered when we returned to the hotel. Thus began a very dumb process of S calling about 100 different numbers to figure out when they would be delivered. With no success. While she did this, I walked around the block to a pharmacy to find some cold medicine. I got some knock-off, lower strength NyQuil\/DayQuil tabs that only slightly muted my symptoms.<\/p>\n

For dinner we decided to stick in the hotel, as we all felt a little grungy. Our hotel seemed to be a popular happy hour spot. We sat down to eat around 7:00, right around when the happy hour-ers were beginning to depart. We joked that it was because we all smelled, or at least our clothes did, that everyone left. We got creative after dinner, handwashing clothes in the sink they taking turns with towels and hairdryers to get as much water out as possible so they could air dry overnight.<\/p>\n

Friday we took a bus trip to Howth, a coastal community about 45 minutes north of Dublin. It seems like 90% of people who go to Dublin take this day trip. We did a limited version of the cliff walk, had a fine lunch at The Oar House,[8]<\/a> and walked through some shops before heading back to Dublin. Our driver\/guide was outstanding. Thick Irish accent, told hilarious stories, and somehow drove down narrow roads while still using both hands to talk. Just as we sat down to lunch I got a text message from a strange number that said \u201cLuggage delivered.\u201d I checked the AirTags and, sure enough, they were at the hotel. Huzzah! Showers and clean clothes for everyone!<\/p>\n

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When we got back to the room there were three bags. One problem: we had checked four bags. M reconnected her phone and her AirTag showed as still at the airport. We eventually got a British Airways rep on the phone who helped us get her AirTag info loaded into our missing luggage claim. He assured us that he would let the Dublin people know that we were checking out tomorrow and that we needed the bag tonight. Seemed optimistic to me, but what do I know?<\/p>\n

After four of us put on clean clothes, we walked over to the Grafton Street area, which is full of bougie shops. We also walked through Trinity College, which for some reason our tour the day before had skipped. Finally, we had dinner at the rooftop bar of our hotel. It was fascinating to look around Dublin and see so many shiny new buildings next to much older and less grand ones.<\/p>\n

That was what surprised me most about Dublin: how it is very much a city of contrasts. Newer, ultra-modern buildings built in either the current or last tech bubble standing next to gritty, graffitied buildings that look like they were built before World War II. One block will feel more like Belfast, or at least a stereotype of Belfast. The next like you\u2019re in the Bay Area, just with an old church in the middle of the glass and steel.<\/p>\n

The contrast between London and Dublin is stark. London certainly has its own grittier areas. But there is so much grand history at every turn. It\u2019s not quite Rome, but everywhere is a building or name you\u2019ve heard of your entire life. Dublin? It is a far less familiar city. There are certainly names that are familiar, but often because they were brought to the States and become well known here. There\u2019s plenty of history in Dublin, you just have to dig a little more to get to it. And, sadly, we didn\u2019t have enough time to do so.<\/p>\n

Also, while I\u2019m firmly on the Irish\u2019s side in their great conflict with the Brits, you can\u2019t help but feel that perpetual chip on their shoulders. So much of the visible and told-to-tourists history is about the many ways they have been wronged over the centuries. People were feckin<\/em> thrilled about England losing Wednesday night. Sometimes you want to tell them to get over it, move on, and stop being caricatures. They have a beautiful country and much to be proud of. I know that\u2019s far easier said than done; my country wasn\u2019t oppressed by its big brother for 700 years.<\/p>\n

Our guide on Thursday made a fine point about modern Ireland. He said that neither the far left nor far right has ever made inroads in the country. Why? Because since independence, most of Ireland prizes stability over anything else. The memories of famine and colonialism are still so ingrained that anything that puts the country on a path that will veer too far to one extreme or the other generally gets crushed pretty quickly. Ireland is far from perfect, and often gets in its own way. But it has managed to avoid the dramatic shifts to political extremes that has become more and more common in the western world over the last decade.<\/p>\n

Saturday morning we woke early for our 9:30 flight. When we arrived at the airport we stopped at the Aer Lingus desk to inquire about M\u2019s bag. The ladies S talked to weren\u2019t super helpful at first. She wore them down and called down to the baggage department and found someone who claimed they would find M\u2019s bag and put it on a direct AL flight to Indy. This was nice in theory, but since they seemed to have issues finding it in the first place we weren\u2019t super confident.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never flown out of Dublin, the absolute key to the experience is you can pre-clear for US customs and immigration there. It took us, maybe, five minutes to get through. When we flew home from Italy four years ago, it was over hour to get through all this in Chicago. Absolute genius move.<\/p>\n

The flight home was the easiest of my now four trans-Atlantic flights. I was seated in the row just before the restrooms, so had about four extra inches of legroom and could tilt my chair back at least a couple notches without bugging anyone behind me. I didn\u2019t need to sleep, so a 20 minute nap was plenty. I knocked out some of the movies I had loaded but failed to watch on our first flight.<\/p>\n

In Chicago, we sat on the taxiway for 45 minutes waiting for some storms to pass before our flight home could depart. When we landed in Indy I was tired, still sick, hungry, and short of patience. A couple sitting two rows behind us barged through the aisle without saying excuse me, and I snapped at them. However, since I was on day five of a nasty cold, it did not come out nearly as intimidating as I had hoped. At least I got a couple appreciative nods from others, and a \u201cSome people just don\u2019t have any manners,\u201d comment from one lady.<\/p>\n

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Random Notes<\/h3>\n

They don\u2019t make showers in Europe for tall people. In neither hotel could I stand at my full height under the shower head. It was very nice to take my first shower at home Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

The whole lack of ice thing bugged me. No ice machines in the hotels. Having to ask for ice with drinks and then getting two or three cubes that melt as soon as you pour your drink into it. It\u2019s 2026: this shouldn\u2019t be hard.<\/p>\n

Thank goodness both our hotels had air conditioning. Also it seems like most people in England and Ireland have discovered deodorant. M said it still seemed optional in France.<\/p>\n

We loved<\/strong> taking the underground in London. While most of our activities were in a fairly small area, it did make it nice to be able to walk one way and tube the other. Tapping to pay makes it so easy. We only had one snafu, when M walked onto the wrong train ahead of us as the doors were closing. It took us about 20 minutes to get back together, between getting a good enough cell signal on both ends to reconnect and finding out where we should meet. Fortunately, she was the kid who had been traveling for two months and didn\u2019t freak out about it.<\/p>\n

M had quite the sports run while she was in Europe. Was in Paris during the French Open and when PSG won the Champions League. Watched a France World Cup game at a bar in France. Was in Monaco the week after the Formula 1 race, when much of the course infrastructure was still in place. Left France the weekend the Tour de France started. Was in Brussels the night of the US-Belgium game. Was in London during Wimbledon, the World Cup, and the week of the British Open. Not that she attended any of these events, she was just close to them.<\/p>\n

It was very cool to be in London in the days leading up to the Argentina game.[9]<\/a> Jerseys everywhere. Flags and advertisements on buildings. Stacks of kegs outside bars. We saw kids kicking the ball around in the park and I couldn\u2019t help but think what was going through their minds, imagining themselves as Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham. Of course all the adults we talked to assumed they would lose, either to Argentina or France. I\u2019m not sure even the most fatalistic England fan was prepared for how it fell apart this time.<\/p>\n

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Two straight World Cups during which we\u2019ve visited Europe. The next World Cup is in Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. That wouldn\u2019t be a terrible trip!<\/p>\n

I told my buddy John N that it really blew my mind to be in London on the day of the Wimbledon men\u2019s final and only then realize that match starts at 4:00 PM local time. I started watching Wimbledon in 1980, and the whole concept of \u201cbreakfast at Wimbledon\u201d was so ingrained in my head that for some reason I ignored the time difference and figured the matches were somehow being played at breakfast-time in England, too. Or, at worst, lunch time. Funny how the brain works. I guess it\u2019s Tea Time at Wimbledon for the Brits.<\/p>\n

We were surprised how many parks and lawns were brown in both cities. They just don\u2019t have irrigation systems everywhere like we do to keep public spaces green in the midst of heat waves and droughts.<\/p>\n

We laughed when we saw Aer Lingus names their planes. We saw one Saturday named Ronan. We had Irish-English friends with kids in M\u2019s and C\u2019s classes at CHS, and they had a Ronan. We wondered if there were planes named for the rest of their family, too. Sean was a given. Clare? Maybe. But Dearbhla might be pushing it.<\/p>\n

For the most part everyone we encountered was friendly and helpful. I know that\u2019s not always easy to do in the high tourism season.<\/p>\n

We did have to get a little creative with planning this trip to include M. We booked everything for four people, then added individual plane tickets for her for our final three flights. We ended up sitting together each time. We included requests for rollaway beds in each hotel. In London, they didn\u2019t question that at all. In Dublin, though, the lady checking us in gave me an odd look and said, \u201cYou only have four people, right?\u201d I confirmed and stammered something about having a weird sleep issue. I immediately thought of Jan Levinson making Michael Scott sleep on the bench at the end of their bed<\/a>. Otherwise no issues incorporating M into our itinerary.<\/p>\n

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Wrapping Up<\/h3>\n

This was a good trip. I\u2019ll give it a B+. My biggest self-critique is I wish we had either done a full week in London, or a full week in Ireland, getting out to see more than just Dublin. We had such a long list of things we could<\/em> have done in London, based on both our interests and what many of you had suggested that we barely tapped into. There are a couple big things I wanted to do in Dublin we didn\u2019t get to, and I would have loved to make a day trip to the west coast. If we go back to either country, I think it will more than likely be either a single country trip, or for a longer period to squeeze more in.<\/p>\n

But when you rarely make these trips, you need to pack as much in as possible, so we probably would have regretted not doing two countries if we had done just the one.<\/p>\n

Getting sick didn\u2019t help. I felt absolutely terrible Sunday, I think as much from the previous week catching up with me as the cold itself. I\u2019m glad my body held out until we got home to need a day off.<\/p>\n

The baggage thing was obviously fucked up. We\u2019re hoping M\u2019s bag makes it here on either Monday\u2019s or Wednesday\u2019s direct flight. I exchanged emails with someone at the Dublin airport Sunday requesting this after they confirmed locating her bag. This is one of those moments that will turn me into a person who never checks a bag again unless I absolutely have to. Or at least not when the country you are flying out of is playing a World Cup semifinal.<\/p>\n

Those bummers were certainly flukes. And things could have been a lot worse. We kept telling the girls, as we put clothes on from the day before, at least we were in a nice hotel where we could shower, eat good meals, and sleep in clean beds.<\/p>\n

They did affect the overall quality of the trip, though. As much as we enjoyed it, it never attained that magical quality our trips to Italy and Hawaii had. But that\u2019s a pretty high bar. London especially has so much to offer that perhaps we will return one day and give it another shot.<\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. Seriously, we\u2019ve had nights out with multiple couples and multiple rounds of drinks that were cheaper than this breakfast. And the food was not that good! \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. This was probably a funny sight, four of us crammed into an antique sofa, a fifth sitting on the floor, taking turns nodding off to catch five minutes of sleep. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. We were so spoiled going to Italy in November. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Seriously, if you go to Europe, book an Eating Europe tour. They are the best. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Relatively speaking, of course. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. The Hype was an early name for U2. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Since I mostly drink NA beers now, this was my only real beer of the week. I had several Guinness Zeros, though, and they aren\u2019t bad, either. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  8. I enjoyed the seafood chowder. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. Our flight to London took off just as the Norway game went to extra time. There were some people a few rows in front of us who threw hands in the air celebrating both when England took the lead and the game went final. The pilot confirmed the score a few moments later, to muted applause. I was expecting a bigger outburst. \u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Four years after our first family vacation to Europe, we again jetted across the pond last week, splitting it between London and Dublin. It was a pretty good trip, although there were two significant bummers and a couple other smaller disappointments that kept this from surpassing either Italy or Hawaii as our #1 ranked family vacation. London Our first stop was London. Last Saturday we flew from Indy to Chicago, then Chicago to Heathrow overnight. As I learned four years ago, I cannot sleep for extended periods on planes. That proved true again. I was in-and-out for roughly three hours of the eight hour flight, but never full-on slept. When we landed at 7:30 AM, I was pretty fried. As was the rest of the family. We headed to our hotel hoping that our request for an early check-in would be granted. As tired as we all were, we were also buzzing a little. M had spent the previous two days with a sorority sister who lives north of London. While we drove into the city, she was on a train approaching central London. We made it to our hotel, the Rubens at the Palace, directly across from Buckingham Palace, and got checked in, then she arrived a few minutes later. A big round of hugs when we all saw her for the first time in two months. We started the day paying for a very, very expensive breakfast in the hotel restaurant[1] We strolled around St. James\u2019s Park. We snoozed a bit in the hotel\u2019s tiny lobby.[2] Took another walk and then finally got into our rooms around 1:30. We had time for quick naps and freshening up before we headed out for our first scheduled event of the trip. That was a Jack The Ripper tour through London\u2019s East End. It was interesting if a little odd. It was more telling about the history of Jack The Ripper while strolling through the general area he operated than being a true sight-seeing tour. Oh well, it was a nice way to ease into the trip as we were all struggling to focus. After striking out a couple times – apparently a lot of London restaurants close early on Sundays – we popped into a little pizza place for our dinner. Then it was back to the hotel where we all collapsed. Sunday was a big lesson for us: either find a way to fly over during the day, or pay for an extra night in your room so you can go straight to bed after arriving on a red eye. We\u2019re too old for getting off the plane and being immediately busy. Hell our girls couldn\u2019t handle it, either, so maybe age has nothing to do with it. Monday we had a St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral\/Changing of the Guards\/Buckingham Palace tour scheduled. Only we woke up with two people a little under the weather. The entire family got on the bus but two of us bailed and grabbed an Uber back to the hotel when we got to St. Paul\u2019s. Of the three of us who remained, two thought St. Paul\u2019s was more impressive than St. Peter\u2019s in Rome. I leaned St. Peter\u2019s but still really liked St. Paul\u2019s. But it\u2019s hard to discount the Vatican Museums when comparing them. We enjoyed this part of the tour. The rest? Eh. We assumed the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace meant we would actually see the guards being changed. Nope. Our guide just crowded us into the area where hundreds of others were lined up and we watched the new guard troop march through the area and then into the Palace grounds. But we didn\u2019t get to see the actual exchange. Our two missing family members rallied and re-joined us before we entered the Palace grounds for that tour. We all were a bit letdown by this as well. First off, it was very warm and the Palace was packed with people, so the rooms were rather stifling. Second, with all those people it was hard to find a spot to stand and take things in while listening to the audio tour so it was coherent. I was often too busy making sure I wasn\u2019t running into someone or blocking their view to connect the narration with what I was looking at.[3] Finally, I\u2019m a bit of a Royal hater, and the fact that this is an active royal site bugged me. So this whole tour was kind of a letdown. The only saving grace was that we paid for this tour with a credit that came with our Costco Travel package, so we weren\u2019t actually out any money for something we didn\u2019t fully enjoy. Funny side note from the morning. As we got off the bus at St. Paul\u2019s a gentleman with a pronounced Chicago accent asked if we were from the States too. We ended up chatting much of the morning. He and his wife are South Siders, but knew the Indy area well. Later an older fellow came over and said, \u201cDid I hear you say you live in Carmel?\u201d I corrected him that I lived near Carmel and he informed me he had lived on the west side of city 20 years earlier. Small world. After a brief rest we went to the Covent Garden area to explore its shops. L especially was on the lookout for clothes for her senior pictures, and she walked out with several new items. Two different employees at our hotel recommended a pub called Punch and Judy\u2019s if we wanted to grab a drink. As it was late afternoon we turned it into an early dinner. Two of us got our first fish and chips of the week. Again, they were slightly disappointing. They did something different with the batter and were much blander than what we are used to. We made a loop through Trafalgar Square on the walk home. After another brief rest we walked to Victoria Station and got some good gelato that we ate outside. This is a perfect stopping point to mention the weather. Since we scheduled this trip we were wondering how we would pack for London and Dublin in the summer. Would we need to worry about rain? Would the heat waves of recent years be in place again? Well, we timed it damn near perfectly. We didn\u2019t get a drop of rain in either city. We missed the more intense heat they had a week or two earlier. It was in the mid\u201380s in London each day and perfectly pleasant in the mornings and evenings. In fact, I\u2019m disappointed we didn\u2019t take better advantage of the evenings. The city seemed to be hopping in these hours, but we were often too tired to explore the city then. Dublin was high 70s, low 80s. Brilliant summer weather. Our favorite tour on our Italy trip was the Eating Europe food tour of Trastevere. We scheduled an EE tour of London\u2019s East End for Tuesday. Once again, it was likely the highlight of our trip.[4] We had a fantastic guide, a young man called Max, that I hit it off with, discussing music and the World Cup during our walks. I think he also preferred our daughters to the cranky older ladies and two big nerds who also made up our group. There was one woman closer in age to M than to the other ladies who not so subtly joined our family pod after she realized that we were the cool ones.[5] Anyway, the tour was as much about the history of immigration to London as the food itself. We began with amazing breakfast sandwiches at a shop run by Italians in Spitalfields Market. Before our second stop we stood outside an old soup kitchen that had been established for Jewish immigrants in the 1800s and heard the story of how the East End had always been the landing point for immigrants. Then we ate Chinese custard pastries. Next was traditional fish and chips, much better than what we had the day before. Stop four was a selection of three different curries at an Indian restaurant. These were all terrific! Meal five was a spectacular, fresh bagel with a large hunk of boiled brisket on it. Finally, we capped it off with a very modern take on a traditional English crumble. It was about three hours of fantastic food, super interesting history, and some good company. Back to the hotel for rest then another walk, this time to the Big Ben\/Westminster Abbey area. We tried to find a couple bars on our list to stop for a drink, but as it was early evening and the France-Spain game was about to begin, they were all packed. So we headed towards our hotel and popped into The Phoenix, a cool looking spot we had noticed Sunday. It turned out to be really nice. Elevated bar food, good drinks, and a proper local who served as both waitress and bartender. She even had really fucked up teeth and a nearly impenetrable accent! And she called us all \u201clovelies\u201d each time she spoke to us. We were all still pretty full from the food tour so kept it more to snacks and appetizers. But it was nice to sit inside, in a cozy room, with the World Cup game on where we could see it but not have to focus on it. Wednesday was our final day in London-town. After checking out of our hotel and storing our bags, we headed to the Tower of London. We had a lunch reservation so had to be careful with time. Because of that, we did the tour at 1.5x speed, and I think it suffered because of that. Also, and I don\u2019t share this to be mean, there was a very large woman near us when we explored the White Tower section. We were behind her a couple times going up the stairs. We knew at the end you exited via a long, spiral staircase that went down several levels without a break. We honestly feared if we didn\u2019t make it there before her, she might have an episode and block it so we couldn\u2019t get out. Thus we blew through some of the exhibits to make sure we were ahead of her. We did enjoy the signs warning that the ravens could bite. In its Welsh origin, my last name translates to raven. The Crown Jewels again triggered my anti-royalty defenses. Lunch was at Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese chain that M went to when she visited a friend in California last summer. It was excellent! Since it is a chain, it doesn\u2019t necessarily represent something unique about London\u2019s melting pot, but it fit the general vibe of the city that I enjoyed most. London was pretty amazing, even with some letdowns in how our tours went. I knew that it was a massive, multicultural, salad bowl of a city. To experience it gives an entirely different perspective. You think of London being as English as it gets, with all the royal and governmental trappings scattered through the city. But, in fact, it is more a monument to the legacy of the British Empire, with tangible elements of every part of the world the Empire touched. It is a constantly fascinating combination of the native and the imported coming together to create something unavailable anywhere else in the world. We\u2019ve reached the point where I begin to share the true negatives of the week. Monday night\/Tuesday morning, I kept waking up with a scratchy throat. This happens occasionally; something irritates it while I\u2019m sleeping but the next morning after I drink some water it is gone. Not this time. By Wednesday I had a full-blown cold, my first one in at least two years. L was also coming down with it. On our ride to the airport, our driver told us that traffic might be bad, so he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[251,254,249,26,253,250,14,22,252,93],"class_list":["post-17430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dublin","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-family","tag-ireland","tag-london","tag-parenting","tag-travel","tag-uk","tag-world-cup"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17448,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17430\/revisions\/17448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}