Hello! And welcome back. It’s high time to take another trip. In two weeks RBD and I depart for London. If you’re receiving this, you’re already subscribed and ready to go. Highlights of this trip include:
* An NFL football game (Carolina Panthers versus the Tampa Bay Cardinals) in Tottenham’s new, state-of-the-art soccer stadium
* Oxford
* Paris, the city of.
* Maybe something actually in London.
RBD said to me, “You’re going to London to not do anything in London?” As is typical in our relationship, I had no good come back. Those of you who know my affinity for trains may glean another motive here. I remember Paris fondly (I was ten last time I visited), but the Eurostar through The Chunnel? Infrastructure, economics, AND trains? Paris who?!
Like last Fall, RBD will be working. So except for the football game, (which was her idea, by the way) I’ll be on my own. Her employer bought her plane ticket, so she’ll sit in the front of the plane, surrounded by fine wines, pastries, real cutlery, and culture. She offered to send a glass of Prosecco back, but I said it would hurt my street credibility if people knew I had ties to front-of-the-plane people. “You don’t know what it’s like to sit back there,” I told her. She furrowed her brow, which she does anytime she thinks I’m being ridiculous. This happens so often it’s caused a deep line up her forehead. (Hark, behold my lasting contribution to my wife!) “I’ve got to establish my credibility quickly and ruthlessly. Let the people in the yard know I’m not to be messed with.”
“There’s no yard, Lance. You still have seats back there.” She says this like she knows. But she doesn’t know. How can she, a front-of-the-plane person, know? First class bathrooms are cleaner, bigger, wider, smell better. The food, more delectable; they use real glasses and plates up there. Top shelf liquor. Walk up bars. Build your own sundaes. More, fresher oxygen from virginal trees. She won’t even see other passengers in her protected pod of isolated bliss, filled with plush pillows and silk blankets.
I respond, slowly, looking off into the distance, “This is a gauntlet I must fight alone.” At this point, I think she actually choked a little.
“Alright, Andy Dufresne, you’re sitting in premium economy, not going to Shawshank.”
We agreed to disagree.
Her employer also pays for the hotel room, which makes the trip super cheap. For me. She still has to work. But we pretend to be Londoners, meeting “after work” to have a drink or dinner, and imagine what our lives would be if we lived here, perambulating home through the English streets. Given the self-inflicted gunshot wound of Brexit, it feels more like we’re saying goodbye to those fantasies this time since entertaining them feels irresponsible.
Now for a bit of business. As in the past, I will include pictures and commentary of the trip. If you wish to read about prior trips, there’s a link below in the footer which will take you to past entries. To unsubscribe, it’s another link, also in the footer. Many of you forward these emails to others. Feel free to send me their address so I can directly add them, if they okay that. I don’t mind. As a thank you for subscribing, if there’s a picture I take you’d like a copy of, please let me know at the conclusion of the trip. I’m happy to send you a full sized digital copy. If you want it printed, I’m happy to help with that too. Just know there’s a cost for having it professionally printed.
We depart in two weeks, on Saturday October 12th. I hope you’ll join us.
Cleared for Departure 