London Calling: Part Pajama-Party-Eh?

I am soooo freakin’ tired of being drug everywhere. We have done so much standing and waiting, and aimless walking because Grandmother & Ron can’t come up with a plan. They’re the ones who are hosting this trip for Caitlyn and yet Matt and I feel like we’re the only ones putting in the effort to make it enjoyable for her. We’re all getting really tired of how the two of them are constantly talking down to us all. Cait feels like this is more like a field trip than a vacation. Ron is full of random information, but he always seems to phrase things so the rest of us feel like idiots. He can’t just provide us with a random tidbit, he has to make everything sound like we’re taking a verbal exam and then he has to correct us in the most arrogant way possible. Oh, and forget about when he’s wrong. He’s always right. It’s getting really old. I can’t stand being treated like I’m 12.  Grandmother on the other hand has nothing to say about the history we’ve been visiting, but has to have an attitude about everything that we do. Several times she would scold me on the way that I spoke to Matt, these were usually times when I would say one of our inside jokes or be sarcastically teasing him and I really just wanted to snap at her.  I will speak to my husband any way I please and she needs to keep her opinions to herself. She also scolded Matt quite severely when he tried picking up a lance at the Tower of London. To him it appeared that it was part of a display that people were invited to touch, but even Ron joined in chastising him and saying that he would be harshly punished if someone caught him. Please. The worst that could possibly have happened would be that either someone would have told him not to touch things, or they would have asked us to leave. It’s not like he was trying to steal the crown jewels.

While we were touring the exhibit of King Henry VIII’s suits of armor Matt, Grandmother & Ron were cut off from myself and Cait by Secret Service who led the Canadian Prime Minister’s wife down some stairs. Grandmother spent a long time talking to one of the security personnel about the exhibit that was set up in the White Tower. She was extremely upset that because of the exhibit we didn’t get to see the actual use of the original castle. None of us really cared much, and by this time we had spent most of the afternoon walking around and my feet were ready to call it quits. The last hour before closing we went on a search for the stairs to take us to the top of the outer wall for pictures. Of course, they had to explore every random nook and cranny they came across once we were up the wall, but eventually we did stop for some pretty good pics.

After we were all kicked out of the Tower of London at closing we took the subway to Piccadilly Circle so Cait could see the big advertising screens. Matt wanted to take everyone to the Cheers restaurant, but we found that (thanks to the recession) it had closed down. We ended up at a TGI Friday’s trying to eat while the fire alarm kept going off. I was really impressed with the restaurants’ response…continue as usual. What if there had really been a fire? Matt had to have a Starbucks after dinner and Cait wanted to wander into the It-Fell-Off-the-Back-of-the-Truck mall. I was really happy when the place started closing up because it seemed like we never would have gotten out of there.

Grandmother & Ron insisted that we stay the night with them and I was very happy to get back to the hotel at a decent hour for sleep. Unfortunetly the bed was almost as bad as the one at the Best Western Trocadero in Paris, but it was Ron’s incessant snoring that kept Matt and I up almost the entire night. We giggled with Cait about it the following morning, but I was honestly considering ways to kill him or at the very least, trying to find something to throw at him. It was just the cherry on top of my day’s agony sundae.