However, there were some cliches that tickled me giddy. Like, the cabbie that took me to my hotel drove on the wrong side of the road! haha. I was like “Heeey, someone must’ve told you I was coming!”

jk

But seriously, one of the first people I saw in London, was an extremely fancy man wearing a tweed suit with a vest underneath, he had on a special type of British hat, professor glasses and he was smoking an old school pipe like my Pa-pa. He also had a jolly large belly and red cheeks. I’m perfectly happy to assume that he talked like the Geico gecko, even though I wasn’t lucky enough to hear him speak.

Also, everyone really does drink tea.

Anyway, on with the post.

Jen had to work the rest of the time I was there, and she was so wonderful to make sure I was comfortable getting around on my own. She would quiz me..”point to the direction of my theatre!”, “what neighborhood are we in!”, etc. I found that London was very easy to get around and I almost never had to ask for directions, not to mention how efficient the Tube is.

So before I headed off for my first day in London by myself, and Jen went off to work, we had breakie in Soho at The Breakfast Club. On the walk there, we ran into another piece by Invader!

I then set off to what my sister Kelly (who lived in London in college) said was the most important thing I do, The Tower Of London. I did the audio tour and took my time. I was very happy to be alone so that I could really pay attention. I was so fascinated with the beheadings that had taken place there. Also, the crown jewels are everything I heard they would be. As much as I wish I would have traveled more in my teens and early 20s, I don’t know that I would have been as interested. It’s funny..you know, growing up.

After the TOL, I walked to the River Thames and got a closer look at the Tower Bridge. I laughed hysterically remembering that scene in Spice World when they drove the double decker over that bridge. I should rent that again. Those cheeky girls!

(CLICHE ALERT! These guards are real!) (psst. I knew they were real.)

On my last day, I spent the whole time on the West End. It was probably my favorite day of the whole holiday (did y’all catch me using the word “holiday” like a European?). Honestly, seeing Westminster Abbey was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. It’s hard to wrap my head around all that history in one building. It was a very powerful moment. I lit a candle and wrote a prayer for a very special little girl I know. I sat in on a church service, and cried a little. I did the audio tour for WA as well, and I hate to think of what I might have missed out on if I hadn’t.

After that, I walked through the parks. Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. There are dozens of kinds of ducks in floating around in the Serpentine, and it was a very beautiful day to take a walk. The ducks are all very friendly!

Squirrels too!

Another cliche. People in London are so fancy, that they have to have elegant graphics on their crosswalks, or else people wont know when to cross. For example, this graphic is a high class equestrian. Talk about flaussy!

I was most excited to go to Kensington Gardens to see the Peter Pan statue. It’s one of my favorite children’s stories, and there is a very strange and interesting story about the author. Also, I researched this statue and it turns out, the author of the book had it placed in Kensington Gardens, without permission, in the middle of the night. It’s the exact spot that peter Pan lands his ship in the story. I thought about a certain blogger named Molly while I was there. kisses.

Bird party on the water!

I also stopped by Big Ben! Parliament is the most incredible building. I walked past and a bunch of regal men walked out in strange, but luxurious navy blue robes.

This is outside of Buckingham palace. Jake and I joke that as a vegetarian, I shouldn’t say “ham”. So I like to call it “Buckingveggie Palace”.

I ended my day of touring alone with afternoon tea at the Orangery. I had scones, finger sandwiches and tiny cakes. I chose the organic peppermint tea which I drank two pots of. Each table had an adorably small orange tree as the center piece. I tead alone so I just spent the whole time scone-scarfing and eavesdropping on nearby tables. I’d have to say that my most awkward moments in life have been when I’ve been caught laughing or gasping at an eavesdropped story. It’s like, I’m alone so they know what I was up to.

Anyway, that was London. It was rad. I was glad I spent some time alone, but I came home excited to talk to Jake about a trip there together. I think he might have a tweed suit somewhere.

(PS I can hear Jake singing a song in the room next door! I’m about to sing with him eavesdropper style!)

A special part of this weekend away was all the alone time I had. I read my book out on the patio that my room had, chatted with strangers at the lemonade stand and sat in the hammock for a large part of Sunday afternoon. I’ve been confused and I’ve needed some soul searching in my life. The Parker hotel was the place to do it. I have to go back.

I have tons of pictures and I plan on posting lots of them real quick-like.

Jake and I have been really working on our relationship lately. I’m trying to think before I say and Jake is working on things too. It’s been really good, we love each other again!

Jake has been organizing and decluttering, and I’ve been obsessively searching craigslist for items that better suit us visually and practically. Jake and I are going on 5 years of marriage, and I still feel like our apartment is in newlywed mode. We have things that aren’t either of our tastes, and things that are cheaply made that we thought would tide us over until we could afford nicer and prettier. We still can’t really, and that’s where craigslist comes in. If you spend enough time on there, you are bound to be able to find exactly what you want in your price range. I found this gorgeous antique mirror for a steal. I think this thing is well over a hundred years old, and it is so detailed and perfect. But it took a week’s worth of emails and getting lost in Yonkers to finally have it in our posession. I do love Craigslist though, I do.

I’m doing my yearly tango with running. I am so out of shape right now. Each mile is pure agony and I am trying my hardest to enjoy it. I have two marathons lined up this fall, one is only about 9 weeks away! I am barely able to run 5 miles, so……this should be interesting! haha.

We just booked flights to go to Palm Springs for Labor day weekend. I’m excited since I’ve never been there and a friend of mine who lives there just had a wee baby. We will also be there to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday. I’m so excited to be staying at the Parker Hotel, which was designed (I’m sure just the interior) by Jonathon Adler himself! Can’t wait. I hear Palm Springs is an estate sale/thrift store treasure trove, anyone know of the good places?

I also brought my little point and shoot, the one I filmed our little video with, and I’ll upload those pictures later. Also the photobooth pics from when we went dancing. Photobooths seem to have a special fairy dust that they sprinkly on pictures to make people look cuter than normal cameras can. I love the way photobooth pictures make people look, like Soap Opera stars or something.

We stayed at the Sheraton (I’ll be talking about that in a different post pretty soon!) which was the most perfect location. Right on the water and basically walkable to anything. Even for little Melanie who has basically lost all of her muscle strength over the last year. So we spent the first whole day wandering around. We did a little shopping, we walked down on the water, we had some dinner and we went to Navy Pier.

I heard to skip Navy Pier on a count of it being touristy, but I am such a nerd for fairs and carnivals. And phewww that Mel is too. We had a great time! We went ferris wheeling…

Carouseling

And we rode the big swings like in the video. Then we watched the fire works. Then we went dancing. I’ll post that another day because Mel was responsible for those pictures.

We wandered to Taste of Chicago, which is a summer food fair held in Grant Park. We also went through Millenium Park and saw a Polo game that was on bikes instead of horses, and we went to the Bean. The Bean was amazing.

I really think the Bean is amazing. It’s like a gigantic fun-house mirror.

Then we refreshed ourselves and went to the Willis tower, which is supposed to be called the Sears tower, but it’s not anymore. Melanie went along with all of my pressuring, and against all of her gut feelings, and sat in the little glass box. I even made her look down. That’s what they call a bad influence. And also that’s what they call fun.

I did it without a single worry because I’m crazy like that. I bet I would have done it even if there weren’t walls because I’m crazy like that. But mostly because I’m not that scared of heights. It’s cool if you are though, I don’t think it’s a bad fear to be scared of.

Just in case you didn’t know, we brought our feet with us. Yep, our feet came to the top of the tallest building in the western hemi.

(I always have to pretend I’m a Barbie in a box when I’m in these kinds of glass box situations that seem to happen so often. Just because I’m afraid my 6 year old Barbie obsessed-self will come kick my ___ if I don’t. And if I’m being totally honest I should say that I was actually obsessed with Barbies between the ages of 4-19.)

Tourist tip. Find anyone with a Giant camera around their neck to take your picture. It will probably be in focus, and it will probably not be stolen!

Welp, I’d say that’s all but it’s not. I have more to post next week.

Fact: After I moved the car this morning, I went back to bed until 10 am. I am absolutely no longer a morning person. I do not even feel satisfied with my 10 am wake up. I want more. I want it to be a 10 PM wake up. But instead I have to haul my A around quick as poss’ to get ready for work. Who does that?

I think I need a cleaning lady. Is that weird for someone who lives in a small apartment? I work a lot and when I’m not working I’m in Westchester and when I’m not in Westchester I’m headless chickening (aka running around) all over NYC getting stuff done that needs to get done. I seriously can only do like one dish a night, or one sweep, but certainly not both a dish and a sweep. I’m not talking a whole room type one sweep, I’m talking one swift sweep of the broom that doesn’t conclude in any kind uniting with a dustpan. When I got back from Chicago I was like “Jake, why didn’t you clean up any of my messes while I was gone? The apartment looks terrible!”. And he was like “That’s not funny. Please put away your ____ and your ___ and also your ____”.

I’m not a filthy cretin, I just cannot keep up. I’m hiring a cleaning lady immediately. I hope she wants to work for free. And I hope she sings while she cleans because I think I’d really enjoy that.

Chicago was awesome and so worth all the things that had to be put off in order for it to happen. Melanie and I cause a damn ruckus.

And even though nobody said “prove it” I want to prove it.

Melanie and Reagan in Chicago from reagan on Vimeo.

Also, I’m on Instagram! I just started and I’m obsessed. My username is Reagangb and you should follow me. I posted this picture today with the clever caption “Holler if you’re desperate for a bang trim. Holler!”

I plan on posting constantly. I can’t wait.

First stop was to kiss the lion’s bum. That means you are a member of the town.

then we went to this ooold cathedral. we ran up the stairs to burn off lunch and count the steps. I think it was 97 steps.

Then we pretended to be gargoyles. Well, just me.

Then we looked at the pretty view.

Then we walked over to a castle so we could pretend to be princesses.

this right here was the best part of Girona. Stef showed us this staircase on the exterior part of the castle. It is cut off in the picture, but the staircase just drops off completely! Apparently there used to be a king who was all protective of his daughter (Rapunzel style) and made this staircase so that no one could get up and she couldn’t get down. Jake boosted me and stef up and then hopped up himself because people were a lot shorter back then. If Jake lived in princess times he would have made short work of that King’s plan.

If you get sick of me pretending to be a princess then you should just come back when a new post is up.

(I’m not kidding) Oh I do declare I’m so distressed up here with no prince to save me.

Oh wait. Who goes there? A handsome, sexy-hot prince.
(Can I interrupt this stupid story to talk about what a good sport Jake is in all degrees? He went along with all of this with very few eye rolling.)

Stefanie was documenting this whole thing and this photo below nearly had her rolling on the ground with laughter. She said I look like the wicked witch of the east when the house dropped on her and her legs were just sticking out (obv’ before they shrivled up all weirdly and coiled back under the house).

I’m saved! Now let’s go make out.

Then we were off to some more views and castle walls.

Then we were off to some pretty narrow cobble-cute streets. Cobble-cute is everywhere in Europe.

Then we (I) got some gelato and went to the Eiffel Bridge in the middle of town (made by the Eiffel tower guy). Saw some cute old nuns. Got a tea. Walked to the train. Said our goodbyes and went back to Barcelona.

We packed up that night and headed to the airport at about 5 am the next morning. We didn’t want to leave but we did anyway because we missed Piper so much.

And that is our European vacation.

They flew in Jake’s dad’s plane. This is some kind of lake or water or something. Not sure where, but it’s pretty!

Manly fishing.

Cute manly fishing. (jake is so cute and proud here. It makes me want to take the subway right past my work to his so I can hug him.)

And quads.

I think it was good for them. Jake is back to his life of working hard and dealing with my crap. I am so crazy and silly and annoying and spoiled and hyper (plus double all of those things and add my new talent of whistling loud and tons of crying and throwing things because I’m on my period and that makes me an insane person). He deserves a vacation like this every weekend.

I only have one Europe vacation day left to post about. And it’s of our amazing trip to Girona, I’ll do it tonight because it’s awesome there and then we’re all done with vacation posts.

Well that’s a lie because I’m going on a girls trip this weekend with Melanie to Chicago and I’m sure I’ll post about it next week. Did I mention she completed her final round of Chemotherapy? She is done with chemo and hopefully done with cancer forever. I can’t wait to see her this weekend and celebrate her body’s hard work. The end.

Stefanie and I went to this daily market they have right off of Las Ramblas. It was totally my kind of thing. Most of the vendors were selling meats, and Stef was begging me to try some of her favorite kinds, but ya know..meat is not really my thing. I was totally happy drinking fruit juices and browsing around.

Stefanie was happy to show me her favorite cheeses. I have always loved cheese, so I bought some delicious kinds. I don’t know the names.

“sugar dates and beats! sugar dates and pistachiooooooos!”. Name that movie! That is all I say in my head when I see this photo of dried fruit and nuts.

Here are a bunch of eggs. I thought this little shop was cute. I like eggs a lot, and I’m pretty sure these eggs were fresh from that day.

After Stefanie and I had some breakfast and hung out a little longer, she had to hop on the train to go back to Girona. I went shopping for a bit before going back to the apt to wake up old snoozie.

It started to rain again unfortunately, so Jake and I waited it out, and then we walked to Sagrada Familia. This cathedral was so big and so beautiful and like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Stefanie told us we HAVE to go inside, and we were so glad we listened. I was really just in awe. Gaudi’s work is one of a kind. still bummed about the park guell

This is the ceiling of the Sagrada Familia

This is one of the doors entering the cathedral.

This is me standing in front of one of the doors entering the cathedral.

The whole outside has these different stone carved bible scenes. The soldiers gave me the willies!

On our walk home, I saw the apartment building I want to live in if I ever move to Barcelona. It’s the cutest. I’m going to live on the top floor.

The rain started to pick up again, so we stopped at some shops on the way home so Jake could get a few new things, and then we did nothing else but eat a fancy/delicious dinner and wander. I think I got a gelato.

Highlight of this day: eating real spanish green olives. my mouth is literally watering as I typed that.

This was a really fun night. I had never experienced something like this before. Everyone in the room was from a different country, and Jake&I were the only people representing the states. Lila is from Argentina, Stef is from Spain, there were some girls from Sweden, a guy from London, some Canadians, some Irish guys…it was a pretty cool experience! We chatted and got to know some really cool people and then Lila and I got an itch to dance.

So, we went dancing.

Jake and I don’t really go out dancing. I mean, we haven’t really since we dated! Maybe once or twice, but I can’t think of anytime specific except for mayble the Boom Boom Room. Dancing in Barcelona was a blast! Everyone dances, hard. Everyone is so happy and the energy of the room was so cool! The music was fun and upbeat and you couldn’t help but jump and dance with glee! Hooray! Looking at these pictures makes me so happy! Lila and I were trying to see how high we could get our hair. It looks awesome!

Day three in Paris was a Sunday, and true to what I heard, everything is closed in Paris on Sundays. We went to TWO bakeries I was dying to try, and both were closed. I was so bummed! And Jake was literally sneezing blood from allergies, so he wasn’t happy either. Man, poor Jake. I am so glad I don’t have allergies. Basically none.

So, we walked around for a little bit, found a breakfast cafe, ate omlettes and hopped on the train to see the Paris Catacombs. This was the only above ground metro station we saw while we were in Paris. There is only one in all of Manhattan, at 125th and Broadway. It’s nice to wait for your train and still be outside. I like what I see.

This is the scary part. BONES!
The Paris Catacombs have 6 million people worth of bones down there. It stretches for miles and miles underneath Paris.

The craziest thing for me about the catacombs, is that the bones are beautifully organized. Almost like art!

It really was creepy down there! These bones were hundreds of years old. It was kind of sad to think that they were real alive people.

While we were walking through, there were drips of water coming from above. One landed on my head and I scrame. Scrame is the past tense of scream.

One of the craziest parts of the catacombs, is that when you come above ground again, you are in a totally residential neighborhood. I don’t know if I’d want to live above that. Plus, look at the adorbale balloon arch! Thanks to my good friend Jon for suggesting we see that catacombs. It was one of the coolest/most interesting sight of our whole trip.

Next we walked up to the Luxemburg Gardens. This kind of reminded me of Central Park in a way. There was a big lawn where people were working out, laying around, eating picnic lunches and kissing. We got a picture but I can’t find it.

My favorite part of the Luxemburg Gardens, was this fountain right in the middle. There were kids everywhere with little toy sailboats. They would push them futher into the fountain with bamboo sticks. I really adored watching the kids there. So cute! We could have stayed there all day watching them play and laugh.

This little spot was so cool! There was so much shade and the reflection was awesome. This was the old person hang out, btw.

Next we went wandering around the Marais for a while. We ate lunch and did some vintage shopping and then went back to our hotel to freshen up and clean the possible bone dust off our bodies. Bleh! We picked up some picnic foods and then took the metro to Butte Chaumont! We loved that park! It was definitely a locals kind of park. I think we were the only non locals there. This park is huge and so interesting. There are hills and pathways and ponds and bridges all over.  In fact, the hills are high enough that you actually can get a pretty nice view of Paris. It was probably the best picnic spot we found.

We ate our cheese and grapes and jam and baguette and chocolate filled cookies (they were amazing! they were store brand even haha!) while the sun went down. I saw some young girls practicing roundoffs and cartwheels at the bottom of the hill. I could not stop myself from doing a few. It’s been years! I can’t believe I used to be able to do a roundoff back handspring combo. Granted, the roundoff back handspring combo was only possible on a very good day, I was always a little timid with it, but now I’m so rusty! I want to take a tumbling class like old times!

Welp! That’s all for Paris day 3. I think we went back to the hotel and watch funny french tv. We watched this show where a woman cheated on her husband with another woman. Then there was a woman dressed like a ninja. It was a really good show.

PS click here to read about my upcoming shopping even at HomeGoods!