7. Peppa Pig & Prosecco: London with Kids

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Did we name this podcast? [00:00:04] Speaker B: We called it Trips and Giggles. [00:00:06] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. Because I was gonna say welcome back to Trips and Giggles. Oh, I'm starting. Yeah, you did the silent three, two, one to me again. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Man, you really like when I started things. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Well, you were the one looking at all the notes that we took. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Well, I wanted to look at the notes so that there's some semblance of structure to this versus us just being. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Like, just going off the cuff. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Let's go on a tangent and tell you a story about something that happened 20 years ago. [00:00:35] Speaker B: I mean, we've done that a couple of times. [00:00:37] Speaker A: I think that's fair. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:38] Speaker A: It's life interconnects. Wait till we get to this one. When we get to Northern Ireland, we're like, we were here 19 years ago. Tell that story. Yeah, Yeah. I feel like I just want to apologize first. I feel like I bring the energy or we try to bring this energy together. And I feel like we're suffering from this long stand. This is the longest jet lag. [00:01:02] Speaker B: This is the longest jet lag I. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Mean, I've ever had. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Right? I mean, when. When we went to Portugal in January, it was like three days. [00:01:09] Speaker A: It was three. I mean, I know. I remember feeling like shit when we got to Sintra. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Like, I definitely still didn't feel great. But it wasn't like the kids are now, which is the epic disasters we've had of like, bedtimes that just aren't gonna happen, where there was four in the bed last night, shoved together, and I'm like, is this, is this our future? Is this your part of your six month tour, doctor? [00:01:39] Speaker B: Well, no, I'm just like, is this, is this now no longer jet lag, but we've sort of somehow behaviorally trained them to not go to bed anymore. Or is this just really extended jet lag that's taking weeks to slowly eek its way back into a normal bedtime? At least tonight they went to bed at 10 o', clock, which is earlier than it's been, which is insane because both of us are just exhausted. We have no time to ourselves. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, for each other. Time to talk. [00:02:19] Speaker B: I'm falling asleep while they're still partying. [00:02:22] Speaker A: They're so partying. Our youngest with her right hand in the air, dancing around. [00:02:27] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:02:27] Speaker A: And then our oldest is like, rolling off the beds and running through the hallways screaming. And I'm like, what? It's 11 o', clock, dude. [00:02:36] Speaker B: I got home. I have a friend that we're Visiting or you know, that I know where we're staying right now. And who said, like, hey, I'm at this local pub nearby. Come out and have a drink with me? And the kids were not asleep when I left. And I was a little bit scared to leave you behind. Cause I know what that can look like. [00:03:00] Speaker A: I was happy to do it. I was like, I got this. [00:03:02] Speaker B: I know, but it's not less because I don't think that you can do this, but because it just has been a nightmare. And I got multiple text messages from our daughter's iPad. And it's like, mom, I can't sleep. Mom, I can't sleep. And I just thought she was like reading books with you because we use the iPad to read books with at night. And that she just was sending messages because sometimes when she's away from us, she likes to do that, right? No, I came back in the house, what, 11:30, something like that? You and the baby were asleep? [00:03:47] Speaker A: Yep, we passed out. [00:03:48] Speaker B: And Cordy was just like up hanging out. I mean, I think she was in with you guys, but she was in. [00:03:56] Speaker A: The room because she was in the bed. Yeah, she was trying to sleep and she kept telling me she couldn't sleep. And I kept saying, please try. Well, I mean, I guess we should. We should back up because, I mean, like, we can go down this road all day and come back and start mentioning this, hopefully. I mentioned this in like two episodes from now. But basically, like, we. Okay, so we talked about business class in the airport. We get to London, we had a driver. I wanted a driver really badly for two reasons. One, I was like, we're gonna be so exhausted. I want someone to help us get all the stuff. I will pay for it. It's on me. I had a business relation situation happening in London. Anyway. I was like, it's fine. And two was you and I have successfully navigated the luggage on trains to the airport. And I was just honestly anxious about are we gonna be able to handle six bags, two baby bags, baby bag, and two kids through, you know, the 50 minute ride. And then it gets really busy halfway through, all the way in, and then drag our shit on a ten minute walk? [00:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:08] Speaker A: So I was like, no doing it. So anyway, we got a driver. It was really nice. Got to our. The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Crown Plaza Docklands, and then proceeded to. We got some pizza at this place that was like a renovated boat or something that had pizza. [00:05:23] Speaker B: And that was nice. [00:05:25] Speaker A: It was nice. I mean, it was a cool little area. I've Never been in the Docklands area. It was pretty far outside of London. [00:05:30] Speaker B: Yeah. But it was an easy train ride. [00:05:32] Speaker A: There's two trains on either side. Yeah, it was a pretty simple train ride. It got us. I mean, yes, it took probably 25, 35, maybe 40 minutes depending on the train ride back to London. But like, it was a cool little space. But of course, like that night no one was going to bed. I mean, we were all up till what, one in the morning usually. [00:05:51] Speaker B: What's, what's crazy or wild is that like, I think we ate dinner and I was like, listen, nobody's gonna go to bed tonight because it's just, you know, like basically nine in the morning where we were coming from and five, I don't know, whatever, whatever it was four or five, something like that in the evening. That's probably totally wrong. But there's a seven hour time difference. [00:06:18] Speaker A: Like when you see the map. Oh look, it's so close. [00:06:21] Speaker B: I know. An hour and a half later, shit, that happened today. But you know, it was like. So we went, I was like, why don't we just go into London, into the central city and just walk around. I know it's already nighttime and normally we'd be getting the kids ready to go to bed, but like, we're not gonna, we're, we're gonna be awake. But I feel like we got into London and we were all kind of crabby and tired. [00:06:47] Speaker A: We were, we, yeah, we were straight up. People were just already feeling off. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Yes. And so we came back and then the kids were like, oh, this is a party. And like, would not go to bed. I mean, we were, we stayed up bouncing on the beds. We like, we stayed up, took a bath and we weren't, we didn't go to bed until probably like two in the morning. [00:07:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it was like one or two in the morning we went to bed. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Which I was exhausted at that point. [00:07:17] Speaker A: Yeah, we were shot. But like, to fill in the gaps, a little bit of this and then we'll go to talk about like some of the food and stuff that we had, like to contain this jet lag thing. So we're only in London for what, five, five days? It was five nights or five nights. So I signed us up to have a breakfast. I thought it'd be cool to have. It was like, seemed pretty inexpensive to add it onto our hotel. And I was like, oh, this would be great. It's like an all you can eat breakfast. [00:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So that way, like, it was pretty good actually. [00:07:41] Speaker A: It was quite good. There's tons of choices, so I know the girls are going to eat. This will be great. Well, we slept through it the first day because we woke up at like. [00:07:48] Speaker B: What, like 11 noon or something? Yeah, it was bad. [00:07:51] Speaker A: And then we slept through it again a second time. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Third day. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:55] Speaker A: So two times we didn't even go. So that was just money pissed away. So you're welcome. London Docklands. We didn't eat. And then we go to this all you can eat thing, which was pretty awesome. I mean, they had a spread of all kinds of eggs and meats and. [00:08:07] Speaker B: They had, like, ordered, like, food. You could order. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Order omelets and. And oatmeal pancakes. [00:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:14] Speaker A: And our oldest didn't eat anything. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah. They're apparently out of the 30 choices, none of them were good choices. [00:08:22] Speaker A: None of them. [00:08:22] Speaker B: None of them. Not a single thing. [00:08:24] Speaker A: I mean, I totally recognize the development and I'm not mad at her because I was a picky kid, but in the moment, like, the adult in me was just like, are you. Come on, you can eat something. You can find something. [00:08:35] Speaker B: He said toast. [00:08:36] Speaker A: I mean, I told you I was a kid. Like, this would happen. We'd go to these places. I didn't eat anything, but there was always something I would find and I would just go ape shit. And so it was the only time I was allowed to have a plate of bacon and. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker A: And I would fill probably, I don't know, two pounds of bacon in this mountainous, like, on my side. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Someone that doesn't eat any pig. [00:08:57] Speaker A: Well, this is. Come on, this is the 80s. [00:08:59] Speaker B: I know. [00:09:00] Speaker A: Have a little respect. It was a long time ago. [00:09:02] Speaker B: I know. [00:09:03] Speaker A: It's the other white meat. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Well, you know, I think she was really hoping for, like, some Fruit Loops. [00:09:10] Speaker A: What was she hoping? She. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms, which are like, the only time she's allowed to eat those is when we go to hotels. But yet she didn't. You know, it's not served. [00:09:22] Speaker A: I literally feel like we're regressing even further. Like, I think we're like. Like, I thought we were getting, like, through stuff. Like, let's try some things. And I think we've hit another phase of regression. If you couldn't find anything at that. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Buffet, you know, by the end she did. By the end, she did. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, the next night, after the first night, this didn't. This actually, we both the kids fell asleep at like 10:30, right? [00:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:45] Speaker A: We're like, oh, okay, we're getting better. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Great. We're getting on track. [00:09:48] Speaker A: When did you fall asleep? [00:09:49] Speaker B: Ah, two. Like, two in the morning. I could not fall asleep. And that. I'm usually really good about falling asleep, actually. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I'm surprised at because I can still see you moving a few times. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't realize I went a little bit in and out, but, yeah, I was up at 5am oh, God. [00:10:04] Speaker A: I mean, I just. I don't think it's ever happened. Like, I know we've done this before. We've done Europe, we've done Germany, we've done Italy. We've done all these trips. Right. I don't ever remember rolling around for five hours. [00:10:16] Speaker B: I think it was the fact. Well, maybe not you, but I slept, like, a good eight hours on the flight. And I almost feel like maybe that was a bad choice. I'm like, now I'm like, should I not be. Should we not do business class? Should we sleep in economy next to you in the middle seats smushed between two people? [00:10:40] Speaker A: Now you want to get with the riff raff? [00:10:42] Speaker B: Maybe we just need to stay up all night and just bear with the two to three days. [00:10:46] Speaker A: I have this recollection of when we took Cordy to. It was either Italy or Germany. I can't remember which one. And I was just, like, standing with her in the aisles. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Oh, God, it was so bad. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Everyone was asleep. I don't know what time it was, but we were just walking up and down the aisles repeatedly. And I was, like, bent over and my back hurt, and we would just stop. And I was like, cordy, can we please go to bed? [00:11:07] Speaker B: Well, the part of the problem, too, on one of those flights is like, they gave her one. That little bed. [00:11:13] Speaker A: Ridiculous shit. Have you. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Okay, so she would be asleep, and then there'd be some turbulence, and the flight attendant came around and was like, oh, you have to take her out. And we're like, are you effing serious? [00:11:25] Speaker A: I just want to say this to people if they've ever seen this. So, like, when you look at the, like the. The more front rows in a section, not in business class, but in, like, economy class on international flights, like a 787 they have on the wall, it looks like a little platter, you know what I mean, that can, like, lay down. Right. It's got these little, like, you know, things holding it up. And apparently it's a kid platter. Know, you. You can put your infant on there and you strap them in, but yet every time you hit some level of turbulence, you have to pull them off. [00:11:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, whenever the Seat belt sign comes. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Back into their secondary seat belt. The straps of your seat belt. So multiple times she finally fell asleep and they would just come by and wake her up. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And I was like, or that one time she fell asleep like on the floor and they're like, she can't be on the floor. And I was like, please, please. [00:12:12] Speaker A: She was so, so happy. And they were like, you, she can't be there. And I was like, I hate you, British Airways. [00:12:18] Speaker B: I hate you. [00:12:19] Speaker A: I hate you. [00:12:21] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Just terrible. So yeah, that night, that whole like up till 5am and then the next day I was just like rocking off like two and a half, three hours of sleep. And I'm like, this is gonna get us out of it. But I feel like it's just lingered so bad. [00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's just lingered. It's like it's lingered. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Which we'll talk about later. [00:12:42] Speaker B: Now the problem is that the, the toddler is waking up at six in the morning and still not going to bed until 10 or 11 at night. So I'm like, oh my God, I can't handle it. [00:12:55] Speaker A: She's like, I have reduced my sleep. And then, so then, so of course then like, you know when you do that, your body switches. Then she's like, you know, she needs what, 12 hours of sleep? So she's just cranky. And I'm not blaming her. It's just we've reached some kind of a phase that needs some. I'm like googling the other day, like, what do you do to help children, you know, transfer over? And it's all the same shit. Set up a structure as much as possible, change the lighting conditions, make sure you have a strong routine. I was like, who writes this shit? People that don't have children write this. This is like the other day when I was angry because it was like the joke about like middle aged men making decisions about women's bodies. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:33] Speaker A: You're not them. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:34] Speaker A: Don't tell me that. [00:13:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:36] Speaker A: You don't live that. It's such a, like, like I get maybe, maybe people again, your three listeners have kids that just like listen and sleep. I know, it just doesn't work that way. [00:13:46] Speaker B: I know whenever I hear from people who are like, oh, their kids just sleep. I'm like, oh God, that must be nice. [00:13:51] Speaker A: I just got a texting back and forth with a family member and they were talking about a new grandchild and they're like, oh yeah, he's now sleeping from like seven to six every day. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah, like, let's see how long that lasts. Ok. See how long that lasts. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Dude, really? No. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Oh. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Every day, just like clockwork. And I'm like, come on, man. I'm happy for them. I honestly am. But I'm also envious and angry and jealous and frustrated. [00:14:18] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's the strong sense of ad, the strong genetics of ADHD that run through that. My side. I. So our. Our oldest also. We like the part of the problem too is that we use melatonin. We should talk on advice, like advice from a medical provider. Okay. Like there is some research that adhd, there's like, it's harder for kids to. Or like people with ADHD or whatever to like situation with melatonin. I don't know. This is outside of my area of expertise, to be honest, so I'm not gonna like, talk out my ass, but. So we were using a trial dose of melatonin, which we ran out of right. During the week when we were in London, like several days after landing and which we did not realize. Melatonin is a controlled substance in the uk. In the UK you cannot get it without a prescription. [00:15:21] Speaker A: So we're child a controlled substance. [00:15:25] Speaker B: I mean, it's not a control. I mean it's like a prescription drug here. [00:15:28] Speaker A: So naturally occurring elm in your body. Like, I'm not giving her. Do you know what I mean? Like, opium is a controlled substance. Like, we're not giving her. Oh, you know. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Okay. Controlled substance was the wrong word. [00:15:40] Speaker A: I dumped my A prescription. I usually give her benzos, but we ran out of benzos. So now I didn't know what to do. Like controlled substance I think is the wrong word. [00:15:48] Speaker B: Like I let me fly back to Mexico where they were trying to give us ADHD meds that were twice her. [00:15:53] Speaker A: Current dose turned down because we needed more of her ADHD medication. Because you can't get. I think this is kind of part of the problem of like traveling. It's like you're trying to replicate things that you have consistently and certain things you can get over, like food. When it comes to like medication specifics, we're still kind of up Schitt's creek for that one because we have to get that ADHD medication at some point here. Yeah, we only found tablets that were not even or helpful, which I was really hoping to do. Although you can get some decent ADHD medication in Mexico ago. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah, you want to ship to the US we have a phone number for you. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Everybody. [00:16:30] Speaker B: They were like giving out pamphlets. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Like they were those little like you know when you, like, rip those little pieces of paper off a telephone pole when you want to work as a guitar teacher? You know, like, that's what they were giving out. [00:16:39] Speaker B: No, like they're like, oh, you're American. Let me pull this pamphlet out. Let me show you the pamphlet. Look, you can buy Viagra. You can buy ADHD medicine. [00:16:48] Speaker A: They were selling me so hard on, like, two. It was like the get your body physique and Viagra. I was like, what Excel you want? I was like, this is sexist as hell. You think I want to look good and be hard all the time? You're right. Sign me up, bitch. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Shipped to the usa, but the shipping. [00:17:06] Speaker A: The card they gave me, this drives me nuts when any business does this, but I get this. It's like they just used a regular Gmail. It was like, Arnie S17mail.com. I was like, what the shit? You want to send my money in order to some Gmail address? Like, that kind of stuff drives me insane. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Like that. [00:17:23] Speaker A: That happens all the time in the US too. I'm just like, can you just. Just pay the six bucks a month and get yourself a domain where you actually own your own email? Because if you don't, you don't own your email. Yeah, you jackass. Not the point. Why are we. Okay, we're down. [00:17:40] Speaker B: I know. I was just saying that melatonin is also part of the problem. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Okay, what is the reason they're not sleeping? All right, well, let's. We have to. We had to hit this because we're, like, still suffering with it. [00:17:49] Speaker B: I know. Sorry for spending almost 20 minutes talking about this. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Three people are not gonna listen. Oh, I was just zoning out. I had it on while I was, like, hanging out with my kids and doing something else. Paying attention. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Cleaning the dishes. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Cleaning the dishes. Telling my kids to stop it. Oh, my gosh. So we. The second day, which was really nice. We were looking forward to doing this. Another boundless family was in London because they were selling their house because they moved into Portugal. We were with them in Sintra, and they met up with us. You met up with them for the day? I was working, and so was another family member of theirs. And so you can talk about that part. And then we get to the dinner, because I want to talk about the dinner because it was, like, my first. Other than the place in the Docklands, it was like my first, like, London. London dinner. [00:18:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I won't spend too much time on it, but we went to. There was, like, a Pop up sort of Lego, I don't know, situation near the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. And so we went to the, like, I'm probably saying all this wrong, but Serpentine Galleries, something they, they have like something that's put up every summer by an artist. And so we went there first and that was really cool. It's just like an outdoor structure where with like a tree planted in the middle. It was just nice. And right next to it was this LEGO structure and where the kids could go inside and they could build on the walls and build on little tables all over the place. And then there was stairs up into like almost a second floor. And then you could take a slide out. And then the kids could just like keep running around and around. So that's what they were doing. And so they also were giving out free Legos, which like packs of Legos, which is pretty cool. So it was totally worth going to the. You know, our kids loved it, their kid loved it. And then we jumped on a double decker bus, which of course, like we got on the second floor and that also the kids loved. And we headed over to Eminem World and Legoland or whatever, those two stores. [00:20:04] Speaker A: I think they're just the stores. [00:20:05] Speaker B: They're just the stores. [00:20:06] Speaker A: The MM store and the LEGO store. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Store, right. Yes. [00:20:09] Speaker A: By the way, earlier you said there was a LEGO situation. What? That. That could have gone a lot of different ways. [00:20:14] Speaker B: I don't know what it was called. It was just like a LEGO structure in Hyde Park. [00:20:18] Speaker A: I want them to listen. Lego. I know you're listening. Can you please call something the LEGO situation? I would really appreciate that. It's so mysterious. You just don't know what's going to happen. [00:20:27] Speaker B: I probably should have looked at up the names of them. [00:20:29] Speaker A: No, this is way more. No, no, no, leave it this way. We. We have botched and. Or forgotten so many names or said something was good in complete vagary. Wonderful. [00:20:38] Speaker B: I know. So. So on your next trip, you can go to the LEGO situation. [00:20:42] Speaker A: The Lego sit. Excuse me, sir, where's the LEGO situation? Oh, you just get on the train and you just don't stop. Just keep going until you start. [00:20:49] Speaker B: You just wander around Hydra park until you find it. [00:20:52] Speaker A: Excuse me. Find the LEGO situation. [00:20:54] Speaker B: I will say that, like, when we got to those two other stores, I. If I never go back again, I will be happy. Those two stores were so packed with people overpriced. [00:21:08] Speaker A: You knew that going in though. [00:21:09] Speaker B: No, I never knew. [00:21:11] Speaker A: Here's how you knew. There was a line with a Queue set up with poles on the exterior. [00:21:18] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. For the LEGO store, but not the M and M store. [00:21:21] Speaker A: When I met you and got to the. There was. You were in a line to get in the LEGO store. I was like, this is bad. Yeah, this is bad. If they're holding a certain amount of people to get in, you have an issue here. Do Eminem. And I need to tell you what happened in the line. The heartlessness that I saw these. The cute people in London. [00:21:40] Speaker B: Okay, well, the only thing I'll say about the M and M store is that our friends that we met up with, they were like, you know, we're not. We're not gonna get anything for our son. He told him ahead of time. They're not really, like, big sugar people. Totally fine. Cordy asked if she could get something. I'm a big pushover. I was like, sure. So I didn't even realize that there was, like, this, like, we're not getting anything, or I would have probably held the line with Cordy. [00:22:09] Speaker A: Also. Also, your oldest does not like M. [00:22:11] Speaker B: And Ms. Oh, yes, she did. [00:22:13] Speaker A: So with the fact that you got that. I'm angry. And of course, exactly what would have happened if you had told me happened, happened. [00:22:21] Speaker B: Well, he, like. He was like, oh, Cordy, since you're allowed to get something, do you want this? Do you want this? You should get this. You should get this. So he was dragging her all over the store, being like, what? What do you want? What do you want? You should get. Get this, get this, get this. [00:22:38] Speaker A: And so all of which falls on your shoulders, your responsibility. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Listen. [00:22:45] Speaker A: So you cause distress in another family's boundaries, in a kid's situation, our own child, that would just buy anything because it gives her a dopamine dose. And then who ends up eating them all? Our. Our two year old just stuffing M&M's in her face until you take them away. And then she screams like she's gonna die. [00:23:02] Speaker B: I know. She, like, threw them on the floor and ate them off the dirty floor in the psycho store. [00:23:07] Speaker A: Oh, my God. She's, like, picking up these little bitty M M's off the floor, and it's so crowded, I can barely get to her to stop her before she's grabbing them and eating them again. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Listen, I will not. I would not advocate for anyone going to either of those stores. Not. I mean, unless you're, like, obsessed. But even if you really like both of those stores, it was so crowded and so overwhelming. Maybe in different times of year, it would be Different. [00:23:35] Speaker A: We were told by our friends who live in London that, like, summer is nuts. Like, this is what summer is like. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it is tourist. [00:23:41] Speaker A: And it really was. I will say this because I didn't get to the MN store, so I can tell you if that was cool or not. I will tell you. Funnily enough, before this all happened and you guys went. I told Cordy. I was like, hey, there's a humongous MM store in London. And she goes, I don't really like M and M, so I don't want to go. Yeah, that's what she told me. So I just want to give you that. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Well, I think it was more because her friend was excited to go. [00:24:05] Speaker A: So I show up. You're in this queue, which is long, which is like a line you would sign up for at a roller coaster at a water park. And it's lined up, and so I get into the line, and you. You left with our friends. I can't remember where you left the line. You guys left. [00:24:27] Speaker B: I don't remember. [00:24:28] Speaker A: Okay, so you two left the line. I don't remember why, but I was holding the line at one point. [00:24:34] Speaker B: Oh. Cause we were getting the kids. Cause the kids were over watching, like, a magic street show or something. [00:24:39] Speaker A: I'm in the line, okay? And the kid. A kid in front of me who looked like he was a teenager was waving his parents in, and one of the LEGO employees was like, oh, no, you can't do that. And he's like, it's my parents. He goes, it doesn't matter. They didn't wait in the queue. [00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:57] Speaker A: He's like, I'm in the queue. He's like, I get that. But your parents weren't in the queue, so they cannot get in the queue. And the kid's like, it's my parents. Yeah, I'm going into a store. And he's like, they can't come. And I'm like, and here you two come prancing along with two other kids. And luckily, that employee turns his back, and you just slid into the line. But I'm like, how serious is this? I can't let a kid's parents in. I mean, the employee looked like he just didn't believe this kid. Yeah, he's just gonna wave over a couple of random pedos that come into the line. [00:25:29] Speaker B: No, stop. Don't use that word. Stop it. No, don't. Stop that. You're not Ricky Gervais. [00:25:37] Speaker A: I'm just saying that. What did you think? You think he was lying about His. I could say, see his friends. [00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Him having a hard time. [00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:45] Speaker A: Anyway, I think this store, if it wasn't insane, was very cool. They were 3D printed pieces for people, like custom pieces, humongous displays made out of Legos. They had all kinds of custom stuff going on. I mean, again, it was too crowded to enjoy it, but I think if you were a LEGO fanatic, you would definitely want to do that kind of thing. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, but all that being said, we went from there and had an amazing dinner. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Well, we couldn't get to the place they initially want to go to, which I can't imagine what that would have been because we talked about. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah. It was like a 40 minute one. [00:26:21] Speaker A: It was a 40 minute wait. And then we went back over to Chinatown. [00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Basically on the fringe of Chinatown. I didn't think they meant to go there. They just looked at the restaurant, said, oh, look, it's Malaysian Singaporean food. Let's go here. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:31] Speaker A: And so we go in. I didn't realize this. And they said this, which is like, when you're in London and probably a lot of people know this is like, you want to go downstairs. Because almost every single place has some kind of a basement system, which I'm sure there's some historical value to that. But again, this is trips and giggles. This isn't trips and, like, historical accuracy or trips. Trips. [00:26:52] Speaker B: Until we take our walking tour, we won't be able to give you any history. [00:26:57] Speaker A: We're not doing the research for this to make this happen. Anyway, for some reason, many places have this downstairs. We went to this downstairs. It was awesome. It was completely open. And we got this cool booth that was like, built into the wall. [00:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:09] Speaker A: It was a private booth for us. And the. [00:27:12] Speaker B: Which also, like, held the kids in place, which is nice. [00:27:14] Speaker A: It did. It's. It blocked everyone in. So there was like two. Like, we held the outside. [00:27:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:19] Speaker A: And the kids couldn't get out. [00:27:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:20] Speaker A: So it's just how you wanted. You want your kids locked up. That's really nice. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Exactly. They can't run, destroy the place. [00:27:25] Speaker A: The food was fantastic. [00:27:27] Speaker B: So good. Really? [00:27:28] Speaker A: Our children ate it. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I was surprised. I did not think they were gonna eat it. [00:27:33] Speaker A: I mean, it was really chicken or rice, but it had like, what, Some kind of sauce or. Yeah, it was recommended. But I mean, mine was phenomenal. The duck that our friend had was amazing. I mean, everything I had was so good. Like, it was just. I was like, oh, my gosh, where was this? [00:27:50] Speaker B: I know. [00:27:51] Speaker A: So just not that everything was A home run in London. But, like, that place, I felt was just delicious. Off the charts. [00:27:57] Speaker B: Yeah, Absolutely. Cool. [00:27:59] Speaker A: Probably the best meal I had. I don't know. I have to. I'm trying to go through it all and figure it out. But, yeah, that was a great choice. [00:28:05] Speaker B: And they're. They were so cool. And. And actually, as we were hanging out, what was funny is that they. I was like, oh, what is the. What's the rest of your week looks like? And they're like, we're packing. We're leaving in a couple days. Oh. But our son is doing this class that is a graffiti art class where you literally, like, go to this place and they teach you how to use spray paint and, like, do graffiti art. And I was like, this is so cool. I've never heard of something like this anywhere else. And our friend was like, I bet you they still have openings in the class. Like, do you want me to see if there's an opening? I said, well, like, just send me the link. I'll look it up. I looked it up. They did have an opening for the very next day. So I asked Cordy if she wanted to do it. She said yes. And we went to South London, which I've never been to before. And it was, you know, a cool. It was definitely less upscale. I would say it felt a little bit more, like, residential. And there was, like, a university there. And, you know, like, just. It was a little quieter. Lots of trees, like, all kinds of stuff. A little grittier, but that was okay. And they. In the middle of all this, we get off the train. We walk, like, 10 minutes. There's this giant playground. And I don't. Like, it's not your typical playground. It's like, all of the structures are made of wood, and they're like. I don't even know how to describe it. There's, like, tire swings. There's a zip line. There's like a. I don't know. Like, I have pictures of it. I'll post somewhere. But it. [00:30:02] Speaker A: That word that starts with that. [00:30:04] Speaker B: I'm not gonna say anymore. But in the middle of it, they built a structure that the kids could split, spray paint on. And so they started off with, like, doing, like, drawing in, inside, like, this sort of, like, play structure on a piece of paper that looked like a wall, right? So that they could practice, like, doing wording and all this, like, whatever they wanted their design to look like. And then after that, they got, like, glasses, you know, and. And masks and things like that to kind of, you know, protect The. Themselves from the spray paint, and they were out there for, like, four hours spray painting, and it was super cool. I. I just, like, Cordy loved it that they didn't just do the wall. They also got, like, a vinyl that they spray painted. I unfortunately lost that somewhere along the way, like, on a train or something. But I'm. I'm sure we could try and replicate this at home. But they. They did lots of, like, really cool artwork stuff, and it was. And the play, they. You know, and the best part, I think, is that when they got bored or tired, they could go and, like, sprint around on this playground. And so it was, like, the best of both worlds. It was. It was super cool. It was a great, great experience. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Going back to our early point of conversation, first of all, I didn't think she'd be into it for five hours. [00:31:24] Speaker B: So that was cool as hell. [00:31:25] Speaker A: And secondly is, like, clearly you've told the story of her expending lots of energy at two different events, which still did not help with the sleep situation. Right. [00:31:33] Speaker B: Oh, God. [00:31:34] Speaker A: Which is funny because it's like, sometimes, like, I don't think she can sleep because we. Or they can sleep because we. We do too much. Right. We. We sit around too much or in the car or we're, like, traveling, watch. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Too much TV or something. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Or we're just not at the level that. That. That you need to run around. Like, we don't do as much physical play because we're tired all the time. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Because we're old. [00:31:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:55] Speaker A: But she's doing physical play and not falling asleep. [00:31:59] Speaker B: And still not falling. [00:32:00] Speaker A: It's still not falling asleep. Oh, my gosh. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, if you're in London, you should totally check this out. I'm gonna actually look up the name of this place because I really feel like if. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Oh, it's one of those situations where you talk about something. I mean, I've got to believe that if people type in or search in a AI search engine or some search point to, say, graffiti art kids class, what's the competition on that side? [00:32:26] Speaker B: It's called the Urban Artist Academy. The Urban Artist. It was so, so cool. Totally. Go. [00:32:33] Speaker A: I'm just glad you found that. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Had enough time to actually talk about. [00:32:36] Speaker B: It in Champion Hill, London. [00:32:38] Speaker A: Champion Hill, the hill of champions. How we doing here? Can we keep going? [00:32:49] Speaker B: Can. Yeah, we can keep going. [00:32:50] Speaker A: I think we should keep going. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do it. [00:32:52] Speaker A: We're trying to. We're trying to hit five days and do in a row. We did. So. I mean, I Had to work a decent amount. I actually told you in reminiscing I felt a little bit sad that I did work so much, which I just. Unfortunately that's where I am in career wise right now. I just not able to. But there were points where you had to work. [00:33:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:33:14] Speaker A: And I was convinced to go on a gondola ride, which, I mean, you know why that's funny. I'm not really a heights fan. [00:33:25] Speaker B: Oh yeah. I struggle with. I was like surprised you did that. [00:33:29] Speaker A: So like, for example, today we went up into like, you know, our oldest one to go to an observation deck, which I went to. And I just was having like severe anxiety while I was there. Like I had to stay about 8ft away from the class. I feel like it's getting worse as I'm getting older. But anyway, you got to get through it. So I'm trying more to do this whole like, it's not going to kill you, I'm not going to die and kind of embrace it situation. So I did have a little bit of a figure it out. I had the two with me and of course there was a whole process of like getting tickets or using our Oyster cards, which I screwed up because you bought the unlimited Oyster cards, which I would have known if I actually looked at the statement of how much those cost. Anyway, we ran into some issues where we bought one for our 10 year old but realized we didn't. We didn't need to buy one for our ten year olds. [00:34:17] Speaker B: No, she's eight. But you didn't need them for ten. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Oh, ten under. [00:34:20] Speaker B: That's right. [00:34:21] Speaker A: So anyway, I haven't slept, so I appreciate you. [00:34:26] Speaker B: How old is our daughter? [00:34:27] Speaker A: I don't know. She's old enough to make it to a Lego situation. That's all I. [00:34:34] Speaker B: Today she was like, and when I'm 10, can I get an iPhone? And I'm like, no, no you cannot. [00:34:40] Speaker A: This comes up all the time. It's different ages. [00:34:42] Speaker B: How about when I'm 13, she throws it at her. She's. [00:34:44] Speaker A: When I'm 17, I'm gonna get a phone. I'm like, that seems fair. But it changes all the time, right? It's a constant. So we go to get tickets and I was convinced to actually pay for these, which ended up being a waste of time anyway. They were very good. It was hard to corral a two year old as there was a line, as you imagine. But we dove in this thing and it went over. I should probably know what river it was that went over top. But to me it went way too high. Like, it was unnecessary. Like, there was no boat that was ever going to go 560ft in the air. There was no reason for it to be. [00:35:15] Speaker B: Maybe they were doing that so you could see further. Like, it was sort of a observation thing. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Oh, so lovely. I'm so glad we could observe so much more in the situation. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:24] Speaker A: No, it just. It was too high. It was unnecessary. It did not need to be done. And of course, it, like, goes to those areas where, like, there's rollers where the poles are, and it's like. And you, like, shake back and forth a little bit. I think two thirds of us had a great time. I was like, you know, Cordy's like, danny, I'm having fun. Let's take pictures. I'm like, you guys are having fun. Let's take some pictures. Can we get back on solid ground? That'd be great. But the part that I gotta say about that day, which is good, I think we're the parents that I don't want to be as screen oriented. And we keep ending up doing this. The next after the gondola ride, we spent two hours outside doing nothing. So our oldest, who is 8, chased pigeons for two hours, while our youngest played with pebbles for two hours. I did watch. She didn't eat any, thank God, but she was playing with them. I mean, for hours, I sat on a bench and just watched these two playing with pebbles and chasing pigeons. Okay, cool. Yeah, I should do. I think it's just nice to have that. So. I think the thing about London is there's so much to do. There were places to go. There were things that were new, and that was. [00:36:37] Speaker B: I know Courtney has asked multiple times if we can go back to London. She loved it. [00:36:42] Speaker A: Well, of course she loved it. You know why she loved it? She loved it because we went on a Peppa Pig Bus tour. That's why she loved it. [00:36:48] Speaker B: I think she loved it for lots of reasons, because there's, like, lots of things that we looked at to do, but we didn't get a chance to do it. But the kids absolutely loved the Peppa Bus Tour. Whatever. The Peppa Pig Tea, you know, like, I wasn't sure if this. I thought it was going to be overpriced. It was overpriced. [00:37:07] Speaker A: And. [00:37:08] Speaker B: And, like, like, over promised both of our kids. [00:37:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:37:14] Speaker B: They loved it. [00:37:14] Speaker A: They loved it. But. But, okay. I was so confused because I thought this was a train. It's because you sent me a TikTok with five separate T and I thought it was a train because I was like, who in their right mind. As you're driving through London in a bus, so think about shaking, shimmying, turning, you're gonna have tea, high tea. [00:37:34] Speaker B: Yes. In a bus, weaving in and out of traffic. [00:37:37] Speaker A: You're moving around traffic, you're slamming on the brakes and you're gonna have some crumpets and some tea. [00:37:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you do. Yes, you do. But it is in a plastic cup with a lid, which kind of takes away from the experience of the tea. [00:37:50] Speaker A: But to be honest, because, like, think, what are they gonna have, like regular glass china on there for your three year old? [00:37:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it was, it worked out very well. [00:38:00] Speaker A: They, they clearly knew they were on a bus. They put in like major cup holders. They had a serious top. They gave you the cups. But this thing was decked out. Like the interior paint job was off the charts. There were screens at every single table. [00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah. That sort of told a story of where we were going. And Peppa Pig and her family, like, like had little mini episodes at each of the locations that we were passing by. So, like the kid, it wasn't like a tour guide being like, and this is blah, blah, blah, blah. It was like Peppa Pig and her family visiting it. And so all the kids were actually like paying attention. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So this is, and they, this is smart. Any, any place that does this is super smart. And you know this, right? Your kids get to the restaurant, they have nothing to do it. You try as fast as you possibly can to get food on the table for them. They had the food already there. So the moment you get on the bus, which there was quite a wait for that to happen, but once you got on it, the food was already there so they could just start chowing. [00:38:58] Speaker B: And both of our kids had, were double fisting cake and cookies and hummus. [00:39:04] Speaker A: Our youngest was eating hummus like it was going to go away. Like she needed to get this now. It was the last harvest of hummus needed to be done right now. And then, of course, our oldest was. [00:39:14] Speaker B: After every single cookie, ate every single. [00:39:16] Speaker A: Cookie sweet that was on the damn thing. So sweet and savory kind of went back and forth there. But like they had tea, they drank tea. [00:39:24] Speaker B: I, like, I didn't think the youngest would make it through a 90 minute bus trip. And she did with no problem. I was shocked. [00:39:31] Speaker A: Stayed longer. She was angry because the, the short scenes for Peppa Pig were, would go off and just show the map and she was angry. [00:39:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's more Screens. [00:39:41] Speaker A: More screens. [00:39:42] Speaker B: When commercials come on, because they're not used to commercials, she'll go, oh. And then you're like, I'm like, I cannot change it. It is a commercial. And then so Peppa Pig would turn off, and she'd go, oh. I'm like, I have no control. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Fix it, Mommy. Fix it. [00:40:00] Speaker B: But in between, the people on the bus also were very nice, but they did things like they sang Wheels on the Bus, and then they got all the kids to sing Wheels on the Bus, and then they did, like, a little trivia thing. And so they did these sort of interactive things that I think kept the kids also entertained, which I was like, this is really well thought out. [00:40:22] Speaker A: I mean, I was also entertained because I was kind of putting bets for myself on whether or not the waitstaff would literally fall over, because they were hanging on as they were, like, horrible holding stuff. [00:40:31] Speaker B: I know they're, like, trying to get, like, tea together, and the bus is like. Like, would swerve one, and they'd grab. [00:40:38] Speaker A: Something and hang on. Actually, at one point, this guy came from upstairs with all. More food being like, oh, people did not show up for this. You want this? He's holding this giant tray, and I'm like, this is going in someone's face. [00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Like, there's no way that this guy's gonna hang on to this thing. As we're ripping through London, I think. [00:40:57] Speaker B: I think we enjoyed it because we also drank, like, a bottle of champagne. [00:41:00] Speaker A: Well, I purposely. I pur. Was like, when used with the order, and they're like, you can choose champagne. I'm like, for a Peppa Pig tour. Yeah, I'll have the full bottle. [00:41:09] Speaker B: I think we were the only ones. The only ones. [00:41:13] Speaker A: We were the only family that got alcohol. And I was like, I don't give a. And I'm, like, drinking it. I'm like, this is great. [00:41:20] Speaker B: They're like, can we do anything more? Yes. Bring more of that. [00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I was like. [00:41:23] Speaker B: I was like, bring more of that. [00:41:24] Speaker A: More bubbly, please, immediately. Because they took the bottle away, because I can't leave it the. On the table. And we're like, more, please. We order the bottle. Bring it back. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Keep it coming. [00:41:35] Speaker A: Fill her up. Fill her up. Sorry. That's an Uncle Frank reference from Home Alone Again. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, did I enjoy it? No. Did the kids love it and it was entertaining? Very much so. [00:41:51] Speaker B: I think you were getting carsick pretty. [00:41:54] Speaker A: Heavily, because I was facing the opposite direction, and I've always had issues with car sickness. When we switched sides, I felt so much better. But when I was facing the opposite direction, the bus was driving, I was struggling. [00:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:05] Speaker A: So. So I think the first thing we were thinking on this trip with three giant suitcases, two small suitcases, and a baby bed and mattress was we should get more shit. I'm keeping. How could we get more shit on this trip? So we. I knew this in advance we had talked about it, was that we were going to get a stroller and potentially a car seat because we're gonna rent this car in Northern Ireland for a month, which I'm still angry about generally, because I don't want to rent a car when we're in Europe, like, ever. I want to take trains. I want to take public transportation, just because we live in such a car culture. But, you know, to get to Port Rush, it's just. [00:42:48] Speaker B: Just. [00:42:49] Speaker A: It's not easy. [00:42:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:50] Speaker A: I mean, they have a train, but it's not an easy system. We had a lot of suitcases. [00:42:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:42:54] Speaker A: So we went to John Lewis department store to look at car seats and strollers. [00:43:03] Speaker B: Yes. And it was a great experience. They were very nice. We. We had lots of choices of things to choose from. [00:43:10] Speaker A: The selection was fantastic. The. The demo selection at this department store was mind blowing. [00:43:17] Speaker B: You know, we were talking about this. I know that there is a lot of online stuff, and I think if I had gone online shopping, we would have chosen a very different stroller than we ended up choosing. It was actually nice to be able to try some stuff all out and be like, oh, this works better for us. [00:43:37] Speaker A: We put our youngest in the stroller and rolled her around. So she actually gave expressions on what she thought of the business. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Yeah, she. She like, also told us, which super opinionated. [00:43:47] Speaker A: I mean, she knows what she wants straight up. So, like, between us and her, I mean, we. We all came to the same conclusion. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:54] Speaker A: I mean, all of us liked the same one, which I didn't think we'd end up with, and we loved it. And we're like, let's make this happen. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:02] Speaker A: And so then we looked at car seats, Right. And found the one that we had in Portugal, which was great. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah. A more updated version. [00:44:09] Speaker A: A more updated version of that. [00:44:11] Speaker B: It's like a travel one. [00:44:12] Speaker A: Like a. Yeah. Something that folds in. Same thing. So both can actually fold into overhead compartments so you can bring them both on the plane. Which was like, we wanted something that was very. So not one of those giant things. It's just something that we can fold up. So we'll use it on our travel adventures. But anyway, I had asked the associate we're working with. It was awesome. Like, hey, how do I get this? Because it was Thursday and we were leaving Saturday. So I was like, you know, can you, you know, how is it in stock? Do you have this here? And she goes, we don't have anything here, but you can click and collect and pick it up by tomorrow. And I was like, oh, do you. Where? She's like, where are you? I'm in London Dockland. She's like, oh, we have a John Lewis and Canary Wharf. I was like, perfect. It's one stop away. I just have to drag two boxes onto the train. You know, they'll put. They have handles on them. I was like, this is no problem. So cool. So I take the girls and Megan goes in to deal with the documentation and process, and we go walking around and playing on beds and doing all kinds of shit. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So we go in there and, you know, she was like, oh, well, you can have it also delivered to a post office. And I was like, ah, it's fine. I mean, like, Canary Wharf is close. Blah, blah, blah. And she was like, no, but look at this post office. Like, she asked me where we were staying. She looked it up. She was like, look, this post office is right next door to your hotel. Are you sure you don't want to do that? And I was like, well, maybe that would be easier for you to be able to walk instead of having to, like, get on the train and go all the blah, blah, blah, blah, all the way, even though it wasn't that far. So I go, you know, she assured me that this was a good option. Easy peasy, right next door. Okay. And then we, we. So I go, fine, we, you know, ordered it, put that in. We're watching the next day. I'm like, getting alerts that things have, you know, are in. In transit. And one thing, like the bar that goes across, we do go backwards. [00:46:11] Speaker A: You're in something where we can't communicate with each other. [00:46:13] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, because I was giving like a live presentation. [00:46:16] Speaker A: You're giving a live talk. So I know I'm just gonna go to this post office at some point, assuming it's going to be there. You are out of communication at that point. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Right. But until I went into my. My live webinar thing, I do education for awesome organization called can do Ms. If you have ms, you should go and to their programs. But anyway, there's a. It's a live presentation. I can't talk to you. Right. I'M giving a live presentation and at that point, only one thing said it has been delivered. But also, the post office is closing. So you just in the middle of a rainstorm. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Well, we were like, trying to figure out the timing of when to go. [00:47:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:02] Speaker A: And I will say at lunchtime. It was really nice. It was sunny, beautiful. Yeah, it was super nice. So our oldest is wearing a, like, tank top jumper. I've got shorts and a T shirt on the other one. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:15] Speaker A: And I'm the only one wearing a jacket because, like, I just really love jackets from Viori. Are we just plugging companies at this point? I just. [00:47:24] Speaker B: Nobody has paid us. This is just truly what we like. [00:47:27] Speaker A: I just love their jackets. So I'm just like, it's just comfortable. [00:47:29] Speaker B: Clearly nobody really material. [00:47:31] Speaker A: No one's paying me shit. I just love their stuff. I would do this for free. I know. Anyway, point is, I'm wearing a jacket just because I wear this jacket all the time. It's ridiculous. So I'm like, we gotta go. I was like, it's getting close to closing time. We have to go over there. It was like four for. I don't know what time was it? We had to go over. I was like. I was waiting to kind of hear from you because you were reading the shipping updates. So you sent me the tracking numbers. And this is on me. I neglected to because I had the girls all day. I just. We were out. We were not in. I didn't want to come back to the hotel room because then we'd get stuck there. So we were already out for the day. And I was like. When we came back to the train station on the Elizabeth line, I was like, let's just walk to the post office from here. So of course we get out and it is cold, it is windy and it's raining. I think I just forgot what the UK is like. Like, I screwed up. Like, I realized that it could be really nice one moment and then cold and windy and rainy the next. [00:48:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:28] Speaker A: So I took my jacket off and I gave it to our oldest. I actually did run back and grab our umbrella because it was so bad. Like, we walked. We walked halfway to the post office and then went back to get rain jackets and rain stuff because I was. It was so cold. So then we. We go through and we're walking through in the rain because I couldn't cover all of us as we're in the rain. And we had to go through this meandering route that was really seedy. I mean, it just got like, ugly neighborhoods. [00:48:57] Speaker B: It wasn't quite next door is what you said. [00:48:59] Speaker A: It was not next. Nothing was next door. There was nothing next door. It's like, this is a train station you should not get off on. Like, it was a really nice train, but it's like, there's no reason at this, like, stop to get off it. So we're winding through this weird route back through neighborhoods. Graffiti, playground. Like, just dirt alleys. And then all of a sudden, I get into this opening where it's like a strip mall, a shitty strip mall. And I look up and it says, post office upstop. And we walk into this line and maybe I just don't understand other cultures. And again, this is me being naive, but, like, the entire right side wall was, like, sodas, and the entire left side wall was liquor. And then there was like one tiny window in the back where everyone was lined up to for the post office. And I was like, so the post office is a liquor store? Like, I'm all about efficiency. And I know that the post office makes me want to drink, but, like, I don't quite understand what was happening here. [00:49:58] Speaker B: Especially the one right near the old daycare. [00:50:02] Speaker A: Oh, my God. That should have had alcohol in it. Those people just were like, f you. They didn't care about anybody. They didn't talk to you when you came in. What? What the hello is what? [00:50:15] Speaker B: You know, what are you doing? [00:50:17] Speaker A: You inconvenience them the moment. [00:50:19] Speaker B: How dare you? [00:50:20] Speaker A: How dare you come to me in my place of work and asked me to do my job, you asshole. Like, that was the told demeanor. Anyway, so I get through this. This line is long. I have the baby. She's not happy. Cordy's there. So I'm like, kind of dealing with both. I finally get to the desk at, like, 15 minutes of waiting. It's like 5 o' clock at this point, and we're freaking cold. And I'm like, okay. Hey. I said, I have these tracking numbers. He's like, okay, give me a name. I go, do you want to see the tracking numbers? He goes, no, no, just give me the name. I was like, I gave him the name. And he's like, Goes back for a little bit, and he comes back with this tiny little package. I'm like, you know the size of my forearm package? And I'm like, I'm looking for a stroller and a car seat. And he's like, we don't have those. I'm like, what? Do you don't have those? He's like, we don't have any packages that size. I'm like, okay. I'm like, did they come? He's like, no, if they came, they'd be here. I'm like, are you sure? He's like, yeah. He's like, if we had something that size, I would have remembered it. And I was like, okay. And I was angry. I was pissed. So of course I grabbed the thing, I left, I walked back in the cold, and on the way back, I'm just super angry. So I copy in the. I put the codes in. Because we actually stopped at a playground on the way back, and I put it into the tracking, and sure enough, it says that the packages were rejected by the receiving agent. [00:51:45] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:51:46] Speaker A: It doesn't say why, but it says that that post office rejected the packages. So they rejected it, but couldn't tell me that he rejected it. [00:51:55] Speaker B: No. If I had seen them, I would have remembered. [00:51:58] Speaker A: If you had seen them, you remembered. Clearly you didn't see them or you're just an asshole. One or the other. But apparently what we came to find out later was that certain post offices just. Just don't accept larger packages. [00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Which if you had known that, you would not have told them. [00:52:14] Speaker B: And I was very much, like, planning on having it sent to the other department store. [00:52:24] Speaker A: That was our pause because we heard a cry. You should have seen our oldest in my hoodie. I'm so cold. I'm so cold. On the way home. But I was so mad because then here we are. We're like. We were trying to have this stuff for Saturday so we wouldn't have to rent a piece of shit car seat. Car seat. [00:52:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It was mainly the car seat. I was. [00:52:52] Speaker A: I mean, I wanted the stroller, too, because, like, I was, like. I wanted. It was really nice to have a stroller because it helps our youngest sleep. [00:52:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And she really also was, like, not wanting to use the carrier. [00:53:04] Speaker A: She was just getting tired of it, and she's, like, rejecting it and, like, biting and scratching the hell out of you. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:09] Speaker A: But I was. I was so mad, like, for, like, an hour. I couldn't get over, like, my anger at the situation of, like, that combination of errors and the fact that we were gonna have to rent a seat, which we eventually had to drive back to Belfast, which we did today. [00:53:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:25] Speaker A: Excuse me. To drop the other seat off when. [00:53:27] Speaker B: These finally got delivered to us. [00:53:29] Speaker A: Meanwhile, I contacted John Lewis. I'm not trying to bash them. I don't think it's really their fault. [00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't think they. The lady was trying to help. [00:53:37] Speaker A: It's not their fault. If she was honestly trying to help, she would not know that something that was considered a royal post office would be a shady liquor store that refuses packages over the size of a thimble. That's not her problem. It's not her fault. It was just. I was upset at the situation, and so I had to contact John Lewis, and they were very good about it, and they resent the packages, but it took five days to get here, and it didn't come till Thursday. So anyway, that was the fun story. It was just a shit show, and the girls were freezing, and I was just cursing the entire walk. Like, why didn't you just go to the damn John Lewis? And of course, later that night, you were still in your thing. We went back to Canary Wharf to get dinner. [00:54:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:20] Speaker A: At Wagamama. Waga. [00:54:23] Speaker B: Sure. Waga, Mama. [00:54:24] Speaker A: Wagamama. Waga. Waga something. Which, by the way, super good place. That was amazing about allergies. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Like, every single place in there, like, asking about allergies and, like, almost being more careful about it than we will. [00:54:38] Speaker A: Like, beyond what we actually are. Like, the. Which I'll come back to the story I was going to tell the story of, like, well, basically, on the way to Wagamum, where they were like, I passed the John Lewis in Canary Wharf, and I'm like, damn, you, like, flipping out, waving my fist in the air. And our children, like, what's wrong with you, dad? Which is pretty much their life. But we. We go to this place and we get in. It's like an Asian fusion place. And the moment I said, they go, do you have any allergies? And I go, oh, my daughter has an allergy. Eggs. And she's like, I have to get my manager. I was like, what do you mean you have to get your manager? I'm thirsty. Can I get a freaking water? Like, stop it. She goes, no, no, no. Like, she had, like, fear in her eyes. Like, it looked like. Like, she was like, no, no, no, my. I cannot talk to you. Like, the moment I said allergy, she was, like, already turning her body to run away. [00:55:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Like, I cannot help you. [00:55:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, there are people. When we said, like, oh, it's like a. She gets a little bit of a skin irritation when she drinks, when she eats eggs. Like, they will. Would refute, like, no longer serve you anymore. No, you cannot have that thing, that pizza, because it was cooked with something. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I swear, it's almost like, you know, you go into a bank With a gun and somebody hits the button underneath the counter and some silent alert goes off in the kitchen. Yeah, table four. Serve them nothing. [00:55:57] Speaker B: Like we cannot, we can't guarantee that there's not going to be any. I'm like, it's fine. Like it's not like it's very, it is good, it's very good for. Especially for people who have severe allergies. [00:56:08] Speaker A: People that have severe like anaphylaxis with certain things. I remember working with a kid years ago that had like severe, severe reaction to dairy. Like life threatening level. Insane. Right? Like that. And so that needed to be that care. But like people didn't treat it that way, but the UK does. Or at least yeah, the manager came over, handled the process, talked us through it, did the whole thing and had these like uber good kids meals with all of. So far, UK in general has been amazing with kids meals. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:40] Speaker A: Like they have a whole subset of kids meals. They're usually well priced and they are straight up kids meals. Separation, white rice, chicken, you know, simple things. Cucumbers, carrots. Anyways, the girls are just eating rice non stop and. [00:56:57] Speaker B: And naan. They've gotten into naan. [00:56:59] Speaker A: Naan. Anyway, I had a really nice dinner at this place. This place as well while you were still doing your thing. And I was like this was really nice. [00:57:05] Speaker B: Yeah, you know what I mean? Sorry I missed it. [00:57:07] Speaker A: We had a good dinner. I mean our youngest, I mean she only ate two crayons. She usually eats three or four. And she ate two. She bit the heads off before I could stop her. She had you know, the little bits of crayon in her teeth. [00:57:19] Speaker B: Oh God. [00:57:19] Speaker A: I was like I'm gonna get that crayon out of your teeth. Cuz every time I catch her, she always eats crayon. She eats everything. [00:57:25] Speaker B: I mean it's just, it's. It like it's actually starting to terrible. The other day I turned around and she had an entire half of a plastic lemon in her mouth and was gagging on it. And I'm like it, it's, that's the thing that scares me. And so then I went around the house like getting everything that was like possibly small enough for her to fit in her mouth and like putting it away rock out of her mouth. The other day like it scares me. She likes. I mean today I like had to unplug things because she was trying to grab electric the plugs and putting them in her mouth. Oh my God. Like what? Courtney did not do this. [00:58:08] Speaker A: She had my apple watch charger and like my apple chargers. And she was trying to lick and eat the chargers. And so this is nice part about the UK is you can flip the switch, you don't need to unplug it, you just turn the off switch. It shuts the power down. So then she can happily lick all of my chargers, which I'm sure will work just fine tonight after her spit got all over them. [00:58:27] Speaker B: Oh my God. Just terrifies me. I like I. We have to. Anyway, so, yeah, I would say generally we had a great time in London. It was like more of a vacation than it was living. But it was like, it was great to be back. I haven't been to London and I don't know, 12 years. [00:58:48] Speaker A: It was nice to stay in a new space. I mean there was definitely. I really like the Elizabeth line was so beautiful. And then we went up to like one of the northern lines, hot shaking like, like squealing trains. And I was like, oh, that's what I remember. I was like, what's with these nice air conditioned trains that they have now? You know, these fancy new ones. So it was interesting to see the different lines having like ages and how they were. So yeah, I would have liked to have like. I know there's stuff we talked about. Like I would have loved to do a show but we got a two year old. Like, how are you gonna do that? Yeah, we only went to Indian one time and it was good, but it was very different. It was like an odd kind of like a. [00:59:27] Speaker B: It was like a fancy, it was. [00:59:28] Speaker A: Like a fancy kind of modern place. [00:59:30] Speaker B: But it was very good. [00:59:30] Speaker A: Super good. But it was just wasn't really the traditional we were looking for, you know, for like traditional Indian. I, I'm nuts for Indian food. I would eat it all at the time and London's some of the best I've ever had. But like in this case it's like we didn't get to go to the place that we went to nine years ago. [00:59:46] Speaker B: Oh yeah, there was a place we went to like nine years ago that was so. [00:59:49] Speaker A: It was awesome. We went back multiple times and of course now we can't plug them. But you wanted to go. And I was. It was on the other side of London because we stayed on the, the opposite side. [01:00:00] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, we also heard that London has the best Thai food outside of Thailand. That's what one of our friends told us who is from Thailand. And we didn't, I mean we didn't really get a chance to like. [01:00:12] Speaker A: We ended up at that. Oh shoot. That Place was cool as we can't probably. We don't remember what that was. Was it. Remember the food? We went to some kind of like a random food hall which had like two stories and like food everywhere. And we did have Thai there and I had a really good Massaman curry. Yeah, I mean it was fantastic. You weren't real hungry. [01:00:31] Speaker B: No, I wasn't because we had had like a really big lunch. I don't remember what we had eaten, but I wasn't. Oh, it was when we. Right after Peppa Pig because. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Oh, it was after Peppa. That's right. We had peppa at like 3:30 or something. Some late time. I can't remember. And so we rolled in this food hall which Megan's gonna look up so she can say what it is. It was awesome. I mean the amount. I mean, I don't think it was really kid friendly generally just because of. There was a single elevator and it was really. There was, you know, multiple bars. I mean it would have been cooler if we were adults without children, but we managed and our kids danced. [01:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah. It was called Seven Dials Market. [01:01:10] Speaker A: Seven Dials Market. [01:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it was very good. It was fine. It was a little hot in there though, to be honest. [01:01:14] Speaker A: It was hot, but it was like, it was super cool to have that many choices for food so I could like get them whatever they wanted, you know. [01:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:19] Speaker A: And then. Is that when we went to Utterly Delicious? [01:01:23] Speaker B: Yes, we went to. [01:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we went to Utterly Delicious and that was. [01:01:27] Speaker B: That was great. [01:01:28] Speaker A: That was fantastic. Ice cream. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Definitely worth going. [01:01:32] Speaker A: I don't think that was even rated the top one. But I. I'd say that like that curry was awesome. And the Malaysian was one of my favorites. And that ice cream was the best one I had. [01:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Like we wanted to go to a Thai food place and it was like they weren't seats and so like, I don't know. We'll have to wait. Well, next time we go to London. I don't know when that's going to be 12 years from now. [01:01:54] Speaker A: Not. Not with your life buyer. I don't think so. I'm sure that somehow we'll be connecting through London and we'll make an extended layover. [01:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I enjoyed it and definitely would like to go back. I was even looking up jobs. So, you know, look up jobs everywhere we go. [01:02:15] Speaker A: Stop it. Stop telling people like, oh, I love London so much. A lot for a job. You look for jobs everywhere we go, right? [01:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:22] Speaker A: You look for jobs in real estate in any place we land. [01:02:25] Speaker B: It's true, right? Unless I really don't like it. I wasn't really looking for real estate in San Miguel. I mean, look, it was nice to. [01:02:34] Speaker A: Visit, but I don't like stop job searching and real estate hunting. [01:02:38] Speaker B: I did not look up. Did you see me looking up real estate in San Miguel? You did not. [01:02:44] Speaker A: No, no, I get that. Okay, fair. I shouldn't have said every place. But I'd say many times because we're in Northern Ireland now and you're looking up jobs and real estate. Mostly real estate. [01:02:54] Speaker B: Mostly real estate. [01:02:56] Speaker A: So I just think it happens pretty often. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah. You know. Okay, sign us out there. This is episode seven of Trips and Giggles. Thanks for listening. [01:03:09] Speaker A: In case you're counting at home, just want you to know we reached the lucky numbers. [01:03:12] Speaker B: This is our London episode of Trips in Kingdom. [01:03:16] Speaker A: I think this should have happened at the beginning. [01:03:17] Speaker B: We did not talk about peeing in a diaper this time. But we. We did give you maybe a good rundown of our London Triper. [01:03:25] Speaker A: I hope that was the name of the episode. [01:03:28] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I should rename it. [01:03:30] Speaker A: Rename that Peeing in a Diaper. No, no, no. It should be like Adult Peeing in a Diaper. You know what I mean? [01:03:35] Speaker B: I think I did name it something about peeing in a diaper, but I don't remember what it was. [01:03:40] Speaker A: Adult piss break. Okay, pull the plug. [01:03:44] Speaker B: Okay, bye.