From Romance to Food Poisoning.. How Charming

I seem to have gotten quite a bit of feedback from my last blog post on my Amsterdam adventure. According to my father I am now all grown up, so in order to set the world right once again, I will go back to blogging about my simple sight seeing (after all, I am a daddy’s girl, not a daddy’s woman). After Amsterdam came Paris. After a very boring and uneventful train ride to the city of romance we of course got lost on our way to our hostel (but that is an entirely different story. I have bored you with numerous tales of our adventures while lost in Europe, and this one is no different, so if you really care to hear about how we batted our long eyelashes at a hotel receptionist to let us use his computer at 1am, then ask me). Sadly Paris was the last stop on our Europe tour, and we were both incredibly sick of our check-lists and map reading our way through the sights. But even though we were both tired, cranky, wet and cold, we bundled up, grabbed our map, and headed out into the city. Our check list included:

The Catacombes (which we almost didn’t find and walked around a nearby cemetery for 20 minutes before realizing that we weren’t in the right place)

Notre Dame (sadly that is the one Disney movie I haven’t seen, so I didn’t walk around hunched over like the hunchback)

Trocadero (where we took about a million and one pictures with the Eiffel Tower in the background)

Arc De Triomphe (we went, we saw, we took a picture, we left)

Gardens of Luxembourg (where we had quite an amusing photo shoot with a large bronze head... pictures to be posted on Facebook soon)

The Louvre (Mona Lisa… check)

The real Moulin Rouge (NOT like the one we went to in Amsterdam. Thank GOD)

And last but not least…

The Eiffel Tower (where I got my romantic kiss up at the top over looking the city. Okay, maybe it wasn’t romantic as it was a kiss from Kimmy, but at least I can say I did it!)

Paris came and left with the blink of an eye. Before we knew it we were on a train back to London and arrived back at our London home. Again, I barely had time to think before I was waking up the next morning to get my things together to go meet my Dad in Wimbledon at Godfather Antony’s house. Dad and I had the entire house to ourselves for the afternoon to catch up on my trip and hang out for a while. When my Godfamily came home we all had an incredible dinner party with some old friends. We all had a great time reminiscing about the time my parents met my ex-boyfriends parents (only my Dad wasn’t there, but his friend Tony was, along with his girlfriend… Just imagine the confusion of introducing my mother and a man who could be my father… and his girlfriend. Again, that is another story that I would love to tell you if you ask to hear it… and it is worth asking about… trust me!). After saying goodbye to my second adopted London family, we left Wimbledon to go to a Christmas lunch where I met a whole side of my family I didn’t even know existed (I must say, after 21 loud Italian Christmases in New York, I was well prepared for the English version). At this point I shut my brain down, and was completely in my father’s hands. I have gotten tired of planning every minute of my life, so I put my body into cruise control and put my Dad in the driver’s seat. Ironically, as soon as I was in Dearest Daddy’s hands, I suddenly came down with some sort of horrible flu/bug/food poisoning. I spent the night at my Aunt’s house throwing up my wonderful Christmas lunch.. over, and over and over again. I didn’t even get a chance to see my cousins that night because I went straight to bed and didn’t get up for another 13 hours. I woke up the next morning and was afraid of food (and for those who know me at all know how unlike me that really is so I really must have been sick). Unfortunately, my fear of food affected a lunch with my Uncle, which I’m afraid I had to leave half way through to go lay down in the back of the car. Good news is that we have decided to ditch our trend of seeing each other only every 4 or 5 years, so there will be many more opportunities to catch up soon I hope! After lunch (or lack-there-of) I had to curl up in the back of the car and endure a long and very jerky (thanks Tony) car ride down to our little English cottage (Poock’s Cottage) in Exmoor. After we arrived I took another nap and felt a bit better and played a game of cards with my two old men and got my butt kicked the entire time. Just you wait until I am feeling better. Revenge will be mine!

This morning I woke up and felt like I had kicked whatever was in my system the past 24 hours. We decided to go on a famous Nettelfield walk to the circle of trees. I made it to the top of the moors before I got very dizzy and very nauseous and decided leave Dad and Tony to turn back around to go back to the cottage. After walking up the hill with my head down looking at my feet, I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was going. I somehow managed to get myself incredibly lost and wound up down a valley with a river running through it. I knew I needed to get to the other side of this rushing river to get back to Poock’s, but suddenly felt very light-headed. I sat down on a rock until my double image of the world went back into one. I very nearly donated my breakfast to the sheep 20 yards away but somehow managed to regain my composure before fording the river. I have no idea how, but somehow I tip-toed across the rushing river without falling and kept my breakfast down, all to the dismay of the sheep who I assume would have had a great laughing “baaaa-haha” at my fall and my breakfast for their lunch. I also managed to find home. I found my couch in the only warm room in the entire cottage and fell asleep with my best friend, Coke, a white polar bear. My temporary fear of food better be gone soon, because I only have three days left to eat pork pies, spotted dick, and steak and kidney pudding. On second thought, maybe I can starve until New York…