Circumnavigating the earth on vacation

I'm back in Cebu having left here a month ago.  I traveled west across Asia and Europe to the UK, then west again across the Atlantic and Canada to Victoria and northwest Washington, then west again to Hong Kong and back to the Philippines.  That means that I went around the world, which is kind of interesting, but mostly just means I had a lot of timezones to adjust to!

I learned a few things on this trip:
1. always fly business class - 12 hours in cattle class overnight from Hong Kong to London was not fun
2. jet lag isn't great but it's much easier to deal with when vacationing as opposed to working, and it's really not as bad as I think it's going to be
3. at some point, one will get sick - it's inevitable, so don't whine or worry about it

Some highlights from the vacation --
- this was my first paid vacation in at least 25 years, which was grand
- Scotland was also grand.  We got to see Alex in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Here's Laura with Alex in his Erpingham Camp costume, soon after we arrived and before the play received a 5-star review and sold out performances through the rest of the run!  It was good fun and we enjoyed the show and seeing Alex showing off his great dancing moves.

Laura joined us after spending 3 months touring the UK and Europe with a friend and on her own.  She looks the same but has really grown up over the last few months and is now officially a grownup girl!

If you're thinking of going to Edinburgh, my only word of caution is -- don't go in August when the Fringe Festival is on, unless you really love Fringe.  The Royal Mile was fairly calm when we first arrived because the Olympics were still on, but later in the week it was truly bedlam. 

One particular highlight in Edinburgh was the Royal Botanical Gardens.  We walked there and then spent a few hours in the gardens and their huge greenhouses.  This is John enroute to the gardens.  It was a really lovely walk through some of the most charming streets in Edinburgh.  

One of my favourite greenhouses was this one, with these huge lilypads in them.  They were so big and perfect that it was difficult to resist the urge to step out onto them.  I didn't, however, and I'm sure John is grateful that he didn't need to (a) rescue me and (b) try to explain to the gardeners what I was doing.  

We only stayed 3 nights in Edinburgh and then we (John, Laura and I) headed out to Kinghorn, a small fishing village of 2500, 45 minutes north of Edinburgh by train, to an apartment vacation rental.  This was a great spot, that John found, to do day trips from.  We hiked in the area, took the train to see many castles, churches and ruins, experienced a not-great bus tour and generally enjoyed spending a week and a half in Scotland.  

After Scotland, we went back to Canada for a few days.  John's son's wedding was definitely the highlight of that segment of the vacation.  It was a lovely wedding, perfectly planned and executed (and I am a bit of an expert on weddings, having watched all those wedding shows on TV over Laura's shoulder).  This is one of the nicest pictures I've seen of Matt and Jen so far.

And here's how they looked just after the ceremony, really happy, which was lovely).

Part of my oversees role requires that I spend no more than 10% of my time in Canada but that's fairly easy with half of my children in the US.  So, after the wedding we headed to Lake WenATCHee, for a week of family and relaxation.  The emphasis on the "ATCH" part is mine, to remind me to pronounce it correctly, American style :)  It's not Lake Wen"autch"ee; it's Lake Wen"AAATCH"ee.  It's hard for me to convey the tone and emphasis here in the blog, but I hope you get the idea.  My American family corrected my pronunciation many times!

In any case, we had fun.  We rented a true cowboy house for the week and since I have 3 grandsons who are cowboy crazy, that worked out well.  This house was huge, and completely over the top with cowboy stuff.  Cowboy pillows on the beds, cowboy pictures on the walls and 5 dead animal heads as well, cowboy rugs on the floor, cowboy plates, cowboy bowls, cowboy cutlery, cowboy towel racks in the bathrooms (with the occasional bear motif thrown in to mix things up), rough hewn log bunk beds in the "bunkhouse", and antler lights and chandeliers wherever they would fit.  A bit odd but the boys really liked it.  We liked it because it was next to a golf course and the park where my eldest and her family live.

And there are horses to ride.  This was Laura's first time riding a horse!  Here's her looking calm and relaxed, but I think the horse is looking a bit nervous.  It all worked out well however and she can tick "horseback riding" off of her list of things she's never done. 

Lake WenATCHee is close to Leavenworth, a Bavarian-style tourist town with many attractions, and mini-golf.  Here's Laura and the mini-cowboys in the hot sun playing mini-golf.  They all got the hang of it quickly

In this next photo, can you see Gavin (on Nicole's back)?  He's only 1 but is already keenly interested in each golf shot, and commented on every one, with appropriate oohs and aahs.

After a few days, we put Laura on the Clipper to Victoria from Seattle, and then I headed back to Cebu from Vancouver, via Hong Kong.  I'm happy to be back but my body is still adjusting to the jet lag, waking early, tired most of the day, and asleep by 9 latest.  Circumnavigating the globe takes a lot out of a person!