What a wonderful vacation. Two weeks abroad in London and\nIreland. Seeing the sights. Taking in the countryside. Exploring the rich\ntraditions and culture that go back centuries. And trying to make sense of what\nclotted cream is, and why I can eat it by the bucketful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were so many highlights from our trip: Windsor Castle.\nRiding Connemara ponies in Ireland. A jaunting cart trek through the Gap of\nDunloe. Knowing that Cadbury chocolate was never more than 5 feet away in any\ndirection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can read in guidebooks about the sights you can see on a\nsimilar vacation, so I thought I would share with you some lesser known travel\ntips that will be invaluable if you choose to take your own journey: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Never try to do currency conversion math in your head. It\nwill cause you great embarrassment when you\u2019re buying a bag of crisps, look at\nthe price and scream, \u201cThis is highway robbery! I will never spend $3,200 on\npotato chips!\u201d Use a calculator, dummy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Be prepared that when you tell people you are from\nFlorida, they and 13 of their friends will immediately try to climb into your\nluggage in hopes that you will smuggle them in for warmer, sunnier weather.\nAlso, when people ask what it\u2019s like back home and you reply, \u201cWell, the air is\nhotter than molten lava, the mosquitoes are the size of walnuts and snakes are\nknown to eat alligators before they are in turn eaten by spiders,\u201d they will\nlikely respond, \u201cSounds brilliant! Do you have tea?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Don\u2019t get separated from your family in Westminster Abbey.\nI still haven\u2019t found them. I finally gave up looking, latched on to some nice-looking\npeople from Holland and finished my vacation with them. I had no other choice! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 If you\u2019re looking to make small talk with a Londoner,\nnever ask anything along the lines of this: \u201cSo, what do you think about this\nwhole Brexit thing?\u201d You will have to extend your vacation by at least 7 days\nas you try to extract yourself from the angry conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Know that if you laugh at sheep because you think\nthey look ridiculous and chew their cud like cartoon characters, they are also\nlaughing at you because your fly is down, you\u2019re lost in an Irish bog and three\nof their friends are stealing the luggage out of the back of your car while\nyou\u2019re being distracted by their chewing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 When an Englishman, says \u201ccheers,\u201d they sound cool and proper and sophisticated. When you say \u201ccheers,\u201d you sound like a goofy hipster or someone who wants to start a cult. Not sure why that is, but it just doesn\u2019t work on Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Most of all, don\u2019t believe people who tell you that the\njet lag is the worst part about coming home. It\u2019s not. The worst is that blast\nof Florida hot air that greets you, and the instantaneous assault on your\nsinuses as your allergies flare back up. It\u2019s moments like that which make you\nwonder why in the world we ever chose to live in this strange, toasty state of\nours \u2026 and why so many Brits and Irishman are trying to stuff themselves into\nluggage to get here. I mean, you\u2019ll probably get eaten by a snake or a spider\nhere!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What a wonderful vacation. Two weeks abroad in London and Ireland. Seeing the sights. Taking in the countryside. Exploring the rich traditions and culture that go back centuries. And trying to make sense of what clotted cream is, and why I can eat it by the bucketful. <\/p>\n
There were so many highlights from our trip: Windsor Castle. Riding Connemara ponies in Ireland. A jaunting cart trek through the Gap of Dunloe. Knowing that Cadbury chocolate was never more than 5 feet away in any direction. <\/p>\n
You can read in guidebooks about the sights you can see on a similar vacation, so I thought I would share with you some lesser known travel tips that will be invaluable if you choose to take your own journey: <\/p>\n
\u2022 Never try to do currency conversion math in your head. It will cause you great embarrassment when you\u2019re buying a bag of crisps, look at the price and scream, \u201cThis is highway robbery! I will never spend $3,200 on potato chips!\u201d Use a calculator, dummy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}