Break Day 2: family

Day two was much, much better than day one. We had planned on getting up early to see Birmingham before leaving for London, but after the night we had had, we decided that sleeping in was a better idea. We all slowly got up, Ania (my wonderful cousin who was sweet enough to let us stay at her place on top of helping me with planning, buying tickets, etc.) made us a real breakfast. Eggs, potatoes, tea, coffee, bread, cheese, ham. Polish hospitality... there's really nothing like it. I missed it.

I was really glad I was able to see her. When I went to Poland this summer she was in England, so I wasn't expecting to see her for at least the next couple years.

And on top of that, I got a surprise visit from an uncle I hadn't seen since I was too little to remember. He was great, he had a huge personality and sense of humor to match. So much family, it was fantastic. It was strange though, he had brought a friend with him and I was with Nathalie, so we were speaking English. I don't think I've ever done that with my Polish family. Not bad, not good, just different.

My uncle drove us all to Birmingham, which was nice, it meant we didn't have to take a train there.

We only had a few hours to explore around, but Birmingham was nice and I'm glad I got to see it. It was also there that I took out some more money from an ATM. Sigh... I had nothing. For a cheapo like me...it hurt, it hurt deep.

Funny as these are, they were really helpful. Still not used to people driving on the other side of the road

Shopping center in Birmingham

French follows us everywhere 

I believe this was a museum of some sort

Hello your highness

New library in Birmingham

Cousin and long lost uncle

The library has an elevator that takes you up to the viewing area on the roof

view from the top

Around 4:00 Ania, Nathalie and I hopped on a train to London.

And the train had wifi! Dear France: please be more civilized like England, wifi on the trains is a good first step.

We got into London pretty late and we split up. Nathalie was spending the night at a friend's and Ania and I were staying with my cousin's wife (Cousin in law? Cousin? How do these things work? Ania's sister in law. Sigh, genealogy is frustrating. It was family, I stayed with more family). We had never met but I had heard nothing but good things about her, which all proved to be true. I went over to her house, she fed me wonderful, wonderful Mexican, cheesy, chip-ey, sour cream-ey food. (I eat primarily out of cans, primarily cold food, primarily crappy food without any seasoning. This was fantastic).

As I did in the last post, let me take a moment to once again say how wonderful Polish hospitality is. Dinner, then tea and cake (goodness, so much cake) and hours of conversation. I used to get annoyed seeing how much my mom fusses over guests, but now I really, really love it. It was nice to speak Polish again with wonderful people. I almost didn't even want to go explore London, I would have been fine staying in with them and talking some more. I had forgotten how awesome it is to be surrounded by family, to be able to lay out on a couch after a satisfying meal and just discuss.

train to London 

:)

Okay two things wrong here: the word rubbish, and the trash under the sign that says no trash

Legitimate Polish store :) So. Many. Poles here. 

But eventually it was midnight, and I had a long day ahead of me, so we cleaned up and went to sleep.

Like I said, day 2 was so much better.