I See London, But I Haven't Seen France...

Last week I went to London for the first time and LOVED it! Another girl and I did a whirlwind tour of the city. We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and climbed the world's largest enclosed stone column in the world...311 spiral steps in complete darkness. Still feeling the burn on that one! I have another lay over there at the end of the month and am excited to go exploring again. The only downside of this trip was that I was camera less. Wonk, wonk.

I came back to Dubai, just long enough to catch up with some friends. I love all of the awesome resorts that Emirates' crew gets into fo free!

After a short two days off, I headed back out on the road....errr sky, to Manila, Philippians. I'm appreciative of going to destinations such as these because they honestly do put life into perspective for me, and make me very thankful for the family and country I was born into. Two other flight attendants and I took a taxi into the city. According to the concierge, most cabin crew stay inside the hotel and the mall it's connected to during their stay, which he encouraged us to do. As the three of us girls were riding into the city people on the street were constantly coming up to the car and waving, or simply pointing at us from the sidewalk. Through broken English, our cabbie told us that we are like movie stars, as the locals only see a white person about once a year. The poverty in the area was unbelievable. It was very hard for me to stare straight ahead when children my own nieces' age, carrying babies my nephew's age came knocking on our window begging for money. Although I sound like a complete hard ass, it's simply not safe to give money out in these areas, and it also encourages these children's parents to continue forcing their children to be street beggars. I'm not an advocate of taking photos of children while traveling (it can be unsafe, as parents can demand money for the photos), but these little ones were following us as we walked through the town, all smiling and waving, and we're just too cute to not snap a quick photo!

And now a report from grief watch 2012....I received a bittersweet package in the mail last week. The last package I'll ever get from my mama. She had shipped me two adapters back in January, but because of a mailbox mix up, I had never received it. Although it was sweet that she sent me the adapters, I honestly wouldn't have cared if the box contained nothing but a few cow patties and a scoop of kitty litter! It was the note inside I was longing for. No Earth shaking revelations from her, just a simple note from mom. The note in itself pretty much covered the basis of our relationship, she adores me, she loves me, and she wanted to give me some advice. It was great to hear from her!

Ohhhhh I miss her so much! This morning after I arrived home from my nine hour flight my dad and I were having a pity party via Skype. Both of us were a little sleep deprived, and neither one of us were doing a very great job of comforting the other. We had both started in on our all too regular routine of crying and sharing sentaments like, "I'm so sorry you lost your mom!" and "I'm sorry you lost the love of your life, dad." Through sobs he started to tell me about the annual field trip to the farm that the local elementary kids attend, which took place yesterday . He said that he saw one third grade girl wearing a Girl Scout shirt. Being the sweet man that he is, he bent down to this girl's level and said, "I really like your shirt. My wife loved Girl Scouts. Did you ever know Gail Schutz?" And with all of the poise and intelligence that sometimes our local townspeople's offspring possess she replied, "Yep. She died."

Dad said he just smiled, stood up, and was thankful he didn't blurt out, "No Shit, Sherlock!"

And with that story, we both began a two minute laughing session filled with snorts and tears. As pathetic as we might be, a few tears and a lot of laughter....yep, mom wouldn't have handled it any other way!