Brown Girl in London

The Family

3am Sunday morning, Sisy, D and my wonderful nephews, (AR and H), made it to my flat after a very long journey from Brindisi in Italy. They left this morning and over the last 30 hours or so we had a great visit together, albeit much too short.

After arriving and a bit of conversation they all went to bed. HD was really nice and gave her their bedroom so they could all sleep together - Sisy and D had the bed and the boys got the blow-up mattress. I was going to bunk with them on the mattress but there's not enough room so I stayed on the couch, or loveseat to be exact, which is quite comfortable if you're someone like me who can sleep basically anywhere.

On Sunday morning around 9am everyone was up and well-rested. We had a breakfast of hotdogs, yogurt, coffee, tea, and lots of clementines! After that we all got ready, with the exception of HD who had to work yesterday, and I took them on a little tour of Finsbury Park - down Stroud Green to Seven Sisters. We went to The Happening Bagel Bakery and got cheese and spinach pastries and a samosa for AR and went to the park to eat it.

After that, we went to the tube and I took them down to Oxford Circus. I showed them where I work and the park where I have lunch. It was a pleasant day weather-wise, lots of breeze and sunshine. There was a street festival going on down Regent Street with a Spanish theme so we checked that out as well, walking towards Piccadilly Circus. As usual, with anything that goes on in London, the place was ram-packed with people. I almost lost them but we managed to get through it all. The festival was okay, there were some neat things to see but it mostly seemed like a big tourism ad for Spain. We went into L'Occitane, which has really nice toiletries and Sisy got a perfume called Neroli and D bought a shaving cream.

At Piccadilly Circus the crowd thinned considerably and we went to Leicester Square. We chilled out for a bit with some Ben and Jerry's and then went to catch the tube back to FP. At this point everyone was a little tired and ready to just chill out at the flat for the rest of the day. D treated us to dinner at one of the kebab places on Stroud Green and it was a good meal. In the evening, after everyone was relaxed and the boys were in their pj's we watched X-Men 2 on my laptop and then it was time for bed for the boys. H had already fallen asleep on Sisy and AR was getting very tired. HD came home from work around 10:30pm and the four of us talked for a bit then D went to bed and it was the 3 of until about 11:30pm.

This morning we were all up by 6:30am and got ready to go to Victoria Station. We took the tube and they got their tickets for the Gatwick Express. Their train was leaving at 8:15am so we had a few more minutes together. D was so nice he gave me £20 to get ourselves a DVD player! It was all kind of sad too, it was a such a nice visit and it ended too fast for me. It was great seeing Sisy and D again, with our indepth talks about "what's going with our lives" and the boys really know how to make an aunt who lives faraway feel missed and loved. If all goes well and I'm still here next year then they'll come back for a longer visit!

posted by RC @ 6:30 AM