"Oh, the Places You'll Go..."!

The title of a Dr. Seuss book came to mind recently, as a friend and I were discussing some of the surprising places parenting had taken us...

In her case, my friend had reluctantly spent an afternoon in a tattoo parlor watching her daughter get a tattoo...

And me? One of my sons had just informed me that he was planning a trip to London, England, for a poker tournament. Would I like to go along...? And I (a serious non-gambler) was seriously considering going...!

They never warn you about this aspect of parenting in pre-natal class! my friend chuckled.

Should I go? I hadn't been to London for a long, long time...

London had been my first stop when - at age 19 - I left Canada on my way to a year's study abroad in Jerusalem. It was also the last place I visited 10 years later, on my way back to Canada to live...

I hadn't been back since!... So the invitation was very appealing!

This time I was determined to get to know the city better.














So I went to my favorite used book store and bought a travel guide and London, the Novel (to get a sense of the city's history).

Then I went online to Expedia to book a flight and a hotel...

Before choosing the hotel, I checked each address on Google Maps to see how far the hotel was from the poker venue and the places I wanted to visit... I also checked Trip Adviser for recent visitor comments... (All this left me wondering: How did I ever manage to plan a trip before the internet existed?!)














A few weeks later... there I was... in London again!