Milavecs in London

The Milavecs are in London! I cannot emphasize how cool that is!

The Milestone Hotel and Apartments where they are staying is like something out of a fairy tale, or perhaps The Royal Tenebaums. Old school elegance and decadence and a gorgeous location. The concierge staff has come to refer to me as Ms. Milavec and I’ve not corrected them; it’s easier and this way they don’t question why I’ve got a key. After I met up with Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Stan and Anna and Julia Saturday we went to Harrods (I accidentally put us on the wrong bus, or rather the right bus in the wrong direction, which Uncle Stan will never let me live down, and subsequently we’ve taken cabs everywhere with a variety of charming Cockney-accented drivers) before celebrating the girls’ eleventh birthday with an afternoon tea.

I was prepared for some degree of ceremony but had not anticipated the elaborate tea pouring ritual the wait staff carried out, which included not only juggling four different types of tea in five different tea pots with accompanied strainers and saucers and milks and creams but also the constant refilling of cups nearly every time we took a sip, eventually prompting the ever sweet and obliging Anna to exclaim “How much tea do they expect one person to drink!?” We laughed far too loudly to be appropriate for a tea room, at which point I questioned if we could be more American if we tried, and then we laughed more. So so much fun and so so good to see them!

Sunday we had a spectacular brunch at the hotel before seeing a matinee performance of Jersey Boys, after which we met up with Chloe for dinner at Hix Soho (glass fish coffin mobiles and taxidermy sea gull décor = NO) and walked along Regents Street for a bit. Or wait, at some point we went to the Round Pond and I regaled the girls with stories of my horrific bird encounters and Julia took too many pictures of dogs, but I forget where that fell sequentially into the weekend. Anyways the show was absolutely amazing and has been added to the dauntingly long list of productions I am dying for the soundtrack to. Since I shared Anna’s hilarious anecdote it’s only fair to mention that when at one point during the course of the narrative a character referred to the song ‘Walk Like a Man’ as a metaphor Julia astutely pointed out “No it’s not: it’s a simile.” They are darling children and I’ve almost forgiven them for being taller than me.

Also Anne is here from Germany! Alas my Milavec adventures have come to a brief hiatus as I’ve got class late tonight and tomorrow is the student council pub night that I’ve been helping plan and subsequently really can’t miss, but I think I’m going to stay over with them on Friday at which point the cousin fun will resume.