And we’ll have a jolly good time

So, I don’t know if you know this or not – unless we aren’t that close, you don’t know me or follow me on Twitter or I haven’t talked about it too much – but this summer I’m leaving the country.

Not permanently, just for a week. And I don’t even have to learn a different language, y’all.

I’m going to London. Yep, the one in England, not the one in Kentucky. I don’t believe it either.

You see, I have been out of the country before…twice to Jamaica and once to Canada – which I don’t really count because we went to Toronto and that’s basically still America. But never anything like this.

One of my cousins – who I’ve been wanting to visit for a while anyway – moved over there for work for a couple years. When I found that out I figured “what a perfect time for a visit!” I’d get to see her and her family, which I’m super-excited about because they’re awesome and fun and funny AND I get to go to one of the countries I’ve been dying to visit since at least the first Harry Potter book.

I’ve already been practicing my accent and the limited British slang I know. It’s not as good as my Boston stuff..but I have a few more months to work on it.

My knowledge of London is not limited to those books but they are one of my favorite things to come out of that country in recent years.

Here are some others.

I have no idea what we’re going to do but some of the obvious tourist-y stuff and maybe a couple Harry Potter-related sights are definitely on the list. Have I mentioned yet that the morning we fly in to Heathrow Airport is the morning after the very last HP movie premieres over there? I will not be held responsible for what may happen if I see any of them in the airport. And I may or may not be wearing my HP glasses and Quidditch shirt. Yeah, I’m that girl.

It’s still a little more than three months away, so there’s no official countdown started yet but I am ridiculously excited. Adding to this fact – I haven’t had a vacation in two years, unless you count that awesome week of quarantine after The Great Appendix Eviction of 2011. And I don’t count that. Because the only remotely fun thing involved was mid-day naps.

So. Advice on sights to see, foods to eat, things to bring to a person who hasn’t been in America for a year? Gimme. Please?