Since leaving China, my travels have taken me to the United Kingdom.  It was certainly nice to be somewhere where the native language is English and where things seem more familiar.  More importantly, it was really nice to see some familiar faces.  Back in the fall (autumn for the rest of the world), I started talking to my family about the possibility of meeting them somewhere in the world.  We decided on England because it would be different but too terribly difficult to get around since there would be no language barrier and it would be a fairly easy place for us to meet and perhaps most importantly, there was a Legoland Theme Park for us to visit as Legos should be the building block of all travel plans (okay, I´ll even admit that pun is worth a groan).  My mom, my sister, and her three children were able to meet me in London to begin our time together.  We made it to most of the big sites in London - The Tower of London, The London Eye, A West End Play (The Lion King), Westminster Abbey, The Imperial War Museum, Hamley´s (the best toy store in the world!), etc.  We then set off to Windsor to visit the aforementioned Legoland and Windsor Castle before ending in Bath with visits to the Roman Baths and the Jane Austen Centre among the city´s many other beautiful sites.  Having the children around made me realize something that I should have considered a long time ago - the children´s tours of any historic site/museum are sometimes the better options to choose, if available.  The children´s guides/signs/tours give you the facts in an easy to understand format whereas the adult versions sometimes give you so much information that you lose track of the main idea.  I especially found the children´s audio guide tour of the Roman Baths to be incredibly well done and feel that I came away knowing a lot more about the area than I had when I visited the Baths 10 years ago as a study abroad student.  In 2 weeks, we covered a lot of ground but I think we were able to strike that fine balance between a steady pace and actually being able to enjoy what we saw/did.  However, if it was up to my younger nephew, he would have been happy to stay all day at the apartments that we stayed at in London and Bath - I choose to take it as a compliment that he felt at home with where we stayed. It was extraordinarily nice to have my family close by and to spend time with them after having been away from them for approximately 10 months.  As always seems to be the case when traveling, time flew by - it was a very fun albeit fast 2 weeks and I´m so glad that it worked out for us to be able to have that time together. 

After my family left, I was able to head north to Scotland to visit my former housemate and very good friend who is currently doing graduate study at St. Andrews.  I fortunately had the chance to visit St. Andrews a few years ago when I was doing a trip for the Office of International Programs to familiarize myself with some of the universities in the UK and Ireland that our students were interested in attending.  It is an amazingly beautiful (and small) town and this is the right time of the year to be there in that it is a very pleasant temperature and the town is not currently overrun with students as most undergraduates have gone home for the summer.  We did not do too much sightseeing during my visit but we did take the opportunity to visit nearby Crail which had an awesome food festival in its extraordinarily picturesque harbor.  I can also say that I have now played golf at St. Andrews - we took the chance to play The Himalayas, which has traditionally been the women´s course, which allows non-golfers of both sexes to play 9 or 18 holes.  It was basically like putt-putt except that there are no windmills or other accessories that I imagine most golfers of the St. Andrews caliber would find tacky.  Otherwise, the week was spent catching up on this past season of Glee (the show I have missed most since leaving the US), having some home-cooked meals (yay!), and hanging out with some of the other graduate-schoolers.  It was really good to see another familiar face and have the chance to catch up over the course of my week-long visit.

So, what´s next?  On Tuesday, I arrived to Buenos Aires and will be in Argentina until June 30 before heading to Quito, Ecuador.  I will then be doing about 4 weeks worth of guided travel which will take me to the Galapagos, Peru, and Bolivia.  After Bolivia, it will be time for me to return to North Carolina.  So I´m on the last leg of travel for this year of travel and it is very strange to begin thinking about the fact that I will be home in less than 2 months.  But in the meantime, I´m here to enjoy South America and make the most out of the rest of my travels!