The Last Family Vacation

My dad sometimes hints that whatever family vacation we’re currently on could be our last. I think this cloud over paradise started when I went to college. The reasoning was that I would want to travel with my buddies. I would be busy. Too busy.

Partially, he is right. I do love travelling with my buddies. As I write this, I’m in the midst of a whirlwind backpacking trip across Europe. I’m sitting on a train in Madrid, ready to head for Barcelona. For sleeping on two thin blankets spread across a hardwood floor, I’m surprisingly energetic. Maybe it’s the café con leche. Probably it’s the joy of being young and able to sleep on floors and call it a deal, stay up until 3 a.m. searching and not finding calamari sandwiches in Madrid, and realizing how lucky I am to be travelling across Europe and not droning on through an over-involved Champaign-Urbana schedule.

Busyness-wise, he’s right, too. I have missed our Anderson family Lake Zurich picnics for the past two years for work in California. And there’s also the whole studying business.
But the thing about our family vacations is this: they’re fun. Lots of fun. Even the boring, frustrating, and painful parts are fun because we can laugh at them later.

These Last Anderson Vacation doomsday scenarios dissolve pretty quickly when I’m SCUBA diving in the Caribbean, or rolling the dice beside my dad at the Craps table, or – in this case – touring with my family for a week in London.

I hope the week I spent in London with my family is proof that the Last Anderson Vacation doomsday scenario will not come to pass. I hope that cloud over paradise never turns into a thunderhead, despite the inevitable drama that drizzles over every trip.

Because very few – if any – of our trips are without their peculiar forms of drama. Aptly enough, London seemed to have a few more rain clouds than normal.

For one, my mom hated Madame Tussaud’s. She felt overwhelmed by the rude snap-happy tourists who will stop at nothing to flock towards the wax celebrities. But she did gain sympathy for asocial celebrities. When your life is a series of flashbulbs and giggling fan clubs who won’t hesitate to interrupt a quiet dinner, it’s kind of hard not to feel like a zoo animal trapped in your own fame.

Another rain cloud: As soon as we boarded a tourism bus, we had to make a bathroom break. Upon returning to the bus station to re-board, we found ourselves standing at there for the typically English-time lateness. But when we finally boarded the bus again, a colourful tourguide with an ensemble of jokes made the ride much better than it would have been had we stayed on the bus with the audio tour.

Then there was an unforgivable thunderhead. My dad, brother, and I went for some pints at Waxy O’Conners, a Soho bar with beautiful décor but an already spotty reputation in that a) I might’ve lost my still-lost debit card there and b) they kicked us out when we tried to get the 14-year-old Jane in for dinner. We three had barely gotten a second round when the bar played “Closing Time” over the loud speakers. My first reaction was that this song had mistakenly been mixed into the set. After all, it was only 11 p.m. The night was young. But when people started chugging their drinks and filing out, we realized that the bar was indeed closing. At 11 p.m. Still, we had a good time marvelling at how strange it was for London pubs to close at the hour when they’re likely to make the most money.

Our flat was quirkily modern and very Soho but had toilet problems. The plays we saw were excellent but at the best one, Blood Brothers, we sat behind a bunch of angsty teens on a school trip who were more interested in wet willies than politely listening. Our best meal was not a typical London pub, but an Italian restaurant we stumbled upon when all the pubs were overcrowded.

Still, good travellers can weather this bad weather whether or not it comes to pass. Good travellers can do it without getting drenched or struck. Travelling with my family is always good travel, even with the fatalistic hints that this one might be our last. For me, these hints renew appreciation for our trips. So maybe that’s the point of the Last Family Vacation: sometimes a cloud over paradise is exactly what we need to get ready for the next trip.