The traffic in London is terrible. The other day when it took two hours to get to IKEA, Richard said
"Oh Eagle road. I'm so sorry for thinking you were so awful. You have never caused me as much grief and frustration as I am currently experiencing. Except maybe turning left onto you from McMillan."
But in terms of distance it doesn't take long at all to get to the countryside. And it's so beautiful. So many trees! And sheep. All told, it only took about an hour and a half to get to the coast.
The first night we drove straight to Ramsgate and ate dinner at a place called "Oh My Cod!" Talk about a hole in the wall. It was run by a family from Cyprus. (I love asking restaurant owners where they're from. It's a new hobby.) It was an older couple, their daughter and her husband and her little girl. She was also due any day with #2 and she served us in sweat pants. We had fish and chips and we had the restaurant to ourselves. They were so kind and chatted with us about our kids, where we were from, and of course the World Cup. Thank goodness for the World Cup! It's been an automatic ice breaker in so many conversations I've had including the Nigerian IKEA delivery guy, the Brazilian server, and the Turkish restaurant owners, just to name a few.
Most everything else in the city was closed for the day so we just walked along the harbour and let the kids gaze upon the sea while we tried to force appreciation on them. Richard says he didn't see the ocean until he went on his mission at age 19.