“Please turn off all your electronic devices, as they can interfere with the plane’s communication systems during landing” announces the captain. I think about the logic of my little e-reader causing an aborted landing, but acknowledge that perhaps this is not the time to debate the ridiculousness of this statement. I obey the request and we safely land in the amazing, fantastic, incredible city of London. While we wait the four long hours before we can check into our apartment, we take a hop on-off bus tour of the city. Tatiana snoozes through much of it, as it now is 4 am for us, but I take in the sights that I only vaguely remember from almost thirty years ago when 
I was here last. Not much has changed – Lord Nelson still stands on Trafalgar Square and the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace still attracts gazillions of people. The Tower Bridge guards the city as it has for centuries, but a new bridge is of interest to us, die hard Harry Potter fans. After all, every decent Harry Potter fan would recognize the Millenium Bridge in their sleep, expecting the Dementors to swoop in any minute. Our week long visit in fact ends up revolving around the Harry Potter theme. Not only do we get to visit all the London sites where the movies were filmed, the timing of our visit could not have been better, as the red carpet premiere of the last movie in the series is happening this week. Fans start staking good viewing spots in Trafalgar Square on Monday - for a 
premiere that is happening on Thursday! It is cold and drizzling but the fans are obviously dedicated. By 6 pm on the day of the premiere, walking through Trafalgar Square is almost impossible. Tatiana is besides herself with excitement and gets a lift on Kuno’s shoulders. She can just make out Emma Watson on the red carpet via a giant screen in the middle of the square. I wonder what Lord Nelson thinks about all of this, watching from high above.
Tatiana is somewhat dismayed with us, calling us “tourists”, as we immerse ourselves into the hoopla of summer London and visit all the possible attractions a typical tourist would. She calls herself a “world traveler” and obviously visiting attractions is beneath the world traveler class. However, that doesn’t stop her to immensely enjoy Madame Tussauds wax museum, taking pictures with, who else, Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter, Lady Gaga, Enstein, and, OMG, Justin Bieber. She likes the visit to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and loves the giant 3 storey M&M store on Leicester Square. Her favourite restaurant ends up being the (original) Hard Rock Cafe. Who is the tourist now? We make a trip to Greenwich and spend some time investigating the intricacies of solving the challenge of determining the longitude (I suspect that Tatiana grasps the concept way better than I do), take an evening ride on the London Eye, have fun transporting ourselves through the history of British music in the Music Museum (wow, it makes you realize how much good music originated from British bands and also how old we are, clearly enjoying the memories of the eighties, seventies, sixties … , you get the drift, music, while Tatiana can only relate to the last section of the exhibit), attempt to shop on Oxford Street and Covent Garden (with neither one of us being a very good shopper, we come out empty handed and exhausted). Tatiana and I have a great time exploring Harrods, noting that they have a big sale on. We visit the shoe department and try on numerous shoes off the sale rack – with prices down to 1,000 pounds from original 3,000+. A girl just loves a bargain! For the first time in my life I put a Loboutin shoe on my foot, expecting nirvana, but to be honest, it is not much more comfortable than my regular shoes. The three inch heel doesn’t help. We wonder if the elephants that Harrods sells are currently on sale too? The performance of Wicked one evening is outstanding.
Time flies by and soon it is time to take Tatiana to Oxford and part our ways for the next few weeks. While Tatiana is ecstatic about ditching her parents and hanging out with her age group for a change, we are getting more nervous as time passes. On a rainy Friday we take Tatiana and her enormous bag on the train to Oxford and check her into the Oxbridge Prep program. For the next three and half weeks Tatiana will be roaming the ancient Corpus Christi College at Oxford University, taking Creative Writing as major and Speech and Debate as minor (do we really need a child that debates even better in the future?), and do who knows what in her free time. We spend our last two hours together shopping for posters to decorate Tatiana’s bare dorm room and by the time we are finished we can
On our last day in London we recover and take advantage of being able to do
the things that a teenager would not enjoy (well, at least not our teenager). We visit the Cabinet War Rooms and Winston Churchill museum and in the late afternoon, attend the crowning glory of our visit – an Evensong service at the Westminster Abbey. We sit in the nave under Shakespeare’s memorial, our feet resting on Lawrence Olivier’s stone, memories of other famous people surrounding us. The music is beautiful and as I sit here, I let the words slip past me, not trying to understand; I feel the awe that comes with being present in a place like this, the organ and choir creating the backdrop for a strange feeling of elation and happiness, sense of being light and peaceful. My eyes are drawn along the columns to the high arches and stained glass windows. I notice that lifting up is the natural thing to do, but as I try to run my eyes down the columns, I feel resistance. How strange… On our way out, we light a candle with a wish to keep Tatiana safe and happy. Tomorrow we leave for Dubrovnik, Croatia.
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