Day 21: Please Take Care Of This Bear

  At Paddington Station there is a bronze statue in honor of the area's most famous resident. Paddinton Bear has barely a moment's rest from all of the children climbing on him, and posing for pictures with him. His nose has been rubbed by their little hands so often it shines like a well used door knob. Sylvia says it gives him the appearance of a pig. Greg thinks it's more like a weasel. Whatever the case I took a moment to snap a picture of him on his suitcase as we sat beside him with ours on the last morning in London.

  The day was a grueling one. Even in business class I found it impossible to sleep on an airplane. After a nine hour flight we had a six hour lay-over in Seattle. It was bad planning on our part, but I was too tired to hear Greg repeat it ad nauseam. I hadn't traveled from Darkest Peru like Paddington, but I was starting to feel very bear-ish. I trudged around Sea-Tac swilling coffee and browsing at weird airport stores until our flight finally departed. We had been awake for 24 hours by the time we finally crawled between the sheets of our very own bed. It was 12:30 a.m., and even though our bodies felt like it was 7 a.m. we fell to sleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.