On Friday, we ran away from life and hopped on a train bound for San Juan Capistrano with Emily, Karen's 12 year old daughter, and Caelin, Emily's best friend. We had big plans to have tea and lunch at the Los Rios Tea House, visit the mission, do a little shopping, eat a little more, then take the train back to reality. The only thing that actually happened was the longest, funniest lunch ever. And I got yelled at by the train conductors for taking photos on the train to San Juan Cap. I am always the one who gets in trouble. They even called my picture taking suspicious! When I tried to defend myself by explaining that I am an artist, things just got worse. It's odd because my LAWYER was with me and I don't recall her saying a word. Though, I think had the doors not opened right then, she'd have whipped out a copy of our book and yelled, "SEE!!!!" Four giggling girls armed with cameras on a train sure can be a frightening thing, right?
We starving and silly girls arrived at the too cute for words tea house at 11:30. We were seated immediately and Emily and Caelin found some hats to go with their outfits. We ordered at around 11:45.
If you look closely, you'll see their cups are empty. It took an HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES for them to bring the tea to our table. TWENTY FIVE minutes after bringing the tea, they brought us each a scone. The scones were heart shaped and looked really cute on the plate. However, we could tell by looking at them they were not really the "traditional" scones we were used to, the type we ate all day long in the Mother Country. Though, these scones were very good and tasted like Barnum's Animal Crackers. We were kind of hoping for the white fluffy kind they serve at Leeds Castle.
We all ate our scones and laughed and talked and laughed and talked more and waited and waited and about THIRTY FIVE minutes later, lunch was served. FORTY minutes after lunch was served, dessert arrived. We each ordered the Mamboche (I think they made this word up), which was served in wine glasses.
See how they put that little flower on top of the whipped cream? Emily took the flower off before digging in but somehow the green stem part remained hidden in the whipped cream and was making it's way down her throat when she realized it. She immediately tried to drink some water to get it down faster but then we all started laughing and she laughed and then you know what happens when you are laughing and drinking water...somebody was bound to throw up. True to form, it was Emily who did. And true to form, she spewed in my direction, covering my camera with a regurgitated combo of berry tea, cucumber and cream cheese sandwich, and as she said, lawn mower clippings.
We left the tea house and spent our last remaining hour and a half in San Juan Capistano walking around, bursting into spontaneous laughter as Emily kept reminding us: somebody tried to kill me!
The train ride home was another adventure all together. There were no seats left and we had to sit in the luggage compartment.
There is never EVER a dull moment with us.