Parents at the Hash

After a relatively slow day (two weeks of non-stop touristing had kind of taken it out of us), I brought my parents to the hash on Tuesday, which was either inspired or stupid, I can't decide which.

I introduced my parents to a few people before the run, and then left them at the pub while the rest of us went tearing off on a run around Canary Wharf. Unfortunately the guy setting the run didn't count on the fact that they might polish the floors on the section of the run going through a shopping mall, so everyone got COMPLETELY lost on the run, I ended up running around with an American girl who was just in town visiting friends, and it was 9 PM before we made it back to the pub. (Normal is around 8-8:15 PM, so I was out almost an hour longer than usual).

In a weird way I was relieved, as there were none of the regular cute boys there, not Non-Drinking Boy, not the Texan, or even the Adorable Anthony. Which made it so much easier just to hang out and chat with my parents, with no other weird awkwardness of trying to pay attention to boys.

After the run, they introduced my parents to everyone, and made a joke about how they were Americans over trying to get free healthcare on the NHS. Given that my parents are ardent Democrats who have been totally impressed by my experiences with the NHS, that was a joke that went over well.

Of course, one of the random guys decided to take advantage of the fact that my parents were there by putting on a big show as though we'd been dating and he was now finally getting to meet my parents, but I just shrugged it off and kept laughing.

After we'd had our post-run circle and announcements, my parents headed home, their first time attempting to take the Tube by themselves. I will admit I was like a mother hen, nervous about the first attempt by the hatchlings to leave the nest, but in the end they made it home safely (although not without attempting to take the train going the wrong direction first).

I stayed on just chatting and hanging out with people, including Devo (funny American guy from New York), and a Scottish guy I know, where we got into a long debate about how many kisses on each cheek are appropriate. Americans don't generally do kissing, Latin Americans do only one kiss, whilst the English alternate between just one or two, and the French go for three.

So the Scottish guy concluded that one should just keep going back and forth kissing until the other person got weirded out, which then led to a long kissing contest with myself and Devo when I tried to leave. Finally after I was starting to get beard burn (there must have been at least 17 kisses in there!) I pulled away, leaving Devo to declare victory.

But on the whole, very chill evening away from my parents, which in the end I suppose was the break I needed.