A look back at the trip I took with my wife and six-month-old daughter in the summer of 2003. Little did we know that it would be in the midst of an insane heatwave.
30 July 2003
As a complete afterthought, I decided to check the passports information page at the State Department to make 100% certain that Lily did not need a passport. I found, to the contrary, that even a newborn baby needs a passport. Let’s see, it’s August 30th, about 1 p.m. and we’re leaving in 48 hours. After completing my research I discovered that there were a handful of service centers that do expedited passports. One in Philadelphia and one in New York. I called both, but no appointments were available. So I widened my search to Washington D.C. and Connecticut and still nothing. Finally I was able to get an appointment for the next morning in BOSTON. I should mention that it is impossible to speak to a human being on the phone at any of these centers. The phones are all automated. They do offer a 900 number to call (!) for $5.50 if you want to speak to a human. I did, but I got absolutely nothing out of the call. “If I get an appointment, will they be able to get it done in time?” “Maybe. It depends.”
(Important note: Charlie Kratovil and Ilya Livshits stopped by the house to drop off Ilya’s Italy photos and I jokingly said: “Want to go to Boston? I’m leaving at 5 a.m.”)
By the way, the Connecticut phone system’s message differed from the rest by suggesting the desperate caller keep trying as there are often cancellations. I did and around 8 p.m. was able to secure an 11 a.m. appointment for Washington D.C. Not that much better than Boston (maybe an hour?), but a wee bit.
31 July 2003
So I get out of bed at 6 a.m., which happens to be the same time Eileen needed to get up for work. She made her way out to the garage in her zombie state and was startled to find Charlie sleeping in his car in the driveway (I didn’t tell her about my invitation). She woke him up and he said, “I’m going to Boston!” After explaining the change in plans, Charlie slapped my wife. The slap was as good as two shots of espresso, whereupon Eileen gave him the old one-two, knocking Charlie on his posterior. She then picked up his car (which was blocking hers) and placed it in the street. Did I mention Charlie drives a Matchbox car?
Okay, so only some of that happened. Charlie and I headed down together to D.C. I should also pause to mention that a few days prior to all this I threw my back out and had been going to the chiropractor on a daily basis, hoping to be healthy enough to travel! So I’m wearing this ridiculous James T. Kirk corset over my t-shirt, looking really impressive. We made good time to D.C., arriving an hour before my appointment. I followed the instructions and did not enter the building until 15 minutes before my appointment (for security reasons, supposedly). Turns out that was completely unnecessary! Also turns out that there were people there without appointments. Grrrr. I spoke with the surly receptionist who didn’t give me much indication about whether they’d get the passport done for me or not. I dreaded dealing with the clerk, thinking they’d chastise me for being so stupid — and even worse, say, “We can’t do this in time for your flight, jerk!” It took about an hour before I was called up to one of the clerks. While I waited I watched CNN on TV since I forgot to bring a book. Unfortunately the volume was rather low and most of the screen was covered with a superimposed “Now Serving” graphic, obscuring virtually all of the crawl. It’s hard to learn much from watching the corners of a muted screen. I suppose it might have been fun speculating with someone on what was going on, but Charlie was browsing at the nearby Border’s store.
When my time was drawing near I moved to the waiting section right by the windows and sized up my potential nemeses. One of the guys was gushing about his newborn child. Let him be the one! Naturally, I got a different guy. Fortunately he was pretty friendly. I guess they put the nasty people out front. Interesting strategy. He told me to come back after 2 p.m., but not after 3 p.m. (because that’s when they lock the doors).
So Charlie and I walked around for a bit and settled for lunch at Le Baguette de Paris, reliving our heady days in France. Okay, not exactly reliving them, but we had some good chow. At 2 p.m. I headed back to the passports center and waited with a sea of humanity that was truly frightening. First I had to deal with a woman playing some kind of alphabet jumble game on her PDA (or cell phone) which beeped every time she made a move. Constant: beep-beep-beep-beep-beep. I moved to the far end of the center in the more crowded waiting area and could still hear her.
But from my vantage point I could also hear people screaming at the clerks about their problems acquiring passports. One woman said: “You don’t talk to my mother that way. This is America! I demand to see a supervisor!” When he asked her to stop shouting and then warned her that he might call security she continued demanding to see a supervisor AND continued to escalate. Finally she walked away while her mother waited for a supervisor. Now I don’t know what he said (although he seemed like one of the nice clerks from what I observed), but the basic attitude of the clientele was “You people are here to serve us, where the hell is my passport?” Um, morons, you’re asking for an expedited passport. They still have to do background checks and print the booklets. Sure, I was getting frustrated with the wait (it probably was getting close to 4 p.m. when I got the passport), but it was MY fault that I waited until the last minute to figure out that a seven month old needed ID.
On the drive back Charlie spent about an hour on his cell phone discussing who Ben Weyl should invite to some get-together. It may have been one of the more annoying conversations in history. I realized that I’m really sick of driving, a far cry from those heady days when I first got my license when I would deliberately get lost just so I could drive some more. Drive is not love, folks. I noticed they even changed the slogan to “drive AND love.” Probably because of me.
Now I had to pack. Checking good old Yahoo, I looked up the weather forecast in London. Lows in the mid 50s, highs in the low 80s. I made sure to pack a couple long sleeve shirts, three pairs of pants, and my favorite sweatshirt. Eileen bought a new denim jacket. Then I got directions to JFK from Yahoo. Good ol’ Yahoo. More on that shortly.
1 August 2003
Armed with our two new duffel bag suitcases, two carry-on backpacks (ours and Lily’s), a car seat and an umbrella-style stroller, we headed out to JFK. Even if there was traffic, we should still get to the airport 2 1/2 hours before hand… or so I thought.
Following the trusty Yahoo directions (I refuse to include the exclamation point, just to piss them off), we crossed the Verrazano Bridge and looked for exit 19. Good thing I read the Yahoo disclaimer that sometimes roads and exits change, that we should take a “reality check” about their accuracy. Well, I had to check the reality when the exits jumped from exit 20 to exit 18. Improvising I got off on the next exit, hoping to find exit 19 on the other side. Unfortunately I couldn’t get back on the highway so we had to improvise out way across the island to JFK. At which point it started raining. Ah, memories. Oh yeah, and the traffic was approaching gridlock. After 30 or 45 minutes we found our way to the Belt Parkway — which was nearly a parking lot. I saw that we had 15 miles to go and quickly calculated that if we didn’t get up to 15 mph average, we’d be in danger of missing the flight. So we crawled along for an hour, at something like 5 mph as my blood pressure approached the national debt, when finally we picked up speed. Big sigh of relief, it looks like we’ll get there with a reasonable amount of time still.
So we parked at long-term parking (which ended up costing $80) and carried all of our bundles to the bus stop. Where we waited. And waited. Then the bus came and we crammed our stuff and ourselves on board. And then we picked up more people and more luggage. And more and more and more. Then we drove for 10 minutes on the highway to get to terminal 5 for unloading and loading (how far are those parking lots away from the airport?!). Then terminal 6. Then finally, terminal 7.
Fortunately we still made the flight, but not without a couple of anxious moments offset by a great stroke of luck. Our seats were not at the bulkhead where the air bassinet we requested is supposed to go. We asked the flight attendant about it and she told us that we should have been seated there, but that the bassinets basically stink, so it’s not really that big of a deal. Just having the leg room, we thought, would have been worth it. However, just before takeoff the same flight attendant found us three seats together (by getting one person to move to our vacated seats). We put the car seat between us and Lily was able to sit/lie comfortably and safely. She ended up sleeping through most of the flight. When she was awake she was smiling at the other passengers. I’m sure most of the folks nearby were horrified to see such a young baby near them at the beginning of the flight, but by all complimented us (really her) on how good a flier she was.
I ended up watching three movies on the flight, “Identity, “Anger Management” and “View From the Top,” three movies I ordinarily wouldn’t have seen. I wanted to like Identity, but the homage to “And Then There Were None” or “Ten Little Indians” was obvious immediately — and that gave away one of the many twists that came at the end of the film. The final twist had occurred to me very early on as well. An interesting idea (and a very appropriate title), just not a good film. “Anger Management” was a pleasant surprise. I cringed several times at some really awful material, but I did laugh out loud several times. It was a real surprise to see Sandler NOT playing the same character as the rest of his movies. In fact, in many ways it was the opposite role he played; instead of being the child-man lashing out at everything, he kept everything bottled up. The scene on the plane was great — who hasn’t been the recipient of the “Calm down” speech? “I am calm, but if you keep talking to me like that, I’m not going to be calm anymore!” And as corny as it was, I thought the “I Feel Pretty” scene on the bridge was really cute. Finally, I have to admit I laughed a number of times at “View From the Top.” Not at Mike Myers’ stuff which reminded me of Eddie Murphy in “Best Defense.” (Hey, this guy’s hot, let’s expand his cameo into a big role. We’ll use every piece of footage we shot!) And the shots of Paris made me long to return there.
2 August 2003
So the flight was great and we arrived at Heathrow on time. We exchanged money at what must have been a terrible rate, getting 98 pounds to start with. At immigration they saw Eileen carrying the baby and let us jump the entire queue. We got our bags and headed outside where it was muggy and felt like significantly more than the 75 degrees we were expecting.
We found the taxi stand and were told that a trip to where we were going would usually cost about 42 to 44 pounds, but that there was a meter that would keep track for us. The metered taxis are really showy in London, looking nothing like the regular cars. As we approached London we ran into really bad traffic. The taxi driver was not very communicative, so we just guessed at the sites we were seeing. By the time we found our hotel, the fare had risen to 51 pounds plus our 5 pound tip, which comes to about $90. Yikes!
The Carlton Court facility on Maida Vale looked nice on the outside. We rang the doorbell to get buzzed in and made our way to reception, noticing the freaky four-foot wooden cartoon character on the door to their office. They informed us that the lift was broken. We made our way upstairs in now stifling heat to find our little flat which include a kitchenette, two twin beds, and no air conditioning. There was a fan in the closet, so we plugged that in, opened the windows, and pushed the beds together. Our flight had left in the early evening, but with the time change, it was now morning in the UK. They say that to avoid jetlag you should jump right into the schedule wherever you are, but it simply wasn’t possible and we slept for several hours before venturing outside for food.
Our hotel was not centrally located, but it was within “Zone 2.” There are 5 zones, with one being the center. We decided that our first meal would be the traditional English fish and chips. We put Lily in the stroller and walked towards the center of the city. A large “fish and chips” sign couldn’t mask the fact that the restaurant we chose had the meal we were looking for. We were surprised to see so many different choices of fish. I went with the cod and Eileen had the haddock. The breading was made from matzoh meal, interestingly enough. The meal was okay, but nothing special.
We then decided to try the tube. Finding the nearest Underground station (a half mile from the hotel), we threw ourselves on the mercy of the clerk. “We’ve never traveled on the tube before… what do we do?” He asked where we wanted to go and how long we were going to be in town. He recommended we buy a week pass good for travel on the subway and for the buses (and I think some trains) within zones 1 and 2. For 20 pounds, we wouldn’t find a better deal on anything in London. He also indicated that we shouldn’t go through the regular turnstiles with the baby because some little ones had been hurt on strollers or in slings. They had a door for handicapped people and for people with babies. Simply go over to it, show your pass, and on you go.
The London Underground has a bevy of lines, but it’s pretty easy to understand once you orient yourself. France and Italy have better systems in terms of figuring out where you’re going — you don’t say “north” or “east,” you just head in the direction of the last stop. However, in most cases it’s pretty easy to figure out which direction you’re headed. I had a bit of trouble with the Circle line, though (it’s actually shaped like a beer bottle on its side). For the most part though, we stayed on the Bakerloo line as it got us where we needed to go.
Our first stop was Piccadilly Circus, which should be renamed Times Square UK for all of the neon billboards. The fountains and sculptures make it a bit nicer. Throngs of tourists made us keep our stay short, but not before visiting a coffee shop, which turned out to be an offshoot of Virgin’s megastore. They don’t seem to serve much American-style coffee in London. Virtually everything is espresso based. In most cases I had to compromise with café latte.
We then wandered around for a bit, stumbling on Trafalgar Square which houses the National Gallery and a couple of beautiful fountains. It was extremely reminiscent of the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps in Rome, with people hanging out by the fountains watching the world go by. I took photos of Nelson’s column and some other sculptures and caught site of Big Ben down the road. So naturally we walked down to the Parliament, took some more photos and then realized it was time for dinner. We searched in vain for whatever kind of restaurant we were looking for and ultimately decided to head back to the area near our hotel for some Chinese food.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything open (as Eileen put the baby to sleep) and had to go to the Sainsbury supermarket chain where I picked up some water, bread, crackers, cheese and apples for a makeshift dinner. I discovered that Frosted Flakes are “Frosties” in England. Those crazy Brits. (You shouldn’t listen to pans and you shouldn’t trust British people.)
I found Eileen and Lily wide awake. We hate and unsuccessfully continued to try to put Lily to bed. She finally went down at midnight.
3 August 2003
Because of the late night the night before — and because this was in fact our vacation — we slept late. We strolled around the area before picking a breakfast spot. Eileen tried the traditional English breakfast while I got something simpler (can’t remember what). Eileen’s plate consisted of sausage, fat bacon (more like ham), baked beans, undercooked scrambled eggs, potato triangles and FRIED bread. Nothing like a healthy start to one’s day.
We headed for the tube with the intention of going to Hyde Park and checking out the Speaker’s Corner. However we probably got out at the wrong stop (actually, we should have taken a bus) and walked around. We saw a number of familiar streets like Wimpole and stopped at an obscure English coffee shop known as Starbucks. Because Europe is so espresso-centered, their coffee was an afterthought. Unlike in the States where Starbucks usually offers three brews, here you got one. And no one uses half-and-half. Eileen had to ask for cream which they kept behind the counter.
We finally made our way to the Marble Arch and Hyde Park. By this time it was screamingly hot, somewhere in the mid-90s with high humidity. Eileen was beginning to wilt (probably in part due to that awful English breakfast). An odd looking fellow walked past us with what appeared — to me — to be a huge tumor on his neck. Eileen said it was a leg, but I think she may have been feverish.
The Speaker’s Corner is a Sunday tradition wherein people mouth off about whatever issue they care for — and the public heckles or engages them in conversation. The guy we heard was an American preaching about Christianity. Not only was he wearing a pair of pants with “Jesus Saves” emblazoned on them, he had snake-skin boots with “Jesus” on them. It wasn’t quite as interesting as the Parliament debates we occasionally watch on C-SPAN.
So we hopped on a bus which took us to Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately the main museum was being evacuated because of a fire alarm, so we spent time in the annex looking at Renaissance art. Just what I needed, more Renaissance art after my time in Italy. We spent a bit of time in the regular museum eventually, but not enough for my taste. But by this point the three of us were all dragging so we had to move on. At least we got to see “Sunflowers” and a number of other well-known pieces by Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Seurat. One room had the names of three artists including Fragonard, who I know a little bit about, but I was disappointed to find a single Fragonard painting there. I realized that we probably wouldn’t make it back to the museum on this trip, but already my mind was racing with the possibilities of a return to both London and the Gallery.
For lunch we found one of the restaurants my friend Mike recommended, Wagamama. It’s a mostly Japanese restaurant with some touches of Chinese. It’s actually a chain so I don’t know if all are laid out just like this, but our restaurant was in the basement of a building. The seating is basically cafeteria style (long continuous tables). If you go during the busy hours, you will be sitting next to or across from total strangers. We were eating at 3 p.m., so we mostly had the place to ourselves. The food staple at Wagamama is ramen, but not that horrendous stuff every college student stocks up on. Freshly made noodles in a tasty broth, with a bevy of variations. The zeitgeist of the place is positive eating, with each of the ingredients carefully selected to enhance the body chemistry. The meal certainly was refreshing. Maybe it was in our heads, but we did feel like it gave us a much better boost than any ordinary meal might have. I haven’t adequately described the restaurant, but it undoubtedly would be a hit in American cities. They’ve got branches in several European cities, so it’s probably a matter of time. Maybe a good investment, eh?
We needed to give Lily nap time (and our legs a rest) so we went to the hotel to relax. I checked my email — only 24 opportunities to buy Viagra or augment my person through better science. Back at the hotel I found time to start my journal. We though we’d get an early night, but once again Lily didn’t want to go to sleep. I walked her around the hotel courtyard for awhile and finally at 1 a.m. she went down.
4 August 2003
We awoke close to 10 a.m. and decided we needed to work out a new travel strategy for the baby if we were going to make the most of this trip. We also came to grips with the fact that we were not going to experience any traditional British weather as each day seemed hotter than the last. Thanks, Yahoo.
I went out with the baby to a local café and bought a couple of fried eggs on toast with “coffee.” I didn’t notice the menu said “coffee” and “filter coffee.” I can only guess that I was drinking instant. Odd that they’d be the same price. I brought half the food back for Eileen just in time for Lily to get her morning nap. Eileen took the opportunity to get some coffee and check her email.
The only negative with starting our day so leisurely is that we were stuck with the hottest weather possible. We took the tube to Baker Street where we thought about checking out old 221B and possibly Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. But first, lunch. We settled on an ordinary café where I wanted the lasagna, but they didn’t have it, so instead I had vegetarian pasta. Eileen’s first choice was also out of stock. Figures that we’d subsequently find three or four much better-looking restaurants.
The Sherlock Holmes museum is basically a shop with mostly Holmesian souveniers. I don’t know why I particularly wanted to see it. After all, a museum dedicated to a fictional character is kind of silly. Though I suppose it’s nice that Conan Doyle chose a real address instead of the 555 telephone number equivalent. Near the Holmes museum was a joint Beatles and Elvis shop filled with mostly worthless crap, but a few really neat items that were priced beyond our budget.
And speaking of beyond our budget, the Tussaud tickets were nearly 20 pounds apiece. If they had genuine stuffed versions of their exhibits, it wouldn’t be worth $32 per person, sorry. Wilting from the heat we knew it was time to give Lily (and ourselves) a break from the heat and return to the hotel. Of course, once again it was ridiculously hot in the hotel room so we took turns taking cold showers. The nicest feature of the hotel room had to be the shower stall with one of those huge shower heads directly overhead. Virtually every hotel I’ve ever stayed in provided shower caps and I’ve always wondered why. How hard is it to avoid getting your hair wet with a conventional shower? This is the only type of shower that would require you to cover up to avoid getting wet. Of course one’s wet hair dried in minutes in this heat, so there was no point.
Oh and by the way, it wasn’t so much the heat as the stupidity.
At the hotel I began reading The Onion Field, a true crime book about the murder of a police officer and the subsequent insane legal proceedings. I’ve always had the movie on my “to see” list, but never got around to it. Powerful stuff.
Our next excursion would be dinner. It had cooled off a bit, so we boarded a bus and headed towards the center of town, stopping in what apparently is a Lebanese district. We picked a nice looking restaurant and we split appetizers of falafel and homus. For the entrée I had shish kebab. Loved the appetizers, hated the main course.
We had been told by Edwin Beckham (no relation, I think) that the best way to see the city was from the top of an open double-decker tour bus at dusk. Our timing hadn’t been right up until now, but being near one of the major stops we seized the opportunity. The modus operandi of the bus tours are that your ticket is good for 24 hours and you can hop on and off the company’s buses at any point along their route. Want to see the Westminster Abbey? Get off, see it and get back on again. We hoped to take the entire two-hour tour and then use the bus a couple of times the next day. (Of course that was silly since we already had the 2-zone bus/tube pass which would take us anywhere we wanted to go!) We missed out on the chance to see the entire tour this evening, but got to see 4/5 of it. Some of the buses have a taped guide, but we picked one with a live person. Our guide was a British woman named Lady who had a pretty lame sense of humor. Still she shared a series of fascinating details about British history that made me realize I’d like to do a London-only trip with a tour guide who can really do it justice. I liked Lady’s stories about architect Christopher Wren who sat outside St. Paul’s Cathedral telling passersby, “I built this.” She pointed out Waterloo Bridge with its self-cleaning stones, built primarily by women during the Second World War. Lady said that the lion statues at Nelson’s Column were not based on lions as none existed in England; the sculptor used his cats and dogs as models. As we drove along the Thames I wondered why so there were sets of steps running into the water; she explained that before the bridges were built folks like Shakespeare and Wren had to catch boats to get across the water. It is actually against the law for anyone to remove them to maintain the area’s history. And she regaled us with stories about the Tower of London, the royals, and many, many more things that slip my mind since I wasn’t taking notes. (See kids, this is why you need to keep up with your journals!)
At first we couldn’t get a seat on the open part of the upper level, but after 20 minutes or so we made our way back and enjoyed a great view and — finally — the perfect temperature with the cool wind blowing through our hair.
Back at the hotel a news report indicated that this was the hottest summer in the UK since 1976 and if the weather continued like this much longer, it might be the hottest in recorded history. I made a quick run for precious, precious water and checked my email. Only 18 opportunities for me to increase my bust size. The pricing at the Internet cafés is very reasonable, 50 pence (half a pound) for 30 minutes. That’s like 80 cents. Although it was only a few blocks away, with my bus pass I could hop on a bus in front of the hotel, get dropped off in front of the Internet Café and vice versa. Brilliant!
Lily went to sleep at a reasonable hour today, finally having adjusted to the new time zone. Although her sleep pattern was off, we couldn’t be happier with how well she was holding up in the unfamiliar surroundings and the oppressive heat. She’s quite a trooper, that girl.
I should take a moment to mention that virtually every service worker in London is a foreigner. At our hotel, the three clerks were Italian, Dutch and Russian. We encountered Indians, Pakistanis, French, Lebanese, Canadian, Spanish, etc. And when you figure in the millions of tourists, you may very well have the most multi-ethnic society in the world.
5 August 2003
Everyone’s familiar with some of the differences between British English and American English (e.g., lift-elevator, tube-subway), but we encountered a few items that took awhile to decipher. The first was “jacket potatoes.” Ultimately we learned that these were good old baked potatoes with the skin (or jacket). We kept seeing “rocket,” which we knew had to be some kind of lettuce-y green. Turned out this is what they called arugula. And “aubergine” is what they call eggplant. This has been your Anglo-language lesson.
On one of our journeys we noticed a bagel place not too far away, so I went out to see just how bad British bagels would be. Eileen usually prefers Everything bagels, but knowing they might not have them I got second, third and fourth choices of sesame, salt and plain. Arriving at the shop I found a handful of bagels on the counter comprising maybe 10% of what they were selling. Four varieties — onion, poppy, plain and a fourth that escapes me. I bought one of each of the first three. They were less than zero, as it were.
A perk of the 24-hour bus ticket is a 50-minute cruise on the Thames. We listened to a tape tour while tooling around the dirty waters of the river. Much of the information we had heard the previous night, but some of it was informative. Unfortunately it was miserably hot once more (reaching 96 degrees), so our enjoyment was severely curtailed. We decided to find some indoor entertainment and set out to buy tickets to the London Dungeon, a museum of horrors (e.g., Jack the Ripper, the Great Plague), but I idiotically left in the hotel the key that opens the lock on the pocket where I was keeping my money. It was probably for the best as we later read a description of the Dungeon as inappropriate for young children. I don’t know if they have monsters jumping out at the guests or what, but we wouldn’t want to terrify our seven month old. Of course she thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world when we pretend we’re rabid dogs trying to devour her, so who knows?
So we headed home to get the key and Lily her nap. Then we went in search of a late lunch finding that the British pubs that we wanted to eat at didn’t open their kitchens until 5 or 6 p.m. I can’t remember where we ate, I just know I had falafel again. The dish in London seems to be heavy on sesame, the way I remember it from Israel many years back.
Our next stop was the British Library, a site which is barely mentioned in the tour book we bought. Fortunately Mike regaled us about this place in his journal. The building is pretty hideous from the outside and consequently (we learned) was very controversial among Londoners. However, there’s no disputing the amazing contents of the museum. The highlight was the room that featured — get this — the Magna Carta, the earliest Gutenberg Bible, original works of Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Chaucer, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Lennon and McCartney and so much more. There were unbelievably intricately designed Indian, Chinese, Korean, Muslim and Japanese books with amazing artwork on every page. They even had a neat bank of computers with the ability to look at each page of selected cherished books in the museum. It didn’t take long to look at these documents, but it was one of those awe-inspiring moments approaching my viewing of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City or the American cemetery at Normandy. And to top it all off there was a neat display of Hamlet-related things, including Hamlet in KLINGON.
We noticed on the map that the Charles Dickens Museum was nearby in the house he lived in when wrote “Oliver Twist.” We walked through the beautiful district of Bloomsbury fantasizing about what it would be like to live there. We got to the museum shortly before closing and I ultimately decided I didn’t really need to pay 7 pounds to see the man’s writing desk. As we continued our walk we came across the home that Dorothy L. Sayers lived in. All around London you can find blue circles which explain what significant historical or artistic figure had slept there.
We weren’t too far from Soho, so we decided we wanted something Asian for dinner. We wanted to try a sushi place Mike had recommended but also were considering a Thai place our book was pushing. We searched and searched for Itsu (Mike’s restaurant), but as we didn’t have an address, it proved pretty difficult to find. Chinatown is nearby and the sheer number of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian and Thai restaurants is staggering. So we shifted to plan B, the Thai restaurant Busaba. We found its street and headed towards the restaurant only to find Itsu first! So sushi it was.
And what a cool place Itsu is. You sit at a booth as a variety of sushi, salads, soups and desserts weave around you on a conveyor belt. There are five or six different color stripes that indicate the price of the item. You see something you like, you grab it. If you want to order something from the cooked menu or want a drink, you press a button and a server comes to your table. I’m not a huge sushi eater, but I do like California rolls (California rolls are to sushi as Impressionism is to great art) and these were the best I ever had, probably due to the fact that they contained real crab and not “crabstick.” This was Lily’s favorite stop during out vacation as I danced with her to the Japanese techno music they had playing. She laughed and laughed as I raised her hands over her head, to the side, in front. I am the funniest man on the planet. All in all the food was secondary to the experience.
We headed back to the hotel, but not before picking out some postcards. I’ve begun a (hopefully) fun running gag of sending Mike the tackiest postcard I can find in a given place. I picked something pretty hideous… but was to find something even worse the next day. Sorry, can’t describe it here!
6 August 2003
Today we wanted to sleep late, but Lily woke us up with her morning smile. She’s the cheeriest little thing once she wakes up. Everything makes her smile in that first hour or so.
We decided to get breakfast at a place the book recommended, Patisserie Valerie de Sagne. The charming little café had an array of baked goods (pain au chocolat AND chocolate croissant… can’t beat that). Our waiter loved the baby and kept playing with her throughout the meal. I was excited to see brioche french toast on the menu, but as was my luck throughout the trip, they were out of brioches. Or of frenches. I settled for runny eggs, latte and a miraculous chocolate croissant. Mmmmm.
On our walk back to the tube we saw a neat vegetarian restaurant called “Eat and Two Veg,” a Shaker furniture store, and an array of neat shops. A lovely upscale section of London. And like Somerville, cars are required to stop at crosswalks whenever a pedestrian approaches. We didn’t always trust that they would stop (London drivers are pretty insane), but they were on their best behavior.
Next we made our way to one of the markets described in a book on flea markets and antiques in France and England that Eileen bought. Alfie’s market was a multistory bazaar featuring old furniture, ancient postcards and an array of items we coveted. Eileen shopped around but didn’t find any bargains. I was too sore (feet) and too hot (100 degrees) to do any significant looking.
We then took our afternoon siesta and made our way to nearby Little Venice. We had never heard of this place but saw a bunch of signs for it and I was particularly curious since I had seen the real deal a few weeks prior. We figured we’d get lunch along the canal or on a boat, but apparently very few establishments are open during the lunch hour there. We just saw a bunch of houseboats lined up along the smelly canal along with a few restaurants, all of which were closed, crowded or in the bright, hot sunlight. It was an unfortunate decision to go here, so we went back to Soho instead for a restaurant recommended to us by a guy who helped pave our driveway! He was British and had actually been a cook for several years in London and Rome. Strada, an Italian restaurant, had a beautiful décor (we felt rather underdressed). We ordered the garlic and rosemary bread first. It was tasty, but was basically the pita-like crusty bread they use for pizza in Italy. My insalate cesare was quite good as well, but the real golden touch was the complementary ice-cold bottled and filtered water they kept bringing. With this heat, we needed plenty of liquid replenishment. Lily was suffering a bit from the heat and started getting a bit grumpy just as our entrees were served. Eileen didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy her gnocchi, while I scarfed down a delicious linguine with calamari, mussels and shrimp.
We needed to get out of there quickly because Lily needed to be changed, to nurse and to nap. The air conditioning blowing out of a major department store enticed us in, thinking we’d use their bathroom to change Lily. We followed the signs to their baby changing room on the fifth floor. After the first level, no more air conditioning. The heat was stifling, but Eileen managed to change Lily and we headed home.
We had made plans to try to see the Parliament after our lunch, but Lily needed the down time. Eileen didn’t want me to miss the Parliament so I headed out on my own. I wasn’t worried about the lateness of the hour when I left since our tour book said the Parliament’s hours were until an astounding 10 p.m. Well, the book was wrong. I settled for a souvenir store where I bought my nieces their presents and a “Mind the Gap” onesy for the baby.
I love the British use of the word “mind.” Mind you, we use it in the same way occasionally, as in “Mind your manners.” All over the place you’ll signs saying “Mind the step” or most frequently on the tube, “Mind the gap.” At one station, I think it’s Picadilly, a voice sounding suspiciously like one of the Number Twos in “The Prisoner” intones, “Mind the gap” over and over again. Apparently we weren’t the only ones taken with the phrase as vendors sell t-shirts and posters as well as baby bibs and the aforementioned onesies with that slogan.
7 August 2003
So at this point, despite the fact that we’ve taken a couple of very circuitous routes in getting where we were going, we were brimming with our ability to successfully navigate the London mass transit system. This morning we decided to go to a restaurant the book recommended called “Tootsies.” We took the Bakerloo line to a tube stop where we could transfer to the Cirlce Line that would bring us directly to our stop — and found a million people packed into the waiting area. Two lines stopped at this area, one that would bring us pretty directly to where we wanted to go and the other which would bring us half way. When the latter train came we decided to get on rather than deal with the mob of people. Mistake #2. We got off at the logical place and hopped aboard a bus that should have taken us exactly where we wanted to go. Mistake #3, as we got on the bus going in the wrong direction. When I realized that none of the streets we were passing were even on the big map, we decided to get off the bus. Finally we found the stop for the bus going the other direction and got to our destination. You might be wandering what mistake #1 was — I didn’t notice that the Bakerloo line actually goes all the way to South Kensington in the first place! Sigh. To complete our morning, Tootsies didn’t open until noon on this fine day. So we settled for an Italian café. I got egg and bacon on a croissant. Once again the bacon was really thick. Normally I wouldn’t touch what amounted to ham, but I was so hungry I ate half of it. Not bad.
With all the transportation screw-ups we didn’t have time to get back to the hotel for Lily’s nap and still make a 2 p.m. appointment, so instead we went to a park next to the Parliament. The appointment was for a guided walking tour of Westminster, focusing on the history of the Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the surrounding area. I knew which tube stop it was to meet at, but as I foolishly left the brochure at the hotel I wasn’t sure which of the six disparate exits. I left Eileen and Lily to see if I could find a brochure. I ended up walking all the way up Whitehall Street in vain before having a light bulb go off in my mind. Why not just call information and get connected to London Walks, the tour company? I dutifully dialed 118 118, their equivalent of 10-10-220, and got the information.
When I got back from my frantic search, Eileen related the bad news that Lily had not fallen asleep and was getting kind of cranky. She decided to take Lily to the hotel but urged me to go on the tour. I was disappointed for Eileen, but as I wasn’t getting to see the Parliament, I really wanted to get a little bit of insight into the history of the area.
For five pounds ($8), you get a two-hour walking tour replete with anecdotes, answers to your questions, and spectacular insight. The guide for this trip turned out to be David, who prior to the last 25 years in London grew up in the midwest. With his booming voice… no, sorry, BOOMING VOICE, he managed to drown out the loud traffic and afford his group of 30 or so individuals all the skinny. He pointed out two yellow lamps outside of the Parliament with “Taxi” on them. When they are lit, it means that a member of the body needs a cab. Apparently the taxi drivers much prefer members of the House of Lords as they are better tippers. David informed us that the Parliament’s records were all kept on vellum (goat skin). He said they were finally debating whether to switch to paper and gave three arguments for the change: (1) vellum smells really bad, (2) the 4-page London Walks brochure would cost 29 pounds to print on vellum, and (3) paper is more goat-friendly than vellum.
As he walked us from place to place he waxed rhapsodic about the history of London, sometimes slipping into the pompous and overblown, but just as often hitting upon a poetic turn of phrase. The glint in his eye made it clear he was a true Anglophile and lover of history. He explained the Guy Fawkes attempt to blow up the Parliament in some detail. It seems that Fawkes and his gang had rented out space in the basement of the Parliament (!) and had managed to get tons of explosives into the building. A “don’t be there on this date” letter sent to one member that they respected tipped off the authorities and their plot was uncovered. He also told the compelling tale of Sir Walter Raleigh’s execution, referring to it as a turning point in history.
David showed us the statue of Oliver Cromwell in front of the Parliament building and contrasted it with the bust of Charles I across the way. He said that Royalists claimed that Cromwell was hanging his head in shame for his role in Chuck’s demise. Then he explained that after the return to monarchy it was decided that Cromwell should be beheaded, even though he was already several years dead. They dug up his body, chopped it into pieces and stuck the head on a pike on the roof of the Parliament where it remained for many years until it was accidentally dislodged by workers on the roof. It rolled onto the grassy area in front where some “lucky” worker got a disgusting souvenir. Today, Cromwell’s head is being housed at his college. Eeew.
Oh yeah, another head story: Raleigh’s head was lopped off in his execution, placed in a velvet lined box and given to his wife who kept it on her mantle until she died. Double eeew.
Other tidbits:
The banks of the Thames is stone with small lions’ heads near the top. Way back when police officers were told to keep their eye on the busts because “When the lion drinks, London will drown.”
He explained the origins of the expression “couldn’t hold a candle” as there was a job known as “link holder” (or torch bearer) reserved for people who earned the respect of nobility. Along our walk he pointed out a cone-shaped device at someone’s front door which served as a link extinguisher.
He showed us the former homes of many well known people including Margaret Thatcher, Oswald Moseley (the founder of the fascist movement in the UK), the first head of the BBC (who was so Puritanical that he was said to turn Jesus away from the studio because of “lingering questions about your mother”).
Finally he showed us the new busts as Westminster Abbey for the 20th century martyrs Archbishop Romero and Martin Luther King Jr.
It was a tremendous tour, one that I would heartily recommend to anyone heading to London — and one of about 50 that the company offers. For $8, you can’t beat it.
For dinner we went to a Thai restaurant near the hotel. We noted another English English issue — they don’t use the word shrimp, just prawns. We had gung tod as an appetizer (with corn a seemingly unusual addition to ingredients) and a delicious salad and coconut soup. I had my usual Pad Thai as the entrée. It wasn’t the Thai restaurant that was recommended to us, but it was outstanding, if a bit on the spicy side.
8 August 2003
Our final day in London began with our visit to Café Nero, voted the best coffee shop (chain) in London. We each got a latte and pain au chocolat. The latte was really strong (two shots of espresso) and the pain ordinary. Oh well. On to Abbey Road!
We went off course again, but this time on foot. We didn’t have an address for the studio so we just walked the length of the street finally finding it at one end. Sadly the entire wall in front of the building is covered in graffiti by so-called Beatles fans. Some quoted the great lines (“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”) and others were morons (“Molly is a singer in the band”). Because it’s the law for fans, we had to traverse the crosswalk. A couple of Asian guys must have crossed it 10 times while we were there. Time for Lily’s nap!
We got lunch at a couple of sandwich shops, Eileen trying the Pret a Manger chain. I couldn’t find anything I wanted there so I went across the street to an independent store and got a pastrami sandwich. The guy asked if I wanted salad and it took me a minute to figure out he meant toppings on the sandwich.
We then walked to the British Museum. I decided to get the audio guide, although I didn’t really use it very much. There are so many thousands of different items in this museum, it’s simply staggering. We started in the Native American area, moved onto a variety of Asian exhibits, and went through the criminally huge Egyptian stuff (criminally, because they plundered Egypt!). I raced through the Greek and Roman stuff to find a neat couple of rooms on currency and timepieces. I felt like you genuinely could spend a week at the museum — with a guide — and still not get the complete experience.
For our final dinner we headed over to the Southbank of the Thames for a seafood establishment the book recommended, Livebait. Eileen got the sea trout and I got the Lemon Sole. We ordered sides of chips and mash(ed potatoes). Eileen’s salad sucked, but the fish were very good — and the chips fantastic. Although there were a million more things to do and sights to see, we were ready to head back home — knowing full well that we’d be back.
Eileen got Lily to go to sleep at a reasonable hour and asked me for a glass of water. In the dark I handed it to her, but we fumbled the transfer dropping the water all over the bed. Lily got some of the cold, cold water on her, but miraculously didn’t wake up. But since it was 400 degrees in our room, the water dried pretty quickly.
9 August 2003
We had ample time to get ready in the morning, so Eileen finished packing while I went out once more for coffee, croissants and some money for the taxi. Our driver arrived on time and chatted with us throughout the ride to the airport. He said, “You’ve seen the best of London… I’m going to show you the worst.” He took us past Little Venice and incorrectly told us that the real city was going to be under water by 2020, and that the Londoners were going to have recreated it by then. Then he took us through the White City and explained how the creation of Wembley Stadium turned this area into an abandoned slum. He explained how much London had changed in the 30 years he’d been here (he was from India, we think), with staggering inflation and an influx of undesirable criminal elements. I prefer our blissfully ignorant, romantic notion of London to his jaded one. Obviously the weather was a freak occurrence, so the only real negative I took away from my experience in London was the air pollution. Not only would we come back from our adventures all sweaty, we’d have grime in every fold of our skin. Indeed, there were warnings about the levels of pollution while we were there. London is doing what it can to reduce car traffic by making it exorbitantly expensive (more so) to drive a car in the city and by improving the mass transit system. They’ve got a long way to go, but it will be worth it.
For sightseeing I don’t know of a city with more to offer, other than perhaps New York — and I’ve lived so close to the city that I don’t really have any perspective on it anymore. I’ve never been to the Empire State Building, never went to the top of the World Trade Center when it was around (although I was in the lobby), and I never saw the Statue of Liberty close up (oh shut up New Jersey, everyone knows that’s New York). For diversity and number of restaurants, again only New York compares. I guess they have a lot in common when you figure in pollution, crime, diverse population. At least the British have an infinitely cooler accent, that is if you can actually find a British person in London. And I guess the big advantage London has over Paris and Rome is that MOST of the people there speak my language, or some derivation of it. I’m planning to make more of an effort to learn the language of places I go in the future, but being able to be lazy is nice, and being able to know that I’ll be able to communicate if I need help is comforting.
I’m actually so enamored with London that I’m probably going to scuttle my plans to go to Scotland next summer with students in favor of a London trip. This is on top of the possibility of spending a couple days in London when the Model UN goes to Bath.
Oh, but I almost forgot the flight home. We got to Heathrow with plenty of time to spare. Eileen looked for a couple of last minute souvenirs, she got coffee, and we changed the baby. We were so early that they hadn’t posted which of the 55 gates the flight would be leaving from, but because we didn’t want to be in the most crowded area, we randomly selected a set of gates. Once we got there I saw our flight listed at a particular gate on the other side of the airport, so we headed over there. Only it wasn’t our flight, it was another flight to New York that left five minutes earlier. The employee at that gate told us to watch the monitor nearby and we did and the minutes ticked off. It actually was 30 minutes to departure when suddenly the flight and gate came up on the monitor with “last call” next to it! WHA? Of course, once again, the gate was on the other side of the airport so we ran like our trip back to America depended on it and made the flight.
On board we go the bulkhead giving us ample leg room — in fact for awhile Lily slept in her car seat at our feet. She was great, once again, on the plane. It helped that a friendly Scottish man was a few seats away from us and he played with her for quite awhile. And one of the male flight attendants was taken with Lily, shirking his duties for long stretches of time to tickle her.
Of course I know that everyone reads these travelogues to read my in-flight movie reviews; reviews of films that I would otherwise never see. First I watched “Basic,” another overplotted suspense film with more twists than you can shake a stick at. Go ahead, I’ve got a bunch of sticks for you to use. It killed 90 minutes or so which in any other venue I’d be fuming about. Much better was “Down With Love,” a surprisingly funny Doris Day-Rock Hudson styled film with Ewan McGregor (who I love) and Renee Zellweger (whose career I simply can’t fathom). I laughed out loud several times and just love the look and feel of the film. Nice job by the production crew. Of the five films I watched on United Airlines, this was by far the best.
As far as our actual vacation went, we had a very good time overall. The weather made it difficult at times and traveling with an infant is a daunting task. We couldn’t have expected Lily to be any better than she was; for the most part she was her smiling, happy self, flirting with every stranger she saw. She got cranky at times, but so did her parents. She didn’t seem to understand the whole time zone thing even though we explained it to her several times. It was too early for us to leave her with her grandparents, but we’re probably not going to take her overseas again for several years. Something in the continental United States or Toronto is much more likely for her next adventure. But when she’s five, it’s on to China!
Fenster on Education 