This week's words are
I must admit that when I left the house in the morning, I had some reservations. I certainly was excited to meet the attending minions, but what the hell was I doing taking a full day out of my 12-day vacation, leaving my wife and children behind, and going all the way into the city (30+ minutes by train) to meet people I only knew from blogs and a few emails? Originally I'd hoped wife and wee ones would accompany me, but our wiser selves realized the kids would have been bored out of their skulls as soon as their sodas were finished.
OK, so long story short: Conversation went from zero to sixty in about oh-point-two seconds, and it did not let up (even after FHH and hubby left) until I was seated safely back on the train at Waterloo station around 6:15 p.m. (That's about six hours for those keeping score at home.) The conversation had so much momentum that it actually followed me as I walked alone from Giraffe to the train platform.
Not much to report today. We hung out a while at home and took a later train into London, then the tube to Leicester Square. We had lunch at Tokyo Diner, highly recommended.
After that, we walked over to Covent Garden and just walked around, found a toy store and candy shop, a tea shop, and some other things. A man and a woman were singing opera quite well in one portion of the market. Then when the girls (Maria and our hostess) went off to do shopping things, the boys and I went to the London Transport Museum.
Probably the thing the boys liked best was the Jubilee Line simulator, which had just one control: the throttle. You had to start it up, then try to position the train (without brakes or reverse) at a station platform. I thought it a little boring, but they had fun.
We spent about two hours there, I think, and kind of rushed through the final exhibits in order to meet the ladies on time.
We took our final tube ride back to Waterloo, then our final train ride back to Virginia Water.
Then our hostess (the first person, incidentally, to purchase one of my stories for a literary journal) and I went out for an hour of writing at a local place. Not a lot of writing got done, but we did talk a lot about writing. And especially a lot about my new WIP, which I was losing confidence in when we arrived in London but which I now think has a better approach.
We rode to Waterloo station again, this time heading straight to the Underground to get to Tower Hill. I thought that Warwick Castle had a lot of steps. Sheesh, it's got nothing on the average Tube station. The pathetic little "maze" at Hampton Court? A mere trifle compared to each sinister labyrinth underneath the Underground symbol. Still, it is remarkably well documented with very polite signs leading this way and that. After a brief orientation, I let the boys navigate most of the way, and we got to Tower Hill without incident.
I love the Tower of London. It's got traditions and really gruesome stories that bring to life all the brutality of the middle ages. Right now is the 500th anniversary of the coronation of Henry VIII, and all the Royal properties have something going on. The Tower has "Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill," an exhibit of arms and armor that is thrilling and jaw-dropping in the quantity, quality, and breadth of original armor and weaponry from the period.
The pieces are truly incredible, with jewels that are unbelievably large, beautiful, and plentiful. But the sense of history was to me the most impressive (again). There is a golden spoon that is 300 years older than the United States. It is the Coronation Spoon. What the hell do they use a Coronation Spoon for? I mean, really? WTF?
That's another thing the boys enjoyed but did not expect--unlike other historical landmarks we've visited where there were very official looking doorpeople like at Hampton Court Palace, or in-character actors like at Warwick Castle, or sheep like at Stonehenge, the Tower of London has real honest to goodness guards, with weaponry. Which is pretty cool to a little boy.
If you get to the Tower, the one thing you must do is take a tour guided by a Yeoman Warder. These men live in the Tower with their families and have served in the military for a minimum of 22 years. And they clearly love what they do, have a good time with the tour groups, and are proud of the Tower and its history. The tours don't take you anyplace you can't see yourself (except perhaps the Chapel, which might be off limits to the public without a guide), but the stories they tell bring the whole place to life. Which is, of course, ironic since most of the stories are about execution. With it being Henry VIII's special time, we got an extra dose of Anne Boleyn detail I hadn't heard before. (Such as that Anne chose to be beheaded by a French two-handed sword rather than the traditional British ax, so Henry--being the kind and loving and caring husband that he was--paid out of his own pocket to bring an expert executioner all the way from France to do the deed.)
Finally, we made a point to see the ravens. For some reason, my 12 year old's teacher decided a clever homework assignment would be for him to find out what types of trees inhabit the courtyard where the ravens are. We saw two trees that had trunks that looked pretty oakey, but with leaves that didn't look much like oak at all. So we tracked down a Yeoman Warder and asked, and his response was, "I should know that, but I don't. They are supposed to be trees that are very good at pulling smog out of the air, though--that's the type of tree they used to plant back then, and I imagine these are one of those types." So that's our answer to the homework question. But doggone, wouldn't you know it, the Historic Royal Palaces web site has a page with a whole section on the trees at the Tower of London. It turns out there are 88 trees at the Tower, with two thirds of them being mature and many expected to live not that much longer. (Maybe they spent too much time topping the humans and not enough time topping the trees.) I believe the linked report notes the trees to the south of the White Tower (on the south lawn) to be London plane.
After our time at the Tower, which was over four hours but could easily have been extended (we never got to see the cells where prisoners scratched notes into the walls, for example--a bit I was particularly fond of on my last visit), we hopped on the #15 bus for a ride to Trafalgar Square. We were lucky enough to get one of the old-fashioned buses, maybe one of the originals. It was empty, so we sat right up front on the top level, right above the driver.
I'll tell you, this was a better ride than Disneyland's Indiana Jones ride. Whoo, we thought for sure we ran over 40 pedestrians, 10 signs, two taxis, and eight boxes which I think had something to do with traffic but which Sam thought were mailboxes. HIGHLY recommended, especially for those of you fond of roller coasters.
We hit a book store in search of Top Trumps cards and bought one deck at Waterstone's, somewhere right near Charing Cross. The boys were nackered by now, so rather than walk down Whitehall Street and back up along the river, we simply went across the pedestrian bridge and back to Waterloo Station.
A pleasant nap on the ride home, a nice dinner with friends, some telly, and a blog post. A right wonderful day.
This is another site I'd recommend visiting. The artwork and rooms are really phenomenal, and the tapestries are ancient and mammoth. The sense of history, as with most places around here, is palpable. The great hall is enormous, with perhaps the highest ceiling I've ever seen (except the Kingdome, perhaps). I enjoyed touring the older parts of the palace more than the newer, perhaps because I really enjoy older medieval and dark ages history. (Being, of course, a recovering D&D aficionado).
(This photo happens to be the same photo used in the Landmark Trust properties catalog. Without, of course, the children. Apparently, there are apartments you can rent in Hampton Court Palace through the Landmark Trust, which I think is one of the coolest concepts I've ever come across.)
Of note is the Great Vine, an ancient grape vine that yields nearly a thousand pound of grapes each year. It's immense, and I am sure the tremendously immense Wisteria outside has vine envy since the grape gets all the attention.
While we were at the gardens, the British weather finally arrived. The refreshing, light sprinkles we'd enjoyed all afternoon finally turned into what this Bay Area resident would call light rain.
A quick trip to the gift shop and a hop into the car, and at about 6 p.m. the light rain turned into a legitimate rain in earnest. Dinner at home (nice little local Indian place delivers, thank goodness) and a relaxing evening.
Although our hostess had to chat with the handyman in the morning about fire alarms and light bulbs, she joined us partway through our tour. The museum has a number of wonderful features. The cafe is one of them, though I would not include the steak and kidney pie among its recommended fare. It was too crowded, but once we found some seats it was pleasant enough. The staff certainly were quite nice and helpful.
After the Imperial War Museum (which, if you hadn't figured it out, I highly recommend), we continued our little boy day by visiting the HMS Belfast, a Cruiser class ship from WWII that is a docked museum near Tower Bridge. We had a good time finding the Northern Line of the Tube, wandering up and down about 300 steps (only slightly fewer than the Warwick Castle offers in their towers) and up and down through an open air market of questionable repute. Find it we did, however, and we boarded the Tube at the Elephant & Castle stop for the London Bridge stop.
Once there, we had a good time viewing the ship. It's certainly a fun time for anyone interested in military history, particularly WWII or naval military. It was a little smaller and less impressive to our boys than the USS Hornet aircraft carrier we've spent a few overnighters on. But it is very well done, with excellent descriptions and a top notch self-guided tour. I thrilled to see the inside of a big-gun turret and the magazine room below it, and the boys loved the boiler rooms and engine rooms. We also enjoyed inspecting the AAA guns on the side, and then seeing them from above from the upper decks. All in all, another site worth seeing.
We exited at Saint-Michel Notre-Dame (purple dot on map), and because we had no idea which exit to take we accidentally walked up into the gorgeous Paris afternoon right in front of the cathedral. Last time I was here, it was dark and rainy and freezing, and the whole front of the cathedral was under scaffolding. This time, it was festive with hundreds of tourists wandering about, taking photographs. It was about 70 degrees and sunny-hazy.
We hauled our bag across the bridge and down a few streets to our hotel (red dot right near the center of the map), the Best Western Left Bank-St. Germain. I would say we had a wonderful experience with this hotel. The staff were courteous and friendly (as friendly as any Parisian I met, anyway), they gave us two adjoining rooms on the top floor, and breakfast Tuesday morning was pleasant enough. The rooms were tight but not cramped, and each had its own bathroom. I'd recommend the hotel to first time Paris visitors for sure.
Maria had read a travel writer's article that said, "In all the times I've been to the Louvre, I have never seen a child under the age of twelve look happy there." I am sad to report that he is entirely correct.
While our boys loved the pyramids and the plaza, it was too crowded, too hot, too free from the burden of drinking fountains, and too full of boring old art for their taste. We did get this photo of some guy, and as luck would have it we think there's something of interest in the background. (Yes, that is I in the extreme foreground. No, it was not the 9 year old who took the picture.)
After the Louvre, we hiked back across the Seine and down to Jardin du Luxembourg, an enormous park south of the Left Bank area we were staying in. The park must have had the entire vacationing population of Europe in it, and most of them were taking up the benches and chairs. We sat on a stone wall and within 30 seconds were shooed away by a polite but insistent Gendarme; I don't know what building this is, but it has lovely flowers.
The rest of the park was quite pretty and serene despite the billions of people. Pretty much everyone seemed happy. There were tulips that had blooms the size of small dogs. We stopped to get some ice cream, and I was momentarily confused by the wild gestures and French babbling from the poor girl who served us, until I realized I had tried to hand her a five-pound note instead of a five-Euro note.
Maria wanted to walk through the Latin Quarter, so we tried and mostly failed, having gone straight through an interesting plaza instead of turning left. We ended up meandering among some monstrously granite university buildings (Sorbonne?), which would have been pretty if we hadn't been trying to find something else while dragging along two reluctant, tired, hungry children.
I would have to agree, and although it is more expensive than we're used to, we had a fine dinner. Poor Sam was so tired that between ordering and receiving the starter course, he took a five minute nap in his chair with his head on the table. Poor Ethan didn't like anything we ordered, but we pieced together a dinner for him mostly of bread and chicken with the sauce wiped off.
From the Arch we Metroed a few stops to Trocadero, which provides a brilliant walk to the Eiffel Tower.
The wait for the elevator was two hours, but we waited along with everyone else because Sam really wanted to go up, and with all the activity it didn't really seem like two hours even though it was. Be bought some souvenirs while in line and truly enjoyed the view once we got up to the 2nd floor. We didn't go all the way to the top, but we didn't feel the need.
Quote of the week: A woman waiting for the restroom up in the tower said, "This is the only women's room in all Paris that doesn't have a line!" Having just spent two hours waiting for the elevator, I wasn't quite sure of her logic.
After the tower, we were pressed for time. A quick trip to Montmartre (not the porn area near Moulin Rouge but the more bohemian feeling part northeast of there, at Anvers Metro stop), where we saw the energetic and touristy market street on the way up to the Basilique du Sacre Coeur. Only had time to buy a Coke and then hop back on Metro to retrieve our bag, get a few quick snaps of the flying buttresses of Notre Dame again, then back on RER to the airport for our flight back to London.
I never really thought I liked France much, but these two days have changed my mind. I could spend a few weeks in Paris, easy, just hanging out and really soaking in the feel, watching the people, seeing sights we missed, and writing in cafes. (Also, I say the boys were reluctant and whiny above, but really they had a great time and enjoyed most of the trip quite a lot.)
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