London

From Paris, we took the Chunnel to London.  Two things memorable about that journey: seeing a lady from Indianapolis excitedly show a Parisian passenger her Hard Rock Cafe Paris teddy bear (cringe), and the kids' giddy excitement crawling into a spacious black London taxi cab.  I think Michael wanted to live in the cab.  Anna liked that she could freely get on her knees and look out the back at the world trundling along behind us.  Every London taxi we took was really nice.  I'd later heard that they are only allowed on the road for 15 years.  Good idea.

Here are a few photos from our trip to London where we saw the sights and caught up with old friends.

London Eye

Jubilee Gardens, which the Queen opened that day

Bus tour in the rain

Picadilly Circus with our friends from home

Buckingham Palace!

Michael took photos (good thing, since I couldn't see a thing)

Doing lunch at Fortnum & Mason with our London friends

We love the London Transport Museum (Michael falling off a bus)

Heading to our friends' house in Primrose Hill

John & Chuck D at Natural History Museum

Michael reunites with the T-Rex at Natural History Museum,  7 years later

V&A Museum

Being held up at the Tower of London

Bonjour Mona Lisa

The kids were excited to see the Mona Lisa, as she had been a hot topic in Michael's kindergarten class a couple years ago.  The Mona Lisa is embedded deep into the Louvre, but there is great signage guiding you through the labyrinth.  The kids hunted for signs, and before too long, Michael was bouncing up and down behind a crowd of tourists gathered around the painting.  He took a lot of photos, and we finally managed to ease our way up to the front.  It is one experience I will never forget.

"It's this way!"

Excited to be here!

"Hooray!!"

"What is that painting about?"

A lovely dinner at Le Petit Cler with my friends from Chicago

Dear Mr. Dumpy

Michael has had some really interesting literacy-based homework assignments.  His first one was to write a letter from one fairy tale character to another.  After a bit of thought, here's what he came up with:

1 Palace Lane
King City
KI22 1NG

Dear Mr. Dumpty,
I am sorry we did not come soon enough when you had your fall.  You are offered insurance money.  We are giving you a new shell.  The insurance money is £90.

Sincerely, 
The King

I really liked this letter, as did his teacher.  I like the level of creativity and out of the box thinking required of their work.

His next literacy assignment was to design an ad for World War II, to persuade people to help in some way with the war effort.  I was eager to completely take over this assignment (I teach advertising to college students, after all), but it turns out that Michael's teacher gave them some great direction in terms of what ads of the time looked like and Michael himself had some great ideas.  He belted out a rhyming slogan and even started marching to it at home.

Michael's World War II persuasive ad

Eiffel Tower

We all loved the Eiffel Tower.  We walked by it everyday en route from our hotel to the hop-on hop-off tour bus stop.  Michael kept taking pictures in excitement; it was so great.  We had lift tickets to the top, yay!  But it was foggy the day we went up, boo!  No matter, we had a grand time being there.  The second floor is being remodeled into more of a destination with shopping, food, entertainment.  We will be back, I'm sure.

First glimpses of the Eiffel Tower.  "Look, there it is!"

One of Michael's photos

Thank you for not making me taking the stairs this time

Yay, we made it!

Fog shmog

The Arc de TriOOMPHe

We love the Arc de Triomphe from a distance.  We love the way it looks; we love the carvings on it; we love the meaning that it holds.  But overall, we had a terrible time.  After queueing and paying, you find that you've queued and paid for a 284 step climb, most of it spiral and narrow, and once you start, you are committed.  There are people in front of you and people behind you.  It was hot, the kids were tired.  John also had the misfortune of carrying all our coats in an overloaded bag.  

Finally, we lumbered to the top, sweaty and out of breath.  It was very bright.  The view was breathtaking.  For about 4 seconds.  

Because we were attacked by gnats.  They bounced off our eyelashes, twisted around in our hair, dive bombed at our ears, pecked at us from head to toe.  If you could blink open your eyes, you could see people all around swatting and dodging while desperately trying to take one decent photo. 

At the end, we spiraled back down the stairs.  Parched and exhausted, we tried to drown our sorrows in a cafe nearby, but we never got served.  That was a low point.

Looks great from the outside. Anna likes the pebbles on the ground.

The ascent.

What you feel like on the ascent.

I'm amazed you can't see the gnats in this photo.

(P.S.  Don't tell me about the elevator.  Heard about that later.)

Being Sensible

A big part of English culture is the concept of being sensible.  The kids and I were invited over for an after-school playdate, and the I liked how the mom/mum reminded her kids to "be sensible" while playing.  I've heard this phrase repeated at school, in the village, on TV...  It's a phrase that we don't use much in the States.

Being sensible is an internalized idea.  It is about having sound judgment, using reason, and simply making the "right", principled decision.  The right decision is principled, so taking into account not just yourself but the greater good.  You must be perceptive and intuitive.

I think that an American parent would tend to say, "Are you making the right decision?"  That phrasing feels different to me, perhaps because it seems more proactive and conscious reasoning/thinking, a certain level of being rational and logical.  It also somehow gives the child a sense of control and self-importance.

I see this subtle difference play out in the media.  I recently heard a sad news report on BBC Radio 4 of a mother who murdered her two young children.  Because she was diagnosed with post-partum depression, she was charged with "diminished responsibility" and the murder charges were dropped.  Around the same time, there was an article on CNN about a similar situation in the US with murder charges pending.  The handling of these two cases is very British/sensible in the first case and American/rational in the second.  If you step back and look at the evidence, it is sensible to drop the charges.  However, if you are hard and fast rule abiding, the logical decision is jail time.

In September, I was also struck by an interview on BBC of a cyclist who witnessed a shooting in France. The shooting had only happened a day earlier, and the witness was allowed to tell his full story to the media.  The witness talked openly about how he reacted at the scene, what he did and should have done, etc.  He obviously had no fear of implicating himself, being sued for saying too much or misleading the audience.  The interviewer was very encouraging of how the cyclist handled the situation; there was a lot of trust that he did what he felt was right at the time and he empathized with him.  The interviewer also did not use words like "alleged".

I find it very interesting that people are viewed as almost more "human" here.  Hard lined rules are no match for sensibility.

Door-to-Door Fish Salesman

Today, the kids and I were in the backgarden (which is actually our front garden though we never go in that way) when a man came through the gate saying he was selling fish and would I like to buy some.  Puzzled and slightly bewildered, I said, "No, thank you.  Do you come by often to sell fish?"  He said every two months or so.  I asked for a leaflet and got a photocopied list of the fish he sells.  After he left, I called John's mom to make sure he wasn't coming around to steal our VCR.  She doesn't buy from door-to-door salespeople but has heard of it.  We talked about how you don't really know the quality of the fish, how old it is, etc.  Are there health and safety regulations and quality controls they must abide by?  Are they a registered business?  It seems kind of like an ad-hoc business to me.  Do they have regular customers?  This all just struck me as unusual.

Italy

One of the benefits of living in England is European travel.  My childhood friend Grace and I had a fabulous time in Italy (Rome, Florence and Cinque Terre).  It was great catching up and traveling together.  We had lots of gelato, tried a few belinis, saw the sights (Trevi Fountain, The Duomo, La Farmacia Santa Maria Novella, piazzas) and shopped.  Grace was an expert at finding good restaurants on her iPad, and I never met a porcini mushroom I didn't want to try.

Cinque Terre was gorgeous

Doorway at Florence aparthotel

Our Room with a View (in Florence)

Ponte Vecchio sunset

Best gelato ever

Fried fish was amazing