I lived in London with my family for three years, and I’ve traveled here frequently over the last forty years. In fact, I’ve spent more time in London than any other cities in the world, with the obvious exceptions of Dallas and NY. I thought I knew a good bit about the place until S. and I came here with Hudson and Georgia for their twelve year old trip.
You may care to know that these twelve year old trips are rooted in a desire to share the lives of our grandchildren more deeply through shared travel, and for the most part, it works. There is no explicable calculus by which the destinations are determined, but in the end we all have to be happy about the choice. The first two trips turned out well; although, I near came a cropper on a zip line in the jungles of Costa Rica trying to emulate my eldest grandchild Logan. Then Annabel insisted on deep water snorkeling with the sea lions off the coast of one of the Galapagos Islands. I’m a poor swimmer, hate salt water, and did not like the idea of schmoozing with sea lions, but that’s what you do for your grandkids. I thought this time I had it nailed. London….I got it. Paris….right up my alley. Well, we shall see.
The trip started well with our flight from DFW to Heathrow in BA’s business class on a 747. Hudson and Georgia sat together in the contorted seating configuration designed by BA to provide seating which could be comfortable for two traveling together or two strangers seated cheek to jowl. There were the days when I flew extensively on BA internationally, and I thought they were the best. Comfortable seats, professional flight attendants, good food, and free flowing booze. Somewhere along the way in their struggle for profits, they’ve lost it. The overly large business class section had all the charm and comfort of a cattle car. The seats were designed to accommodate a technologically advanced, but emaciated, very short person. The food was mediocre minus, and worst of all, it took forty minutes to get a teeny, tiny gin and tonic. Hudson and Georgia didn’t care, but I’ve now officially sworn to give customer service at BA a bit of what for. Yes, I know this has nothing to do with traveling with grandchildren, but I had to get if off my chest. Actually, they delighted in the flight. They carried on long, intense conversations with the flight attendants just far enough out of ear shot for me not to hear what was going on. They pushed, pulled, and toggled every button on the seat/entertainment system and helped me to get my seat/bed into what passed for a sleeping position.
Our arrival at Heathrow was unremarkable, and we fast-tracked though immigration, luggage recovery and customs. Brits do this very well…that is provide privilege to those born to it or with enough money to buy it. You gotta love ‘em. It was another of an unending stream of bank holidays in England so traffic was sparse and we coasted in to the The Berkeley in record time.
It’s the same idiosyncratic approach to language that causes Brits to pronounce Berkeley as Barklee (both the hotel and famous square off Piccadilly). Worse yet, it’s extended to saying clark when one means to say clerk. I dunno how they’ve done it, but they’ve really screwed up the language over here. While I’m at it, let me take on the High Street thing. No matter where you are in these British Isles, when asking directions of a local, one will inevitably here, “right past Snookems Corner, take the second turning to the left towards Swanset Close and proceed to the top of the High Street. Let me deal with this definitively…there is no street named High Street in these parts. And if there were, it would have neither a top nor a bottom. It is merely the nativistic way of referring to the main street of the local village/area/neighborhood. The top of High Street means that end of the street that is on the highest ground. Makes sense doesn’t it. Unfortunately, I spent my first years living in London looking for a literal High Street, and I just ignored the top or bottom modifier.
Oddly, what still seems strange to me after these forty years of visits to London, seems normal when seen through the eyes of twelve year olds. Perhaps they have no context, or more likely they have a more holistic view of things around them and put everything in context. I must admit, seeing a young person with purple, spiked hair, nose and lip rings, and facial tattoos still confuses me. To them, it’s just part of the landscape.
We continued the tourist thing today. It took us one hour by taxi and twenty one pounds sterling to get to the Tower of London for which we paid another fifty pounds in order to stand in a long line snaking around a dark room full of odiferous people to see the Crown Jewels. If there’s anything in life that I care less about than the Crown Jewels of England, I can’t imagine what it would be. Thankfully our time inside the nine hundred year old walls was blissfully short. I calculate it to be about two dollars per minute. There’s not many things you can do with your grandchildren for two bucks a minute and enjoy it. I’m excluding airfare of course.
At the Tower Hill tube station, I bought a family day pass on the London Underground for another thirty pounds (don’t ask me why I didn’t do that at the outset of our trip to the tower), and navigated our way to Camden Town for a walk about an area of town that used to be charming and chock-a-block with quaint antique stores and art galleries which rimmed one of the larger (and more civilized) flea markets in London. Two of the four of us fell asleep on the tube, but I won’t disclose who they were. As we emerged from The Underground, we were confronted with a mix of Raggae, punk rock, more purple hair, tattoo and body piercing shops, food stalls of all stripes, and an unending supply of t-shirt shops. As we suffered periodic rain showers, we sat on mock motorcycles, ate bad fish and chips, Brit burgers, a small curry and a delightful, if tiring time, was had by all.
A small navigational error caused our trip homeward via Harrods’s to be substantially longer than absolutely required. A very nice, but somewhat seedy looking gent next to me on the tube helped me save face with the family by tactfully suggesting an alternative route to recover from my error. Did you know that Harrod’s covers an entire city block and that the men’s and ladies toilets are at the exact opposite corners of the building? I stopped several times en route to the facilities to verify directions and having understood only about a third of what was said each time, finally was able to arrive at what was referred to as the men’s lounge in the nick of time. A quick tour of the food halls allowed for the purchase of another thirty quid worth of snack items….you know the absolute essentials…Serrano ham, manchego and brie cheese, some Spanish olives, and a few Crispy Cremes. A longer than anticipated walk back to the hotel for a much needed siesta.
Just another day in Europe with the grandkids. Can it get any better than this?
