September 21. In London with Kids

As promised we went to London today to see Escher's staircase in front of Tate Museum. Exit off the highest staircase ends in glass - some people commented on the drop. Given that it is now a "possible" object it is reminiscent of the famous original but not as interesting. We walked up and down with the crowds and that was it.

What are they sinking about?

Next we spent some time at the modern African gallery at the Tate. I don't remember the name of the artist, Gabe? Basically most of it is his reflections on coming to Europe after living in Africa. Much of it deals with the familiar immigrant themes and, in particular, touches on the subject of money and capitalism. I did not find it too artistic in a way of generating much of emotional response. Kids enjoyed playing with giant wooden Legos and shuffle puzzles. It was not innovative. It felt a bit like a lip service to the concept of having "African Modern Art" exhibited.

What we really liked was our walk down the Southwark. We passed Malaysian festival on the way and spent some time looking at their souvenirs and watching the performances. During the dance by 9-10 year old dancers, one of the performers dropped her crown. She and her partner kept going as if nothing happened. In the end, the gallant gentleman picked up the crown and dropped on his knee to hand it to her. It looked so beautiful and graceful. Lady singer in impossible heels was singing the song about someone who "walked off without a word." It did not sound like a very sad song. She moved suggestively and actively engaged the public.

Today was also the day of gorilla run, a 7km run to benefit gorillas. We stood cheering the runners dressed in gorilla suits. It is not a long run but is it not easy to do in hairy outfits. Some also wore "clothing" on top of suits and carried props like bananas.

We had lunch at Yo! Sushi. This time around Isabella did not try to take things off the conveyor to check them out so it was relaxing :) We need to do it with the whole family together.

After lunch and carousel we took the underground to Hyde park to check out the largest and nicest playground I ever saw - Princess Diana's Memorial Playground. Filled with interesting areas and closed off with a guy at the gate to track the escapees.

We finished the day at the same brioche place I was at on Thursday. It is called Aux Merveilleux de Fred. We were the only ones who did not speak French there. Georgia and Isabella got meringues and I, my old friend. I am glad they don't have a local branch :)

September 20th. Tonight I went clubbing with two transvestites in London..

Wait, that's a line from my brother's blog :) No, I did not go clubbing. In fact, with Dan back in US for the conference I've stayed at home for most of the week. Although on Thursday I did out to work from London.

The plan was to work out of South Kensington and then drop into Victoria and Albert museum for lunch. I settled in at Starbucks near the station and had a couple of very productive hours. The area is a Little France of London. Around me people were having conversations in French. I regretted not bringing my camera because there were a few young students with picture-worthy hairdos. One had her pink hair in up lovely rollers.

For lunch I had dutifully walked over to the museum stopping at the bakery to admire the layout. In the moment of doubt I've asked the sales girl: "Is this a scone?" "No," she replied indignantly, "It's a brioche." In a few moments I could see why she wanted that clear.

The museum is overwhelming. You can easily stay in one room for an hour. It is remarkable that Irina ran though all five floors with kids. In one hour I barely covered 2 meters of the interpretive photo gallery (so so), jewelry (OK), and a small portion of Cast Court filled with cast copies (or not) of various tombstones, carvings, and more. That's where they took all the pretty Celtic crosses and tombstones. And that's the one that needs a lot more than an hour.

After work I walked over to Harrods to see the important English landmark and one of the largest department stores in Europe. It is five stories tall. Six if you count the ground floor. Maybe more if you count the basement. And it is terrifying. It is an old building - or possibly multiple buildings joined together. It looks like a maze of stores and sections with low ceilings. Escalator shaft done in antique Egypt style resembles derelict Vegas casino. It felt pretty claustrophobic. If there is ever a fire at this place, I cannot see how they would be able to get the people out in time. I wandered through the Fashion Lab featuring Victoria Beckham and others and no indication of having a sale as a possibility. And then walked outside to get some fresh air. Too bad brioches were left far away.

So tonight, sorry no transvestites!.. Kids and I went to Tosca, the Tapas place along the river. I'd give it 3-4 stars for the food. But the lovely location with river views, good music and very nice staff more than make up for the food. We read two Gilgamesh books and relaxed watching the setting sun. At bedtime Georgia read Gruffalo's Child to Isabella in Russian. How cool is that!!!

Forgot to say, Georgia had lost another tooth - one of those to the left of the front ones. She initially said she does not believe in tooth fairies. But once we confirmed that no bounty comes to the non-believers, she changed her mind. And fairy had paid a visit with a small token in local currency.

Isabella is telling me amazing stories about the fish that visits her in her sleep. She used to be terrified of it but now she says that she just closes her eyes and fish "goes to another world." We tried to make a composite image.

Off to London tomorrow to check out the Endless Staircase.

September 16th. To Warsaw and back

On Saturday we carried still sleeping kids at 4am downstairs and started out for the weekend trip to Warsaw. The ride to Stansted airport via M25 at that time was miraculously traffic free. It looks like construction workers had closed off huge sections of the highway but the actual work is being performed on small segments here and there.
Ryanair operates similarly to Wizz: people are herded into large lines and are made wait for 30-45 minutes  and then everyone is loaded on buses and then everyone runs to grab a better seat - seats are not assigned. Only one piece of hand luggage weighing up to 10kg is allowed. Checking in luggage adds extra $120 per bag. Everything is about efficiency. There are no pockets on the seats so that people would not put trash into them.


Ryanair also has a cute gimmick, when the plane lands they sound a kind of fanfare and announce that they had yet another "on-time flight." The cute part is that they don't count when they actually arrive but rather the time in the air. So if your departure is delayed and you arrive late, as far they are concerned, they still got to there in 2 hours.


Dan mentioned that good
programmers are not only found in
the offices

Taxi dropped Dan off to attend to his affairs while kids and I stayed on to go to the zoo.  Here is the link of us going there in 2009 when Georgia was three. It is a very nice zoo. Not as enormous as the Bronx Zoo but with a very nice selection of animals, most held in decent enclosures. There are also plenty of areas to take a break for kids to relax and grab a bite.

We all had a great time running from one enclosure to another. There was a funny moment The king of the jungle sat on the hill rather impassively and then suddenly sprang up to life and roared a few words over to hippos swimming in their pool nearby. And they had responded!!

After that we sat down in a coffee shop and Dan joined us and we finished our tour together. Back in the old town, most of the old town square and other surrounding areas are closed off for repairs. Mermaid is not accessible anymore.

There was a general strike and huge crowds of people were walking down Krakowskie Przedmieście, the main street along the historical center. Most were wearing overshirts that said "Solidarnost'."

We saw some from workers Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus. In whole we could not make out what it was about but it was extremely loud. And at one point when they exploded a few home-made noise rockets right next to where we were walking so it not that safe either. It did not wake up Isabella though. She fell asleep peacefully on Dan's shoulder. We sought refuge with the Internet and found one at the Little Bistro along the way. From there we watched the much muted demonstration while enjoying our beers and fried cheese.

At night we walked to our MDM hotel and on the way discovered a beautiful pedestrian street on the way that was filled with the coffee shops and people. Maybe it was there before and we missed it because it was not in such a good condition. But now it was lovely. And we even spotted the king of ice-cream Dan was searching for for years since trying Soprano ice-cream for the first time in Dansk. It was closed already though. We passed the Palace of Culture, the ugly Soviet landmark that is a sore sight to many Poles. But at night, it was lit up as some kind of Vegas palace and actually looked very nice.

MGM is a bit far off but for a large and comfortable family room with included breakfast at 60 pounds per night it was a pretty good deal. In the morning we enjoyed downtown views while feasting on the breakfast that seemed to try to cater to specific breakfast customs all across Europe.


Saska Kepa neighborhood was highly recommended in the guides as a kind of a new "Greenwich village." It resembles a mix between Antakalnis and Zhverinas: quiet, a bit up-market bourgeois area with some new diverse restaurants giving it a bit of color.

A great highlight at the Skaryszewsky park next door were flame-red squirrels. I have never seen them in this color. We took many pictures but the little creatures are so fast that pictures really don't do them any justice.

Forgot to mention, on the way to non-Greenwich village we passed Fat Katy, a cool city landmark and functional installation. Check it out.

We had some very excellent Soprano ice-cream. The search is over. Note to travelers, do not go for the cheap imitations that look like Soprano ice-cream.

Georgia and I stopped by to look inside one of the gallery shops while Dan and Isabella waited outside. Isabella walked away from Dan a few steps to take a look at flowers. There was a guy walking toward her. He looked around and did not see Dan and attempted to pet Isabella. It may have been a perfectly friendly gesture other than that furtive look around. Dan shouted "Hey" and the sick jerk speeded away. People, keep an eye on your kids! We may have had before but now we don't live in the world where it is OK to pet strange children on the street. Those who pretend to not know this rule and try anyway, are sick jerks.

Back in the old town, all sorts of events were going on at the same time: a band of bikers who had just completed their tour to Katyn, people who had chained themselves to doghouses to protest the same practice done to dogs, first aid services fund raiser. A bit overwhelmed we escaped again to a little pierogi shop on Bednarska.

Surek, pierogi with meat, cabbage, meat and cabbage, meat, cabbage and mushrooms, and other combinations, and everything else were great! That, in contrast to the Zapiecek, the McD of pierogi, where we had the misfortune of eating (and sharing the single bathroom with 1/2 mln protesters) yesterday. Zapiecek callously ruins the splendorous national food. The Zapiecek chain is like a plague - almost every city block has one.

We thought of going to visit some Holocaust cites but did not want to upset kids. They are too little to understand this but they would definitely see the effect those places will have on us. During the demonstrations yesterday, looking at the faces of people passing by I was thinking that we really have not progressed as a human race for hundreds of years. It still takes relatively few triggers to get us wound up to revert to .. past the animal state. Past, because animals as a group do not typically engage child killings, ethnic cleansings and more. Those who retain their humanity when in distress are still an exception.


Georgia said that adult playgrounds

are those that don't have anything

but the view

Returning back home was the same in reverse - herded back on the plane, long drive home, and carry sleeping kids up to bed. They were awesome the entire time. We should do it again!!

 

September 13th. Green Thames

Yesterday Thames river turned green. Some green algae must have grown or was brought up by the river. It also looks like the flow of the river has slowed down somewhat. Swans had been feasting on the greenery the whole day.

We had uneventful last couple of days. It has been raining every day pretty much most of the day. But it is not cold, so it is not so bad. It is just we cannot ride our bikes and it is kind of quiet when we get out in the evenings for a walk. Next week we will have to plan more interesting evening activities. We got Georgia taken care of somewhat in terms of extra-curricular activities for one afternoon during the week - she will be taking Judo for an hour after school. If nothing else, we will probably do a lot of reading this fall.


The sail had reached our window

This Wednesday we went to see Snail and Whale play at the Rose Theater. Beautiful production just like Aliens love Underpants last time. It is remarkable how they were able to extend and interpret a pretty small children's book. The show lasted an hour. We noticed that in the surrounding towns there are other theaters, with some even specializing in children's shows. Tickets are around 9-12 pounds. We could see a different children's play each week. Of course we would have to drive to see the other ones.


Tomorrow we are going to Warsaw for a weekend. We got 50 pound round trip tickets about a month ago. We are planning for more trips like this one if we can find similar fare and can manage a trip to the airport some 100 miles away :)

Getting more acquainted with schools here. As I may have written before, Georgia has "numeracy," "literacy," "worship," and lots of PE. I attended parent-teacher conference and got the feeling that school will not be particularly straining. For math, they are looking to work on addition/subtraction and will start looking at the multiplication tables. On the reading front, the kids are starting chapter books and expecting 1/2 page read per day. Maybe they are starting the kids out slowly. Means more fun stuff at home.


The baby is all grown up

In Isabella's school, they talked about Humpy-Dumpty for two days and followed up with omelet cooking demonstration. This is nice. They did comment on her broken English twice. It is pretty natural for her to lose some of that over the summer. The kid had no exposure for several months. You don't hear English even at playgrounds here. But her teacher's feedback sounds all to familiar to the stuff we heard in US daycares and schools about Georgia in the past. Just to be sure that they don't think she is developmentally challenged, I relay every morning to her teachers what she shared about the prior day.

On the eating front, because we are going to be away for a few days, we've started to work through our stock of dumplings from the Korean supermarket.  I'd say they are right in the middle between the koldunai from Papa Karlo and khinkali. If they were bigger, they would be khinkali!! I have to look for some Georgia's restaurants around :)

And since I've started with the colors, cannot resist sharing this one, sent to me by Yana. Sheer brilliance. Sorry about proximity with food!

September 9th. Leeds and Dover Castles

On Saturday we went to Hampton Court park with parents. They did not expect the massive hordes of deer we had encountered there. It looked pretty cool. There are some perfectly lined up alleys of immaculately manicured trees, each within its little box, and then there are fields and fields of tall grass. With the heads of deer sticking out from the grass, those fields look how I imagine African bush does.

After that we had a decent lunch at Brown's downstairs. It is not thrilling but for convenience sake, it is an OK place to go to.
And then we saw parents off to France and just relaxed for the rest of the day. We even watched the Fifth Element with kids.

We are too old and have to get used to the HDTV. It makes everything so hyper-realistic that movies and news look like cheap theater production in your living room. Still, nothing can touch this movie, it is super green! It was the first "grown-up" movie that kids had seen and we are being bombarded with questions about the plot. Isabella is certain that all the aliens are real.

On Sunday we started our exploration of the Southeast and went to the Leeds Castle in the Southeast. The admission fee for the three of us not counting Isabella was incredible 50 pounds. Seriously there are not that many amusement parks in US that charge 75$+. A small consolation is the fact that we would be able to use the same entrance tickets for the rest of the year.

Check out the last item on the menu

The grounds are extensive and well kept. It is possible to spend a good amount of time walking through lovely ponds and wooded areas. They have a different kind of swan, a regular white one called Cygnus cygnus in Latin. It is mostly found in Scandinavian countries. It has a small yellow nose and black beak as opposed to the mute white ones we had been seeing. Those have orange beak and large black nose. Yellow nosed swans somehow look like large geese. There are also pretty black swans around the castle. They are small with red noses and eyes.

Leeds castle used to belong to a number of queens over its long history. They converted what used to be a strategic fortress into more of a beautiful castle. The most recent owner, rich socialite lady Baillie, with a great eye for husbands, used it during the war to house wounded soldiers for a period of time, and more recently (until early 70s) to entertain famous visitors and even for some of the King David accord negotiations. We really liked how the castle looked from the outside.

But inside, was an interesting effect of what happens when you try to adjust the ancient structure to the modern times. Due to the small windows it is pretty dark inside. The owner tried to correct it by white-washing the walls and removing some of the ancient castle look in the process. Add to it furniture and bathroom fittings that used to be chic in the 70s and you get a large, depressing, and dated apartment.

We continued our exploration outside and came upon a large maze. It was really fun. Kids started getting worried when we continued walking in circles for some time. Ultimately we reached the middle of the maze whether they had a raised enclosed platform to watch and direct the other mice :) Apparently the maze was much larger than we thought.

Below the platform was an underground grotto with "scary" figures made from seashells. An audio was reading something from the Flying Dutchman. Isabella would have none of this so Dan carried her out while Georgia and I enjoyed our leisurely walk. Kids spent some time at a playground designed like an obstacle course through a castle and we headed over to our next point: Dover castle.

Dover castle atop the white cliffs facing France has been built and used for military purposes until very recently. The hills are covered in tunnels. During the WWII that was one of the key operating centers, and a hospital, and it even housed nuclear bunkers briefly.

We watched falconry presentation before visiting the castle. It was very interesting and informative.

A couple of falconers showed their birds and talked about working with them for hunting. They are even starting to work with owls. Contrary to the popular opinion, owls are not purely nocturnal. It is just their sense of hearing is so much better than their sight that they can pinpoint their prey with extreme accuracy based on that alone. And it is safer to do it at night while other predators are not active. Working with owls is more challenging because they get easily distracted by sounds, but if you are able to train one, you get all the benefits of the "regular" hunting bird plus extreme sound sensitivity.

In the end they showed us their star, a peregrine falcon. The bird put up an amazing show. It is able to dive and come of the drop in split second. There was a guy in the audience with the largest camera lense I've ever seen - probably half my height and very wide too. The falconer challenged him to capture the moves the bird was making.


We liked Dover castle more than Leeds. It is a giant stone box filled with rambling passages, galleries, and chapel. We wandered around peeking in the narrow passageways and finding large banquet rooms. They had a giant kitchen with huge plastic pork carcasses hanging down, large cloth bags filled with glued rice and beans, all sorts of cleavers also glued securely to the tables, and other decorative elements entertaining for kids and adults. Décor was very simple and "castle" like and it fit just right.


We did a quick tour of the underground war-time hospital in one of the tunnels. They did a great job re-creating the environment of that time, complete with the furnishings and things, and with the audio of the air-raids and failing lights, and even with the smells of food and operating room. Georgia really disliked the smell and Isabella hated the sounds. So it was so so on the amusement scale. But at least they did drew the line on the smell of smoke, undoubtedly the primary smell at that time.
Afterwards we spent several hours walking around the White Cliffs next to the castle. The views of the cliffs, the sea, and light green grass in the setting sun were incredible.