trois

By Dan

Danielle says she has been wanting to do a new blog post for weeks.  While we eagerly await her next posting, here’s a short note to draw attention to our new April Gallery of photos.

London

by Danielle

We recently visited London for six days, staying with Dan’s parents who are there until May. The trip couldn’t be easier, a 10 minute cab ride from our apartment to Gare du Nord train station, then a zippy 2 hour and 20 minute ride on Eurostar and POP we arrived. That train is f-a-s-t, alarmingly so. I don’t think I’ve ever been on the ground and moving at such a high rate of speed. I kept wondering how often a stray animal wanders in front of a train, and was there a person in charge of scraping the animal carcasses off the tracks? And what would that person get paid for such a job, and what kind of gear would they be equipped with? But anyway, Joseph loved the train ride and Rachel was only moderately fidgety.

My first sight when stepping out of Pancras station was a group of pre-teen girls in their school uniforms of cardigans, plaid kilts and knee socks. “How quaint,” you might think… but my eyes nearly popped out of my head because these kilts were M-I-N-I kilts. If my daughter wanted to leave the house with a skirt this short I would send her back to her room to put on a nice caftan. In the US you’d be sent home for wearing a skirt so short. And this is a sanctioned school uniform? That was a real eye opener. For the record I asked Dan later if he noticed the outfits (reaaally hard to miss in my book) and he claimed he did not, but I was stunned that people were not pointing and gasping in shock. Motherhood must be making me uptight or something.
  
Dan had a full agenda with meetings regarding a school project, and Izzie kindly volunteered to take the kids for part of the day. I took the opportunity to vist the Tate Modern art museum. I don’t know which I enjoyed more, the beautiful art or the beautiful solitude. Tate Modern is a huge art space and a really fabulous collection of works. I spent a lot of time in a special exhibit of Aleksander Rodchenko and Lyubov Popovka, I am a big fan of Russian Constructivism and the exhibit was quite extensive. These artists in particular were very prolific in multiple media, painting, drawing, filmmaking, sculpture, textile design, graphic arts (posters, book covers etc) so I was in heaven.

After a few hours of art I wandered to the cafe on the top floor of the museum to relax and soak up the wine- I mean the view! The timing worked out so that I was able to meet up with one of Dan’s classmates (who was also in town for a school project and meetings) and another friend. We ended up having a very nice lunch together, not only is Dan’s friend Blake (a Canadian prlofessional basketball player in a European league) a lot of fun, but HIS friend Ryan (a Canadian independent filmmaker) was also very interesting, with stories of partying at the Cannes Film Festival and also sharing stories of raising a young child in London.

The next day Izzie and I took both kids to the National Portrait Gallery in Trafagar Square. I had hoped to see the Gerhard Richter exhibit but was quickly overwhelmed by the complications of navigating small crowded spaces with two strollers. I took a pass on it and instead bought a few postcards from the show. The majority of the collection we saw were classical in era or style. There was one absolutely amazing sculpture of a woman in the gallery, I wish I’d had a pen to write the name of the work and the artist, it was just gorgeous. A pristine white marble sculpture of the head and shoulders of a lovely woman with curly hair, created to look as if she was a flower with petals surrounding her shoulders. Apparently she was the mistress of someone, I forgot who of course, but it must have been someone really important because portraits don’t often come out to be so flattering! Of course there was no postcard of this work in the gift shop, I hate it when that happens.

In the adjacent (huge) National Gallery we perused part of one floor of paintings, not dawdling too much because Rachel was squawking quite a bit. In one room a group of young school children sat on the floor as a guide described a huge painting. Joseph immediately wanted to be a part of the group, and Izzie sat with him towards the back while I walked through the adjacent rooms with Rachel. I couldn’t help but notice that the painting was totally inappropriate for small children. It appeared to be the slaughter of Medusa, a soldier held her bloody, disembodied head up before a large group of people who were engaged in battle or suffering in some form or another. It was pretty ghastly but Joseph did not even seem to notice. He was enthralled by the other kids, and also the big paintbrush he acquired from the gift shop. He kept brushing the furniture saying, “I’m painting!” That’s my boy.

On two evenings Dan and I were able to leave the kids with the grandparents and go out on our own for a bit, which is a real luxury. One night we went out, me having hopes a finding a quiet spot for some dessert and a decaf Irish coffee. No such luck. It was a real shock to me because we were staying on a college campus (University of London) where there are ample vegetarian restaurants, health food stores, bookstores etc. And every place closed by 9pm. On a Friday no less! We ended up at a crowded pub blaring pop music, the total opposite of what I had in mind. I heard that pubs close early too, often before midnight, which blows my mind, and a brit friend conceded that he felt this encouraged binge drinking behavior which is somewhat common apparently.

The next night we went out for a fantastic Indian dinner not far from the apartment. It’s so nice to go someplace and be able to read the menu and know exactly what you are getting. You take little things like that for granted. In Paris the few times we go out there is inevitably some head scratching over one item or another, and you end up hoping you guessed right and get a meal you will enjoy.

On our last full day we were able to visit with friends Nick and Tara, who have lived in London the last few years. They have a lovely apartment with a yard in the cute neighborhood called “Crouch End.”  They have two adorable young kids and it was great to catch up with them. They had big changes brewing, they are about to leave London to return to the US, to a new city for both of them: Seattle. Their excitement to make a big change reminded us of how we felt a year ago when we were planning our Paris adventure… And also made us wonder what the future held for all of us in the next year.