Vacanza in Londra

I didn't get a chance to write about our Christmas vacation to London. After much discussion about what to do and being too late to book a ski trip, we decided to go to London for three reasons. First, everyone says it is a great place to go with kids. Second, it would be very easy for us because of the language. Three, the kids go to a British school, so they feel an affiliation of sorts, to the UK now - in some ways at the school since we are native English speakers, we are lumped in with "them," the "them" being the Brits. We had lots of advice about what to do from multiple sources and tried to do as much as we could in just 6 days. Here is a quick rundown of some of our fun.

The weather was rainy, but warm, 40's & 50's, so most of our walking around was pleasant and we just hopped into cabs at other times. We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace - well, I didn't see it because we moved our spot and then couldn't really see a thing so Bill hoisted the kids up on his shoulders, one at a time, multiple times to see the "parade" of the guards and horses. I believe we collectively rated it as "just okay." We went to both the Science and Natural History Museums. The Science museum was very similar to lots of things we have seen in the U.S. in the manner of science and technology; although they did have a special exhibit devoted to "gaming" from the earliest games in the 70's to state of the art virtual reality games. And the best part was, you could play ALL the games - from Pong (which I remembered as fun, but is in fact, slow and boring), to Space Invaders (I was hot at that game in college) to Simon Says to virtual reality tennis and eveything in-between. That was a lot of fun for me and and the kids. We even played "Guitar Hero," which I won the first time, but Sam handily won on the second go-around. Bill tells me some major league baseball pitcher this summer played too much "Guitar Hero" and hurt/damaged his wrist and then couldn't play in the play-offs. Isabelle was especially enchanted by Ms. Pac-Man and of course, the boys loved it all and were easily shooed away from a couple of inappropriate machines which did have the big warning signs on them! Of course, our children, who are a little group of natural-scientists-in-training anyway, loved the Natural History museum even more and we had a great time there among the earthquake, volcano, ecology, dinosaur, animal, etc. exhibits. We also went to Churchill's War Museum, which we weren't expecting to be all that interesting for the kids, but both Bill and I wanted to see it, so they really had no say in the matter. The War Museum is actually housed in the underground bunker where the British government operated during the war and somewhat surprisingly, it was a tremendous hit with the kids. I believe, in part, because each person had their own little audio-guide and the stories are told in a compelling and interesting way - it was more than just walking around looking at exhibits and listening to Mom & Dad tell the stories. It was their introduction to the history of WWII, which is probably appropriate given our current address and they asked a zillion questions, about half of which we could answer. I believe that was one of their highlights of the trip. Another day we went to the theatre and saw Stomp which Nick described in his journal as "a bunch of homeless people showing how to make music with garbage cans, brooms and other everyday things." We all enjoyed it as well as going to the movies to see a kid flick in English, Happy Feet, which we don't get to do here in Italy. Another tourist attraction that we visited was the Tower of London, essentially a collection of medieval castles/fortresses and that was fine. We rode the London Eye, a gigantic ferris wheel with enclosed little pods that offered a beautiful view of London at night. Hmm, what else am I forgetting? Oh, yes, a shopping trip to Hamley's, a 7 story toy store, courtesy of all their grandparents. Now, that was fun (for the kids)!Sam and I went to Harrod's for the post-xmas sales and snatched up some good deals. We also spent some time in many of the green spaces around London just hanging out and one evening stopped by a carnival in Hyde Park and went on a couple of rides. One of the most magical moments was watching the midnight fireworks from our hotel room on the 9th floor. While not planned, we couldn't have asked for a better place to watch them. All 5 of us enjoyed watching television, which we don't do all that much here and Bill and I got to watch Jon Stewart one evening and I think Bill even watched a football game. There are lots of other things we missed, most notably the British Museum, but there are more trips to be had to London, I'm sure of that.

We really had a nice time, the hotel was luxurious and everything in London is very expensive!! Ouch!! But, it was a great week for our us and we're glad we went. Finally, we met up with a couple that Bill knew from his Stanford post-doc (they are both scientists) and their son who is the same age as the boys. Apparently, Bill gets in touch with them about every 15 years, so the kids & I were a big surprise! We had lunch and their son taught our kids how to wiggle their ears, but Isabelle is especially good at it, ask her the next time you see her.

Whew, we did a lot, didn't we? It didn't really feel exhausting though and was a nice vacation. And while on an everyday basis, our language barrier gets smaller and less important, I am only a little ashamed to admit that going someplace where I can speak to anyone, at any time, was the "icing on the cake" as they say. Also, being away from the siesta system and being able to run out in the afternoon and grab a bottle of Tylenol or a couple of apples also lent some charm to the visit. The only low point was when we we were talking about "coming home" and meaning Padova, Isabelle thought we were getting on a plane to the US and had apparently been operating under that assumption the entire week. She was more than a little disappointed and there been some backlash. Even though, that being said, she is generally happy with school and life here. She told me the other day she was sad because she couldn't "remember how the face looks" of one of her favorite little friends, Caroline, from the Giving Tree year. We all have our little bouts of homesickness and this was her turn.

Now, next week we head north for Brunico, to spa & ski for "White Week" in the northern part of Italy that is bilingual in German & Italian. One Italian acquaintance said, "you're not going to Italy, you are really going to Austria." It is right on the border, just the other side of the Alps. This has not been a good snow year in this part of Europe, but we embark with open minds, the hope to do a little skiing at least one or two days, our bathing suits for the heated pool and no cooking for a week!