The Prime Meridian

Greenwich, England

In honor of my son’s eighth birthday we convinced the wee lad that we should spend the day in Greenwich. This would allow him, we argued, to have one leg on one side of the Prime Meridian, and one on the other – so that half of his body could be eight while the other half was seven. This is, of course, a complete falsehood and a reprehensible mangling of the whole notion of the Prime Meridian, but it succeeded in keeping us from a day at British Legoland and was therefore worth whatever confusion it engendered.

It turns out that a trip to Greenwich is a terrific 8^th birthday outing. The Royal Observatory and the Planetarium are both fabulous. The astronomer who gave our Planetarium talk spends a lot of time alone in dark rooms and unlike our Windsor guide of a prior day, had a well-developed sense of humor, an affable manner, and an impressive ability to convey complex ideas about the planets, stars and the galaxies in a way that was easily digestible by us mere mortals. Once the show was over we stayed behind while my older son (not the Birthday Boy) peppered the poor fellow with PhD-prep questions. I wasn’t actually aware that he was pursuing a PhD in astronomy, but apparently he started over the summer.

We did, in fact, straddle the Prime Meridian. Not a single one of us was one age on one side and another age on the other, but the photos are funny which was the only thing that mattered.

We were avid users of Rick Steve’s travel guides over the summer of 2009. Rick, as we came to call him, is particularly adept at recommending restaurants that are not break-the-bank expensive, and feel truly local in their manner and their food offerings. Rick sent us to a tavern in Greenwich that sat right on the waterfront and had been a licensed tavern for longer than the US has been in existence. We had a fine lunch of fish and a thousand chips with sides of mushy peas. They made a birthday cake from scratch for the American Birthday Boy (literally), and the affable Brits joined us in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.” My children have moved into a new phase in relationship to alcohol. For whatever reason they now demand tastes of everything. Being generally of the view that forbidden things are that much more appealing, we have mostly adopted a policy of giving them a small sip, if they ask. On this particular day the adults had all ordered beers in honor of the birthday (any excuse will do). The Birthday Boy wanted a taste. Cameras were out since we’d shot pictures of the Birthday Boy blowing out his candles. He grabbed my beer stein and began mugging for the camera. About ¼ of my beer remained at the bottom. And then, with the cameras rolling my 8 year-old child chugged the remainder of my beer. Seriously. All I could do was laugh until I cried. So, there you have it – liberal parenting rather than leading to moderation leads to beer chugging at age 8. I’m a complete failure.

In Sickness and in Health

No foreign adventure attempted by my family would be complete without at least one visit to a medical practitioner or hospital. I know – we’re weak, high maintenance, and prone to strange illnesses, or something. I personally have tried out any number of foreign hospitals, outpatient clinics, and doctor’s waiting rooms. I’ve communicated the details of ailments (both mine and my family’s) in a number of foreign languages and have developed an entire hand signal vocabulary to be used when attempting to discuss medical conditions beyond my elementary school-level skill in the local tongue. It is all part of my own ongoing research into why all of the other advanced industrial economies have better healthcare systems than we do at home. I find that you really can’t speak about comparative health care strengths and weaknesses without using the systems yourself. It’s why I try to come down with something nearly life threatening whenever I travel. However, the summer of 2009 was my husband’s turn to gather data on the British National Health Service. He struggled with a cold/flu for two long weeks in July and then all hell broke loose. He looked and felt ghastly. We had a lovely visit with a Swedish or Dutch (not sure which) private pay physician whose office was conveniently located just around the corner from our flat. She spent ages with my husband and gave him a once over comparable to a full physical in the US. I must say that there is a sense of security being away from home in Britain that I did not have being away from home in say, Russia or Ukraine. I remember viscerally the fear that all of us felt when my stepmother needed medical care in St. Petersburg. None of us wanted her to drive off in that ambulance. Despite some of the complexity associated with the British National Health Service (had my husband actually contracted Swine Flu we would have been thrown out of the private pay system and into the “National Pandemic” program and a separate set of doctors, rules, etc…) the care in Britain was excellent. Our doctor treated us as though we’d been patients for years, not just a matter of days. The only member of the family to completely escape the flu was my eldest son. The rest of us, like many, many Brits during the summer of 2009, suffered from a range of flu symptoms (headache, tummy upset, mild fever, and well – worse). Our oldest son was standing in direct firing range during the sudden onset of my youngest son’s projectile vomiting episode. The older boy took the attack in stride and spent many hours ministering to his suffering little brother.

In the midst of our bout of flu, my Russian cousin (not the one who now lives in Zurich, but rather the one who lives in St. Petersburg) arrived for a weeklong visit. She is a delightful young woman. She made the best of her time with us making many long walks through London on her own while I tended to one or another of the sick Sterns. She is very industrious and spent more than a full day of her visit pursuing economic research that she hoped would help her finish her Russian Economics thesis.

She, like many members of my family, has significantly larger than average feet (You know what they say about people with big feet? They won’t blow over in a big wind). Large foot size can be a real problem if you live in Russia. In a strange carryover from the standardization strategies of the Communist Era, they don’t make women’s shoes larger than a size 10 because really any right-thinking (or left-thinking) Russian would have the sense to have the same foot size as every other Russian person so that there isn’t need for special foot treatment. One for all and all for one, and all that. If you somehow missed the whole foot standardization memo and have feet larger than a 10 you simply spend your life shoving your massive toesies into the largest shoes available, that or wear thongs. As you might imagine the whole sandal strategy is a bit of a bummer come January when the temperature drops to minus 367 degrees. My lovely cousin has a closet full of crummy Russian shoes, none of which fit. When she first visited me in the US I insisted on taking her shoe shopping. Initially she rejected the shoes that the kind, well-intentioned American shoe saleswoman brought to her. They were too big, my cousin said. She thought it odd that she could actually move her toes. It wasn’t right, she said. Toes should be held firmly in place by the end of ones’ shoes. You wouldn’t want them wiggling and squiggling around all day. Think of what they might do given such outrageous freedom. Though I did not convince her that day to go home with the ridiculously large “runners” I was trying to push on her, she has taken to spending a significant amount of her time outside of her homeland shopping for shoes and I noted that the ones she bought in London actually fit.

Finally flu free and clad in well fitting shoes, we spent a truly English day enjoying the splendors of Windsor Castle. The morning was clear and still and we leapt at the chance to enjoy a castle outing with what appeared to be slim prospects of a downpour. We made our way to Paddington Station and had the typical set of tourist glitches as we attempted to use the “Quick Pay” kiosk, a lengthy complex process that ended eventually with the evil, wicked computer spitting back my credit card but no actual tickets. Several frantic minutes ensued as we regrouped, got in the long que to transact with a live human, bought our tickets and ran as a galumphing herd across the rail station to catch our train with seconds to spare. No vacation is really complete until you’ve had to run like hell somewhere to catch something just as the doors shut behind you. It was apparently our morning to add this particularly delightful facet of travel to our list of experiences.

Windsor, both the town and the castle, are a posh traveler’s dream. We arrived in town ten minutes before the Castle opened for visitors, and despite a number of Italian tourists’ attempts to crash the que, we were first in line for tickets, and therefore first to enter the splendid grounds. We had one of our least inspiring tours of the summer led by a humorless British woman (tight bun, dour expression, sensible shoes) who really should spend more time alone in a very dark room, and then made our way to see the changing of the guard. A lot of foot stomping, shouting by superiors at subordinates, minute shifting of regiment locations, and other mysterious activities ensued that made absolutely no sense to any of us watching, particularly my visiting Russian cousin who thought the whole thing was inexplicable and bizarre. An hour later the single soldier from one regiment who had been standing at a small booth had changed and a new single soldier from another regiment was in his place. I’m still not clear how or why that seemingly simple process takes a full hour – other than to entertain and confuse the daily hordes of tourists. If you are planning to attack Windsor you should surely plan it for the hour in which the guard is changed as all of the soldiers are consumed with complex useless activity and certainly won’t notice you storming the castle.

During the course of watching the changing of the guard our sunny still morning disappeared and a windy, stormy, rainy day arrived in its place. The two weather patterns could not have been more different and the whole transition took less time than changing of the guard. On went our ubiquitous raincoats and off we dashed to see the interior of the castle. The State Rooms are ever so stately, and since Windsor is a working castle, they’ve installed a number of flat screen TVs to show tourists what the place looks like when the Royals are around. Though my youngest child is generally a good traveler, he was feeling a tad sluggish that particular morning. We had one mostly funny episode when he threw himself in a thespian fit onto the carpeted floor and refused to go another step. Playing next to him was a video of the Queen and her consorts processing through the very same space. She, however, did not throw herself on the floor, at least not with the cameras rolling. Since non-Royal photographs are not allowed inside Windsor you’ll have to rely on my word that my son and the Queen have both traipsed over the same ground, my delightful child splayed out face down, and the Queen all robed and crowned.

Hit in the Head by Hail in a Heatwave

I love Zurich, Luzern and nearly all things Swiss. However, I was hit in the head by a truly large – nearly golf ball sized – chunk-o-hail, and that after schvitzing through an 85-degree completely humid day. How fair is that?

We came to Zurich to see my Russian born cousin who is now a German citizen. Through the flexibility afforded to her with her EU passport she currently lives and works just outside of Zurich with her Russian now German husband, and her German now Swiss child. We stayed in downtown Zurich at the Hotel zum Storchen which sits just on the River Limmat, two short blocks from where the river opens out onto Lake Zurich. It was all quite lovely and terribly Swiss. If you’ve not been to Zurich it is clean, well ordered, pretty in a posh sort of way, and so expensive I started pining for the bargains on Rodeo Drive. In London these days an American ex-pat expects expensive digs and pricey food, but London is an absolute steal compared to 36 hours in Switzerland. It was hot and sticky and I must admit, an iced latte from the Zurich Starbucks was seriously calling my name (“R-A-C-H-E-L, come be refreshed…”). In I went, only to break the land speed record screeching my way out of the joint once I realized I was going to have to pay $8 bucks for the privilege. In point of fact in the summer of 2009 it cost 7.5 Swiss Francs for a tall Starbucks Latte. And the place was full. Have these people completely gone completely mad? Lattes are ludicrously expensive in the US at $3.50. For the cost of two Swiss Lattes I can do some serious damage at the DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) in Westwood, CA. Let’s keep our priorities straight people.

We took a peaceful cruise around Lake Zurich, gawked at the glorious Marc Chagall stained glass windows in the Fraumunster Abbey Church in the heart of Zurich, and climbed the 195 steps to the top of the Grossmunster Church (built in the 12^th Century). I had to do some serious Zen breathing to make it up the nightmarishly narrow, winding, windowless, dank, dark steps. Our babysitter had a near panic attack and fled back to the vast outdoors to shake and hyperventilate in peace. I was quite proud to have talked myself into the climb. The view was great and the boys loved the entire experience. I must admit however that going down was far worse than going up. The steps themselves are just the right amount of too narrow while simultaneously being suck the air out of your chest steep, so that you spend the entire downward dimly lit journey certain that either you or your loved ones are soon going to lose their footing and plunge to their deaths. My kind of fun. I was thinking it would make a good replacement for my husband’s workouts on the Santa Monica stairs but I don’t think he could get even half of the acreage of his size 15 feet onto the steps.

After a great tourist day in Zurich we had a super Swiss Meal at a restaurant I would recommend to you except that the name has 17 letters, starts with a Z and has no vowels.

My Russian relatives picked us up in a rented mini-van the next morning and took us on a day trip to Luzern. If you’ve ever been in any of those large format color photography shops that line the streets of American ski towns like Deer Valley, all of those insanely gorgeous Swiss shots are of Luzern. The place is stunning. We strolled. We ate expensive and tasty Swiss food along the gurgling river. We crossed over beautiful wooden bridges lined with flower boxes. We gazed at the cloud-covered Alps. We remarked on the fact that we hadn’t been in such warm humid weather since our ill-fated trip through the London Natural History Museum during the HURTWAVE.

My cousin wanted to show us the view from an old hotel that sits perched on a hilltop overlooking the city. Up we went, just a five-minute drive into the hills. We hopped out of the car to take in the view, and just as we did, the first thunder and lightening cracked overhead. It started to rain. The wind came up. The thunder and lightening cracked again. I was just about to say, no - SHRIEK, “perhaps we should all get back into the car,” when I was hit in the head – not by lightening – but by a massive chunk of hail. In seconds we were in the middle of the most intense storm we’ve ever experienced. There were moments when I was certain that the car windows were going to shatter from the sheer force of the hail. It thundered, ice crashed around us, it blew, the visibility went to zero, the baby let out her first and only wail of the entire day. Even my cousin, Russian born and impossible to fluster, looked ever so slightly troubled. And just as quickly as it had started, it was over. The sun came out. The clouds lifted. Little rainbows fluttered by. And so, our summer adventure continued.

Back in London

Over the summer of 2009 we visited far more London sites/sights than most native Londoners see in a lifetime. In one week we added The London Wetlands Centre, The Imperial War Museum, Covent Garden, The Millennium Bridge, Regent’s Park, Hamley’s and The Borough Market to our check list of “been there, seen that.” This level of activity would not have been possible without the arrival of our American friend and self described “child wrangler,” Jen. She spent a wonderful three weeks with us and her boundless energy and good spirits enabled us to cover many a happy mile.

The London Wetlands Centre is a bird refuge/sanctuary that is a combination zoo and safe haven for migratory birds whose normal stomping grounds have shrunk as London and its suburbs have stretched further and further into the hinterlands. We visited the 840-hectare site at an opportune moment. A massively high percentage of the resident population had been feeling a wee bit frisky. We saw more baby birds in one day than we have collectively seen over the course of our entire lives. There are few more adorable sights than group after group of little ducklings and goslings (sometimes as many as 17) lined up to swim behind Mum. I only have two offspring and I cannot get them to line up behind me without serious threat of bodily harm. Clearly I’m not nearly as good at parenting as the average duck. We learned that the really flashy duck varieties only mate for a season and the dull looking ducks mate for life. I found this news SO reassuring. Dull, dull, dull, that’s me. The male and female “mate for life” ducks also look a lot like each other. I think my husband is pretty fab, but if I sprout facial hair and my feet grow to size 15 I’m going to be quite put out. Though none of the Londoners we met had ever been to the Wetland Centre, we gave the place four thumbs up. The birds come from all over the world (we saw migrants from Africa and Iceland, just to name a few far flung spots that were well represented), and they are used to human visitors so they go about their bird business just two feet from you on the lovely walking paths. We rated it a total home run (or whatever you call it in Cricket just before you call time out for a smoke).

The Imperial War Museum is another one of the many London Museums that outshine 95% of the museums we have available at home. The ground floor is devoted, in part, to a massive exhibition of weaponry largely from World War I and II. This includes the immense V2 (the first real ballistic missile) that was launched against Britain by the Germans at the tail end of the war, and pieces of Rudolph Hess’s plane that he crashed into the English countryside when he came to the U.K. to attempt to reach a peace agreement with the Brits (completely unbeknownst to Hitler). There is a touching, smartly done exhibit on WWII from a child’s perspective. I had no idea how many children were evacuated from London in the months that led up to the War. Many of them were sent into the English and Scottish countryside, but an even larger number were sent out of the country to foster families abroad. One of the ships carrying children was hit and sunk by the Germans. Some of the evacuations were done so quickly that inadequate paperwork was completed and at the end of the war the children were lost. Parents had no idea where the children had been sent. A considerable number of these families were never reunited.

Regent’s Park is singularly worth a plane flight across the pond. We wandered there while studiously ignoring the looming rain clouds and threats from the wise folks at the Weather Channel of showers all day (nary a drop fell). The Queen’s Garden in the center of the park, all roses, had peaked but still shared with us the promise of what it must have looked like at its zenith. Newly addicted to the whole notion of a British Wetland, we trooped over to that part of the park and were rewarded with a visit from a large number of geese and duck families. We felt quite proud as we shouted out the species names we had learned just days before. And then we plotted a course through the rest of the park that would take us through the Informal British Garden and back into town so that we could take the boys to Hamley’s, the British version of New York’s FAO Schwartz. The Informal British Garden looks like the front yard of Versaille. I don’t quite get what is “informal” about it – though perhaps they were referring to us. We looked pretty scruffy that day. There was nothing at all scruffy about the garden. It was stupendous. The juxtaposition of colors, a band of red, then purple, then green, was breathtaking. We strolled out of the garden feeling as if we’d won the lottery. How often do you get to see such exquisite beauty?

Moment’s later our luck continued. We came round the corner, just across the street from the park exit, and there was Emma Thompson. Yes, the always elegant, well spoken, smashing Emma Thompson, all decked out as Nanny McPhee, (significant facial hair, gaping teeth, big boil) not the least bit beautiful, but fabulous all the same. We stood and gawked as Emma and her brood drove past Regent’s Park in their motorcycle with sidecar. There seemed to be far less concern about security on this British set than we’ve got in the US. They were quite happy to have us stand six feet from Emma to watch the proceedings. Chaps in natty British attire came and went. I thought we might see Colin Firth, ‘cause wasn’t he in the first Nanny McPhee movie? A quick imbd check once we got home clarified that this particular movie is Colin Firthless. Rather, it is Ralph Fiennes who might have been lurking in the shadows, though we did not see him. You cannot have everything. I had enough what with the glorious British garden and the 20 minutes in close proximity to Emma. In retrospect I should have called it a day and gone home.

But no, we were still on a mission to take the boys to Hamley’s. Hunger had set in, and we needed some nourishment right quick. I’d received restaurant recommendations just the day before via an American friend whose last name I won’t repeat on the grounds it might incriminate her – but it rhymes with CRANKLIN. Apparently some lunatics in an internet parent chat group associated with a sketchy Ivy League school located in New Jersey made mention of a Pizza chain in London that could be counted on for quick quality meals. NOT SO MUCH. We had the longest quick meal in history at Pizza Distress, oops Express. It was one of those special slow roasted pizzas that take seven hours to cook. Really the only hitch was that they didn’t start the seven-hour slow roasting process until the waiter saw the whites of our eyes.

For me, the apex of the day was the forty minutes of British garden bliss followed by a close encounter of the Emma kind. It was a screeching nosedive after that. From Pizza Regress we moved on to Hamley’s, which is located somewhere on the 6^th circle of TOY HELL. Cluttered, chaotic, full to the brim with children chanting, “gimme that” in eleven different languages, it was enough to send me hurtling out into traffic for some peace and quiet. We escaped after buying both of my children and my husband remote-controlled helicopters that I knew were certain to destroy all of the frail antiques in our Chelsea flat right before they self-destructed, never to fly again.

I must admit, up until mid-summer, I thought Covent Garden was, well, a garden. Regent’s Park is a Park, the Imperial War Museum is a Museum that addresses the issue of War, the Millennium Bridge is a Bridge built for, you guessed it, the Millennium, and the London Wetland Centre is Wet, has quite a lot of Land associated with it and is located in, of all places, London. But Covent Garden - not actually a Garden. Maybe “Covent Crowded Shopping Mall” or “Covent Outdoor Performance Area with Magicians who Spend More Time Asking for Money than Performing,” but not so much as a blade of grass nor flower patch in sight. The performers we saw had the fine art of repetitive begging followed by brief flashes of inadequate entertainment down to a science. Didn’t need to stay long. Actually do prefer gardens to crowded shopping malls.

Though my children are extremely partial to British taxis – we completed another long forced march from Covent Not-Actually-A-Garden, along the Thames, across the Built-at-the-Millennium Bridge and into the Borough Market. We Sterns love food. It is hard to imagine a better place for my family to spend an afternoon than London’s Borough Market. Not only do they have all kinds of amazing foodstuffs, they are quite cheerful about offering free tastes of everything. A contagiously friendly family of Iranians selling Turkish Delights in every color and taste combination, as well as chocolate covered fruits and nuts, fell for my children’s superior wit and charm and were soon showering the boys with treats. After trying and buying the Iranian Turkish Delights, some truly savory pies, delectable fresh pasta, and several small containers of olives, we made our way to Neal’s Yard Dairy which sits just cattycorner to the covered market and according to my sister’s friend’s sister, will let you sample of every single one of its 300 cheeses. This may well be true, though unfortunately we do not have personal proof of this assertion. Try as we might, we hit complete cheese overload at about a 5^th of that number of tastes. We let our youngest, the family cheese hound, try as many cheeses as he wished and we went home with six little packets of delicious dairyness. We liked the Borough Market so much that we chose to spend some of our increasingly precious London weekend time wandering through the fabulous foodstuffs a second time. For our second visit we arrived really, really hungry. We had a whole shopping list and a week’s worth of meal plans all heavily dependent on our purchases. We had found our true London home. If only they let you camp overnight amid the booths, we could have avoided putting out so much rent money in Chelsea.

London, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Lest you think that I was ready to abandon my life in LA in favor of the verdant shores of England, I must admit that there were a number of things that caused me to want to return to the not-so verdant shores of home.

First, the British and perhaps the Europeans as well, need give up the whole Sarah Palin, head in the sand thing and admit that global warming is upon us and invest in some 20^th Century ventilation systems. I’m thinking Encino, 1980. They know how to keep things cool in the San Fernando Valley and have done so for a while now. I’m sure they could teach these Brits a few things. The subway cars, buses, taxis and many fine museums are stifling torture chambers in the heat of summer. I cannot begin to tell you how much I hated the subway ride I attempted during the “Hurtwave.” It was truly awful, dreadful and vile - all at the same time. Take me back to the US of A where I need a cardigan and a wool blankie mid-summer in order to survive any indoor experience, be it an office, a shopping mall or a movie. In West Los Angeles we have no public transportation, but I’m certain the trains would be cold if we had them.

Second, there is the issue of appliances. I just don’t understand them. I needed to wash the towels that my in-laws used when they visited. These are modest people who do not engage in unwarranted towel use. However, with the size of our washing machine I could wash exactly two towels at a time. With a minimum two- hour wash cycle it took me a week and a half working day and night to clean my in-law’s towels. Recently, I was camping with dear friends who are twins (tall, funny, used to be hard to tell apart until one of them started wearing bright orange crocs 24/7). They told me about this great new product called an “Action Wipe,” which is described on the company’s website as a, “Natural, full body wet wipe for when you can’t shower.” My friends regaled me with just how useful these sperm whale-sized wipes can be. I cannot even repeat what the two of them can accomplish with a single Action Wipe. They neglected to tell me that the company motto is, “Your face is not a baby’s butt, don’t wipe it like one,” but that wasn’t my point. MY point was that I ordered a case of them and put them in the guest bath for the rest of the summer. No more endless sessions washing towels. Problem solved. And really, it was only my sister left to visit. But I digress. Back to my list of reasons to return to LA.

No baseball. My boys and I tried to watch cricket, which I assume the Brits think is an acceptable substitute for The Great American Pastime. Let’s put that matter to rest right now. I know a bat is involved, and a ball, and even something that vaguely resembles a pitch, but beyond that I cannot figure out how the sport differs from just standing around having a smoke. It also must be said that any athletic pursuit that does not involve actual movement, fails to cause accelerated cardio function (except perhaps in the fans) and, that can be played in an outfit suitable for a formal brunch at The Plaza Hotel, cannot actually be called a sport (I believe bowling, not withstanding the non Plaza Hotel-worthy outfits, should be similarly disqualified).

No English Muffins. If you come to America looking for American Cheese, well there it is, in every grocery store, gracing every Big Mac, all bright and smooth, and incandescent orange, just like any good cheese should be. But request an ENGLISH muffin in England and you’ll go hungry. We trudged kilometer after kilometer and searched shop aisle after shop aisle, to no avail. Someone needs to get on this immediately.

Next, there is the issue of our phone. You see it never rang. I mean not ever. Not even solicitation calls. No mortgage refinance offers. No promises of lower phone rates. No personal calls from Antonio Villaraigosa asking me to vote for this City Council person or that Assembly member. How could we possibly survive in such oppressive phone silence?

No peanut butter. First my children’s school, now the entire British Isles. It’s just plain wrong.

It’s flat. I mean F-L-A-T, like Kansas, only verdant. When you’re done with a seven-hour round of cricket and you want to get some actual exercise there is nary a hill to climb. Or what if you want to signal someone because you’re in distress? Generally you would climb to the highest point so that people would be able to see you for miles around. But you see, there’s the rub, there isn’t a hill, not even one. The tallest point in London appeared to be The London Eye, also managed by the same people who run Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum and the utterly fabulous London See-Not-So-Much-Sea-Life Aquarium. Given that they suckered me once I was stuck down in the flats. I did miss a good hill to climb. I need a little variation, even some undulation.

It’s landlocked. Well at least London is. Britain, not so much since in actual fact it is an island. London has the Thames, which is a tidal river, though I asked some of the natives about high and low tide and they seemed appallingly uninformed. When does it come in? When does it go out? How often does it happen? Is there any surfing involved? They knew not. Truth be told, I just missed the Pacific.

My children wanted the following items added to my list above.

1. No In and Out Burger
2. No nanny (theirs)
3. No fish tank (ours, not the kind in an aquarium)
4. No relatives, except when someone visited
5. No massive collection of stuffed animals

And my husband wanted it noted that he missed his coffee machine.

Thank goodness we went home in August.

Four Americans in Paris

Though I do love Paris, I feel it is best to start with my petite list of complaints and then move on to the accolades. If you aren’t interested in a long story about our stay in Paris, go get a coffee and a cigarette and come back in half an hour – I’ll surely be on to another topic by then.

To begin, we did not take a single taxi-ride in Paris with a taxi driver who didn’t seem completely put out that we had the nerve to actually want a RIDE somewhere. They’ve all got this heavy sigh, “could my life get any worse?” attitude. As far as I can tell, I am not personally responsible for any of them being forced to place a “taxi” sign on the roof of their vehicles. They elected to do that long before they met me. The first thing every cranky driver said to me in complete disgust was, “that’s not far.” Invariably we wanted to go two miles. Somehow the economics of taxi driving are beyond them because even my ten year-old understands that the first mile is the most profitable. Most of them looked to have been sitting at the taxi stand for hours reading tabloid magazines. Apparently they’d rather read about aliens mating with Carla Bruni than actually earn a living.

We stayed at Hotel de Tourville, a 4-star hotel that surely bribed its way into some serious grade inflation on the part of whomever gives out stars. It’s on a quiet street and the rooms are bright, tidy, slightly bigger than a breadbox and charmless. This was our second experience over the summer in a hotel that had chosen to put rubber sheets between the cotton sheets and the mattress. This seems totally reasonable for toddlers and I too used them to make sure that my children didn’t get wee-wee on the bed. It’s much less appealing to sleep on them as an adult. The sound my husband made when he rolled over on the rubber did not move me.

Beyond the surly, inhospitable taxi drivers, and the joy of settling in to a night’s sleep on heavy plastic sheeting, I do so love Paris. It is a great city for kids. I knew it was a great city for adults, but seeing it through my children’s eyes was terrific. We went first to Luxembourg Gardens. We spent a fabulous four hours there and took advantage of the small wooden boats you can push into the breeze on the central pond, the mule rides, and the large playground in the center of the park that charges an admission fee but will let you play forever and ever. The formal gardens are as beautiful as I remembered them and the Parisians and the tourists were out in abundance enjoying a lovely summer’s day.

We expected the children to walk a great deal in Paris and my youngest was a mite bit vocal about his dislike of the long forced marches. We walked much of the way from our hotel to Luxembourg Gardens, and then walked again from the park to Notre-Dame covering 3-4 miles in total. My child’s various ailments brought us no end of amusement. If it wasn’t his achy feet, it was his bum knee or his failing hip, and at one point he was sure he was going to faint. The great thing about his ailments is that they all miraculously disappear - poof - as soon as he gets to do something of his liking.

We ended our first day in Paris at a small, very traditional French Restaurant (L’Auberge Bressane) just around the corner from our hotel. Filled with Parisians and the four of us Yanks, the evening was perfect. My older son had escargot that were so tasty, so swimming in garlic and butter, so piping hot, and so completely flawless they could not have been improved in any way other than by dipping them in chocolate. My husband had a rooster stew that was rich and earthy and so not what you get at a French restaurant in Los Angeles.

Day 2 started blissfully at my favorite museum on the planet, the Musée d’Orsay. Some right thinking person in 1970 opted to save the Gare d’Orsay, a superbly striking train station that was no longer useful as a transportation hub, and turned it into a hub of a different sort. The French consolidated a number of collections of Impressionist artwork that had previously been spread across the city and created a bridge between the works in the Louvre and those at the Pompidou. There is something about the art from this period that speaks straight to my soul. Monet, Manet, Pisarro, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Seurat, and more, all hung in bright broad rooms spanned by girders that were rescued from the original rail station. My children, well rested and fed, literally yelped with joy at the work. This bliss lasted a solid two hours at which point a number of underlying medical conditions surfaced and they both needed to be carried out on stretchers.

We lunched on sandwiches at the museum and then made the short forced march across the Seine to the Jardin des Tuileries, the vast gardens that sit between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde. In the summertime they turn over a part of this amazing garden to weary looking amusement park rides and games. French park games rely heavily on shooting things with real guns that have to be reloaded after each shot. I found it particularly thoughtful that they provide an ashtray next to each gun so that you can kill other things while simultaneously killing yourself. Despite my leftist leanings I reluctantly let the boys shoot (though I drew the line at smoking) and then quickly hurried them along to the bumper cars, which seemed a safer pursuit. However, these are not liability neutral bumper cars suitable for litigation-happy Americans. These are FRENCH bumper cars and driving them can best be described as willingly choosing to participate in a car accident every 20 seconds for five drawn-out minutes. I laughed hysterically for the first two and then feared for my life, or at least for my brain, which was being slammed around inside my skull something fierce. It was horrid. I had an immediate headache and I’m certain that any number of critical bones in my body are no longer located where they should be. I complained that I needed a stretcher, but no one listened.

We took another forced march up the Champs-Elysées to show the boys the Arc de Triomphe. The boulevard, once sparkling and elegant, it is now a sea of humanity flowing from McDonalds to the Virgin Megastore with a large number of stops at car dealerships in between. I find it tragic. It was once lovely and grand, mais pas maintenant. It feels much like Vegas, or the couple of blocks in Hollywood near the Mann Chinese Theater minus the guys in Star Wars get-ups. I feel certain that in another year or two the Star Wars guys will have moved in as well.

Our third day in Paris was spent visiting the Louvre followed by a lovely afternoon in Le Marais, the old Jewish quarter. I believe that the key to success with two small children in a museum the size of Delaware is to identify the 4 or 5 things that you must see, structure the decision process so that the children believe that they were responsible for choosing more than half of the 4-5 priority areas, arrive on or before the exact moment that the museum opens, stay two hours and then bring on the stretchers (either that or ice cream). We employed this strategy to near perfection at the Louvre. They have moved the Mona Lisa to new digs. One used to wait in a long tedious line to file past her in her deep, dark cage. She moved three or four years ago to much nicer quarters. She now has a lovely large room with a better bullet/fire proof box around her. The boys were quite enamored and elected to stay for a quite a while gazing upon her unusual visage. They chose to see the Egyptian and Greek antiquities (our third visit to such a collection at a major museum this summer). The Stern boys never tire of a good sarcophagus. I dragged them past the Rembrandts, which made me ever so happy (not the dragging, the Rembrandts), and Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People.” The boys did note that the place is too vast (which it is) and that there are an awful lot of paintings of Jesus (true as well). We exceeded our two-hour allotment by 30 minutes and left just before the paramedics were necessary.

The Stern boys and their parents love Le Marais. If you’ve not been there, it is the old Jewish Quarter not far from the Pompidou Museum in Paris. It makes a lovely juxtaposition to the Louvre in that it is not at all vast and there are absolutely no paintings of Jesus. The roads are just wide enough for those remote controlled cars three year-old boys like to drive erratically down one’s hallway, and yet, cars of every shape and size drive down them as the pedestrians scatter like cattle. The shops are an interesting combination of forward French Fashion and Old World Jewish charm. There is a hub at the intersection of two narrow streets where competing Falafel joints pump out fantastic Middle Eastern cuisine to awaiting throngs. We had a mouth-watering lunch of Falafel and Shwarma. No issues about cloven hoofs here. We did our only travel shopping and came away with new kippas and mezzuzot and a massive amount of apple strudel, poppy seed pastries, and baklava. It was a total heaven (though we Jews don’t believe in heaven, so it was something closely approximating heaven if heaven is a place where one can get a really good knish).

Our last day in Paris was spent celebrating Bastille Day. Two very enthusiastic Stern boys rose at dawn and we made the 1.5 mile walk from our hotel to the Champs- Elysées without any word of underlying medical issues. Bastille day is, from my perspective, an opportunity to watch the French demonstrate, for all the world to see, that they own a lot of very nice looking military equipment and some pretty silly hats. It’s hard to come up with better entertainment for American boys (young and old). The fighter planes screamed overhead, the troops marched by in all sorts of regalia that would surely violate the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US, and just when you thought no more tanks could possibly appear another 100 armored personnel carriers rolled by. We even saw Nicolas Sarkozy review the troops just 30 feet from us. We spent the evening with three American friends and their offspring. We had a fine French meal around the corner from our hotel and then joined one million quite well behaved Parisians and assorted tourists to watch the absolutely spectacular fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower. We Americans could take a lesson or two from the French about large-scale celebrations. The massive crowd watching the fireworks was frighteningly civilized as they waited patiently for the festivities to start. I’ve never experienced anything like it at home. Large crowds like that in the US cause me high levels of angst. This was something else entirely. Perhaps a little French ennui helps in a crowd? The fireworks were absolutely super, so beautiful, so artfully conceived, and with just the right sense of humor and REALLY loud music (a little Piaf, a little 1812 Overture, a little contemporary French pop).

My whole family loves Paris. My children wanted to go back immediately, if not sooner, and are already planning a return trip for Bastille Day. Care to join us?

A Hit and a Miss

I should have known, it’s managed by the same people who own Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum and The London Dungeon, two attractions high on the CHEESE scale of tourism. However, my boys really like aquariums and they were so good about traipsing through every major art and historical museum in a 100-mile radius, so I acquiesced. The London Sea-Life Aquarium, located on the south bank of the Thames and conveniently attached to a McDonalds, a video game area and a bowling alley, was the worst and most expensive 55 minutes I’ve spent since the last time I had my teeth drilled. Entirely below ground, it is a series of dark hallways punctuated by small fish tanks with inadequate signage (not to mention inadequate fishage). The place is without a café or restaurant, but to my delight there was a small, slightly seedy candy shop mid-way through where pushy salesmen tried to sell us sweets and really awful photos of me and the wee chaps in front of fake scenes of the sea. This was apparently the newly renovated, vastly improved London Aquarium. I cannot imagine what crap it was before. It led me to think that I should be charging all of my friends to look at my fish tank. Mine’s really nice, and at no extra cost my kids will give an informative somewhat rambling commentary about the fish and the tank and the food, and the fish that we used to have, but they died, and the time the power went out and the tank pumps failed causing the water flow to reverse itself and pour over the top of the fish tank until one of my children noticed the water dripping through the ceiling into the dining room. Instead I paid 47 pounds for the three of us to feel claustrophobic and homesick. Can you feel the joy?

If you want to win back children with a day just for them, The London Zoo is a much better option. Founded in 1827 as the world’s first scientific zoo, it has quite a different feel than big American Zoos. It’s not nearly so large as the LA Zoo, the San Diego Zoo, or the Washington D.C. Zoo, but in a lot of ways its more modest scale works in its favor. We were able to see nearly the whole place in an energetic four hours. There was a wonderful animal show with a wry British hostess who was both witty and smart and whose accent was just this side of incomprehensible. I think that the British success with public gardens plays into the feeling of the place. Sometimes American Zoos feel a bit severe with wide concrete walkways and big animal enclosures. The London Zoo feels like a garden and then you come around a corner and low and behold, there’s an Okapi. So lest you think that Americans have cornered the market on insufferable teens, there was one small downside of the Zoo adventure. The day we were there, it turns out, was the last day of school for most of London. Many, many schools chose to spend their last school day at the Zoo, including a large number of middle schools for boys. As a consequence we shared our zoo experience with some right awful teenagers. They thought nothing of shoving small American children out of the way when there was something interesting to be seen, and quickly resorted to mockery when the same American children could not find the small reptile in its enclosure and were asking “Mommy” to help locate it. I really wanted to smack them (not my children, the teens). And since I am and have always been a tattler (just ask my sister), I stomped up to the teacher and told on them. Let that be a lesson to you, detestable British teenagers - never cross a Mommy. We will bring you down, and hard.

Whilst in London I read the International Herald Tribune on a daily basis. And thank goodness for that. By reading it I learned that “Meandering Turtles Delayed Flights as JFK was Forced to Close Runway.” One morning mid-summer the paper reported that, “A runway at JFK was shut down after at least 78 turtles emerged from a nearby bay and crawled onto the tarmac. Ground crews eventually rounded up the wayward reptiles and deposited them back in the water farther from the airport property, but not before the incident contributed to flight delays Wednesday.” I believe if one looked into this matter in more detail one would discover that these turtles fled The London Sea-Life Aquarium and were just arriving on US shores. They were only slightly off track. They were looking for my house. I hope someone gave them a lift.

A Rainy Tuesday in July

Just in case you worry that we Sterns never let grass grow beneath our feet, we did one rainy Tuesday in July. We spent a lovely afternoon playing Go Fish, doing Mad Libs, drawing, coloring and making home made Chicken Soup with Rice (stirring once, stirring twice, stirring chicken soup with rice). We explored our shared neighborhood garden and played Bocci Ball in the rain, just as good Londoners should. Eventually it was absolutely pouring and the lightening was just overhead (we even had a thrilling few minutes of hail). For much of the afternoon we borrowed the sweet downstairs neighbor boy who was five. My children crushed the poor child at Go Fish because he refused to hide his cards. Wise to his limitations they moved on to teach him Poker (they are, after all – my husband’s offspring). In the end all they needed to do was teach him about sex and show him some girlie magazines and he’d have been completely ruined by the upstairs American heathens.

I cannot begin to tell you how much the attitude towards Americans has changed compared to prior trips to the UK. I believe we owe a great debt to Barack Obama and every last American who voted for him (including some of my wise Republican friends). Everyone from the cabbies to the doorman to the salespeople in every shop (well perhaps not Harrod’s) appeared genuinely glad to have us in town. We were repeatedly asked where we were from. They all seemed quite fond of Los Angeles, particularly if they’d not been, and super jolly that we chose to spend our entire summer in London. They wondered out loud why Sarah Palin resigned and what caused Michael Jackson to keel over. They took personal pride in the fact that my boys loved Chelsea and everything British, including rabbit stew. It seemed wise not to tell them our opinion of the Tate Modern. My youngest lad had the London accent down pat in a matter of weeks and could have passed as a native, no problem. Apparently my sister and I managed the same transformation when we lived in Scotland in 1972. People used to ask my mother in the que for the bus how it was that she was American but her children were Scottish. Had we stayed much longer people were going to be asking me the same thing about my younger son (with it being even more odd that only one of my children was British, and the other one clearly from like, Los Angeles).

An American friend of mine who read my travel posts this summer noted that he never expected his good friend, Rachel Kaganoff Stern, to write a sentence that started, “I had the opportunity to pee…” but I must say that the guide book industry has left out a critical part of travel, and that is – where one finds err, “the facilities,” and what state they’ll be in once you’ve found them. This is a glaring hole in one’s basic travel information needs. English and Scottish guidebooks ought to say that one should not, under any circumstances, approach a Loo in a train station without the proper change. They all cost 30p. If one is loping to the Loo with two small boys moments before the train departs this is critical information. In Russia and Ukraine one should be told to stop consuming water once one reaches the border since there are no public Loos and you have to learn to function like a well trained dog and just pee first thing in the morning and at the end of the day once you return to your hotel. In the US most public Loos in parks and other urban centers are frightful and likely to be without toilet paper, soap or a door. The British public toilets are fabulously clean, bright, cheerful and abundant. You see I was just trying to provide a vital information service lacking in other travel guides. I have had the opportunity to pee in many a fine British Loo and I’m thankful for it.

Three Americans, and a Piano in a Taxi Honey

It was never a dull moment during our summer in Chelsea. My music obsessed children had been eager to find a way to bring a piano back into our lives. I toyed with buying an electric one and somehow squeezing it into my suitcase at the end of the summer, but my pragmatic and frugal husband thought this was mad and for once, he was right. I, however, was on a mission. If it wasn’t non-cloven hoofed sausages, it was pianos (and by the by, partway through the summer I discovered that Harrod’s had chicken sausages, conveniently located right next to the bunnies). After a google search, some e-mails and a phone call or two, I found a shop that would rent us a proper 88-key electric piano, and I fit it, me and my two handsome children in one black London cab. The cabbie admitted that in his 30 years of driving he’d had lots of odd things in his taxi – but never a piano. For my second mean feat of the day I got the piano and me, but not my children, in our elevator. Two feet wider than our dreadful washing machine, our elevator gave me claustrophobia symptoms every time I rode in it, despite the lovely British voice that soothingly announced each floor upon arrival. The piano was clearly meant to be. My children began tapping the ivories the moment we got the thing in the door. A great deal of time was spent by my younger child trying to play “The Hamster Dance” – a circumstance that was entirely the fault of our babysitter who introduced the song to him at some point before we left on holiday. When she arrived to visit us in London I sat her in one of the flat’s rickety antique chairs and ran my fingers down a chalkboard for two days straight. There have to be consequences to bad behavior. She should know that better than anyone.

We had a lovely weekend not celebrating the 4^th of July with my visiting in-laws. On Saturday of not The Fourth of July Weekend, we took in both the Tower of London and the Churchill War Museum. A first-rate Beefeater led our Tower tour. A witty Welshman, he had lots of ghastly stories of this murder and that beheading, and just enough good humor to keep both my children and my in-laws entertained. There was a new exhibit at the Tower called “Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill.” Seriously smashing, the exhibit was another swashbuckling display of high museum design. In the middle of one of the large rooms in the ancient Tower complex sat a series of massive clear boxes with silver brackets holding them into place. I’d have been happy just looking at the display boxes, they didn’t even need to have anything in them, but low and behold, they were filled with all sorts of great stuff. In one they had hung swords and spears on cables at varying heights and lit them from above and below. They looked like they were swimming, a sea of spears and swords. It was really extraordinary. Oh, and there was lots and lots of armor. It was notable how much bigger Henry’s armor had to get over his lifetime to accommodate his ever-expanding girth (according to one of the displays, the average Tudor consumed 4,000 – 5,000 calories a day). If any of you have been watching The Tudors on HBO, I hate to break it to you, but Henry NEVER LOOKED LIKE Jonathan Rhys Meyers, not ever, no way, no how. You should SEE the size of Henry’s armor. I mean really. The guy was a beast. Have you seen Rhys Meyers lately? Does the man do anything but workout? I’m not sure where all the gym equipment and personal trainers fit in to Henry’s daily schedule running England, dismantling the Catholic Church, and marrying and beheading so many people, but whatever.

It should be noted, since I do seem to keep returning to bathrooms and appliances, that I had the opportunity to pee in the “Loo of the Year: 1995/1997” at the Tower of London (two very large plaques said as such inside the facilities – and I didn’t even have to pay extra to use them). We are clearly missing out on an awards ceremony opportunity in the U.S. We’ve got the Emmy’s, the Grammy’s, the Oscar’s and even The People’s Choice Awards,” but no “Toilet of the Year.” I’m not sure what you get if you’re the “Loo-ser,” though I certainly visited a few toilets in the Ukraine that were quite deserving of that honor.

I quite liked the Churchill War Museum. A tad claustrophobic down in the basement, they left all of the Churchill Cabinet War rooms intact, just as they were on the day they stopped using them at the end of WWII. The audio guide was terrific with lots of in-depth commentary about Churchill, the war, and the manner in which the Brits chose to steer their course, directly from those rooms.

Hampton Court Palace

We spent the Sunday of not The Fourth of July Weekend at Hampton Court Palace. Only 30 minutes from London by train, it felt 500 years away. They have a troop of able thespians who act out Henry VIII’s last wedding day to Catherine Parr. If you are willing to go along, the costumed actors will take you through the various parts of Hampton Court as if it were 1512. If we tried this at home in the US we’d be sure to make the thing so hokey and sugar coated I’d never be able to stomach it. The Brits have just the right dose of self-awareness. It’s humorous, but not slapstick, and clear about the overall goal – which is to give the everyday visitor a sense of how the place functioned under Henry VIII. Both the buildings and the gardens are still fit for a King. The formal gardens are resplendent with neat, clean lines, right angles and diagonals - fabulous from afar and stunning close-up. There is a hedgerow maze that is dizzying and complicated and takes just a little too long to figure out. I was ready to escape when we did.

It Was Really Hot, Well Sort of

It was Day Two of the London “HURTWAVE.” Temperatures in London peaked at an earth shattering, mind boggling 84 degrees and believe it or not, it appeared that the record heat would last for three, count ‘em THREE full days. The papers literally referred to the staggering fact that at night the temperatures were only going to drop to, hold your breath, 64 degrees. This was enough to bring on widespread panic and all sorts of public proclamations from serious looking British officials advising people to stay out of the full sun (given their skin color these folks had not actually ever seen “full sun,” let alone stayed out in it for any length of time). I have to admit, when the papers first started printing the alarming weather news I was briefly sucked in. I absolutely hate the heat. What was I going to do? Our apartment, like all British flats, was without air conditioning. I ran out and bought two fans. I opened the windows all night. I slammed them shut in the morning and drew the shades. Oh for heck sake. Really? All that angst for 84 degrees? Who are they kidding? Come on out to Southern California and we’ll show you some heat baby! We’ve got weeks and weeks of it. It got so hot in our backyard two years ago that the air surrounding the sprinklers built into the roofline of our outdoor BBQ reached the maximum temperature of 135 degrees causing the wax seals to break and the water to shower down on the countertop. I’m not making that up. We had to switch out those sprinkler heads for ones with a 175 degree tolerance and so far, they’ve held.

We added the Victoria & Albert Museum, the London Science Museum, and Kew Gardens to our list of places visited (one each on a Saturday, Sunday and Monday). The British understand public gardens. They have an incredible mix of both the formal and the informal. Within Kew Gardens there are vast wide open spaces that give the sense that the acres go on forever, as well as tightly designed flower gardens with glorious patterns of color cleverly conceived and implemented by the finest garden designers around. We visited all of the glorious Victorian Glass Houses, including the one that housed the Lily Pond. I did not fall in. My family was so very proud.

The Victoria & Albert Museum is a shrine to high style and design. I must note again that the Brits have cornered the market of topnotch museum designers. The jewelry room in the V&A is insanely handsome. It isn’t just the outrageous beauty of what is in the cases, but it is the room itself, all black and gleaming with silver spiral staircases and fabulous silver beams criss-crossing the space. The V&A offers (if you know to ask) activity backpacks that kids can check out for free and take with them into the museum. Each one focuses on a particular part of the museum and has a well put-together spiral binder of activities (not too many, not too few – just the right amount). Numbered Ziploc bags have interesting projects that range from quite challenging to just plain fun. We did two of the backpacks when we were there. I’ve never seen anything like it in the US.

My first born son was on a mission to eat and cook everything he could get his hands on that we don’t have at home – and this included small animals generally associated with Easter Egg distribution in the US of A. One fine day we purchased three rabbit saddles and six rabbit legs and made rabbit stew. I don’t actually travel carrying a rabbit stew recipe, but with the able assistance of Epicurious (the Bon Appetit website) I was quickly recipe ready. We bought the rabbit in the Harrod’s Food Hall ‘cause I felt it was my personal duty to help the Brits recover from their financial crisis. The boys chopped all of the ingredients without any blood loss, and two hours later – voila – we had stew. Rabbit, it turns out, does NOT taste like chicken, at least not like tasteless, bland American chicken. It has a lovely meaty flavor and with the addition of a lot of white wine, some tomatoes, fresh thyme, rosemary and oregano and some salt – it makes a lovely repast.

Though I think the whole British HURTWAVE thing was a tad overblown in the media, it must be said that an afternoon spent in a large, windowless, 250 year-old museum densely packed with warm bodies and completely devoid of air conditioning is tantamount to passing a summer’s day inside your teenager’s gym locker. We visited and fled two such museums during the heat wave. The Natural History Museum that was delightful and grand in cooler temperatures was a frightful tomb during the heat wave and nearly did in my uncomplaining mother-in-law and me. I had nightmarish visions of my stepmother being carted off in an ambulance from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in similar circumstances in 2006 so rather than soldiering on through the steamy dioramas of this dinosaur and that, I bid as hasty a retreat as possible and am pleased to report that no one in my brood needed medical care. It should be noted that the London Science Museum is air-conditioned and is a glorious place to spend a hot summer day.

After the Natural History Museum we had two tourist failures and one success. It turns out that my trusty guidebook is wrong and the Royal Mews where the Queen keeps her horses and Rolls Royces, is not open on Fridays – I do believe they must need a prep day for her weekend jaunts. We adjusted course mid-stream and redirected our cab to take us to the relatively new Tate Modern (dedicated by the Queen in 2000). This, it turns out, was a massive mistake. The Tate Modern, housed in a immense former power station (think something big enough to hold an entire submarine), houses a collection of contemporary art that runs from the frightful to the ghastly. I had just my boys with me and I started our morning with a variation of my liberal, open-minded arts lecture on the importance of seeing art not just as something that has to be beautiful. 14 paintings of severed heads, some truly creepy videos, pencil drawings of lacerations and tortured children, and a room full of large brown objects that seriously had to have been turds and I pronounced myself a Republican and admitted I hated the place. My youngest child spent most of the time walking around shielding his face with a museum map. Super.

We took the “Tate to Tate” Thames boat cruise which in 15 short minutes transports you from turds to Turners, and thank G-d for that. The Tate Britain houses a noteworthy collection of British Art that spans 1500 to the present. There is a remarkable commissioned work by sculptor Eva Rothschild that fills the entire 200 foot-long entry hall. Much like a spider’s web, its leggy steel beams thrust up to the ceiling and back down again inviting visitors, large and small alike, to climb in and around it where it touched down – and my boys did just that. Just unveiled in June of 2009 it is first-rate and worth a visit. We spent an agreeable 45 minutes with the Turner paintings that are neither ghastly, nor frightful but rather startlingly beautiful, moody and sublime. The hot weather finally departed. It was back to cool mornings, afternoon showers, daylight well past 10 pm and the daily need to use the word verdant.

I love Scotland, Truly

I must say that I absolutely adore Scotland and every single Scottish person. Where else is everyone uniformly friendly, helpful, welcoming and simultaneously totally incomprehensible, even though they purportedly speak my native tongue? I had to ask virtually everyone to repeat themselves, sometimes more than once, and even then I had no idea what they said. I do better in France, and I’m not even fluent in that language.

Though I truly do LOVE the Scots, I’m going to make a few comments at the start that aren’t entirely complementary. The comments refer primarily to appliances and bathrooms because without them I’d be reduced to camping, and I’m only willing to do that once a year. I was just coming to terms with the tiny washer/dryer combos in England when suddenly I had to deal with Scottish refrigerators. A tad larger than a dorm fridge, these ridiculously small food storage devices are helpfully positioned down on the floor so that once you’ve had a few too many Scottish whiskeys and have fallen down you’ll have easy access to the snack you need just before bedtime. In America we understand food storage. We’ve got refrigerator/freezer combos in most homes that would keep enough food cold to feed a third world country for a week or provide a simple repast to the front line of the Green Bay Packers. What would the Scots do if their entire neighborhood descended upon them at lunchtime? How would they cope? As most of you know, I could handle this stressful situation without breaking a sweat. Most of my friends plan to head straight to my house in the event of urban catastrophe. If I lived in Scotland the rest of you would really have to do some serious thinking about disaster planning.

I did not want to be reduced to “toilet talk,” my children do enough of this already, but I must spend a moment or two addressing Scottish restrooms (the Loo, in the local vernacular). First, as far as I can tell, none of the Scottish toilets flush. The whole lever thing is a big red herring. You press it and press it and press and NOTHING ever happens. I think it MAY be some sort of inside joke and there’s a small button hidden somewhere that only Scots know about. It’s just the foreigners who have to do the walk of shame in a public Loo hoping no one will notice that they couldn’t figure out how to make the damn thing work. And to add insult to injury, the whole experience costs money. Yep, all over Scotland you have to pay to pee. If there’s a nice attendant at the entrance, kids pee free. I didn’t notice any senior rates, which doesn’t seem the least bit fair given how often some of them seem to need the facilities. I think I’d have a reasonable case in the courts that the whole system is sexually discriminatory since I’ve noticed some adult males can go days without ever needing a Loo. How fair is that? Think of the lifetime savings.

The absolute highlight of our stay in Edinburgh was the day we spent at The Highland Show. This is an annual event a bit like a State Fair, but for the whole country, and the country is Scotland, not the US. The main events are competitions that run like a dog show, but the participants are every variety of sheep, cow, goat, horse and chicken and the human being handlers are level-headed Scotsmen who wouldn’t think of prancing around the ring in high heels the way American dog handlers do. The poor cloven-hoofed pigs were banned this year as they knew we were coming (it might also have had something to do with fears of Swine Flu). The Highland cows with their hair long over their eyes and their big horns were udderly fabulous. Once the competitions are over you can visit all of the animals in their stalls. I had to drag my boys out after a full hour in the goat tent, and we spent another equally entertaining 45 minutes with the cows. We had a breakfast of rashers and bangers and mash and didn’t need to eat again for a week. Our only disappointment was that we missed the Queen. Apparently she and Princess Anne attended the day after our visit. Bummer. We did see one of her cows - not Anne’s, the Queen’s – I don’t frankly know whether Anne has any cows, it wasn’t discussed. The Queen has quite a few. This particular one wasn’t terribly well behaved and lost the round that we were watching. Not very Royal really.

Other Edinburgh highlights were the Scottish Botanic Gardens and the Edinburgh Zoo. You see, once upon a time, in a land called Scotland, in the year 1972, I managed to fall into the lily pond in the gorgeous glass house in the center of the idyllic Royal Scottish Botanic Gardens. Better yet, it is a two-story building with a viewing area below the lily pond so that you can see the fabulous fish and the beautiful plants, and on very special days, the scrawny legs of an 8 year-old American girl named Rachel. I always make a pilgrimage back to this sacred spot. I did so this time with my own small children who had the sense NOT to fall in, though I thought about pushing them. There would be a certain symmetry to the whole psychologically scarring episode had they gone in too, don’t you think?

Finally, if you do make it to Edinburgh, and I hope you do, you really must see the Penguin Parade at 2:15 pm at the Edinburgh Zoo. 365 days a year they open the gates to the largest Penguin enclosure in the world and allow the penguins to go out for a walk. Participating in the walk is, accordingly to the zookeepers, “entirely voluntary on the part of the penguins.” Some days a lot of them elect to go, and some days, not so many. They march around the outside of the penguin enclosure on a wide sidewalk amongst the zoo goers who are implored to give way and not crowd the flightless birds. It is really rather awesome. They amble along looking quite happy about their mid-afternoon stroll amongst the masses. The Gentoos hustle a bit more speedily than the Emperor penguins, but they all seem equally pleased with their walk. We absolutely loved it.

My family has strong ties to Edinburgh. We were able to visit all of our old friends who still live there. The boys did us Yanks proud. Dressed in their best slacks and shoes, they minded their manners and drank gobs of tea while simultaneously eating entire trays of tea biscuits and all manner of smoked salmon appetizers. One of our Scottish friends did at one point refer to them as “hoovers,” but I know she meant it in the nicest way. The boys, never ones to be shy, asked to tour the artist studios of our painter friends, something precious few visitors ever get to experience. The Stern boys were gracious to a fault repeatedly exclaiming how much they liked this or that painting (these are top Scottish artists and there isn’t anything other than really outstanding work in their studios). It was all I could do to resist getting out my checkbook and offering to purchase things right off the walls.

After Edinburgh we made our way back to London. Everyone was quite agitated because they were expecting record heat. It was supposed to be 84 degrees TWO DAYS IN A ROW. This caused no end of angst, glaring newspaper headlines (not quite as large as the ones related to Jacko’s death, but BIG) and fears that people would soon start dropping like flies. Let’s hope none of them ever have to spend a day in the San Fernando Valley.