In July Sally and I went to London for a few days to visit friends. Initially it was supposed to be a trip for all three of us, but David got a new job that does not have a London office so he had to stay home and work.
We arrived in late Sunday night headed up to Swiss Cottage to stay with Maya, Boaz, Ayala, and Tamara.
On Monday morning we took the underground to Kensington to meet up with Yasemin, Theon, and Ophelia. We started with a little lunch and play time around the house, including meeting an adorable Paddington Bear!
Then we walked over to check out the Natural History Museum’s new wildlife garden. This is a lovely space where we checked out the many interactive exhibits and spent a lot of time investigating the life in the pond. Ophelia was particularly enthralled with an exhibit that allowed us to hear what was happening under water; enough that we recorded it for her to listen to at home. Even more exciting, we got to see a plaque with the kids’ names on it, and loads of excellent spots for Theon to race his car. After an ice cream debacle that nearly derailed everything (and earned us some crazy judgmental stares from the woman seated across from us), we managed to right the ship once again for a nice end to the afternoon. Sally and Ophelia were quite enamored with each other, and Theon of course proved to be a sparkling conversationalist.
That evening Sally and I had dinner with Maya and Tamara in the Camden Market area then explored the market. While the market itself had pretty much shut down, there was still a ton to look at and take in and I can only imagine how almost overwhelming it would be during the day. We also walked along the canal, and for the I think the first time ever, I got to see two boats on the canals actually use the lock system, which was really cool.
On Tuesday Tamara stayed home from school so I got to spend the day with the girls in the city. We took the bus down to Marble Arch to check out an interactive art exhibit called “Frameless." Think immersive Van Gogh but 4 different rooms, each with a different theme and many different famous artists. My favorite was the impressionist room in which the paint spots would “fall” to the floor from the walls and then scattered when you stepped on them. This was a perfect way for us all to enjoy some art and to make it definitively more interesting than a typical museum visit. Fortunately/unfortunately I cannot add videos here and still photos really don't do it justice.
Afterwards we went to Wagamaga for ramen (“Why don’t we eat this more often?! It’s amazing” - Sally) then meandered Oxford and Bond streets for shopping. This mostly consisted of Zara and Claire’s (guess who chose those) and window shopping (Bond street). We even came across a very cool horse statue! We ended up at the famed ice cream parlor at Fortnum and Mason. The shop itself was gorgeous with more adorable home goods than one could ever need and a really neat mobile seagull exhibit, flying plates, and so much more. We finished up exploring a weird wool and hair-based temporary instillation then headed back.
That night Sally stayed with Tamara and Ayala and I headed back down to Chelsea (such a cute area!) for a delicious dinner with Rich and Yasemin. From the bus I saw a statue that apparently is part of an art instillation called “Kids go Wild” - full human-sized animals riding a tandem bike.
On Wednesday Yasemin and I took the kids to the Tate Modern for something called Oscar Murillo: The flooded garden and Tate Draw in which we were given paint brushes and paint and allowed to paint this huge canvas in the style of modern art. Super random and yet a very cool way to be a part of the museum.
Then we walked past Shakespeare’s Globe and took the ferry (Thames river cruise) to Greenwich, mostly just to enjoy being on the water. We had a lovely view of the Tower of London and going under the Tower Bridge. Greenwich was a delight - there’s a music school there and we could hear lovely jazz and classical music pouring out through the windows. Sally was dancing along it and the sun was shining. We didn’t have time to make it up the hill to where they measure Greenwich mean time (GMT) but did manage to get the kids an ice cream without any drama this time (well, almost no drama...the ice cream man was, um, interesting).
We were all exhausted after the ferry ride back, and then making our way through epic numbers of tourists around Big Ben/Parliament to catch the underground back up to Swiss Cottage to pack up and head home to Dublin!
It was wonderful to spend time with dear friends and get to explore their cool neighborhoods a little. London is so expansive it seems reasonable to check out a little at a time, and with people who actually live there. We definitely made the most of the London public transportation system and were appreciative of its convenience (and nice live music!). That said, it was also nice to get back to the relative quiet of Dublin.
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