Teachable Moments

London Chronicles #3a: Walking Through Euston

adventure, art, London, real life, Teachable Moments 1 Response »

Dec 022012

Euston Fire Station

Random beautiful building on our walk.

You can rent bikes in London! These are on the campus of University College London.

Here are the rates if you’re interested!

Church of Christ the King just off the campus of U. College London. (See that phone booth on the left?)

That’s me ‘in’ the phone booth trying not to puke from the smell. I don’t think anyone would use this to make an actual phone call. Oy!

A statue in the park on the campus of University College London.

This monument said “To Our Glorious Dead” on one side and then “Remember the Men and Women of the London Midland and Scottish Railway” on the other. Since they had just observed “The Day of Remembrance” (like our Veteran’s Day), there were wreaths laid at the foot of the monument.

They were made of plastic discs riveted together – kinda’ cool.

On our way back, we found ourselves feeling close to home at the corner of Keppel (the kids’ elementary school) and Gower (a street in Hollywood).

London Chronicles #3: So Much More Than a Library

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Dec 022012

First morning in London and I was wide awake at 4 a.m. Considering that was Noon in California, I did a pretty good job of sleeping in. I managed to get back to sleep and woke just after the London sunrise at 7:45 a.m. We successfully navigated the electrical outlets and shower head (Brits don’t believe in water pressure?) and had our first English Breakfast in the hotel. I stuck to cottage cheese, yogurt, fruit and a croissant each day as Hubby sampled the various hot food items.

It will come as no surprise to any of you that a trip to the Library was first on my list of things to do. I have to say that the British Library is no ordinary Library. I was not surprised to find out that it’s free, but I was surprised to find out it had exhibits. Since we weren’t in a hurry, we checked our map and set out to walk up to the Euston area of London to check it out. You can look at the pictures from that walk here.

In the Piazza just inside the gates of the library is a giant scupture of Issac Newton measuring out the universe. It was done by a Scottish sculptor, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, who also did a lot of the mosaic work in the tube station near our hotel.

The British Library is home to more than 14 million books, 58 million patents and 3 million sound recordings. It’s a major research library with reading rooms for different academic subjects where you can do research if you have a Reader Pass (free as long as you have a permanent address). It prides itself on making it’s collection accessible.

Inside the library is a model of the entire complex showing how and where the books are housed.

Up the center of the building is a six story glass tower that encloses the King’s Library: printed books, pamphlets, and maps that King George III collected between 1763 and 1820!

I’ve buried the lead a bit here since there’s an amazing gallery that’s open to the public every day for absolutely free that holds some of the most magnificent books and manuscripts I have ever seen. We strolled through room containing The Magna Carta, Lindisfarne Gospels, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and, my very favorite, the original manuscript of Handel’s Messiah. (Handel lived in London for much of his life and the Messiah was performed at Covent Garden). We felt echoes of home looking at the temporary collection of Armenian scriptures. I wish I could include images here so you’d get a sense of the beauty of these books. Of course, we couldn’t take any pictures inside the Gallery, but, trust me, it was breathtaking.

As we walked back towards the hotel to meet some friends for an afternoon adventure, we stopped at a little place called Eve’s Cafe for lunch. We both had delicious hot paninis which we ate at the little table out front. As we munched, I noticed that we were across from the Bloomsbury Hotel which meant we were in Bloomsbury, which meant we were in Virginia Woolf’s ‘hood, which meant literary tingles with my goat cheese panini.

London Chronicles #2: A Night to Remember

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Dec 012012

Arriving in a foreign city in the dark is a bit of a challenge. Everything seems a bit more eerie and surreal than in daylight. I have now realized that it’s pretty much dark, getting dark, or gonna’ be dark soon when you’re in London in November.

The tour guide from the airport was great, she guided us into the hotel and checked us all in – no queueing for us! As she passed out our room keys, she promised to return in just 6 short days to shepherd us back to Heathrow for our return flight.

We chatted for a bit with some of our group that had arrived a few days before us and promised to meet up with them soon. Hubby and I schlepped our bags up to the 8th floor using one of the 4 lifts (aka elevators) available to guests of the hotel. They seemed to be either cavernously empty or full to the gills. Thankfully, we found they were equipped with sensors that would alert you if the lift was full, “FL”, or over the limit, “OL”, which happened more often that you’d think.

Arriving in our room, my heart leapt for joy at the open window. I’m a nut for fresh air and we didn’t close that window more than a few times in the week we were there. Since there was no screen (!), hubby was able to get his camera out the window and take a pic of our ‘neighborhood’ once it was daylight.

I was anxious to get out of our room and experience London that first night. Fortunately, we had a plan. We had been invited to the manse of the Pastor of the American Church in London for a ‘drinks party.’ The trick was, we need to navigate the Underground (Tube) in order to get there.

There was some loose discussion about going to the party as a group, but since only one or two in the group had working cell phones and we didn’t know anyone’s room number, communication was a bit limited. No one was in the lobby when we descended from our room so, not wanting to squander a minute and feeling rather cheeky, Hubby and I set of for the manse on our own. The tube stop was right around the corner and we plunged down the stairs with abandon.

Honestly, I think we were just trying to keep up with the flow of pedestrians: Londoners walk really fast, especially in the tube stations. Thanks to our hosts and some seasoned travelers in the bunch, our Oyster Cards (refillable Tube/Bus passes) were ready and waiting for us at the hotel so we sailed right through the first set of gates into THE UNDERGROUND.

When they say Underground, they really mean UNDER-ground. Each station seemed to have it’s own particular scheme to get you down to the trains- straight staircases, curved staircases, escalators, lifts, moving sidewalks, mazes, and tunnels. That first night, I was shocked at how deep we were going to catch the Northern Line to our destination. I totally understand why Londoners took shelter in the Tube stations during the Blitz.

All the tunnels and pathways are well-marked and there are digital displays at each platform so you know when to expect the next train and where exactly it’s headed. Unfortunately, we were just a little overwhelmed by everything that first night and jumped on the wrong spur of the Northern Line. When we figured it out, we just hopped off at Camden Town, switched trains, and sailed on to our destination.

I must say, I felt giddy and triumphant when we arrived at the manse in one piece.

The party was wonderful and it was great to gather with friends old and new to chat over what we’d been up to and what we planned to do with our free time.

We walked back to the Tube through the rain and arrived back at the hotel with no difficulty at all. I watched Hubby sleep soundly in his twin bed as I wrote feverishly in mine, trying not to miss one detail of the trip so far. I fell asleep calculating how much we could jam in to the next day.

London Chronicles #1: We Have Lift Off

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Nov 302012

Ok, first of all, books weigh a lot more than I realized. So do shoes. And plug adaptors. And suitcases.

Second of all, time slows down when you are waiting for an international flight. I swear that it took eons for them to call our flight for boarding and when it finally happened the actual queuing up was like racing snails. (Please forgive me if I slip into Londonese from time to time.)

Third, putting little pillows in every airline seat is just asking for a giant pillow fight!

Seriously, Virgin Atlantic is a great airline to fly and I was flying with a great group of people.

We didn’t have any problems with luggage or boarding, flying or landing. I had time (10 hours and 40 minutes) to do a little people watching on this flight. First there was the slightly overweight middle-aged tattooed guy who undid his belt and unzipped his pants before he sat down and fastened his seatbelt. Glad I wasn’t sitting next to him! Across from me was a 40ish hipster with a genius cut (think Einstein) who was chatting up the blond British chick pinned between him and the window. His opening line was something like, “I’m a song writer and I’ve written a song, but it’s not really a song, but it sounds like a song.” Apparently, she was a songwriter too because they soon devolved into a conversation about ASCAP and BMI and performance royalties vs. mechanical royalties. I left them to their own devices.

The whole flight was really about anticipating the landing and helping my body adjust to the impending time change. We took off just after 9 p.m. and would arrive at Heathrow just after 3 p.m. the next day. That means I would lose a night’s sleep as well as most of an entire day. Thanks to the seat back screens where you can choose what you watch, I knew exactly where we were at any given moment: location, altitude, air temperature, head wind – they really do let you in on all the nerdfo about the flight.

We had dinner somewhere over Utah. I chose Chicken Korma, although the Braised Beef didn’t sound bad either. Apparently I was asleep when they came around with the Tiramisu because it was on the menu, but I have absolutely no memory of eating any such thing.

Between cat naps, I kept my eye on the vitals: -72 degrees Fahrenheit over the Rocky Mountains at 35,000 ft.

I dozed again, wishing I could recline my seat just a bit more, but glad the kid in front of me couldn’t tip any further into my lap. They flooded the cabin with light after a few hours and came around with more food. While I breakfasted off the coast of Ireland with nearly 300 people I would never see again, I cursed my iPod as the battery died in the middle of Rick Steves’ “Affordable London” podcast. So much for informative entertainment.

Thankfully, we landed soon after ‘breakfast’, withdrew some pounds (do they call it ‘cash’?) and sailed through customs (we must have, I can’t remember anything about it).

As we emerged from the bowels of Heathrow, we were greeted by Mimi (Not Me-Me, Mih-Me), our ‘tour’ guide. She fetched our bus (driven by Momo – no kidding!) and narrated the ride to the hotel through the London traffic.

Stay tuned for London Chronicles #2: A Night in London

Recollectivity

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Nov 272012

I must confess, I stole the title of this post from a blogging friend (and I, too, am pretty sure it’s not a ‘real’ word). His post entitled Explicit Recollectivity helped me relax before my London trip. In it, he talked about how we learn the most from an experience after it’s over – not when we’re anticipating it, not when we’re experiencing it, but when we are reflecting back, making connections, and fitting it together with the rest of our lives.

I’ve spent the last 7 days in London and now that I’m back on U.S. soil, it’s time for some ‘recollectivity.’ If I’m doing the math right, 7 days abroad equals about 25 blogs post so hold on, here we go!

“For Every Minute Spent in Organizing, An Hour Is Earned”

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Nov 182012

If you know me at all, you know I’m a planner. A list maker. When faced with a task or an event, I break it down, write it down and attack it in baby steps. I totally buy into the philosophy that “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” (This may or may not be a Ben Franklin quote, if you believe the Internet.)

When faced with my upcoming trip to London, I earned more hours than I will be ‘across the pond’.

First stop: Google. What the heck did we do before Google? I googled everything London. Best places to visit.. Maps of.. Films about.. Books about. I created an Excel file to keep track of my finds and I bookmarked more websites than there are Doctor Who episodes.

Next stop: Library. Well, actually, the Library website, one of my personal favorites. With a library card you can look up books online, request a copy of the book and they will send it to any library of your choice in our city library system. You can then walk in, find your books labeled with your name on a shelf right inside the front door, and sprint to the self-checkout kiosk before you are sucked into the void. This works extremely well when I don’t have hours to spend savoring all the stacks have to offer.

I pulled out books on places to visit as well as a few works of fiction set in London. Whether I visit all the places I’ve read about or not, I’ve already wandered down those streets in my mind: Bliss.

As the trip approaches, I am busy fleshing out my Excel chart and adding bookmarked sites to my Google Map. I am bouncing from book to book, cross-referencing and researching each area. I’ve downloaded podcasts with travel tips and audio walking tours of some key attractions. I’ve now consolidated my to-do list down to 4 items: plan for London, read about London, blog about London and rest up for London.

I’ve crossed off the first three, so all that’s left is to bid you goodnight.

London’s Calling

adventure, real life, Teachable Moments 1 Response »

Nov 172012

In just 48 hours, I will be boarding a plane for London. I am part of a choir that will be singing at the American Embassy Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It’s a plan that’s been in the works for nearly a year, but it still feels unreal.

The Thames, the Tower of London, the Tube, Big Ben. These are all just words without substance.

There’s been so much talking, planning, rehearsing and fundraising that the actual trip seems like an afterthought. At least that’s what it feels like now.

I’m sure it won’t once I land at Heathrow.

I’m sure it won’t once I’m on the plane.

I’m sure it won’t once my suitcase is packed.

Sometime in the next 2 days, London will become a reality. I can’t wait!

Imitation

God, preschool, Teachable Moments 2 Responses »

Sep 192012

There’s a particular 3 year old who loves to come in to my office and inspect the ‘machines’ I have. He checks to make sure the calculator, adding machine, computer mouse, bicycle pump and leaf blower are all in their places. We talk about who they belong to and what they are for and if he can ‘have’ them. He usually leaves my office with the calculator in hand, but, sometimes, he gets to play with the leaf blower. These are VERY special days.

The first time I watched him with the leaf blower, I was struck by how he used it. Instead of asking to plug it in or flipping the power switch, he pulled an invisible starter cord over and over again. It suddenly became very clear: even though the leaf blower in his hands had no starter cord, he had seen one being started that way and that had become part of his script for using a leaf blower.

The power of observation is strong with this one.

I know from talking with his parents that this little guy is obsessed with their gardener. He watches him intently and takes note of every thing he does.

I wonder if that gardener is aware that he is an example, that his actions are being studied and mimicked.

“Be imitators” the Bible says. No need to tell kids. They got this.

This brings up two questions: Who is imitating you? Who are you imitating?

Girl Scout Camping

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Sep 062012

We loaded up and headed to the ‘bu for Labor Day weekend. Nine preteen girls, seven moms, and two dads with adventurous souls and a bit of camping chutzpah.

Malibu Creek State Park is scrub camping unless you get one of the shady spots, which we didn’t. We did score a spot pretty close to the bathrooms though. It’s all relative.

Here’s where I cut out the boring bits and serve up just the highlights.

It was really windy when we arrived so it was hard to put up the tents.

The girls got creative.

We got all the tents up in time to take a walk to the ‘rock pool’, a naturally formed pool in Malibu Creek surrounded by vertical volcanic cliffs. It was the location for some scenes in Swiss Family Robinson, Planet of the Apes, and a few Tarzan movies.

The girls braved the slime and waded right in. They quickly discovered that flip-flops float and were virtually worthless against the muck.

Everyone swam and explored both above and below the water. My kid discovered great treasure when she dug up an old shoe from the bottom of the pool. It had started to decompose and was full of rich black sludge. She was in heaven investigating how being under water had changed the properties of the shoe.

As the sun pulled the curtain on our swim, we walked back to camp for a scrumptious spaghetti dinner. At the ‘campfire’ that night, the girls were treated to a live animal presentation put on by Wildworks. They enjoyed meeting a skunk, barn owl, and many other local animals along with an African Serval that had been surrendered at a local shelter as a kitten. The girls lingered long after the talk was over to pet the dogs that accompany the more exotic animals.

On our way back for the traditional s’mores, one of the moms discovered a tarantula in the path. Apparently they are native to Southern California and males are often seen wandering in search of females in the fall!

We managed to get a decent night’s sleep and woke to the summer sun blaring down on us. (I got to share someone’s air mattress. Sh! I know that’s cheating.) After a leisurely breakfast, the girls decided to spend the morning ‘relaxing’ while a group of mom’s took off to explore the campground. On our ramblings, we discovered that some people bring their entire kitchen camping with them, California King Snakes are constrictors and REI trains their employees at Malibu Creek. The highlight was watching a lone coyote yip at an open field as if it’s life depended on the amount of noise it could make. Being city folk, we assumed it was injured or protecting it’s young. As we passed by at a safe distance, it abruptly quit and trotted off towards the park entrance. So much for our theories.

Lunch was perhaps our most thrilling adventure of the trip. The girls had constructed “Buddy Burners” out of upended coffee cans using tuna cans filled with wax and cardboard for fuel. They cooked amazing grilled cheese sandwiches on them and then started a batch of brownies and some chocolate chip cookies.

We had to abandon the project mid-stream since the hot wax began flowing down the wooden picnic benches carrying the flames with it.

bench crop

A little quick thinking saved the bench, but the dessert idea was abandoned.

We headed off to Zuma Beach where the girls challenged the power of the waves and gladly lost every time. They soon retired to the sand where they buried a few brave souls.

Needless to say, showers were the first order of business when they returned to camp. Another good(?) nights’ sleep and a Starbucks’ run brought us to the end of a wonderful weekend.

The First of Many?

family, real life No Responses »

Aug 312012

It looked like Thursday was going to require an advanced degree in order to navigate successfully through the parenting maze. It isn’t that parenting my teens and pre-teen is that hard, it’s needing to be in multiple places at one time. Take school, work, band, choir, and football, and throw in a read-a-thon and back to school night and you have a full day, to say the least. I was ready to make the ‘ultimate mom sacrifice’ and skip E’s first football game so I could drive the other two around, but we made some adjustments and hubby and I were able to make it to E’s first Freshman Football game. I am so glad I went!

As we drove down to San Gabriel in the sauna that has been Southern California for the past month, I must say that my biggest concern was how sunburned I’d be by the time I got home. I had donned my only pair of shorts in an attempt to keep my body temperature below 100 degrees. Turns out wearing shorts was a good idea for another reason.

The traffic wasn’t too bad heading east on the 210 (small miracle) and, as we drove the last few blocks towards the high school, a few fat, juicy raindrops hit the windshield. “One.” I counted. “Two.” Then got ‘the look’ from the hubby. I got all the way to seven before it quit sprinkling. Ahhh, too bad.

“It would be so great if it rained on us,” I said thoughtlessly.

We arrived at the school just in time to find our friends in the stands and obey the cheer leaders’ command to “Stand Up for the Kick-Off”. We scanned the sidelines for our boy in his #69 jersey. He looked so huge, I couldn’t believe it was my kid. When did this happen? (*Side note: I think they gave him that number because they knew he could handle it with maturity and panache. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just forget I ever said anything.)

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