London

Every now and then, I glimpse what I’m in for in the near future – my 10 year old is becoming more and more the sullen teenager he will soon become. Even though I’ve been copping one word answers to innocent-enough questions, along with the ‘what the hell’ look he gives me, I still acquiesced and allowed him to join a week-long skiing trip in Austria.

With an emergency mobile phone zipped safely into his ski jacket, he had strict instructions to call twice a day, along with the usual admonitions – obey the rules, remember your manners, don’t talk to strangers, and buy me something fabulous in Villach.

Farewelling his class on the gargantuan bus that left last Friday night, I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel with excitement. He called us twice before it even turned the corner (“well, we’re leaving”, and “we’re off!!!”)

Our daily conversations went something like this:

Me: “What’d you do today”
Him: “Ski”.
Me: “Did you have fun?”
Him: “Yes”.
Me: “What else did you do?”
Him: “um… ate lunch.”
Me: “Did you have a shower yet?”
Him: “No. Can I go snowboarding tomorrow?”
Me: “No”.

As for the shower part, his excuse was that he fit right in because, apparently, everybody was ignoring the ablution facilities as well.

A week later, we’re back together and somewhere else now – London. Somewhere in London – within Zone 1, technically, but eons away from conveniences. Travelzoo had a promotion that couldn’t be ignored for this 5-star Chelsea Harbor hotel. Oooohhhh, Chelsea Harbor. Yep, we haven’t heard of it either… Its closest underground station is a brisk 45 minute walk down Kings Road – a well known shopping district but we’re in the other direction. The hotel is extremely luxurious, with great views of the Thames and, in the very far distance, the tourist attractions we kind of wanted to be near. But who cares when they mistakenly upgrade us to the balconied ‘Marina View’ suite. The ‘extras’, however, floor me - $30 if you want to connect to the internet, $30 for hotel porn (just kidding – it’s $20 but still you could get the real thing in Amsterdam for that), and room service that would max out your credit card. There is the usual corridor of essentials – hair salon, gift shop, massage parlor - but no convenient 7-11 type store. To be specific, depending who’s reading this, I was hankering for an off-license/liquor store/bottle shop type of place. So, that’s where the advantages lay with our daily shuffle back to the hotel from Earls Court station – plenty of food and beverage options to supplement our evening of Sky TV in our suite. (And just to add to our evening pleasures, we found another Prime Example – this one a submarine thriller starring Cary Grant, a cardboard model boat and a bathtub).

We covered a lot of ground – Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Changing of the Guard (a yawn-festival for the kids), Science and British museums, then over to London Bridge and the Tower of London. To my own personal amazement, I really did go up and over the London Eye, the giant bicycle wheel famous for breaking down on its maiden spin on 31st December, 1999. But it motored along like clockwork this weekend. And I actually conducted myself with some decorum this time (unlike the Eiffel Tower), but I did need a cold pint afterwards.

Catching the train back to Europe, I wondered how the British and French sorted out all their little pet peeves, preferences and differences to get this engineering handshake off the ground (well, under the English Channel). One thing I noticed, leaving Kings Cross station, the announcements were in English first, followed by French. Emerging out of the tunnel near Calais on the French side, however, the announcements began in French. Fair’s fair, I guess, in love and war, and French fries and chips.

And where was Scarf during this great weekend away in sunny London? Home. Rediscovering her/his/its cubby. Arriving back very late last night (we missed the connection out of Brussels), we were greeted by the same damp, overcast, windy weather. Unfortunately it looks like it will be some time before Scarf can retire for the season. I have it on good word that the sun will shine on around July 15 or thereabouts, for a couple of days. Pity we’ll be gone by then.

Taking the kids to Amsterdam for the weekend posed a problem, namely, how do you show them the landmarks of one of the world’s greatest cities, while steering them clear of the other ‘attractions’ that are probably the major draw for 90% of the tourists there. There are some fabulous kid-things to do here – all within walking distance of anywhere. But they also happen to criss-cross the center of Amsterdam, where lies the famously tolerant red-light district. And even if you gave it a wide berth and walked around it, adding an hour to your journey, there’s no escaping the 180 or so coffee shops. And even then, if by some great sleight of hand, you were able to avoid those as well, there is no avoiding their ‘casualties’- bewildered, aromatic, choof-heads, looking like they’d been kicked out of a homeless shelter, all sporting the same “no-one-home” look. One ‘victim’ we stumbled over was parked in a crumbled heap on a bridge, astonished at the frites he was holding. I’m guessing that he simply forgot that he was making a vain attempt at gaining enough sobriety to get let back in to the Christian Youth Hostel, the cheapest bed in town.

Despite this pretty picture, we still managed to do a lot of walking (punctuated with some good coffee breaks). In old Amsterdam, every street is lined with 17th century row houses, – quaint, incredibly narrow and sometimes crooked - they lie right in front of a canal that looks exactly like the one we just passed. After a while, the houses start to look identical too, and before you know it, we hear “hey Dad, where are we?” or “didn’t we pass this already?” A word of caution when visiting Amsterdam - don’t leave your hotel without a good map, a day’s worth of provisions, cell phone, compass and emergency numbers.

A big highlight was the TunFun – a 5000 sq foot underground playground, situated in an old overpass that has been converted into kid heaven. Watching (and worrying) over S&H, I calculated the reasons why we can’t have this in America. Only one real reason - Liability Insurance. With a climbing structure some 5 storey’s high, kids run, climb, jump, swing and bounce around out of sight while parents park themselves in bean bags, sip on koffie verkeerd, absorb complimentary newspapers, surf the net and switch off. Even if you found an insurance company ready to cover it (and even if you could afford it), a broken bone, black eye, or scalded mouth (from that latte) would still end it all. But not in Holland. If you think about it, you never see hordes of Dutch people limping along cobblestone streets sporting ancient wounds from unsupervised fun, so probably this more tolerant approach works out just fine.

We gave Anne Frank’s house a miss – the queue goes around the block now. When I suggested Van Gogh’s museum, I was met with that backwards gulping sound you make when a drink goes down the wrong way. But we did manage to drag our sorry cookie-asses to three street markets, where we found fabulous cheeses, hundreds of tulips (of course), bicycle accessories and designer cast-offs from Italy. We also found a midget car, pictured above. Amsterdam is only an hour and 20 minutes away by train from Eindhoven. As a famous neighboring Austrian twice said – “I’ll be Back”.