We knew Paris was going to be tough to beat. But like the new season of the Bachelor, London was calling.
Seven Highlights of Our Time in London:
1. My Old House. When I was just about the same age as Little Chick we moved to London for two years. Showing her the house where we lived was surreal.
2. The London Eye. I will admit I was a touch cynical about The London Eye. Why would I want to go to England and ride a ferris wheel? But it was pretty spectacular. The design is amazing and the view of the city sublime.
3. Changing of the Guards at Whitehall Palace. I wandered into a covered tunnel to take a picture of one of the standing guards – you know the ones that won’t crack a smile, wince or even blink for a tourist? In order to get his picture I had to step backward up on a step. He pounded his foot on the ground like a horse. I couldn’t believe it! I got him to move! I was so excited I stepped backwards up a few more steps to get more pics. Well he grunted and pulled his sword on me. Yeah....turns out I was backing into an entrance to Whitehall Palace. Understandably a no-no.
So apparently you can get them to move and make noise if you accidentally storm the palace.
4. Taxi Battle. It’s never an easy task to land a taxi at night when an entire theatre of people pour onto the streets at the same time. We angled and positioned. Spread out on separate corners. Finally I eyed one coming from far far away. I raced and ran and flailed and waved. The driver gave me a nod and pointed to the place he could pull over. I shouted at my mom and Little Chick to join me as I ran to the taxi. Looking for holes like Emmitt Smith, I was dodging pedestrians, spinning around rubbish bins and leaping the sidewalk railings.
I arrived and was chatting with the driver through the window when out of the blue some crazy British woman whacked me with her umbrella and began squawking that she was taking that cab. Unbelievable. I’ll spare you the condescending martyr speech I gave her as I allowed her to take the taxi but suffice to say it made her look so stupid that even her husband shook his head in shame and apologized to me.
5. Eating at the Old Hot Spots. It was so fun to take Little Chick to all our favorite places to eat. The same head waiter is still at the Brompton Brasserie. Tootsie’s has had an extreme makeover but it’s still there and it’s still delish. We finished the trip with a gluttonous trip to Fortnum & Mason.
6. Brass Rubbings and Making Friends. Little Chick had her heart set on doing the unicorn. I spend ten minutes trying to talk her out of the unicorn and convince her to do something cool like a knight or a queen or a gargoyle. She wanted the unicorn. As she went to grab it, a little two-year old girl was about to take the unicorn and immediately became upset. So Little Chick let her have the unicorn. I was so proud. We made friends with the little girl and her brother, who was about the same age as Little Chick. It was a very sweet spin on the traditional art of brass rubbings.
7. Meeting Jimmy Page. Ok, so that’s a stretch. But our favorite cab driver, Mike, had picked up Jimmy Page just one week before us, and Mike swears Jimmy Page was seated in the exact same seat that I was in. As the new British bachelor would say, I fancy the pants off Led Zeppelin. So that was fun.
And London rocked.
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Whole Lotta Love for London
Friday, March 21, 2008
Oh La Vache!
I am so very sorry that things have been quiet here at Chicken Fried Therapy. I’ve just returned from a fabulous whirlwind trip to Paris & London with my mother and daughter, and re-entry has been brutal.
The last time I was in Paris it was 1999 I was ginormously pregnant. So it was beyond surreal to be back with Little Chick in tow. This trip was so fantastic I can’t possibly condense it into one post, so pardon my reckless literary abandon as I ramble over the next few days. I’ll start with Paris…
Seven Unforgettable Highlights of our time in Paris:
1. Seeing the look on Little Chick’s face when she first saw the Eiffel Tower. We landed in Paris around 2 pm, checked into the hotel, unpacked for 45 minutes, and grabbed the Metro straight to see the Eiffel tower. We were on the train when it popped into view. Her smile was priceless.
2. Eating at Chez Andre. My parents ate there in 1972. I ate there on my very first trip to Paris in 1980 at the age of ten. I tried escargot and fell in love. We had high hopes that picky picky picky Little Chickie would expand her horizons and do the same for nostalgia’s sake. And technically, she did, eventually, try a miniscule crumb of escargot. But not without drama and tears and hemming and hawing.
To be clear, she received zero pressure from us! She really wanted to do it. But was upset with herself when she chickened out. So I wrapped a teeny speck of escargot in gobs of butter and bread. She closed her eyes and choked it down. Literally, she started choking. I had to jump up and stick my hand in her mouth and extract the half eaten snail-bread-butter mass.
With a restaurant full of French eyes glaring at me.
She snuck another small snail crumblette in a teeny piece of bread, we paid the bill and quickly hauled ass. Hopefully if we wait another decade or so we can go back to Chez Andre and keep the family tradition alive. But it may take awhile for the waitstaff to forget the little scene we caused.
3. Little Chick desperately wants to be a fashion designer and lives and breathes for Coco Chanel. Her whole life is about researching Coco Chanel. She even dressed as Chanel last Halloween. So we made a wonderful pilgrimage to the original boutique on the Rue Cambon. The sales associates were quite smitten with Little Chick and spent an inordinate amount of time showing her around while she asked them pressing questions about why Chanel loved tweed and camellias and was buried in Switzerland instead of France.
4. Seeing the Mona Lisa. And singing Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa….Mona Lisa…” in the crowd until Little Chick became so embarrassed she wouldn’t stand near me any longer.
5. Climbing the dome at Sacre Couer with Little Chick. I’ll tell you what…I’m glad I’ve been working out! Sheesh, those were some steep and winding steps. Little Chick was a little frightened as we neared the top. She kept saying, “Ooh, we’re going to die! Ooh, we’re going to die!”
Imagine our alarm when we started to actually hear the angels sing.
Inside the church the nuns choir began to sing acapella and it was amplified in the stairwell near the top of the dome. It really did feel like we were ascending to heaven with angels greeting us.
6. Crepes. Crepes. Nutella Crepes. I actually had convinced myself that Nutella wasn’t chocolate so much as a valuable source of protein. It has the word ‘nut’ in the title. It has to be good for you, right?
Hell I practically had myself believing it counted as a leafy green vegetable. Damn that stuff is so good. And what is it about those simple crepes that are so delish?
7. The only phrase I remember from 10th grade French class is “Oh La Vache!” I’m not sure but I think it’s meant to be used kinda like Oh My Heavens or Holy Cow. But quite literally it translates to Oh The Cow.
Which I think is hysterical.
I’ve been waiting and waiting for decades, but lo these many years the situation just hasn’t presented itself. Until one day near the Tuileries. Little Chick was picking through trinkets in a very cramped little souvenir shop. Some woman accidentally knocked over an entire display of miniature Eiffel Tower key chains (thank the Lord it wasn’t one of us) and they went crashing all over the floor. I looked at the shopkeeper, pressed my hands to my cheeks with wide eyes, and exclaimed “Oh La Vache!” Ooh, it felt so good.
Then we helped pick them up.
The trip was sublime, but oh la vache I am happy to be home and connect with all of you! Oh la vache. Enjoy the slideshow and stay tuned. The next post will be London. Oh la vache.
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