London Living - Kids View

Kids nowadays!

I’ll try to put it all in perspective from my generation to theirs. I didn’t leave the state of Minnesota until I was twenty-one and drafted into the United States Army. I hadn’t gone airborne until I was twenty-two and flew in a turbo prop airliner from San Francisco to Los Angeles. And those delayed experiences probably weren’t very different from a lot of other folks my age at the time.

Now two generations later, look how things have changed. My youngest granddaughter Charlotte Jane, by the time she was eight years old, had traveled all over the state of Minnesota (her home state), and through California, Chicago and Iowa. She’s also spent time in London and had taken the Chunnel to Paris.

I thought about that as I was flipping through a Snapfish book of our family’s London-Paris trip of several years ago. I remember Charlotte, upon entering our townhouse with her brother and cousins, scrambling up and down four flights of stairs in our London VBRO.

Living in London for almost two weeks was a wonderful experience for our entire family. We were ensconced in a four-story townhouse in the Paddington neighborhood not very far from the tube. It was particularly interesting to watch the five grandchildren take in their new surroundings with their innocence, curiosity, and adventurous attitude in tow.

Surrounding us were row houses, public housing, apartment buildings and the English version of condo complexes. The atmosphere was all very urban, urbane and ripe for big city living. If you’re going to pretend big city living, one can’t do much better than London. And kids always give the trip a whole new dimension.

Back in the early nineties, Sharon and I had a preview of this family trip when we took Brian and Melanie to London for the first time.

We are part of a larger group of friends and associates that Sharon had organized for a weeklong tour of London between Christmas and New Year’s. Brian and Melanie got their first taste of foreign travel and loved every minute of it. We repeated the same trip several years later - this time with a new boyfriend and girlfriend in tow.

As seasoned world travelers themselves, Brian and Melanie now got to watch their own kids have the same experiences in London for the first time.

There were tours of the National gallery, the British Museum and The Tate. The grand kids soared high over the Thames in the London Eye They discovered Harry Potter hideaways, strolled along the Thames, took in a show in the Theater District and wandered the lush green parks.

Things have changed a lot since our first family trip to London. The adults had their phone apps, which told us when the next tube car would arrive, where to find the closest restaurants, shops, and entertainment. If we got tired of waiting, we can just dial up an Uber or Lyft. For daily use of the tube, we had our Oster Pass, which got us on all buses and the tube throughout the city.

It was a first for all of us, Charlotte included, when we boarded the metro liner for Paris. It had been a long time since I wandered the streets of London back in the sixties and later on when Melanie led our group around as a thirteen-year-old tour guide and Brian played cool with his trench coat.

My, how things have changed.

Trains, Planes, and a Tube or Two

Of all the great cities I’ve visited around the world, London stands out as friendly, cosmopolitan, adventurous, and comfortable. So it was with great anticipation that I boarded our Delta flight for ten days abroad with our expanded families. The trip was a gift to Sharon for her Seventieth birthday. She got to choose whichever place she wanted to visit anyplace in the world. Past trips to London with our two kids sealed the deal. Sharon decided to spend seven days in London and three in Paris with her family.

My first introduction to London came in the form of a folk song by Tom Paxton, one of my favorite singers back in the day. It was called ‘Leaving London’ and it emitted all the angst and emotions of a young man traveling through the city and missing his girl back home. Part nostalgic, part hooky, yet very effective in bringing back lots of memories from a similar period in my young life.

I first traveled abroad in 1967 after graduation. A second trip in 1968 sealed the deal. I loved foreign travel and losing myself in the cultures, traditions and various forms of foreign living. We took our kids to London twice while they were in their teens. This time it was different. A twenty-year gap had changed a few things. In many ways London was now a very different city. Yet in so many other ways, it hadn’t changed at all.

The kids found an Airbnb online, located in the heart of Paddington. It was a four story, six-bedroom townhouse with its own back patio and enough room for all three families to spread out and relax.

Outside of the townhouse

Nana's art class

Out our front window

Brian noticed the fancy cars parked around the block so I had him do a little research. The neighboring townhouse sold for four million dollars several months earlier. Our unit sold for over two million in 2014. Now I understood the all too familiar refrain about London housing being out of reach for the average millennial and worker.

Rehearsing to put on a play

Eleven people living together under the same roof can present a challenge sometimes, especially when those eleven include very independent children and mostly alpha personalities among the parents. It was a good test and we all passed with flying colors.

Back patio

I sequestered myself on the back patio each morning and read ‘The Evening Standard.’ It was refreshing to be away from the media circus back home. Ten days absent the clowns and magicians and carnival barkers. All those curious forms of life that have disrupted distracted and confused the workings of government here. Of course, I wasn’t entirely free from political intrigue. Theresa May had her own battles going on with Brexit and Emmanuel Macron had his own battles with both the left and right political elements in his own government. But aside from local politics like train service being interrupted to Wimbledon, it was a week relatively free of political distractions.

Paddington Station

With our Oster Card (all day pass) we were able to navigate the Tube all over town. We swung through various museums, along the Thames for our river walks, to the Tate Modern Museum, up on the London Eye...

Then it was on the Eurostar for a quick trip through the Chunnel into the heart of Paris. I forgot it was the height of summer travel and large groups of students on field trips crowded the train stations and every venue around. Europe was experiencing a heat wave and The Metro (subway) and most hotels aren’t air-conditioned. Fortunately ours was.

A ride up to the top of the Eiffel Tower proved to be the highlight of our French excursion. With only three days in the city of lights, there was a lot to pack in. Our last meal at a corner bistro was our quintessential Parisian experience.

Unfortunately, our last Parisian experience at Charles de Gaulle Airport was the cancellation of our flight back home just ten minutes before boarding. A challenging ending to a picture perfect first trip abroad with the grandchildren.

But that’s another blog entirely.