Touring London Town (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring London Town (England) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Before we went on Laurent’s business trip to London (United Kingdom), I spent the week doing laundry and ironing clothes to get ready for the trip.  I wanted Florence to be cute in her stroller throne.  I would touch up our clothes in the hotel room once we arrived.

I was asked to come along on the trip, but I was tired.  Keeping a toddler in lovely, ironed duds was tiring me out, but I did not want to tour London Town with Florence, Laurent, or me wearing wrinkled clothing.

I ate a croissant for breakfast with a hot chocolate, and we all headed out to the airport.  I could still wear mini skirts eating breakfasts like this even though I had a toddler in tow.

Laurent’s British counterpart picked us up at Stanstead Airport outside London, built by the same man who designed the Pompidou Centre (Beaubourg) in Paris. 

We drove on the M20 Highway called “The Orbital.”  Pretty soon we hit a traffic jam.  We heard on the radio that a milik “lorry” (truck) had tipped over on the Orbital, causing a several kilometer traffic jam.

“I guess we’re on a real Milky Way,” I said.  Laurent’s business counterpart scowled, probably thinking “Second City in the Car” as he had to deal with a traffic jam in a stick shift car.

As soon as we could exit the freeway, we did and found ourselves surrounded by thick hedgerows on either side of a narrow road.  I love England for this easy coexistence of the modern and the rural.  I was expecting Robin Hood to pop out with the Sheriff of Nottingham chasing him at any moment.

My breakfast croissant was wearing off.  I wondered where this rural road would lead and if I could eat at the end of it.

Finally, we arrived on the North Side of London in Hampstead Heath.  We would be staying at the Posthouse Hotel with the closest Underground Station being the Belsize Park Northern Line.

I came to London to see London, so I walked down to the Belsize Station with Florence and got on the escalator with her.  The Underground is about 1 mile under the surface streets in London, but I made it down before developing vertigo by looking at ads on the walls.

I boarded the train for the Charing Cross Station and exited at Trafalgar Square.  I carried Florence up the stairs in her baby stroller; this station did not have an escalator.  Mini skirts actually allow your legs to move, so you can do this. 

I straightened Florence up above ground and started strolling around the neighborhood with the cute baby in tow.

The “Look Right” and “Look Left” signs painted on the street curb corners prevented me from getting hit by cars a few times, because the British drive on a different side of the road than Americans do.

I pushed Florence in her stroller down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square past all of the touristy buildings.  I kept track of what I was passing by in my tour guide.

It was warm and the London citizens were lying on the grass in parks.  This behavior was typical for Americans, but atypical for the British I later learned.  The heat brought on this behavior.  It was unusually warm.

I let Florence walk around in St. James Park, which has lots of shade.  I did not want her to get sunburnt.  I admired Buckingham Palace, the Queen Victoria Monument, and Big Ben through the trees at the Park’s exit.

I spent a terrified, adrenaline rush for half an hour as I tried to cross the street to Green Park.  When I reached the other side, I pushed Florence along the Constitution Hill side of the Park, which runs parallel to the Palace Gardens.

Riding a horse in Green Park is probably de rigeur for nobility to do in this part of Royal London.  I pushed Florence through the pedestrian subway to Hyde Park.

I was getting a pretty good workout on one buttered croissant for breakfast.

I exited the Pedestrian Subway and saw a restaurant with several-layered cakes in the window with lots of frosting. 

“I am eating there,” I said to myself after dealing with tiny dessert portions in Paris.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Viewing Malevich's Paintings and Eating Indonesian Food in Amsterdam (Netherlands) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Viewing Malevich's Paintings and Eating Indonesian Food in Amsterdam (Netherlands) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Of course, the next day was my vacation day as well, so I was out the hotel door at 8 am to explore Amsterdam (Netherlands).

I visited the historical part of downtown by the Royal Palace and a little area called the Beguinage – the site of a former church of reformed Presbyterians called the Beguines.

From there, I walked from one end to the other of the main canals – the Singel, the Herengracht, and the Keizersgracht.  I made a few stops to buy coffee with cream.  Walking along canals to admire architecture is cold yet informative tourism for learning about architecture that is not usually introduced in university art history courses.

I walked along the Leiderstraat and found myself on Museumplein again.  I visited the Municipal Museum and enjoyed Malevich’s paintings such as “White Square on White.”  He reminded me of another Dutch painter named Mondrian, who did “security systems” paintings I thought for office decoration.

I went back on Leidestraat and found an Indonesian Restaurant.  I was going to see the Rembrandt collection at the Rijksmuseum, but my innocent sounding Rijstafel (Rice Table Lunch) took three hours to consume. 

Indonesian food is so spicy that you have to wipe away tears away as you eat it.  I loved every morsel, but I had to drink a lot of water to deal with the heat.  I planned to buy an Indonesian cookbook and learn to make this delicious food, but tone down the spices a bit.

After the dragon-hot meal, I just enjoyed walking around Amsterdam and buying coffee with cream and looking at stores and apartments.  I knew everyone at work would laugh at my wild weekend in Amsterdam with its liberal drug and prostitution laws.

The next day I wrote down some Amsterdam notes before returning to Paris:

-Windows – Building windows are so clean in Amsterdam that they glisten in the sun.  Glistening windows make brown brick buildings with red geraniums look very upscale no matter what kind of neighborhood they are in.

-Pulleys are located on rooftops of buildings to make moving furniture in and out of apartments easy.

-Amsterdam has great urban planning.  The city has a lot of trains, canals, and bikes for moving people and goods around quickly.

-I think the Netherlands is the largest market for bicycles outside the Peoples’ Republic of China.

-Fashion from the 1960s prevailed in Amsterdam in the 1990s.  (Blue jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes.)

-Amsterdam has many good bookstores including English ones.  The City of International Trade requires many multilingual lawyers, bankers, accountants, and salesmen.

If you plan to visit Amsterdam and visit its art museums, I would recommend reading Simon Schama’s  The Embarassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age and Rembrandt’s Eyes.  People of English descent should read about our ancestral trading and naval rivals.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (Netherlands) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (Netherlands) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

Laurent drove me to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy (France), so I could go on a business trip to Amsterdam (Netherlands).

I was staying at the Japanese Okura Hotel, which was the tallest building in Amsterdam at the time.  I was going the weekend before the meeting to do some tourism.  It took an hour to go from Paris to Amsterdam with no time change by plane.

As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I threw my bag on the bed and rushed out to see as much as I could on Saturday of the city.  I almost got hit a few times by throngs of bicyclists as I made my way to a tram stop.

The tram driver spoke perfect English (British, but understandable to an American), which I did not expect.  He told me to exit at Museumplein to visit the Van Gogh Museum. 

A French woman on the Museumplein saw me with the Michelin Touring Green Guide for walking tours and asked me which museum I was going to.

“The Vincent van Gogh Museum,” I answered.

She asked if she could go with me to the Museum.  She worked at a French foreign investment bank and loved it that I had studied East Asian Art at the University of Chicago.

The van Gogh Museum had many paintings from van Gogh’s early period and several representative ones from his time in Provence and Auvers-sur-Oise in France.

My favorite van Gogh paintings were those he did showing inspiration from Japanese painting.  Van Gogh used the Japanese technique of painting at angles to make you feel as if you could walk into the landscape in the painting or pick flowers off the branches in front of you. 

“Landscapes and flower paintings sell well in urban environments,” I told my investment banker museum friend.

Van Gogh received little money and recognition for his work in his lifetime.  His brother Theo had to support him financially.

In one of his letters to Theo, Vincent wrote that he was happy with his artwork and that he was his own harshest critic.

However, van Gogh certainly must have resented handing his cherished artwork over to café owners to pay for meals.  Van Gogh’s café paintings still turn up in Provence and sell for millions.

I read a collection of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother entitled Dear Theo edited by Irving Stone before I visited this museum.  I learned from reading this book that it is good to have a “day job” to create a financial situation for yourself, so you can create what you want and have freedom of expression.

Most of the paintings by van Gogh in this Museum use brown and golden tones rather than the bright yellows, oranges, and blues that were typical of van Gogh’s work in the South of France.  He also painted farm and family scenes most notably The Potato Eaters.

My French banker colleague and I drank a beer in a noisy and smoke-filled Dutch pub.  (All of the pubs were noisy and smoke-filled.)  I was going to order fish in a pub, but said I wanted to eat elsewhere.

We left the pub and walked along the streets with many kinds of restaurants located along them.  We decided to eat dinner in a Tibetan Restaurant.

Tibetan food in its Dutch form seemed to be a heartier form of Mandarin Chinese food.  We ate bao buns with spicy meat and butter tea.  I also ate ribs, French-style with a knife and fork, to keep my hands clean.

My banker colleague and I exchanged phone numbers, so I could go to the Chartier Restaurant in Paris for lunch.  (I was going to lord that over my colleagues at work that I was going to the Parisian Financiers’ Canteen for lunch.  I already felt like the trip to Amsterdam was a pay dirt success.)

We went to our different hotels as I wandered through the streets.  I went in the general direction of the Okura Hotel, keeping it in sight.

On my way, I found the Amstel Beer Factory.  I drank a lot of that as an undergraduate and wanted to take a photograph for my buddies.

I was tired when I arrived back at the hotel.  I flipped the security locks on my hotel door and plopped down into bed and slept peacefully, so I could get up bright and early for a full day of tourism on the next day in Amsterdam.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Montlouis in the French Pyrenees Mountains with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Montlouis in the French Pyrenees Mountains with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After our busy day in Barcelona, I was happy to sleep in while it rained outside the next day.

When I got up, we went to visit a church from the 7^th century lost in the mountains.

The Black Madonna in the church impressed me.  She sat upright with her child like those in the Uffizi did obtaining authority from her role as a mother.  I knew the story of Isis, Osiris, and Horus from reading Egyptian mythology as a child, so I associated this statue with one of protecting families.

We went to Puigcerda to buy some purchases for our return like Manchego cheese, paper, and pens.

We went to a postcard exposition in the town hall in the city of Montlouis.  The postcards detailed the history of the town and its inhabitants.  I could have stayed there all day, but we had to pack to go to Nantes.

My in-laws and brother-in-law were going back by car.  I bought books all over and those weighty souvenirs would go back by car while Laurent and I would go back by train via Toulouse and then up the coast during the night.

The family dropped us off at the train station in Perpignan.  Laurent and I bought newspapers and magazines and read these until the train came in and stayed up reading till we arrived in Nantes.

My father-in-law picked us up and went to a bakery and bought buttery croissants for us.

Our honeymoon was over.  While we ate our croissants, my father-in-law said, “You have to get a job, Ruth, while Laurent finishes his MBA now.”

“I’ll work on my cover letter and resume,” I said as I worked on my second croissant and smiled about my fun honeymoon.

By Ruth Paget, Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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