Visiting the British Museum in London (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the British Museum in London (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I continued my tour of London with a visit to the British Museum.  Toddler Florence was sleeping in her stroller.  I lifted the stroller with her in it and walked up the steps of the British Museum to see the main collections at the British Museum.

The Museum was still a hot house from the previous day’s heat wave.  Florence started squirming as soon as I hit the room with the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon frieze (Athens, Greece), the Rosetta Stone (Egypt), the Sutton Hoo Ship Treasures; and the library which had pages on display from the Lindesfarne Gospels and the Harley Gospels.

I would show Florence all the pretty artwork she saw as a toddler later in life in art books as we sat at home.

I went back to Hampstead Heath to look for a place to eat.  Hampstead Heath reminded me of Lincoln Park in Chicago with its brick apartment buildings, used bookstores, and wonderful shops where you could buy coffee, tea, wine, blank journals, pens, and Florentine stationery with its paisley swirls of color.

I was hungry and decided to try an Indian Restaurant, which I knew was Punjabi.

When I entered the restaurant, the owner was eating a pizza.

I looked at him and said, “Please tell me your restaurant is open.  Every other place in town is closed, and I’m starving.”

“We’re always open,” he said and sat me by a corner window in his vacant restaurant after the afternoon rush.  I might have fought him for the pizza, if the restaurant were closed.  That is not true; I would have offered to buy two slices of pizza.

I never got to eat Indian food in Paris, so I was really living it up at the Punjabi tandoori chicken restaurant.  I ate red-colored tandoodri chicken without skin with a platter of coral-colored rice.

I also ordered a tray of curry vegetables – potatoes, peas, cauliflower, and tomatoes.  Curry vegetables probably do not go with tandoori chicken in a traditional meal, but I liked them.  I also ate lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers on the side as a salad.  I dipped warm naan bread in the curry.

I think the owner enjoyed plying me with naan bread as much as he enjoyed giving Florence chocolate mints to eat.  She was a sticky, brown mess by the end of the meal.  She smiled and giggled as I cleaned her up with some water and a cloth napkin.

I bought a coffee and cream at a local coffee shop to drink in the room.

(As a side note, the Punjab region is shared by both Pakistan and India in the Northwestern corner of India.  The Punjabs are mostly Muslim and speak Urdu.   Naan is their bread not India’s.)

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

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Visiting London's National Gallery of Art with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting London’s National Gallery of Art with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On the first weekend of our visit to London, Laurent, baby Florence, and I took the Underground to the National Gallery of Art.  We were the first people in line, waiting for the Gallery to open.

Florence squealed in front of all the paintings and was frustrated when she could not touch them.  The guards laughed and said she was cute.  They gave her some museum maps, which she immediately crumpled up in her hands and laughed.

After that, she pointed at paintings and clapped her hands in front of the ones she liked.  It was hard to contemplate art with an active toddler bopping around in a stroller.

You hardly need to go to Italy to see Italian paintings when you lived in London.  I like Ucello’s battle scenes of Medieval Italy.  Italy’s Dolce Vita lifestyle has been hard won.

I went through the Spanish collection in relative calm.  I think the paintings of saints contemplating skulls in their hands might have frightened Florence.

By the time I made it to the Gallery’s bookstore, Florence was sleeping.

I bought some bookmarks as Christmas gifts and several good books that day:

-Cennini’s Craftsman’s Handbook – he was Italian, but worked primarily in France

-The Oxford Dictionary of Saints – it is always good to have reference books to deal with religious art criticism

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


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Eating at Cafe Flo in Hampstead Heath (London, UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating at Café Flo in the Hampstead Heath Neighborhood (London, UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget – Ruth Pennington Paget

When Laurent came back from his first day of working with his English colleagues on a bone marrow transplant project for the European Community as a computer engineering consultant for hospitals throughout Europe, he said we were invited out to dinner at a nice place down the street. 

We walked down the street to a restaurant called Café Flo.  This restaurant featured French and cosmopolitan dishes such as sukiyaki from Japan (chicken kebabs with a sweet soy sauce coating) and souvlaki from Greece (lamb kebab with yogurt, cucumber, and green onion dipping sauce on the side).

I installed Florence in her stroller next to a wall and told her “Café Flo” is your resto, kiddo!”

Laurent’s colleague seemed more relaxed when he was not in a traffic jam on the Orbital.  Laurent’s work colleague ordered rosé wine to go with our meal.  Laurent liked rosé and asked if it could be chilled.

Laurent’s work colleague said that you could hardly get a cold beer in London let alone a bottle of wine.  As an entrée, Laurent and I ordered fish followed by a plat principal, main dish, of poussin diable – a spicy, broiled and flayed baby chicken for me and an English dish called bangers and mash for Laurent.

I regaled Laurent and his colleague with a travel dialog about Ruthie’s Walk around London Town.

As a dessert, I ordered lemon sorbet followed by a cappuccino.

I really thought my vacation was great.

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

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Eating Great Breakfasts in London Town (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating Great Breakfasts in London Town (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The restaurant was near Oxford Street, a real carrefour of consumerism.  I love stores that collect sales tax and keep the money in local coffers for neighborhood programs.

It was 3:30 pm.  I could see that I could order breakfast at any time of day in the UK with cake as a dessert.  4 or 5 hours of walking would work off the calories in that cake.

I installed Florence in a sturdy, wooden chair provided by the restaurant.  My big English breakfast included: two sunny side up eggs, three sausages, three strips of delicious bacon, two broiled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms that oozed butter, French fries, toast and jelly, orange juice, and coffee with warm milk.

Florence was interested in all the people around us talking in all sorts of languages, wearing all kinds of colorful fashion, and a few women wearing hats with feathers.

I toured Charing Cross and went back to the hotel.  The rest felt good.  I was generally thrilled with my tour of London Town.

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

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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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