Day Three: London - Kid's Day
Posted by Max Dunn Sat, 29 Jul 2006 07:07:00 GMT
July 28, 2006: Today, we tried something different and let Maxie and Claire plan the day. We ended up eating at McDonalds, going back to the toy store Hamleys, swimming, riding the double-decker bus to dinner and then getting a hot chocolate. At the end of the day, Suzanne and I were a little disappointed that we didn’t really see much of London or do any of the great things that are available here, but our goal of this trip was to expose the kids gently to Europe and make it fun for them so they will want to come back, so I guess we accomplished that.
(Suzanne) Looking through the eyes of a child…that’s what I keep having to remind myself during this trip. All along we said that we wanted to make this fun for the kids and if we didn’t think like kids ourselves then we wouldn’t accomplish our goal. Besides, my reputation as a cool mom would be tarnished if the kids came back bored! So I’m torn because there’s so much history here, so much to see and I haven’t been to London in 27 years. Cool mom, cool mom, cool mom…Kids Day (3)!!!!
Max basically summed it all up. Maxie’s plan was to take a double decker bus down to Soho and find a place to eat. After many curbside discussions with Claire (some not very happy), we ended at McDonalds in Picadilly. Claire would probably say that it was the best meal so far (except that her bun was a little burnt).
Once we finished lunch, we headed back on Regent Street towards Hamley’s Toy Store, their second destination on their agenda (much more exciting than the watching the changing of the guards…cool mom, cool mom, cool mom). Luckily, to keep my sanity, I convinced them to stop in at Lush so we can sniff all of the soap, especially “Honey I Washed the Kids,” their absolute most favorite soap in the world (it smells so good you want to eat it). Back to Hamley’s…the boys and girls split up as usual. Claire and I started at floor 3 (the girls section, aka the pink floor) then back to 1, then up to 3 again, then back to 1. I think I have those floors memorized, along with the sweet shop on floor 2 (but you only see and smell it when going on the down escalator). The same people were working there too. Happy kids everywhere (I guess it was kid’s day for all of these parents too). Once the kids spent their 10 pounds worth of stuff (they each bought the same thing as yesterday—magic tricks and stuffed animal, real London souveniers, ha ha).
We headed back to the hotel via bus 453 and went swimmining. It was a nice break. The day went by real quick considering we only went to McDonalds and Hamley’s. But then again, we didn’t get out of the hotel until after noon.
After swimming, we headed off to dinner to what was supposed to be a concierge recommended kid friendly place (we had great recommendations the previous nights). It was a small Italian restaurant called Biagi’s, close to the Marble Arch in an area filled with Lebanese restaurants. The front was kind of old and outdated with 50 year old drapes on the windows so you couldn’t see inside. It did not look kid friendly. On top of that, we were hungry after finding our roundabout way of getting there so we decided to eat there anyway. Well, the inside looked like the outside, not too promising. There were maybe 2 tables occupied, not too promising. And Claire’s first impression after being seated was “this is not a kid friendly place,” not too promising. The kids lightened up a bit once they got breadsticks. And our meal? Well, it was more promising than we’d expected. Max and I both had veal (different sauces) with potatoes, carrots and snow peas. The presentation was not fancy by all means. It was more like a home cooked meal and was pretty good! We topped it off with gelato and sorbet so the kids ended up liking it (I think, at least they had smiles on their faces when we left…you’ll have to read their blog to get the truth).
We ended up walking home through what I would call the Lebanese equivalent of Chinatown and stopped at Cafe Nero for some coffee and hot chocolate. A peaceful war demonstration passed us just as we reached our hotel. It looked like a scaled down version of San Francisco’s Critical Mass, but still snarled traffic a bit with double decker busses scrambling at the tail end to reach their destinations.