To London, To London...

I'm not sure which nursery rhyme that's from, seems like it's to buy a fat hen. We did make it to London. We didn't have much of a plan other than to see Mary Poppins, which we did, barely. We had just enough time to figure out how to walk across the Millennium Bridge first, then run, not walk, to the not so nearest tube station, and then walk quickly to the theater (This is misleading. We walked across the Millennium Bridge in hurricane wind and rain. Upon reaching the far far end, we heard a clock (Big Ben?) chime once. We had been advised to arrive at the theatre by 1:30, so I calmly mentioned to Barb that we would never make it. Realizing the time, she said, "We should just stop by the Tate Museum." And so we proceeded. It is only due to precise navigation on my part, to, far and away, the nearest Tube station, that we barely made it, and barely is spot on: Miranda was still in the bathroom (filling her water bottle, I later found out) when the doors were shut.) We had, of course, checked the address of the theater, but had not written it down to take with us. The tickets were at the ticket window. But we managed. All in a sprinkling rain (sprinkling rain, indeed).

Since it was a matinée and out at 5, we thought we should see something else before returning to Cambridge. (All of my London and Paris books are in the mail on the way over. They were supposed to take five days.) Barbara and Ben suggested Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace which we also managed to find. They were almost as popular as the pigeons at the fountain across the street from the palace (We asked the girls today what their favorite part was, and "The pigeons!" was the unanimous cry.). (Pictures to come, I hope. Finally found the batteries for my camera, so may even take pictures of my own again now.) From there we found a tube station.

The kids were starving, so we tried to eat at the pub across the street. The man behind the bar told Bruce no kids after 5. You should have seen the faces of the clientèle when Bruce turned to the kids and said "okay, kids, go wait on the curb, I'm gonna eat." There really was a collective "Awww..." as if scripted by the audience cue cards. But it turned out better than we could have imagined as we ended up at a Pizza Express that was extraordinary as far as I'm concerned. After countless sandwiches and whatever we could find at airports and on city streets on the way to things, and at our neighborhood coop, this was a five star meal. It's like an Italian angel descended from the heavens, took the Spaghetti Factory concept, cleaned it up and made it fancy, while keeping the prices low, I think (it's hard to know what's relatively inexpensive here, all I know is it didn't cost much more than the Pret a Manger sandwiches we had for lunch). The kids menu includes bread, salad, an individual pizza, dessert, and a kids cappuccino. I couldn't believe it when they brought air-filled balloons for the kids (their favorite). I will always have what I ordered last night when I return to one of these places. It was heaven.

Unfortunately they took just long enough to bring dessert (it must have been 30 minutes, the kids were falling asleep at the table) that, despite our fast pace, we missed our intended train back to Cambridge which would have gotten us back in time to catch the last bus of the night home (running once/hour in the evening). (This is also misleading. It went like this. The tube was running fine until one stop before Liverpool Street Station, where it sat and waited for about 5 minutes, before continuing. When we arrived at the station, we could see we had maybe 4 minutes to get to the platform. This is not entirely trivial, for, as you may know, leaving the underground requires passing your paper ticket through a reader, thus opening a gate and allowing precisely one person to pass. This wouldn't be so bad except that we have three kids to get through the gate, each kid with her own ticket, which she doesn't know how to use; and, as you may know, we also have an impatient hoard of Londoners pressing behind us as we try to manage the gate. I remember one such episode: Miranda panicked and stood frozen with the crowd behind and an open gate in front of her. I had to shove her through -- she was simply aghast at that injustice. Anyway, we got through the gate, ran through the station, found that our platform was number six, and hopped on the train. I was thrilled, and even took a bow, though few of the passengers noticed. As an after-thought I asked the nearest passenger if this train we were on went to Cambridge. She looked confused, and said, "I don't think so." A more helpful man said impatiently, "Five's the platform you want," jerking his thumb in the correct direction. So we jumped off the train, ran around to platform 5, we again were thrilled to see the train was there, and so we tried to get on board, but the doors wouldn't open. I saw a man in uniform and asked him if we could get on the train. He said, "The train's gone." This time I looked confused, so he said, that's not the train to Cambridge, the one you want's in front," and again with the thumb. We looked forward to see a train just ahead of the one we tried to board, slowly pulling away from the the station. The official said that the next train would depart in a half an hour. I asked him for the platform number. He said he couldn't tell me. I asked him if it was a secret. He liked that. He said, "Yea, it's a secret, and I'll let you in on it at 20 past." And so we waited for the next train. We had thought our platform was 6 because we were looking at the "arrivals" monitor.) As it was, we had to wait another 30 minutes for the next train, and then expected to take a couple of taxis home. (Bruce was ready to walk to 3 miles or so, I wasn't.) Instead, since the train arrived about ten minutes earlier than we expected, I ran the length of the train and station, through the parking lot to see our bus closing it's doors and pulling away from the curb. I literally jumped in front of it and waved it down to hold it for everyone else who by that time was visible in the lobby of the train station where I could point to them. For the first time, the service here was not great. The driver was actually trying to leave a couple of minutes early, still he had to roll his eyes and blink his lights as I waved everyone over and they ran to board the bus at 10:50pm. (The slow train takes about 90 minutes between Cambridge and London with all the stops.)

Unfortunately Bruce could not immediately find his bus pass (This was particularly frustrating. Not 2 minutes previous, I had been happily asleep on the train from London, and now I am in front of a bus-load of tired passengers, trying to find my pass. As I am digging through my wallet the driver keeps loudly and impatiently exhaling -- this is going to help me find the ticket. Finally, as if this 30 seconds had just set the bus schedule off for the rest of the week, he said, "Just take a seat until you sort it out." Fine; he should have been driving the whole time anyway, that's how they would do it in Portland. So I take a seat and show him my pass at the next stop. But then, at the next stop, he parks the bus and we waited at least 5 minutes before continuing. And at another stop, a friend of his showed up and they talked for another 5 minutes. What an ass.) Fortunately, Ben was holding the rest of our weekly bus passes and showed those promptly. The driver was rude enough to Bruce, suggesting he sit down while he work it out, that I honestly feared that if he found it he might rip it up in front of the driver's face, Woody Allen style. He did find it, we got home okay (recognized where to get off the bus, despite the collective fear and doubt of the adult McGoughs), and went immediately to sleep.

This morning we stayed in, I appear to have successfully set up a microphone, and I look forward to trying Skype just as soon as I can get it arranged. I am enjoying getting comments on the blog, I'm glad the website has gotten around. I hope everyone knows I would have sent it to everyone, but I lost my email address book a couple of weeks before we left so am only able to email people who email me or who are included in emails to me. It's really great to be able to keep in touch, getting the updating out of the way here and additional communication at our same old email addresses.