As you may have discerned, I’ve gone through a break up. Breaking up is hard to do, especially when kids are involved, and I know that Eva is missing her regular cheesecake pots already. But let me be clear – it was Pret that changed. Not me. I didn’t do a thing wrong but somehow, this huge chain decided that the relationship where I consume more coffee than I pay for was not working for them. How outrageous.
Anyway, this left me with a twin dilemma….where to get my morning caffeine dose on the way to work and where I could sit if I’m ever early to pick Eva up from her Shakespeare class. So I’ve been doing some research and discovery.
We’ll start with coffee because nothing really starts without coffee. This is a classic “grass is greener” situation because when Pret and I were monogamous, I looked longingly at all the new hipster coffee shops popping up around Liverpool Street. But turns out, they’re not all I was dreaming of.
My first stop was Blank Street Coffee, on Old Broad Street. I’d heard good things about the coffee but hadn’t realised that the ordering experience would be tricky without the app. There’s nowhere to queue or wait inside so you queue on the street to order and then again to pick up, all the while getting gazumped by people who were doing app pick-ups. I might just be too old for this. It was fine on a sunny day but I think queuing in the City drizzle for a coffee might kill what’s left of my carefree spirit. The coffee itself was decent and the Cinnamon bun was substantial but I’m not sure I can reconcile myself to the process as a regular thing.
Similar thoughts were had on my first visit to Pickwick Coffee Company on the same street. There was no way to pay by card except via the tips pad so I had to tap my card seven times. I later realised this was part of a global outage so not Pickwick’s fault. I’ve since given them a few more tries and the coffee is good. You even get a cup which shows you the view you’re looking at while you walk through the City. The cinnamon roll was also good but both coffee and roll are quite hipster in taste (roll understated, coffee slightly sweet) so while they were fine, they weren’t my favourite. Also, they use the word “demure” in their advertising:
The other place I mean to try is Grind, at the Royal Exchange. A colleague recommended it and they have cute baby-pink cups but the only time I walk to work from Bank rather than Liverpool Street is when things go wrong. Like they did last week:
Does this muddy field look like it’s near the Royal Exchange?
That meant I was already lateish for work when I was passing Grind and it looked like more crowded, app-based chaos. So I’m ashamed to say that I went to Starbucks instead. No queue and three people serving. It wasn’t great coffee but at least I wasn’t still in that field.
More recently, I’ve been frequenting Coco di Mama. A pasta place might not be the obvious coffee choice but Italians take coffee as seriously as they take pasta, right? This is about the right kinda taste for me and they give you an adorable little hazelnut cream biscuit to go with it. My only complaint is the inconsistency with the pastries – the first time I was there, I ordered an almond croissant and realised once I got to the office that I had a plain one. The second time, I ordered at the kiosk and it said that all the pastries were sold out even though I could see them right there at the counter. The third time, I was having a dairy fast and the vegan option was sold out. So not fully successful trips thus far. I’ll keep you posted.
And that brings me smoothly on to my other project – exploring the options of Chicken Row, in Walthamstow. Eva and I christened this bit of Walthamstow High Street after we saw three signs in a row, promising Fried Chicken, Crispy Chicken and Chickenpox:
What else could you need? With both Nandos and Popeyes on the other side of the road, it truly is the chicken capital of E17. I often have a few minutes to kill before picking Eva up from drama so I have been slowly trying out the various options and, once more, I have results for you.
I think my first venture was to Raya Street Food, which promised the crispy chicken. This is a snack size, which is where this whole project originated. I really didn’t mean to be eating a full meal while walking around Walthamstow in the rain but there is also the option to sit in at Raya, which brings me back to the initial dilemma…somewhere to wait that isn’t Pret.
The crispy chicken is somewhere between meh and nice depending on which sauce you choose. The sweet and sour was a bit bland but the sweet and spicy is really good. Service is pretty quick and it’s very cheap (£5.95). I think I had the spring rolls once too and they were also good.
Next door is You Me Sushi, which offers Japanese Fried Chicken for a hefty £11.50. It does come with rice and there is a lunch deal including a drink for slightly cheaper. Both times I’ve tried it there has been a wait of around ten minutes but they’re probably quicker at peak times. I can’t believe it was still warm enough to eat outside in the evening when I took this picture:
And I still got free Pret coolers then. Sob, on both fronts. The chicken is tasty but not sure whether it’s over-a-tenner’s worth of tasty. It’s more expensive than Kome in South Woodford and Kome is probably better. Also, we get random gifts like lids and hair removal cream from Kome. The You Me Sushi chicken came with pickles but it was pickled ginger which is like biting into perfume. Sorry, that’s not for me.
Of course, we’ve tried Nandos a million times so it doesn’t really need to be included in this experiment but here’s a picture of our visit in August just for the sake of it:
You know the deal with Nandos – not as cheap as it used to be but still tasty, fresh, spicy chicken. I went to the one in Islington with Reuben today and it was as good as it ever was.
Don’t listen to the haters. Or Eva, who refuses to go there because of their aggressive promotion of chicken-eating…although she’s quite happy to go to Popeye’s with Bunny and that’s a chicken place too. Maybe that’s because she enjoys its resemblance to Perry the Platypus
Talking of Popeye’s, that has indeed featured in my chicken odyssey. I ordered some tenders with hot honey dip and I wasn’t expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised. The tenders were very fresh, very hot and the coating was super crispy. Much nicer than you’d get in McDonalds.
There are two further contenders that are near, but not on Chicken Row. One is Sushi Handroll on Hoe Street, which I decided to try when it was hammering it down and I couldn’t be bothered to wait for the lights to change so I headed down Hoe Street instead of across it. It also doesn’t do anything in the sweet and spicy chicken range, so not directly comparable. I got a chicken katsu curry and it was perfectly eatable – a bit like the Abokado version but with the chicken sliced nicely so that you can actually the strips with chopsticks. Plus they include pickles, which is always a bonus (unless it’s ginger, as previously discussed). The main thing I remember is that they were paying “Next Episode” while I was waiting and that confused my Pavlovian reaction because – thanks to the Snoop Dogg JustEat adverts – I crave takeaway every time I hear that song. But what to do when you already have takeaway on the way? Confusing.
The last one I’m going to mention is much further down the High Street – Chopstix just on the side of the Mall. I have eaten here before and it’s a very cheap option but not necessarily the most gourmet. It’s what you’d expect for a tenner for two different mains, rice, a drink and spring rolls. I went there last week when I needed to sit in somewhere and the food was again not too exciting. However, the service was super-friendly not just to me but also the teenage boys who came in after me. It felt like I was in no way being a problem sitting there at almost-closing time and that made the sweet and sour and Korean BBQ chicken taste a little less bland. It was also really hot, which was good as you imagine those kind of places serving food that’s a bit lukewarm. So a bargain price and a warm welcome in every way. A good place to finish up….I still haven’t found the ideal chickenery but the search continues….
This is our third year at the Festival and Eva’s at the top end of the age range – something I didn’t think about until I realised that one of her classmates from primary school had been promoted to helper status. So it might be our last one as punters but you never know – they may launch a follow-up “Festival of the Almost-Woman” for teens if we’re lucky.
We’d booked into the SEN session, which is shorter and quieter than the others…the shortness meant we should probably get there on time but Eva isn’t a fan of mornings. So we left slightly later than planned and paused to get hash browns at the Station Cafe.
Still, we made it there just 15 minutes into the session, which was pretty good going. There were sunglasses and ear defenders on the door so we collected some ear defenders just in case things got noisy but didn’t really need them too often.
We had a bit of a breeze around everywhere, both upstairs and down and stopped briefly to talk to a friend on the Girls Friendly Society. Eva also voted in their poll about school toilets. Then we went to visit the Sister Motion stall and were taken through to their studio in a quieter part of the building.
Eva was chosen to be the assistant cameraperson, which meant she got to call for “Quiet on Set” and use the clapperboard. We later sat down with the editor to see how it all came together and the the technology she was using looked a lot fancier than the free version I cobble choir videos together on. That’s Goals right there.
We didn’t have long to spend with Sister Motion as Eva was booked onto the 12:30 Bubbleology workshop. On the way, Eva bought a sage green crystal bracelet to match her outfit. Not sure whether it’s meant to have mystic-y properties but the colour palette is on point.
The Bubbleology workshop was run by Tammy King and was only for the SEN session as she’s autistic herself and wanted to do something specifically for that crowd. She described how blowing bubbles could avert a meltdown and increase calmness and there was plenty of opportunity for the kids to get hands on with the bubble mix. Eva even managed to get one of the touchable bubbles to balance on her fingers:
Incredibly, although we felt like we’d just got there we were already running out of time. Eva had seen a DnD stall earlier and wanted to revisit so she sat down and played the mini-est of mini adventures. Tho I think the normal rules were bent slightly for the occasion – Reuben’s reaction to “casting a fireball in a confined space” was a sad headshake – it was still a proper game and she and a couple of other girls managed to slay the dragon and steal its treasure. Even if one them was an octopus. I think the club was called Flamethrowers and Dreamcatchers but they’re only operating in Muswell Hill at the moment. I told them to look us up if they ever move eastward….they seem like a friendly bunch and Roo is certainly always looking for opportunities to play.
Oh and I almost forgot that we also got free ice cream from the Wuka Wheel of Fortune….or at least Eva did. I’m off dairy at the moment. Bah! Still, at least I got to hold her ice cream, while she played DnD.
On the way out, we saw this rather lovely representation of London:
The Business Design Centre always has some interesting artworks. I doubt I’ll get much time to enjoy them when I’m back there for work purposes in December….
We went to get some lunch at the usual place and then, partly inspired by the bubble workshop, stopped off for some bubble tea:
As we were in the area, it seemed almost rude to not visit Cass Art and luckily I got away with only funding a handful of pens and pencils.
But it was student weekend so they had free snacks, giveaways and a large doodle board outside. People who were clearly not students – unless Cass meant Year 7 students – had written “Skibbidi Toilet” and “Sigma” over the board <sighs in Gen Alpha>.
But someone had also drawn and labelled a platypus, which delighted Eva as she could add a hat and turn it into Perry:
She also added an eye, which is apparently her tag nowadays. I didn’t realise she’d joined the VFD
So a nice afternoon out even if I got rinsed for bubble tea, crystals and art supplies as well as lunch. This is what tween parenting is like. It might be our last FotG as punters but I’m sure we’ll find ways to stay involved. But for now, thanks for having us!
It was Nathan’s birthday recently. I won’t say which number it was but it wasn’t a very major one…..more like a stopping point between major ones. Nevertheless, we’ve made the most of the celebrations, starting with an outdoor cinema trip in August to see Blur: Live at Wembley:
It was a lovely warm evening at the Barbican and the rain held off, which was just as well seeing as the headsets apparently didn’t react well to water. It was fun to see the gig from last year, even if it wasn’t the night we went to. And the Barbican conservatory is pretty cool by night:
So, that was Part 1. Part 2 was Disco 2000, Part 3 was drinks at a pub in Hackney and today was Part 4 – a bit of culture. Our last classical music outing – also at the Barbican – had been a hit with the kids so we decided to push the Star Wars music theme a little further and take them to hear the source material, which was “The Planets” by Holst. For legal reasons, I should say that John Williams did not directly source his melodies directly from Holst but there is definitely inspiration there.
And what a glorious venue to do culture in! We’ve been there before, to see a Proms concert and a Chickenshed show, but it was a while ago. Plus, it is impressive on every visit.
We were way up in the Rausing Circle – the second from top row – but because of the way the auditorium’s laid out, we could see and hear everything perfectly. There was a full house, including people sitting in the choir stalls which was confusing as I knew the Bach Choir were performing. Maybe they would just squeeze in between the eight kettle drums. Yes, you’re right…that IS a lot of kettle drums.
The concert had three parts to it – the opening piece was by Wagner, then a piano concert by Rachmaninoff before the Planets after the interval. The Wagner was typically bombastic and played expertly by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. There was a little bit of shuffling around for the Rachmaninoff so that the grand piano could be centre stage and the top opened up. No one dropped a fingernail inside the piano like I almost did at the Highams Park proms, so that was good. The conductor (Christopher Warren-Green) and some of the violinists left before returning with the pianist, Tom Poster.
I’m always impressed by people who can properly play piano, as opposed to my worship -fudgery style. He really was incredible and guided the orchestra through the different moods of the piece, which must have been at least half an hour long and in three movements I think. At one point, the melody seemed to be the verse from “All By Myself” – a quick Google in the interval confirmed to me that I was not going mad and that Eric Carmen lifted it pretty much wholesale from the concerto.
We had some ice cream during the break and settled back in for the headline piece. If I had one criticism of the first half, it was that there were no kind of visuals used – with all the lighting capacity of the Royal Albert Hall, it seemed like there was more that could be done rather than just white light. The difference in the second half was evident straight away, with the war-mongering theme of “Mars” blasting while the stage was bathed in red light. This really enhanced the mood of each piece, as well as being a handy cue for when we were moving from one planet to the next. There were only applause breaks between some movements and not others, which was confusing. Once or twice people applauded at a point that was just a suspenseful pause. Including possible someone from my family but let’s not name names.
“Mars” is definitely Star Wars-esque so a good dramatic start to capture the kids’ attention right away. “Venus” was more mellow and the lights changed to a soothing peach colour accordingly. “Mercury” was described in the programme as being “playful” and I think that’s pretty accurate. “Jupiter” is the obvious crowd-pleaser with several passages that are recognisable, especially to those of us that grew up listening to “World in Union” for the rugby World Cup.
The programme also says that “Saturn” didn’t seem popular at its early performances and I can see why. It’s more difficult to get a hold of than the others and it’s a stark contrast coming straight after Jupiter. Maybe I just need to listen to it a few more times to get it. “Uranus” was a lot more melodic and then we just had the weirdness of “Neptune” to go. The Bach Choir still hadn’t appeared on the stage but at some point, I clocked that they were in the standing circle right at the top. I’ve no idea how they sang such a tricky piece without being able to see the conductor of the orchestra but Reuben suggested that maybe they turned up to rehearsal. HE4 choirsters, take note.
So a fun and cultural outing which the kids seemed to enjoy. The length of the programme was about right and being an afternoon performance meant that they weren’t too tired. I left Eva’s umbrella under our seats so she and Nathan ran back in for it but happily that meant that we were still there as the crowds cleared and I spotted an old friend taking a photo in front of the hall. I didn’t manage to photobomb him despite my best efforts but when I then offered to take the photo of him and his wife as compensation, I spotted Nathan and Eva waving out of an upstairs window. Brolly retrieved, photobomb achieved. Good stuff.
And as an extra bonus we spotted this pigeon having a poop under the baskets in Gloucester Road Tesco. How very London….
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s back to school time. The former toddler is heading into his GCSE year so what better way to mark the occasion than to go and see a GCSE text live on stage? He obviously knew what was going to happen in it but I made him promise not to spoiler it for me. He did tell me that it would be sadly lacking in musical numbers – my expectations for a whodunnit have been significantly raised since seeing Kathy and Stella twice. I even suggested to Roo how an introductory song would perk things up a bit but he was not open to my suggestions or jazz hands. This play was significantly more sombre than the murder podcast musical and wasn’t really a whodunnit either. But we’ll get to that.
First though, a glimpse of the view from Alexandra Palace:
You really have to appreciate this because it was a right slog getting up there from the train station. I realised a little too late that we could have hopped a bus but never mind. They need a little funicular railway like they had in Zürich.
But still…worth it, right?
The inside of the palace is pretty spectacular too:
And check out this incredible photo montage:
The theatre itself is still in an ongoing restoration process I think – a quick google while we were waiting for the show to start suggests it was restored in the “arrested decay” style so a bit like Wilton’s Music Hall I think.
The show started with a child waving a flashlight through the audience and for a while I thought it was just someone trying to find their seat. Then he ran up onto the stage, switched an old-fashioned radio on and suddenly music was blasting out as the curtain rose. Turns out there were musical numbers after all.
There were lots of interesting choices in terms of staging. I think the play takes place entirely within a house but the house was more of a backdrop here, with most of the dialogue taking place on the street. At the start, the house is closed and self-contained so you can hear the family at dinner but not see them apart from tantalising glimpses. I wasn’t sure this would work for an entire 110 minutes so was glad when the set opened up and the characters were able to interact directly with the titular Inspector, who was lurking in a sinister way outside.
It was visually stunning though. The smoke, the rain, the silhouette of the Inspector as he waited…it was all super atmospheric and really ramped up the tension between the happy and relaxed family scene and the threat to their happiness just outside. It was the same set throughout the play but parts of it shifted – without giving away any spoilers – so it never felt stale.
Reuben had told me that there was a subtle political undertone to the script and I’m glad he did otherwise I might never have picked up on it. The socialist narrative was woven throughout but it’s telling that at the end, nothing seems to really have changed for most of the characters. Only a couple of them have learnt any kind of lesson. I won’t give away the ending but it is thought-provoking and Roo, having studied it, had a few theories of his own to share.
As I said earlier, I had no idea what to expect and thought it was a murder mystery. I was wrong – the death the inspector is investigating is a suicide and there’s no suggestion that any of the family members had any physical part in the death. It’s more about the events leading up to the suicide and who or what might have led her to do it. The plot is nicely twisty and although some points verge on predictable, it still had a lot of surprises for anyone who wasn’t reading it for GCSE.
In terms of age rating, it says 8 plus but there were a few references to things that younger kids might not understand, such as the bar for the “women of the town”. There are references to sexual assault and, obviously, suicide so it’s worth considering how sensitive your child is before booking. There are also a few jump scares and some very tense moments of both darkness and silence that younger kids might find disturbing. Even just now when I’ve played the trailer, Nathan described the music as “ominous” without knowing what it was I was playing. So beware of anyone who might be scared by that.
There’s also a bit of stage violence and lots of family conflict so be prepared for some tricky questions. Or divert them all to your child’s English teacher.
Roo appreciated seeing it come to life and thought it really helped with his understanding. It’s only on for a couple of weeks so if you have a similarly aged kid who might benefit from seeing it, it’s definitely worth a trip. The tickets were pretty reasonably priced, we had a good view and the play is a nice length (1 hr 50, no interval). Like most GCSE texts, it verges on the depressing but hey, it’s only theatre. And, as you’ll come to realise at the ending, who can tell what is real anyway?
No disclaimer needed as I paid for this one. All opinions remain honest and my own.
So, we’ve reached the last of the holiday posts just in time for school to start. We finished the last post in Friedrichshafen and that’s where we’ll pick back up, aboard the boat to Romanshorn.
This was a bit of the trip I’d been looking forward to and one of the Google reviews described it as “a very relaxing way to get to Switzerland”. Which it would have been if I wasn’t convinced that Eva was going to drop her phone off the edge. The sides only came up to seat level and so there was more than enough potential for it to go off her lap and into the green depths. I thought I was being overly paranoid but she dropped it on the edge of the platform at Leicester Square last night, so I think I’m justified.
Fortunately, she didn’t drop it and the views as we sailed were indeed soothing.
It cost around 32 Euros for the four of us and we bought a ticket that would have let us on any boat that day (they go hourly from Friedrichshafen, at 20 past). It took 45 minutes to get across the Bodensee and when we got to Romanshorn, we had around 45 minutes before our train to Zürich. In the original plan, we had a day in Romanshorn as I wanted to go to the Seebad but that would have meant finding left luggage and travelling with wet swimwear so would have been a hassle anyway. In the new plan, timings were a bit more compressed so all we had time for was a quick walk to the lakeside – with the luggage – and a sit down and snack under the tree
I did manage to spot our boat going back across the lake though, in between these fountains:
Then it was time for our train. It was about an hour to Zürich, past some nice rolling hills and picturesque countryside.
The change of plan meant we wouldn’t be going anywhere with proper mountains so the hills would have to do for now until we can get back to Europe and do the bits we missed.
Arriving in Zürich was full on – having been in a quiet small town for five days, we were suddenly in the middle of a bustling city again with trams, cars and buses all going in different directions as soon as we stepped out of the station. We’d booked into the Hotel Limmathof, which was just about visible from where we were – the giant “CAMPARI” sign on the roof made it easy to spot.
We’d planned to just leave our bags there and go for lunch but happily the room was ready early so we could check in. Along the way, we saw hundreds of swimmers floating down the Limmat with inflatable ducks. A weaner friend of mine was somewhere in there but weirdly enough I didn’t spot her. There were also real ducks:
Having checked in, we wandered the streets a little looking for food before deciding on Holy Cow Burgers. Eva had the veggie patty but wasn’t too fussed though she declared the fries outstanding. Roo and I had smoky BBQ burgers and I think Nathan had something chickeny. It was all good and they had a shady little outdoor area to sit so we could enjoy the summery weather.
Talking of which, it was really getting quite hot so it was time to try and find somewhere to cool down. I couldn’t watch the Limmat floaters with envy all afternoon. We’d successfully managed to buy 24 hour travel passes from a machine right outside the hotel, with the only complication being that you could only buy three tickets in one transaction and we needed four. I think it was about 6CHF each for the kids and about 12CHF so, after a second transaction, we had the freedom to roam around the central zone (Zone 110) as much as we liked. Plus the trams had aircon, which was heavenly on a hot day.
My first choice of swimming place was Seebad Utoquai as it looked nearby and had good reviews. Naively, I thought it would be similar to the Strandbad in Friedrichshafen where there were beach-like shallow areas but apparently not.
A conversation in German with an impatient young man on the counter revealed that the swimming areas were 10 metres deep – not ideal for those of us who weren’t real swimmers. Conscious of the growing queue behind us, I told him we’d think about it and ducked out.
A quick google came up with a more family-friendly alternative – Strandbad Tiefenbrunnen. This would be on the edge of where our travel passes got us to but still within the bounds. Google promised shallow water and grassy areas. We hopped back on the tram and within a few minutes we were there. There was a bit of a queue to get in, but nothing too bad, and my first priority was to get a drink of some kind. There was a window selling drinks on the outside of the queue but I didn’t want to risk leaving the queue and not being able to rejoin. So we waited until we were in and then found a little express shop where we could either pick up cans or fill a plastic cup from some large bottles of juice.
I chose the Apfelsaft and my goodness, it was the best thing ever. So cold and so fresh. I downed 5CHF’s worth in about ten seconds but it was worth it.
Then we found the shallow swimming area – also near the loos and the paddling pool – and set up camp under a tree. It was properly busy, way more so than the last Strandbad had been, but we carved out some space. I couldn’t figure out the changing rooms – I think maybe they were bookable as they all seemed locked – and the main changing areas were a bit of a walk away so I changed in the loos, which was probably against all the rules. Roo went to the mens’ only area back near where we bought the drinks. He is a bit of a rule-follower.
Eva and I spent most of the afternoon in the non-swimmer area, which was still pretty deep and strangely tidal. It was up to her armpits most of the time. At one point, the metal barriers to the actual lake broke loose and there was a huge gap between the non-swimmer area and the depths of Lake Zürich itself. Luckily Eva wasn’t tempted to try and push her luck. Roo, meanwhile, alarmed me by disappearing off and jumping into the lake from the diving board (the low one but still). I keep having to remind myself that he can swim just fine but I wouldn’t be a mother if I didn’t fuss occasionally.
We also spent some time in a round kids’ pool that was over a bridge. I’m not entirely sure how it worked but it was a bit like a flooded platform I think – so an artificial floor over the lake water but also full of lake water. It felt like being in a lobster pot but a good depth for Eva to potter about in. Weirdly slippery underfoot though.
At one point, we stopped for ice cream and I had an amazing lemon sorbet, along with a bottle of ice tea that I pretty much downed again. I know in theory if you’re dehydrated you’re meant to si[ fluids, not chug them but I’ve never quite got the knack of doing that.
We left the Strandbad at around six as I had one more thing I wanted to do before settling into our hotel for the night. All the recommendations for Zürich had mentioned the Polybahn – a funicular railway that takes you up the side of the hill to look over the city. I’d spotted the tracks while we were having lunch and had seen signs for it but couldn’t work out where to get in.
I felt somewhat stupid when I realised it was literally next door to our hotel. To be fair, it doesn’t look like a station as such but it’s where you get on. The travelcards we had for the day covered this as well so it didn’t even cost anything. It took a few minutes to get to the top and then we hung out for a while, looking over Zürich at sunset.
Before getting some more sunset shots from our hotel room:
For dinner, I just bought some bread, houmous and salami from the Migrolino supermarket a few doors down. It was pretty eye-wateringly expensive but that’s to be expected in Switzerland. We also bought a few breakfast foods because our next train was at 7:30 in the morning. Lucky we were so close to the bahnhof really.
And the next morning, we left a rainy Zürich for another four-hour train journey but we’re getting good at these now. Which brought to us full circle to Paris and so here is where the blogging odyssey ends. Thanks for sticking with it!
Now, where did we get to in my last post? Somewhere approaching our holiday apartment I think. I’d chosen Friedrichshafen as a place to rest for a couple of days after the big cities (Paris and Stuttgart) and before we moved on to a bit more exploring.
Welp, things didn’t work out as planned.
The first bit did – we arrived at the station and found our apartment, which was about ten minutes’ walk away. We even found the correct apartment after some confusion – mainly me telling Nathan entirely the wrong street number. I found the supermarket and got a few basic supplies to cook dinner, which was nice after having to eat out for a couple of nights.
Aaaand then I got ill. You don’t need the details but suffice to say, it threw our onwards travel plans into disarray and we never did make it Austria or Liechtenstein. We had nights in Feldkirch and St Gallen booked that we had to cancel and instead book a second apartment in Friedrichshafen for an extra two nights.
So we ended up spending the bulk of our holiday in one place and I spent a fair amount of that lying down with my head under a duvet. But eventually I was well enough to be out and about again, which was just as well seeing as we had a four hour gap between leaving one apartment and moving into the next. Once again, we needed a place to leave our worldly goods and after some hunting, managed to locate the luggage lockers at the station.
We had to go onto the platform, so luckily there were no ticket gates, and right at the end of Platform 1 were a stack of lockers with pretty pictures of the town on them. Most had a red light on, suggesting they were occupied, but the ones on the far side had a few with green lights. For a very reasonable 5 Euros (in coins of between 50 Cents to 2 Euros), we managed to fit three suitcases and two bags inside. I had hoped for maybe one or bags so that was a proper result.
With many hours still to go before moving back in, and with me still not at full strength, we wandered down to the lakefront to find somewhere to sit. It’s very pretty along there, with the boats in the harbour and Switzerland on the horizon. There’s mini golf, which Nathan took the kids to while I was hibernating., and ice cream and public loos. Plus there’s a Geldautomat, which is Eva’s favourite German word.
After a short sit down, the more ambitious of us decided to climb the Moleturm. Eva and I both got up about three levels before she remembered she didn’t like heights and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten for about three days. Only Nathan actually made it to the top. Apparently the views were nice.
It did remind me though that I should start the eating thing again and I could be tempted by Currywurst. We wanted to sit outside and this place was probably a total tourist trap but it ticked all the boxes.
Nathan and I had the Currywurst and Pommes Frites deal for 12 Euros each, Eva just had the Pommes and Reuben had a salami pizza. It would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for the wasps but Reuben managed to trap at least one in his Coke glass.
After lunch we wandered around the town a bit more and sat by the church in the shade for a while. The kids and Nathan also found a comic and games shop to browse through. We saw the outside of the Zeppelinmuseum but didn’t go in. It’s a very cool building though, and there’s a little zeppelin-themed play area just outside.
It’s all very mellow, which was welcome after the busyness of two cities in a row. Everywhere we went was walkable and you can see the Bodensee from lots of bits of the town.
The best bit was actually swimming in the Bodensee, which was what we did for most of the day on our last day there. The Strandbad was around fifteen minutes’ walk from the new apartment and only 4,80 Euro for a familieneintrittskarte for the day. Once you’re in, there are stands selling drinks and ice creams as well as “Potatoes” (wedges) and yet more currywurst.
There’s a playground and giant chess and inquisitive ducks, who Eva named Tom, Gary, Cheesecake, Computer Monitor, Essen, Child, Thomas Jefferson and, of course Geldautomat. None of the rest of us were convinced that these weren’t just the same two or three ducks over and over again but she claimed to be able to tell the difference.
The lake swimming was lovely, and the perfect way to sooth my head after a week-long headache. I feel like people in the Sadlers Wells books are always going off to convalesce in Switzerland and this had much the same feel…..I was regaining my strength through See bathing, not quite in Switzerland but certainly within sight of it.
In terms of practicalities, there were a few ways of getting into the water. There was a small pebble beach or an even smaller sandy one but the main ways were either down the concrete steps or along the metal pier into the deeper water. Not that the water got very deep, even at the end of the pier – I think Reuben could still touch the bottom all the way out there. I was slightly out of depth by the floating platforms but most of the way along I could still stand up. Non-swimmers had to stay within the roped off bit, so that’s where Eva hung out but she was quite happy. She could duck down and be up to her neck in cool water without having to cross the line.
It was a very happy place to hang out. As the temperature crept up, it did get very busy but nothing compared to Southend on a hot day. There was shade under the trees and Monster Slush on hand to cool us down. Plus there were all the facilities you need, like little changing huts and showers. And such a bargain too!
In some ways, it was good that we were forced to stay in Friedrichshafen longer than expected because it gave us a good chunk of time away from travelling, except for the bit where we had to drag our luggage around with us for a few hours. We got our laundry done, we lived very cheaply off pasta and potatoes and salami for a few days and we regrouped for the final bit of the trip that would take us homewards. But that is yet another post.
If you’ve read my last post, you’ll know that we had a very soggy day in Paris, followed by some nice bread and a train to Stuttgart. Well, first there was a bit of hanging around Gare de L’Est as our train was delayed by 20 minutes. We killed some time by looking around Pylones, which I’m sure used to be Octopus in the UK, and Hema. The latter was probably a tactical error because they had a whole display of sage green stationery, which is Eva’s favourite colour at the moment. I was lucky to get away from there with my bank balance intact.
I was worried about the four-hour train journey from Paris to Stuttgart but it went by quite quickly. We sat around a table again and played a couple of rounds of Exploding Kittens while we watched the scenery roll by.
As France turned into Germany, the skies grew greyer and I started to wonder if the rain was following us from Paris.
Spoiler: it was.
We got to Stuttgart with a sense of deja vu – or whatever the equivalent is in German. It was only drizzling for now but it didn’t look like it was going to improve any time soon. Still, at least we were prepared this time.
There was also a certain amount of chaos around the Hauptbahnhof as it was in the middle of a massive building site. So we tried following the U-Bahn signs through a very long tunnel and ended up in a biergarten by the planetarium, which seemed to be unrelated to the U-Bahn station at the Hbf that we were aiming for. We would eventually find it but not just yet. These signs did nothing to convince us that we were on the right track:
“You want an U-Bahn station? I got a totally legit one, right here….”
We eventually found the Staatsgalerie station and had yet more fumbling around on foreign ticket machines, trying to work out what zones we needed a ticket for. Stuttgart is a lot more affordable than Paris and we got a Gruppeticket for around 16 Euro for the day. We only needed Zone 1 but it took a little while to work that out because the map with the zones on it doesn’t also have all the stations on it. Eventually though, we had a tiny and loseable bit of card that allowed us to get the U-Bahn to Schloss-/Johannesstraße and from there it was just a few minutes’ walk to our hotel, Hotel Hansa.
As with every new country we went to, there were challenges in crossing the road and now the train tracks but we reminded the kids to look all ways at all times and only cross on a green man. I’ve always had it in my head that jaywalking is illegal in Germany and I’ve no idea whether that’s actually true or not but I wasn’t taking any risks.
We managed to check into our hotel without slipping into English too much – the only word I didn’t get was “make-up” but don’t ask why that came up in conversation. We dumped our bags and then went in search of whatever meal we were on now. It had been a while since breakfast but I don’t think we had lunch so it was linner I suppose?
It was, of course, still raining.
We walked from the hotel as it wasn’t far from the centre but it was far enough that my shoes – which hadn’t really dried out from Paris – were soaked again.
Along the way, we stumbled upon my friend’s favourite record shop and also the CVJM, which caused Eva to burst out into song. I don’t need to tell you which song but you can guess.
I knew there was a Fünf Männer in Stuttgart but I think we all needed to eat somewhere different for once. So after some soggy wandering around, we found a different American chain restaurant to eat at – Pizza Hut.
Don’t judge me. There will be actual German food along before you know it.
Once again, it was a relief to be somewhere warm and dry and thanks to the international menu, everyone managed to order their own meal in mostly-German. The Kellnerinen seemed a bit frantic as the restaurant filled up as there were only a few of them but we weren’t in any hurry. There was some confusion at the end because I couldn’t remember the word for “tip” and was trying to work out whether the Rechnung was mit oder ohne service, which I swore was “Bedienung” but that didn’t seem to be ringing any bells. Eventually I just used “tip” and apparently it was ohne, so I’m glad I checked. If anyone can enlighten me on whether German bills include it or not, I’ll know for next time. As it was, we just left a trail of Euro notes behind us wherever we went.
My soggy feet were hurting so once we’d finished we went to the nearest U-Bahn station, which was Stadtmitte. Here was another one of those liminal places Eva likes so much:
The next morning my intention was to get hotel breakfast with Reuben and then maybe go for a walk while Nathan and Eva slowly woke up to have theirs. But when I went to the kids’ room, Eva was bright and awake so the three of us went to breakfast together while Nathan snoozed.
It involved more tricky German at the front desk but we managed fine and were able to feast on bread, fruit and (for the carnivores) three types of sausage. I wasn’t quite German enough to go for the pickled onions at breakfast time but I did consider it.
And then Roo and I went for a walk to see a bit more of the neighbourhood and enjoy the first sunshine we’d seen since leaving London. We walked to Johanneskirche, which was set by a beautiful lake, and then dipped through the closed S-Bahn station towards the edge of the Karlshöhe, which was a massive and very hilly park. There were a lot of closed S-Bahn stations – possibly because of the works going on around the station – but bear that in mind if you ever visit. Luckily, the U-Bahn and the buses go pretty much anywhere you need to go. Also, there are lines on the pavement showing you the way to the rail replacement bus if you do need the S-Bahn route. Walthamstow could do with those the next time the Chingford branch is closed.
Karlshöhe was pretty, even if we didn’t stray too far into it. We found a couple of playgrounds and this owl, which looked suspiciously like Duo was keeping an eye on us. I know he likes to make sure I practise German every day but I *swear* I was. I was in Germany, Duo. Please don’t hurt my family!
Talking of my family, it was probably time to get back to the rest of them especially as Nathan hadn’t had any breakfast. We picked up some snacks at a kiosk and got ready to check out of the hotel.
Our next train wasn’t until late afternoon, so we had the whole day to explore Stuttgart. We could have left the luggage at the hotel but there didn’t seem to be loads of space so instead I booked a drop off at a dry cleaners’ near the station through Nannybag. That bit went absolutely fine and the staff were very friendly. We had a few issues getting there on the U-Bahn as we were standing in someone’s way with our suitcases and he told us off for being stupid tourists. I forget it’s Monday morning and some people were probably on their way to work but there wasn’t really anywhere else to stand with all the luggage. Ah well, good luck if you’re ever on the Victoria line in rush hour, angry man.
We also missed the Hbf stop again as we were on the wrong line and ended up once more in Staatsgalerie which was quite a walk to the dry cleaners. Once we got there, we realised that the Hbf station was exactly where we needed to be. Excitingly, we had been on the U2 Bahn, which looked like it stopped at the Hbf on the map but didn’t seem to IRL. I had inadvertently made the train wait for me while I was on the other platform buying the ticket for the day so in the frenzy of crossing the tracks and two roads (at the green man) I didn’t really check where it went. I wasn’t expecting the driver to wait for me to do all that but as the rest of the family had been on the right platform with their suitcases, he obviously worked out that we were together. Ah, I’m starting to remember why the angry man might have been angry at us. It’s starting to make sense now.
Anyway, we made it to the Stadtzentrum, dropped our bags off and were ready to explore. Of course, that was the point at which I realised I couldn’t find the ticket anywhere. Yes, that same ticket I’d just delayed a whole train of people for. That’s awkward. Eventually we just gave up and I bought another one, taking in another closed S-Bahn station on the way. Another liminal space and this one might make for a good album cover for Eva some day.
We were finally ready to explore and this is probably the bit where I’ll lose you all because the bit of Stuttgart I wanted to explore was very specific to me. My grandmother lived in Stuttgart before she had to leave Germany and I was super keen to see the house she lived in. I won’t tell you where exactly the house was but it was up on the hillside overlooking the city and we had to get a bus to get up there. Once again, we tripped up on some small matter of public transport etiquette (pressing a button to open the doors maybe?) but we got to where we needed to and enjoyed some spectacular views on the way.
Once we got off the bus, we got momentarily distracted by a very fluffy and friendly white dog who demanded cuddles (“Ist sie freundlich?” I asked the owner, who gave the kind of resigned smile that suggested that yes, this dog was friendly to absolutely everyone). Then we walked down the hill a bit and, happily, found the official Aussichtspunkt. It was pretty impressive:
We also saw red squirrels and tiny lizards in the gardens around there, which was very exciting:
Then we walked back to the bus stop and stopped for refreshments at Katz der Bäcker. Nathan had a coffee and the rest of us had cold drinks because yes, it was still sunny at this point. Reuben had a pretzel, Eva had a slice of Käsekuchen and Nathan and I had pastries which were called something like Himbeer-Streusel-Plunder. They were all super good.
After that we still had a few hours left before our train so I pressed on to see if we could do just a little more family history stuff. I had a great-great-great-grandfather buried in one of the city cemeteries and I fancied going to find him and say hello. It may not have been a popular choice with the kids but I promised them Fünf Männer and the Lego Store afterwards so they agreed to get back on the U-Bahn to Pragfriedhof.
Long story short, we did not find him as the Jewish bit of the cemetery was locked and there was no obvious way in. But there are worse places to spend a sunny afternoon than a shady, grassy, calm place and I appreciated the kids’ willingness to wander round it with me. Plus we found a little playground to hang out in. It was a little incongruous – the shiny new park next to the ancient graveyard but yknow, it’s a symbol of how life goes on.
As promised, I let them get burgers and browse Lego after all that solemnity. I slightly miscalculated how long Königstraße was – having finally located the Hbf station, we emerged and started walking down the street confidently before realising we didn’t recognise any of it. I’d sworn Fünf Männer was right next to Primark and McDonalds but turns out there might be more than one of those in Königstraße. It was about a mile’s walk in the end and I only really twigged when we walked through this giant Schlossplatz halfway down:
Anyway, we had our first German french fries – and this time we were allowed refillable drinks again – and then browsed the Lego for a while before popping to Hema for snacks and only a small amount of stationery. As previously mentioned, I felt lucky to get away without buying Eva the whole shop. Also, weren’t we here in the last post?
We got the U-Bahn back from Stadtmitte to Hbf, for once ending up where we intended. The luggage pick up from the dry cleaners was all smooth and then it was just a small matter of finding where the actual station was, in among the building works.
We joined a mass of people trudging through the tunnel, which had signs, optimistically saying that it was “Zwei Minuten!” to the trains. Underneath, people had added their own annotations, such as “Fünf mit Gepäcke” and other, less polite remarks. About halfway down there was a Jehovah’s Witnesses stand, as if they were counting on people giving up the will to live and looking for any kind of salvation by that point. They were probably doing a roaring trade.
Eventually, we did emerge but there was nowhere to sit in the reduced capacity station and it was unclear where our train might go from because the screens only had space for a few departures on it and ours wasn’t on there. I checked all the screens on the individual platforms and couldn’t see it on any of them either. There was a train that would take us straight to Friedrichshafen – we were booked to change at Ulm – but I spoke to an official who told us in no uncertain terms that we couldn’t take that one. Though she also told me that ours would be going from Platform 15. We found Platform 15 and, sure enough, our train was listed on that screen. I’m not sure how I missed it on my first sweep through. It was also running ten minutes late, which was going to make our 13-minute change in Ulm very tight indeed. We found a little shelter to sit in, a long way down the platform and waited tensely for the minutes to tick by while watching the direct train pull away. Reuben almost tried to get on that one,thanks to a small misunderstanding, but luckily he didn’t.
This was a train we didn’t have booked seats on and it was a bit confusing to work out which tables were reserved for “gold-klasse” passengers and which seats were free to sit in. We ended up sitting half a carriage away from each other, which was fine except that we had a group ticket. I sent Nathan the pdf through WhatsApp and he was able to explain to the ticket inspector that he had a Frau “over there” before she visited us and I was able to explain in a bit more detail. She understood and accepted our tickets so it was all good. Unlike another passenger who we overheard being told he had 40 days to pay his fine.
It was around 45 minutes to Ulm and I spent most of it watching the departures to see whether our connection was also running late. It seemed that we would be coming into Ulm at the same platform as we’d be leaving from – Platform 2 – so surely that meant we were ahead of the connection? I was almost certain that the connection was also coming from Stuttgart, just following us a little way behind.
At some point around then, one of the water bottles in the bag I was carrying started to drip on my foot. I was wearing flip flops, not my soggy trainers, but once again my feet were wet.
At Ulm we leapt off the train and quickly realised that Platform 2 had different sectors and that our next train was already there. I can’t find anything on the internet that supports the idea that Platform 2 at Ulm had two sides to it but I swear it did. We were in Ulm for around a minute before jumping, wet-footed onto the Friedrichshafen train and sitting down with a massive sigh of relief.
And so onwards to the next bit of our holiday. But that is definitely another post….
This might be one of many posts about our recent holiday but also, I’m quite tired as a result of our recent holiday so forgive me if they don’t materialise. In fact, this might be just a series of one which says “baguettezzzzzzzzzzzz” as I fall asleep on the keyboard
We started our Paris trip in the unglamourous surrounds of the Premier Inn, Euston Road. My logic had been that we needed to catch the Eurostar earlyish in the morning and, once again, the Chingford line was not functioning. With a choice between a Premier Inn stay or the rail replacement bus in a hurry, I chose the former but I may not have chosen well. The windows were open because the aircon didn’t work and the noise from the Rocket pub opposite didn’t make for a peaceful night’s sleep. I think Nathan and I went there on his Monopoly stag crawl in 2002 but I don’t remember any of us loudly singing football chants at midnight. Ah well.
So it was a groggy and grouchy family traipsing through St Pancras in search of adventure. We’d had the Premier Inn breakfast but Eva had got into trouble with the staff for dropping her hash browns so that hadn’t helped with the general atmosphere. Then we got shouted at by a passport official for following the exact instructions his colleague had just given us and all of this while I was clutching Eva’s half-drunk mango bubble frappe because there was nowhere in the security queue to dispose of it. So it went through the X-ray machine in a special cup holder and then I threw it away just before the boarding lounge. Eurostar travel is *less* stressful than going through an airport but I sometimes think they’re trying to emulate that Stansted pre-holiday feeling.
Once we were actually aboard the Eurostar, all seemed calm. We had table seats so could Nathan and Roo could play “Tinny Dungeons” and Eva could draw or read or eat snacks. All very civilised. The two hours zipped by and we started seeing the outskirts of Paris. I’d decided not to go to Pret at St Pancras because I had my hands full already and Roo had suggested there might be a Pret in Paris, given it was a French word. I mocked him for this because I didn’t think the French would really get behind a brand often referred to as just “Ready”. But what was the very first thing we saw as we disembarked?
I stand corrected. I am pret to admit my teenager knows more than I do.
What none of us knew about was the ticketing system for the Paris metro. This was to be a theme throughout our travels but the machines at Gare du Nord were particularly crowded and we were just four of the hundreds of hapless tourists trying to figure this out. A bit of retroactive research suggests that some of the normal options for travel were unavailable or were inflated in price because of the Olympics, even though we were visiting in the gap between the Olympics and the Paralympics. Either way, I ended up buying a small stash of single-trip tickets at 4 Euros each before later crumbling and buying the day passes at 16 Euros each, which adds up to a pricey 64 Euros for our family. And no clarity on whether that’s a day ticket like a calendar date or a 24-hour period. Either way it cost a lot but luckily I still had enough single use tickets for the Sunday morning anyway so everything got used, even if we paid above the odds for it. Everyone at the station seemed similarly confused about the options and the queue when a Eurostar had just come in was a bit scary.
Once we had the tickets, it was a relatively straightforward question of negotiating the ticket gates and the trains with our luggage and finding our way to our hostel in Montmatre. We were a bit early for check in but could leave our suitcases in the luggage room and that made a massive difference. At this point, it was raining lightly but Nathan didn’t think about taking his coat out of his suitcase and onwards with him. Remember that. Reuben hadn’t packed a coat at all. I’d grabbed a thin waterproof when we were leaving home and had Eva’s raincoat with us but had forgotten my cardigan and had panic bought a replacement at Fat Face in St Pancras. We were not the best prepared for any weather events, having left London in glorious sunshine.
You know what’s coming. You can probably tell from the umbrella in the picture above. Yup, weather event. But more on that later.
The boys had tickets for the Eiffel Tower at 17:30 and it was about 13:30 when we left the hostel, suitcase-free. We had some time to kill but surely that wouldn’t be hard, right? We’d already located the bibliotheque, scourge of many a GCSE student’s spoken exam, but there were a few more exciting things to find. So we headed back to the Metro, bought those day passes, and caught the train towards Notre Dame.
First though, a quick fuelling stop at this petite eaterie I believe they call “Cinq Hommes”:
It took us a while to find it in the increasingly soggy streets while my Google Maps struggled with a wet screen and uncertain phone coverage. But this branch was right next to Fontaine des Innocents and also near but not inside the Westfield mall. No, not the one in Stratford. The Cinq Hommes experience is reassuringly familiar, for tweens who need that reassurance, but there are no refillable drinks in France so you have to juggle QR codes as well as drinks fountains. Also, the fries come in a silver tray. It was a good use of having learnt those complicated French numbers though, so I could listen out to “Deux cent soixante cinq” when it was called.
After we left, it became increasingly apparent that the rain was no longer light, even in the City of Light. Eva claimed to not want her raincoat, so Reuben borrowed it and we ducked into a tourist shop to buy umbrellas and this rather fetching poncho:
Fed and re-enforced against the weather, we were ready to do some standing around looking at the cathedral. Obviously, Notre Dame is not currently open to the public but it’s still very impressive from the outside. There are steps opposite the front so you can climb up and see what’s behind the hoardings. Just watch your step as it can be slippery in the rain.
Wait, it’s raining? I hadn’t noticed.
I do love this photo of Roo and I looking at Notre Dame while Eva channels a grumpy Parisian who doesn’t know us:
We had been outside for a while so it was a relief to dive back into the Metro for some temporary warmth and dryness. We were heading towards the Eiffel Tower but it didn’t take very long and we still had around an hour to kill before the boys went up. Eva and I would then need to hang out for another 90 minutes or so until they came back down. When I imagined all of this, we were lounging in the sunshine in the gardens around the Tower. The reality was a little different. Not only was there no sunshine but there was also a shortage of garden, given that part of it was fenced off for the Olympics and the bit underneath the Tower was behind security gates. I later found out that it was free to get into this bit and so we could have gone through but we found that out a bit too late. Still, enjoy this photo of Reuben doing his classic “I fell” gag:
So as the rain intensified, we ran into the nearest cafe where we paid eyebrow-raising tourist prices for a coffee but dagnam, that was the best tasting coffee I’ve ever had. I think it was just because we were somewhere cosy while las pluie battante battered on outside. The staff were friendly and spoke English to us even though we attempted a bit of French. The decor was pretty and Reuben had a very sticky crepe that gave him the strength he’d need for the climb ahead.
Then we said au revoir to the boys and went to find something to occupy ourselves. We were quite tired by this point, having not slept much and schlepped all over Paris. So somewhere with a lot of space to sit down would be ideal. Which is how Eva and I found ourselves in Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, watching videos of tribal rituals in the soothing semi-darkness.
It was mildly unsettling, as experiences go. So late on in the day, the museum was empty and some of the artefacts were a bit terrifying. It was what Eva would describe as a liminal space and, sure enough, there was a mention of liminality on one of the videos:
But it was warm, and no one bothered us if we just sat on one of the many seating shelves and rested. Most of the exhibits were around the cultures of traditional societies of Africa, Asia, Oceania & the Americas but then there was a small exhibition about black superheroes that had an X-Men ’97 Storm action figure. It was a little incongruous but nicely familiar in a space that was a bit otherworldly:
Now I think about it, maybe that little action figure was the one controlling the weather. In which case, she and I need to have words.
If you’re wondering how Nathan and Roo got on at the tower, here’s a couple of photos:
I’d booked them a guided tour without really meaning to but apparently it was very entertaining. I’d also booked them stair climbing tickets instead of the lifts but they managed it OK and I think they’ve forgiven me. If you’re wondering why Eva and I didn’t go, then see any post where Eva has to deal with either heights or steps or both. That’s how come we ended up hanging out with this guy instead:
We were due to meet up again at 19:00 and that’s the same time as the museum closed. We stayed as late as we could, taking advantage of the facilities and browsing the bookshop, but I’m mildly phobic about being locked in a museum overnight so we left with a bit of time before it closed. A quick visit to a shop for chocolat and a baguette brought us up to the meeting time, with only a small delay to get the most Parisian of photos. Eva already owned the beret but once we added the baguette, it seemed essential to pose in front of the Tower with both.
This next bit is mildly painful, as the tour de la tour overran and the boys were still up on the 2nd floor while Eva and I were waiting for them at the bottom. My phone coverage was still patchy due to my network being conflicted as to whether I allowed roaming or not (spoiler: I did). So we couldn’t really stray far from the meeting point because I didn’t know if I could contact Nathan or not. And even if the network behaved, my battery was running low and I didn’t have my powerbank with me. We could have gone back to the hostel but that would have meant leaving the boys to tackle the Paris metro on their own and that didn’t seem fair. So we picked a spot by the exit of the Tower and we waited. Eva found a dryish patch of ground under a tree and sat there to eat her baguette. It was, of course, still raining.
All this was fine – not ideal but manageable. The chocolate helped. Eventually I sat down next to Eva, on the damp-but-not-soaking ground and it wasn’t long after that that we got apprehended by the armed gendarmes. They politely asked in English if everything was OK and I replied in English as this didn’t seem like a great time to stretch my French. They requested that we move from our tree-sheltered and sit on a bench as this would be “a better seat”. I didn’t want to argue too much with a man with a gun but the bench was really very wet, and there was a giant muddy puddle where our feet would go…..so I didn’t sit there. But neither we continue sitting under the tree. Instead, we stood awkwardly by the exit until the boys emerged. I’d managed to get hold of Nathan after a few failed calls and so they left the tour early and headed for the lifts. It was 19:45 by the time they got down, so the tour really was overrunning quite badly and Eva and I were keen to move on after our brush with the law. Once we were reunited and on our way back to the metro station, I reminded Nathan that I knew a song about gendarmes but it didn’t seem like a great time to sing it. He agreed.
I was so glad to get back to the hostel and finally check in. We had booked a family room with four bunks in one space but were charmed to find something more like a suite, with a kids room around the corner from the adult room. The toilet and shower/sink were in two separate rooms, both off the adult room so there was a bit of shuffling around during the night but after sitting on the damp ground, it was luxurious. The toilet seat may have been cracked and have a step down that was bound to trip us up but like the Four Yorkshiremen, it were home to us.
The next morning, we had hostel breakfast which looked basic from the picture and the 7 Euro charge. When we picked up our trays of nothing but condiments, I feared for a second that it was really very microscopic but then our table was given a pot of four pastries and four hunks of bread. Again, I might just have been grateful for small luxuries but that bread was amazing. I didn’t even need the condiments, other than the butter. We got a coffee each from the machine, which was an extra 1.50 Euro each, to be paid at check-out after some confusion about whether it was included or not. Then we were ready to face the next step of our journey, which was a long train ride to Stuttgart. But more on that in another post.
Almost exactly a week later, we were back in Paris and this time the sun shone. Now, THIS was the Paris you see in the movies. What’s more, we already had Metro tickets in hand, having spent our spare Swiss Francs on them on board the train from Zurich. Yeah, there are a few posts missing in the middle here. We were only en Paris for a few hours before our Eurostar home so had booked left luggage at Mobile Store, near Gare du Nord. Every time I booked a random luggage storage place, my family had concerns but this guy could not have been friendlier and was from Bangladesh, so spoke English to us. It was very straightforward and we retrieved the bags just before heading home.
That left us once again suitcase- and fancy-free in Paris. And once again we went to Five Guys, this time the one in the station. The big draw here was being able to order at a kiosk, although it was a bit confusing when picking up drinks cups, and by now we kinda understood the QR code system. There were no toilets, so we had to use the ones downstairs in Gare du Nord at a Euro a pop. Let’s skim over the stressful aspects of that bit and go straight to our destination for the afternoon – Musée d’Orsay.
Eva had wanted to go to the Catacombs but see my previous comment re Eva’s dislike of steps – 120 steps to get out of the Catacombs seemed like it might be pushing the boundaries of what she could cope with and it would have been an expensive gamble. So when I spotted a discount on Musée d’Orsay tickets through Booking.com, I floated it to the kids. Roo knows about Van Gogh from both Art and Doctor Who so he was bought in and Eva will probably end up doing Art GCSE so it’s good for her to see these things too.
First off, the building is beautiful. It’s an old train station and I do love a bit of station architecture. Also, the collection is super-impressive and there are plenty of paintings that even someone as ignorant as I am can recognise. True, there was one Monet that I looked at for ages wondering where I knew it from before Eva reminded me that it was on a mug in our kitchen:
But there were also some very famous works in there, especially on the 5th floor where the Van Gogh room is:
I mean, I remember having to sketch this in Year 7 art class when we were looking at perspective so it’s pretty cool to see IRL:
The Monet room is equally awe-inspiring:
And on the 5th floor, there was also a roof terrace with some quite incredible views over Paris:
One of my favourites was this painting by Frédéric Bazille, called “Family Reunion”. I mean, there’s a tricky family dynamic right there, isn’t there?
And there were some incredible sculptures, like this “Gates to Hell”:
Meanwhile, Eva was busy spotting all the paintings of cats there were painted by people who seem to have never seen a cat before:
And both kids loved this polar bear sculpture:
In fact, Roo was the most enthusiastic and didn’t want to leave until he’d seen everything. I think we may have missed a few rooms but we were pretty exhausted and my plan to stop for a break in the cafe was thwarted by the queue going into the cafe. So instead, we pressed on to see a few more rooms and sadly never found the temporary exhibition about dogs. It’s been a year since Eva and I last went to see an exhibition about dogs so we’re overdue for a refresher.
After all that culture, we needed a sit down and the Jardin des Tuileries across the river looked ideal. As with the gardens at the Eiffel Tower, a lot of it was fenced off for the Olympics so seating was a bit scarce. Still, we found a bench and a kiosk selling ice cream so had a quick break and a pot of mango sorbet. I wanted to walk eastwards to the nearest Metro station and take in the outside of the Louvre on the way but the fences blocked our path so it was back across the bridge for us. Again, lovely views:
And from there not much else to tell. It’s difficult to buy a fresh baguette in the vicinity of Gare du Nord on a Sunday evening but the family made do with whatever I could buy in the Monop shop and then the Eurostar lounge once we’d gone through security.
I also had a heart-stopping moment when I witnessed someone dropping their suitcase in the gap when boarding the train. Nathan tells me that a fellow passenger just stuck his arm down to get it back. I don’t know why I gasped so…whether I was worried that it would delay us or just feeling extreme empathy for the person who dropped it but it’s fine, it all worked out well. The trip back was then perfectly smooth – we had a table again so feasted on my hastily assembled picnic.
London was cold and now we’re back home and facing the looming prospect of September. But before then, I need to fill in the gap (not with a suitcase) and tell you all about the bit between Paris and Paris. Hopefully it’ll make me sound like less of a British tourist monoglot than these bits. But maybe it won’t be today….
I seem to have a bit of a curse at the moment where I’m writing about things no one will soon be able to go to. As soon as I reviewed Fox in a Box, they announced they were closing. I went to a Club de Fromage daytime party shortly before they revealed that they were stopping everything *except* the daytime parties. And now I’ve finally got round to going to Dopamine Land just a week before the doors shut forever. Still, if you’re at a loose end in the next week or so you know where to go!
Dopamine Land is just next door to Accidentally Wes Anderson so the nearest tube is South Kensington. We have a well-worn route to South Ken that unfortunately wasn’t viable today, due to both the Overground and the Piccadilly Line having closures. So instead it was a bus to Walthamstow, tube to Victoria and then an awkward change on an overcrowded Circle and District line platform. I stand by what I said about Victoria station being full of tourists who have no idea where they’re going.
Still, I’d accounted for at least some of these complications and left time for things to go wrong, especially in light of the patchy buses and lack of trains we’ve suffered for weeks now. So we got to South Ken with a clear hour to spare and decided to hang out in a Pret that’s considerably larger than the Petit one inside the station.
If you haven’t heard yet, the Pret subscription is changing in September so don’t worry – this non-stop advertising will soon cease. Pret and I have decided to see other people. A conscious uncoupling, if you will.
While having coffee, I started thinking about the logistics of being in a ball pool when neither Eva nor I had socks on and whether we’d be told off. So I nipped back across the road and managed to secure two pairs of socks from Cards Galore in the station arcade at a reasonable-ish price. Plus, they have Highland Cows on which is a bonus.
All of which preparation brings us to Dopamine Land itself. You’re greeted several times as you go through – once in reception then once in this room full of neon frames:
This is a bit of a holding area where you can put bags into the cloakroom and use the loo (through the bar area but you’re told not to get too distracted by it) and then sent through to the experience itself once the group in front has moved on. As a starting point, it can feel a bit too curated like you’re going to be monitored at every stage but everyone is friendly so it’s not a problem. The first room is a timed experience – one of only two – so that’s why the first part is carefully managed but there’s a lot more freedom to wander at your own pace after that first room.
The first room is quite special though, and it’s the one which appears on all the posters. You can see why:
You can also see why it’s timed once you’re in there as it’s a very small, enclosed space and could get claustrophobic once those doors are shut. The time went by very quickly but we got a few photos:
Next up was the musical squares room. We didn’t quite work out how the music was working but basically you jump on squares as they light up to create a tapestry of sound and light. It’s fun although quite dark so none of my photos really worked. This one does look kinda like a 90s music video though:
It is quite a full-on sensory experience so some people might find it overwhelming but Eva was fine, even with her noise sensitivity. The corridors in between are also quite dark and the neon, combined with the ambient noise, gives it a bit of an eerie Stranger Things vibe. That’s not a bad thing but it might be worth keeping younger kids close if they’re easily spooked.
From there, a couple more rooms that were a bit more low-key so a bit of breather after two quite intense ones. The writing room is getting really quite full up now so it was hard to find a blank space to add to and I must have leant on the wall at one point because I seem to have writing on my arm.
Nathan climbed on the stool and wrote on the ceiling – I’m not sure whether that was the intention but other people had clearly done it before him.
Reuben wrote “The Game” of course but you sadly can’t really make it out. Luckily, it’s been immortalised in lego and on a bracelet this week so we won’t forget those words too easily. Eva also wrote it on the sand in Margate but that might have been washed away by now.
The other room was the lucid dreaming room but that was a tad underwhelming – just some mirrors and video and I wasn’t quite sure how to interact with them. I might well have missed something.
We’d caught up with the group in front in the writing room and the group behind ours had caught up with us so there was a bit of a bottleneck going in to the ball pool area. The idea is that you go to the story cave first – which has fridge poetry and shadow puppets – and then the waiting area to take your shoes off. With a few groups going in different directions there was a bit of confusion and the possibility that the family coming up behind us might overtake. Credit to the guy in charge of that area though – he sorted us all out and everyone went to the ball pool and then the fire lantern room in order. We shared the ball pool with the group of two behind us but that was fine…there was plenty of room.
I didn’t get many pictures as I didn’t want to lose my phone in the balls but you get the idea. We lost Eva under the balls a few times but we recovered her in time to get back to the waiting room.
Then we chilled out for quite a long time in the fire lantern room. It’s spacious and calming and there are lots of mats to lie down on so we did just that. It’s the kind of play facility I longed for when the kids were little….”now children, here’s a room where we all lie down and do nothing. It says we have to on the wall”.
Again, my pictures are pretty ropey because it was so dark but it was a nice, relaxing experience. As was the next room – the forest:
We hung out there for a while until it got a bit crowded and we moved on to the final room before the bar area…the Pillow Fight room. This is quite a shocker after two nice calm rooms…the lights are flashing and there is “Set You Free” by N-Trance on repeat. I think this juxtaposition of quiet and loud is deliberate and meant to get you used to the transition back to the real world. Or maybe it’s just meant to put you in an aggressive mood for pillow fighting, which must have worked cause we ganged up on Nathan and beat him to the floor, Lord of the Flies-style.
And then we went for a lovely bubble tea in the bar area. You really do go through the full range of happiness-related emotions in this place. Happiness at sitting in a nice room and sipping on passionfruit and blackberry bubble tea (or Coke for the boys) just after the happiness of getting your aggression out by walloping each other with pillows.
There are a few more photo opportunities in the bar area as well, while you enjoy your drinks so of course we took them all.
The experience takes around an hour plus time at the bar, so it was about half past four by the time we were ready to leave. Ridiculously early – in my opinion – for dinner so I suggested a short walk to a different branch of Five Guys. This might be because the South Ken branch is always crowded but also just to spin the day out a bit longer before we had to tackle the homeward journey.
So we set off up Queen’s Gate and found the newly renovated Wildlife Garden at the Natural History Museum. At least, I think it’s newly reopened – it was closed off when we were there in January. I’d hoped we could wander along the path and it would take out a bit of the route but the north end doesn’t link back up to the street so we had to retrace our steps.
Still, it was a very pretty and soothing diversion and it’s amazing how wild it feels considering it’s right in the middle of London. There was also a dog statue on top of one of the buildings:
We took a similar diversion at the top of Queens Gate, to walk west through Kensington Gardens instead of along the road. We saw a dog fountain on the way, which Eva had to stop and pet:
And a rainbow of plants, including a very goth front row:
We also saw a trapeze training school which was impressive but terrifying looking. Eva was not overly keen to sign up and I can’t say I blame her but kudos to the students – we stopped to watch one trapeze trainee and she had mad skillz. I didn’t get a photo of her in action but you can trust me on this one.
Fearful of having to double back again, I cut back to the road way too early – just by the coffee kiosk – when we could have walked through right up to the end of the gardens. Eva had clocked by this point that the short walk was longer than I’d made it sound but luckily we were now in sight of Kensington High Street and I could assure her that Five Guys was within reach. I was a little distressed to find out that my old branch of Clarks was now an Itsu but I guess times change and sushi might be more popular than sandals now. If only someone had thought to combine them and open up a sushoeshop.
Luckily, I was not wrong about Five Guys. And they even had their very own rainbow to greet us with:
Despite some confusion at Kensington High Street tube (where *do* you get the District line towards Upminster from?) we had a smooth journey back, with Vic line spookily quiet for a Saturday afternoon and the bus turning up after a fashion at Walthamstow. A successful day out!
Dopamine Land is open until 11th August. For tickets and more info, click here
Now, there’s no starker realisation that the toddler years are over than when you take your baby girl to see a show and she is laughing uproariously at a well-placed F-bomb in the first scene. There are many well-placed F-bombs in this show, including one that’s backlit and giant as part of a hashtag so I would emphasis the age rating – 12+ – and gently nudge anyone who’s after proper toddler content towards Tales From the Shed or Little Angel Theatre.
That disclaimer out of the way, I’ll go for another, which is that I booked this on a whim because I could not get the trailer song out of my head. So I gave in to advertising and hoped it would stop me singing it. Spoiler: It did not.
So I really wasn’t expecting much. Our seats were £20 each and advertised as “restricted view” so I wasn’t even sure whether we would see anything. I told Eva that, given it was a show about a podcast, then we could always just listen to it like a podcast and not worry too much. As it turned out, we could see most of the action apart from one rather vital bit towards the end but we did have to lean back a bit and look up. If we looked straight ahead, this would be our view:
We were also right by the speakers, so some bits were a little loud but there were advantages too. A surprise character in the second half popped up almost in front of us – I won’t spoil the surprise by saying who the character was but Eva described their outfit as “iconic”. And we got a few stray winks off the lead actors plus a cardigan pocket full of confetti. That’s pretty much the front-row-for twenty-quid experience….a crick in the neck but a few souvenirs too. And legroom! All balances out.
If you haven’t seen the trailer and aren’t familiar with the concept of the show, it’s about two best friends who have a true crime podcast and aspire to become “true crime famous”. But then they become embroiled in a real-life murder and have to solve it before their own lives are in danger. If you think this sounds a bit like “Only Murders in the Building”, then you’d be right. I’m not sure which came first but the basic concepts and dynamics are very similar. However, where OMITB is very NYC, KASSAM is KUH. That’s Kingston-Upon-Hull or just Hull for the fans. In fact, it’s so Hull that there’s a chance that tourists might not be offended by the swearing because they don’t have any idea that it’s a swear word. Thanks to going to university in Reading with Roast Dinners in London, I am more than familiar with Hull-tinged swearing. And yes, I was very pleased when Kathy of Kathy and Stella revealed that she also went to Reading Uni, even if her experience wasn’t too positive.
Not as excited as I was to see her “Once More With Feeling” mug though. There were three references to Buffy in the show and all of them made me happy but that more than anything.
I know I’m focusing on the small details before I get to the big picture – mugs, accents, outfits – but isn’t that the forensic way? Look at the small details and build up an intelligence picture. We’ll get there.
First though, a few of the themes….at its heart, this is a show about female friendship. You know that any pair of friends who swear undying devotion to each other at the start of a show are gonna fall out about halfway through (just in time for the third coconut) and then make up by the end. That happens here, and it’s a fairly predictable arc about growing up, growing apart and finding a new way to relate. But that’s all fine…from that familiar trope, layers of character and murder-based humour are piled on to make it into something new. When Kathy sings that “if I didn’t have you, I’d die” she mimes someone disembowelling her in gruesome fashion. Stella, the less emotional one, is more non committal about the whole thing and wraps her sentimentality up with a sneaky Rickroll.
Another theme is neurodiversity. In the same song, Stella says “I hated pretty much everyone/’Til I found someone who hated everyone too”. They’re outcasts and nerds – Kathy the flower child and Stella the rock chick – but they’ve found each other and a way to channel that nerdiness into something productive. They have anxiety (Kathy) and dyspraxia (Stella), both of which Eva strongly relates to and it’s good to see some positive representation…..acknowledging the struggles of anxiety but not overdramatising it.
The third theme is the fickleness of pop culture, which is also explored in another of Eva’s favourite murder musicals – “Chicago”. Kathy and Stella start out as fangirls themselves before discovering that their idol isn’t all she’s cracked up to be….and later they briefly become the celebrities themselves. It’s a show that’s made for the internet age, where everything is polarised and turns around quickly. The aforementioned giant hashtag illustrates that nicely and it’s summed up in the song “Approval of Strangers” where Stella sings “From this point I can’t see any danger/in rooting all my self esteem/To the approval of strangers”
But I’m aware that all of this makes it sound very earnest, which it really really isn’t. It’s all handled a bit tongue-in-cheek with lots of sly winks to the audience and fourth wall breaking. The dance numbers are gloriously over-the-top, with the theme song performed in spinning office chairs that come dangerously close to the edge of the stage when you’re sitting just in front of it. A storyline that looks like it’s turning into a love story takes an abrupt turn when Kathy falls in love with the morgue itself, not the man in it, and celebrates atop an autopsy trolley. I’m glad that love story didn’t go anywhere because the actor was also playing Kathy’s mum so it was all getting a bit Oedipal.
The props were similarly over-the-top with not just the confetti but also those giant foam fingers you get at American sports games but they’re all holding murder weapons. There’s crackling energy throughout, even though the seven actors are frantically multi-tasking and constantly diving off the stage only to come back seconds later as a different character. There are red herrings galore and the final reveal – which was the key moment we couldn’t quite see from our seats – was less important than all the build up around it. And, of course, the inevitable escape after it. They’ve been preparing for a hostage situation all their lives, don’t ya know?
Eva laughed a LOT and was quoting it all the way home. She’s now developed what I believe the young folks call a headcanon but we don’t need to go into that. I didn’t see anyone else there in the tween age range but it was a school night so more young people might want to go now it’s school holidays. As long as you don’t mind the swearing, it’s perfect for your nerdy tweens – joyous, funny, modern but with a classic whodunnit theme. See you next murder!
“Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder” is on at the Ambassadors Theatre until 14th September. For tickets and more info, click here
No disclaimer needed as I paid for this one. All opinions remain honest and my own though.
