Day 9: Conspicuous Consumption & The Healing Power of Spicy Soup

Honestly, traveling by train is as stressful as traveling by plane. There’s still customs, and immigration, and there’s a childkin running around your ankles and he loses the ticket you gave him to play with, and you think that Club 3 means Car 3, until you get to Car 3, and you suddenly realize no, you’re in Car 12, and you start running, running, running with baggage banging around behind you and holding Mikey’s hand until he wants you to pick him up, and then alors, there you are, in your little nook of four chairs facing each other across the table and you start ordering wine, and you don’t stop until you reach London.

All that said, train travel is jolly. You can look out for farm animals, and unlike slower forms of transport, if you miss them, then more will be right ‘round the corner in about two minutes. And, again, the food on Eurostar compared to any plane is really good. Mikey ate all of his and then half of mine.

When we got to St. Pancras, we caught a taxi to the Soho Hotel to pick up the bags we left behind, and then on to our next hotel, the Corinthia. It had only been open a few months, but our taxi driver said in his opinion, it was the best hotel in London.

We checked in and went to our room, which wasn’t a suite, but had plenty of space for Mikey’s bed and lots of fruit and other snacks laid out. After we made a few phone calls, confirming plans for the next couple of days, we realized it was just us three. No fabulous friends to meet up with. Ian knew that he wanted to go to a restaurant called Bangkok for dinner, but it was up to me to plan what we would do in the hours up to that.

The first time I went to London, almost 20 years ago, I went for business and spent almost the entire time in a convention center (sorry, centre) in Islington. I managed to get out, and twice I caught a cab to a place I needed to go: once, to the Tower of London, and the second time, to Harrod’s.

With Mikey, we went easy and opted for Harrod’s. Next time, the Tower for sure.

Harrod’s is supremely depressing. Even when you go with a 2-year-old, and head straight to the 4th floor, where the pet store is, and you spend time checking out every puppy and kitten there. Even then. The rest of it is the most vulgar of merchandising to make the fair maidens of Beverly Hills blush. There is nothing without a designer label. Nothing for a 2-year-old to be excited about under 50 quid. And the elbowing and shoving to get to this shit which will be outgrown in no time makes one weep for western culture. And eastern and southern culture too, because it wasn’t just blond-haired blue-eyed folks doing the grabbing.

Mikey was obviously fine amid our angst. He’s pick up something, and if it was too horrible, which it always was, we’d say, “Look at that! Wow, what a thing. Let’s put it back now, because it doesn’t belong to us, right?”

It worked!

The boy was so good, we took him to a Waitrose (which is a sort of mini-mart) in South Kensington, where we let him grab whatever he liked and we bought it for him, like we wouldn’t do at Harrod’s. He was perfectly happy, particularly when he spotted a 6 pack of “Scotch Pancakes.”

“Are those pancakes with Scotch in them?” I asked Ian.

“They’re like American pancakes,” Ian assured me. “Little to no whiskey in them.”

Mikey loved them, and that’s most of what he ate when we went to Bangkok, the restaurant which made Ian remember life in London when he first moved there in the 70s. He was a punk, a dressing horse for Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, swathed in bondage outfits with a huge purple Mohawk. Bangkok was there at the time, with a delicious, burning, sinus-clearing soup, which was good then and good now.

“Picy!” Mikey said, and he was right.

Day 8: Jardin d’Acclimation

On our last full day in Paris, we went to the Bois du Boulogne to the Jardin d’Acclimation. An amusement park which has been charming children since Napoleon III opened it 150 years ago, it promised to have the ponies which had been so elusive to us. Even if the horses were in the south of France vacationing with their friends from the Jardin du Luxembourg, we figured it was a good excuse to take the Métro somewhere. Mikey may be a city boy, but public transportation is exotic to a child of Los Angeles. They’re all trains to him, and they’re all Thomas the Tank Engine.

When we got to the Jardin, we found we just missed the in-park train which runs every 20 minutes, but Mikey immediately found the ponies – in this case, the mechanical ponies which take you on a very bumpy ride. I rode along with him twice, and then he said he was ready to go on his own. Unfortunately, the rules were that solo riders had to be 5 or older. This unfair, ageist policy triggered one of the very few melt-down tantrums of the trip.

Ian finally showed him what three was on his hand, for three years ago which he would be in a week. Then he showed him what five was on his hand.

“When you’re that many fingers old, we’ll come back and you can ride the pony by yourself.”

“Okay,” Mikey sniffed.

And then we were off, on a boat ride, over vents that blasted mist, round a merry-go-round, into a hall of mirrors, and on Mikey’s first roller coaster which only scared him when the car went very fast through a dark tunnel. We spotted llamas and donkeys, and then lo and behold, ponies. At last, Mikey got his pony ride.

By then, it was mid-day, and the boy was tired. Too tired to even complain when he found out he was also too young to go on a trampoline. I think he was relieved. Minutes later, he was curled up in his stroller, and minutes after that, we were on the Avenue Charles du Gaulle, having wine in a café.

While Mikey slept, we took the Métro back to the 1st and the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and spent a few hours shopping.

Mikey woke up when we got to our hotel in time to dress to meet our friend Richard and Roberto, who live in a gorgeous apartment in the 9th near the Opéra. I’ve unfortunately forgotten the name of the restaurant they took us to, which was pure old Paris, a series of candlelit chambers, where Mikey ate rabbit.

Occasionally, in between the courses, when we were tired of sitting, we went outside into the dark streets of Paris to jump in mud puddles and say bon soir to strangers.

Like you do.

Day 7: Jardin du Luxembourg, Shopping, Snails, and Mikey Plays Boules

The night before, we talked to Amanda about child friendly restaurants in Paris. By child friendly, I don’t mean places where enormous mice riding skateboards serve pizza, I just meant cafes where Mikey could get up from the table and run around from time to time, brasseries that weren’t perched on the edge of busy roads. The perfect place occurred to her while we were sitting at Cremerie – Restaurant Polidor: we needed to go Café Paul. The food was excellent, but more to the point, it was located on the periphery of a quiet trafficless square called the Place Dauphin in the quiet island where Paris was born in the middle of the Seine between the banks, the Île de la Cité.

So we had a second date with Amanda scheduled.

In the morning, though, we packed up from the Hotel du Danube, and left our bags – including our expensive puppies – in the lobby, while we went to the Jardin du Luxembourg. We knew they had a playground and a pony carousel, and when we told Mikey, he couldn’t wait. After a few minutes of searching the typically French, gorgeous, well-organized grounds, we found among the chestnut trees, the carousel, but no ponies. At the grounds to the playground were the ominous words, “Les poneys sont absents pour une durée indéterminé.” Uh oh, time for a distraction from disappointment!

Fortunately, the playground proved to be diverting not only to Mikey, but to us as well. Mikey was certainly the only child wearing a tee-shirt and jeans – all the French children played in the sand and fell off slides into the dirt in the hautest of finery and frippery. We got to drink nuclear espresso, that what the French call “café” out of whisper thin plastic cups which melted in our hands, and watch the nannies and their charges. And we got to learn that regardless of culture and language, playground push-fests and melt-downs are universal.

We took a taxi back to our hotel on the left bank to collect our luggage and then moved across to the Hotel Daniel on the right bank. As comfortable and friendly as the Hotel du Danube had been, the Hotel Daniel was even more so, and the junior suite was just what we required. We had lunch in the restaurant with Marie Segal, a fabulous PR agent and an old friend from Ian’s misspent youth, and then we felt it was time to give the right bank shopping some equal time.

Fortunately, Mikey crashed in his stroller mid-way to the Galeries Lafayette, so we were able to shop just for ourselves, all up and down the Boulevard Haussmann. It was very necessary because we packed light, and after seven days, two pairs of pants are not enough. Especially when you have had a 2-year-old, frequently one who is eating or needs a diaper change, on your lap 50% of the day.

The kid slept so soundly, we were even able to investigate the Bordeauxtheque in the Galeries Lafayette, where fabled vintages are displayed like modern relics in black plexiglass in a hushed, cathedral like atmosphere.

Mikey did not wake up until we were at home, post-shower, with new clothes on, drinking our new wine, ready to head out to meet Amanda. Of course, he was a little predictably tetchy, and difficult to motivate, so we were about a half an hour late. Fortunately, Amanda had some entertainment, watching the boules players and the Tai Chi in front of the white marble Palais de Justice.

Dinner was great, and Mikey had his first snails, which he loved (garlic and butter, what's not to love?) though that wasn’t quite enough to distract him. While I caught up with Amanda, Ian took Mikey out in the square, where he interrupted a group of exceptionally attractive French teens playing a game of boules.

Mikey charmed them, and they showed him how to play.



“Is he having a good time in Paris?” one of the young ladies asked Ian, after everyone survived Mikey hurling a two pound metal sphere this way and that.

“He loves Paris.”

“And Paris is honored to have him.”

Yes, it was a bit of Gallic hyperbole, but really, truly, what’s wrong with that?

Day #6: Naked Man, Furry Puppies, and Dinner With Amanda & Hemingway

Day 6 began as a sort of a dream where we had no idea what time it was. While we were over our jet lag, our iphones never adjusted to European time, and when we called the front desk on waking, we asked what time it was, and we think they said in French that it was eight o’clock. When we got ourselves together for petit dejeuner in the little room off the central courtyard, we got the feeling from the polite staff that we were a trifle late. And then when we set off down the street afterwards, we noticed the sun was high in the sky, and we went in one more time to see what time it was. About quarter ‘til eleven.

Nous sommes en retard!

(And no, that doesn’t mean we’re idiots)

We were meeting a friend at eleven thirty some miles away. The hotel was the grande dame très chic of marbled Parisian hotels, the Crillon, fitting because our friend is a grande dame très chic herself. She’s famous, so we’ll call her Madame A.

As we scurried along the Seine for our lunch, we had to stop short when we got to the statues in the Jardin des Tuileries.

“Penis!” cried Mikey. “Boobies and penis!”

There are other interesting statues in the eastern fountain in the gardens, a minotaur and a centaur, but first the boobies of a nude woman caught Mikey’s attention, and then the penis of a nude man. In later research, I discovered the latter statue was “Cain Venant De Tuer Son Frére Abel (Cain Coming From Killing His Brother Abel)” by Henri Vidal, intended to capture that remorse most of us feel when we kill a sibling. Mikey recognized at once that the naked man was “sad” and we asked him why.

“Maybe the sun burn he’s butt?”

We met Madame A. in the lobby of the Hotel Crillon, and she swept us out to the central courtyard and her usual table. There was a buffet brunch and Mikey thought the miniature salade Niçoise looked interesting – but only as a vehicle to eat little quails’ eggs. Madame A. immediately instructed the staff to bring Mikey a dozen quails’ eggs, and while he ate them, we drank our champagne. Suddenly, there was a need for a diaper change (these things happen even in the most elegant of places), and I took him off to the bathroom. Mikey discovered a toilet brush and found that to be as much fun as anything else in Paris thus far.

When we returned and had finished our brunch, Madame A. said she needed to give Mikey a gift so she took his hand in hers and brought her to the shop. She showed him bears and bags, scarves and books, and then a little stuffed puppy he immediately crushed to his chest, love at first sight.

“Look,” said Madame A. “He has a daddy.”

She handed Mikey a larger version of the puppy. I touched them too. They were soft. Too soft. Then she found an even larger puppy, and tried to give it to Mikey, asking if he wanted all three, but he shook his head. “Just two.”

The saleswoman murmured something discreetly in Madame A.’s ear.

“Vraiment?” Madame A. shuddered. “Oh la la … Mikey, which one do you want?”

“Two, please, to match.”

Since she had been pushing for three, Mikey was hardly being grabby. Madame A. agreed and the puppies were wrapped in gold foil and put in a large bag. After our kisses and thank yous for brunch and the gift, she said to Ian, “Perhaps you could put them out of the way when Mikey’s friends come to play? They are chinchilla.”

Mikey loved cuddling his puppies, but they weren’t enough to put him to sleep in the cab or at our hotel, so we spent the afternoon shopping on the left bank until it was time for dinner with an old friend of mine, a great jewelry designer named Amanda Kaiserman.

When I say she’s an old friend, I first met her when I was about Mikey’s age, and besides being lovely, glamorous, and funny, she’s sweet and generous and willing to meet up with us in kid friendly locations. We were told that a restaurant in the 8th called Cremerie – Restaurant Polidor was ideal for introducing kids to brasserie food. It was an old favorite of the Lost Generation, and we later saw it in Woody Allen’s latest movie as the place where the modern day character meets his hero Ernest Hemingway.

Unfortunately, Mikey’s exhaustion finally caught up with him and he fell asleep on the hard wooden stools before Amanda arrived, and didn’t wake up until dinner was over.

Lucky for him it was time for ice cream.

Day 5: Le Bateau Mouche d’Amour

Arriving an hour before our train to France at St Pancras station, we find the place eerily still. That is because everyone in the know knows that these trains are like wild beasts, impossible to predict until they alight on one particular track ten minutes before they are set to depart, and it behooves everyone to wait until that magic moment to form a mob and storm the Eurostar. Even if a certain 2 year old has decided to take his shoes and socks off but moments before.

The ride once we crashed it was enormously civilized, and we took advantage of the policy of unlimited refills of our rosé. I also practiced the address of our hotel, and what to say to our taxi driver when we arrived in Paris. “S’il vous plait, nous conduire à St Germain des Prés, à l'Hôtel du Danube, à cinquante-huit Rue du Jacob.”

Moments after we arrived at the Gard du Nord, we were in the queue, waiting for a taxi. Suddenly, there was a parting of the line, and we were ushered through, with the explanation, “You have a family.”

This, by the way, was the way we were treated throughout Paris. So much for the reputation of the prickly Parisiens.

I told the driver, “Sivoplay, noo condwere a San Germahn day Pray, ah Lotel du Danyoob, a sickant wheat roodoo Jaycub.” And miraculously, he took us there!
Hotel du Danube we picked because it offered a reasonably priced suite, but Room #16 was big (for a European hotel room) with enough space for a cot for Mikey, and a little cheaper, so we went for that. The downstairs was pale green and the upstairs was tangerine toile, patterns and colors that only the French can get away with.

Mikey was asleep, after being absolutely perfect on the train, so we waited until he woke up to begin our exploration of Paris. Despite the quality of the double-decker tour the day before, we decided to its equivalent in Paris, the tour down the Seine on the bateaux mouches. We walked from our hotel halfway across Paris along the river before giving up and letting a nice taxi driver, who didn’t have a taxi, but a bicycle with a carriage in back take us the rest of the way to the launch.

The boy did not have a lot more interest in the tour than he did in the double-decker, though he did enjoy screaming at the top of his lungs (like everyone else) when we passed under a bridge. No, what inspired him was a little girl about his age named Simone. She was cute and chic, possibly Senegalese, and Mikey followed her all over the bateau, giving her hugs when she’d let him. Ian and I took turns chasing the two around the boat.

When we’d catch them in an embrace, those around them would smile and say, “Ah, c’est Paris.”

Sadly, the relationship was not to be, and by the time we were back on dry land, the aim was to find food. In no time, we were at a café on the left bank, and Mikey devoured a plate of charcouterie and we found our way home. Eventually.

Turns out it’s really damn easy to get lost in Paris, which isn’t necessarily bad when you’re not in a hurry.

Day 4: Double-Decker

After breakfast on the fourth day in England, we decided to do the ultimate touristy activity. The double-decker bus tour.

Why? Memory fails.

Truly, to be honest, I’m not sure what we were thinking except that we understood we could get on and off, so we imagined a leisurely drive around the town, popping off to say hullo to the ravens in the Tower, or have a pint, or get knighted, and then back on. What actually happened is we passed Parliament, pointed out Big Ben, and then someone on the bus said they wanted to go see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, and before we knew it, we were off and far in the maddening crowd.

We were close to Hyde Park, which is close to Kensington Garden, so I suggested that we walk on and see the Peter Pan statue and the Princess Diana playground. It would have been a fine destination, but closeness is relative, and we had the bad luck to run into some police on horseback. This made Mikey remember that he had missed out on the horses in the New Forest, and all of the sudden, nothing but horseplay would do. Specifically, he wanted the policemen to get off their horses and let him have his turn.

Time for a nap came quickly and with tears, and Mikey was asleep before we were five minutes in the cab bound for the hotel. A few hours later, when Mikey woke up, we told him that we had to go to the store and get some wine and snacks because we were having a few friends over, old friends of Ian's who were dying to meet him. The prospect of having folks over he could show off to appealed to him, and before long, Mikey was singing and dancing, and doing his latest trick, drawing with his feet, to the delight of all.

The next morning, we went to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Paris.

Day 3: The Cat & The Bidet

We checked out of the Mill after breakfast, and went to visit the freshly minted couple, Helen & Simon Rhodes. After some exchange of photos and some gifts of clothing to Mikey, and a few more games of “Stahp it!” with Cousin Lauryn, we were off again to London.

Our aim was to try to make it to our hotel in Soho to drop off our luggage and then the rental desk of Alamo in Euston Station before 4:00 pm. Mikey was a little upset that he still hadn’t seen any horses, but since we had stayed at the Soho Hotel before, I felt confident in making him a new promise, “We’ll try to find some horses in London, but I promise you that we will find the biggest cat you’ve ever seen right in our hotel.”

The black ten foot tall Fernando Botero bronze in the lobby was as promised.

We dropped off our luggage, and zipped over to Euston station just in time. The Tube ride back to Soho was loud, and Mikey sat through it in stunned silence. When we finally got out, he said, “We do it again now?”

Later, we promised, we had to rush back to the hotel, drink some champagne, and explore our room. Of course, the bathrooms at the Soho are gorgeous and well-appointed, by which I mean they came with a little more than Mikey is used to at home.

“What this?”

“It’s called a bidet,” I said.

“Bidaydo?” he repeated back, curious why a potato, which he had eaten before fried, mashed, diced, and riced, would be ceramic and toilet-like in its natural state.

“Just bidet,” I said. “It’s to wash your bottom.”

Of course, he had to try, and let's just say he found it delightful. I think he’d still be on it in a state of ecstasy if we didn’t drag him off.