CultureBlast

The pictures from the CultureBlast—London trip are finally posted in the Galleries section of this website. The picture quality varies from flat out blurry to quite nice. I take responsibility for that, of course. I think it will get better as we continue this journey (and I have a better idea of how to use a camera).

For the most part, images are currently given a generic title. As I have more time, I will go back and add more specific descriptors to the majority of them, most especially in the museums and zoo sections. For now, I just wanted to ensure that pictures were posted for those inquiring about them.

From here, stay tuned for analysis and anecdotes of the CultureBlast—London trip. I’ve promised to tell the “daddy got stuck in the subway” story (which Tristan seems to repeat to nearly anyone who will give him a chance) but there are some great moments from the trip about him as well that need to be told.

Here is the second update on the whirlwind of activities. There first one was here.This will be the last major update until we get back into the States in which there will be probably a week or so of minor updates, galleries to post, and observations to provide on the whole of this first excursion completed on the CultureBlast project.

As with the first post in this series, the details are granular in some places in order for anyone to Google places to follow along if they wish to see where we’ve been.

Tuesday

Tuesday started out quite early. Tristan and I got up around 0430 and made the 0513 District Line to Gloucester Road and then the Circle Line to King’s Cross/St. Pancras to catch our 0630 train to Paris. We didn’t have much time when we awoke to eat so we grabbed a couple of things from the bar at the station—he had a baguette with “bacon” and egg and I had a panini with sausage and egg—and made the train just fine with food and drinks in hand.

The train ride itself was fairly uneventful. It was a train. It goes really fast. It made it to Paris just fine.

Paris is a completely different world from London. I had not prepared Tristan for anything at all. Part of my hope for these CultureBlast trips is for him to learn something about culture in an unscripted manner and through experience rather than a tour guide.

One of his first lessons is that nothing is free—even the use of the public toilet. For €1 he could use the toilet, but I didn’t have any Euros yet. So I pulled about €200 from the machine and went into a little shop there in the station to buy anything that would give me change in return.

The lady behind the counter spoke to me only in French. Even after I spoke to her, politely, in English, she continued in French while obviously understanding me just fine. It’s a Parisian thing, actually. But I remained polite, she remained French, and I got my change anyway.

The Paris Metro has some great similarities to the London Underground, but huge differences as well. Let’s just say that it’s confusing at best. But we finally did make it to the Metro line at Gare du Nord that we needed and headed to St-Michel to see Notre Dame.

Notre Dame, for those who haven’t see it, is massive. There are bigger cathedrals, to be sure, but it’s still massive. We walked through it and spent some time admiring the artwork and statues. Much of the significance of the cathedral is lost on Tristan, but the beauty was not. We spent quite some time after walking around the inside walking around the outside discussing the various statues on the walls and gargoyles that surround the edifice.

We originally planned to climb up the towers and do the tour there. But the line was so long already that he decided that he didn’t really want to wait. This being his trip and all, I didn’t press the issue and we walked around to the back of the cathedral to a park where he played and, of course, chased pigeons again.

We decided to walk toward the Louvre even though we knew it was closed. We walked up Quai des Orfevres and then took the Boulevard du Palais over to Quai de la Mégisserie and up Rue du Pont Neuf. We turned down Rue de Rivoli and stayed there until we reached the Louvre. The courtyard is simply amazing. Tristan thought the glass pyramid sticking up out of the ground was “silly but cool anyway” and we had a good laugh. He ran around—can you guess yet?—chasing pigeons in the courtyard until I started to walk around examining the statues along the walls of the various wings of the museum. There are simply some amazing statues of great men throughout history from Rousseau to Voltaire to Rabelais. I took pictures and explained in ten year old language as best I could something about the names I did recognize.

We then started out north again toward Rue de Rivoli past the Arc de triomphe du Carrousel and took some pictures there. From then on it was Tristan darting in and out of every shop along Rue de Rivoli and everything I could do to keep up with him.

About the time we reached Place de la Concorde, we were starting to get a bit tired, so we grabbed the Metro and took it up to Charles V and got off there. Not very far overall, but enough to give things a rest. As we came up from the station, Tristan found a McDonald’s and I came to a sudden realization that part of experiencing culture is not merely where things are different between various cultures but also where they intersect and how that fusion has recreated something familiar in a foreign manner. So we had lunch at McDonald’s in Paris. If there was ever a moment of true “culture shock” for him, it was then: looking at the menu was something he couldn’t fathom as to how he should order. It was all so very different even though even he thought there was so much that felt similar.

From McDonald’s we went to the Arc de Triomphe and spent some time walking around it. Admittedly, we both wanted to go up on top of it but never did find a way to get over to it. Our loss to be sure, but we didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.

We took the Metro from Charles de Gaulle-Etoile to Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel and walked down the street to the Eiffel Tower. I’m really glad that we didn’t spend much time at the Arc nor waited for the tower tour at Notre Dame. The line for the Eiffel Tower was really long even though it moved quickly enough. It was still an hour or so in line waiting for our tickets. It was one time I was sorry I didn’t pre-purchase something as I had with just about every other location we toured.

We did make it to the second level as the very top was closed that day for reasons unknown. But it was awesome. Tristan, for all his talk of being afraid of heights, ran around so much that I really thought he might fly over the cages. He showed no fear at all: even at one point sticking his head through the cage to look straight down. (I, on the other hand, felt immediately anxious but got over it until a point later in the staircase.) Tristan and I shot a small movie of hellos and then descended to the lower platform of the second level. We ran around there for a bit and then he decided that we should take the stairs down to the first level.

Right.

So we did. He was wonderful. I thought I was going to be sick.

But we made it to the first level, bought a couple of souvenirs, and took the tram back down to the ground.

From there we took the Metro back to St-Michel and then on to Gard du Nord to catch our train back to London.

Wednesday

No trip is ever complete without a shopping day.

Except that this day we literally just slept in and started our day around 1100 after getting up from a lazy sleep around 1015.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about shopping other than Tristan didn’t really have any financial limits placed on him.

We went to Foyles first. It’s just one of the largest bookstores around. We had a blast there. I learned a lot about his particular reading interests as well which I hope will help me open more doors for his reading issues once back in the States. We did purchase several books and then made our way down to Oxford Circus to find the toy store.

Tristan found the flag for Hamley’s before I did and practically ran through the door and nearly disappeared in the five story toystore before I could catch him. If there was ever an overwhelmed feeling, this was it.

We hit every floor, ate a small snack in the café, and walked away with an armload of toys. Even I found a couple of things, but didn’t get them since there would be just no way to get them home. Another time for me, they say. But we had to leave since we had a more pressing engagement that evening.

We made our performance of the Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre. It was impressive. I couldn’t keep him in his seat. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in the sense of him moving around to see everything going on. He was fixated on the show more than any movie to which I’ve taken him in the past. It was tremendous.

Tristan admitted that he thought he would be bored but went because I wanted to go so badly. But he loved it and asked if we could go back and see it again the next night. Obviously, at £150 seats we’re not going back, but I offered him the alternative of seeing the DVD that I already have when we return to the States.

My second goal for this trip was accomplished, then, through his reception to the whole event. Quite frankly, he really enjoyed Hamley’s, but he loved the theatre and the experience that went with it all. Looking at the posters along the streets in Piccadilly Circus, he declared—and loudly enough to draw a couple of “that’s cute” snickers from people around us—with a large sweeping hand movement: “I want to come back here and see all of these in one night!”

Thursday

We got up around 0900 or so and began our day by heading out to 221B Baker Street. Tristan went for me since I wanted to at least get in the Sherlock Holmes Museum for my own benefit while here. I will just mention for the sake of a complete narrative that I was disappointed overall. I’m not sure what I expected, but it didn’t measure up to what I would have thought the esteemed detective would have inhabited.

Tristan and I then walked over to Regents Park and made our way past several bridges that led directly to the London Zoo. (Can anyone still see a theme here going on?) We fed the ducks and we had ice cream. And we eventually found the Zoo too.

One of the things that Tristan continue to say over and over again was how much he thought Zoe would like the parks in London. It’s a shame too since the Tube doesn’t allow dogs unless they are assistance dogs. But it was a reoccurring theme for him even after being told that Zoe would spend six months in quarantine if we brought her here with us.

The London Zoo was nice. It was beginning to turn colder (much colder than forecast and a bit colder than we were prepared) but we made it through all but two of the exhibits anyway. The aquarium portion was especially nice.

Finally, after we left the zoo, Tristan got his wish that he’d been bugging me about all week: we rode a bus. We took the bus from the London Zoo back to Baker Street station to catch the Tube home. It was about this time that I discovered Tristan’s shoes had been worn through, literally, and will require a new pair this weekend before he goes back to school.

We went to dinner at a great little South African place and had (a whole) mango/lime chicken with chips (french fries for us Americans) and corn on the cob. We shared ours with my friends who got a Peri-Peri spiced chicken. Both were fabulous. It’s truly a shame this place isn’t more prolific in the States yet (they have only one restaurant in Washington DC). They would definitely get our business.

Almost Over

The week is almost over but the adventure is just beginning. We will have one more major update over the weekend after we get back to the States. Then I will settle into working through the galleries to be posted along with some commentary on various pieces of the trip in relation to Tristan and the goals of CultureBlast as a whole—and another fundraising push for next year, of course. I also have a presentation to create for his class in school sometime next week as well but I will post it here on the site for anyone to see once it is completed. I will do a comparison of the original itinerary and the final locations of the trip itself to show the difference between them (and why).

Tristan at the London Zoo (19 Mar 2009)

Tristan and Bishop on the way to Phantom of the Opera (18 Mar 2009)

As with all things Tristan there is so little that can be scripted for any occasion. His lack of filters and boundaries leave little room for tact at times. This is not to say he isn’t polite. He manifested amazing politeness to people who didn’t even engage him in his own native tongue. But I told him to say hello to everyone important to him and I would film the “hello” to ensure it was seen.

Once we reached the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, he smacked his head and nearly shouted at me to the point of other people turning to look, “We have to go back up there and do it all over again!” I just looked at him funny waiting for a reason. “I forgot to add Miss Kim and Miss Lexi! And Ann and John! And Ms Ross! They’ll want to see this too!” After climbing down from the second platform to the first (and a story for another entry), aside from the logistical issues of another hour wait and paying again to go up, we did have a train to catch and time was running short.

(I may have him do another short movie to pick up the missing people but from a London location since he really was very upset for much of the Metro ride back to St-Michel and only started to get over it once we’d moved to the line taking us to Gare du Nord. It’s a side effect of that Oh Shiny! issue as mentioned elsewhere.)

At least please understand that those missing were thought about if not included in the original message. My personal apologies for not scripting him at all to ensure a more complete list of people. I doubt it’s personal. And he was vibrating at a high rate of speed anyway. I have pictures to prove he had no fear at that height. Seriously.

PS: I know it appears I cut it off at the end, but I did not. That doesn’t appear in the original and seems to be a YouTube issue that I cannot control.

Tristan in Paris stopping to smell the flowers on Quai de la Mégisserie (17 Mar 2009)

[Note: I hope the intentional meaning is not lost here. It's not staged at all, but like so many pictures I haven't shared, this one was caught in a moment that could not be repeated if I tried.]

I’ve been asked already why I didn’t film Tristan doing something more "culturally important"—as if somehow that meant something special for a 10 year old in a foreign country for the first time in his life. My response was along the lines of "If you have ever seen this child in his natural environment, then you would see [in this video] a child that is unafraid of any environment no matter how foreign. He is completely at home and oblivious to any difference between home and here." Some may see no significance in Tristan chasing birds here, but if you know him already then you’ll see exactly what I see.

Observe for yourself in this 9 second clip of Tristan in Hyde Park.

I’m sorry, but how much more "culturally important" can it get that he blends beautifully into the first "foreign" culture to which he is exposed. Granted, there is not much culture shock here—that starts later in Paris—but I’ll discuss that through more detail in a different entry with the anecdote and analysis stage of our CultureBlast narrative when we get back home.

I’d like to say that we’ve had all the time in the world to update. As is, I’m not sure we’ve had time to breathe. But I should mention something along the lines of “All the best laid plans …” and all that rubbish. My original time table for this trip was already thrown out by the mishap of travel, but even then it has been quite an ad lib trip so far. The general plan of the trip has gone quite nicely and as expected, but it was the specifics that haven’t exactly been on schedule.

Saturday

We arrived Saturday morning and spent about four hours getting to Wimbledon.

Our waltz through customs took a while as the individual wanted to ask as many questions as possible. Given the nature of this blog, I’ll not provide my commentary on that process only to say that it could have been worse, I guess, but definitely has never happened to me in the past in any country I’ve visited.

There was some concern that we’d missed our baggage somewhere, but found out that the baggage somehow made the flight that we missed. Go figure! So we gathered our belongings and headed out to the Piccadilly Line to Earl’s Court and then down the District Line to Wimbledon. We walked a couple of blocks to my friend’s flat and had no problems at all finding our way around. (In fact, taking the Tube as we have over the last several days has been a breeze and quite comfortable overall.)

Generally, the rest of the day was just lazy. We both took a nap for about three hours and then took a walk around Wimbledon. I say “took a walk around Wimbledon.” Tristan will tell it like it is and say, “Daddy got us lost.” Fair enough. But I also got us home again. We did do a little flat scouting while we were out. Found quite a few for rent in the area.

We got back, had dinner, talked and played games, and crashed. And did we crash hard.

Sunday

We got up around 0800, got showered and dressed (and fed), and made the 0859 District Line up to Earl’s Court and then the Piccadilly Line to Holborn.

We wandered off in the direction of the British Museum (”because the sign said so and Daddy hadn’t taken the time to buy a map of London yet”) and ended up with another couple of American chicks that were lost. We weren’t lost, of course. We were just exploring some of the side streets and seeing some of the odd monuments that the Brits have strewn about in various places. I mean, right?

Tristan decided to strike up a conversation with a nice man who strolled with us—in a different direction, of course—to the British Museum and engaged us in friendly conversation about the differences in finding museums in London or in Dallas. (There really are not that many differences—if you have a map, I mean. I sense a pop culture theme emerging here. Lost anyone?) The British Museum is amazing both outside and inside.

We toured the halls for the Egyptian and Greek materials … only to discover that I had left the two 2gig SD cards at the flat. So, needless to say, our picture taking was limited. But we had a blast going through the Egyptian and Greek areas, the African and Oriental floors, and the European and Clockwork rooms. He thought the clock shaped like a ship was something really cool.

We left there and took the Tube over to the South Kensington and then took the walkthrough over to the Science Museum. We walked in the door and Tristan was immediately taken with all the steam engine things in the whole front hall. He was, of course, equally taken with the gift shop. We walked through the space race room and he was completely unphased.

I was shocked. I would have thought that all the gee-whiz stuff of space and rocket ships and the future of space would have been tackled by him in a heartbeat. But we passed through that into the technology from past to present and I saw his eyes light up.

He was completely enamored with Stephenson’s “Rocket”—the steam engine—and the world first stream train. He thought the steam loom was the bomb and the steam tractor just “killer.” At that point he decided that he was hungry, so we ate at the Science Museum restaurant and then left since we had an appointment we could not miss.

We then made our way over to watch Dinosaurs Alive! in the IMAX theatre and he was completely in love with the idea of paleontology (again) once we walked out of there.

Tristan and I left and made our way to The London Eye by way of Westminster. We got to see Big Ben and listen to it change hours. Being afraid of heights was no problem with the Eye. It’s a slow (30 minutes from start to finish) ride all the way around. Tristan loved it. We got to see all across London in every direction. And there wasn’t one single moment of “fear.”

Monday

We again got up around 0800, got showered and dressed (and fed), and made the 0905 District Line up to Earl’s Court and then the Piccadilly Line back to Holborn. We ran through the British Museum again to pick up a couple of pictures that we wanted that didn’t get taken because of the lack of SD cards the day before. We then shot back over to the Science Museum to do the same. And, of course, pick up a couple of things from the gift shop that Tristan just couldn’t live without.

We then went to the Natural History Museum and spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon there. I think it was a disappointment overall. Even I was disappointed. We went mainly for the dinosaurs which were, of course, impressive. But they weren’t all that impressive. I tend to think it was anti-climactic in the end. After we had a quick lunch at one of the inside cafes, he wanted to go back to the bird hall and take pictures of his own.

We then went to Hyde Park and stayed there for quite some time. Tristan and I shared a couple of waffles on the green, and chased birds. I have a video which will be posted soon.

We then came back to the flat, hung out a bit, and went to see Bolt 3D. I know. I know. 4000 miles to see a movie. But this is his trip and much of what I thought would be planned ended up going with the flow of timing and availability. (I will say, however, that seeing a movie here in Wimbledon is much, much more cost efficient in “what you get” than we have in the States.)

Since the Louvre is closed tomorrow (I didn’t know), we are going to be winging it in Paris as well. And that’s just fine. If there is anyway to experience the culture of a foreign place it is not by scripted tours and preplanned events. It’s by getting lost and found, exploring the sidelines and talking with people. And that’s precisely what we’ve done. All in all, this trip has turned out better than even I originally planned—much of it quite by accident. But tomorrow is a 0400 get up time to make the 0655 bullet train to Paris. He’s already asleep as I type this. And it’s time for me to do the same (so please forgive any mistakes in my text: I’ll proof it tomorrow).

Tristan in the Natural History Museum (16 Mar 2009)

 
Tristan outside the British Museum (15 Mar 2009)

Tristan in Wimbledon for Lunch (14 Mar 2009)

We got off to a great start. The small details of seating arrangements were resolved within a short period of time after arriving at the airport. However, the flight from Houston that was supposed to take us back to Houston was delayed by weather. Even knowing that things would be tight—but still workable—we left for Houston.

And missed the connecting flight to London.

So, we ended up in a hotel for a bit (in reality, Tristan got about four hours sleep total and I got next to none) and then back at the airport bright and early at 0530 this morning.

Currently we are sitting in Newark waiting for our flight to London that leaves at 1930 this evening. There are few things more enjoyable than over seven hours in an airport with a ten year old, but we’re managing. This was promised to be an adventure, and an adventure this is turning out to be already.

Tristan is handling everything like a champ.

The first leg of the trip was dark, rainy, and late, so he wasn’t really all that impressed. We ran really, really hard from one side of the Houston airport to the other. I know that people looked at us funny.

The second leg of the trip to here was much more impressive. His reactions to flying through the clouds was one thing. Seeing the sunrise from above cloud level was awe-inspiring. And then, when we reached cruising altitude, being able to scan out over the clouds, watch the vapor trails form from other planes in the area, and see just how calm the sky can be was something that I think almost overwhelmed him. There are few times that I’ve seen Tristan speechless. And the single ‘whoa’ that escaped his lips was about the only sound he made for a good ten minutes.

I have a couple of pictures already, but considering the setup here in the airport, I think I’ll wait to post them tomorrow.

We roll into London at 0630 Saturday morning. All in all, we are only missing Friday afternoon in London which was recovery time. Saturday was totally open with no plans, so it can just stay that way. Overall, nothing is really changed in our plans by this delay. It’s just more of an adventure than I planned and more time for us to spend enjoying the adventure as it unfolds on its own.

We’re off and running. Our flight is out of here and we are on our way to London.

Watch here for the updates each day. We will work on trying to do regular updates as we move along each day but, at the least, there will be a Best Picture of the Day here each evening.

Tristan has been bouncing around all week, excited and jittery at the same time. His first plane ride is going to be his first trip out of the country as well.

Stay tuned: our next update will be somewhere in the proximity of 24-28 hours from now!