krazykiwi

Spent a wonderful weekend here once, a party at a friends old house. We all camped out for the weekend in a field next door, and had an idyllic time in the late english summer. There’s probably not much to see if you’re just passing through though.

And I once did, literally. We were in between moving countries, and my other half had to teach a course in London, so I tagged along with our then 6 year old daughter. We stayed in the radisson that’s just a street over, and spent more or less all our time in the Museum, for three days straight, and still didn’t get to all the exhibits.

I could have spent a half a day just in the Elgin marbles room alone. Daughter got to touch the Rosetta stone, thanks to a kindly guard, something that triggered a lifelong love of language for her. We spent a whole afternoon with sketch pads and pencils in the Egyptian room. Tourists stopped and took more pictures of the little blonde mite concentrating on her drawing, and we still treasure the drawings we made that day. Plus we were lucky enough to be there while a special exhibition of Maori art was on (which made us homesick, but was a wonderful and unexpected thing to find).

Perhaps coming from NZ, a country with only a short history explains my fascination with the ancient culture that comes so alive here. Maybe it’s the memories of that wonderful few days where we had no rush to be anywhere, and all the time in the world to just stand for a while.

Either way any time I have a spare few hours to fill in London, this is the place I head for.

I kind of like airports. I’ve spent an enormous amount of time in them. But my one and only time at LAX involved a one hour chance to switch planes, requiring a trip through a labyrinthine immigration queue, and then a mad dash across the entire place dragging a 6 year old and all my worldly belongings behind me. It simply wasn’t my best day.

LAX (the TV show) made it look ever so much more appealing than I remember though. Maybe I should stop actively avoiding LA purely to avoid it’s airport :)