Summer is here! Kids and Trip to London

The last week of May has definitely been full summer here in Crete. Almost too hot in the early afternoon. Lying on the beach all day could certainly be an option….and it is for many tourists who come here. It is an odd feeling being almost a ‘local’ and seeing the tourists come here for vacation while you are just walking around living your life.

Last year I had purchased tickets for a play in London called Jerusalem. I had seen this play twice before in New York in 2011 (I liked it that much) and decided it was my duty as a parent to make sure my kids saw it….so when tickets went on sale I purchased 8. Enough for me and Victoria plus kids plus some extras. The kids came to the boat a few days early. We showed them around Agios Nikolaos a bit and did an overnight sail to a local nice anchorage but there was no wind so not much sailing. I’m surprised I didn’t die from one particular afternoon day-drinking. OMG. We slept 6 on the boat which worked because we were all family. Also Matt beat me 2 games in a row in chess. I’ll get him next time.

We then all flew to London for 4 days. I have been to London a few times before but this time I really appreciated how big it is and how amazing it would be to live there……maybe almost as nice as Toronto….bigger and dirtier and more history and lots to see and do. The play was a memorable life event. Mark Rylance is an amazing actor. Live action theatre is ineffably different than a movie. I’ve watched video of plays that I’ve seen in the past and it is not the same….it is like we have an extra sense we haven’t discovered yet that isn’t captured by video. Anyway the kids have seen a great play and we all experienced it together.

Mike organized the AirBnb for us which was a converted old vicarage about 40 minutes by transit from downtown.

It was a great place to stay for 6 of us. 3 minutes from the overground and easy to get around. We did the usual things: saw Buckingham Palace, tried to steal back the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum (too heavy), did the Tate Modern and The National Gallery.

The most fun was just hanging out with the kids……but another of the highlights was our last meal which was Indian curry. I had first discovered how great Indian food can be on a trip long ago to London. Stopped into a curry place for dinner (this was before google maps!) and I was blown away by how good the food was. Just a dumpy looking curry place. I had discovered that London has the best Indian food in the world. I then started looking for great Indian restaurants in Toronto (I always asked my Indian co-workers for suggestions) and did find some, but wanted to try London Indian again. I found two highly rated Indian restaurants close to our AirBnb using google maps but ***they were both closed***. I’m not sure if this means google maps is not updated as much in London, or if the Indian restaurant competition is so fierce that these places die quickly……but in any case we had a problem. We walked around looking for anywhere to eat for some time before Victoria convinced us to flag down a taxi and ask the driver for suggestions. We flagged down a classic black London cab (I was worried it was going to be super expensive) but he was a great guy and he took us to a neighbourhood where he said we could go anywhere for good Indian. We picked one of the places (there were 3 or 4 in a row…..apparently all using the same kitchen and the same owner!!!) and we had a really wonderful meal. Super, super tasty. If I could add one thing to Crete it would be a great Indian restaurant.