Living Big in the Big City...

Jimmy’s connection with the general manager of the Landmark Hotel in the Marylebone neighborhood of London paid off with a behind-the-scenes tour of this majestic hotel housed in what was once the national rail headquarters. Our tour included going up on the roof (unfortunately it was cold and sprinkling) and into the basement, including the kitchens and the laundry. We were especially impressed with the Presidential Suite, which we imagined must have been where Michelle Obama and daughters slept when they stayed there.

Future Thespians?

Quite a few of the acting exercises had us busting up with laughter. Nicolas brought his buddy David Hall, an ex-chemistry teacher turned Shakespearean actor, to help and he was hilarious. He was the first to recognize Richard Griffiths, who plays Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films, in the actor’s cafeteria where we ate all our meals. Other than gawking, we left him in peace. While neither girl is likely to ever be a big star like that (and hopefully never that big!), it was fun learning acting skills in such a memorable place.

Our Little Actresses...

Here the girls are performing a scene from Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest that they had prepared in advance. The rest of the two days were filled with acting exercises. Some were completely weird and involved crawling around on the ground. Others were really fun like “Quick Change Fast.” We partnered up and assigned each other a subject to talk about using a chosen emotion. Then our partner would shout out another emotion and we had to immediately switch gears, which resulted in some very funny speeches.

Our National Theatre Adventure...

In addition to meeting the hotel manager when taking the leadership course in London over the summer, Jimmy met Nicolas Chagrin, a British actor and former dancer (he was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). He recruited Nicolas to put together a two-day drama course for the girls and then changed his mind and decided he and I would participate as well. Much to our delight, Nicolas arranged for our sessions to be held in a rehearsal room at the Royal National Theatre right along the Thames River. He couldn’t actually give us a tour of the three theaters themselves, so we took an official backstage tour, which was very interesting.

Happy to be Back in London...

On Boxing Day (otherwise known as December 26th), we took the train to Hoek van Holland to catch the overnight ferry to England. The girls were very excited about sleeping on a boat for the first time. Luckily we had calm seas so we all slept well. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and hit the streets of London. We stopped by the Christmas market at Hyde Park and Hamleys, London’s fanciest toy store where Jimmy couldn’t resist buying a remote control helicopter. The hotel manager, whom Jimmy had taken a leadership course with, invited us for high tea with his family. I might not drink tea, but I can still appreciate all those crustless sandwiches and yummy desserts. Afterwards we met some friends from The Hague in Chinatown for dinner; we all enjoyed the “flattened duck.”

Cool Interactive Art...

We happened upon the coolest art installation in the courtyard of the London Royal Academy of Arts by Mumbai-born artist Anish Kapoor, who specializes in public art. We didn’t visit the museum itself, but spent a long time staring into 76 beautiful steel silver balls that made up the 50-foot sculpture Tall Tree and the Eye, which infinitely repeated and reflected the surrounding architecture and visitors.

Our Big Snow Storm...

The snow arrived early this year in mid-December and while there was only an inch or two, the cycle paths became quite slippery. For the first time, we all managed to fall off our bikes on the same day, but luckily the only thing hurt was our pride. On December 22nd we had our biggest snow storm in our four years in Holland, which brought the total snowfall to 5 inches. Public transport came to a complete halt and the roads were a mess, but three crazy hashers still showed up since we were haring for the Hague H3. The girls built an ice bar in the yard to serve mulled wine after the trail.
The sky was beautiful that evening when the girls posed in the yard before making snow angels. On Christmas Eve we went to a friend’s in the village of Voorburg, which was beautifully lit by candles. We had a very mellow Christmas playing games in our PJs.