Yes, I Know My Way Around Here

No. 51: Be a London tour guide

When I found out my Dad would be visiting me for a week during my final month in London, I created a mental storyline of how it would go. I would take him for tea and crumpets in the Orangery across from Kensington Palace. We would visit the British Library to see Paul McCartney’s handwritten notes when he was penning Yesterday. I would show him Leyton. I didn’t plan, however, on taking the wrong direction on the Piccadilly line only his second day there.

“Erica, are you sure we shouldn’t be going the other way?”

I looked up from the hoard of rush hour commuters crowding the platform to see a giant Tube map on the tiled wall of the subway tunnel. I glanced at the list of stops the line would be calling at to discover that yes, we should be going the other way.

We turned against the crowd and rushed up and over to the other side of the dim platform. A great gush of wind from the train pulling in swept wads of balled up newspaper past our feet. We jumped onto the train just as the red doors shut gently behind us.

“Well that was exciting,” Dad said, catching his breath.

“I usually know where I’m going. I guess I got turned around.”

“I love these seats,” he said, plopping down on one of the blue upholstered chairs along the side of the train. He sat between a small bird-like woman clutching her purse in her lap and a younger guy with legs that stretched out almost to the other side of the car. The guy was listening to headphones, and I could faintly hear the sounds of Nora Jones.

“Where are we going again?” Dad asked. He inspected the sign above his head and I watched his eyes move over station names like Hounslow and Cockfosters. As the train pulled into its next stop we clung to the red subway poles, leaning heavily to one side while the wheels jerked us to a stop.

“China Town. I found the best Chinese restaurant there. And we’re going to have crispy duck on pancakes.”

“Duck and pancakes?”

“It’s not really pancakes, that’s just what they call it. You’ll like it.”

I was making it my mission to show my father that, whatever Glenn Beck may have to say about it, England had wonderful food. I was also taking this visit as an opportunity to prove to him the country had lovely climates, friendly people and entertaining television. I was a goodwill ambassador with less political know how.

“This is our stop.”

We hopped off the train and climbed up the stairs to emerge in the bustling sunlight of Leicester Square. At least I knew I could find my way around here. We walked down a side street decorated with red paper lanterns and Chinese writing, and entered a wider walkway hidden behind the facades of Shaftsbury Avenue. A row of Chinese restaurants greeted us, each with cheerful spinning ducks in the windows.

I found our restaurant and almost immediately spied Zeddy, his tall figure sticking out over the small group of Asian wait staff trying to seat him.

“You found it!” he greeted as I ushered my Dad in behind me.

“I see you know my daughter..."


...And now, a bunch of gratuitous photos of me and Dad doing neat things in London...