London, with Mom!

0:15Hi, I'm Ryan Davis.

0:17Kiernan:And I'm Kiernan Schmidt. And this is Out of Office, a travel podcast. This is Taken. Hey, Kiernan. Hello, Ryan. Ryan, I'm getting that sort of tinny. It's not I feel like you're not on your road podcaster, which means ironically to the name road podcaster for the mic. You must be on the road. I am on the road. I'm in I'm in sunny Rio de Janeiro. This is your major fact finding. This is going to be a whole series on the podcast. Oh, yeah, that's it is. It is quite the city, Karen. And it's a it's a big one. And well, yeah, I'm I'm I got here a few days ago and we've just been, you know, dipping our toes in in the Rio in the Rio water.

1:06But there is a yeah, there's a lot to see and definitely going to have an episode or two out of this.

1:12Kiernan:And this is like a you're on a two week sojourn here, right? So where are you hitting besides Rio? A week in Rio and a week in Sao Paulo. Excellent. Any day trips? Going to the sort of winter castle outside of Rio, which will be interesting to see. But really kind of mostly focused on the city since I've never been here before. You know, I like to land and expand. Oh, God. Is that something you're trying to make happen? Land and expand? That sounds like you land and then eat too much. Well, that is definitely I'm off the shot. So I'm are you off the shot? Oh, yeah, I didn't. I decided not to travel with it.

1:55So I could, you know, I could have a couple of weeks, put on a few pounds. Are you able to do that? You can yo-yo in and out of it. Oh, yeah, you can yo-yo. It's a yo-yo kind of kind of thing.

2:07Kiernan:So you must be loading up and you said the prices are very good. So, you know, I hope you come back 20 pounds heavier. We had a Italian dinner last night. It was shockingly affordable. I was I thought I was robbing them when we were leaving the place. It's a good it's a I mean, Rio is a destination for sure. So I'm a little surprised by that. But I was telling you, I remember when Catherine and I went to Poland and Ukraine and I couldn't believe the prices. It was like, boy, I should have like lived here for a few years. I'm I'm getting the Rio bug, you know, there's no doubt about it. That actually sounds like it might be an actual bug that you've contracted.

2:44No, I can. You know, that's what they make antibiotics for.

2:48Kiernan:You're more likely to get that in the United States these days. Right. I guess I should check in. There was there was that major earthquake, not about a two hour trip away from you. But did you actually feel that? I did feel that it was right right in the morning and I was getting up to begin my wonderful day of phone calls. Got a little got a little shake. you know it was a big I don't want to minimize it I mean it was a it was a big disaster in in other areas of Colombia but Bogota was was largely unscathed but it was big enough yeah I texted you immediately to see if you were all right and you showed me a picture of a bunch of people I feel like people evacuated their offices and homes yeah everybody everybody went and evacuated you know you're supposed to go out I have called so I didn't have that luxury no no you were taking it from the high right i assume you were in a we work no i was home i was sitting i was at home yeah all right well i assume i assume proof of life for judy that's uh she needs to know i assume you weren't in touch to let her know you were safe so for ryan's mom ryan is good and he's in rio eating well mom gets the international bad news channel so she knew about that earthquake I should really just loop her in when I text you to see if you're okay.

4:09Kiernan:Well, I don't have plans as big as Rio, Ryan, but we are doing another trip with the kids this coming week. I'm off to Chicago next week. And this is a trip that it was inspired. You know, sometimes you read a travel article that just gets in your head and like won't let go. I remember years ago for me, that was this New York Times article about Myanmar. And I said to Catherine, we just like have to get to Myanmar, which you can't go to now. But back then you could. And it had like just opened to Western tourism. It was an awesome trip. We did Myanmar and Vietnam and this huge trip. And, you know, this one's closer to home.

4:45Kiernan:But two years ago, Bon Appetit magazine did this this food journalism about what's called Harbor Country in Michigan, which is this series of towns that line Lake Michigan. And apparently for Chicago, this is kind of the place. It's like an hour and a half, two hours away drive from Chicago. And this is where you go to have a little time on the beach. And it just sounded so relaxing and laid back. So we waited for late August, figuring, you know, a ton of the country's back in school before Labor Day in the East and New England. We're not in school till Labor Day. And so we're heading for a few days in Chicago, hit up a bunch of the kid attractions there, a couple museums I haven't been to, visiting some friends there.

5:29Kiernan:I've never been to the Museum of Science and Industry, which I have very high hopes for and have heard good things about. You're a science and industry guy. I'm well known as that. And that's the tattoos I have on my chest. And it's what I call my past, science and industry. and then we're grabbing a car and we're going north for a few days. So the names of these towns that make up Harbor Country, in case you're not familiar with it, because I had never heard of this, which is why it was like so in my head. Grand Beach, New Buffalo, Union Pier, Lakeside, Harbert, Sawyer, and Three Oaks. These towns are all right next to each other and create a string of these like quaint, cool, and apparently very foodie towns.

6:17Kiernan:So we'll be checking those out. We got a little cottage. We'll be spending days on the beach. And the thing that I think excited me the most about this, Ryan, was I'm looking at the map and I'm going, oh, my God, there's a national park right on the way. Indiana Dunes National Park, which is it's not like one of the blockbuster parks, but it preserves these dunes right on the lake shore. And we're definitely going to be popping in there. And as I was researching what we can do, there's plenty of hikes and you can go out and hike the dunes and spend time on the shore. But there's also some cultural preservation here.

6:57Kiernan:They have a few homes that they've preserved that were built for the 1933 World's Fair. You and I love old World's Fair attractions. And they've got this place called the House of Tomorrow. So this was people in the 1930s picturing what the House of Tomorrow would look like. And my favorite part about it is that they thought in the future, these optimists for the World Fair, they built a car garage, but they also included an airplane hanger for your little plane. They thought every family will have their little plane, we'll pull out of our hanger, take off on our streets. They weren't quite thinking flying cars yet.

7:38Kiernan:So they have this little airplane hanger. And I I'm really looking forward to checking out this house of tomorrow at Indiana Dunes National Park. That sounds that sounds fantastic. They didn't imagine the, you know, just the smart refrigerator. No, exactly. They just went straight for plane. Yeah. But and, you know, I mean, for me hitting a new national park, I mean, this is like Christmas. Yeah, no, that's that's that's fantastic. Well, we look forward to hearing about this trip. Well, I'll tell you, too. So, you know, with the kids, we tend to do instead of hotels, we're tending to do Airbnbs because you get more room, you get a kitchen, you know.

8:14You get the kids there on Airbnb or you guys like.

8:16Kiernan:I wish. No. So I've been shopping around Airbnbs. And the truth is sky high rates in Chicago on these weekends. And so for the second weekend, I said to Catherine, you know, we've we've already done a bunch of Chicago ourselves. We'll have been there for a few days already. Maybe we want to check out some like second city or something outside of these seashore towns. And so we may, I don't want to get hopes up too high here, but we might visit, might spend two nights in Milwaukee, which I, I, I, I'm addicted to these like less touristed towns. And Milwaukee looks like they have a great beer scene.

8:55Kiernan:They've got a couple of art galleries and museums. And I think it's, they've got, they sure do. And have you been to Milwaukee? I've been to Milwaukee. Absolutely. Was it for campaigns or why were you there? I was out there for a colleague's wedding. Oh, all right. Anyone I know? Prizer, yeah. Oh, wow. That was in Milwaukee? Boy, he's not a Milwaukee boy. It was in Madison, but we made a weekend. Sure. Oh, yeah. You got to do Madison. We have friends in Madison, so we're going to do a different trip there. I looked there, too. Let me tell you, by the way, last tip before we get to our topic, which I haven't even mentioned yet.

9:30Kiernan:But I was looking at Airbnb, price is super high. I looked at VRBO and I was like, oh, these prices are like quite good. Only to realize Airbnb is showing full transparency on the total price, including all fees, which I appreciate. VRBO, hand to God, the price doubles when you put the full fees in. It's such bullshit. That is such a horrible way to trick people into trying to book these things. I don't know why any platform would do it, but it's really made an enemy out of me. I always feel like there just isn't much there when I've looked at VRBO before. No, I just don't. To me, it's like such blatant trickery.

10:10Kiernan:I just like I admire that Airbnb is just being straightforward with what it is. And I really that just really turned me off. I tend not to book VRBO, but occasionally you do get a fine there, you know, and especially if you're looking for like a nicer place, they do tend to have slightly more luxury places or like well-designed artistic places on vrbo but i don't know they're losing me well i'm in i'm in my uh airbnb here in rio and uh full price transparency no no issue i i like to hear and did you did you use airbnb truly oh yeah absolutely um well ryan we uh i i this episode is uh we got to get into it so this is uh several listeners have emailed in and asked Where's this episode we were promised?

10:55Kiernan:This is, we're going to be revisiting London. We have a bunch of London episodes in the can. You know, I lived in London over a decade ago, but I love London. I've spent a lot of time there. But this was a unique take on London because I went with my mom, which was a great and interesting experience. I really loved revisiting some of the old classics. And then I checked out a couple of brand new spots, particularly the V &A, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a new outlet in East London called the Storehouse. That's a totally new concept for a museum. It's like letting you inside the warehouse where they store the back catalog.

11:33Kiernan:And it was so amazing. So we're going to cover sort of the classics of London, what it's like to revisit them, talk a little bit about theater, a very little bit. I know our audience doesn't love theater. And then we'll wrap up by visiting the new V &A. All right. Well, I think it's time for us to take off because this is going to be a meaty episode. Tell the cabin crew. Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff, please. All right, Ryan. So I want to lead here by asking, when was the last time you were in London? I feel like it was a long time ago. I feel like it was a long time ago, too. Probably, you know, certainly pre-pandemic times.

12:11Kiernan:Yeah, okay. So really a different scene. I think that was my last visit was probably, gosh, maybe 2014, 2015 before this. So it had been it had been a while. And the background to this trip was my parents. They'd never gotten their passports. And when I lived there, they had intentions to come over and visit. But that was the year that my dad's dementia really got out of hand and he declined. He since passed away. But it's always hung out there as this kind of dream to go back with my mom and let that visit really like take hold and let's do it. And it's definitely a message I'd love to get out to everybody out there that if you have one of those ambitious trips that you wanna do with your family, with a loved one, or a broader family, like a Disney trip with all your brothers and sisters in there for one of these trips, it's one of those things that you're always gonna put off.

13:06Kiernan:And my message to you is plan it, do it. You know, we're in the summer of 2026. Start talking about the summer of 2027 because to get these schedules aligned and to book the amount of places you need, you just have to pull the trigger and do it. And I really appreciate Catherine was the one who pushed me to do it. And, you know, it's the trip of a lifetime and my mom and I still talk about it nearly every time we talk. And so happily, we did get to go there. One quick tip was, similarly, I was looking for an Airbnb because I wanted to have separate bedrooms and a kitchen and living room and all that.

13:41Kiernan:And what I found was a lot of corporate housing, which, you know, are made for like week, two week up to like six month long stays. They will do listings on Airbnb. And so I actually discovered this place on Airbnb platform. I had a question about it. So I emailed the platform directly and they gave me a better price. They get the corporate housing place gave me a better price because they don't have to pay all the extra fees. So it was nice to have them away here on the podcast. I'm not giving them away. I'm not, I'm not going to say who it was, but it was in, it was near Holborn, if you know London fairly well, cause I wanted to be kind of in the meat of it all.

14:18Kiernan:And it was a great choice. You know, a great little apartment, you know, it's typical corporate housing. It's not like it's not warm and artistic, but it is a very comfortable, very professional, nice, crisp, clean sheets. And very, very good Wi-Fi. And so we spent a lot of our time revisiting sort of the classic places, which we don't have to dig into. We have past episodes on these and some digging in super, super deeply. We've done like, you know, first trip to London, that kind of stuff. But just to quickly hit where we went, you know, I was trying to weigh what is going to be too much physical strain for my mom?

15:00Kiernan:What can we pack in during this week without it being totally exhausting and like losing our memories because we weren't, you know, we were rushing. So I definitely kept back. But once I saw my mom, man, she can keep pace. So I was like, all right, we're going to like pack this itinerary a little more than I expected. So when we first got there first day, you know, you have to get through that whole day of jet lag. So we hit the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. You know, one of the great parts of visiting London is a ton of the museums are free. So you can pop in for just two hours and feel like you're making good use of it.

15:35Kiernan:So we headed to natural. I also thought natural history and V &A, these are kind of blockbuster-y sort of museums. You know, you don't have to go deep into reading every placard and you just get to go and admire nature and dinosaur skeletons and beautiful minerals. And in the case of the V &A, decorative arts and a lot of plaster casts of famous statues. They have a plaster of reproduction of the David, which is incredible because it's absolutely huge and just a huge eclectic display of everything from medieval tapestries through to Roman artifacts to Islamic rugs. I mean, it's just like it's kind of a fun house of art.

16:18Kiernan:And that's what we needed on that jet lag day. That sounds like a pretty big, a pretty busy jet lag day. It was busy. In fact, I dragged us to St. Paul's that night. I was hoping to do Evensong, which I always recommend. And that's very relaxing. They didn't have Evensong during that night. So we did go back to St. Paul's. And instead of doing the full kind of historic tour of the place, we just sat and relaxed and listened to Evensong service. And that was very nice. And of course, just for the biggest hits, again, if you're planning this trip, if it's your first time in London, the must-dos.

16:53Kiernan:We hit the British Museum, which was much more during the summer season was much harder to get into than I had recalled. There was an enormous line that wrapped around the sidewalks, I mean, halfway around the museum. It moved, but the security has definitely been bumped up there from when I lived there. Westminster Abbey. Probably because of the French heist, you know. That is interesting. Certainly that could be a reason. Yeah. I mean, I also think it was like peak tourist season. So British Museum, Westminster Abbey, definitely book that in advance because I mean, of all the tickets in town, that's really the hottest.

17:35Kiernan:It's very packed. And that was one where I loved the Rick Steves guidebook because it does lead you through the greatest hits. They also have a great, you know, map that gives you some additional context there. But you are kind of in a, there's not actually conveyor belts, but you are in like a steady moving line of tourists there. We did a parliament tour, which are available during the summer. Highly recommend, super historic, very laid back. It's not an intense tour. And, you know, it's like visiting the Senate or the House of Representatives. You get to learn a bit about the British government.

18:10Kiernan:you get some sense of the great long history, how parliament works with the royalty, all of that great history. Were you worried they were going to grab you out and make you prime minister like right there? Like, how do you, how do you, I mean, I was hoping I was certainly, you know, I had, I had a tux in the car just in case. We did do a double decker bus ride, not because it was necessary to get around, but just because you got it, you know, you got to do that when you're in London. It's a quick hit and it's a fun way to see the city. It costs, what, two pounds? And we did really rely, we could have used taxis around town, but honestly, the tube and the bus system are so good that it saves you money and it's the fastest way to get around.

18:54Kiernan:So I was so impressed. I love going to cities that have great public transport that makes it just so easy to move around. Stand clear of those closing doors. I think that's New York that says that. Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My favorite, I remember the very first time I visited London, one of the end stations on one of the lines that you get when you come in from the airport is, the last stop is Cockfosters, and to an American, I mean, just cockfosters. They say it every single stop. This is cockfosters. Did the Tower of London. I was a little nervous about that one because that's those tickets run out really fast, but we were lucky and managed to get in.

19:43Kiernan:Go absolutely first thing in the morning. Tower of London might actually be worth a separate episode just about the Tower of London because the amount of uh the amount of history there uh is very interesting too much for this one episode but you know haven't we been trying haven't we been trying for years to get like the guy yes the raven master you're talking about the raven master i've been trying to get the raven master who oversees this flock of ravens who are have all this myth around them who live on the grounds of Tower of London. And he's like one of those rare people who doesn't even answer.

20:22Kiernan:I'm like, your book isn't that big. Like, we'd have a good audience for you. I'm still after the Raven Master. But the Tower of London was really fun. That eats up half a day easy because there's so much to see there. And it's cool. They're doing like modern art exhibitions next to the great history. And it is a royal palace. It's also the famous prison, lots of famous beheadings there. And you can easily visit Tower Bridge when you're right there, which is the famous bridge that everyone thinks is London Bridge with the giant towers on it. We did the changing of the guards. No matter how much I forewarned mom, don't expect the castle to look like a medieval castle.

21:04Kiernan:It kind of looks like a corporate executive office, Buckingham Palace. It's still I feel like people go with these expectations of towers and, you know, Hogwarts. It's not that. And the changing of the guards itself, boy, oh boy, does that get packed. It had been a long, long time since I'd been to visit that. And it's really hard to get a decent viewpoint. So bring binoculars, plan on if you really want to see it well, you got to be there at least an hour beforehand. And then you're just kind of standing around. I don't think it's a must do, if I'm being honest. And then the final kind of must do beyond food markets, and maybe I'll touch on food very briefly, but I think one must do, and it's a little more obscure, is the John Soane Museum.

21:56Kiernan:Got to book it ahead. And this is a house museum of a collector of art and antiquities. He was a professor who just amassed this enormous collection, converted his house into a museum. And it is one of the must-see spots. Every inch of it is packed with cool Roman pottery and pillars that were taken from archaeological sites and statues and paintings. It's just one of those houses that completely surrounds you in artistic goodies. And you just sit back and take it in as opposed to, again, reading every little placard. It's kind of the whole is the experience. I actually went here on on your advice a few years ago, and it's quite it is quite the place.

22:49Kiernan:Oh, it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. If you if you miss that, I think you really have to go back to London. A couple other like semi-obscure spots. People know to go to Covent Garden for shopping. It's become a little touristy, honestly. It's still pretty pleasant, though. It's got a nice like plaza that you can walk in. You can get lunch there. But there's a shop that I love that actually dates back to 1856. It's called Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop. This is where mom and I popped in to get some souvenirs for the grandkids. And what they specialize in is paper theaters, which are, you know, light cardboard reproductions of theatrical sets and even come with little figures so you can play out little plays, musicals, fairy tales.

23:44Kiernan:and they're super detailed, beautifully painted and crafted and cut. And they do historic ones. They do up-to-date ones. You should check out their Instagram and online presence. Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop. They do great little pop-up cards. And we got the kids these little paper models of double-decker buses and things. But they're not like a cheap tchotchke sort of things. They're really finely crafted paper art. I love these. I wound up on a on the Wikipedia that's got a list of notable people who have dabbled in toy theater. And it's quite it's quite the quite the list. I mean, I just think it's a very interesting souvenir and it's a great way to preserve these works of art that are created for theater.

24:36Kiernan:And then, you know, the scenery in the costume is torn down, but these paper theaters can let you take it home. And one thing that I love because this shop goes back, you know, over a hundred years, many famous people have visited it. And the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, has a quote about Pollux. He says, if you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollux. And I share that sentiment. Yeah. He's on this list of notable people who've dabbled in toy theater. So that's good. Well, there you go. Now, mom is a big musical fan, as I am. And I had thought, okay, this is how we'll plan our evenings.

25:16Kiernan:And it's always hard. Sometimes if you want to do a real food-focused trip, you got to set the nights aside for nice dinners. But we said, let's focus on theater. And as I was, I thought maybe one or two shows would be enough for our week there. But then I realized, and I think you know this, Ryan, especially the Times has done some reporting on this recently. Theater in London is still much more affordable than Broadway tickets. I mean, Broadway tickets have gotten to$300 for a ticket and up. I mean, really just insanity where I'm thinking of when you and I lived in New York. I mean, you used to be able to get a quick ticket for theater.