Ohm.

The kids had their first yoga lesson the other day. (Can the fake surprise. You knew it was just a matter of time.)

But Amanda, how did you get those wild 5- and 6-year-olds to settle down enough to find their inner peace? Yeah, I didn't. It was definitely Yoga, Adjusted.

Simple enough. To start with, anything without a cool name, got a cool name, or at least a cooler name. "Dive forward into forward fold" became "dolphin", "plank" became "slide", and we were on our way.

In cobra, I let them slither around. We ran into some trouble when's Pete's cobra grew legs, but one reminder was all it took. As cats we meowed, as downward dogs we shook our tails in the air, and as warriors we carried giant swords. They especially liked standing still in mountain pose so our enemies would think we were, yes, mountains, until the bad guys were close enough for us to pull out our swords and get 'em. Those suckers didn't even know what had hit them.

Then I said, "Next we're going to do table" and Pete shifted into a perfect table pose, as if he'd been doing this yoga thing for years. "Pete, that's exactly right!" I said. (For the non-yogi readers, table is basically a crab walk, but you don't walk, and your spine and thighs are parallel to the ground, hands directly under your shoulders, fingers pointed toward your toes, ankles right under your knees, etc....so it's a logical pose considering the name, but still impressive that the five-year-old got right to it.)

Carl couldn't get over it. "How Pete know that?" he kept saying. I coudln't stop laughing long enough to offer up an explanation.

The best part? We spent the better part of an hour at yoga, because they kept wanting to learn "just one more." The other best part?

"Let's do this every day."

The as-far-as-I'm-concerned-boring-by-comparison-to-the-theatre details of the London trip.

I was lucky, lucky to know someone in London who was so generous as to let me stay at her home, which was located right by Marble Arch, which made getting around incredibly easy. Just two blocks to the underground station, and I was on my way.

Contrary to what it may seem, I did do things besides go to the theatre.

The National Gallery. I'm a big fan of the art museum. I would have spent all day in here, but I had to be at a theatre before 2:00. I did manage to see Venus and Mars, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, The Origin of the Milky Way, and numerous impressive works by Peter Paul Rubens. I missed Van Gogh's Sunflowers, but it's easy to see why -- the gallery contains almost 2,500 paintings. If you don't have immediate plans to travel to London, you can see all of these paintings online at www.nationalgallery.org/uk.

Tate Modern. I journeyed all the way across town before I remembered that I'm just not that into modern art. Yeah, it was fun to look around, but I couldn't have spent a day there if I'd tried without wanting to cut off my foot and hang it on the wall. Highlights included works by Pollock, Monet, and Picasso. Lowlights included the piece that looked like the artist had thrown a can of red paint at the canvas. Indeed, the card beside it read, "The artist angrily threw red paint at the canvas and let it drip." Angrily. Yeah, see, I missed that.

In addition, I

a) ate, notably at ICCo (pizza) and Mr. Jerk (Caribbean).
b) counted no fewer than 11 couples making out on the subway escalators.
c) consumed an apple in front of Buckingham Palace, which is basically like dining with the queen.

What does this mean for a self-proclaimed musical-hater?

I saw Grease on television when I was a child. I asked, "Why are they singing? People don't do that in real life." So began my wary tolerance of the musical.

There were exceptions, of course. The first play I ever saw was Camelot, and I was captivated by it. My grandma took me to see musicals every summer, and I liked them all.

Before long I was able to group musicals according to those I was sure to like and those I was sure to hate.

Sure to Like:

* Anything with another unrealistic element. For example, if a plant can talk, people can sing their way through life. Little Shop of Horrors.

* Anything where it made sense for the characters to sing. If they're performers, they're likely to sing and dance. So sing and dance. Chicago.

* Anything that's really funny or exaggerated. If I'm laughing, I'll excuse the songs. Once Upon a Mattress.

Sure to Hate:

* Anything else.

As I got older yet, more and more musicals started creeping into the Sure to Like category. Suddenly, all it took was good music. All it took was a moving story. Rent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Les Miserables joined the group. Before I knew it, I was listening to the soundtracks in my car. And singing along. And I liked it.

Fast forward to the here and now. I was recently in London, paying to see musicals because I wanted to do so. Not only that, I fell in love with another one: Phantom of the Opera. The Sure to Like list is making me look like not such a musical-hater, after all.

Where does a person go from here?

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

My only real plan when I got on the plane to London was that I wanted to see some plays. And that I did.

Phantom of the Opera This was fantastic. Beautiful. Only Hedwig and Les Miserables moved me as much as this did. The voices were phenomenal, and the guy playing the Phantom was a great actor as well as a singer.

The most impressive part of this show was the set. It was quite a spectacle. Things were flying in and out left and right. There was fog and fire. There was a moment when an actor jumped off the bridge into the water...and disappeared. Truly impressive, all around.

I don't usually like musicals, but the list of musicals I like it growing longer and longer. What does this mean for a self-proclaimed muscial-hater? To find out, see tomorrow's entry, tentatively titled, "What does this mean for a self-proclaimed musical-hater?"

The Cut A great new play by Mark Ravenhill starring IAN MCKELLAN, who blew me away. What an actor. So natural, believable. The woman playing his wife held her own, but the others were weakened in his presence.

I had good seats for this show, which I was lucky to get as it is sold out through the entire run. It's a small, intimate theatre, which is perfect for this intense show.

While in line for The Cut, I met a woman from Minnesota. Her husband was from Watertown. I saw her that night at the show and two days later in line for another show. While there we discovered we'd been at the same show again the night before. It was kind of fun to see someone you know in a place where you're not supposed to know anyone.

In bonus news: I ran into Ian McKellan on the street two days later. Almost literally. I had to side-step.

The Producers I enjoyed this production, but it's sort of on the list of musicals I don't care that much about. It's a little too Guys and Dolls-y for me. But it was funny. The whole "Springtime for Hitler" bit was especially amusing. I would have preferred to see this on Broadway with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. I think I'll probably like the movie if I get around to seeing it.

I had a "restricted view" seat because it was the cheapest, but it wasn't a big deal. I had to lean forward in my seat the whole time, but as long as I did that I could see just fine.

Embers I was just too tired to watch this from a restricted view balcony seat. Let it be known that serious plays like this should not be watched from a restricted view seat, nor from a seat too far from the stage, no matter how much cheaper it might be. It was a good production of an interesting play. Jeremy Irons was fantastic...he had 95% of the lines, and he kept me captivated. (It was a very, very talky play. They just talked. Sat and talked. Talked it out. Talked.) It was hard to get involved, though, being so far away from the action.

The Night of the Iguana So good. Woody Harrelson was the lead, and for whatever reason I wasn't expecting that much from him, but he delivered. Clare Higgins, who played Maxine, was also excellent, and they were great together. The other lead was weak in comparison. She drove me crazy, in fact. Didn't like her. The German couple and the woman who was the head lady of Shannon's tour group of ladies were a little too character-ish....they didn't quite fit with the rest of the production, but they were funny. The set and effects were nice. It got actually windy, it got actually rainy.

I had a great seat that was also cheap...good timing did that for me.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf One of my favorite plays, and with Kathleen Turner, no less...but I was terribly disappointed. Maybe because another restricted view seat positioned me in a place that cut off the upper 20% of the stage. Sometimes all I saw were feet. The rest of the time, all I saw were the tops of heads. It was also very hard to hear. This made it difficult, again, to get emotionally invested with what was happening. If this had been the first time I'd ever seen this show, I probably wouldn't have liked it. So disappointing.

The highlight was that I saw next to an actor from Manchester, so we talked theatre during the intermissions.

But without the fish and chips.

I spent the last four days in London.

Fair warning: I spent most of my time watching plays and hopping from theatre to theatre. If you don't care about theatre, hmm.

British Word of the Day: interval. Intermission.

This was my first ever trip all by myself. I thought I'd hate it. A large part of the joy of traveling, for me, is having someone with whom to share the experience, with whom to reminisce when it's over. There were definitely moments when I felt that void -- at the intervals of Phantom of the Opera and The Night of the Iguana, for example, when I so wanted someone with whom to awe over what we'd just seen. After I'd recovered from that, though, I really enjoyed being on my own.

I'll still take a travel buddy, but there's something to be said for not having to make any concessions about what you do with your time in the foreign land.

There are some things you should know about London:

* It is a terrifically friendly city. Everyone I talked to, from the bus drivers to the restaurant workers to the strangers on the street to the people who sat beside me at the theatre, was incredibly helpful and nice.

* It is a terrifically expensive city. One pound is almost two dollars, so money doesn't seem to go very far. The cheapest theatre seats I found were 10 pounds (18 dollars) and they were terrifically terrible.

* There is approximately one Starbucks for every London resident.

* It's an excellent place to walk around. For extra fun, count the Starbucks to determine the population.

Maybe it's luck.

It has occurred to me, on almost a daily basis, that I am terrifically fortunate. For countless reasons, but my whereabouts is what I keep thinking of.

I could have wound up as an au pair for any family in the world. The kids could have been horrible. The parents could have been cold, disrespectful, overly demanding, unhelpful, or a myriad of other negative things.

Instead, I'm here. This is probably the best family I could have possibly found or, rather, the best family that could have found me. Rick and Carien have been nothing but helpful and accomodating. The kids are fun to be around and well-behaved, for the most part. I feel comfortable and at home here. They are why this is and will continue to be such a magnificent experience.

A good pair of black pants is all you really need.

I've become a notoriously light packer, which makes it pretty difficult to get ready to go anywhere. Invariably, I get there and wish I had packed more stuff.

I'm going to London for a few days, and it has already taken me a couple of hours to pack. I'm not done. I haven't actually packed anything. Mostly I just stood in front of my closet and considered my clothing options, which are fairly limited due to the fact that everything I have here once fit in two suitcases.

This is London, after all. A girl's gotta look classy.

Dutch Lessons

Pete and Amanda are building with Legos.

Pete: Look how much we have of these things. (Holds up two Lego wheelbarrows.)

Amanda: Two wheelbarrows!

Pete: How you say that?

Amanda: Wheelbarrow. How do you say that in Dutch?

Pete: I not know that.

Pause.

Pete: Why you say "Dutch"?

Amanda: That's English for Nederlands. Like you say Engels and I say English. You say Nederlands and I say Dutch.

Pete: (Giggle.) Why you say Nederlands not good?

Amanda: Because I don't speak Dutch! It's hard to say things correctly because I haven't been practicing it my whole life. It's just like you need to practice your English.

Pete: I not need practice me English. I speak English really much.

My list of marketable skills continues to grow.

But first, rounding out the Carnaval Top Eleven:

11. The White Christmas remix.

I'm getting the hang of this bicycle thing. After merely a month with my fiets, I have been known to perform such death-defying stunts as those mentioned in the following bulleted list:

* Unzip my coat and remove my hat and gloves without so much as a wobble. (I'm still struggling with the ever-popular Put-Gloves-In-Inner-Coat-Pocket-Without-So-Much-As-A-Wobble trick.)

* Look to the right or left for extended periods of time (3+ seconds) without running into anything.

* Not flinch when cars pass closely enough for me to touch them with my elbow.

Just think of where I'll be after another 11 months.

In the meantime, I'm missing my borrowed copy of Guitar for Dummies, which I returned to its rightful owner before leaving the States. It was my guide to the guitar world, and without it I am lost in the massive tangle of chords I haven't yet learned and the songs I can't quite play because of it.

Carnaval Top Ten

1. Wearing a witch hat.

2. Watching three little boys spin around the pole (early in the evening) while their parents played drums and trumpets in one of the bands that stopped in to play a song and then left.

3. Linda dancing on the bar.

4. The bartender dancing on the bar.

5. Listening to a middle-aged man tell me, with true Dutch openness, all about why Carnaval is such a celebration and how lives are supposed to be lived during Lent, which my comparitive American modesty prevents me from repeating.

6. A bartender carrying a tray of full drinks on top of a tray of full drinks on top of a TRAY OF FULL DRINKS (that's 3) on top of his fingertips high above the throng.

7. Not getting assaulted by any creepers.

8. Waiting alone in the bar for my friends, sitting in the corner and looking mysterious until curious people came to talk to me. Didn't take long.

9. Watching Freek (pronounced Frayk) totally live up his nerd costume.

10. Being there.