Home again, home again

Declan went to his middle school today for the first time, got his schedule and map to his classes.  Cal visited his kindergarden teacher.  It's official.  Summer is over. Reentry is complete.  Suitcases have been unpacked.  The freezer is starting to fill up again.  Juice boxes are on the shelves.  The list of things that we were planning to do once we got home can no longer be delayed. 

I have to write a blog entry that wraps up the trip.

It is impossible, really.  My impressions about the individual countries feels small compared to the experience of the past months. The overall emotion that binds the entire experience is gratitude.

I am grateful for trustworthy and clean renters who left the house clean and damage free for our arrival. They even left snacks!
I am thankful that no one got hurt, sick or even feeling oogy on the voyage.  Except for Blake, once, and that was cured almost immediately by the miracle of French pharmacuticals.
I am grateful that Round House Theatre worked so well while we were gone and yet were happy/relieved for Blake's return.
I am thankful that a tree didn't fall on our house.  It's my constant fear whenever there is a big windstorm.
I am grateful that the car started, no mice got into our clothes and the air conditioning still works.
I am thankful that we still like each other after 5 months of exclusivity: no friends, no collegues, no aquaintinces.
I am grateful for international text messaging so that friends, family and Montgomery County didn't seem so far away.
I am thankful that our credit cards worked almost everywhere we went.  Except for the purchase of French rail tickets and because it didn't work, we rode for free!!!
I am grateful for Cal's resiliency, Declan's sense of humor and Blake's confidence.
I am thankful for Nutella. It made many a breakfast treat.
But most of all I am grateful for Blake's courage to ask for and forge ahead with the idea of the sabbatical.  We couldn't have, wouldn't have, without him.  It was really nice to have him around.

Now I wanna go to Japan!  Next summer??

Best Quotations

1.  Quote: " More katsup, more katsup, more katsup, more katsup!"
 Scene: A French waiter walking away in disgust after Declan asked for more katsup at a seaside restaurant in southern France.
Dramatis personnae - Declan, Cal, Ace, Janet and Emma and cranky French waiter

2. Quote - Practice sentences in French - " I road a loaf of bread to the performance. I lived in Paris until the children were 40 years old."What I meant to say: " I took a bus to the performance. I lived in Paris until the children were 4 years old"
Scene: A cafe in Avignon getting a french tutoring session.
Dramatis personnae - Connan and Elodie and chuckling French lady overhearing our conversation.

3. Quote: "You are being a jerk. Do you know what a jerk is? J-E-R-K A jerk!"
Scene: Seaside arcade in southern France after tokens were placed in the wrong machine and the cranky French carney wouldn't return the money.
Lead Dramatis personnae - Ace and Crank French Carney.  Supporting players - Declan, Cal, Emma and Janet.

4. Quote: "The two of us, this town is not so big."
Scene: Somewhere in Sicily
Dramatis personnae - Unidentified Sicilian man after seeing Declan's hat and calling it a cowboy hat, Declan, Blake.


5. Quote: "Mommy, I think you need a extra nerve"
Scene:  A particulary tense time in Berlin
Dramatis personnae: Declan, Connan

6.  Quote: "Mommy, the French are disgusting."
Scene: Paris
Dramatis Personnae: Declan after learning that the French eat cow tongue, snails and occasionally, horse.

7. Quote: "TWO! TWO! TWO!" ""Kilograms?' "Yes, TWO! TWO! TWO!""Um, Cal? 2 Kilograms is about 4.5 lbs."
Scene:  In front of a churros stand in Seville
Dramatis Personnae:  Cal jumping up and down trying to get the vendor to give him 4.5 lbs of churros behind his mother's back.

8. Quote: "Cal, in this movie everything you want to blow up, will blow up."  "Can Decky blow up?"
Scene:  Watching INDEPENDENCE DAY on the computer for the first time.
Dramatis Personnae: Cal, Declan, Blake and Connan

9. Quote: "So when do we get to see Gandolf?"
Scene: living in the Trulli huts in Puglia, Italy.
Dramatis Personnae: Declan

10. Quote: "Mom, this tastes like hay!"
Scene: Eating a plate of green pasta at an agriturismo inn in Italy
Dramatis Personnae:  Cal

11. Quote: "Just EAT IT!"
Scene: Regarding a mayonnaise soaked hamburger at a restaurant in Little Munster, Germany.
Dramatis Personnae: Connan, Declan

12. Quote: "That's a good business plan, make your customers cry!"
Scene:  Ryan Air boarding line. Seville to Marseilles flight. Crying customer in front of us has to dump her running shoes into the trash can in order for her luggage to make the size specifications.
Dramatis Personnae:  Blake

13.Quote: "Bananas!"
Scene:  Lighting fast answer to the car ride game question, " What would you want to eat if you could only have one food for the rest of your life?"
Dramatis Personnae: Declan

14. Quote: "I'd kill a snitch.  I'm not saying I have...but I would."  and "Son of a gun it's a Starbucks!  Let's go have a cup of Joe."
Scene: Replays of Peyton Manning's SNL sketch and Lewis Black's "End of the Universe" comedy routine.
Dramatis Personnae: Cal

15. Quote: "It was a GREAT BIG PORKER!"
Scene: a dramatic reading of "Captain Pugwash and Pigwig" for Cal's bedtime story
Dramatis Personnae: Declan

16. Quote: "Just two please." "Uhmmm, no"
Scene: 47 Park in London turndown service when the maid brings chocolate to place on the pillow.
Dramatis Personnae: Eastern European maid who gives the kids fistfulls of chocolate, Cal, Declan and Connan.

17. Quote: "Chicken!  Gobble, gobble, gobble."  "Um Mom?  That's a turkey."
Scene:  Car ride from Granada to Sevilla when Connan is trying to get shame Declan into playing Family Feud on his itouch.
Dramatis Personnae: Connan and Dec.

18. Quote: "Blue cheese? No one puts blue cheese on a bagel!"
Scene : Car ride in Sicily playing a game of Family Feud and the topic is what do people put on top of bagels.
Dramatis Personnae: Connan

19. Quote: " I have a monkey on my head!"
Scene:  Rock of Gibraltar
Dramatis Personnae: Declan

20. Quote:   Messi!!!! Messi!!!"
Scene: The streets of Seville
Dramatis Personnae: 31 anonymous people

Things we've learned.

Not necessarily in order.

Declan likes fish - grilled, baked, fried.  You name it.  After checking the safe seafood list to make sure its OK, he loves that fish.  Last week he ordered and bought 2 dorade at the French seafood market, paid for them, brought em home, cleaned them himself and fried em up in a pan.

Cal hates siesta.  Will NOT do it.  Declan is OK with it.  Mom and Dad are big fans.

There are no serrated edges on the plastic wrap or aluminium foil boxes in Europe.  So you have to rip it.  Successful rips are highly unlikely and you usually end up with a triangular shaped piece which is hard to place over a bowl.

Dog poop is everywhere in France.  There a was one day last week when it seemed that every dog in Avignon had emptied his bowels right outside our door.  It was unbelievable.

Wine is cheap.  Good bottle = 3 or 4 euros.  This is true for Germany, Spain, Greece and France.

Laundry is expensive. Especially in Sicily where they dry clean it for you.  Even underwear.  Have you ever worn dry cleaned underwear before?  Its crunchy.

All Europeans only want to go to visit NYC, Miami or California in the US.  A few hold outs for New Orleans. The other places, not so much.

Itunes is invaluable.

Wifi = happiness

Shoes are really expensive here.  Even the cheap ones. And jeans are expensive too.

Food in grocery stores is cheap in Berlin.  Food in grocery stores is expensive in France.

Germany has the best playgrounds.  Spain had no playgrounds.

Mosquitos can ruin a whole night's sleep.

Ryan Air sucks.

Europeans love the football player Messi and little kids.

Cafe con leche > cafe au lait and cafe latte

Mini skirts and leggings are in and astonishingly Speedos are out!

Everyone under 30 smokes and everyone over 50 rides their bikes.

Home school is tough - for everyone.

Nutella is the breakfast of champions.

No one in the family likes flan except for Connan.

Road signs are for people who already know where they are going.

Summertime pic

Italians have never seen a stop sign that has actually caused them to stop.

We have arrived in Avignon for our final 3 weeks and the city is humming with activity.  Every available surface has a poster hanging it advertising the shows contained in the simultaneous festivals, the "In" and "Off". You could start your day with a show at 9 AM, (AM shows are usually a kid-friendly marionette/clown performance), see theatre all day long and then take your seat for the last performance of the day at 12:45 AM (PM shows are usually a reworking of Moliere with guns or burlesque striptease artists).  Over 800 groups are presenting their wares at the "Off".  You get your performance guide that is as thick as a local phone book, try and decipher when, where and what kind of show looks intriguing to you ( tous les descriptions en Francais) and then off you go.  So far, we have seen: a fab clown named Buno who does his own stunts and ends his show hoisted midair with an upright piano singing "The Impossible Dream" accompanied by copious amounts of paper snow, incredibly loud traditional drumming from Taiwan and a circus troupe whose tallest member had a severe case of the dropsies whenever his juggling talent was called upon.  Now THAT's theatre! We'll pack more in the next few weeks.

The "In" festival is a bit more high-brow.  Blake is catching Juliette Binoche tonight in her version of "Miss Julie" and I saw a pretty straightforward Russian farce called "Le Suicide"a couple of days ago.  It was so-so.  It may have been so-so to me mainly because I was freezing as Le Mistral had started blowing the day before and the show was outside and 2 1/2 hrs long.  Brr.  Still it was nice to be brrr after scorching Spain.

But the good news is that my Dad is in town with Janet and Emma and we have spent the past few days taking them to our favorite restaurant, L'Epicerie, shuffling them through the daily market, Les Halles and danced on the Pont d'Avignon. Janet lived in France in her youth so she has command of the language.  My Dad, not so much.  But we have managed to feed all 7 of us and have a great time.  We went to Pond du Gard which is a huge Roman aqueduct about 25 minutes from here.  The area is also a swimming, kayaking and sunbathing location.  We bought our food goodies at the market, piled in the car and recreated "Dejuner sur l'herbe," without the naked lady.  It was a blast.

Tales of the Alhambra

Cal has visited his last European museum.  And the end couldn’t have come any sooner for him.  That boy is done.  It took everything we had to get him through this one.  He wasn’t excited to go.  He was cranky about the car ride. He was underwhelmed by the beautiful gardens.  He couldn’t even muster a smile for the camera.  That boy is done!  Declan managed to squeak out a bit of enthusiasm for the dungeons, the famous Alhambra bell, and have a good long tease about the audio guide. 

The English version of the audio guide is mainly excerpts from Washington Irving’s “Tales of the Alhambra” with a few choice historical bits thrown in for good measure.  When you are an 11 year old boy whose main interest is the history of warfare, zombies and vampires, Irving’s romantic notions of a mysterious palace and the secrets which it holds does not capture your interest.  I paraphrase - “Oh, many a day I awoke to see the Tower of the Three Princesses. Their mystery and the glow of the tower in the sunset helped my imagination take flight.”  Hmmm.  To Declan that quickly became, “Oh how I long to take this pomegranate and throw it at the princess’ heads and see how it would explode.”  And his improvisations went downhill from there.  Of course, that was better than Mr. Callum Mopeypants.  But these are the perils of traveling with children.  They have, for the most part, been extremely game.

I thought the Alhambra was gorgeous.  The gardens were spectacular and it was heartening to see so many people enjoy it.  There were many Muslim families there snapping away with their cameras, recording themselves in front of the intricate stone and wood carvings.  The gardens were full of Jasmine and small fountains.  Although the day was scorching hot, the gardens and the hillside location made it seem cool.  Blake and I agreed, however, that the Real Alcazar back in Seville was just as impressive.  In Seville, the gardens were even more impressive because they were unexpected.  Isn’t that funny.  When one’s expectations are high, they can only hope to be met.  When one’s expectations are low, they can be surpassed.

Sung to the tune of "Oklahoma"

Olvera - where the sun beats down upon the plain,
And the scalding heat is not so sweet,
And the heat stroke drives a man insane!

Olvera - every night my sweaty wife and I,
Try to go to sleep and count the sheep,
But the sweat keeps tricklin' down my thigh!

You know we depend on the fans,
Cuz the sweat it pours out of our glands!

So when we say - whoa!
Its 105 today - Yikes!
We're only sayin'
You're really hot Olvera
Olvera Ole!

A break in the weather

We left Seville on Saturday after Blake and I had watched the required flamenco performance.  There are sandwich boards all over town with passionate photos with of men and women with furrowed brows and downwardly cast eyes.  Performances every night at 21:00.  Everywhere. We chose the venue right around the corner as it was right around the corner and it was relatively inexpensive.

For our money we got a guitarist, a singer, a clapper, a male dancer, a female dancer and a whole lot of sweat.  The place was stifling. It was in the courtyard of a building that the sun had beaten on mercilessly all day long with only a thin canvas sail for cover.  Think "Cool Hand Luke"  without the eggs. But the performers seemed game and they gave it all they had, especially the singer and the male dancer.  The singer was male and was singing in Spanish of course, but it struck me how much he sounded like a muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer.  There are more dyanamics and range to the flamenco ballads but you can hear the similarities.  All of the sudden, the muslim world seemed very nearby and it was beautiful. But it was still hot.

Now we are in Olvera, a pueblo blanco village in Andelucia about an hour from Seville.  My friend Melissa and her husband Daud, both artists, have bought a house here and they are back in the states awaiting the paperwork that will allow them to live and work here.  They are both chomping at the bit to arrive and start their work and start painting so I am trying to give her tidbits to savor while she bides her time.  The tidbits are these:
There is a jasmine bush right outside her kitchen window that is blooming. It is so fragrant it makes you want to cry.
They have a large terrace and the stars at night are like a blanket.
She has a coffee pod machine and Blake has fell in love with it.
They have their art on the walls, many still lifes, and images from a recent trip to Morocco.
There are 3 levels so the boys and the parents don't always have to be in each other's hair.

But when we got here on Saturday it was still hot. Close, sweaty.  It makes Blake cranky. But Sunday morning the weather broke and it was windy and almost chilly!  Heaven.

Then we went to Ronda, a spectacular town that is split in two by a gorge. The famous bullfighting ring is there and there are streets named after Ernest Hemingway and Orson Wells and Rilke the poet.  Each seemed to appreciate and praise the village in their own way.  We had pizza and sweets.  A nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, sweat-free.

2 outlaws

The gorge that cuts thru town

Look at that sky!