France and the return home

what can i say? now that we are back in Madison, i am reminded again of that delicious feeling you have when you return home and everything is familiar. sure, we missed our cherries completely this year, but my friend has invited us to come and pick his raspberries tomorrow.

don't get me wrong. i LOVE to travel and this trip was great. i am so glad to have experienced Barcelona and France. but travelling with 2 kids wasn't easy, even though i felt i had prepped pretty well. the girls have some fond memories that they keep talking about (the water park in Barcelona, the puppet show in Lyon), but i'm glad they don't remember all the whining about the long walks. :) i hope Skye will remember some of the beautiful artwork she saw in Barcelona and Paris and be inspired by them. i hope the girls will be enriched by the experience.

in my last entry, i talked a little bit about what we were enjoying in Lyon. looking back, i think Lyon was the one place where i really focused on activities for the children. Barcelona and Paris were mainly for me. :)

what was great about Lyon was staying with our friends, Gregoire and Sophie. they have a beautiful place where the girls felt right at home. on our last day in Lyon, Phil took the girls in the morning, giving me a chance to run off to the Musee des Beaux Arts. it had a really good collection, but what made the time really pleasurable was the fact that the museum was almost completely empty. i could wander around the museum at my own leisure. in the afternoon, we took the girls to La Maison de Guignol to see a puppet show. Guignol is the main character and he usually gets himself into trouble and he enlists the children's help throughout the show. when we bought the tickets, they asked for the names of our girls and in the middle of the show, Guignol suddenly started speaking in broken English, asking Skye and Claire to think of a lullaby to sing to him! he apologized for his bad English, saying it is because he is French. the girls were mesmerized. they didn't sing for Guignol, but they eagerly went backstage at the end of the show to meet the puppeteers and to see the puppets up close.

Lyon is well known for its gastronomy, so we enjoyed really great french cuisine. our friends and Phil's colleagues took us to brasseries that have been around for really long time - our friends pointed out the Art Deco style of the interiors. but what i love most about Lyon are its two rivers - the Saone and the Rhone. the two meet in Lyon so the city is split into three sections: the old part of Lyon, the Presqu'il (the island between the 2 rivers) and the newer section of Lyon. the girls and i spent many pleasant days walking up and down the river.

after 5 days in Lyon, we took the train to Paris. i started to get myself mentally prepared for all the zipping around. our apartment was in the 1st arondissement, a block away from the Louvre, just across the street from a bakery and sandwich shop. Phil went down to the bakery every morning to pick up fresh bread and pastries for breakfast. it was heaven. our first evening in Paris, as i was unpacking, we had the great big windows open and suddenly we hear music from down below. we all peeked down to see a trumpeter, a saxophonist and a keyboard player playing as they strolled down the street. their music wasn't free - they had their plastic cups out - but it was a great way to begin our Paris stay.

the next day, we did the Musee Picasso which was in the La Marais. Phil and i loved La Marais. i think if we ever return to Paris, we would love to stay there. after Picasso, Skye and i went to the Pompidou. we only managed to see the Kandinsky exhibit. they also had a Calder special exhibit, but the wait was too long and Skye was breaking down by then. the view of Paris was amazing from Pompidou. i would love to return to Pompidou as well - there was so much to see there and just too many people to allow for a thorough viewing.

the following day was an outing to the largest flea market in Paris - Marche aux Puces de St. Ouen. not a place to go for a bargain, but it is an amazing place. like London's Portabello. there were beautiful mirrors i wished i could take home, chandeliers in almost every stall, and lots of furniture and silver. we mainly looked and managed to find a few old prints to bring back and frame.

14th July was Bastille day. Phil took Skye early in the morning to see the parade. i wasn't sure how Claire would handle the crowd, so she and i slept in. when we woke up, we looked out our window to see horsemen lined up, getting ready to go to the parade. Claire was so excited!! we watched the planes fly over our building, so we got to see some of the parade from the apartment. :) Skye says watching the parade was one of her favourite things about Paris. there's something about all the pomp and circumstance the children really responded to. i guess we don't have too much of that here in the US.

one final museum for me was the Rodin. i enjoyed it the most because i went by myself and there were very few people there since i got there rather early. sensual...muscular...were words that came to my mind as i walked around Rodin's sculptures. and the garden was impressive. i longed to have a sketchbook there with me so that i could sketch some of the sculptures, but maybe another time.

the girls had fun at the Jardin de Tuileries which was several blocks away from the apartment. at the pond, there was a man who rented out little wooden boats with cloth sails. for 2 euros, the girls got a stick and a boat for half an hour. they could push the boats out into the pond with their sticks and follow them around.

as i mentioned earlier, we enjoyed fresh baked pastries every day. we also enjoyed going to the Vietnamese section of town and eating bowls of pho. the girls and i gorged ourselves on crepes. and some nights, we ate in which the girls preferred. on our last night, we were in the Montmartre neighbourhood and stopped at a fantastic Moroccan restaurant. the tagine and couscous were amazing.

this next paragraph will be about the shopping, so if you hate shopping, you can simply skip over this one. we were in europe at the peak of their sale season. all the stores were having huge sales to clear out everything for the new collection. i didn't go to the big name places, but i had two stores in mind, mainly because they only have stores in France. Soeur is a clothing store for young girls in their teens, but i thought i would definitely find clothes that actually fit me! and the other was Repetto, the creator of dance inspired shoes. i avoided wearing ballet flats all these years because they always seemed to make my legs look really short and stubby, but not the ones i tried on at Repetto! :D i missed going to a store called Colette because it was closed every time i walked by it, but it's supposed to have all kinds of really cool stuff. another time!

i find myself thinking that a lot about Paris - next time! will we return to Paris? i hope so. i feel like there's just so much to explore. i've just scraped the top of all that's there. but i would also like to visit when there aren't so many tourists. i have nothing against tourists, but they do make the city harder to navigate. :)

since there are so many photos and i couldn't possibly upload all of them here, please go to this link. i'll try to add some more photos from Paris i haven't had a chance to add yet.

Beautiful Lyon

i really wish i could post some photos of Lyon, but i still can't get my computer to connect, so i'm stuck using our friends' computer for now.

Lyon has been a great place to stop in, in between our time in Barcelona and Paris. the pace is slower; it's a smaller city; and it's got a terrific free zoo and park. the girls and i have been going there every day. :) today, they even got to ride an antique carousel (although i have a feeling every carousel we ride in France will be an antique).

we are staying with some friends who are from Lyon. they have been cooking us some fantastic food. and last night, we visited with a korean family living here - i had met the wife 3 years ago when Phil was interviewing for a job here - and the girls had a great time playing with their son who is just a year older than Skye.

Barcelona was all about zipping around, trying to catch some sights, but Lyon has had none of that stress. here, we are enjoying good friends and good food (and good wine of course) and lovely weather. à bientot!

Catching up

our last few days in Barcelona were rather busy and packed and now that we are in Lyon, i am unable to access the internet on my computer and am having to use our friends...so, since i cannot post any photos, i will have to write. and i am using a french keyboard, so if you see some bizarre typos, you can blame the keyboard. :)

we made it to Gaudi's La Pedrera, a beautiful building that reminded me of desert dunes, esp up at the rooftop, surrounded by the heads of medieval knights. we took the train south to Sitges where the beaches are supposed to be calm and less crowded than in Barcelona. the girls loved playing on the beach, but they complained alot about all the walking they had to do in the city. i did my best to find them some treats to help with the walking. we loved stopping for churros and hot chocolate. the hot chocolates are super thick and oh so delicious!!! i could have churros and hot chocolate for the rest of my life. :)

when i was reading up on Gaudi before we got to Barcelona, i remember reading that Gaudi believed Barcelona to be the best place for art because of the light. he believed that the sunlight in Barcelona was unlike anywhere else. it made me curious to see for myself. the light was indeed beautiful. the sun shone everyday and set really late at night. and perhaps the sun did make all the colours more vibrant. i don't know, but i do feel inspired to return home and paint.

will give an update on Lyon later...

A Day with Gaudi

we started the day by going to Parc Guell. my poor girls. actually, my poor arms. i pushed Claire uphill all the way up to the park in 90 degree heat. but it was all worth it. it was worth it to buy the girls popsicles just so they'd be distracted from the heat. it was worth the endless, are we there yet?? i'd seen pictures of Parc Guell, but they couldn't quite convey the magical quality of the place. if you took away the heat and all the tourists (us included) :) Parc Guell seemed like a place for fairies and nymphs. how did Gaudi do it?

when i explained to Skye how Gaudi used broken tiles to create his mosaics, she felt quite inspired. i told her she could do the same thing, just substitute tiles for paper. i think we have an art project to do when we get back home!

while i was busy admiring Gaudi's work and taking pictures of the beauty around us, others were busy taking pictures of Claire. yes, she upstaged Gaudi! a mother with 3 teenage daughters thought she was the cutest thing and asked me permission to take pictures of Claire as she was pushing her stroller with her bear strapped in.





Gaudi's pink house in the background





in the afternoon, Phil and i went to the Sagrada Familia. i was truly impressed by some of the unexpected ways Gaudi chose to portray some of the very familiar and traditional aspects of cathedrals. first, as we entered through the Passion facade, i was struck by the cross of Christ sticking out horizontally from the facade, instead of hanging vertically. and then inside, the numbers of columns were dazzling, despite the ongoing construction. a placard explained that Gaudi was inspired by trees when he conceived of the design for the columns. he wanted people to feel like they were sitting in a forest. i couldn't imagine a better setting than sitting under trees for worship.



the cross of Christ hangs out horizontally


columns inspired by trees







while at Sagrada Familia, i was glad we didn't have our kids with us. there were several families there and all the kids were whining and complaining about the heat. i couldn't blame them. of what interest is Gaudi to them? :) my kids were with our sitter again. the other day, we went out in search of a playground for Skye and Claire and instead discovered something we have been calling "the water park." it is where the locals with kids hang out. we almost missed it - the entrance is a dark corridor in the middle of a block that opens up onto a courtyard surrounded by tall apartment buildings. this courtyard has a wading pool surrounded by sand. the girls had a great time jumping into the water and playing with the sand. Claire was so upset when we had to leave. i had to remind her she would return with our sitter. so that was where they were while Phil and i took off to catch some sights. :)



after Sagrada Familia, we headed over to Barrio Gotic. we saw sections of the old Roman wall. i was also hoping to wander around, looking for the bookstore from Carlos Ruiz Zafon's books, but unfortunately, we haven't discovered it yet. we found Carrer de Santa Ana which could be the Calle de Santa Ana from "The Shadow of the Wind", but alas, no bookstore.

First days in Barcelona

all in all, the flight here wasn't as bad as it could have been. we had to make 2 connections, something i as a former flight attendant shudder at - more connections means more opportunities for things to go wrong. we connected in Detroit and JFK and of course JFK is the important connection where things could go wrong. when we landed in JFK, we sat on the runway for over an hour before they finally pulled up some stairs and bused us to a satellite terminal. we made it to our flight to Barcelona just in time.

when we landed in Barcelona, we were all groggy from lack of sleep, but happy to feel the warm air outside. the apartment is in a central part of town called Eixample, just a block or two away from Gaudi's La Pedrera. can't really complain about the location or the apartment. with kids, it's been wonderful to have a kitchen and to be close to stores and the Metro line. we haven't made it in to La Pedrera yet, but Skye and i admire it every time we walk by. we hope to stop in soon.

so far, we've been trying to adjust to the time change. initially, we thought we should stay on US time since the Spanish eat really late and none of the restaurants open for dinner before 9 in the evening, but that got to be really exhausting. things do open up much later here. we went to the aquarium this morning - it was around 11 in the morning, but things were still opening up.

yesterday, Skye and Claire went to the zoo with Samantha, our babysitter from Madison. can you believe it? i couldn't believe it when Samantha told me back in May that she would be in Barcelona when we would visit! she is here taking some Spanish courses. Samantha watched the girls while Phil and i snuck off to the Fundacio Joan Miro. it was inspiring to see so many of Miro's works.

we have wandered down Las Ramblas, bought groceries at Mercat de la Boqueria, sat by the fountains of Placa de Catalunya, and gone up the funicular to Tibidabo, an amusement park on top of the hills looking down on Barcelona.

i have discovered that Barcelona is more like LA than NYC. in some ways, i had expected Barcelona to be convenient to navigate because it has a very good public transportation, but the city is sprawling. it takes quite a hike to get from one end to the other. but overall, the girls are handling all the walking quite well. we brought Skye's foot scooter with us and that has been helpful when we have to walk long distances.

oh, and i have had my shopping fix at Mango whose face is Penelope Cruz. :)

i'll post some more photos as i have time to upload, but here are a few.

aerial view of Barcelona as we flew in


church at the top of Tibidabo