One Year Ago

Wednesday July 1

I can't believe it, one year ago today we were on a plane for Paris! That means we have been back for as long as we were gone - 6 months. You know how you have these big events in your life: marriage, moving, and kids. You say stuff like, "Did we do such and such before or after so and so was born.?" Or you say, "Wow we've been parents for 8 years now!" No we do that in reference to "the trip". It was such a huge and wonderful experience that we shared together.

Sometimes it seems like we were just in Spain last month and if you saw how many boxes are still in our garage you would actually believe it. I haven't even posted all the pics from our cruise back in November! Now I just want to go back everyday this summer and see where we were one year ago. Hey, this could be a blog about the trip forever. OK, I guess you would get tired of that - time to move on. I just removed the itineraries from the side bar so people wouldn't get confused. If you need to see them one last time, here you go.

The Trip
6/30 - Depart from PDX
7/01 - Paris, France
7/05 - Scotland
7/12 - Edinburgh
7/20 - Cardiff, Wales
7/22 - Bristol, England
7/25 - Oxford, England
7/27 - London, England
8/03 - Bruges, Belgium
8/06 - Amsterdam
8/09 - Prague
8/16 - Milan, Italy
8/18 - Barcelona, Spain
8/25 - Granada, Spain
12/16- Carolinas for Christmas
12/31 - Home for New Years Eve!


Cruise
Nov 20 Fly to Venice
Nov 22 Bon Voyage
Nov 23 Dubrovnik, Croatia
Nov 25 Santorini, Greece
Nov 27 Tunis, Tunisia
Nov 29 Malaga, Spain
Nov 30 Casablanca, Morocco
Dec 2 debark in Lisbon, Portugal
Dec 3 Seville, Spain
Dec 5 back to Granada

Ahhh, what a trip!

Friday Flashback: Dubrovnik, Croatia

Friday, April 9
Why have I waited almost four months to blog about the cruise we took last November? I have no good excuse, but it's not because we didn't have a great time. Cruises are the way to travel with kids! Right now I'm hanging out in a hotel near SeaTac airport. We are all headed to the Science Fiction Convention today, an annual stop for us on the way to visit the cousins in the Seattle area for Easter. Yes, I could have some very interesting pictures to post next week.

Here is what I found on the laptop regarding Dubrovnik which was written on Sunday, November 23, 2008.

Cute little town surrounded by a wall that we walked on top of. It was pretty cold and the girls begged to go back to the boat the whole time. We had lunch at a little restaurant by the water and had some yummy shrimp and seafood risotto that had a little too much seafood for me. I pretty much only like peeled shrimp and shelled crab. Luckily Kevin doesn’t mind foraging for his food and for his family too.
Click here for more pics of Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Happy 2009

January 9, 2009

We're back, blog's over.

OK, just kidding. How could I stop posting pictures of my kids. Plus I have a ton of cruise pictures that still haven't been posted, but I'm getting closer. We made it safe and sound to the Carolinas where we visited Kevin's family for the holidays. Just as we were getting ready for bed our first night there, Kevin's watch alarm went off. Oh, that was the alarm that woke us up exactly 48 hours earlier to leave our Granada apartment to head home for the States. What a long trip. Before we were fully recovered from the jet lag, the girls and I started getting colds. I took full advantage of being on vacation for two more weeks and let my in-laws take care of us, playing with the girls and planning all the meals while I rested and recovered, which included reading four books in 10 days (Thanks again Gma Flo). The girls enjoyed some sunny days playing outside before coming to Oregon.

Here are some clouds I spotted from the plane after leaving North Carolina. I'm sure they have a scientific name, but I don't know it.

Thankfully we missed the almost 2 week snow storm here. What did they call it? The arctic blast? We made it home just in time to bring in the new year arriving to our house around 10pm. The house looked a little empty, luckily most of our furniture was moved in before we arrived though. (Thank you Gpa Bubba & Uncle Tom!) We unpacked our suitcases on a very rainy New Years Day and enjoyed dinner with my parents and brother.
The girls were so excited it snowed about two inches before they woke up the next morning and they could barely finish their breakfast.

I stayed inside and didn't get hit by this snow ball thrower.

The girls started school on Monday and both are very happy to be back home and reunited with their friends. Sydney says she's never leaving Oregon again. Kevin is preparing for classes to start next Monday and I'm in denial that we really do have a lot of moving back in to do. All our stuff is boxed up in the garage since we rented our house while we were gone. It would be so much easier if it was an actual move and I had just packed those boxes last week, but after 6 months and a very rushed packing job, I'm not sure where anything is. We're taking it slow, but some things you need right away.
Don't worry I finally found the can opener. Now, I'm looking for the toaster.

24 hours

Sunday, December 14

OK, we leave Granada in less than 24 hours and we are trying not to dread the two day trip to the States. First we catch a train to Madrid, then quick catch a taxi to the airport and fly to Paris, hoping that none of our bags are over the 20 kilo limit. Then we have to spend tomorrow night in Paris, but at least we'll have all morning to find an eclair. On the way to North Carolina we have a layover in Detroit, I forget how long, but at least I hear they have a really nice airport. Then Kevin's mom will pick us up at 11pm, so glad it will be time to sleep when we arrive. Three out of four suitcases are packed, but I don't think everything else is going to make it into the last one. I foresee some repacking in our futures and leaving more used, but maybe not so useful items to my friend Antonia. It's a good thing I'll be gone as she'll probably be cursing me while sorting through all the great things I've given her. I'm hoping it won't rain today so we can have one last farewell walk around the neighborhood and I won't get wet working on the recycling. Farewell to new friends and we'll see you soon old friends and family.

Venice

Tuesday December 9

While I freak out about packing and cleaning I will let you guys ponder Venice.

Go straight to the pics here.

Here is the post I wrote in Venice but never had time to publish.

Friday, November 21, 2008

We got 9 hours of sleep last night – ahh. It’s cold here, so glad I just bought a scarf at the dollar store before leaving Granada. I finally figured out why is seems so quiet and cozy here. Obviously there are no cars or motorcycles zooming around – just the occasional boat motor. Since there are no vehicles – the streets are very narrow – you see everyone who walks by and you can see the shops on both sides of the street – very cozy indeed. It is very easy to get lost though, every way you turn there are shops on small plazas with and alley that way and a canal with a bridge the other way. Wish we still had our little compass, they make orienting the map so much easier. It’s very cloudy today, which usually kind of frustrates me when I’m trying to take pictures of buildings, but it is winter and it looks kind of cool in the mist.

Having to eat out in Italy is always a pleasure. Who doesn’t like Italian food? Even at the bad places it’s still good. I had some yummy ravioli with meat sauce for lunch, Kevin had spaghetti with clam sauce, whole clams in the shells, normally I would shy away from something like that, but it was great. Wouldn’t it be great if they had clam chowder here, I hate the chewy ones you usually get in chowder. We made our way to St. Marks Basilica and it was awesome. We tried to feed the pigeons, but it was a bit scary. One flew up and pecked bread right out of Syd’s hand – she did not like that. We met an older family who is also going on the cruise – I wonder how many of the tourists we saw today will be on the boat? Click for pics.

Counting Down from 10

Saturday, December 6

Ack! I knew it was getting close, but I just realized it's only 10 days until we board that plane for the long haul home. Part way home at least, we'll be spending the holidays with Kevin's family in the Carolinas. It will be good to have some adjustment time to ease the reverse culture shock.

We arrived back in Granada last night after our Mediterranean cruise and visit to Seville, Spain. I only have 4 or 5 loads of laundry to go, really wish I had a dryer. Maybe I'll try to find a laundromat, but I've never seen one here. If fact, if I ever had to open a business here, I think that would be it.

We had a great time on the cruise, and I still haven't downloaded my pictures. Hopefully I will get the web albums done soon. The ship part of the cruise felt a little like being back in the states - familiar food and everyone speaking English. The girls loved it, in fact we only convinced them to get off the boat for 2 out of 5 ports of call. You see there was this place called Adventure Ocean, which we just called the kids club, that had free activities for kids ages 3-11 for 9 hours/day. Then they had a "Late Night Party", which was a little extra from 10pm-2am. Well, it took Kyla a couple days to realize that she couldn't stay away enough hours in the day to attend all the fun act ivies. Although she begged to go the the night time party, she never got to go, however they did get to stay until 10pm a few nights. It's easy to sleep in when you have an inside cabin at the very back of the ship - very dark and quiet.

One of the best parts of cruising with kids besides the fact that we got to do some quality sightseeing without whining was that you never had to worry about food. There is always something, well usually too much to eat from the time you wake up until about 10pm. Even on the days at port, if you manage your time will and pack yourself some snacks, you can skip trying to find lunch in some country like Tunisia, where you don't really want to try the food for fear of getting some stomach bug. In Lisbon and Seville we also enjoyed breakfast buffets at our hotels. This is our first day without some kind of buffet and it is not good.

I think I have mentioned before how you have to plan ahead for weekends and holidays in Spain as many of the shops, most importantly grocery stores are closed. So Kevin went out this morning to gather food for the weekend only to discover all the stores are closed. Hmmmm, there must be a holiday, well that would explain why the traffic was so bad last night and the bus ride took an extra hour. So we're back after two weeks and all we have is milk, cereal, bread and peanut butter. It could be worse. We're definitely going out for lunch tomorrow and maybe Monday too. Luckily, the rent collector, Barry told us about a grocery store that's open 24 hours and not too far away. I just googled Spanish holidays and discovered that Dec. 6th is Constitution day and Dec. 8th they celebrate the Immaculate Conception. I'm sure if we had been around we would have know about these days. The girls are actually disappointed that they don't get to go to school Monday, go figure!

Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We miss our family, but we are thankful for cruises with turkey dinners. I only got one small piece of sweet potato, but that was better than nothing. We spent the morning in Tunis, Tunisia. We are also thankful that we don’t live there and we survived 4 hours of bartering for taxi fares and other knick-knacks and walking through the tourist shops. It was overcast with a few sprinkles, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures. We have 2 days at sea now and the boat was really rockin’ during dinner, but it’s better now even though I heard there are 60 knot winds (did I spell that right?). Now we can say we’ve been to Africa and saw a camel there but we’re hoping the girls will choose to skip Morocco, so we can go on our own. We’ll see.

Welcome to Venice

Thursay, November 20

I Woke up at 5am after 4 hours of sleep to catch our plane to Venice. Kevin says he never did fall asleep last night. We found our way to the Hotel Palazzo Rosa - the entrance seemed very run down, but the actual rooms are clean and nice, right on a small canal. The staff is very friendly. I find myself speaking Spanish in the shops and restaurants – I think it actually helped in one bakery. I can actually understand some phrases I hear in the street. It seems extraordinarily quiet here after living in Spain. Sydney says it was a wonderful day because she saw a whole field of grass while riding the bus from the airport to Venice. There is really no grass in Granada and if you find some, there will be a sign that says "keep off".

A Day in Paradise

That was the name of pool we went to this weekend, El Paraiso. It wasn't fancy or perfect, but I think it really was the closest I've been to paradise (with kids) in ages. It really felt like we were on vacation, the sun, the Reggae music , the grill, a Sangria, and the big cool pool. It was a 30 minute walk on a perfect sunny day with occasional clouds and lot's of shade to get a break from the heat. This was the last day the pool was open for the summer and the entrance fee was a bit pricey, but totally worth it. What I couldn't believe is how not crowded the place was. Maybe the Spaniards thought it was too cool outside (below 90) to swim in an outdoor pool. The water was pretty cold, but we all eventually made it in.
The girls took lots of quick dips followed by wrapping up in a towel and getting warm in the sun. We stayed about six hours and it was hard to find a reason to leave. The only reason we left before bed time is that we were getting hungry again and I didn't want to pay for another meal to share with the yellow jackets.
We'll miss you El Paraiso.

Burned Out in Barcelona

August 21

Today I was held ransom by the kids, they basically refused to leave the apartment. It seemed like yesterday they were so bad we didn’t even feel that they deserved to be bribed. I think they are sleep deprived and totally burned out on all things vacation, especially sight-seeing and walking more than two blocks. I stayed in and let Kevin go to the modern art museum. They were very happy to stay in a play with the various toys and souvineers they have collected. Too bad I didn't have internet connection. The pic is from yesterday, we climbed to the top of a very high park. (Actually we had the help of 6 escalators). Let's hope a good night's sleep will revive the girls.

Prague

Prague is awesome. No time for text with spotty internet. Click to see some pictures

Amsterdam

Click here foe a few pis of Amsterdam. Text to come later.

Mega Mindy

August 4
The girls finally found a playmate and we had to wait for an hour after everyone was ready to venture out because they could not tear themselves away from Mega Mindy. Has anyone heard of her? I guess she is very popular here. I know the smurfs are Belgian, but maybe Mindy hasn't had enough time to make it to the US. This is actually the 9 year old daughter of the B&B owner, but I can't remember her real name. To me she'll always be Mega Mindy.

Bruges is a very small town with cobblestone streets and unique architecture, lot’s of bicycles, some tourists in horse drawn carriages and boats in the canals. Some call it the Venice of the North. The girls are begging to go in a boat, but we are saving that adventure for the next town. We we’re talking about it today and Sydney said, “Yes, we’re going to Hamsterdam!” Today we just wandered around town on foot and let the girls play at the park for a couple of hours. If you need and lace or chocolate, just let me know. (except by the time you read this, we will have moved on) I miss my cable modem. I also miss wash cloths and Kevin misses sheets. In all eight or nine places we’ve stayed there has been no trace of wash cloths or top sheets. Europe seems to be all about comforters with duvet covers and our relationship with them literally runs hot and cold. Now that we’re having summer weather, it’s sometimes too hot for a comforter, but too cold with nothing. Kevin’s clever solution is to take the comforter out of the cover and just use that. Then, if I get cold I just throw the comforter on top of the cover. In Scotland I heard it pronounced doo-vee. Don’t we say duvet, like doo-vay?

Click here for pics of Bruges.

In Bruges

August 03

To today we took the Eurostar train from London to Bruges, Belgium. They tell me I went through a tunnel under the English Channel called the Chunnel, but I never saw any water, so who knows. Wouldn’t it be so much cooler if the tunnel went through the water and the tunnel was clear? Maybe you wouldn’t see anything, but if you did, that would be something. Back in London there was a small glitch printing our prepurchased train tickets from the automated ticket machine. So I went to the counter and waited for new tickets to be printed just minutes before we were to go through security. When I noticed they were stamped with the wrong date, the lady at the window proceeded to correct it with a pencil. Nice. We had to change trains in Brussels, and on the second train I showed the ticket guy my ticket, hoping everything would be OK. He stared at it for a minute and then said, "F*** it" and handed it back to me. Whew. I'll have to say thats the first time I've really been happy to hear the F word. We made it to Bruges and stayed at our first Bed & Breakfast. It only had three rooms and we had two of them, so made ourselves at home.

London Post

We stayed in a great one bedroom apartment in the suburbs of SE London last week, but the internet connection was very poor. So here is London in one long post.

Monday, July 28
Our first full day in London, we headed into the city for a little sight seeing. We went to the Tate Modern Art Museum. Afterward, we walked along the Thames River and across the Millennium Bridge for pedestrians. The locals call it the wobbly bridge. Well, we’re wondering if the maximum time a 4 year old can tolerate an extended vacation is four weeks. Today Sydney’s mantra was, “I want to go to Oregon”

Tuesday, July 29

Sydney threw up last night. This makes me hope that she will last a bit longer on the extended vacation. I think she was just homesick because she was feeling under the weather yesterday, and we didn’t know it. So, Kevin went to Bletchley Park, the home of Britain’s code breaking efforts during WWII. He got to see lots of stuff about Alan Turing and the deciphering of Germany’s Enigma code along with a working reproduction of the world’s first computer – the Colossus.

I stayed home to do several loads of bed linens and clothes in a tiny washer and no dryer. Luckily the sun came out to dry the sheets before night time. After Kevin returned, I took my turn to walk a few blocks to the movie theater to see The Dark Knight. Did you know they have reserved seating at the movie theaters in London?

Wednesday, July 30

I’m always up to see a new cathedral, usually impressive inside and out and short enough that the girls don’t get too bored. Today we went to Westminster Abbey which is huge and full of history and burial sites of all sorts of historical and famous people. Who knew? Not me, I’m not so good with the history stuff. So not only do you have all of the kings and queens of England, there is also a poet’s corner and a section for scientists. Here are a few names you may recognize: Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Shakespeare, Lawrence Olivier, Chaucer, Darwin, and Newton. So we spent quite a lot of time at the Abbey, which made us feel better about the high entrance fees. Next we walked around St. James Park and saw Buckingham Palace, and continued on to Trafalger Square, the girls had a great time trying to climb up the huge Lion statues. Sydney however, was devastated (read, threw a fit) that I would not let go of her feet in order for her to climb all the way onto the Lion’s back. Oh, by the way, Sydney seems to be good as new - healthwise.

It always takes longer than you think to get home on the trains, especially when you have to get off the stop after you just got on because Kyla had to go to the bathroom. The train stations seem to have no bathrooms and no trash bins here. We ended up having to carry the girls home since they fell asleep on the train. Thankfully our apartment was only about 2 blocks from the station.

Thursday, July 31

No one felt like doing much today. Kevin cooked lunch, went to the grocery store and took his turn at the movies. I took the girls to the local park and pool. The shallow pool was being repaired and the big one was cold, but we stayed in for over an hour. Sydney’s suit is barely hanging in there and we didn’t pack her floatie, but she still loves to go swimming. Going to the park made us all a bit homesick, missing our friends and playmates. Kyla and Sydney decided that they both miss school.

Friday, August 01, 2008

We have been abroad for one month today, wow! That means we're about half way through the vacation part of our trip. It was nice to have a little down time in London this week, but now we're feeling the pressure to get some sights in before we leave on Sunday. Today we went to the British Museum. So much to see, so little time. This place was awesome – you could spend days there. The girls were thoroughly bored. They were somewhat impressed by seeing their first real mummy. We also saw a naturally preserved body from about 3000 BC. Sydney seems to be getting carried more and more. I saw a heading labeled “Buggies” on the museum brochure. Unfortunately it was advertising parking, not rental. Please send a stroller! I guess it would have been a real pain when going up and down and the stairs and escalators on the underground trains though.

Saturday, August 2
Today was our last full day in London. We went to Greenwich, home of the Royal Maritime Museum which has a great “all hands” area for kids and the Royal Observatory (prime meridian). Of course we have pics of us standing one foot in each hemisphere. Actually now they use GPS technology from the center of the earth to figure out exactly where the zero point is and the famous red line of the prime meridian is 332 feet off the mark. (shhh, don’t tell the kids). This video is of Sydney at the park in Greenwich - she cracks me up. Kevin too, you can hear him laughing in the video.

Click here to see pics of London.

Not so Premier Inn

July 27

So long not so Premier Inn with your hallway stench, mildewy bathroom with the ineffective fan, and to the cute little rat scurrying outside the window at midnight. That's it, our travel agent is fired. At least the staff at the hotel was polite and I do believe that the rats were not a problem until the nearby construction started. So I won't post the video I took of the rat or send it to their manager. You know they have this good night sleep gaurantee and I wonder how many people actually get their money back at this hotel. Hmmmmm.

College & Whine

July 26

We just got one day of sightseeing at Oxford, but after staying in the night before Kevin and I were both looking forward to seeing the town. We knew Sydney was a little under the weather with a cold, but she didn’t seem to feel too bad. Well, I think the girls are getting burned out - I'm going to skip the part where I complain about the non-stop whining heard from both girls today. I hate to say it, but the best part of going to Oxford was the hour long bus ride. The girls were busy with their iPods (we’ve given up on trying to get them to enjoy the new scenery – to them it all looks the same) and Kevin and I shared my headphones while we took turns playing songs for each other – kind of romantic. We started off with the very appropriate song by Ben Lee called “We’re all in this together”. Once we got to Oxford we got see some of Christ Church College, but the cathedral was closed because there was a wedding. It’s the most touristy (my grammar check just told be to replace that with touristiest, that can’t be right) place we’ve been so far – it was really crowded on a Saturday afternoon.
Here is a street that is closed to traffic - check out all the people.



Sydney got a lot of shoulder rides from dad.
Here is a college picture, not sure which one. Check out those walls and that lawn - even the girls were impressed. Needless to say, there was a sign that said, "Keep off the grass". When we first arrived we were sad the last bus was so early, leaving at 6:30. It was really sad that we were happy to catch 5:30 bus home after buying supplies to eat PB&J on the way home. The best part was getting to see the pub, Eagle and Child (aka Bird and Baby), where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to hang out on Tuesday nights as part of the “Inkwells” writing club.

Vacation from our vacation

July 25
We bought our train tickets to Oxford today, but when we checked with the hotel to find out the best way to there we realized that our hotel was not that close to Oxford. So we will bus there tomorrow. Luckily I called to hotel as we were changing trains and we never boarded the second one. It seems the best way to reach the hotel is to drive. I think we must be the only people here without a car. We actually had to convince the bus driver that his route would take us the right way. Nobody knew where the hotel was, but they did know the McDonald's across the street. And we have a lovely view of several nuclear cooling towers in the distance. Sydney seems to have a little cold and we all needed a rest so we are just hanging out at the hotel for the rest of the day. I'm way behind on my blogging, but I have internet for the rest of the day so I'll do some catching up. I had about 15 minutes to post from Bristol two days ago and blogger wasn’t working – oh well. Since leaving Scotland we have stayed two nights in Cardiff, Wales and three in Bristol, England. I know most of you wouldn’t mind if I skipped a few days on the blog, but I’m afraid if I do, then I won’t remember what we did that last day in such and such city. So now for a little back- blogging. Be sure to scroll down to catch up on the last week.

Barf, Bath, and Beyond

Well, not necessarily in that order, depending on who you’re talking about. When it was just Kevin I wasn’t going to mention it or just title it “The Bristol Blahs”. Now that I have joined the fun, I couldn’t resist. So far it’s doesn’t seem to be food poisoning or anything serious, just a little something that makes you queasy. It feels like morning sickness – queasiness that comes and goes, makes you lose your appetite and feel really bad if you think about what you already ate or might have to eat at your next meal. The choices are limited when every meal of the week is at restaurant or something ready to eat from the grocery store. I’ll spare you the details, but thank goodness I saved the plastic bag from our Mr. D’s take out. Maybe it was just motion sickness from the hot and jostling bus ride. Of course it didn’t help that I kept looking out the window to see fast food and pasty (rhymes with nasty) shops. Oh don’t get me wrong, pasties can be great if you’re in a hurry, really hungry and need something inexpensive that stick to you ribs. They are these deep fried hot pocket things with meat and potatoes. I’m sure looking forward to having an apartment in London and maybe doing some cooking.

We went to the town of Bath, named for the Roman baths there. First stop was the bath Abbey, which is right next to the baths. There were musicians playing in the courtyard, including a guys dressed as a fawn, complete with horns and everything. There was a long audio tour at bath, which included some commentary by author Bill Bryson, who is always entertaining. They even had a separate commentary for kids, which really kept the girls entertained. It’s amazing to think that the bath and stones there are 2000 years old, in fact the drains that the Romans built are still functional today.

The girls were so tired of walking but we promised them there would be a park at the end and what a park it was! The biggest one yet. I love it how when you take your kids to the park (even if they get to stay for 90 min) that when they have to leave they whine and cry that they didn’t get to try the digging thing (mini dirt mover) in the sand box and they want to stay longer. What about saying, “Thanks mom & dad, that was really fun!” Click here for pics of Bath.

Summertime in England

The title of this post shares a name with a Van Morrison (one of Kevin’s favorite artists) song. It was so nice to have some warm weather and we actually got to wear shorts for the first time in over two weeks. Today’s quest was finding the laudromat. You finally have to give up some sightseeing when there are no clean undies left. Kyla wanted to stay in the hotel all day, which technically would be possible since it has a Beefeater Restaurant attached to it. It’s hard to schedule a day to relax when there is so much you want to see and limited time to do it. With the clothes clean and folded back at the hotel we decided there was still time for a bit of sight seeing around the city. More than one local recommended the Bristol suspension bridge as the sight to see, so we set off on the bus. Well, it’s hard to be impressed by a bridge when you live right next to the best looking bridge there is, but it did cross a big gorge and the view from the bridge was good. The girls found a park nearby, which always seems to make the day for them. On the way home we stopped by Bristol University. I guess Kevin was missing the campus scene. Sydney ate her take away pizza dinner, while Kyla and I took pictures on campus. Kyla asked for a quick photography lesson, so I’ll try to include some of her pics in the album for Bristol.