little.children

I read this book while in europe, and thought it was pretty bad. I finished it purely due to the amount of time spent on trains paired with the increased difficulty of finding an english bookstore. I just saw that it was made into a movie which is being released soon. How tom perrotta got so lucky to have actual actors like kate winslet and jennifer connelly portray his book, I'll never know. Maybe they changed the plot line so much that the movie could actually be good. I think I'll see it just in case.

going.to.the.chapel

My good pal and europe companion, *tm* got engaged a couple of days ago! She's not a blog reader, but I figured I'd post a congratulatory entry on her behalf. I also stuck in one of the pictures she sent with the e-mail because she thought it was okay to put actual pictures in my blog without editing them- thus my new picture and link to flickr account. I'm really happy for her especially because she's so happy. That's really what's important when you think about it. Plus, I'll get to live vicariously through her without actually having to pay for a wedding myself!

sel.de.la.terre

For some reason, I always thought that the above restaurant was a seafood place. Yes, I took french for seven years. Yes, I know what all those words mean. No, I never really thought about it enough to put it all together. I guess the fact that the place is very close to the harbour and the aquarium made me assume (which my 11th grade french teacher told me never to do) it was a seafood-ers paradise. So, back to the point. On monday, *kn* called to tell me she and several of our other friends were going there for their "wine wednesday" where they have one menu with wine pairings for a set price. She asked if I wanted to come. I said I'd let her know the next day. I first went to their website to figure out what kind of food they were serving. I'm not a big seafood fan, but I can manage to put away some of the less fishy or rubbery stuff, and I needed to make sure that this "seafood restaurant" was serving something I could eat without making faces. Low and behold, there was no seafood on the menu, and what was on it looked delicious! The seven of us had a great time eating, drinking and talking for over three hours. I actually realized part way through that this meal was like a lower class french laundry meal. If you care, you can check out our menu here. If you decide to go to any of the other wine wednesday's, let me know. I'll come too.

freaky.eyeballs

I do not like when anything weird goes on with eyeballs. Not in real life- if someone had an eye problem I don't think it would bother me- but in movies or print. Like, no iris or pupil, black sockets, rolling eyeballs, etc. It pretty much freaks me out more than any horror movie could hope to do. I was watching one of my favorite tv shows, house, and the medical problem this week happened with an autistic boy. It turned out that he had eaten sand in his sandbox that had some worm in it which screwed with his body. The worms entered, among other things, his eyeball. So at one point, only one of his eyes rolled all the way back, and then started making little seizure like movements. I almost threw up.

i.need.new.friends

I decided that I need to expand my group of friends. Don't jump to conclusions...my friends are great, but I've had the same ones for years. This is a good thing (I'm apparently a good friend since I haven't chased many of them off), but it also means that I've become too comfortable (and this applies to my entire life- not just my friends.) As an attempt to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, I decided to do some volunteering. I wanted to get something regular going with habitat for humanity- I figured this would be perfect since I'd get to build stuff and be outside and everything, but their boston volunteering sessions are full until 2007. Next, I did a web search for volunteering options in boston, and got tons of info. A lot of it was stuff I wouldn't be interested in (things where I wouldn't really meet people) but there were several organizations which put together options in a lot of different areas. I liked this since I'd be working with a lot of the same people, but wouldn't get bored only doing one thing all the time. The first event I'm doing isn't until mid-october, so until then I'll keep up the search.

the.cheese.house

I took four kids to "one stop fun" (aka- the ball place) today. It's basically an indoor playground on steroids. Three stories with tubes, ball pits (thus the name "the ball place"), slides, balance beams, a zippy thing you hang onto as you fly thirty feet down a track, etc. Pretty much the ideal place to take kids on a rainy day. As I hung out- keeping my eye on the almost 3 year old as she cruised through tunnels and tubes- I was reminded of a similar experience I had when I was about six. It was at leila's birthday party in first grade. We went to chucky cheese's- the hippest place for parties in those days. After our pizza and cake, we took a group trip through the cheesehouse- something they sadly no longer have. In my six year old mind, this thing was HUGE with several rooms, tunnels, bridges, etc. Realistically, it was actually inside chucky cheese's, so it couldn't be so big. After having some fun, we decided to go get more tokens for games, and started to head out. Unfortunately, the cheesehouse had other ideas. Yup. We were lost. After wandering around in circles for quite some time (with adrienne crying at the end of the line) we found a window and tried to flag down the group of four mothers who had stayed to chaperone the party. They took a minute to look up, smile and wave at us before returning to their chit chat. We banged on the window, now with frantic looks on our face, to no avail. I distinctly remember feeling the panic rise inside me, yet trying to appear calm and in control. I took my turn heading the group, hoping to be the one to lead everyone to safety. It would have been a good end to the story, but liz was the one to eventually rescue us all.

ballet.prodigy

Eight year old *m* has been taking ballet lessons at the boston ballet school for a couple years. This school year, she moved up to the age group where they are required to take lessons twice a week. Since she has a crap load of homework, she was given the choice of staying at the boston ballet school and stopping her gymnastics lessons, or sticking with gymnastics and switching to another ballet school where she could stick to her once a week saturday morning lesson. She decided to stay with boston ballet, and why? Because this is the first year she could audition to be part of the nutcracker, silly! I found all of this a little amusing. How likely is it that an eight year old third grader, who appears to be a perfectly average dancer, would actually make it into a ballet that people pay lots of money to see each christmas? I guess I've always assumed those kid parts were performed by freakish prodigy types whose parents had started them in ballet as soon as they could walk. None-the-less, she dropped gymnastics, and we added another afternoon at the ballet studio to our already threadbare schedule. When the time came around for auditions, the teacher talked to them about the "luck" factor- ie- even if you do a great job with the actual ballet, you may be too short, too tall, or have the wrong color hair for the part. Instead of reassuring her, or just giving her an excuse if she didn't make it, this little talk seemed to scare the living daylights out of her. She decided she didn't want to audition, apparently because she became aware of the fact that she might not make it. In the end, she did audition. She also got a pink call-back slip, and today, she received a letter congratulating her for being accepted as the part of a doll. I guess I'll be out $125 for front row nutcracker seats this year.

anxious.very.anxious

My newest class starts tonight; multivariable calculus. I managed to claw my way through the first two calc courses, but I'm not so sure about this new one. First off, it's at harvard which is going to be harder to begin with. Secondly, the professor made a point of mentioning in the syllabus that this course would likely be harder than other courses, and it's virtually impossible to pass without a significant amount of time and effort put into keeping up to speed. Gulp. I'll let you know how it goes.

flickr.link

After more then two weeks, I've finally set all my pictures up so anyone who's interested can view them. They're on flickr, and I organized them into sets. So when you get to my main page, click on a set (they're in order- frankfurt, paris, porto, lisbon, madrid, barcelona, nice, chamonix, cinque terre, venice, munich, prague, berlin, amsterdam, delft, brussels, and london) and then you can go through them as fast or slow as you want. I titled all of them and commented on what they were, but you can't see that in slide show mode. So if you want to know what something is, just click on it separately. Cool. Here's the link http://www.flickr.com/photos/heretohere/. Go check it out!

liberty.

I spent a few days in liberty indiana (where my dad lived from age one to eight) last week for my grandfather's funeral. He'd had heart problems for a while, so his death wasn't a surprise, but was still sad. It was nice- everyone participated in the funeral (I was recruited to play the piano and do a reading), and while our reason for being there was sad, it was nice to catch up with not only my immediate family (which is spread from austin to villanova to boson) but also with many extended relatives I'd either never met, or had last seen when I was five or so. I'll admit that I was a bit nervous to be in liberty. I'd gone to dodgeville, wisconsin (home to land's end) a few years ago, and as we returned to milwaukee, I realized how anxious I'd been being so removed from a city. I anticipated a similar anxiety for liberty- a 2,100 people, one square mile town surrounded by farms. This wasn't the case though, and I found something oddly comforting in the easily walkable town and it's friendly, content people. I was able to put pictures to the stories my dad told us of his earlier mischievousness- we were even invited in to tour the house he lived in as a child. The current owners offered the eight of us rides on their segways as well. (That's my youngest brother riding one over there.) If this was to occur in boston, the poor people would probably end up being robbed!

things.to.know.before.going.to.europe

While we were trekking around, I kept a running list in my journal of things that I learned in or about europe. Here it is:

1. It's acceptable for people to spank/hit/smack kids in europe. (I personally witnessed this four times; an eight year old boy got it bad after he spilt a cold bottle of water in the 100 degree porto heat, a bratty five year old girl got a face slap on the train to lyon, another kid got spanked in nice, and a 1.5 year old baby girl got smacked upside the head when she pulled her mother's hair on a train to delft. I guess they haven't caught on that hitting children creates more problems than it solves.)

2. McDonald's serves beer. Enough said.

3. Germans like to coordinate their socks with the teva-type sport sandals they wear with them.

4. There are a lot of dogs in france, and no one picks up after them. I guess we know what france is full of...

5. The sopranos isn't as good when it's dubbed in french. No one has the appropriate new york mafia accent, and tony and adriana are just flat wrong.

6. There are no mosquito's in europe, but there are an obscene number of flies.

7. Japanese tourists actually fit the stereotype. They carry their camera's with them, and take pictures of everything. I can't even imagine how many gigs of memory they need.

8. In italy, it is necessary to eat no less than two (2) gelatos per day.

9. Germany is the most bicycle friendly place I've ever seen. They have extra wide sidewalks which come equipped with specially paved bicycle paths. Good luck if you try to walk on it.

10. There has to be some sort of rule about muzzles and dogs in prague. Eighty % of the dogs I saw were wearing muzzles.

11. English is not to europe, what spanish is to the us. My egocentric expectations of english signs and speech were totally off!

12. Shoes that are comfortable for "walking around" at home, are not necessarily comfortable for "walking around" in europe.

13. The train schedule listed in your eurail book is probably outdated. Always check with the reservations desk before showing up for that train you think you're taking.

14. Silk sleep sacks are not just a luxury, but a necessity for hostel/cheap hotel travel.

15. Spending $850 on a eurail pass doesn't mean you're done paying for trains. Many still require a reservation fee (of 5 to 23 euros) or a couchette supplement (30 euros).

16. Our t-mobile is referred to as t-punkt in germany.

17. There is an astonishing amount of super tall (6 feet +) women here.

18. Beer can be purchased in vending machines- especially in hostels.

19. Weather prediction isn't possible in amsterdam. It's blue skied puffy clouds one minute, and torrential downpours the next. Bring an umbrella.

20. The folks in amsterdam and belgium are very good at cleaning up graffiti.

21. The baby swings in london are made of hard plastic, and therefore are very heavy. Consequently, they slow down as soon as you push them.

22. Harrods has a pet shop, christmas world, chemist, krispy kreme, and barbour.

23. Service (cable, washers, etc) is horrible in london. Plan on hanging around for several days and making many angry phone calls before getting anywhere.

24. Those backward driving folks in england painted "look right" and "look left" at crosswalks so us forward driving folks won't get hit as frequently while crossing streets.

25. In london, you have to buy a license to own a tv or to receive tv signals on your laptop. It's renewable every year for a mere 130 lbs ($244.56). We're not talking cable either, this is purely for those six "free" stations.


So there you have it. Next time you go through europe, you'll have a better idea of what to expect!

ouch.

You know how in movies, they torture people by driving stakes or splinters or something under their fingernails? Well, I've never thought this looked appealing, but didn't truly appreciate how painful it must be until today. I was cleaning out my guestroom (since I've been lucky to have many guests recently), and managed to get a large splinter stuck under the nail of my left hand pointer finger. Now this splinter was nowhere near as bad as some splinters are. It was thick, and stuck out enough that it was easy to pull out with some tweezers. However, in the 20 seconds it took for me to find some tweezers, this sucker hurt like a son-of-a-gun. Even after it was out it still hurt enough for me to wonder if a little shard was still in there (which wasn't the case). I'm not sure that I'll be able to watch the fingernail torture scenes in the future. Ouch.

blue.hills.hiking

*nn* and I went hiking yesterday in the blue hills. I'd been there before, but had done an easier trail than the one we did yesterday. It was nice- the blue skyline trail- a two hour loop described as "challenging" that brought us up to many great viewpoints, and to the observation tower at the top. It's a good thing that I had lots of practice in europe, because I probably wouldn't have made it yesterday. As I struggled up the rocky trail, stumbling over roots and dropping my phone at one point (which resulted in a cracked screen-super) these little kids scampered past me like they were racing to the top. We decided that since kids are smaller and weigh 50 pounds or so, and have more energy than six shots of espresso, they can move their short little legs a lot faster than us. In any case, we made it to the top (with me straggling behind *nn* most of the time) and that's all that matters. I'll have to crank the tread mill up to full incline before I attempt that again.

london.to.dc.to.boston

Well now...here we are, back in boston. We had a very blog-worthy day monday which i'll go into in a minute. First though, a summing up of london.
I got through saturday in the last entry. On sunday, i went to camden market with the b's. I had read about portobello market which i think was more focused on antique-y type things, but it wasn't open on sundays, so *tm* suggested camden. She was going there herself later in the day. We took the bus, and when we got off, we were on a street with tattoo stores, piercing places, and little tent things with generally inappropriate merchandise. (Remember folks...i was there with three children- 5 years, 2 years, and 9 weeks.) Five and a half year old *g* pointed out the girl with pink and orange hair- i think she was impressed. We marched on none-the-less, and luckily hit another section with really cute stores and a great market area. I got my piece of jewelry (i don't remember if i posted about this before...since we're carrying everything with us, i decided to buy one piece of jewelry from each country we were in. That way i have a souvenir, but don't have to carry anything large and heavy.) -a bracelet this time. *kb* also got a similar one to mine, so now we're bracelet pals. Then we got some lunch before heading back. We were going to go to some cool bar, but since it was sunday, the place closed at 9pm (lame, right?) so we got take-out indian and watched ricky gervais. Monday I took the beatles photo of the b's for their "we moved and have a new baby" announcement. I think i forgot to mention the fact that they live close to the abbey road crosswalk that the beatles made famous years ago. In fact, if any of you have a clever quip to use for their announcement let me know. I'm trying to come up with some ideas for them, but no luck so far. Then I said bye to *ab* and he went to work. The rest of us went to primrose park, and then to harrods. That place is out of control..they have an obscene amount of stuff in there. Then it was time to leave. We called a cab, which was late, so we got to the airport with only 1:45 before our flight took off. We checked our bags with no problems, and then went upstairs to the security line. Ha! The line was a minimum of 1 mile long, wrapping through all the metal turnstiles, and into the hall, up the stairs, around a corner, up some more stairs, through a bridge, and (just before we got there) out into the garage winding up the ramp. I almost threw up. At this point we had 1:30 before our plane was supposed to take off. It turned out that it wouldn't have mattered if we had gotten there 3 hours in advance, because they would just walk the line and pull people out as their departure time approached. The line was really just some place to stand while you waited for your turn. At 3:30, they pulled us up to (not the front but) the beginning of the turnstiles which we then wove through for a while. At 4:10 we finished our pat down- our plane was leaving at 4:20. I broke out in a full run. Luckily, four weeks of carrying a large backpack paid off. My cardiovascular strength didn't fail me. As i rounded a corner, an frazzled looking employee was calling out "925 washington dc?" I showed her my boarding pass, and she exclaimed into her walkie talkie "we have scs!" She told us to get in the little golf cart around the corner, and the driver flew through the airport with the beep, beep, beep going. We peeled into the gate at 4:15, and were seated comfortably while the last family (who'd arrived at the airport 3 hours in advance, but got stuck behind us when they pulled all of us out of the long line and put us in the short line) boarded the plane. Geez louise. The flight to dc wasn't bad. We had our own tv's, and i watched three movies- mission impossible 3, hoot, and another i don't remember. I also watched the ending to davinci code three times since it was the longest of the movies playing, and they didn't reset until the last one was over. We landed at dulles and sat on the airplane for a while. The attendants had mentioned that there was a different arrival procedure thanks to those terrorists, but after 5 minutes, they announced that they were as much in the dark as we were. A few minutes later, the pilot announced that they were ready with the "mobile lounge" and that the delay was caused by the customs agents who must have been "eating a big plate of tacos." Ha! We got off through the rear of the plane, and got onto the mobile lounge (aka big bus that fits an airplane of people) and were driven to another building where we went through customs. We had picked up our bags and then rechecked them through to boston. Our dc to boston flight was short, and we arrived at 11:15pm to be greeted by our families, and a baggage carousel that was rotating with a few lonely bags none of which were ours. Marvelous. We filled out a lost baggage claim and returned home at 5:30am london time. The next day we stayed home waiting for the bag which apparently arrived at logan around 11:18. It came at 10pm. It's a good thing it got lost on the way home, and not the way there! So...that's the end of the trip. Sad, but okay too. I uploaded my pictures, and there were around 1200. I'm currently cutting that down a bit, renaming the files, and then i'll upload them and post a link here, so if any of you are interested, you can check them out.

london

It's nice to finish up in london where I can stop focusing on the tourist things. Not completely of course, but since I know I'll be back here soon, I don't feel so pressured to walk 12 miles trying to squish in everything. On friday, I walked with *kb* and the three kids through regents park. It was kind of like the boston common/public gardens, but tons bigger. We saw the park that was in mary poppins too (which we watched later that day). We grabbed some lunch at the globe, and then headed over to the natural history museum (which was free and very impressive). For dinner, we met *ab* at a nearby place, and I had the best chicken/bacon/avocado salad ever. Saturday morning we had tickets to the london eye. Nice. What's more fun than taking an enormous ferris wheel up to get great views of the city? We got down there, picked up our tickets, got into line with everyone else, and then.....it closed. Why? I don't know, but there were people on it who were stuck in the little pods for a bit longer than they'd planned on. Luckily we weren't waiting in line for a very long time, so we walked across the thames river on the golden jubilee bridges, through trafalgar square, and over to big ben and the parliament building. Then home for lunch. In the afternoon we drove (yup- in a standard turned around car on the wrong side of the road (good job *ab*)) to one of my favorite stores...ikea. Even though it was pretty obvious that I couldn't buy anything, I shopped vicariously through the b's, and then sent them out on a date night while I put together some stuff. I really think I should work for one of those tlc organizing shows...I LOVE doing that sort of stuff.