Catching up

Hello all!
I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote anything! Winter here eventually turned to a flower-filled Spring and a lush, green Summer. Since it got warm enough to get out and about more, we haven't stopped. We spent most of the long weekend for Memorial Day in Paris with a trip to Normandy (the D-Day landing sights) for the actual Memorial Day ceremony (it's surreal to see your kids run, laughing up the zig-zag lines the troops used to come up the hills and explore the German bunker defensive positions.)

Paris was grand. We got an apartment near the Eiffel Tower and spent the days seeing everything! The kids did a great job of keeping up (Vance's legs are half the length of Eric's, so basically he walked twice as far. Plus when you're in line, cattle-lining it up the Eiffel Tower, he's the height of everyone's backpack, and people get pushy. A Chinese grandpa just about pushed me over to get ahead in line.That makes for a long wait.)

We've also done lots of local things, including hiking in the Black Forest (awesome), and hitting the local festivals (Germans love festivals. You gotta love that.) And recently we did a week-long tour of Italy including Venice, Rome, Florence and Pisa.

Rome was beautiful and amazing! Actually my favorite thing was the clear, pure water everywhere - in every beautiful fountain and in running drinking fountains everywhere. The thing about Germany is that they love mineral water - the bubbly kind. I hate bubbly water - cannot drink it. The tap water is pretty hard, and we get bottled water (flat spring water bottled in France) at the commissary, but I always get soda when we are out and about - expensive with no free refills. So, I've been thirsty since we moved here. And in glorious Rome delicious water runs everywhere!

Actually that was my 2nd favorite thing. On our first day there we spent the morning on a guided-walking tour, then the afternoon on a guided Vatican Museum tour. It was almost 5, we had finally seen the Sistine chapel and spilled back out, thinking we didn't really have enough time for St Peter's Cathedral. Plus we've seen a lot of churches since we've been here. But there wasn't a wait, so we headed in. I can't believe I almost passed the opportunity by. Fifteen feet in the door, I had tears in my eyes. I can't even describe how magnificent and holy it is. And I'm not even Catholic (Christian, just not Catholic), so I know I missed many of the details. But, wow, it was overwhelmingly beautiful and transcendent.

My 3rd favorite thing in Rome was a crazy guy. We were standing outside the Metro station across from the Colosseum - the 4 of us in a little square facing each other, talking about which way to go. Unseen, a little old man in a suit leans in and makes a raspberry sound. Then he just moves on, saying nothing. It cracked me up. It was funny enough when he did it to us, but hilarious to watch him move through the crowd doing it to other groups and seeing their bewildered reactions. As Eric said "he got up this morning, had breakfast, put on his suit and said to his wife, 'time to go make raspberries at the tourist.' Ah, retirement."

Some other favorite things were sitting under an awning at an outdoor cafe while it rained and hailed so hard it flooded around my feet and the waiters wouldn't come out (We'd already eaten and enjoyed seconds of bruscetta) and discovering cantaloupe gelato.

The one drawback of traveling is that it confuses my already confused language skills. I am still trying to figure out German (and getting lazy as I find more people happy to practice their high-school English on me) and have started crossing borders. My brain can't handle it. Apparently it files foreign words by topic, not language, and pulls up the easiest, word by word. The weekend we went to Paris, we stopped just across the border for lunch. I stepped up and ordered ... "Bonjour, j'ai voudrais eine spaghetti bolognese, bitte" So we have a sentence composed of half french, half German and a bit of Italian. Then they asked if I wanted cheese, and I said "Si." (that Eric rubbed off on me. He can speak Spanish and often answers with the Spanish, Si.) Plus, what I lack in actual language, I make up for in context. I mostly understand what anyone is saying to me in whatever language they use without understanding the individual words. Great if you can just nod or follow their directions. The waiter at one of our Italian hotels thought I spoke Italian because I used a few words and did everything he said. So when another American was trying to tell him that she was saving seats for her daughters, he turned to me and said "Signora?" as if I would then explain to him what she was saying. I was busted, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

Tchuss, Ciao, Adios, Au revoir, Later Gators - Love, Val