In which we make a shift in plans and head for Spain

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The initial plan for our break between Romania and Ireland was to travel to India. I thought we’d have a good four weeks there, but the Romanian refused to give us the dates of winter break until after we’d arrived, so we learned late that it would only be two and a half. When we were in Budapest we tried going to the embassy to get a visa, only to be met by a malodorous clerk who informed us, after an hour of waiting in a small cheerless room with a random table of Ayurvedic products for sale, that it would take five weeks. Then when I looked at tickets to a visa on arrival airport instead, they came to about $2000/each, putting them well out of the budget for this year. In hindsight, what I should have done was get a year long visa while in the States and then buy tickets the minute we had our schedules in hand. Live and learn, and perhaps we can make it happen next year with better planning.
We decided instead on a shorter hop to Spain, and using one of the discount airlines in Europe (the somewhat off-color named “Wizz Air,” not joking) got a ticket from Romania to Valencia for $31 each. We pulled into Valencia in the evening, and even after the sunset the warm air was a relief from the frozen air of Timisoara we left behind. I’ve learned to book a certain type of neighborhood for us now – one that’s closeish to downtown, not in the main tourist area, residential, but still with shops and restaurants nearby, honestly similar to our own neighborhood at home. Here in Valencia, that neighborhood was Russafa. It was once a downtrodden area, but has been revitalized thanks to an influx of artists and city planning which has created more pedestrian friendly zones.

Russafa market


The next morning Eric picked up a plate of incredible pastries from Dulce de Leche, a delicious coffeeshop/bakery down the street and along with coffee at home we had a breakfast feast. It was a rare rainy day in Valencia, so with our trusty Tokyo Disney umbrellas in hand, we made our way Eastward to the Jardin de Turia park and then the Science museum. The Turia river had run through the city of Valencia, but after recurrent flooding was diverted and the riverbed converted to a large green space that snakes through the center of the city and ends in the City of Arts and Sciences buildings, including the science museum, aquarium, theater, and Imax among others.


The buildings are a futuristic collection of metal and glass by Santiago Calatrava and Felix Candela. Locals hate them because they cost a fortune to maintain and are in continuous repair. The project also came in far over budget and is a symbol of government financial waste. As a tourist, however, I have to say that they are impressive.



The science museum was, well, adequate. Having been raised on excellent science museums, and having the highly interactive Denver one at home, I expect more than what we saw here. There’s a section called the Exploratorium, and it has a collection of the exact same experiments as the one in  San Francisco, where I spent many happy hours as a kid and, well, also as an adult. The activities are spread out in awkward ways and not well explained at all, a true disappointment when you know the magic and wonder of the original.. An exhibition on Tesla detailed his unappreciated discoveries and feud with Edison, who comes out of the whole business looking like a real jerk, but there was little to interact with and the exhibit was mostly a lot of text on the walls of the museum. Exhibits are dual language for the most part, and we used Google translate to fill in the rest with mixed results. My favorite one was where they had chicken eggs in various stages of hatching. I’m not sure, though, what happens to the chicks afterwards. I suspect a well fed reptile nearby. A pleasant way to spend a rainy afternoon, in all, but I don’t know that I’d recommend this museum as a must-see. Had the weather been more amiable, exploring the park would have been nicer. 

I think he’s a little too big for the pouch anymore…


We hopped a bus home and left the kids to relax while Eric and I went out for happy hour. We’ve been doing this a fair amount on our travels to everyone’s benefit. The kids get to watch TV, we get a little time alone, then all join up for dinner, happy for the breaks. I would have thought that by now, the kids would have learned how to walk, but they are incapable of it. Always stepping on my feet, or suddenly cutting in front of me and causing me to trip and fall, or pushing me into the street, or walking in front of me and then stopping abruptly, or even running into people on the street because they aren’t watching where they are going. Sometimes I slow down a bit to let them get some space, to no avail as they also slow down and remain six inches in front of my feet. It is a full time labor of attention to simply walk with them and a relief to get a break for an hour and just enjoy the ambiance of walking around a city without it feeling like an obstacle course. 

I knew that restaurants opened late in Spain, but I wasn’t really ready for the reality of it! Many don’t open their doors until 8 pm, and even more don’t open until 9! It took some getting used to, but our schedules have adjusted to this eating schedule a bit – we wake up around 8 am, putter around until 10, have a late breakfast, late lunch, snack and then dinnner. The weather is mild and even at 9 pm you’ll see a lot of families out and about.

The next day I was forced to stay at home for the morning due to some more poor planning on my part, namely waiting until the last minute to order our rail tickets which have to be delivered to a physical address. Eurail passes are in general not that great of a deal anymore, unless you happen to have kids and then you get a “kids travel free” pass where you only pay the reservation fee for the leg of the journey, so we still opted for them. My forced torture of being home alone, no bickering of children, being stepped on, having to answer constant questions, just…peace and quiet. I don’t know how I survived it, but readers, I perservered. I met up with the kids and Eric later for some delicious veggie paella and we spent the rest of the day ambling about the neighborhoods, with the orange tree lined streets. Fun fact: Valencia oranges were actually developed by a Californian agriculturalist and have nothing to do with Valencia, Spain. 

Battle of the Graffiti


Valencia overall is a wonderful smaller city to enjoy and explore! It reminded me a lot of cities like Portland, Denver, and Austin in a way – not as massive as the level A cities, but more inimitable and full of character. 

-s

In which I say goodbye to Romania, and have one last madcap adventure

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It’s our last few days here in Romania. We packed up all of our stuff we wanted shipped to Ireland, since we’re traveling for 2 weeks before we get there. It all fit into seven smallish boxes that we took to the one post office in town that handles international packages. To demonstrate our ridiculous helplessness at basic life skills here, we had four helpers to assist us mailing packages. Three of these were Eric’s delightful students here, and the fourth was Rob, who has become our guide here of “How to manage Romania as an American.”


They led us through the process of filling paperwork, then giving it to the clerk to check before sealing packages, then weighing them, getting the paperwork stamped, putting the paperwork into little pouches and sticking those on the boxes. While this was happening I heard a sound that instantly took me back to childhood, a whirring, clicking, beeping noise. I followed the sound and it took me to…a DOT MATRIX PRINTER. I stared at the relic, remembering hours of lining up the dots, then carefully tearing the edges off at the perforations.  


We followed with a lunch at a local restaurant, where we had lively discussions about the new Gilmore Girls revival, the Romanian job market, and how to steal cable. 


It’s no secret I wasn’t all that excited about Romania when we first found out we were coming here. Romania? I thought, picturing dreary landscapes with concrete blocks for miles, lines to pick up milk and eggs, and scheduled power outages. People shuffling around despondently, grandmothers with scarves tied over their ears and men with cylindrical furry hats. And when we first got here, it seemed that this would indeed be the case. 
But over time, as we learned the layout of the city, where to find things, how to do things, and I was able to let go of some of my own doubts and fears, it became increasingly warm to us. Unsurprisingly, people react to who they see, and the more open and friendly we were, the more we got in return. 

We learned so much about the world of Communism and dictatorship, what that really felt like, and the lasting impact it still has here.

Things change when you are able to build community somewhere, which makes anywhere seem like home. I’ve had more lonely and dreary times in some of the world’s best cities than I’ve had here. 

And I leave with a feeling of sadness that we’re not staying for longer to let that community grow, as it feels we’ve only just started. I’m sure we’ll find the same, and even more in Ireland as the kids will be in school and, well, we can speak the language. 

Timisoara occupies a warm place in my heart, and I’m happy that we ended up here after all. Had we been in a more Westernized city, I don’t know that we would have been able to make the same connections that we did. 


I’ll share one last story from Timisoara here, something that just wouldn’t have happened back home. The kids and I had gone to see Rogue One (excellent, btw) and hopped in a cab to take us to Viniloteca. Eric was working as assistant bartender for the night, and when we got there, he was flitting about from table to table with a frantic energy. I had run out of cash, so grabbed a 10 lei note from Eric, ran back out to pay the taxi and headed in. Lots of people were there for the amusement of watching Eric work, including many of his students. We chatted with some friends who were there, and I had a nice conversation about the differences in hospital organization with a young medical student. Eric asked me then to take pictures to document his night of servitude, and I reached in my pocket for my phone. It wasn’t there. I then searched my backpack, the kids’ pockets, and my pockets again, but to no avail. 
I used Eric’s phone to track it, and saw that my phone was making its merry way around Timisoara, having some fun at the mall, then heading back to city center. Clearly, I had left it in the taxi. I rang the phone remotely, hoping the driver would find the phone and bring it back, and a few times the taxi did seem it was heading back my way, only to turn in a different direction. Emile, upon hearing my plight, tried to call the taxi company to see if they could track down the driver, but was told “this is not possible.” A few other people tried to call also with the same result. At one point I had a few people clustered around me, watching my phone’s progress around the city – it had become a bar-wide event. The battery indicator of my phone, which shows up when you’re tracking it, was at an unnerving 8%. There was only one thing left to do, which was track it down ourselves. Three of Eric’s students, Dena, Roxy, and Roxi decided to help me out. They called another cab that was there in five minutes. In the meantime we changed into trenchcoats and fedoras so as to feel like we were truly private detectives on a mission, well, at least mentally we did. “Who’s going to yell ‘follow that cab’?!” I asked the girls. 
We got in the cab, they told the story to the taxi driver and while tracking my phone yelled out streets for him to go to. He picked up his phone and called the dispatcher to try and call the taxi, but that driver never picked up. I would refresh the screen, call out the street “Tigrelui!!” The girls would respond in unison “tigrelui street!” And then the driver would say “tigrelui!” Into his cell phone, talking to the dispatcher, he too now fully invested in the hunt. We followed my phone around, the battery becoming ever more depleted, until it stopped moving on a small side street. We drove down the street and off to the side, in a small lot, was the taxi I had taken! The interior dome light was on and I yelled excitedly “That’s it!” The girls and I piled out of the car and surrounded the taxi with the stolen goods. I peered in the passenger window and spied my phone on the seat “There it is!” I couldn’t believe we’d actually tracked the phone down. 
I tried to open the passenger door but it was locked. The driver got out of the car, looking incredulous at being tracked down. He stammered some lame explanation of planning to give the phone back tomorrow, which was clearly a lie. The girls and he bantered in Romanian before he finally got into the car and picked up my phone, continuing his false excuses. He gave it one last longing look then opened the passenger door and handed it back to me. We scrambled back to our car, hooting in exhiliration. On the way back home, after dropping the girls off, the taxi driver told me how happy he was we got the phone back, which was sweet. I paid him double the meter reading, a whole $15, which was a small price to pay for getting my phone back, and in all what ended up being a fun adventure. (Not that I wish to replicate the experience!)

Us, trying to look like badass detectives


I recently changed the settings on my phone’s Weather app, deleting some cities which we didn’t need anymore – Tokyo, Saigon. My kids saw what I was doing and said to me, “Make sure you always keep Timisoara on, Mom, because it’s another place we’ve called home.”
And you know what? I think I will. 

At the airport, saying goodbye with Romanian wine


-s

In which I get a manicure with a side of attitude

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I love having my nails done. Something about it just makes me feel like even if the rest of me is falling apart, at least I’ve got one little piece that’s put together. Most of us have something like this, whether it be having our hair done, or having a book with us at all times, or wearing a hat, or having a notebook or what have you. I had never had a real manicure until medical school, when my friends Rebecca and Doosa, upon learning this, looked upon me with wonder and pity and promptly booked an appointment. Since then I’ve never looked back. Frivolous, I know, but there you have it. 
When we arrived in Romania, one of my first orders of business was to find a nail salon. At first, I was so intimidated by this, as I often was when we first arrived here. I didn’t know if there was different etiquette here, or how to communicate exactly what I wanted. I ended up choosing a place at the mall with good reviews and walked over. Inside was a clean area, lit with bright lights, six or seven nail stations at which were seated women in various stages of nail perfection. All turned to look up at me as I walked in and chatted with the receptionist, which made me feel a bit like a spectacle. At the far end of the room was a tv bolted near the ceiling playing pop music videos in English and Romanian, lending an air of familiarity to the place. As they were busy, I made an appointment to come back to have a manicure with someone named Carmen. Now, I actually know a Romanian Carmen at home, and she is no one to be messed with. I was soon to find out that neither was my new nail tech. 


I went back at the given time and sat down in the chair, and was offered a cafe which I accepted. Carmen sat down across from me, a serious looking young Romanian woman with crimped bleached blond hair. Not saying much, she began to inspect the state of my fingernails. They were somewhat of a disaster. Some had broken off nearly entirely, others were cracked. Her eyes widened, the corners of her lips pursed and she held up the stubs and said, “What can I do with this?” “Well, just leave them and they’ll grow” “It won’t look nice,” she admonished, “I will have to cut them all.” Foolishly, I thought I would still be able to get my way and said, “No no, just leave them.” After a few minutes of shaping while continually sucking air in through her teeth, she stopped. Holding up my fingers in front of me again, she said sternly, “Do you see, it won’t look good! When I do a job, I do it from my soul! I want it look very nice for you.” Okay, okay, I acquiesced. I mean, I didn’t want to be responsible for a stain on Carmen’s soul. This was also the moment when I knew I really liked Carmen. Anyone with that degree of decisiveness is always a winner in my book. 
Out came the clippers, efficiently slicing all the nails down to fingertip length. I have to admit, she was right and they did look better that way. I later tried to tell her only to cut the cuticles a little bit, but again this didn’t go far. After one round with nippers, there was another round with a pair of very sharp scissors. Enough dead skin piled on the table in neat little strips that I thought it could be an effective weight loss technique if done on a regular basis.


Intermittently during our first appointment, we would have a conversation in broken English. I learned she had a six year old daughter, I told her about our time in Romania and our travels. Around the shop, the nail techs chatted amongst themselves in cheerful Romanian, clearly trading gossip and ribbing each other in a friendly way. Every now and then Carmen would shake my hand gently and tell me to relax, which happens to me every time I get my nails done. After the fifth time of this, she threw her head back and smiled and said “Oh my god!” In a rather amused, exasperated away. 
The color I chose was a difficult one, requiring several coats to become opaque, unlike the usual two. Later on, I asked for a design on one of the nails. She brought out a big set of stamping plates and laid them on the table as she continued to work. I saw a nice little feather design I thought would be cute and waited until she asked me what I wanted. This time was not to come. “I choose for you,” she announced, poring over the plates until she made her decision and then stamped a nice little wavy design on. It was quite nice, actually, and our visit ended with a picture of my hands for her portfolio.
Soon it was time to go back, and of course I booked with Carmen. I had to again face the disappointment in her face when she saw another few broken nails. Sighing heavily, she brought out the clippers to cut the rest of them down. She offered to make one of them longer instead, but I declined and opted for the cut down. “What color do you want?” She asked with trepidation.”Not the same one as last time?” Clearly thinking of how long that one took to go on. “No,” I said, “just black this time.” “Black?” “Yes.” “Okay, if that’s what you want,” her eyes widening slightly and with a upturned tone to her voice at the end of the sentence, in a way that made it clear I was unwise to want this, but this time I felt pretty sure about it and didn’t give in. This time we chatted a bit more, and it was nice to be in the midst of a pleasant sussurus of women’s voices in the clear tones of gossip. This time I was allowed to choose one of my nail designs and she picked the other. 
The last time I went in was yesterday, the girl accompanying me as the boys had other plans for the day. When I’d made the appointment a few days ago, the receptionist knew me and immediately turned to Carmen’s schedule to see when she was free. On arrival, I was greeted warmly by the staff and then again tutted over by Carmen for the sorry state of my broken off nails. I showed her a picture of the polish pattern I wanted, and she said definitively “I will have to do a few tips.” Now, I’m not usually one for fake nails of any type, and the last time I had them may have been my wedding, but by now I learned that Carmen knew best. Besides, since I’m not working I figured there was little harm in it for now. (Medical providers usually aren’t allowed to have any type of fake longish nails because of the increased bacteria risk, but moreover it’s entirely impractical. I mean, I don’t think my patients would take kindly to being stabbed during an exam.) She turned to her colleague and they had a rapid discussion in Romanian about the best way to achieve this, and ten minutes later I had a full set of perfectly long nails. My daughter peppered her with questions about the process as we went on, clearly not approving of the nail tips, narrowing her eyes at me as they went on. Then a discussion on how to achieve the french manicure type look I wanted, only with black and gold. She painstakingly applied the polish so it would be perfect. One one nail I wondered if a stripe could be thicker. “It won’t look good!” She rebuffed. And that was that. When she was nearly done, about an hour of work later, I said to her as a joke, “Uh, I don’t like this color, can you redo it?” She looked at me with her eyes wide, mouth partly open and nostrils flared in a “Oh-no-you-didn’t” sort of way, and I burst into laughter “I got you!” And we both laughed about it while she related the story to the tech next to her in Romanian. 

         

At the end, she said, “I want to do a design for you.” And pulling out a plate of snowflake patterns she applied them to my nails as she chose, with the overall effect lovely and seasonal. I told her we were leaving Sunday and we hugged. 


It’s a small thing, like I said, but these interactions are what make me feel like we have a sense of community here in Romania and things I will truly miss. The evolution of my experience at the nail salon reflects my overall experience with Romania. Initially nervous, then more comfortable and even welcomed. After being on the road for several weeks and feeling unrooted, we come to this unlikely place and end up finding places where we have friends, make connections. Viniloteca, the local bakery where we pop in nearly daily, the gym, the nail salon. I finally feel like I have a general sense of how things work, and don’t feel quite so nervous about trying to interact with people. Not surprisingly, this means that the people I interact with are generally friendlier and more open that I found them at the beginning. I suppose in a way this means we’re all mirrors, that someone has to be the first one to open up and smile before others can. 
-s

In which we eat our way through Bologna

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The last stop on our tour of Italy was Bologna. There is a study abroad program there where Regis sends students and Eric knew the program director who had invited us to come and visit. We were greeted warmly by Vittorio, the assistant director of the program and settled in. He showed us around and we saw something that made us all gasp in joy – a CLOTHES DRYER. We haven’t seen one since we left, as they’re not standard anywhere else. Given that in the dampness of places we’ve been, clothes take at least 36 hours to dry, this was a true luxury.  

It’s Christmas season here, and in Europe that means Christmas markets set up around town. I went for a little walk on my own to find a grocery store to pick up some food for the night, and found that the one right next to our flat had handmade tortelloni for sale. I bought a kilo of fresh spinach and ricotta tortelloni, a jar of fresh pesto from the store and settled in for an easy dinner at home. When I was walking around though, I began to have something of an anxiety attack. I felt suddenly very alone and vulnerable, and scared. I had no reason to feel this way – there were plenty of families milling about and I didn’t feel in danger of my safety or anything, just…nervous. It felt strange to me, as I’ve traveled solo quite a bit in the past. I remembered the same sensation when we first got to Romania and Eric had to go to Bucharest for a few days, leaving me alone with the kids. Walking around felt terrifying to me. Now, of course, Romania is familiar and I’m often going about on my own. I think part of it is that for the last few months I’ve rarely been alone at all, usually at least with the kids if no one else. It was also the lack of familiarity, the lack of language as well. By the end of our few days in Bologna this was gone, and I had little problem being on my own, out and about. But it was humbling to realize that even with all the travel, I still get overwhelmed with the unfamiliar. 

The following day we didn’t do much to tell the truth. After the intense whirlwind of the last week, we spent nearly the first two full days hardly leaving the flat. We met up with Vittorio, his wife Margherita, and their daughter for lunch at a tasty vegetarian restaurant. The girl was so, so happy to have another girl to chat and play with, as it’s been practically all boys everywhere else! We then relaxed until dinnertime where we were treated to a delicious homemade dinner made by Todd, the director, and hosted by other faculty at the university there. It was so kind and welcoming of them to have a dinner for us. 


Next day, Todd took us on a tour of Bologna. Bologna is a small, delightful city. While there aren’t many famous “sights,” the atmosphere is lovely and we felt warmly welcomed everywhere we went. At one point, the city needed to  increase it’s living spaces. It did this by building additions onto buildings and underneath them, constructing porticos, or covered walkways, throughout the city.  Bologna is known for its rich and tasty food, and in this it did not disappoint!

One of the interesting sights to see was the campus of the first Medical school in Italy. The walls are covered with names and coats of arms of the prior graduates. Inside is a dissection chamber, where students would sit on the tiered chairs while a cadaver was dissected on the marble slab below. Eric suggested I lay down on the slab to recreate a famous dissection scene. Was this a veiled threat? I wondered. I’ve been watching my back ever since. The columns of the lectern are carved with flayed nudes, in homage to the work done below, though are rather grotesque. 

That evening we went out to dinner with Adleigh, and she took us to her favorite pasta place in Bologna. This was incredible. All fresh and handmade pasta with the perfect complementary sauce, followed by gelato for dessert, of course.

 

For our last full day in Italy, we met with Margherita and Vittorio again for breakfast. An interesting conversation about the referendum in Italy – there was a big vote about amending the constitution significantly which failed, and the Prime Minister resigned. It’s seen as another big anti establishment vote, continuing the momentum of Brexit and Trump. In the States, we are myopic in our political knowledge, and I doubt that even many educated people could name five European leaders. I certainly couldn’t before I came here. The last Italian PM I could name was Berlusconi, turns out he’s been out of power for a while. I know Angela Merkel, but that’s because she’s been in power forever. Of course, everywhere else, they follow the US elections closely and have opinions on them. This is what privilege looks like, in this case American privilege, the ability to ignore what’s happening in the rest of the world because you know it doesn’t affect you all that much. 
For the rest of our time, we did little more than walk around again to explore the streets, pop into little shops and then dinner at home with some fresh pumpkin ravioli picked up at the Christmas market around the corner, where Adleigh and Sean, a faculty member, came over for dinner and some fun conversation. 

Lion’s paw detail of street light base

Love the elaborate door knockers



The next day we boarded our plane back to Romania, which we all now think of as home. 
I usually end my region sections with the street signs, but they really aren’t that unusual here other than the one gondola one in Venice, so instead I leave you with a roundup of our culinary experience. 

In which the kids get to torture each other in a 16th century prison

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Venice, I think, suffers from what you can call anticippointment. All the lovely pictures of it, the hushed tones in which prior travelers speak of it, you expect to fall in love at first sight. And while it is indeed very charming in a way, it’s also so overrun with tourists that there is currently a 7:1 ratio of tourist to resident. Much of the time I was in Venice it felt like an Italian Disneyland, a picturesque city with its unique canals, there for tourists to take pictures of and party in, more than a feeling of true culture and interest. Many of what I suspect used to be small local stores have turned to selling the same cheap chinese factory produced crap as everywhere else because that’s what makes enough money to pay the inflated rent. 
That said, it is spectacularly pretty. No roads, no cars, and no bicycles, the only way to get around is to walk or take a boat. The narrow canals and bridges between buildings are something to see and experience. Our first evening there we decided to go for a walk around, just to explore. Our Air BnB host had suggested a small wine bar that had been in operation since the 1400s, and we popped in for a beverage. I love the little paths that just end in water, and the small little shops and bars you can find around. It’s verifiably labyrinthine however, and even a good map isn’t much help. The streets turn this way and that, going directly straight is impossible, and it’s hard to keep your bearings when you can’t see anything in the distance. We got entirely lost on our way back home, only finding our way by using Google maps and the compass app on our phone. 


We awoke to visit the main tourist sites, the palace and St. Mark’s basilica. The cathedral is, again, stunning, this time interesting for the Eastern influence on the artwork inside. Instead of painted frescoes, the ceiling is entirely covered in glittering mosaicwork. Instead of the usual Western style cupolas which have straight walls then meet to a point at the top, these are Eastern with bulges in the middle, think like the Taj Mahal. No photos inside, unfortunately. 
We went to the palace and signed up for the “secret spaces” tour, which takes you into the jails and torture chambers hidden in the walls of the palace. The kids got to reenact scenes of torture, perhaps a bit too delightfully. We learned of the history of Casanova, who was jailed in that prison for quite some time before managing a daring escape. We saw rooms of inquision, floored with dizzying tilework intended as a mental game to disconcert the accused. Our tour guide was sprightly and engaging, but it couldn’t change the fact that a 16th palace’s dungeon has poor insulation and we were frigid by the end of it. 

We warmed up with lunch and I tried an aperol spritz, a drink of campari, sparkling wine, sparkling water that is touted as a local specialty. Friends, I wasn’t impressed, though it could just be that it’s a summer drink and what we really needed was some nice mulled wine. The drink was garnished with an olive, and when the owner came to take our glasses away, he gave Eric a stern look as he had not eaten the olive garnish. Eric only cares marginally for olives, and so smiled and said “no, it’s okay, okay to take the glass.” The owner continued his stern look and pointed at the olive. Keeping eye contact with him, Eric slowly took the impaled olive out of the glass and ate it, the owner responding with a satisfied look and a hint of a smile. I made a point of showing him that I was eating the olive in MY glass, which was clearly the right path to take. 
We considered a gondola ride for all of ten seconds. At 80 Euro for 30 minutes, it’s not a cheap proposition. Also it was freezing outside, and I could only imagine 30 minutes of yelling at the kids to stop moving or keep their hands in the boat or not play rock the gondola, and I figured I can do all that for free. We did take a short gondola ferry ride, just for the feel of it.


That evening we met up with a student of Eric’s who is currently studying in Bologna and had taken the train out to Venice to meet us and see some friends. We asked around and were sent to a small street on an out of the way part of Venice where there were some (good) little wine bars, small and unpretentious and not facing a large boisterous pathway. This was my favorite part of Venice we’d seen yet. Away from the highly commercialized center (Disney Store, for goodness sake) and from the crowds of progressively more drunken tourists, you could sit in peace and have a beverage while looking out at the canals. 
So Venice, I may be back, I’m not sure. If so I’d stay further out of the main area, in the fringes where it retains its charm and some of its culture. I’ll leave with my favorite detail about Venice, the doorknobs which are situated in the center of heavy wooden doors, like Hobbit holes. 



-s

In which the Vatican doesn’t quite have the intended effect on our family

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Our first Italian train was from Milan to Rome, on the excellent Freciarossa. Clean, modern and fast, we made the trip in just under four hours. A friendly taxi driver took us to our Air BnB, this time centrally located just next to the Pantheon.


Eric and I left the kids at the flat and walked about the streets, which are charming everywhere you go. Narrow cobblestoned pathways with small shops and restaurants around every corner. Every few streets they would open up into a plaza with a statue or obelisk of some sort. We figured the kids could use a little more time alone, so we stopped in for a few glasses at the wine bar across the way. Alex, the host at the wine bar was affable and knowledgeable about different types of Italian wines and brought us a few to try. He then told us about a wine called “Amarone,” and said that it was one of the richest and tastiest red wines they had, but only to be had at the end of the evening else one’s palate would be spoiled. After a couple glasses of other reds, we had a small taste and thought it was delicious, so asked for a glass. Alex hesitated a bit and said, “A glass? You are sure?” Yes, we’ll split one, we replied. The glass came and was shared, and it was entirely delicious. What was not delicious was our check which came to near 70 Euros. We went back the next day and learned that a glass of Amarone cost 30 Euro! We’ve seen bottles for sale elsewhere that are around 300 euro, so it’s just a very expensive wine overall. Well, at least it was tasty and honestly, had I known the cost I never would have ordered it, but can now say I’ve had $300 wine!

Early morning light in Rome, omnipresent smokers


The next day was planned by the boy. I’ve found that the kids do well with travel planning but need a real map and book to do so, which were kindly lent to us by our friend Rob. The plan was to walk south to see the old city wall, and then follow it westward to the Vatican to see St. Peter’s cathedral and the Sistine chapel. We committed to not using our phones to navigate, only maps and street signs. We quickly learned that the signs in Rome may leave out some critical turns, and we got a bit lost! We started just asking people ways to known landmarks. Our first stop was the Campo de Fiori, a former flower field now the site of a bustling market. We arrived with anticipation, perhaps we would pick up some fruit and cheese for a snack, and found the plaza entirely deserted. The boy asked a local vendor, “Scuza, where is the market?”and we learned that on Tuesdays, the market is closed. Ah. We found the church of Santa Maria and popped i to enjoy the detailed stone flooring and gilt ceiling work.

Onwards south we went, through narrow winding lanes that climbed upwards.  Worried we were getting lost and the path to the Vatican the boy had planned was unreasonably long, we stopped at a corner to catch our breath and consult the map. We had just decided to descend when two friendly walkers came upon us and asked if we needed help. They told us that our initial plan was actually a lovely walk, and if we made it up to the top we could see the firing of the noon cannon. So we continued on, Eric yelling at the girl periodically to stay out of the way of oncoming traffic, and found ourselves at the plaza Garibaldi overlooking all of Rome. Eric and I had a cappuccino whille awaiting the cannon fire. Once my eardrums stopped echoing after the blast, we went down the other side of the hill, found a simple lunch place and then headed to the Vatican. 

When the kids take pictures, they manage to make sure you have the most unflattering expressions

The museums of the Vatican are massive, and contain room upon room of antiquities Greek and Roman. Every room is decorated with opulent gilding on the doors, the ceilings with elaborate paintings, and the overall effect is rather overwhelming. I think I’m supposed to be awed, but mostly it makes me think of the extravagance and wealth of the Catholic church, and how it seems hypocritical given that there’s something about rich men and camels and needles in the Bible, but what do I know. By far our favorite was “The map room,” a long hall with frescoed maps on either side.


The Sistine chapel is truly beautiful – no pictures allowed inside. We’ve all seen the closeup shot of Adam and God, but I didn’t know that the entire rest of the chapel is decorated with frescoes as well. Michelangelo did a series of them telling the story of Creation, each more detailed than the last. One wall is a bright fresco of the Last Judgement, demons and hell in grotesque details that was truly shocking for the time. His painting was, in a way, a rebuke of the church’s control and an expression of artistic freedom- he had been hired to paint pictures of Popes and saints, and instead used his art to depict something quite different, to tell the story of God instead of painting hagiographies of Popes past. 
Our feet were quite tired by the end of this, and my phone pedometer told me we’d walked eight miles already. One last stop at St. Peter’s Cathedral, the largest church in the world. It was time for vespers and the choral singing lent a hallowed air to the cathedral, though again, it’s hard for me not to feel a sense of overdoneness with all of the grand churches. The reverent purpose of the church is also lost on the girl, who exited Vatican city and came up with this sacrilegious joke: “What’s Jesus’ least favorite letter? A T!” We shushed her and told her not to say it too loudly, at least until we were out of hearing range of the Pope.

Our next day was another big touring day, this time with a later start. We walked down to the Colosseum, excited to see the grand spectacle. One advantage of travelling in the off season is that there are no lines to get into any of the main tourist sites in Italy, as opposed to summer where you could end up waiting three to four hours just to get a ticket. We really had wanted to do the extra tour where you could see the upper level and the basement, but when I went to purchase, the ticket seller said, “All English tours are sold out for today. There is a Spanish tour at 1 and two Italian tours in the afternoon.” Eric and I looked at each other, shrugged, turning the corners of our mouths downward in a “what the hell” expression, and signed up for the Spanish tour. Between the two of us, I figured we’d have enough Spanish to figure it out. The kids were free for both entry and the tour, so it wasn’t a big loss on that end. 
We entered at first to the grand arena, thinking of the brutality that occurred there, imagining tens of thousands of Romans cheering and jeering a bloodbath below. 


It was time for our tour and we hurried off. Our tour guide was an animated young man, and more often than not we were grateful for the hand gestures to help us understand what he was saying. I mean, I can get myself through a train station and even a hospital in Spanish, but understanding a tour about the construction of Ancient Rome is another thing. The Hypogeum, or basement, was really interesting – the old stones and a reconstructed wooden contraption to show how animals and props were brought out onto the stage from below, a water gutter as well for drainage. Fun fact: before the basement was constructed, the floor of the Colosseum was solid enough that they would fill it with water for aquatic competitions! Boats would be floated in and grand maritime battles were staged, all in the space of the arena. Much of the Colosseum was made out of valuable marble and travertine, all of which were stripped away for use in other buildings when the arena fell into disuse, leaving only the stone foundations. 



 Our tour guide kept talking about huevos… huevos this huevos that. Eric and I wondered what it was about eggs that was so important to ancient Romans. Perhaps it was a slang word for something that we weren’t quite getting, I mean there were a lot of male gladiators. Near the end of the tour, I realized he was saying “juegos”! Aha! Games!! Given this, I think we probably got about 40-50% of the tour, though I’m not sure if I understood him correctly when he talked about the ancient audience taking pictures and tweeting about the fights. Every now and then I’d stop to translate for the kids, sure that it was something like a game of Telephone,, where little of the original information reaches the final recipient.
Our last day in Rome was one of wandering and souvenir shopping, more meandering the small streets.  Campo de Fiori was operational, and we picked up fresh tomatoes, cheese, pesto and some bread for lunch. 

 We found our way past the Trevi fountain again, then onto the Spanish steps and an easy stroll back home, not before stopping at the magical, magical place that is the Lindt store. Bins and bins of chocolate truffles in whatever flavor your heart may desire.  My heart desired almost all of them, except for cherry because that is revolting.

In the morning, we had one last stop at the Pantheon, the boy’s favorite place to visit, before heading out to Venice. Imagine, a building that is 2,000 years old, still standing and in use as a worship site as per its initial intention. 


-s

In which we find that we quite like Milan

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Eric had a trip to Bologna lined up to visit colleagues there, initially planning on a five day trip as he had to teach on December 2nd. Of course, this being Romania, it was announced a few weeks before that classes would be cancelled on that day as the previous day was a holiday for Romanian National Day. We looked for cheap flights to Italy to leave the week prior and found that we could fly one way into Milan for €30 per person. Done.
Milan is not thought of as a big tourist destination, lacking the old world charm of Rome and the tourist draw of the Venetian canals. Even the tour books say bluntly “Milan is not a city that rewards casual strolling. Take the metro.”It’s known as more of a business and fashion capital, but is becoming more popular. We landed in the afternoon into Bergamo airport, one hour away by comfortable shuttle bus. Looking up directions to our Air BnB, I anticipated a bit of a walk from the center of town. This is where paying attention to the scale of a map is important. We ended up needing a subway ride to the end of the line, then a walk through a somewhat desolate area. A somewhat derelict building lay ahead, and I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t be our place. As we walked up a dog began to bark menacingly at us behind the gate, and a small handwritten “bnb” sign on dirty paper taped to the black iron. My heart sank, wondering what we would find inside. Thankfully, the dog was actually quite friendly and the space itself was large and clean and even had a piano, though it was rather far from the city center. 
We found our way to a nearby restaurant at 7:15 and walked in, finding the space bright and cheerful. “Do you have reservations?” No, we didn’t, so she gave us a concerned look and said that she had a free table until 8:45. An hour and a half for dinner seemed preposterous to us, but now seeing how the Italians eat super leisurely, I can understand her concern. The boy, excited to see gnocchi on the menu ordered those. In a few minutes a hot basket of fried dough pieces arrived! Delicious, but not the gnocchi we had been thinking of! Turns out, of course, gnocchi here can just mean “little pieces” or dumplings, not the potato gnocchi we think of. We munched away on the happy surprise. The girl had the first of many caprese salads whe would eat on this trip.  We noticed all the other Italians finishing their meals with a bright yellow liquid. “What is that?” We asked our waitress. “Limoncello! I bring you some as a gift.” Tasty stuff, and like the liquid version of lemonheads candy as was described to me later. We finished our meals with this whenever possible and I highly recommend you do the same if offered the chance.
 I had worried that we would find Italians to be unfriendly based on what I had read, and I can say that this is categorically not the case. Of course, I have a different standard for immediate friendliness based on my time in Romania, but again, if you smile, say a few words in Italian, and aren’t generally rude, I’ve found that Italians are generally kind and playful and most importantly, sweet to my children. 
The following day was our big tourist one. We started off by a visit to “The Last Supper.” I wasn’t expecting much to tell you the truth. I mean, we’ve all seen pictures of this work of art so much we can recognize it anywhere. But much like seeing “Starry Night” in person, it is a different experience to be there. The painting occupies an entire wall of the chapel, and was painted over a long period of time so that da Vinci was able to perfect the details. Unfortunately, this meant that it was not done as a fresco and thus has degraded quite a bit. Frescoes are painted onto wet plaster and have great longevity, appearing brilliant centuries afterwards, but paint on a surface fades and wears away. You can still see the expressions on the faces, ranging from anger to sadness to disbelief, at the moment Christ tells his followers that one of them has betrayed him.  I did get a giggle out of the fact that the doorway right below Jesus had been enlarged at some point, and the workers failed to notice that they sliced away his feet in the process. I can only imagine the conversation between the priest and the contractors after that happened. “Salvatore, what have you done with the feet of our Lord?!” “Father, you said you wished for a taller door, I have given you a taller door, who needs feet anyway, he is going to ascend to heaven soon.” After which Salvatore quietly disappears. 


There’s a well known science museum in Milan, and as it is steps away from there, we stopped in. They had a long display of da Vinci’s machines brought to life from drawings, and we spent a lot of time to see if we could figure out how they worked, just amazed by the ingenuity and brilliance of da Vinci. They also have incredible exhibitions on everything from Electricity to Steel, World’s fairs to Reusable Energy. We simply did not have enough time here!


Afterwards we headed out for a bicycle tour I had arranged before we arrived. I love bicycle tours, as you get to see so much of a city and spend time with a local resident as well. My favorite sight was the “forest apartment” buildings: 



Trees on every level chosen by arborists, maintained by the buildings. In the fall they have turned lovely shades of red and orange and are striking against the skyline. Unsurprisingly, this is a plum piece of real estate and inhabited by the Milano elite. Then a roll through the fall-orange central park and the main palace in which some bizarre silent crowd gathering was happening. A woman with a headset guided a large group all wearing headphones to move from one side to the other, raise hands, lower them, put on vests… It remains a mystery to us and to our guide, who was of no help in solving it.

We ended at the Duomo, a striking baroque cathedral which is large, ornate, and made of such delicate pink marble that some part of it is always in disrepair and scaffolding is ever present. Each of the hundreds of statues on the spires must be replaced every fifty years or so, ensuring that generations of sculptors should be employed for years to come. The sun had dropped by this time as had the temperature, and we were all chilled before we got back to the bike depot and off our bikes, into a warm place for dinner and then the train trek home. 

Milan is definitely worth a visit of at least a few days! I would have liked more time at the museum and som etime to shop, as the merchandise was enticing. Next time, perhaps?
-s

In which I dance like a chicken, or rather, a turkey

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Thanksgiving, for me, has never been a huge holiday. Growing up we didn’t have a big tradition, and I’d often end up at a friend’s house for the holiday. At my job at home, you either work Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I always opt for Thanksgiving, so it’s not like we can typically travel anywhere either.
Long before we’d even arrived in Romania, our friend Cath announced her plan to come visit us there for Thanksgiving and to make sure we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey. We, of course, do not eat turkey, but details like that don’t deter Cath. She was sure that we’d be able to find willing omnivorous bellies. She was so determined to have turkey that she was planning on throwing a frozen one into her luggage. I asked a Romanian colleague of mine if one could get a turkey in Romania, and she replied, “Of course! You can get everything in Romania!” I have learned that this is not entirely true (case in point: cilantro) but didn’t think a turkey would be much trouble. Besides, I was only half sure that Cath would even make it here. 
Of course, Cath is not one to back away from her promises and she arrived here the Monday before Thanksgiving on one of the last few planes before Lufthansa was hobbled by its pilots’ strike. Our mission was now to find a turkey. Rob and Dana had said they would find the turkey, but they were unsuccessful in their attempt. Remember, these are the people who LIVE here and are Romanian and they couldn’t find a turkey. 
Challenge: Accepted. 
On Tuesday afternoon after dropping off Cath and her son at their flat, Eric and I walked past a butcher shop and decided to go in to see if they had a turkey. First, I looked up the Romanian word for turkey on my phone. Armed with the knowledge, we walked into the store, went up to the woman behind the counter and asked “Curcan?” She replied “Congealada, curcan congealada?” (Congealed turkey? I wondered) and pointed us to a case with frozen turkey parts on the familiar yellow styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic. “No, no” I said. Now, I suppose I could have looked up the word for whole turkey, but this didn’t occur to me. What DID occur to me was to pantomime a large beach ball with my hands, then flap my elbows like a chicken and bend my knees while chanting “Curcan! Curcan!” The shopkeeper’s lips curled slightly upwards, which I think is Romanian for pointing and laughing out loud, and said “Intrega?”and pointed to a whole chicken in the next case. “Da!” I replied, “Curcan intrega!” At this point she rattled off about two minutes of solid Romanian during which the only word that made any sense was “Kaufland,” the name of the grocery store down the block. I wasn’t sure if she was telling us that they had them there, or if she was saying that I should head down and do my turkey dance for her colleagues because they’d think it was funny as hell. 
Later that afternoon, we all decided to go to a large bar/bowling alley/arcade at the mall where the kids were out of our hair could play and we could have a beverage. We stopped first at the grocery store there, in search of a turkey, thinking that if they had one available then we knew and could come pick it up the next day. 
We now knew how to ask for “curcan intrega,” and thus empowered, walked into the meat section. At the first butcher area, we asked the man behind the counter, “curcan?” He shook his head “no” and pointed us to an area with refrigerated and frozen bins. We walked over there and saw familiar cut pieces of turkey in styrofoam trays and wrapped in plastic. “Too bad,” I thought to myself. “I guess there’s no whole turkey in Romania.” Cath, however, is a dedicated omnivore and has more knowledge about the ways of gastronomic ornithology. “Wait,” she remarked, “those are FRESH turkey pieces. That means that SOMEWHERE in the back is a whole turkey.” 

Contemplating the existence of turkey


We walked to another worker, this one in the fish section. “Curcan intrega?” We asked. She gave us a look of horror and initially shook her head as if we had asked to buy a whole cow. Then she paused and strode off purposefully, walked over to a colleague and had a conversation that clearly went something like “Those crazy foreigners want to buy a whole turkey.” The colleague came over and asked me something in Romanian I didn’t understand. I pulled out my phone and had her type it into google translate. “Did you order a turkey?” The screen read. “No” I said, thinking again that our quest had come to a fruitless (or birdless, I suppose) end. She turned on the spot and walked off, waving at us to indicate that we should wait. In no less than two minutes she returned with a whole fresh turkey, shrink wrapped in plastic, with a price sticker on it. Cath looked at me and pronounced, “We MUST buy this turkey now, as this will never happen again.” 


Dear friends, we bought the turkey. We did not change our plans to go to the bar, and the turkey accompanied us there. 

Yes it’s revolting

A few days later, we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner, with Cath, our friends Rob & Dana, and Marinela and Pali, the lovely Romanian couple from whom we rent our flat, and our collective children, feeling that we truly had the spirit of sharing bounty as newcomers to the land, and that with a little knowledge, persistence and dancing, anything is possible, even turkey in Romania.


-s

In which we make key lime bars and learn something in the process

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We get a lot of questions about how we’re educating the kids. Aren’t you worried about them falling behind in school? How do you know they’re learning anything? Do they need to prove anything to the school when they return? (The answer to that last one is no) And sure, we’re doing some academic formal schooling, but sometimes the lessons are those that come from just being somewhere else. 
Yesterday, the boys went off to a yoga class and left the girl and I for a little time alone. After a bit of reading, we thought we’d engage in the classic teenage banter of “I don’t know, what do YOU want to do?” Mulling over the park (too cold), the mall (uh, no), we settled on baking. Initially, I chose a salted caramel brownie recipe but then the girl saw a link for key lime pie, her and her brother’s favorite. I thought we should make it a little easier and go for bars instead, and off we went to the grocery store, shopping list in hand. Limes, butter, eggs, gingersnaps, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk. A few veggies for dinner too.

She insisted on putting the coin in for the shopping cart herself. Here, the carts are chained together to prevent theft, and to use one while you’re in the store you insert a 50 cent coin that you get back if you reattach them. 

We got into the store, crowded as usual, and set about to find our ingredients. Limes were the first one. Would they be next to the lemons and other citrus fruit? No. Near the refrigerated section? No. Would we have to abandon our mission? No, we kept looking and found them tucked in between the ginger and the pomegranates, in what I think is the “exotic fruit” area. 

Butter, eggs,cream cheese were no difficulty. The next barrier was the gingersnaps. Walking through the aisles, none were to be seen. We thought, maybe we’ll substitute with graham crackers, but again no familiar boxes of grahams, even after studying the pictures. We settled on McVitie’s digestives, a crumbly round biscuit that resembles graham crackers, though doesn’t have their cardboard like properties.  
Then came the sweetened condensed milk. I actually thought this wouldn’t be a problem since it seemed to me preserved canned milk would be common for a prior Communist state, and headed for the packaged milk section to look for the familiar cans of Carnation. Of course, none were to be found. We searched the baking aisle, the sweets aisle (all on opposite sides of the store) and then one last search in the milk section. In the States, if a certain store doesn’t have an essential ingredient I’m looking for, I tend to do one of two things. Either I give up on that recipe for the day or I just get in my car and drive to another store where it will be and I can be out in five minutes. Here, it’s a bigger deal. If we wanted to go to the bigger store, at the mall of course, it’s a half mile walk and far more crowded. It would take us an hour. The girl, undaunted, was all for the extra effort of going, just to be able to make our recipe. One more desperate scan in the milk aisle showed me two bottles that looked like they had condensed milk. Was it sweetened? Who knows – the nutritional info label, in German, was covered up by a sticker in Romanian that I couldn’t translate. 
We made our way out of the store, not before being veggie shamed by the checkout lady as I thought the cucumbers we got were priced by the number, not kilo, and got home. 
The milk was just evaporated milk as it turns out, so I looked up how to make it into sweetened condensed, which involves a little sugar and and a lot of simmering. While that was happening, the girl got the other ingredients going until it was time to crumble the cookies. Lacking a food processor or blender, we crumbled them by hand until we had a relatively fine meal, using the flat side of a meat pounder for the rest. 

We don’t have a 9×11 pan, but do have a tart pan so used that instead. No mixer to beat the cream, so did it with a hand whisk, triceps aching by the time stiff peaks formed. Had to figure out what the oven temperature should be in celsius to set it correctly. Melted butter in a pan on the stove as we don’t have a microwave. Throughout all of this, not one peep of complaint or whining from the girl, even though this was much harder than it would be at home.



In the end, it all worked and we had some tasty lime bars. Sorry, this is the only picture I was able to get before the hordes gobbled them up. 

My point is this – one thing you can’t learn in a school is the essential lesson of learning how to figure something out. Maybe things don’t work exactly as you want or expect them to, maybe it’s harder than you anticipated, but you learn to make it work. I think it’s hard to do this in your familiar environnment as you know how things work and it’s set up for you. If I were Romanian and coming to the States, I’d be lamenting how to substitute for smantana and papanasi mix instead – it’s not about US vs other, it’s just about being somewhere where things are unfamiliar, being away from home. 
More than all the history and the culture, it’s things like this I think are the true value of leaving home, stepping outside your comfort zone. So while my kids may be missing out on watching a bean seed soak in paper toweling and sprout or making a solar system model out of styrofoam balls, my hope is that the lessons they are learning make sure if they ever need to figure something out, they’ll know how to.  

-s

The Shakespeare stealer book review…ish

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For school my sister and I are working on the book The Shakespeare Stealer. Our assignment is to write a book review for The Shakespeare Stealer on ideas of childhood morality up to the point we read thus far.

In the beginning of the book Widge, (the main character) loses his family and is brought up at an orphanage where he learns his first idea of right and wrong. Later on in his life he is adopted by Dr. Bright. Bright asked Widge to go and copy his colleagues’ sermons, he gives his own sermons, to put into a book of the best sermons. Later Widge finds out that Bright is actually using the sermons for his own. Widge has a flicker of a shadow of doubt, but then thinks “Right was what benefited you , and anything which did you harm was  Wrong.” With this thought in mind, Widge overlooks the doubt he had before. Also if Widge tattles on Bright, that will probably mean that Bright will disown him and then he goes to the orphanage again. That is not good for him. Soon Widge is caught, and the blame falls squarely on Widge. Although this is not shown, the reader can deduct from evidence given later in the book that this greatly changes Widge’s thoughts of morality. Furthermore, at the orphanage they set a foundation stone for Widge’s ideas of morality. To build a new and better morality stone takes a lot to understand that this new one is better. Also, going on with the theme of childhood, once a stone is set it becomes increasingly harder to break as you grow.

So far I have not finished the book, although maybe something will happen that drastically changes Widge’s ideas of morality. Honestly, I think that he should just take a spin on the wheel or morality with Yakko, Wakko and Dot!wheel-of-morality

 -Hf