Playing catch up and going home

There are certain things in life that you never expect.  They are complete and utter surprises.  Some of them are pleasant — like when your dad comes home from work with a bag full of candy bars and throws one in your lap or your mom bakes you homemade bread and leaves it on your counter for you to enjoy with your morning coffee.  Other times the surprise is not so welcome, like hearing someone has charged thousands of dollars on your credit card … or, more painfully, that someone you love dearly has been diagnosed with cancer.  I can honestly say that when my mom called this month and told me that she was undergoing surgery for cancer I was completely taken off-guard.  Not because I had blocked the possibility from my mind out of fear or because I hadn’t taken the time to consider it, I think it just never occurred to me.  The thought never entered my mind.  My mom is one of those people you imagine will never deal with a serious illness, no matter what the statistics say.

Fortunately she is in no pain, caught the lump early and is expected to recover quite well (she is in excellent health in all other ways).  However because there is some uncertainty as to what the treatment plan will be and we conveniently live across the street from my parents, we have decided as a family to head home a month early.  We plan to fly out of Italy on April 20th and be home in time to overlap with my sister for a couple of days before she heads back to Minnesota.  

We have been on the move constantly since we decided to pack two months of travel into one.  We had to do some editing and struggled with what we would prioritize as destinations.  In the end, we decided that Paris, London and Greece were the top picks.  We said goodbye to Spain, Czech Republic and a few other dreams for this time around.  

We have already put Paris and London behind us and have our eyes set on Greece for next week.  Because we have done so much in such a short period of time, I am just going to sum up the last two weeks and hope you can imagine the pace, the fun and the excitement we’ve had.  We definitely feel very blessed and full from the experiences we’ve been able to enjoy and are most ready to return home to our family, friends and routine.  Please say a prayer for my mom when you think of it.  Thanks.

The weekend (February 27-February 30)

We spent about 3 days at “home” to do laundry, to drop Carol at the airport and to let Joel be sick with a fever and cough.  Joel’s fever was so high and had lasted for several days so we finally broke down and called Francesco for help.  He arrived the next day with a doctor from the church (and about 10 other people).  Of course, by the time the doctor arrived Joel’s fever had broken and he was like a little bird flitting about and singing his song.  I was so embarrassed because it was pouring outside and she had made a house call and there was not a thing wrong with Joel. I was also embarrassed because we had a house full of people, I hadn’t had a shower, and our house had laundry hanging from every window, chair and curtain rod.  Still, John reminded me that I should be thankful that Joel was so much better.  He’s right.  Thanks for all of you who prayed for him! 

John preached on Sunday evening at Aldo’s church.  I stayed home with Joel and didn’t get the opportunity to hear him. Carol and John David accompanied him and John David said that the sermon was great.  This analysis was an improvement from when we were in India and he was warning the pastor’s daughters about how boring his dad was when he preached.  I think his exact words were, “Prepare to be bored.  My dad’s preaching.”  I don’t think my husband thought that he would preach in his entire lifetime as many times as he has in the last two months. 

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Carol and she headed back to the US from Milan.  We planned to leave for our next excursion on Tuesday and hoped to spend the day on the Internet planning our course.  Unfortunately, our Internet connection went down.  I felt helpless without my computer and wondered how people ever managed to make trips before the invention of DSL.  We found a signal at a hotel lobby and it was enough time to book a hotel in Paris.  We packed up our still damp laundry and headed out the door for France, not yet certain how the week would unfold.

Paris (March 31-April 3)

When you have a family of five or more the list of available hotels shrinks from 985 choices to 2 (if your budget won’t allow for you to split into two rooms).  One of the choices will inevitably be $985 per night and the other will be the choice you have to take.  The hotel we were stuck with advertised that it was on a “quiet street in Paris.”  I think the street was quiet enough (relatively).  However, the hotel itself prompted me to buy my first-ever pair of earplugs.  The walls and floors were paper-thin and it became painfully apparent that people visiting Paris don’t sleep.  

We spent the first day visiting the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Obelisk, and the Louvre Gardens and Museum.  The boys climbed the 668 stairs of the Eiffel Tower to the second level (the highest level permitted by stairway) and then caught the elevator on up to the top.  The tower was much taller than I imagined and it was a VERY windy day.  This was Jacob’s favorite site to this point.  He likes things that are famous.  The Mona Lisa was also high on his list.  Jacob has been keeping a drawing journal and records a monument at every major city.  So far he has done some lovely detailed sketches of the Leaning Tower, the Parma square clock, the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, the Sri Lankan elephant orphanage, the Lufthansa airplane, and the Eiffel Tower.  Next on the list is Notre Dame. 

 

John and I at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

Joel makes a friend atop the Eiffel Tower

Jacob practically sprints to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

The Louvre Museum obviously needed a second visit (2 hours just isn’t enough for 30,000 pieces of art!).  We returned to see the French and Dutch collection of paintings the second day.   We also went to Notre Dame and marveled at the stained glass and the number of gypsies with notes written in English who claimed that their husbands were dead and children were dying.  I try not to be hard-hearted, but do they honestly believe that these stories, duplicated dozens of times within the same square, work better than the truth?   

Three nights sleeping underneath the girl’s dorm room was enough for us and although we loved Paris, we were anxious to make plans to go somewhere else–but where?  We were planning on Spain, which would be a bit cheaper and easier than England, but we wanted to do some research before deciding.  We started searching on the Internet at 10:00 after we put the kids to bed.  Apparently late at night after a full day is not a good time to make decisions.  We went to bed at 12:30 with absolutely nothing booked and a little bit frustrated with each other.  A good night’s sleep, however, made things seem a little brighter.  John and I both woke up with England on our mind.  While John packed up and got the boys going, I got on the Internet and booked the Eurotunnel (the train that takes you and your car across the English Channel in only 35 minutes) and a hotel in the London area. 

London (April 3 – April 7)

We managed to make it to the train with less than 5 minutes to spare and were in England by late afternoon.  We decided to stay in a town north of London, St. Albans.  It is only about 20 minutes by train and metro to the sights of downtown.  We had had enough of driving in big cities and it was one of the two hotels offering a family room for 5.  We liked the hotel.  We were in an upstairs cottage and the only thing waking us up in the morning was the loud bird outside the window.  I was curious to know what kind of bird this might be.  Sort of annoying like a rooster, except the song was so pretty and the bird was so earnest in singing it, you feel more inclined to appreciate it.

Our kids have finally started begging to just be able to play at a park with their friends.  Jacob would like to fly home for a few hours so he can play football on the street with Dalton for the afternoon.  I guess art museums, cathedrals and monuments have a limited appeal (even if it is the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower).  Although we were initially quite annoyed at the complaining, with some further thought we decided that we would respond kindly to their misery and try to design a little different itinerary in London.  We took the sightseeing bus instead of making them walk the 10 miles we intended to cover.  We took in a Broadway style show (39 Steps) that they enjoyed immensely.  We ate out at the Texas Embassy, a Tex Mex restaurant that served sodas with FREE REFILLS and chips with queso dip.  We went to Legoland in Windsor and stood in line for 2 hours to take a 5 minute laser ride.  I imagine John and I felt about as thrilled about Legoland as the boys did about Notre Dame; however Legoland was Joel’s dream come true. Legos are what he spends all of his money on, and no matter how many he has, he always believes that he needs more.  In fact, when we were at the Louvre looking at famous paintings, he was laying on a center bench thumbing through a Lego magazine he found in a shop we passed by.  If he couldn’t afford to buy them, he might as well dream.  

We also took advantage of being in England where movies are not subtitled and took them to Monsters Vs Aliens 3D — this was a huge hit with all of us.  John and Inow  have the treat of getting to hear the movie lines quoted every meal time.  How on earth can they remember all of that dialogue??  Where is all that great memory skill at test time?  Maybe if I animated our social study lessons and included some strange creatures and laser guns the retention would be better… being funny would help, too. 

The only visits in England that centered around John’s and my taste were the Tower of London, The National Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Stonehenge (yes, we drove 2 hours one way to see the boulders for five minutes).  Can you believe that we did all of this in just 3 days?!

 

The boys atop the London double decker bus

 

Joel enjoys a Texas-sized bacon cheeseburger at the Texas Embassy

 

Jacob and Joel take advantage of the setting (Tower of London) to do what they really want to do -- play.

 

Stonehenge: I know I should be impressed by the 45-ton boulders standing up before cranes were invented, but even the sheep look bored here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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