From one home to another

July 10, 2008

This morning, we woke up at 5 am to get ready and finished the last-minute packing. Maria had breakfast ready and made sandwiches for us for the trip. We said goodbye to Maria and Maria, and that was even harder than the goodbyes from the night before. I could tell that Memo was fighting back tears, and I felt the same. These people are like second parents to me, especially since my mom passed away. Every time I leave Europe, I have mixed feelings. I love the United States, and I’m happy to be going home, but I’m also sad not knowing when I’ll return again. This time seemed particularly hard. It may sound a little cheesy (something I usually try to avoid), but I always think of the words to the hymn God Be With You ‘Til We Meet Again when I say goodbye to people I love. So I’m a softy, sue me.

From then on, the day quickly went downhill. Nothing in particular went too wrong, but traveling back from Europe on three different planes with three children under ten never makes for an enjoyable day. We returned the car with no problem and caught our flight to Frankfurt. So much for Germany efficiency because that airport seemed to move in slow motion, particularly the security checks (although I have to admit they were thorough, and I can’t complain about safety, but it doesn’t make it any easier for the kids).

The flight to Philadelphia lasted forever, and even the usually unflappable Alex went stir crazy after a while. Of course, we had a delay because of a mechanical issue in the Philly airport, but it turned out to only an hour and a half (at one point, we thought it may be much longer). Fortunately, it felt like the middle of the night to us because of the time change, and the kids slept most of the way home on the last flight. Our awesome friend Bobby picked us up at the airport in SF, and we made it home at about 1 am.

The kids were very happy to be home (and off a plane). Becky, who hadn’t slept well on the plane because she was holding Katie, crashed pretty quickly (she was probably the most happy to be in her own bed), but the kids played with Linda (who has been taking care of the house while we’ve been gone) and in their playroom for a couple of hours before they could be coaxed into getting some more sleep. I’m sure we’ll get back to a normal routine soon.

Well, other than the first and last days (travel), we’ve had a fantastic trip and an awesome experience. In a day or two once I get to back to some degree of normalcy (no, we don’t need any comments on my ability to be normal – I think we all can agree that won’t really happen), I will complete my final musings to wrap up this year’s adventure and its awe-inspiring blog. Stay tuned…

It's hard to say goodbye

July 9, 2008

Today was our last real day here, and it was hard saying goodbye to everyone. We did a little more shopping this morning (we still needed some Swiss chocolate, cheese, etc.), and then we all hung out at Maria and Memo’s the rest of the day. We talked about taking the kids somewhere, but they seemed happy playing in the pool and just playing together. Franco and Emily’s family was there (except for Ashley who is still at camp), and Noemi and her kids were there (Ivan came a little later for dinner).

Maria went all out again. For lunch she made homemade gnocchi and rolled beef strips, and Memo made the sauce. For anyone who has eaten store-bought gnocchi, I’m sorry, but there really is no comparison. It was wonderful. And then for dinner, she made pasta and homemade pizza just like the first night we got here because she knew the kids would love it.

We’ve been staying the last few nights at Franco and Emily’s, but we moved over to Maria and Memo’s again tonight because we have to get up early and don’t want to wake up all of Franco’s family. They offered to accompany us to the airport, but it really wasn’t necessary so we said our goodbyes to Franco & family and Noemi & family tonight. It was hard because we honestly don’t know when we’ll all see each other again. I hadn’t been back for nine years, and it had been eleven for Becky, but since Franco and Emily had lived in southern California, we had seen them a few years ago. We knew that we would be coming to Switzerland for Fabio’s wedding, but now that it’s over, who knows when we’ll be able to go back again. I hope that they’ll all come out to California sometime soon, but traveling with a large family isn’t easy (I should know – just ask Becky though if you don’t believe me). So we hugged and said goodbye to our friends who are more like family, and we’ll leave it in God’s hands as to when we’ll all be together again.

Zac, the mighty fisherman

July 8, 2008

Today we had a nice, lazy morning. Then this afternoon our trip really felt like it was winding down because Becky and I went shopping for souvenirs with Franco and Emily. While we busy looking for nick nacks, Maria and Memo took Alex and Zac along with Franco’s kids to the big lake, Lac Leman. Memo had promised to take Zac fishing so I think they did that for a little while, but the mostly played in the lake. Zac would much rather swim in an ice-cold lake than fish in it. Needless to say, but we didn't have fish for dinner.

Nothing really exciting today, but it was just nice spending time with friends.

More melted cheese & medieval toilets

July 7, 2008

Another great day in Swiss paradise. This afternoon we went with Franco and Emily and kids to drop their oldest daughter Ashley at a church girl’s camp so we said our goodbyes to Ashley since we'll be gone by the time she's home. Then we visited my personal favorite castle (granted, there are many that I haven’t seen, but this is the best I’ve been to). When I was a missionary, at one point I lived in a city called Montreux which is across Lac Leman from Geneva and has a world-famous jazz festival every year. Right up the street from our apartment was the Chateau de Chillon, and I went there for the first time as a missionary, but I have been back almost every time I have come back to Switzerland.

It’s less crowded (although there were more people than I remembered in the past) than Mont Saint Michel, and you can actually explore more of the castle itself. You can go down into the dungeon and see where the poet Lord Byron carved his name onto one of the stone pillars in 1816. In the middle of the Romantic Movement in art and literature, Byron was so impressed by the story Francois Bonivard, a monk who was imprisoned in the same dungeon for nearly six years because he opposed the Duke of Savoy’s efforts to control Geneva and the area. You can also sit on a medieval toilet that drops straight down into the lake. Of course, this was the highlight of the tour for the kids who wanted their picture taken on the real throne (I would have, but I had already had the experience and someone needed to take the picture).

Anyway, we spent a couple of hours there, and then we stopped at the lakefront in the next town over called Vevey. The kids played for a while, and we ate ice cream between our friends Freddy Mercury and Charlie Chaplain (in statue form, of course as there is a statue of Freddy on the lakefront in Montreux and one of Charlie in Vevey.)

When we got back to Maria’s house, we had one of my favorite Swiss meals called raclette. You take raclette cheese and melt slices in a little oven in the middle of the table; then you pour the cheese over small boiled potatoes and put on a variety of different toppings such as cocktail onions, mini pickles, sausage, etc. It’s delicious and a lot of fun to melt your own cheese and make your own creation as you eat. I honestly don’t know if I like fondue or raclette better, but this was a special treat because I’ve never been able to find in the US. Yet another thing that I’ll probably have to wait a decade or so before I experience again.

Putting Pete's French to the test & eating chocolate cake

July 6, 2008

We had a lot of rain today, but that was okay since it’s Sunday, and we hadn’t planned any big outings anyway. We’ve actually been lucky on the trip so far (knock on wood since we have a couple days left), but we’ve had good weather most of the time. It hasn’t been too hot or too cold; in Normandy we had some drizzly weather but nothing terrible, and it even dried up before we had to pack the tent up. There have been thundershowers three days, but two of them were Sundays and the other we driving the whole day.

Liz had invited us to come back up to Bienne, but we wanted to stay down here because Maria was having a final big dinner with Fabio, Elodie and Elodie’s family. Her family (pictured above) is leaving Switzerland tomorrow to travel around Italy for a couple of weeks in an RV (her dad is a man after my own heart), and Fabio and Elodie are leaving the next morning for the US. So since there was going to about 25 people at Maria’s house anyway, we invited Liz and her grandson down here to join the party.

So this morning I dropped my family off at church, and then I went over to the train station to pick up Liz and her grandson Louie (I don’t think that I mentioned before that Liz has never driven a car in her life, but I guess that’s just part of being a crazy Irish woman).

At church on the first Sunday of each month, there is no set program for the main meeting; anyone who wants to can get up and share their testimony or a spiritual experience. Becky kind of nudged me and encouraged me to get up and say something. When I speak in church at home, I don’t get nervous anymore, but it’s been about fifteen years since I spoke to a large group in French. I think that Heavenly Father blessed me because afterward everyone claimed that they understood what I had said. Among other things, I shared how much it meant to me that Maria, Memo and Franco and family had come up to Northern California and sang a hymn in French at my mom’s funeral. It really feels like we have an extended family because of the support and love we receive from each other within the church community.

Dinner was supposed to be finishing leftovers from the reception, but of course, Maria had to make a little pasta too. It sure was a houseful. There was Maria, Memo, Franco & family (6), Noemi & family (5), Elodie’s family (5), Fabio & Elodie, Liz & grandson, and our family (5). It was quite a crowd but a lot of fun, and you could tell that Maria was truly happy to have everyone there. To top it all off, we had the best chocolate cake that I have ever eaten in my life. If I thought it would keep, I’d bring some home with me. Oh well, I’m sure we’ll be back in another decade or so. (Man, I’ll be in my mid-forties by then; that’s a scary thought – no offense intended for anyone who may have already reached that milestone.)

A day at the temple and a sky full of balloons

July 5, 2008

Happy birthday, Paul. Second year in a row we’ve missed it because of some zany trip. Sorry man. We did try to call and sing you Happy Birthday. We spoke with Janel and then tried you on cell phone; we could hear you, but I don’t think you could hear us.

One of the reasons we chose to stay in Bienne when we did is that it’s close to the Mormon temple in Switzerland. So this morning we drove over to the temple, and we able to be a part of the religious ceremony that really concluded Fabio and Elodie’s wedding. That was really cool and a very spiritual experience. The last time I had been to the Swiss Temple was nine years ago for Noemi and Ivan’s wedding, and Becky and I had been there together eleven years ago when we had come to Europe before kids. Even my mom and dad used to go to the Swiss Temple when my dad was in the army and stationed in Germany. It’s an awesome place.

After the temple, there was yet another reception put on by Emily and the local church members for friends and family who live around here in Switzerland. It lasted a few hours and went very well. I was able to visit with people I had not seen in years, including a girl named Esther who had been traveling with Noemi when she came to visit us in California years ago. At the end of the reception, Emily had everyone lined up outside of the church. She (with the help of many other including the local missionaries) had blown up hundreds of balloons in the wedding colors. As Fabio and Elodie left, Louis Armstrong’s It’s a Wonderful World was playing, and then we all let our balloons go. It was really an impressive sight. It’s been a real privilege (although I have to admit a little tiring as well) to have been a part of this whole wedding celebration.

We are now spending the night at Franco and Emily’s house because Elodie’s family is staying with Maria and Memo. So the kids will all be together, but our lovely children will probably be a bad influence since they (especially Alex) have too much energy and have not gone to bed before eleven on this whole trip. We’re still having fun though, right?

No ice caves, but we slid down a mountain on our butts

July 4, 2008

Happy BIrthday, Nicole! Happy Independence Day, everyone else (and Nicole too I guess)! Except no one here is celebrating. Go figure. We realized that we’re missing all the national holidays this year. We’re not in the US for the 4th; we’ll be home by the 14th so we won’t be able to celebrate Bastille Day in France, and the Swiss national holiday is August 1st so we won’t be around for that either. Maybe we should head down to Mexico for Cinco de Mayo next year (but that’s not really their Independence Day either). Can someone check on Canada for me?

Anyway, Liz had to work today so we slept in a little, and then we headed off to the Alps. When Becky and I were here eleven years ago, we visited a little town called Grindlewald that is in the middle of the Swiss Alps. We had gone to ice cave with a bunch of ice sculptures that had been carved into a glacier. It was awesome, and we were looking forward to taking the kids there. But when we got there, we learned that a lot of the glacier had melted, and they no longer had an ice cave. Darn Al Gore and his global warming.

So we took a little gondola up into the mountains and found an Alpine summer bobsled-type run for the kids. The pictures don’t do it justice because they’re from the beginning and end of the run, but the thing did move pretty fast with some crazy turns in it. I went once with Zac; Becky went with Alex, and then Alex and Zac went together. Katie was too young to go, and she was really upset about that. She was crying and screaming that she wanted to go. Two girls who were visiting from an Asian country got the biggest kick out of how much Katie wanted to go. They went over to the snack bar and bought her a popsicle to make her happy while she waited for Alex and Zac to finish their last run. It was very cute. There was also a trampoline and other play equipment for the kids at this little Alpine gondola station so even Katie had fun anyway.

That evening Liz had invited the local Mormon missionaries over for dinner so we got a chance to eat with them. It was cool to find out how the mission area has changed in the last fifteen years. And, of course, with Liz the conversation is always very lively.

A crazy Irish woman

July 3, 2008

We left Southern France today and spent most of the day driving back to Switzerland. We’ve had nice weather almost all of the trip, but today it rained pretty much all day. A few times we drove through some of the hardest thundershowers I have ever been in. A couple of times, I almost pulled over on the highway because the rain was so bad. But we made it safely through.

We didn’t go back to the same place in Switzerland this time. We have a friend a little farther north who had been on vacation, but now she’s back. So we went to the town of Bienne, and we’re spending the night with a crazy lady named Liz. She’s lived in Switzerland most of her life, but she was born in Ireland. She says whatever comes to her head, and she speaks a mile a minute regardless of whether it’s in English, French, German or Swiss German (even a little Italian as well). She has a big heart, and she’d give you the shirt off her back, but you might have to wait a half an hour until she lets you say a word to ask for it. The kids didn’t know what to make of her at first, but after a while they really warmed up to her. Becky and I agreed that Dee would do a great impersonation of her; we just have to work on getting them together.

Rocky beaches & wedding vows

July 2, 2008

What a full day. We started by going with Franco and Emily & kids to a relatively family-friendly beach on the Mediterranean Sea. Of course, after getting all the way to Southern France, I left the camera at the hotel. So Franco took a couple of pictures at the beach on his cell phone, and I’ll get one from the beach posted as soon as I can. The beach was a little rocky, but the water was warm and most all of the women kept their tops on (the ones that didn’t were old and portly anyway).

We grabbed lunch, and then we had to hurry back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. We were in such a rush when we left that I forgot the camera again. So we came half-way around the world for a wedding, and dummy me didn’t get any pictures. It worked out okay though because Maria and Memo asked me to video tape the wedding for them, and then I got pictures later at the fancy dinner party.

The civil wedding was held at the town hall (the religious ceremony at the Mormon temple will follow in a few days), and it was right in the middle of the old town complete with tiny little cobblestone streets and old fountains. The wedding was very nice, but it was fairly short. We took a bunch of pictures in the old town, and then we headed over to the first reception.

This reception was held at the Mormon Church in Vitrolles, and it lasted a few hours with a lot of people coming to congratulate the new couple. After that we swung by the hotel to grab the camera and then drove to the dinner party / reception. This was typically French with several courses of dinner in an old restored estate that had once been a pilgrimage destination in medieval times (or something like that; I was a little tired when I read the history), and it lasted until after three in the morning (although we turned in pumpkins and left around midnight). It was all very fancy and a new cultural experience. It was also very apparent that Fabio and Elodie are happy together.

I actually felt useful because I was able to trouble shoot some problems they were having with a slide show they were showing on a video projector – see that Masters Degree in Educational Technology is really paying off. Good thing we came, huh?

Caves, teepees & the bride-to-be

July 1, 2008

We left Jean-Paul and Martine’s house this morning, and we drove up to a cave called the Grottes de Choranches. I had been there many years ago as missionary, and I remember being very impressed. So we took the kids there, and it really was awesome. I think the kids just liked the idea of being inside of a huge cave, but some of the formations were amazing.

From there we drove the rest of the way down to the southern France. The wedding that we came for actually is taking place in a town called Vitrolles which is a right next to Marseille on the Mediterranean Sea. We checked into our hotel (another sardine can, but we do have a tiny bathroom (kind of, the toilet and shower are actually separate) in the room itself.

We met up with Franco and Memo, et al, and we went over to the bride’s parents’ villa-style Mediterranean house for a pre-wedding dinner / party. It is a very nice home with a swimming pool so, of course, the kids had a great time playing and swimming with Franco and Emily’s kids. Memo even got Katie to start kicking in the water; she’ll be swimming soon. The bride’s step-dad is really into American Indians so he has a full teepee with sleeping mats, etc. set up behind his house. We had a pretty good discussion because my grandmother was half Indian, and I told him that I’ll take him around when he comes to the US sometime because he really wants to see some of the Native American sites.

We met Fabio’s fiancé, Elodie, for the first time tonight, and she is very sweet. She was a missionary in Great Britain so Becky and the kids were able to talk with her in English. I think she and Fabio are a great match (like that need my approval or something).

Who needs a water park?

June 30, 2008

This morning we packed up all of our stuff since we won’t be back at the Maria’s and Memo’s for several days. Then we took off towards the south of France. The wedding is on Wednesday so we decided to head down a day before our friends. When I was a missionary, I had been in Grenoble, France for about five months, and I loved the city. A lot of the people I knew had moved away (I actually visited one of the families in Arizona on our RV trip last summer), or I had lost contact with them. There was one family that I wanted to see though so we stopped in Grenoble.

We stayed the night with our friends Jean-Paul and Martine and their family. There oldest daughter Diane and her family even came over to hang out and have dinner with us. Before dinner the family took us on a short hike in the Gorge du Furon. It was a hike that I had done before and loved. At first the kids were complaining a little because it was warm, but once you get into the little canyon, it really cools off and is beautiful.

Then at one point, we came to a place where we could wade in the river and play in the water, and the kids had a ball; I think it was one of the highlights of the trip for them. Both Alex and Zac were completely soaked by the time they were done, and we had to drag them out of the river.

On the way back to our friends’ house, we picked plums, and then we had a very nice dinner together. They were very kind to us, and we’re trying to talk them into a visit to California.