Two Years in England

I had a delightfully English experience as I washed the dishes the other night. I was rewatching the final episode of season five of Downton Abbey, where the Crawleys attend a shooting party at the fictional Brancaster Castle. I was scrubbing a frying pan and suddenly had to lean in to get a closer look at my phone, because on the screen was a decorative wall chock-full of several-hundred-year-old pistols and swords arranged in swirling patterns at the entrance to the castle. You know, just your average wall of weapons to welcome your guests to your home. As you do in England. 

Downton cast in the Alnwick Castle library

Except that this was no mere set for a TV show–I had seen this very same wall only a few hours before when we visited Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. Built in the 11th century, Alnwick (pronounced “Annick”) Castle is the second largest inhabited castle in England after Windsor Castle, where the Queen’s family lives. The Duke of Northumberland and his family live at Alnwick, and it’s very strange to see current family photos and squashy bean bag chairs around a flat-screen TV juxtaposed with the centuries-old portraits and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the library. The castle was also used as the Hogwarts castle in the first two Harry Potter films, so go back and re-watch those if you want a sense of the grandeur of the place.

Castle visitors taking a broomstick flying lesson

Back to Downton Abbey. As the Crawleys walked up the stairs from the weapons wall and into another lavishly decorated room, I recognized two black and gold cabinets that Rory had pointed out to me earlier that morning. He told me that the absurdly ornate cabinets were purchased for the castle a few hundred years before from the palace at Versailles; they were apparently considered tacky and out-of-date, which is why the French royalty were keen to sell. Naturally, an English aristocrat bought them. I would have loved to delve further into the fascinating history of the castle and its many curiosities, but our tour through the place was at a very brisk pace, owing to the need to keep toddler hands off of priceless works of art.

Little bulldozer enjoying the castle grounds

It is experiences like these that highlight one of the many charms of living in the UK. Namely, that history is at our fingertips. One need only drive a few miles before a medieval castle pops up. And closer to home, the house that we bought in December is one hundred years old, which is fairly typical here. We were amused to find that in the original deed to the house, it said we weren’t allowed to build stables in the back garden or there would be a five pound penalty, which really dashed our hopes of opening a ranch. And a little ways down the street from us is part of Hadrian’s Wall, which was built by the Romans nearly two thousand years ago. We haven’t stopped to look at it properly yet, as it’s next to a busy road near the highway. And also, it’s just a pile of rocks. Historically significant, sure, but not all that interesting. Nonetheless, living in England gives us the opportunity to engage with history, even ancient history, in a very real way that wasn’t part of my upbringing in America. 

Speaking of ancient history, it has already been more than two years since Rory and I moved our family from Hawaii to England. The anniversary of our early-pandemic 7,000 mile journey came and went without me even noticing it this year, perhaps because I’ve grown so accustomed to living here, or more likely I just forgot due to my motherhood-induced brain fog. But now that this country is coming out of the pandemic, I’m beginning to see it in a new light. We’re able to travel around more and visit fascinating places, and we’re finally getting to know our neighbors and make lasting friendships, all of which make this foreign land feel a bit more like home.

In less than a week, however, I’ll actually be going home. We’ll be making the trek back to the United States to visit my family in Washington and Oregon, most of whom I haven’t seen in three years. It will be our toddler son’s first transatlantic flight and his first time meeting his aunts, uncles, and cousins in person. And our nearly six-year-old daughter has been in England so long that she has no memory of America, so I can’t wait to see what she thinks of the place. Fingers crossed for a smooth and joyful trip back to the land of the free.

Travelling During a Pandemic, Part 1

It’s a strange world we live in. After the relative normalcy of Hawaii, where, despite the stay-at-home order, we still regularly chatted with our neighbors outside, and many stores and restaurants were still open if modified, it was eye-opening to go travelling around the world and to see how the pandemic is playing out in other cities. 

As you’ll recall from my last post, our goal was to move from Honolulu to England. My visa allowed me to enter the UK only between April 24 and May 24, so we had a limited window in which we could travel. Rory’s US visa also expired at the end of June, as did our American health insurance (important to have when one is pregnant!), so we felt compelled to proceed with our moving plans despite the plethora of uncertainties facing us.

In late March, as Hawaii started to implement stay-at-home orders and Rory and I began working from home, we were ecstatic to have found decent flights for all three of us for a measly $1500. That’s about a third as much as they usually cost. Maybe this pandemic won’t be so bad after all, I thought. Maybe we’ll be able to stay under our budget for moving costs. By mid-April, however, Rory, checking the status of our flights, reported that certain legs of the three-flight journey had disappeared from our itinerary. I started feeling nervous. They’ll find other flights for us, right? We’ve paid for the tickets, so we’ll get there somehow, he kept assuring me. But towards the end of April, the whole itinerary was gone. The flights just weren’t running anymore. 

I often project a calm demeanor in the face of difficulties, but this stressed the heck out of me. All of our moving plans revolved around actually leaving Hawaii on May 7. What if we couldn’t get to the UK? What if we bought more plane tickets, only to have them disappear too? Rory called United Airlines multiple times, but the best they could do was get us on terrible flights that would end at London’s Heathrow Airport. We considered various ways of getting north from London to Dumfries (where Rory’s parents live), or Edinburgh (the airport closest to them). Neither a seven-hour train ride nor a six-hour drive sounded appealing after two days of flying. We thought about buying a plane ticket with a different airline just from London to Edinburgh, but we didn’t want the hassle of gathering and re-checking our many suitcases and paying for them a second time either. What to do?

We bought new plane tickets, that’s what. The options were limited by this point, and a four-flight, 35-hour journey with American Airlines was the best we could get. Instead of $1500, (which was not refunded) it now cost closer to $4000. There was no guarantee that these flights would run either, so we just crossed our fingers and kept packing.

Our house in it's mostly-emptied state.

Fast-forward to Thursday, April 30. The movers came at 8 am and packed up a portion of our belongings to put on a boat. Over the next five days, our friends and neighbors took all of our furniture, appliances, and warm-weather accoutrements (goodbye, snorkel gear and beach umbrella), and left us with a nearly empty apartment. We packed our suitcases and cleaned our house. We turned in our keys. On May 5th and 6th we stayed at a hotel near the Honolulu Airport. Rory continued to check on our flights and thankfully, they still appeared to be running. Finally, it was May 7th, the day to fly. After eating leftover Vietnamese food in our hotel room for lunch, we hauled our three large suitcases, my cello, my violin, three backpacks, a carry-on roller bag, a snack bag, and my purse to a taxi and drove to the airport. And so began our journey.

With our luggage on the airport curb, I looked around at the familiar surroundings one last time. Half-completed parking garage up ahead, confusing green road signs indicating the way to Honolulu and Waikiki, and palm trees lazily swaying in the distance. It looked as I remembered. Except that everything else was different. No cars weaving in and out of lanes, no people hurrying to the check-in counters, no garish aloha shirts worn by tourists with lei (flower necklaces) around their necks. It was desolate. Rory pulled out a camera to capture the complete lack of activity. Instead of the usual excitement tinged with sadness that I often felt at this curbside at the start of a journey, I felt hollow, afraid. We were alone.

In Part 2 of this post, we’ll share about our journey through the Honolulu, Los Angeles, Dallas, and London Heathrow airports. 

Iceland ahoy!

After I woke up this morning, September the third, my Google Calendar app reminded me of my flight to Reykjavik in a few hours. Boston to Reykjavik, it says, 1pm, don't be late!

To explain this state of affairs, I have to tell you the story of our leaving Paris. Let's start in, oh, March or so, when I'd accepted the job in Hawai'i and as we were making plans.

The goal: Get from Paris to Honolulu.

This presents a challenge, because this journey takes at least 24 hours. The journey with a baby would be particularly difficult. Plus, once we get to Hawai'i, the time difference is 12 hours - as big of a time difference as is possible. It'd be 8am, it'd feel like 8pm. At 4am, it'd feel like 4pm. Not an easy adjustment for adults, let alone babies.

However, it also presents opportunities. I checked a map, and apparently right between France and Hawai'i is a large continent known as North America. We have a lot of dear friends in Ohio (plus a storage unit with things from our old house that we didn't take with us to Paris), and family in Oregon.

So we decide to hop. Go to Ohio first (only a 6 hour time difference), spend 10 days there, see friends, pack up our storage unit and have it shipped to Hawai'i. Then onward to Oregon (a 3 hour time difference), spend two weeks with family. Finally make the last leg over to Hawai'i. Simple, right?

Yes and no. This plan has us getting to the US on June 30, and slowly travelling west until we get to Hawai'i on July 26. Here's the problem: my visa is only valid from July the 22nd. How can I get into the US on June the 30th?

Well, the first part of our trip is just tourism, I consider. I won't be working or earning any money - just seeing friends and family. So I could enter the US as a tourist, under the visa waiver program called ESTA. I enter on ESTA, and then change my status to my work visa. Simple, right?

Yes and no! You can't change status from an ESTA to a work visa. It's not allowed. You have to leave the US and then re-enter on the work visa. This sorry state of affairs then motivates a solo trip from Oregon up to Vancouver, Canada, to allow me to hop out and back into the USA. I book some train tickets and add it to our itinerary. A complex plan, but everything should work out.

We began our preparations in earnest. We sold most of our Paris possessions. We mailed a few boxes of books and things to await our arrival in Hawai'i. And the rest we packed. We ended up with four large suitcases, one smaller roller bag, one laptop bag, two backpacks, and a cello. And of course, a small baby.

We had emptied and cleaned our flat, our landlady had deemed it vraiment impeccable, très propre ("truly impeccable, very clean"), and with tears in our eyes we left for our airport hotel, where we were to spend the night before flying out the next morning. It was at this point we learned of a small flaw in our plan: we didn't have enough hands.

That is, there were more suitcases than we could easily move. With a luggage cart, it's possible, but with just the two of us, it's not straightforward. Even though our hotel is basically right beside the airport, we realize that we need to book a taxi to ensure that we can get to it effectively. I speak to the agent at the front desk and get a taxi booked, after I make sure he understands that we have a lot of luggage.

(It is here, at the hotel, I discover the value of speaking English and pretending not to speak French. The staff are more revealing when they turn to their colleagues and address them in French. But I'm listening...)

In the morning, we awake and await our taxi. It arrives, but it's plainly too small. They clearly didn't get the memo about our luggage. The driver calls in for another taxi to come, and we are resigned to waiting some more.

I'm a fairly anxious traveller, I'm not sure why, but these events send me spiralling into worry. We've barely begun our trip and there's a delay! What if they don't have a taxi big enough? What if the taxi arrives late and we miss our flight? How will we manage?

Luckily the taxi soon arrives. It's driven by a middle aged Japanese immigrant, who regaled our ears with easy-listening guitar covers of classic rock songs at high volume. He was really keen on it.

At the airport, we went to check our luggage. We had booked and paid for the extra luggage in advance, but I was expecting to have to pay 200€ for Talia's cello, which is technically oversize.

After weighing everything, they tell us that some of our bags are overweight and that we have to speak to another person to pay the fee and get the tags. I head over to the other person while Talia waits with Maëlys.

"Okay sir, for all of this, you must pay 750€."

My eyes boggle.

"No, there must be some mistake. See, here, I have already paid for these bags. I am only paying for an overweight fee for one of the bags." I brandish my receipt from when I booked the bags. (If there's one thing I've learned from living in France, it's that paper documentation is king.)

"Let me see. Actually, we can distribute the weight of the bags across all of them, so while this one bag is overweight, the total weight of everything is under the limit. So there's no fee. Let me print your passes now."

However, this was followed by brow-furrowing and talking to colleagues. The wait was long, and I was getting worried again. We'd arrived at the airport a little later than I'd wanted (because of the taxi) and now we're being delayed again. What if security takes forever too, and we miss the flight?

Eventually the airline people come to a consensus and tell me that although I'd paid for the luggage on the second leg of our flight (Frankfurt to Pittsburgh), the first leg (Paris to Frankfurt) was not covered. This is apparently because these legs are operated by Condor and Lufthansa respectively.

Never mind the fact that they're both part of the same parent company. Never mind the fact that when I paid for the luggage, I spoke to operators at both Condor and Lufthansa who told me that the payment covered both flights. Never mind that. Right now, they wanted 150€.

At this point, I pay. I reckon I could have stayed and argued my case, but to be frank I was happy to just get the luggage onto the plane and be able to get going. My anxiety was getting the better of me.

And, remember I expected a 200€ charge for the cello? They never mentioned it! So really, this was like gaining 50€. That's what I told myself, at least.

Security was fine, the Lufthansa flight was great. The flight attendant gave Maëlys a little toy to entertain her on the flight, which we got to keep. Everything was looking up!

Now for the Condor flight. Condor is a low-cost airline, and we got some great rates with them. So great that booking three seats (i.e. a seat for Maëlys, which is a game-changer, let me tell you) was actually cheaper than just two on some other airlines. However, there are restrictions, and their policy on hand luggage is relatively strict. I had read flyer reports where they actually weighed people's hand luggage to ensure it's below their maximum weight. This worried me, as we had a lot of stuff.

When we go to board, the boarding agent sees that our passes haven't been double-checked, and send us over to another agent. Here we go, I think, they're going to weigh our bags. No such thing happens. Instead, they check our passports.

"Two Americans and one British person. I see. Do you have travel authorization to go to the USA?" she asks.

"Yes, I have an ESTA", I say, referring to the visa-waiver program.

"And do you have onward travel outside of the USA?"

She asks this because if an airline brings someone to a country, and they are denied entry, the airline is liable for the cost of taking them back to where they came from. Airlines are really tough these days on anything that looks like you might be in violation of the rules. The ESTA, as a short-term thing, requires that you have evidence of onward travel to leave the country.

"Yes, to Canada." I show her the document. "And see here, I also have a work visa, so I'll re-enter the US as a worker."

"Hm. No, Canada is not good enough. You have to leave the entire continent."

For various reasons, going to Canada or Mexico (or various Caribbean countries) doesn't count for leaving the country. This means that, say, someone in the US on a student visa can go to Toronto for the weekend and not have to go through complex immigration procedures upon their return. Paperwork is minimized, student gets to go to Toronto, everyone is happy.

Except that this rule also doesn't make sense, because you have left the country. You can't legislate that away.

I argue my case, that I have a work visa and that I'll be re-entering the US. She stands her ground.

"I need to see onward travel out of the US. Here is a list of countries which don't count." It's a long list, with lots of Caribbean nations, plus Mexico and Canada.

"What do you want me to do? Just get out my laptop and buy a plane ticket right now?"

"Yes."

Great. So I do that. Due to a lack of foresight, my laptop was not charged, so I needed to find an outlet. The first one I found was not in a location with a wifi signal. The second one worked. Meanwhile, our flight is boarding and I am freaking out.

I do a quick search for flights from US east coast cities - Boston, Newark, JFK - to major European hubs - Paris, Frankfurt, London. I select a date in the near future which is within the 90 days I can be in the US on ESTA. I find a cheap flight with Wow Air for about 160€. It goes to Paris via Reykjavik. Since I'm in Germany, my computer has defaulted to the German webpage. I click through and order my ticket, hoping that my understanding of German was good enough. I get a confirmation page.

I run back to the agent and show her the flight. She glances at it, nods, and waves us through onto the plane.

And that is the story of why I was meant to fly to Reykjavik today.

Of course, the US immigration official didn't care about whether I had onward travel. He didn't even ask how long I was staying. When you are white and travel with two white Americans, one of whom is a baby, they don't check you very thoroughly.

I later cancelled the flight, as I had no intention of taking it, and was reimbursed the 35€ or so that they charged in taxes and fees.

In hindsight, I could have handled it better. I could have just bought tickets to Reykjavik without onward travel to Paris, that would have been cheaper. I also learned that US law entitles you to a full refund within 24 hours of buying a flight. (A rare case where US law is more consumer-friendly than EU law!) Since I bought my ticket through the German site, I wasn't eligible for this, but I would have been had I used the US site.

All this to jump through the hoops of getting to the US and dealing with our complicated itinerary and complex immigration laws. Our other travels within the US (and to Canada) were not without incident, but not quite as eventful or as stress-inducing as this first one. Maybe one day I'll make it to Iceland for real.

Carcassonne

In our last post, Talia described our recent trip to Barcelona. It ends with us boarding a train bound for Carcassonne, a town in the southeast of France. (It's roughly halfway between Toulouse and Montpellier, if you know where they are. If not, just imagine a line due south from Paris but stop about 65km from the Spansh border. Or just look it up on a map.) What adventures would await us there?

Something Talia didn't mention about Barcelona is how cheap everything was! It's a major city, but the prices in supermarkets and restaurants compared very favourably to Paris. I suppose the real lesson from this is that it is expensive in Paris, and we've just got used to it...

Anyway, the train ride to Carcassonne was lovely. It was just as the sun was setting, and we had great views of the Pyrenées and the Mediterranean. It was around Maëlys's bedtime, so she was a little grumpy, but we were all still able to enjoy most of the trip.

Water, hills, as viewed from the train from Barcelona.

The only thing that marked our entering France was that the automated announcements switched from Spanish, French, and English to just French. This was strangely comforting, in a way. While Talia is pretty competent in Spanish, I am very weak, and being in Barcelona - while enjoyable - it was very clear that I was in a foreign country.

By contrast, coming to Carcassonne, a place we've never been before, was very much like "coming home". The train station was basically like every other provincial French train station. We made our way to our accommodation (an AirBnB), and spoke only French with the host. We knew all the quirks of the French apartment and the French appliances. That it was all so familiar was surprising, as to a large degree France is still a foreign country to us. But it helped us to realize how much of a home it's become.

The next morning was Sunday, and I ventured out to one of the supermarkets to pick up supplies. (Being "at home" means realizing that not many supermarkets will be open on Sunday, and knowing that those which are are probably only open for the morning.) The town was dead quiet. It was a real contrast from Barcelona, full of people and wide thoroughfares with cars and mopeds. Here, I wandered down some cobbled streets, passing only a couple of people. The other people in the supermarket were tourists too.

One of the main entrances to the walled city.

Carcassonne is most famous for its medieval city. This dates back to Roman times, with fortifications being added over the centuries, to defend against threats from outside (those barbaric Spaniards!) and inside (those dangerous commoners!). After falling into some disrepair, a lot of it was rebuilt in the 1800s in an attempt to restore it to its former glory. As it turns out, a lot of the "restorations" were actually just people imagining what they thought a medieval castle should look like, rather than historically accurate rebuilding, but that seems to be part of the appeal. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Another entrance!

A view over the rooftops. Yes, those are houses - people actually live here.

A view from the ramparts down to the town and countryside below.

A view of the southern end of the city.

As you can probably tell from the pictures, we had cracking weather. It was about 25C (77F) and sunny, with clear skies. Great weather for a holiday!

A window in the Basilica of Saint Nazaire, inside the old city.

You may also be familiar with Carcassonne as the name of a board game. The game, inspired by the real city, involves building cities and roads between them in rural medieval France. We saw it for sale in one of the tourist shops, which I thought was quite appropriate.

The aptly-named "old bridge" over the river Aude.

Naturally, each region of France has its own culinary delicacies. Carcassonne is famous for cassoulet, which is a type of stew consisting of white beans, pork sausage, and duck meat, all cooked in lard for hours. Talia had some for lunch, and didn't need any more food for the day.

When in Rome...

After our trip to the old city, we meandered our way back to our accommodation, which was in the newer part of town. Because there isn't really too much to do in Carcassonne, there was none of the usual "tourist-pressure" I feel of having to go and see everything and maximize the amount of experiences enjoyed. Instead, it was extremely pleasant to have a leisurely time. The next day, we enjoyed a relaxed morning before taking a little boat trip along the canal. In the early evening, we took a local train to neighbouring Narbonne, before boarding the high-speed train bound for Paris. Again, the train ride was excellent. For the first portion, the track mostly hugs the Mediterranean coast, providing excellent views. Then, turning left, it's northward to Paris, through the French countryside. We got home at about 11pm; a sleeping baby and tired parents.

Carcassonne was a lovely break. Of course, it's definitely a tourist town, but that doesn't really detract from the beauty of it. (And we live in Paris anyway, so being around tourists is just part of life...) If we had the time, it would have been great to rent a car and just explore the region, stay for a week or so. The pace of holidaying in rural places is quite different from that of Barcelona, and I'm glad that we managed to fit both of them into this trip. I'm also glad that we did it in this order - the quiet timidity of Carcassonne and the comforting familiarity of France was an excellent sequel to Barcelona. The other way round wouldn't have paced itself quite as well. Roll on our next holiday adventure!

¡Barcelona!

A colorful market in Barcelona

When I first learned we were moving to France, I was both excited and a little disappointed. Disappointed because throughout high school and college, I spent a considerable amount of time learning Spanish, and had always wanted the chance to try out my language skills in a Spanish-speaking country. I thought Spanish would be a much more useful language to know than French, what with the number of Spanish-speakers in the US and the proximity to Mexico and Latin America.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find out that I was moving to France. I had to shove my hard-earned knowledge of Spanish to the back of my brain and start cramming French in there instead. I enjoyed the challenge of teaching myself French and have done reasonably well at learning the language. But I still harbor an appreciation for Spanish and Latin cultures and that dream of communicating in Spanish. Thus, the close proximity of France to Spain was something I wanted to capitalize on while we were in Europe.

Amazingly beautiful gelato

It took us nearly two years of living in France, but I finally realized my goal of seeing Spain. Last month we took a short trip to Barcelona and had two-and-a-half days to see the sights. Here's what we found.

Barcelona is full of life. Compared to Paris, it felt sunny and open and friendly. On our first full day there, we did a walking tour loosely based on the one in the back of the novel The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. One of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turner of a gothic novel set in Barcelona in 1945. Zafón sweeps you up into a twisting story of shadowy characters and intricate mysteries, while expertly painting the scene of a dark and dismal post-war Barcelona. I was keen to see some of the places that figured so prominently in the story, so we took a stroll down the Ramblas, a long pedestrianized street that takes you through the heart of Barcelona's gothic quarter. We saw an epic outdoor market with amazing foods, then joined the sea of tourists that made its way past the flower vendors, souvenir shops, theaters, restaurants, and living statues, and ultimately emerged at the marina in front of a massive statue of Christopher Columbus. In addition to the Ramblas, we saw a wide variety of architecture, including some fantastical buildings created by Antoni Gaudí in the late 19^th century, as well as the outside of La Sagrada Família, the enormous modern basilica designed by Gaudí that has had construction ongoing since 1882. Rounding out the day was a trip to Jansana, a lovely gluten free bakery.

Going incognito and keeping the sun off

We did a lot of walking that first day, and in our vacations pre-baby, we would have felt obliged to go out again in the evening to cram in as much sight-seeing and experiencing as possible. But now with an 8-month-old who goes to bed around 7:30 pm, we had a perfect excuse to have a quiet evening in our AirBnB apartment, cooking ourselves a simple dinner and having hot chocolate on the patio. It was a relaxing end to an enjoyable day. Despite my initial worries about vacationing with a baby, it all worked out splendidly. Maëlys seemed to enjoy the new sights and sounds and she managed to sleep fairly well in an unfamiliar environment. Plus, Spanish people seem to love talking to, smiling at, and touching babies, so she made us quite popular with the locals.

I should note, however, that on the speaking Spanish with locals front, I failed miserably. First of all, Barcelona is part of Catalonia, so they speak both Catalan and Spanish there, and Catalan sounds rather like a mixture of French and Spanish, which confused me. Secondly, my brain is now wired such that when I hear a foreign language, I automatically respond in French, regardless of the language I hear. I kept saying “oui” instead of “si” and “merci” instead of “gracias”. So when trying to order in Spanish at restaurants, I would stare blankly at the server while my brain cycled through the English and French words before coming up with a French pronunciation for the Spanish word. It was frustrating but amusing.

Casa Batlló, designed by Gaudí

GF cake at Pasticelía

On our final day in Barcelona, we first got lunch at another excellent gluten free bakery, called Pasticelía. This time, after again being struck dumb at the sight of the waitress and having to order in English, I mentally rehearsed a couple of Spanish sentences explaining that our sojourn in Paris had left me struggling to speak Spanish. She chuckled and told me (in Spanish!) that she didn't know any French, so she appreciated the effort. It was a small victory.

Sagrada Família basilica

Afterwards, we took the subway, a funicular, and a cable car (excellent views of Barcelona) up the hill to the Montjuïc Castle. Montjuïc was a 17^th-18^th century military fortress that was the site of a number of battles and symbolized Spain's defeat of Catalonia in 1714. It served as a prison and a house of torture for three hundred years, and is mentioned in The Shadow of the Wind as the grim place where one of the characters was tortured. There is a small historical exhibit inside the fortress, but we mainly just walked around the grounds and on the ramparts. The castle's unpleasant past is not really on display too much, but a somber air pervades what's left of the fortress. At the end of our visit we walked down the steep hill through well-tended gardens and back to the funicular. In the evening we hurriedly made our way to the train station and caught a two-hour train to Carcassonne, a medieval town in the south of France.


I would love to spend more time in Spain. Barcelona was a very colorful and inviting place and with two-and-a-half days we barely scratched the surface. But at least we made it there and at least I was able to use a little of my mostly-dormant Spanish skills. The next part of our vacation took us “back home” to France, and was a great contrast to the bustle of Barcelona. Rory will tell you about that adventure in our next post. Stay tuned.

Statue (should be) entitled, Naked woman pondering ice cream cone.

Château de malmaison

Two weeks ago, March 20th, was Naw-Ruz, the Baha'i New Year. I took the day off work and we decided to go on a short day trip to welcome in the new year. The weather was pleasant -- bright but cloudy, dry and reasonably warm. It was a welcome change from winter.

The château de malmaison.

We settled on visiting the Château de Malmaison, the former residence of Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. This is in the suburb Rueil-Malmaison, a short train or bus ride west of Paris.

If you know some French, you probably realized that "Malmaison" sounds like "bad house": mal means bad or wrong (like in the English words maladjusted and malnutrition), and maison means house. Sometimes when you see curious expressions like this in place names, it's actually a coincidence, and the name originates with some other words, perhaps words which are now archaic or forgotten, or even from a different language. For example, the names of the English towns of Puddletown and Catbrain are actually derived from Middle English phrases meaning "farmstead on the marsh" and "soil mixed with clay and stones", respectively.

In the case of Malmaison, however, it really does have the meaning we think. In 846, a mansion in this area was burned to the ground by Viking invaders. The area was then dubbed malmaison, meaning "mansion of back luck". Looks like the name stuck!

On the way to the chateau, we bumped into the parc de l'amitié, the park of friendship, a local park with some Japanese gardens, a rose garden, and some other features. Given the name and the Japanese theme, I thought that perhaps it was a garden of international friendship -- perhaps the results of the town being twinned with somewhere in Japan, or something like that. But I was unable to find any evidence of that. As far as I can tell, the city planners just wanted to build a cool park. That's okay with me!

The Japanese garden featured a pond and a scenic bridge. And blossoms, lots of blossoms.

In the grounds of the chateau itself is an art collection of Daniel Iffla, a 19th-Century French financier and philanthropist who named himself Osiris (yes, the same name as the Egyptian god). It was a modest collection of various objets d'art from various cultures around the world -- China, Persia, Greece, Rome. It was also really dark inside (presumably to protect the art), and quiet. It doubled as a good place to quickly change and feed Maëlys, too.

Osiris himself!

It was lunchtime when we arrived, and the chateau closes for lunch! The gardens were still open, however, so that afforded us some time to enjoy our own lunch (we'd packed a little picnic) and look around. The gardens are home to a large rose garden, not in bloom at the time of our visit, and several statues and little streams dot the area. Attempts have been made to have the garden resemble how it was at the time of Empress Josephine, although in her day the gardens extended much further in all directions. Josephine grew up in Martinique, in the Caribbean, and so apparently having a well-tended, diverse garden was a particular source of joy for her. There used to be a greenhouse where she grew pineapples!

One of the garden paths, with the chateau in the distance.

As you can see in the picture at the beginning of this post, it is a nice building, but not particularly grand. That is, it is an excellent example of a stately home, but if you had asked me to guess who lived inside, I would not have imagined "empress". The reason for that is because Josephine purchased the mansion way back when Napoleon was just a general, busy invading Egypt. When Napoleon returned, apparently he was upset at her for purchasing such a run-down mansion that would require so much work to renovate! He didn't have much time to be angry, however, as he was busy planning a coup d'état to overthrow the unpopular government and install himself as emperor. They divorced in 1810 following acrimonious disputes about affairs and Josephine's infertility, although she remained Empress.

Anyway, the inside of the chateau was decked out as it was at the time of Josephine. There were lots of grand paintings, intricate timepieces, and fancy chairs. Absent was any kitchen or obvious servant's quarters, but apparently they were in other buildings in the grounds which have since been destroyed.

One of the receiving rooms inside the chateau.

There was a lot of Napoleon-themed pieces around, including the original version of the famous painting Napoleon Crosses the Alps, which depicts (in grand heroic style) Napoleon heading from France into Italy in 1800. Not pictured: his army!

Napoleon Crosses the Alps!

After we'd seen around the chateau, we hopped back on a bus and then a train and made our way home. It was a lovely trip outside of Paris for the day, and we're going to try to do more day trips like this as our move to Hawai'i gets closer and closer! As I looking back on the pictures from the chateau, it all looks a little drab and grey in comparison to the weather we've had here in the last week or so. It appears that we did a good job of welcoming in the spring!

Winter travels part 2: Milan

The alps, as seen from my plane.

As Talia alluded to in a previous post, almost immediately after we got back to France from the USA I left France to go to Italy. Specifically to Milan, for an academic conference where I was presenting a paper. The timing was a little unfortunate, as it meant I was abandoning an exhausted Talia with a grumpy jet-lagged baby in the middle of Paris. I was jet lagged too, but I didn't have to deal with a baby...

A tram scoots through one of the medieval city gates. Not pictured: Roman ruins, ornate basilicas, Italians.

Instead, I had to deal with trams, mopeds, and medieval architecture. And excellent coffee.

Traffic.

Speaking of coffee, and food, on my very first morning I went to a local bakery that had been recommended to me for breakfast. I walk in, and the conversation goes something like this:

Baker: [some greeting which is neither buon giorno "good morning" nor salve "hello" (or even ciao, the informal version).]
Me: Buon giorno! Non parlo italiano. ["Good morning! I don't speak Italian."]
Baker: Ah! [stream of Italian, very quick, wherein he explains what each of the baked goods on offer are made of, what they taste like, how they're cooked, etc.]

It's not strictly true that I don't speak any Italian -- I was able to piece together the gist of what he said via my knowledge of French and Spanish -- I was amused by the knowing look he gave me, and by the fact that he very kindly explained everything to me, the confused foreigner, in Italian.

It's not that I expected him to speak English (especially as Italy is one of the most monolingual countries of the EU!), but I thought he would at least slow down, use simple phrases, or something. Maybe point at a bun, say cioccolate, molto bene, 'chocolate, very good', something like that.

In any case, if you must know, I ordered a cappuccino and a chocolate brioche. They were both molto bene, although the brioche was covered in powdered sugar and was quite messy.

It turns out that Italians aren't great at French either:

It should be "crêpes".

Apart from the food and the conferencing, my main activity in Milan was wandering the city and examining the architecture. Lots of churches of various shapes and sizes!

The famous Duomo cathedral.

Another angle on the Duomo.

The tower of the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio.

All in all, it was a pleasant break from my usual routines. The conference went smoothly and my paper was well-received. I was very happy to get home to Talia and a sleepy baby, though.

Winter travels part 1: Thanksgiving, USA.

We've travelled a fair bit this winter, but we've hardly blogged at all! Sorry to keep you waiting. This post is the first in a series!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a big American holiday in late November, where you get together with family, eat a lot of food, and be thankful. It's basically a harvest festival.

For Talia's family, this is a big celebration, so we made a special effort to traverse the 9 time zones from Europe to Oregon. Since it's such a long trip, we spent two weeks there.

The Oregon coastline.

Marilyn, me, Maëlys, and Talia, keeping warm on the beach.

The big event, of course, was thanksgiving day. There were 21 of us in total - me, Talia, and Maëlys; Talia's three brothers and three sisters-in-law, and their children (three boys and two girls); one of Talia's cousins and her husband; another of Talia's cousins and her two children; and Talia's parents. Eight children, ranging from 4 months to 11 years, and thirteen grown-ups. What a party!

Maëlys's cousins learn how to spell her name.

Marilyn's famous dinner rolls!

Lemon meringue pie!

More pies, and a turkey.

Everyone assembled before the eating began! Not pictured: me.

Of course, for everyone except Talia's parents, it was their first time meeting Maëlys. (And she'd grown a lot since Talia's parents saw her last!) So there was lots of baby-holding and cooing.

Maëlys with Grandpa and Erik.

Maëlys with Hanna.

Maëlys with Mayela. (Note her thanksgiving-themed dress!)

Aunt Ashley reads a story to Travis, Maëlys, Sage, and Erik.

As a bonus, here's a picture of Hanna reading her parents the Scots translation of The Gruffalo, and explaining what words like "biled" and "ahint" mean.

Click to zoom in!

A lot of food was eaten, as is traditional, and it was fantastic to see everyone and have them meet Maëlys and compare baby stories. A refreshing trip to the new world!

Next up: Milan!

Have baby, will travel

Baby becomes world traveler

It's 8 am and my nearly 5 month old daughter is noisily sleeping in bed next to me. She fell asleep mid-suck during her last feeding an hour ago and I just kept her on our bed. She's been farting every few minutes. It's kind of cute, actually. (Add that to the list of things you never thought you'd say until becoming a parent!) Her pudgy little arms are stretched out in a T; she's enjoying taking up half of the big person bed since Rory is currently in Austin, Texas.

Maëlys gets her own seatbelt!

After spending two weeks in Scotland with his family for Christmas, Rory left us here to go be an academic and give a talk at the Linguistics Society of America conference. I'm still enjoying the kind assistance of his parents so that I don't have to take care of the baby on my own in Paris. I tried that for three days after our return from Oregon a month ago (we spent Thanksgiving with 20 family members!) and it was by far the hardest time I've experienced thus far with the baby. While Rory was at another conference in Milan, Maëlys and I were suffering from a 9-hour jetlag, and for nearly a week she was waking up every 15-30 minutes during the night and wailing. Nothing made it better. I could count my total hours of sleep that week on one hand. I have much more sympathy now for parents of children who sleep poorly. And for single parents. I felt like a train wreck.

But in all other respects, travelling with a baby has been easier than I anticipated. Maëlys has now been on five airplanes, 30 total hours of air travel, and she was an excellent passenger on four of them. The only exception was the 10-hour flight back from Seattle to Paris, which she didn't seem to like despite doing fine on the way over. We had a bassinet* at our disposal, but she barely slept anyway and was fussing in our arms most of the way. Still, she's had no problems on any of the flights with the change in altitude creating pressure on her ears, which was my big concern, and we've always had enough diapers and spare clothes to get us to our destination. For reference, we packed one diaper for every hour of travel and had plenty to spare. Just in case that's useful information for you.

Travel expectations
When I married a Scotsman, I knew my future would involve lots of travel. We've made it to visit our families in both the US and UK almost every year that we've been together. And I knew if we had kids it would mean plenty of plane, train, and automobile rides with our offspring. But whenever you tell someone you're taking a three-month-old on a 22-hour door-to-door trip, they unfailingly look at you with shock and pity and then say (perhaps with a hint of schadenfreude?), "That's going to be rough. It'll be even harder when they're older!" The effect these words have on an intrepid new parent is to terrify the pants off them. We already know it's not going to be easy. Long-distance travel is hard on anyone. But when seemingly every single person perpetuates the same fear-inducing attitude towards travel with babies, it makes the experience much worse for first time family travellers.

Can I make a suggestion? If someone tells you they're travelling with a young child, don't express how hard you think the journey will be, whether you have personal experience or not. Don't even assure them that it'll be fine now but worse when the kids are older. Instead be excited for them. Ask questions about what they'll see and do. If you do happen to have helpful tips from your own family travels, share them tactfully if they are welcome. And then when they get back, perhaps congratulate them on a successful trip and by all means empathize with them if they had a difficult journey. But help them stay positive both before and after their trip and they'll be more likely to enjoy the experience.

After all, for the last two months, Maëlys has been experiencing a deluge of new people, sights, smells, and sounds, all of which enrich her development and understanding of the world. She's experienced Oregon evergreen forests, rambunctious cousins, the salty sea air, sheep in Scottish pastures, a surprising number of rainbows, an assortment of accents, Christmas trees and lights, babies older and (two days) younger, grand- and great-grandparents, and cuddles from everyone under the sun. She has taken it all in stride, often with wide-eyed curiosity and an eager smile. For her to have those opportunities is worth any potential discomfort from the voyage. I, for one, am excited to travel with my baby and can't wait to share the delights of the world with her.


That's all for now! We're still trying to get caught up with our normal lives after spending five weeks away from Paris. Obviously, blogging has fallen by the wayside. We'll put up some pictures from our trips to Oregon and Scotland soon, I promise!


*A word about bassinets on planes: Delta Airlines has sleeping bassinets for babies under 20 pounds and 26 inches long (9 kg, 66 cm), but their policy on providing one is iffy. When Rory called to book our flights he was told they couldn't guarantee him a bassinet and it was first come, first served, so we should get to the airport three hours early and request it at the gate. We dutifully did this, and it worked fine in Paris. Coming home however, the Portland Delta staff told him the bassinet would go to whoever booked their flights first. The lady spent ages looking up this information, as there was another dad waiting in line just behind Rory for the same reason. Turns out we booked second, so it should have gone to the other family, but they had booked an extra seat as well and were willing to give us the bassinet. Hooray! Too bad Maëlys didn't want to use it. The moral of the story: find out your airline's policy on bassinets. Then be prepared to be told something completely different.

Fontainebleau

Lest our blog become purely baby-related, I wanted to post some stuff about recent travels we have been on. Except... we haven't travelled since the baby arrived. Well, we've made trips around the Paris metropolitan area (which is a pretty big area), but we haven't really been out for more than a few hours or an afternoon or so. Life with babies is complicated!

But, earlier in July, we took a day trip to Fontainebleau, a town about 50km south of Paris. I had been planning to write about our trip, but I never got round to it! Let's do that now.

Fontainebleau is a popular tourist destination for Parisians, mainly due to the nearby Forêt de Fontainebleau (Fontainebleau forest), but also for the Château de Fontainebleau, regarded as one of France's most magnificent. The forest is pretty big, 280 square kilometres; that's approximately the same size as Edinburgh, Exmoor national park, or the borough of Queens in New York; it's just under 10% the size of Rhode Island. The forest is popular for hiking, cycling, horse riding, and rock climbing.

It took us maybe an hour to get there by train, and then a 10 minute bus ride from the train station to the town centre. Apparently it's a popular site with Chinese tourists, and there were signs in Chinese at the train station explaining how to use the buses. For us, since the trains and bus system are all in the "Paris region" transport system, we were able to use our monthly transport passes to travel. A day trip for free! Doesn't get much better than that.

The chateau de Fontainebleau.

The castle has been successively expanded over the centuries by its different owners, which has lead to a multitude of different architectural styles for the different wings. I'll let you judge whether this has a positive or negative effect on the overall appearance:

A view of part of the castle from a distance.

The château is surrounded by extensive gardens, including a lake. You can visit the inside of the castle (apparently the tour is well-regarded), but the weather was so nice we opted to remain outside and stroll the gardens.

Such tasteful decorations in the castle grounds. (Oui, c'est un chien qui faire un pipi.)

Some people relaxing with a picnic by the lakeside.

Another view of the castle from one of the tree-lined promenades.

We didn't venture out into the forest (there was too much to see at the castle, and Talia, being pregnant, only had so much walking energy for the day). Perhaps we will be able to revisit soon and have another exploration, this time with baby in tow!