Robin Chartier – Page 71

research

This week I’ve been diving into my Budapest travel guides and trying to gather every last bit of information before we leave. Once we’re on the ground I don’t usually rely on our books, just the list I’ve made of things we should do and any facts that have stuck in my head during the research process. It leaves me free to enjoy the holiday without having to have my nose in a book. It also means I look at monuments and say things like “the Russians built this when they occupied Hungary after WW2. They were not nice people” or “this bridge is super old and is a big deal because it’s the first one that connected the two sides of the river. Look at it.” My commentary doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. Our trips are more for learning through experience than full of historical facts. As long as they get a taste of the culture and file away experiences in their memories that they can draw on later when they do learn about those events in history, then I’ll be happy.

So far Budapest looks like it will offer us Christmas markets, natural hot springs (spas scattered all over the city), underground caves, a zoo, some parks, a Roman ruin, the Danube and its bridges, a palace, an opera house and a Parliament building, some beautiful churches/synagogues, and more museums than we would ever want to visit.

But before we head out of the country, we’ve had several Christmas events before our Winter break begins.

The kindergarten and first grade classes had a big Polar Express party. She said, “My teacher said we can wear our pajamas, but I don’t want to.” I fished out that she didn’t want to ride the bus in her pajamas (sharing a brain helped me zero right in on the problem. Would I want to ride the bus in my pjs when all the big kids were wearing regular clothes? No thank you!) As soon as I offered to drive her to school she was happy to dress for the party.

All the students got a golden ticket for the train!

The base CO came over to the school to read to the kids. After the story, the kids had 2 hours of games and other activities at stations around the room. Military members came over to help run the activities: Christmas coloring pages, writing letters to Santa, making a Christmas train out of candy (a roll of lifesavers, some mints and some hershey’s kisses — super cute!), and many others.

facepainting — this sailor was an expert, drawing stars, Rudolph, Christmas trees, and other designs on all the happy kids. (Camille asked for Rudolph.)

She was a little hesitant about seeing Santa when he arrived, but marched right up, sat on his lap, and got her candy cane and bell. I had the pleasure of escorting her and 3 of her fellow kindergartners to the various stations. They were making me smile all morning. There is something special about being a kid and just enjoying that moment, without any grownup worries as distractions.

They loved the card making table. Glitter, stickers and markers. My girls could have stayed there all morning.

But there were sugar cookies to decorate

and hot chocolate with marshmallows to drink. Just like in the book! Camille and I are having a very fun kindergarten year.

The next big Christmas event was the base party where they had the tree lighting, Santa, crafts, candy, a snow machine, live entertainment, free food . . . over the top fun.

Unless you’re this kid and the last time you were at a party here it was Halloween and everything was scary. She threw a big crying, screaming fit in the afternoon, “I’m NOT GOING!!” But I told her we had to go because I wasn’t going to let her fears get in the way of her doing fun things. So we went and she hated it.

What caused the tears to start?

A guest appearance from the cast of Frozen! No joke, Olaf made her cry. She’s crazy. As Josh would say, “Just like her mother . . . “

Slow to warm up, at least she was smiling by the end of the evening. (But still had her nervous hands in her mouth.) She was happy to head to the car the moment I decided that she had endured long enough. Lord, I don’t even know what to do with her. She’s fearless one moment, and frozen the next. Once something gets in her head, forget trying to reason her out of it. She was invited to her friend’s birthday party and she tried to casually say, “Mom, I don’t need to go. I’ve been to a birthday party before.” Too bad for her that all those excuses used to be mine. I’m not going to let her world get smaller if I can help it. Ironically, she’s super excited about going on an airplane next week. I’ll sit next to her and hope some of her enthusiasm and fearlessness rubs off on me.

The end or the beginning?

This week I’ve been packing for our Christmas trip to Budapest and Germany, but this photo is from the trip we took 5 years ago. Anyone recognize this haul of luggage?

December 1st, 2010 at the San Francisco airport. We were headed out for our one year adventure in the Middle East. Destination: Cairo, Egypt. Today, five years later, the wonder, mystery, and excitement of our overseas life lives on. We never could have imagined we would still be able to call this region home and that we’d be jumping at any opportunity to extend our experience even longer.

This group of babyfaced boys is ready for adventure. The world was waiting for them.

I can barely remember this chub.

And when did she change from this baby

to this coffee drinking girl?!

Delayed at the freezing Frankfurt airport — our first of many opportunities to adapt and improvise.

Early days in Cairo, exploring our town

I still miss these streets of Maadi (Cairo suburb where we lived), but if we hadn’t been forced to leave, we wouldn’t be where we are now and wouldn’t have been able to live in two additional Middle Eastern countries. It’s been a great lesson in seeing how God hasn’t given us what we’ve wanted, but he has provided in more abundant ways than we could ever have imagined.

We never made it to Tunisia or Morocco (our trip was cancelled due to the Arab Spring uprising), but who can complain when we’ve experienced Egypt, Oman, UAE, Turkey, Austria, Jordan, Germany, Crete, Poland, Bahrain, Israel, Uganda, India, and France? And in 2 weeks we’ll be able to add Hungary to the list.

5 years later and I’m still blogging. Not as often as in the early days, but I’m still working at it. It’s the kind of discipline that grows even more valuable with time. How much fun did I have this evening looking back at all of these old photos and reading about our early days in Egypt? Those hours of writing and editing have and will continue to pay dividends into the future.

Camille was only 5 months when we left the US. She’s now 5 and a 1/2. She’s spent essentially her entire life outside the US.

From our first Christmas — for our 5th Christmas we’ll be in Germany, hopefully enjoying a day on the ski/snowboard slopes.

Our newbie Middle East family. Such babies, all of us.

And present day — enjoying a few drops of rain the other day. Gotta take whatever the skies give. No taking it for granted.

We couldn’t do all of this without the support of our family who thankfully gives us the freedom to go where God leads us. Or stay where God has put us. And at the 5 year mark, we have no idea where he will send us next. Will we stay and finish Calvin’s senior year here? Will we move elsewhere in the Middle East? Will we get assigned to Europe or will we come full circle and head back to the US? We are hoping to find out in Feb 2016, but until then, we’ll continue to soak up as much of this as we can get.

If you want to start at the beginning, December 2010 is where our story begins (choose from the archive on the right). Some of my finest work hails from those days. Good times. These two linked posts covers our travel from the US to Egypt. I’m hoping the story continues . . .

Flashback to the past

Our first time in Germany

Arrival in Sougia (more Crete)

Paleochora was one of our favorite places. I loved the tiny peninsula that was only a few blocks wide, surrounded by waterfront — rocky beach or sandy beach, we had our pick. Our last morning in town we ate pastries from the shop across the street, walked across town to the corniche and picked up a few souvenirs along the way. The boys found a 1 Euro shop that they were sure held all sorts of treasures . . . but no.

We would come to this side of town to eat dinner at night with its gorgeous view of the Mediterranean.

Our last stop before we headed into the mountains to our next vacation destination was a final meal at our favorite restaurant, the schoolhouse cafe in Anidri Village. The boys brought cards, Josh and I brought our books and we sat for several hours in the sunshine, relaxing, eating and enjoying a lazy lunch.

Our lunchtime view

Always making friends. This baby was at the table next to us and he loved Carter. The two younger boys followed him all over the grounds while we were waiting for our food.

Fresh salads with olives and feta (yes, that’s pickled seaweed on top — delicious!)

Camille wanted escargot today

and she loved it. Caleb wasn’t a fan. He said it tasted good, but couldn’t get past the texture. No matter, Camille ate it all.

I can’t remember what else we ate, but I can guarantee that it was excellent. Every meal has been perfection. Every tomato perfectly red, ripe and with the tomatoey sweet/tart/acic balance that sets them apart. I realized I haven’t had a good tomato since moving overseas. Even the beautiful tomatoes that we had in Turkey weren’t nearly as vibrant in taste as the ones we are getting in Crete. Cretan food is now my #2 favorite cuisine after Mexican (guacamole and salsa are hard to beat).

In order to get to Sougia, a remote spot on the southern coast, we had to drive north to get around a set of mountains and then back down to the water’s edge.

More winding roads through the mountains with zero traffic.

Josh kept teasing me and pretending that we were going to have to drive on roads like this one headed up and to the right. I still hadn’t quite recovered from our harrowing ride to Elafonisi beach. I don’t know who lives on those roads less traveled, but I certainly wouldn’t!

The winding back and forth put her to sleep.

Driving through paradise with the breeze in our hair, spotting goats, sheep and dogs snoozing in patches of sunshine along the sides of the road (and sometimes in the road!) Have I mentioned that we spent our drives thinking of career moves that would enable us to move to Crete?

We arrived in our one road town in time to get unpacked, walk down to the beach and explore before dinner.

He’s reading. A shocking sight.

A rocky beach made up entirely of rounded stones. Easy on the feet, but lots of slipping and sliding and sinking in as we walked.

Rock skipping ammunition for days!

The setting sun signaled it was time to find a place to eat dinner.

More great food, steps away from where we were staying.

Dinner outside on a clear night

We’ve tried the local village wine everywhere we’ve stayed. It’s usually a brownish color rather than red or white. It’s cheap and goes perfectly with all the feta, olives and grilled seafood that we’ve been eating.

You can even buy it in unlabeled bottles at the local grocery store or mini mart. It’s a crazy contrast to the US where everything sold in stores has to be carefully labeled and compared to Bahrain where alcohol can only be sold in special stores. Crete = freedom.

Detour (Elafonisi beach)

Crete is magical. Relaxed, easy pace — though part of that is self-designed. You could definitely overdo it here. One of the things about travel planning on the fly is that at night when I’d normally be blogging about our day, I’m busy figuring out what we are going to do tomorrow or trying to make arrangements for the next hotel/apartment.

The black netting is strung out under the olive trees to catch the fallen fruit

So there is this legendary pink sand beach that is one of the most famous beaches in the world. It’s tucked away on the southwest corner of Crete so we figured it would be a good day trip when we are staying on the southern coast. Except it turns out that the shortest way to the beach is over a rock and dirt road requiring 4 wheel drive, which we don’t have. Oh well, it’s still only about an hour the long way around.

Where are we going?! Through someone’s backyard?

Following our map and GPS we start out on some of the narrowest and most winding roads I’ve ever travelled on. Beautiful views off the sides of the cliffs, but also plenty of shrines, reminding us of those who hadn’t been as lucky on these roads. Things were looking good until we hit dirt. Thanks a lot GPS lady! We had thwarted her first attempts to take us to the “shortcut,” but she was slick and persistent and brought us back around to another pass through the mountains (instead of around).

hmm, looking a little rough . . .

uh, oh . . . where did the pavement go?

The road went on and on and got worse and worse.

According to our dumb paper map it was an “improved” road, but I don’t know what it looked like previously to make this series of holes, ruts, and boulders the improved version. We tried to drive it for a stretch, especially since we were so close, but finally called it quits and Josh did a 42 point turn on the side of the mountain to get us turned around and headed back to find a paved road.

We backtracked and eventually found a place where we could meet up with the main road that would take us all the way to the beach.

I was not thrilled about taking this super-sharp blind turn.

A pretty drive, but a roundabout one.

Sheep in the road!

random goat on a cliff

lots of goats!

chilling in the road

goats at church

finally a glimpse of the ocean!

The legends of pink sand are true, but not in the way that Carmel is a white sand beach. Elafonisi beach was similar to our beach day further north on the same coast, the edges of the surf tinged pink with sand made of red coral. Beautiful and indeed pink, but the majority of the sand is beautiful plain golden/tan beach sand.

Turquoise water as far as the eye can see and we planted our towels on an island sandbar for the afternoon. Warm water, little fish swimming among the rocks, and because it’s October, this very popular beach isn’t overrun with people like it would be at the height of summer. Worth every extra mile.

Checking out the pink sand

Hiking around our sandbar island

On the far side we found the black and pink sand beach

pretty, Mama!

Crystal clear water — warm enough to swim

Trying to sort the pink grains from the black . . .

Building an “aquarium” for the fish they are going to catch.

the inland side of our sandbar

Crossing over — the tide is coming in, so it’s getting deeper

fishing!

Sun-kissed and happy, heading home.

The correct way through the mountains this time.

Dinner of grilled anchovies

and moussaka (Greek lasagna-type dish. So delicious!)

And then we stopped at an outdoor cafe for crepes and honey raki

A perfect nightcap

A beautiful full moon over the Mediterranean.

End of the Road (Crete revisited)

Feeling like escaping reality today so I’m focusing on my happy place (anywhere in Crete). I found my notebook with some blog posts that I wrote while traveling so I’m adding photos and revising and FINALLY posting them.

Nothing like cruising along the coastline of the southern Mediterranean on a ferryboat listening to old 80’s classics playing over the speakers. Rocky cliffs on one side, endless blue water on the other, and Billy Idol’s White Wedding in my ears.

Our last day of touring on this wing and a prayer vacation. Tomorrow we head back north, stopping at a few places along the way before ending at the base for the last night with my safety reservation in case the plane schedule shifted. (And hallelujah it did! An extra day in Crete!)

Today Josh and the boys are going to hike the longest gorge in Europe — Samaria Gorge, but not all 18k of it. Typically people will catch a very early bus in the morning (6 or 7am), arrive at the top of the gorge by 9 am and spend about 6 hours hiking down it. Then, because there is no car access, everyone waits at the bottom, on the coast, for the ferry to shuttle people back to civilization at the end of the day.

We are doing the hike the “lazy way,” starting at the bottom. (That’s actually how it’s referred to on Trip Advisor.) Wake up at 8am, catch the 9am ferry, walk up the gorge as far as they want and then hike down and take the ferry home. Meanwhile, Meels and I are doing it the truly lazy way as we camp out on the beach for the day under an umbrella, drinking fresh juice and reading a book. It’s my gift to all of us because as much as I’d like to hike and see the gorge and Camille is a surprisingly nimble hiker, she is unpredictable in her stamina.This way the boys can go as fast as they want and cover more ground and the only tears will be about whether she can have another fresh squeezed orange juice with her lunch.

It’s lovely sitting on the top deck of the ferry — only the slightest breeze in my hair, listening to the rumble of the engine below. It’s ironic since an hour ago my stomach was in knots and I was planning potential escape routes in case the boat started to sink. That wasn’t an actual fear, but figuring out all the “what ifs” keeps my brain busy and distracts it from focusing on the idea that I’m trapped on public transportation with no way out. Just residual issues that I will have to work at for life. I think it must be a bit like being an alcoholic — totally better and functioning fine, but the potential to crack is always there. Of course as soon as we backed away from the dock I was fine because it changed from “can I do this?” to “I’m actually doing this and it’s no big deal.” My brain is a devilish thing, always looking for a way out until the last second when it resigns itself to the fact that I’m not going to fall for its tricks this time. I’m glad I didn’t let it win.