Pages

31 December 2011

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

¡Prospero año y felicidad, amigos!

27 December 2011

God at Eye-Level

"We are--oh my! Oh my! Just hold on! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! Okay. Okay. Oh my goodness, hold on!" When your flight attendant says these words, bopping up and down all the while like a dead fish on the lake, it is not comforting. At all.

I hate takeoff and turbulence and open-air heights and feeling out of control of my body. It's only been on my last two flights that I've realized I'm not going through that familiar contemplate-all-the-ways-we-could-possibly-die ritual. I guess there's something to be said for early-morning flights staunching the tremble of inner organs.

Heights have always freaked me out. Still, I used to climb to the roof of our house when the snow was high enough to give me a boost. (I also used to climb on top of our chickenless chickenhouse and pretend I was secretly feeding a runaway girl--this was during my Laura Ingalls Wilder phase.) All that climbing was terrifying, but I learned to deal with it because I loved being at the pinnacle of the prairie. I loved sitting atop a giant haybale with the colors of the farm spreading out indefinitely around me. I even loved my second-story bedroom in the crusty, old rental house the girls and I had--where I could see for blocks.


The view overtakes the fear.

Your flight attendant might be flailing about, but once the plane stops its post-takeoff veering and levels out, the view overtakes the fear. You see perfect square fields ten thousand feet below, all stitched together with dirt roads. You see skylines poking up into clouds, looking like scale models. I flew from Phoenix back to Grand Forks last fall, and I kept telling myself to sleep because I'd still have a three-hour drive after landing--but I couldn't do it. I couldn't stop staring out the window, mesmerized by desert merging with mountain, spreading into plain and prairie and hillside and home.


I was writing a letter on a flight last summer. Certainly this isn't an original thought, but it occurred to me then: "This must be how God sees us." And just as suddenly, a second thought bumped into that one. "No, it isn't."

We talk about him as "the Father up above," and if he's big enough to form a universe, then we're right in comparing ourselves to grass and dust, just barely specks to be noticed--let alone cared about--by someone who can view an entire mountain range from the corner of his eye.

But does He really see us like this, like He's staring down from that great above? Because whenever I read something about a place I've never been, I visualize it as though I'm looking down on a map. Seven months ago, the Spain in my head looked like this:


Visiting new places mentally spins them into proportion. As beautiful as anything is from above, you don't know it until you're on the ground, until you're seeing it straight-on. Seven months ago, this place was, to me, just map-Spain. Its people were "the Spaniards." But now it is becoming blues and browns, grocery shopping at Eroski, old men driving tractors. "They" have become Ana and Danilo and Flor. Spain at eye-level.

I walked up the hill near my house today. It was beautiful, 60 degrees. There were tractors humming (Case I-H and John Deere!) and men on dirt bikes.

My favorite spot in all of Spain is in the middle of the dirt road on the flat top of that hill. In one spin, you can see fields and pueblos, the skyline of Madrid, the etching of mountains against sky. I must have turned eight circles, trying to fit it all into my line of sight at one time. There was an old man in bright blue overalls picking rocks out of the field; I waved at him and called, "Hola!" I jumped off the path several times to avoid being plowed down like barley, and my heart felt so full I thought it might tear its way out of my skin. As I walked home, a plane flew over. I paused to wave, even though they probably weren't close enough to see the tall, female dot in the middle of the furrows.

It is so beautiful from above: the city, the farmland, the four towers. But in a plane, you can't see this:


You can't see seven layers of Spanish geography. You can't see the land looming before you and behind you and ahead of you and all around you. You have to step into it; you have to walk on it; you have to look at eye-level.


This struck me as I raised my hand to greet the blue-overall farmer: You see me.

You see me.

The only Spanish sermon I've understood almost entirely was about Hagar--about the feeling-rather-invisible Hagar who ran away from the man who used her. About meeting an angel in the wilderness. And about those words that came to her lips. "She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.'" 

El Dios Que Ve. The God Who Sees. Or, perhaps, El Dios Que Me Ve. The God who sees me.


This is Immanuel. This is God-with-us, the God who stepped onto the earth to walk in it and touch it and know it the way most of us do, not from plane windows but face-to-face. This is the God who can see an entire planet "from above" but stops to notice a sparrow and a tall, female dot in the middle of the furrows. This is the God who pulled flesh over his divinity, who waved to farmers and knew their names, who sent me to Camarma to find fields and mountains and restoration--because He sees me. He knows me. He is watching this path from above and walking it beside me. This is the God at eye-level.

26 December 2011

The Laura Ingalls Type

I feel like I've become a little obsessive about Norway recently, especially since I glanced at a map and noticed the straight flight path between Madrid and Oslo. So I've devoted tonight to family research. As it turns out, I have a great-grandfather who was born in a covered wagon in Wisconsin.

This explains so many things! Including that one summer I wore my hair in double braids and insisted that my family call me Mabel.

23 December 2011

Home is where they love you

I explained to my 9th graders one day that I'm getting self-conscious about the way I pronounce "bag." Everyone outside the Dakotas says it with a short a, like flag and tag and all those other words I also pronounce with long a's instead. Bayg. Flayg. Tayg. People are usually pretty forgiving, because "bayg" still sounds like "bag"--and also, why am I using the term "forgiving" as if using regional dialects are sinful? (Well, in the case of "warsh," then yes, that's a sin.)

But I also say "route" with an "ow" (as in "Ow, he bit me!") and "root" with an "uh" (as in, "Uh, you're taking the wrong route"), and sometimes people look at me like they can't quite figure out what I'm getting at.

It's fun to poke apart accents and terminology and pronunciations--until someone says you're doing it wrong. There's this funny fence that comes up inside of you, and you defend your words, and it stings because now this is about more than words. If you are wrong, so is the entire community that taught you to speak. Suddenly it feels like more than a discussion about "pop" and "soda." It is about home.

For four years, this city was home to me. In autumn, leaves break open with color like fireworks, and although I've now spent six autumns away from it, my daydream self sometimes slips back onto campus and climbs four flights of stairs to old classrooms. My real self will find posters of the skyline on Etsy and get a little teary. There are people in Minnesota still walking around with pieces of my heart. Home.


This is the city where you can't be anonymous no matter how hard you try, where it's possible to walk from a friend's house on one end of town to a friend's house on the other (provided you have good shoes), where you could leave for fifty years and still come back to find that so-and-so grew up with so-and-so, and they were friends with your grandpa's cousins. The prairie is as deep as it is wide, and it is home.


This pueblo is home for the moment, this tiny place cuddled around the edges of a European metropolis. I love that everyone walks everywhere and that every detail down to the door hinges have been crafted with care. I love that you can go far away from everything you know and still find something familiar. Home.



Home isn't just about location. Home is carried inside you.

And yet, tomorrow will be Christmas Eve. I will be eating tacos with my WorldVenture teammates, celebrating the way Light broke into the world and took its first breaths in a manger. It will be home and not home all at once, and even though I know it's just as warm in North Dakota as it is here, there's something else that isn't quite the same.


Christmas Eve to me will always be candlelight and old VCR recordings of my brother exclaiming, "We both got very expensive presents for Christmas!" It is secret codes on all the tags my dad wrote and reading the Scriptures and cat ornaments on the tree, the relics of childhood. For the first time in seven months, I feel the gap of my mom and dad, my brother, my grandma, to the point of tears. They are the people who taught me to say "bayg" and "ruuhht" and to be kind to others even when you don't feel like it. This Christmas Eve, I will not be sitting in the brown-carpeted living room where I've spent every Christmas Eve of my life. It's because of who I became, which is because of the people who loved me enough to let me go for a little while. They are my family. They are home.

21 December 2011

On the first day of vacation, my true love gave to me

61º weather and the chance to sleep in 'til 2!

(This is not a literal interpretation of the traditional carol. There is no need for deciphering who the "true love" is. Obviously, my showcase of cooking skills didn't work properly!)


I can't believe it's Christmastime. It doesn't really feel like Christmastime (see also: 61
º). One year, I drove home from college with a friend from Minot. We made the 500-mile trip in under 8 hours, and my dad couldn't believe that we weren't speeding. But we weren't; the day was beautiful and we didn't stop to eat.

One year later, that same girl and I spent over 2 hours creeping along an icy I-29 between Fargo and Grand Forks, tallying the number of cars we saw in ditches (there were 17). My parents met us in Grand Forks, and our 4-hour ride home only became more exciting when we hit a snowdrift that knocked off some engine belt. Every light in the van dimmed, and we debated whether it was smarter to turn off the car and hope that it would start again (and, if it wouldn't, to freeze to death on the side of the road 30 miles from home)--or to keep pushing on and hope the vehicle wouldn't stop or explode (the first of which would still cause us to freeze on the side of the road, and the second of which would probably keep us well-heated, if we didn't singe our hair first).



There have been moments this semester when I've thought to myself, "Would it be better if I just turned off this engine for awhile, or should I keep pushing ahead despite the fact that all my lights and belts are wearing thin?" As it turns out, I am not a van (who would've guessed?), and the pushing-through thing works, even though you sometimes get to the end and feel like you've frozen and exploded at the same time.

But you know what? My first semester of teaching is over, and I'm alive! I even still love my life. Fancy that. To celebrate on this first sunny day of vacation, I am going to take this tired body for a spin up the nearby walking path, and then I will fuel up with mandarin oranges, and then I'm going to spend a little quality time in the shop with my mattress and a book or nine. Also, I promise to never, ever make car metaphors ever again; I feel like I'm channeling my brother.


Speaking of brothers: did you know that I have one? Many people don't. He's sort of a mysterious fellow. I love you, Andrew!

16 December 2011

Cooking in Camarma: A Kitchen Primer

If you're one of those people who enjoys cooking and baking, moving to Spain may complicate your hobby. Many household ingredients are not readily available here: chocolate chips, brown sugar, maple syrup, bagels, root beer. Recipes will require substitutions: plain Greek yogurt for sour cream, strange cuts of pork instead of home-grown beef.

However, as someone who has been in Spain for seven months and has yet to use the oven, I'm here to tell you that it can be done! Preparing food is easy with the proper absence of skills!

Below you'll find some of my favorite recipes, tweaked to use with the materials available. (Most of these ingredients are easy to find in the States, so if you're reading from home, get ready to cook along!) The prep time is notably less than required for traditional American meals (roughly 5 minutes per course), so you'll have plenty of daylight left over to do Spanish things, like spending time with family and...okay, so eating quickly isn't a Spanish thing, but you'll have double the time for post-dinner coffee! Also, you won't start eating until 8:30 or so, so you won't really have daylight left over. Whatever. Just a matter of semantics.

Besides saving time in the day, you'll also save time away from the kitchen. Most people go grocery shopping, then bring the groceries home, put them away, take them back out for meal time, slave away in the kitchen putting all the elements together, and then wash the dishes afterward. These recipes cut out that significant "slaving" step, providing you with more opportunities to check facebook.

Enough of this prelude--let's get to the food!

Phase I: The Appetizer

This dish is one of my favorites. It's easy and tasty, and if you need a quick Christmasy dish, the colors are right.

You'll need a couple of tomatoes and an avocado. (Quantities can be varied; a couple of avocados and a tomato are also acceptable.)


In a bowl, slice the tomatoes into small chunks.


Next, scoop the avocado from its shell and combine it with the tomato. If you want your salad to be extra-European, try chopping with a knife in one hand and a fork in the other at all times. If, however, you'd like to channel that all-American ingenuity, chop the avocado with the same spoon you used to scoop it, and then use that spoon to stir them all together. Efficiency!


Finally, eat. This dish stands alone, but a dash of salt or a vinegar-and-lemon-juice dressing will exemplify the flavors. I couldn't find salt in my cupboards, so I threw some cashews on top. Same principle, right?


The cashews have nearly the same effect if you just eat the salad first, then pour the nuts out of the bag and directly into your hand. That's the beauty of this recipe: it's so versatile!


Phase II: The Main Course

Okay, we're stepping up to "intermediate" level with this next recipe. It involves a variety of items from a variety of the food groups (which, by the way, have changed so much in the past 20 years that I can't really keep track of how much of what I'm supposed to eat each day. Either way, this meal clearly strikes the balance between dairy, protein, and fruit. If those are their real names.).

To begin, pour the juice into the glass. In case of exertion throughout the remainder of preparation, you won't have to worry about getting dehydrated. (Juice can also be substituted for water, wine, or any other beverage except boxed milk, which is disgusting.)


Next, peel the plastic off the tray of lomo. It may resist at first, but just keep pulling!


Consume those delicious slices one by one.

To balance out the beefy goodness, try alternating bites between meat and cheese. The small cheeses that come in packages work best. First, remove the plastic wrapping.


Ah, these cheeses are tricky! They're kind of like those Russian nesting babushkas, in that you'll have to go through several steps to get to the real prize inside. Peel back the layer of wax using the handy peel strips.


Once the cheese has been released from its waxy cave, take a bite! You've earned it!


The main course is rounded out with some smooth, creamy Greek yogurt. Unless you enjoy eating sour cream straight from the jar, skip the "natural" stuff and head straight toward "azucarado" (sugared). If your grocery store carries "fruta cortada," you're double lucky; that fruit on the bottom will nearly trick you into thinking it's dessert.


The Greeks had a lot to do with shaping modern civilization, and their yogurt should  not be underestimated, as it is one of those gastronomical wonders of the world. Consume with joy.


You may be wondering why none of the main course elements share a plate. It all hearkens back to the day of church potlucks, spaghetti and Jello running together into a watery red lake near the hotdish. I have grown up eating my meals in order and in sections: first all the lettuce, then all the noodles, then the bread, so that nothing mixes in terrible ways.

Also, that would require dirtying another plate.

Phase III: Dessert

Desserts are my favorite part of the meal, as they come in so many shapes and sizes. Therefore, I'm providing instructions for not one but two of the simplest, tastiest desserts there are.

Up first: peanut butter and Nutella.

Put a spoonful of peanut butter on the plate. (Peanut butter is expensive, so ration carefully.)

Next, put a spoonful of Nutella on the plate. (Fake Nutella will do, though the flavor doesn't quite match.)

Finally, mix them together.


Yes, that's it. I know, I know, how can something so delicious be so simple? Simplicity is the key, friends. This is the mantra behind all of my recipes. Simple cooking has simplified my life. But, wait, let's not get all sentimental while the creme de la creme is waiting.

This is Jello. Fresa and limon Jello.


One Jello by itself is good. But two Jellos of two different flavors living on the same plate? A taste sensation! Open the Jellos and pour them into a dish.


Ever so carefully, slice the Jello with your spoon (again with that American everything-has-multiple-purposes mentality), being careful to distribute the colors evenly around the dish.


This dessert ended up unintentionally being the colors of the Spanish flag, which makes it a great dessert to share on...Spanish holidays like Constitution Day? If your Spanish friends, like most Spanish friends, aren't particularly patriotic, you could try Jello in the colors of the coat-of-arms of their particular autonomous community instead. Integration!

---

That's it. My culinary secrets. All of them. All for you.

Next time you wonder, "How did Shar grow up to be so big and tall?" you can remind yourself that it's due to a balanced and proper diet...which my mother helped me maintain before I started cooking for myself. And lots of 2% milk. And probably some genes or something, too.

Thanks for joining us, and don't forget to recommend this blog to all of your bachelor friends who are intimidated by the prospect of cooking and are between the ages of 25 and 32. (So they can glean the cooking ideas, of course. What else would I be talking about?)

A Psychological Christmas Break

I'm in the beginning stages of a cold, my contacts are pushing me toward a headache, and I'm pretty sure I ate a styrofoam chip that was attached to a piece of Christmas candy this morning. That means my big plans for tonight will be napping, waking up, and then going to bed for real. I might even find some time to sleep in between all that strenuous activity.

Hooray for naps and Fridays. Even if that styrofoam isn't digestible, there are many other reasons to celebrate this Friday.

1) It's the last teaching Friday of 2011! Break officially starts next Wednesday, but I have one high school final and a whole lot of middle school Christmas parties next week, which means this first semester is basically officially over. And so, basically and officially, I am declaring tonight the beginning of my own unofficial, psychological Christmas vacation! It will involve lots of napping.

2) It's December, and the green field across from the school is creeping ever closer with its greenness. This is the best winter of my life!

3) My kids are funny:

Leprechaun: "What's that?" (in reference to another boy's illustration)
Boy: "It's Mexico."
L: "It's a hernia."
B: "We could call it Mexica. Like a female Mexico. It really doesn't look anything like Mexico. I could call it Italy."

---

B: (yells one of the girls' names really loudly, then realizes there is a class on the other side of the wall) "Why am I yelling? They have a class in there! I've gone psycho!"
---

L: "Draw some clothes on your wise man! It's not wise to be naked!"

13 December 2011

Oh, the things they will say

As they work on a Christmas storybook

Boy: "Ms. C, do you think this looks weird?"

Me: "I don't know; does it?" (I am looking at a stick man--or, more precisely, the head of a stick man. There's not much to comment on.)

Boy: "Don't you think it has too much charisma for a poor boy?"


---


Boy: "This deodorant that he sprayed on me--it smells like my aunt's house!"


---


After discovering that my stapler actually staples in reverse (prongs bent outward instead of inward), the 8th graders decide they each need a souvenir staple on a Post-It, which also needs to be autographed by me

Me: "Have you ever had a teacher autograph so many things for you before?"

Boy: "You'd better get famous!"

At lunchtime, two of them tell me their brilliant plan: to be my bodyguards once I find this predicted fame.

Boy: "And we'll get paid."

Me: "Well, you'd better start lifting weights."

Boy: "You need to get famous today, because I need that money tomorrow."

12 December 2011

"I'm going to put copyright on that!"

Girl: "He broke the ping-pong table!"

Boy: "I wanted to do a crime. I want people to want me, so I have to do a crime so they want me. And then they'll pay money for me. They'll want me real bad."

Me: (covers face with hands, turns toward room)

Boy: "You're going to write that down, aren't you?"

11 December 2011

Two days of sleep, and this is the best I could come up with

I think my body subconsciously understands--and acts as an accomplice--when I have to do something I don't want to do. Yesterday, it aided me by keeping me in bed until 4pm. I was not sick, unless you count sick of grading.

Our final class projects before Christmas break include speeches and Christmas storybooks. But I really wish we could do one giant all-class project. We would, utilizing teamwork and good communication skills, of course, build a giant flaming volcano centerpiece for our classroom (a precursor to Lord of the Flies?). Then I would walk by it with an armload of grading one day and accidentally trip, expelling the papers into the flames. We could roast marshmallows over the homework embers and sing Joy to the World, and that, my friends, would lead into a discussion on the true meaning of Christmas vacation!

I am going to go back to my bed now.

09 December 2011

My 8th Graders: A Tribute

My kids frequently ask which class is my favorite. I pull that old mom trick and tell them, "You're all my favorite, just for different reasons."

So today, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my favorite 8th graders: they're the funniest group by far, the perfect blend of humor and compassion and weirdness. The dynamics of a four-kid class could be really awkward if it didn't contain the right personalities, but theirs just fit.


One of them, whom I frequently refer to as "Leprechaun," has a sharp, quick wit. When he misspelled a word on yesterday's vocab quiz, his friend jokingly scribbled, "Learn to spell!" across his paper. Leprechaun, noticing that the boy had misnumbered his own paper, wrote back, "Learn to count!" And they both burst into laughter.

That second boy, he has a tender heart. His inordinate amount of compassion sometimes leaves him upset when something bad happens to a character in a book. The other day, hunters were pacing the fields across from school, dead rabbits dangling from their belts. He ran to the window, crying, "Go home! Don't kill the animals!"

It was the idea of turtle soup that had him reeling today. "I can't believe it. Turtle soup. Why would they do that? They're eating turtles! I have four turtles!"

And Leprechaun, deadpan, turns to him. "Well, now you have three."

My third boy sings non-stop. If ever I find a Disney song trapped in my brain at 11:00, I know it's him I have to thank. He sings and laughs, laughs and sings. Meanwhile, my girl takes it all in stride. She's mostly quiet, though she likes to jump in now and then, stirring the pot or setting the boys straight.

Most days, something like this happens: Boy 3 (who is reading Things Not Seen, about an invisible boy) is trying to explain to the others why the main character has to walk around naked. (Because it's more awkward to wear clothes and not have a visible face than it is to walk around without clothes and avoid all notice--of course!) This devolves into a hilarious conversation of which I don't remember much, except that it ends with me sitting at my desk, shaking my head silently and laughing.

"Look at Ms. C. She's laughing at us."

"She always laughs at us."

Then they all laugh, too. This is third period. This is 8th grade.

I love it.

08 December 2011

Francetastic: Marseille and the Accidental Toulon Tour

Day 1

At 5am, the alarm clock sounds more like a screeching parrot that is trying to scratch your brain out with its beak. Caitlin and I rolled around on our mattresses and mumbled things about sleep and death. We finally managed to peel back the sheets, and we must've looked reasonably humanoid by the time we reached the airport, as the flight attendant greeted us with a friendly "Bonjour."

(I know it's probably her default greeting; still, it's nice when you're not automatically assumed an American. Starbucks has tried to cut out language barriers with their creation of "Starbucksese," but I still try to order with a Spanish accent.

Inevitably, I will not catch it when the cashier asks my name. I will say, "¿Que?" And he will say with great enunciation, "What ees your name?" Therefore, any time someone greets me in anything other than English, I hope that just maybe I look like something else than an awkward monolingual. Of course, maybe they're just giving me the benefit of the doubt because I am wearing boots and leggings.)


This is a Nutella-filled crepe and a shot of espresso. There is no better way to continue a morning of sleeplessness-induced slap-happiness than with espresso.

We were awake for a grand total of 17 hours that day, so here are a bunch of pictures and no more words, because I don't know that anything describes the day better than we laughed really hard the entire time and had no idea why.








Day 2

I was really stoked to see the Chateau d'If, the place where Alexandre Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo was set--and later filmed. However, because of wind, we could take a boat tour to the neighboring small island of Frioul but not to d'If itself. Don't worry; as we sailed past, waves slapping the front of the boat, I pretended that I was locked up inside with Jim Caviezel and the old bearded man. Because that is what normal people do when they go on vacation to France.



You know how sometimes there are things that are so beautiful you absolutely cannot grasp them? You feel like an invisible hand is pushing your heart into your lungs and you breathe in gasps; it is simply the only way to take it in, as if the sense of sight can't operate properly while the rest of your body is functioning normally, and so you take shallow breaths and let your eyes eat up everything around you. This is the way I feel when I see the blue of the Mediterranean. Twice I have seen it now: the color crushes all the air out of me, then fills me up with the bluest blues in the world.




That evening, we attempted to visit the museum of contemporary art, which houses some oh-so-French originals by guys like Andy Warhol.

We ended up not getting there on time, which turned out to be perfect, as it forced us to turn down the road toward a magical park. It was like a combination of every classic European thing you've ever imagined--and Estes Park, Colorado. Also, along with bikes and trolleys, you could rent plastic horses.



There were several churro stands throughout the park. Now, Spanish churros are very different than the churros you're used to from Taco John's. Fast food churros are coated in sugar and cinnamon, and they make a mess all over your car and clog your arteries with happiness. Spanish churros are plain and a little greasy, and, dipped in slightly sweet chocolate, they churn in your stomach afterward like a big oil bomb.

So, armed with the handy dandy Lonely Planet phrasebook, I tried to order something else in French--to actually say words, instead of just pointing and grunting like we'd been doing all day.

"Um, glace?" Ice cream.

The guy looked at me. "We do not have; too cold. It is for summer." Dang. Again with the English.

I tried for the next item on the list: "Pomme d'amour." I think it was a candied apple, though directly translated, that means "apple of love." Well, sugar or love, I could use either one of those. But the guy denied me again, assuring me that pommes were for summer.

I quit trying after that. I ate Sarah and Caitlin's churros instead. Let it be noted: French churros completely dominate Spanish ones. They come with sugar and Nutella and taste better than any love apple possibly could.


Speaking of food, we followed up the churros with food from a little sidewalk cafe. I am not a food connoisseur by any means, but the appetizer plate consisted of tomatoes and mozzarella perfectly stacked, drizzled with olive oil and basil, and I swear, for one shining moment, I was living Ratatouille in my head. You know, the part where he takes a bite of a berry followed by a bite of cheese, followed by colors splashing against music. Let's not even talk about the melt-in-your-mouth salmon.

(Did I just compare my palate to that of an animated rat? Yes, and I also ate tuna straight from the can for lunch today.)


Day 3

We decided to take the train to Cassis on our final day in France--just a short ride from  Marseille. The postcards boasted it as a place with water so blue it'd burn your retinas, so of course we had to see it.

We bought the tickets, which had no train number or departure time printed on them. Just to make sure we were headed the right direction, Caitlin approached the man at the help desk, who pointed her toward the departures listed on the board. "There it is," he said, handing her a map of the train route.

"This is a really nice train," Sarah commented. "Is it supposed to be this nice?"

"The trains in Germany were like this," Caitlin reassured us.

"Are we on the right train? The other people have, like, big train tickets. Are you sure we're not going to Paris?" I had noticed that Paris and Lyon were listed on the train door when we'd entered. And as gracious as our friends are about early morning phone calls, I was pretty sure no one in Camarma would be excited to hear, "Um, we missed our flight and are sitting outside the Louvre. Do you think you could give us a ride home?"

Sarah pulled out her book; Caitlin opened hers. I rested my head against the window.

Fifteen minutes into the trip, I began wondering why we hadn't stopped yet. Caitlin was looking out the window, also seeming a little concerned, but neither of us said anything.

Half an hour in, we were looking out the window again, and then at each other. Finally, one of us spoke: "Um, I don't think we're on the right train."

That fact was confirmed when the train finally came to a stop in Toulon. We knew nothing about Toulon, except that it was about five stops past Cassis...and that we'd paid for cheap commuter train seats and gotten a first-class speed train to the wrong town!

And so we did the thing that we'd been doing all weekend, the thing that makes me love traveling with Caitlin and Sarah: we laughed.


And then we got food, and then we followed that up with more food from a little cafe where the guy asked if we'd like the menu in Dutch.

 
We made it back to the airport in plenty of time, and in case you've ever been concerned about French airport security, their x-ray machines absolutely will catch smuggled bottles of Starbucks vanilla syrup. (It started out innocently enough, a present for a friend. Two minutes after purchasing the syrup in question, I realized that, crap, you can't take that much liquid on a plane! And though we considered emptying out all our shampoo and soap bottles to transport the syrup home, we figured that Lisa probably wouldn't love the hygienic aftertaste.)


This is Louis. The pilot asked us to clap for him because this was his last flight with RyanAir. He is now headed to Miami for "a better job and a better life."


And here we are at the end of it all, completely giddy and exhausted in Madrid sweet Madrid, the place where it's okay if gracias slips out of your mouth instead of merci, the place we love most of all.

02 December 2011

Why we won't be sleeping in the airport this weekend

This is Caitlin.


When we couldn't find a ride for tomorrow's 7:30am flight, Caitlin and I were contemplating having an airport-slumber-party kind of adventure, which is much better than a catch-the-early-bus-and-miss-the-flight kind of adventure. Plus, no one really likes those wake-up-a-friend-with-a-car-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-get-them-to-drive-you-somewhere kind of adventures.

This is Sarah.


Sarah vetoed the airport party idea. Something about hygiene and safety and a good night's sleep. Silly Sarah.

So, instead, we're having a sleepover-in-Sarah's-living-room party, followed by a Will-makes-a-grand-sacrifice-and-drives-us-to-the-airport-at-5:30 party, followed by a we're-in-France-for-the-long-weekend party.

I'm so excited!

Here are some end-of-the-week party quotes to wrap up this big hyphenation party of a blog post:

During yearbook class


Girl: "See if you can find a rounded-edge tool on PhotoShop, 'cause we're going to have to round the edges of a lot of these pictures."

(A few minutes later)

Girl: "Did you find it?"

Boy: "Yes, but we didn't try it."

Girl: "Why not?"

Boy: "Because we're guys?"

---

7th Grade Boy: "Ms. C, do you think there would be any Tolstoy in the library?"

Me: "I'm sure there is. Why exactly are you interested in Tolstoy?"

Boy: "I have this list." (He fishes a crumpled paper out of his pocket: the Columbia University recommended literature list, the finishing of which has become the goal of a small school literary club) "What is War and Peace about?"

Me: "Um, it's about war...and peace."

---

In the third-floor kitchen, the table is covered with marshmallows wrapped in plastic. Outside the kitchen, the elementary kids are squealing in Christmas-y delight.

Me: "What's happening with all these marshmallows?"

Leprechaun: "We're gonna put sugar on them. Then we're going to feed them to the kids, and then we're going to leave the building."