The Rain in Spain...

Our plan was to spend today in Barcelona. We debated whether to visit Montserrat --a famous mountain outside Barcelona that looks like an upside-down saw. There's a monastery there and a boys' choir that sings every day. In addition, you can take tram rides up to extreme points of the mountain, and the view is supposed to be amazing! There's also Montjuic -- a castle converted into a war museum that sits next to Olympic venue sites and a Spanish village which houses artisans doing work typical of the various parts of Spain. In addition, I had no idea I'd have such a fascination with Gaudí, and Barcelona has several other buildings he designed, as well as a garden area devoted to him.

As luck would have it...we woke to pouring rain. Sightseeing with 5 kids is an adventure anyway...and we chose to skip the rain option and head to France. That's how you can tell you have a hard life -- when it rains in Spain and so you have drive to France instead. It worked out well since our trip from Barcelona to Switzerland would've been 10 hours, and this way we were able to divide it into halves.

Driving through France this time, I finally put my finger on a way to describe the countryside. It looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting...not necessarily quite as light, but that soft look his scenery has looks like France. I tried to capture it as we drove along the freeway, but I'm not sure the pictures do it justice. There were tree-covered mountains on both sides of the road for much of the trip -- not covered with pines, but covered with deciduous trees. It must be amazing in the autumn.

Some French landscape (photo taken from our vehicle while en route to Valence)

We arrived at our hotel and since they couldn't accommodate a party of our size until 8:30, we headed into town to find dinner. Things didn't look very promising until we took a left-hand turn and found ourselves gazing at a beautiful view -- a gazebo with a fog-covered mountain behind it. It was charming. After locating parking and a brisk walk in the freezing weather, we managed to make our way back to a restaurant that was near the gazebo. After our cool reception at the hotel, we weren't sure what to expect, but the owner was so friendly and kind. He came and attempted to translate the menu for us into English. We gave him a round of applause for his efforts since we were the only ones in the restaurant! He  cooks all of the food himself, and it was delicious! We all shared a creme bruleé for dessert, and it might be my new favorite food.

Le Esplanade Champ de Mars, a Romantic park area near Le Briand (the restaurant where we ate).

Delectable Creme Bruleé!!

As we left the restaurant all of the people who had come in after us wanted Rosa to wave at them, and she smiled and even managed a small "au revoir." I've decided we need to learn the 4 most useful verbs and basic words like please and thank you before we visit a country. The kids took it as far as assigning everyone a couple of languages to learn so that we can speak to people wherever we go!

Heading back toward the car, we could see a couple of people standing out in front of a bar. From a distance, we could see a long, white wedding dress and Rosa started talking about the beautiful woman in her wedding dress who was going to get married. It was about then that I realized the woman was a bit large and hairy...I tried to shush Rosa who was going on and on about the beautiful woman getting married. Right as we pulled up next to the "bride," Rosa looked up and said simply, "Oh. It's a MAN." We just kept walking...

The Sagrada Familia and Las Ramblas

After a breakfast of fruit and pastries, we headed to the train station. That was an added bonus of having a lot of company early on in our European adventure -- we learned how to navigate the public transportation (not that the Linguist needed the lesson), but now the rest of us feel pretty at ease with how it all works after having done it so often over Christmas.

I knew ahead of time that the Sagrada Familia was designed by Gaudí and that the word "gaudy" was a result of his artwork. I tend to like things done more simply, so I didn't really expect to like what we saw there. Construction on the Sagrada Familia has been ongoing for nearly 100 years. The outside is pretty impressive...and, well, gaudy. What I didn't expect was what was inside. The first thing that caught my eye was the stained glass windows running from floor to ceiling -- not in one continuous piece, but in smaller windows. The glass is being completed according to Gaudí's design, and they've been working on it since 1999. Not all of the windows are done yet, but those that are are breathtaking -- usually running from top to bottom in rainbow order.

Close up of one window.

Another perspective on stained-glass windows

The other thing that's hard to miss are all of the pillars that are in the interior. They aren't uniform like those we've seen in Greek or Roman architecture, and the ceiling above them, while lovely, isn't particularly uniform either. On reading one of the informational pieces about the room, I learned that Gaudy designed it to feel like a forest and on taking a step back, I could see that the pillars were tree trunks and the designs on the ceiling above were in imitation of leaves. The impression is that of sitting in a huge forest of trees with light filtering in from all directions. It was breathtaking! And in my opinion, a brilliant design for a place of worship.

The "forest-like" ceiling

In another room outside the chapel, they had a display on Gaudy and his art. Like I said, I know very little about him, and I was interested to learn that he was sickly as a child and as a result, spent a lot of time on nature walks with his mother. His love for nature is reflected in all of his archicture -- from the bent line (picture a leaf blowing in the breeze...it goes from straight to bent and back again) to a spiral (snail shell) or even the shape of a seed. He must have been an absolute master of geometry the way he took two or three different geometric shapes and combined them to create intricate looking columns, or tweaked the straight edges traditionally used in architecture to make a bent edge. We also saw a display he created to understand reverse tension (picture an upside down arch). I was blown away by the whole thing and it made me think about art and architecture in a different way. I'm hoping we'll have a chance to see some of the other areas in Barcelona that he influenced.

Note the shape of the windows like honeycomb &  the lights like cut off tree branches

View of the back of the Sagrada Familia

After the Sagrada Familia, we were able to fulfill Pianogurl's fondest dream and eat at a KFC. She saw one in Germany in February and has been dreaming of it ever since. It was good, but a little disappointing in that they didn't serve macaroni and cheese and the taste of everything but the mashed potatoes was a little different than what we're used to in the U.S. The biggest complaint was no salt on the fries...

Following lunch we headed to Las Ramblas. It's basically a huge median that has shops and booths on both sides and hordes of people walking in the middle. The Linguist said there are usually entertainers along the route, too, but we didn't see any. Deep Thinker was positively dying to spend his money. It seems he doesn't feel like he's been somewhere until he's procured a keepsake. The first booth that really sucked the kids in was a pet shop. They had the cutest little bunnies -- one was even a lop, a bunch of hamsters and two sizes of turtles -- little and teeny tiny. After dragging the kids away from that, we did manage to spend our money on mosaic turtles -- much less messy! We also strolled through La Boqueria. It's a huge market like the one by Maria's house in Valencia, but about 4 times the size. It's mainly food, and of course the draw for our kids was the seafood displays because the food was still moving! Talk about fresh! The lobsters, crabs and shrimp were still wiggling around on the ice. The Net even found a live version of a long, skinny shell he found at the beach in Valencia. They told us it's called a "knife" because that's about what it looks like. The octopuses were oohed and awed at...although I still think the turkey head with the bulging eye takes the cake in this department!

The famous Ramblas of Barcelona

These are the "Navajas" (knives) kind of like long, skinny clams.
These were alive and measured about 6 inches long.

An historic cathedral in Barcelona near the Ramblas...it didn't all fit in the photo.
Note the Gothic architecture.

After we finally twisted our way through the plentiful seafood area, we came to the real treasure -- a table full of chocolate! The woman was so kind and gave us little bites of a whole bunch of different yummies. The kids picked out big coins of chocolate, filled with nuts or crispy rice. The Linguist. Pianogurl and I chose truffles, chocolate-covered sugared nuts, and fancy little candies that looked like miniature cupcakes. We took our treasure and made our way to the Cathedral, where we sat on the steps and ate chocolate while we listened to a violinist. He was pretty amazing and now all the kids want to play the violin. However, he seemed a little crabby and when people clapped he told them that thanks was money. Rosa took that to heart and carried several coins over to his open case. We opted not to go into the Cathedral since there was a 25-minute wait time and a cost of 42 euro for our family -- perhaps on another visit. I'm curious because it's Gothic architecture and so different from what we've seen in Italia.

Dinner was at a little place next to the metro station. The boys had pizza, Rosa had her signature -- spaghetti with parmesan. The rest of us had bocadillas (sandwiches). They were filled with tortilla, which in Spain is a dish made with potatoes, onions and eggs. Think omlet with a lot of diced potatoes cooked in with the egg and you'll have the right idea. The bread was rubbed with tomato on the inside, but other than that, had no other toppings. It was pretty tasty, but I'm not a huge fan of the hard bread Europeans seem to love. The only advantage I see to it is portion control! Dessert was churros, both plain and chocolate dipped, and miniature cups of what they call hot chocolate for dipping. It wasn't quite as thick as the Italian version, but was definitely closer to pudding in texture and melted semi-sweet chocolate in taste, than to anything I'd drink!

The Net enjoyed Churros and chocolate

I told The Linguist that I love being a tourist -- too bad we aren't independently wealthy so we can spend all of our time eating new foods and looking at and learning about new places and things. I tell myself that I'm sure it'd get old, right? 

Heading back north

From The Linguist...
It was bound to happen...our departure day arrived.  We had to leave to head back up to Barcelona.  I've never been a big fan of goodbyes and prefer saying see you later.  We knew it was going to be difficult to leave but I didn't realize how difficult.

After getting everything together, we made our way down with a few bags to start loading the van.  I had been quite fortunate because parking wasn't too difficult or far from María's house.  Once I got the van parked (thanks to Will who had saved me a parking spot in front of their house), I went up to get the rest of the bags.  Sadness was in the air...the kids didn't want to leave.  They enjoyed the pampering, the food and especially the dogs.  Songbird and Deep Thinker were beside themselves.

After taking them up a second time to say goodbye to the dogs (after 15 minutes of full-up wailing), they were happy to say goodbye to the dogs again.  We again made our way downstairs tearfully.  As the kids stood out front crying and hugging María, people walking by were wondering who died or what could be the cause of such anguish. One woman stopped and asked if they were lost children!  We finally got everyone in the van and slowly pulled away.  What a great time we had!!  The drive north was not too bad though the tears over not seeing the dogs returned again a few times. As did the request to get a dog...  

Maria's country house and the Oceanographic Museum

Another typical Spanish breakfast is toast, rubbed with garlic and topped with meat and cheese. It was really yummy, and something we'll probably serve at home again! I forgot to mention that we ate rotisserie chicken and potatoes from a local shop for dinner last night...the potatoes are some of the best I've ever eaten. They were cut in half, scored, sprinkled with salt and I'm not sure what else and turned just like the chicken. Heavenly!

I've also failed to mention that, for the most part, we've been speaking in Spanish this whole time! María and Will speak some English, but being that we need to work on our Spanish, we've been trying hard to use just Spanish. I am, quite frankly, shocked at how much our ability to understand and speak has improved in such a short period of time.

The Linguist is narrating now...After breakfast, María wanted to show us her country home near an orange grove.  It was quaint and what added to the ambiance was the sweet smell of orange blossoms.  After visiting her country home, we headed to Valencia to visit the "Oceanografic" museum.  It's part of a series of the impressive museum complex called the "Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencas" (the arts and sciences city) in Valencia.  The oceanografic is a marine-like park (similar to Sea World) that is not too big and not too small. We saw some of the most bizarre fish in the aquariums there.  There was an enormous one with a single fin on top and bottom that really was cool.  We also saw a tremendous sea lion that must have weighed a ton (literally).  When they howled, it sounded like a really loud, really long burp.  The entertainment value was great, the animals were super cool and we had a great time.  We'll have to finish visiting the rest of the museums next time we visit Spain.

All smiles!

Cool rays!

Sun fish...not like the ones we catch in the US that fit in your hand.

Close up of the mighty sun fish (Oceanografic) 

Belching seal.

Looks like a whale no?

The Market and Alcoy

About halfway through France, the light on our dashboard that shows the gear started flashing. We looked in the owner's manual and it said it could be an indication of transmission trouble, but that it also sometimes happened if the gas cap wasn't screwed on correctly. The Linguist messed with the gas cap and it stopped flashing...until we were leaving Barcelona. He spent some time Monday researching possible causes and finally called a Honda dealer in Valencia who agreed to look at it. According to their machine, it's a temperature gauge in the transmission...so we're pressing on.

While The Linguist hung out at the Honda place, the kids and I explored the nearest local market. I love the location where they are because we could stand on the balcony and peruse the stalls before we even went out shopping! They had similar offerings to what we find in Ferrara -- shoes, clothes, jewelry and a few other odds and ends. The most interesting find was the box of huge caterpillars at a pet stall! Oh, and the meat department of the Mercado. The Mercado is like a market, but inside. Individual vendors have their wares displayed and there were several fruit and vegetables stands, a nut counter and several meat stands, as well. The boys were immediately drawn to the meat counter that boasted skinned rabbits (whole, but skinned) and a huge head and neck of a turkey, its beady black eyeball still intact! The woman running the stand was very kind in answering all of our questions about exactly what animal each piece of meat had come from, and I'm sure was amused at our ignorance in the world of meat. Probably much like the way we used to laugh and shake our head at the Utah cousins who wanted to eat the calf grain when they visited the farm!

All blood and bugs having been discovered, the younger kids wanted just one turn around the market and then begged to go back to the apartment to play with the dogs. Pianogurl and I dropped them off and then spent an hour or so perusing. She found the perfect purse, and I got a really cute skirt for just 8 euro.

Following the market, we headed to Alcoy to watch a re-enactment of a battle in 700 AD between the Moors and the Christians. This was The Linguist's first area on his mission and his first mission days were actually during this festival! The first thing that struck me about the city was the beautiful blue dome on a huge cathedral. The next, was the fact that nearly everyone was dressed in period costumes -- not just the folks involved in the re-enactment, but the whole city! We eagerly walked up the road to the plaza, afraid that we'd missed the battle by a few minutes. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it had yet to begin and jockeyed for a good position along the edge of the crowd. The first half hour or so was a yelling match between the leader of the Moors and the leader of the Christians. We couldn't understand much of it, and about the time things looked like they were going to take off, Rosa had to go to the bathroom! Thanks goodness for close porta potties!

On "El Puente de Sant Jordi" in Alcoy.  The Linguist crossed this bridge almost daily back in the day.

The men (and a few women) lined up in groups. Apparently, during this particular battle there were many military groups from neighboring areas who came to defend the city against the Moors. Each had their own unique costume, so there was a wide variety in dress among the different groups. We heard a shot that sounded like a cannon and the "battle" began. I was expecting something along the lines of what we had seen in the United States -- maybe 10 minutes of fire. I soon realized we were in for a totally different experience. What we thought was a cannon blast was the shot fired from one of the guns. A Moorish group would fire off 6 shots or so and then a Christian company would answer. Each shot was like a cannon blast -- literally rocking the ground we were standing on. We stood with our fingers in our ears, watching in fascination. About the time "shrapnel" started falling on my head, I looked around and realized that Pianogurl, Rosa and I were now the only spectators sitting as close to the railing as possible, everyone else was squeezed back against the wall of the buildings. We moved back, too! Songbird didn't like the noise and was in tears by this time. It made us all reflect on how horrifying and chaotic it must be to live in a city where a battle is being fought -- let alone to be on the street with the guns.

Near the faux castle in the main square, Alcoy.

We stayed and watched all of the groups march through the square and proceed on their route throughout the city that followed the actual route of the armies during the battle. We stumbled on a victory party in a neighboring square where Lionel Ritchie's "Celebrate" was blasting and people dressed in period costume were dancing, eating, drinking and selling balloons! (that was another of those surreal moments!). We posed for pictures with some folks in costume that we stopped on the street, bought pastries in a little shop and paused for snacks on a bench in a crowded park. All this time we could still hear the gun blasts at regular intervals! We wound through the streets and back to our van and as we left town, the guns were still blasting. Apparently it lasts for 4-5 hours before the final showdown in the plaza...

The Linguist has vivid memories of climbing this hill many times during his time here.

The Linguist has a similar photo.

Gotta love the pastries!

Swimming in the Mediterranean!

The Linguist says that technically we didn't swim in the Mediterranean. Since the day was chilly, most of us did more wading than anything else. The kids, however, did swim -- so swimming it is!

For me, this was one of those surreal moments when things I've just heard about seem to come crashing into my reality, and I wonder whether this can really be happening. I was walking along the beach, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea! The sky was a beautiful blue, coming down to meet the line of dark blue water out in the distance. The mountain rising up ahead was what really took me back. I've spent plenty of time on beaches in Florida, but I've never stood on the beach and gazed at a mountain. I told The Linguist that I need to live on a beach with a mountain...in my castle, of course!

Deep Thinker and The Net really enjoyed shell hunting &
playing in the beautiful water.

Happy smiles all around the beaches...though there were
no sneeches.

Despite the cool wind, the kids loved the beach and begged to go back every other day we spent in Spain! They collected shells and The Net even found what he thought was a shark's egg case. (We later identified it as a stingray egg case.) He also found another shell that was about 1/2 an inch across and about 4 inches long. We learned later (when we saw them alive in the market) that it's a creature called a "knife."

María served us more delicious food -- fideua (not sure if that spelling is correct) -- which is a macaroni dish seasoned with saffron, that has shrimp and chunks of fish in it. Since the shrimp had eyes and antennae still attached it caused quite a stir! Rosa and Deep Thinker had to have their food segregated and ate just the macaroni. We fed the younger kids eggs and nutella bread for their second dinner and put them into bed a little earlier. We ate leftover salad from the night before around 10 p.m. Spain has such a laid-back, take-things-as-they-come feeling. I'm pretty sure I could get used to dinner at 10 and breakfast at 10 the next morning! A little different than our 5 and 5 routine at home.

Fresh shrimp from Fideua trying to escape...not.

The Lladro factory

We had crepes for breakfast! Yummy! María had meats and cheeses to put in the center, along with Nutella (Deep Thinkers favorite food!). Spanish breakfast is served with warm milk to which we all added chocolate! The Linguist has always said that he didn't like regular hot chocolate made with hot water. I never understood what was wrong with it until living in Europe where what we would call hot chocolate is served with milk all the time. It's so much more creamy and rich I don't like the kind with hot water anymore either. Their hot chocolate takes decadence to a whole other level -- it's a cross between melted chocolate and pudding and is much more suited to dipping than to drinking. I don't think I've managed to finish a cup yet!

We spent the morning touring the Lladró Factory, which was fascinating. It was started by the Lladró brothers who built a kiln in their backyard and started pouring porcelain there. Eventually their business expanded and they are currently one of the premier porcelain makers in the world. Their statues are breathtaking and positively intricate. First the statues are carved from traditional materials, then molds are created using the statue for a model. The liquid porcelain is poured into the mold and left to dry for a specified period of time. Since something as small as an arm on a figurine may be composted of 3-4 different molds, it's a pretty lengthy process. After the molds have dried, the porcelein is removed from the mold and the different pieces are pasted together using liquid porcelain.

Artists paint each piece and then the pieces are fired in the kiln. The detail was impressive -- not just with the painting, but also with the detail work. We watched as a woman molded miniature flowers using little bits of porcelain. Each petal on their flowers is made individually!  

This masterpiece, La reina del Nilo (the queen of the Nile)
costs 150,000 Euros and takes 3 months to make.

You can make out the flowers on the middle of the boat.
Each petal is maybe 1/4" long by a bit less skinny.

The royal queen herself...

Valencia! Well...a smaller town close to it...

After trying in vain to attend church in Barcelona Sunday morning (it must've been Stake Conference since we found the building at the appointed hour and it was locked up tight!), we headed south along the coast toward Valencia.

Spain looks a lot different than what I expected --think Albuquerque meets Miami. It's desert, but with huge mountains like the area around Albuquerque, New Mexico. In addition, though, there are palm trees everywhere and you can see the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea running along the coast. The cities we saw were clustered up next to the coast, some had high rises and modern-looking buildings, others looked smaller and more picturesque.

We were welcomed with open arms by María and Will upon arrival at their apartment in Carcagente.  María is a friend of The Linguist's from his mission days. Since she visited the United States right around the time The Linguist proposed to me, I count her as my friend, as well. We've kept in touch via e-mail and letters, and she was so happy when she heard we were coming to Italy and immediately invited us to visit and stay in her home! I was a little nervous about bringing our family of 7 to her apartment for a week since we can be a little overhwhelming, but we had such a wonderful time together!

She had prepared paella for what we thought was dinner! Paella is a traditional Spanish dish with rice, chicken, seafood and vegetables kind of stir fried together. It's one of the Linguist's favorites, and the kids and I like it, too, since it has a mild flavor and not too much seafood! We stuffed ourselves and then she brought out a delicious (and beautiful) chocolate cake...so we ate some more. While she was clearing the table, she started talking about what we were going to have for "la cena," which is dinner -- apparently what we had just eaten was lunch!

Paella for all!

Yummy Austrian chocolate cake

We THOUGHT we were being European in our eating habits when we had dinner close to 8 p.m. in the hotel in Ferrara. That's fairly standard for Italy, but in Spain it's more like 10:30! I put the younger kids to bed before dinner since they were exhausted and the rest of us stayed up and enjoyed a delicious second dinner with María and Will. It was a salad composed of potatoes, peas, carrots and bits of crab. After putting it on your plate, you added a heap of mayonnaise and stirred it all together. I confess, I don't remember a lot about that night because I was so tired things were starting to feel dreamlike.

Before we go further, I have to introduce María and Will's dogs. Dana (pronounced Donna) is their dog. But María, who has a tender heart, also fosters dogs that need homes. One of her puppies had just been adopted, but she still had Kahli when we visited. At about 6 weeks old, Kahli is adorable (see the pictures below). The kids fell in love with both dogs immediately and didn't want to do anything but sit on the couch and hold the dogs! I'm not sure how many requests we had to adopt Kahli, and I confess, for about a minute I seriously considered it, but I just feel like it's unfair to an animal to bring it into our crazy world where our surroundings change so often.

Dana enjoyed sitting on The Net's lap.

Kahli sleeping.

Songbird and Kahli became best friends instantly.

Marseille to Barcelona --tolls, European bathrooms and finally, our friends!

After spending nearly an hour trying to get out of Marseille, we headed to Barcelona.

Downtown Marseille. We're driving toward a facade of an archway overlooking downtown. It was realistic enough to make us double take.

The cathedral we didn't have time to drive by...

Happily, in our "tour" we got to see the cathedral that we didn't have time to drive by, as well as a lot of the downtown area. I think whoever programs routes into the Garmin GPS must have a wicked sense of humor. More than once in Ferrara I've seen a terrified-looking Japanese tourist gripping the wheel of his little rental car, attempting to navigate down a narrow road that is obviously designated only for pedestrians and bicycles. We had a similar experience in Marseille, turning left onto a road where there was barely room to fit between the parked cars and then being directed to turn right. Fortunately, The Linguist just stopped and turned the van around (much to the chagrin of the traffic trying to use the through road) before we barreled through the walkway filled with fruit stands!

Our drive to Barcelona was notable for just 2 things -- the number of tolls and our European bathroom experience. I lost count, but it seems like we stopped at least 10-15 different times for tolls during what was supposed to be a 4-hour drive! All of those stops just seemed to make the drive last forever and added a good hour or so onto our trip. The toll machines in France rejected our credit card, so I don't have a good record of the money we fed into those machines, but it was over 50 euro (about $80). Despite that, it was a beautiful drive and the the landscape really changes as it transitions from France to Spain. But I digress! I'm supposed to be telling you about the bathroom....(no pictures : ))

So bathrooms in Europe vary from place to place -- not region to region, but store to store, restaurant to restaurant. Sometimes they don't have toilet seats. Those, apparently, are optional. Sometimes they have bidets (that's a whole other blog post!). One time I entered the restroom and found that the whole toilet is optional. It was just a big hole in the floor! Anyway, the kids and I hopped out to use the bathroom in France and found the women's bathroom was closed for cleaning. The solution? Everyone was just using the men's bathroom. Men lined the wall, using urinals, and other men, women and children we using the rest of the facility. It was just business as usual...in a smaller space. I was grateful Songbird was not with us or she would've had a fit! As it was, we strolled in just like this is how things always operate and made all of our comments of surprise AFTER returning to the van.

We finally arrived in Barcelona and were thrilled to meet up with some good friends from our Montana days! When we found out they would be finishing up a cruise in Barcelona and that we could spend the evening together if we flip flopped some dates on our trip, we just couldn't resist! The kids spent the afternoon/evening in the hotel game area and took a dip in the really cold pool. Afterward we walked over to a huge department store called El Corte Inglés for dinner and enjoyed good food and lots of conversation.
We feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family...and even more blessed when we get to spend some time with them -- even just for a few hours.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to France we go!

Today we headed out for adventure – 10 days in Spain, followed by 3 days in Switzerland! To begin our trip we headed to Marseille, France. We passed through a different part of the Alps than those we’ve seen before, and they seemed a little softer – although still formidable! The terraces are so narrow that it looks like a lush, green accordion folding down the mountain. Much of it was covered with what looked like grapes.

Our first view of the Mediterranean brought squeals of delight from everyone but The Linguist. I think it was especially exciting because we were reading about the expansion of the Roman empire and the Punic Wars, during which they were crossing back and forth on the Mediterranean Sea. Crazy to be right next to it!

We also saw 6 (no, that's not a typo!) Ferraris on our drive today. It was about that time that The Linguist pointed out how close we were to Monaco. It made me think of The Net when he was little. At about the age of 2, he'd point out all of the sports cars on the road and say they were his. Then one day, he took it a step further and pointed out an old beater. "That's dad's," he said. I had a good chuckle over that one! 

I’ve decided that the U.S. can dig itself out of debt by charging tolls on all the roads the way they in Europe. We paid a 40 euro toll when we left Italy and then stopped 3 or 4 times in France for tolls that were about 3 euro each. We wrapped up the last leg with a 14 euro toll. That’s a lot in tolls, especially when you consider that it’s in addition to the $9/gallon gas!

The French countryside was absolutely breathtaking. I was trying to decide how to describe it in words. The part we drove through was a valley with mountains that were not as high as those in Utah, but they were rugged and rocky like those. There were some really interesting formations where the mountain looked like someone had carved the top off. The valley was so beautiful that it looked like a painting.

We entered Marseille on a long road that led down from a gentle rise. I can’t think of another city I’ve been in that has that same kind of entrance. It reminded me of the tree-lined roads in Louisiana, but it was lined with building instead of trees and was much, much longer.

Our hotel is right across from the Metro station where we went to scavenge dinner since it was really late when we got in and we didn’t want to be up until midnight eating dinner! For entertainment while The Linguist got us checked in, we watched a rat run up and down the road across from where our van was parked. The Metro station had a different feel than the one in Rome. Someone was playing classical music on a piano there and a bunch of young men were break dancing in a different area. It wasn’t particularly crowded and there seemed to be a lot of people strolling.

Our hotel view of half of Marseille Train Station

Using the Ol' Noodle

In American we're getting the short end of the noodle! In recent years I've tried the "no-cook" lasagna noodles sold in stores, but they're pretty much just regular noodles and you cook them with more sauce and get kind of a gummy lasagna.

Yesterday, because we are all out of gummy American noodles, The Linguist ran to the store to procure some more. Most of the pasta we've seen here looks like what we eat in America. It's even the same brand! So I expected a regular box of noodles, but he came home with something different --thinner, shorter, rectangular sheets of pasta, one box of green and one box of yellow. The package said to make the lasagna without precooking the noodles and then to bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. Twenty minutes?! I've never heard of a non-precooked noodle baking up in 20 minutes. Heck, my precooked noodles still take closer to 45 minutes.

With some trepidation, I made 2 different lasagnas -- one a regular tomato, meat and cheese. The other was a new recipe that had broccoli and mushrooms in a white sauce. I put them in the fridge all day and pulled them out and baked them for 30 minutes, and they were delicious, non-gummy and warm through. They were probably done after 20, but I was nervous about trusting the noodle. The noodle layer was thinner than what we normally eat in America, but I am happy to trade that in for 1/2 the cooking time. I think that's using the ol' noodle!

Homeschooling UP (as opposed to a down)

Homeschooling definitely has its ups and downs, but there are moments when it all seems worth it. For me, these moments usually come when the kids take something we’ve talked about and expand it on their own. This week was one of those times.

We studied Alexander the Great in history and for our Thursday history meeting the youngest 3 kids wanted to put on a play about Alexander’s life. The Net was the director and writer. Several times during the week he came to me frustrated that Deep Thinker and Rosa weren’t cooperating. Hmmm! Imagine that!

The final production had a scene with Alexander’s father finding a snake in his bed (apparently Alexander’s mom, Olympia, was fond of snakes and even kept them in her bed. Yikes!). It also had a re-enactment of a battle where the enemy had elephants (they built their own elephant out of packing boxes) and then collapsed on the ground, having been trampled by the box elephant. Mid-scene Deep Thinker looked at the net and said, “The elephant has NO EARS!” He could hardly continue for worrying about the poor, ear-less elephant, while The Net was totally in the-show-must-go-on-mode and would not be distracted by such a trivial matter.

The Roman soldier...I looked out the kitchen window the other day and saw that my house was being guarded by Roman soldiers. Every few minutes the guard would change and a new soldier would come on duty. 

Trampled by an elephant...

King Philip of Macedonia discovers there's a snake in his bed!

Alexander riding Bucephalus

Battle!

 During the scene changes, they’d have us close our eyes and during an especially long scene change Rosa said, “Sorry guys. This is going to take 3 whiles.” It made me laugh; as did her narrations about the actions of the queen if she didn’t feel The Net was giving her character enough attention. “Doesn’t the queen’s dress look poofy?” and “The queen is just sitting here,” both caught me as funny. There were several court scenes with the queen (who was mostly concerned about whether her dress was fluffy and whether we all thought she was beautiful…and posing for the camera, of course!).

The Queen -- looking regal in her very poofy dress.

And at one point Alexander had about 5 crowns stacked on top of his original crown (why not a quintuple crown?) The Net had several places where he’d built in funny things like the crown falling over his eyes and his funny face as he tried to stack the 5^th crown on his head. He’s often so quiet, but put him in front of an audience, and he’s a ham!

Our favorite, though, was when they put on metallic blue wigs and started dancing around the room all crazy… “This is what the germs were doing in Alexander’s body after he died!” was the title given to this segment. It definitely took me by surprise! Then after the germ party, they showed what the people saw from the outside (a “body” covered with big sheets of paper that was supposed to be sand). There was also a lot of loud mourning for the dead Alexander by his soldiers.

Germ frenzy!

Another product of our studies lately has been Rosa’s new identity. She plays Aphrodite every night in the bathtub. Since Aphrodite was supposedly born from the sea foam (I won’t go into further detail) and is usually in the nude, I suppose it’s appropriate. Outside the tub and dressed, Aphrodite gives a lot of hugs and expects everyone to say how lovely she is. Crazy enough -- I’ve actually seen “The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli that was painted in 1485. It shows Aphrodite arriving at the shore, standing on a giant clam shell in the ocean. It’s located in the Uffizi in Florence! In case any of you want to see it, it’s just a short train ride from our house!