Creating Holiday Memories

In the past, major holidays used to invoke this uneasy feeling inside me.  It was that expectation something grand or exceptional must take place.  That, somehow, my traditions might not live up to the expectation of what the holidays were intended to be or what others around me were experiencing.

Then you grow up a bit, and realize life is not a Folger's commercial. The rest of the world is not in holiday ecstasy living a picture perfect holiday, nor is that even important.  Holidays are, in fact, very personal.  Not so much something that is happening to you, but rather, an empty jar ready to be filled with whatever you like.  A successful holiday for me, now, is dependant only on embracing the positives, creating the memories I hold close to my heart, and finding fulfillment and meaning in those precious moments when they happen.

The beauty is, I've realized so much of what I love and desire about the holidays is really just a result of making the conscious decision to live it.  To create it.  There's no other magic to it.  And really, isn't that what we all look forward to as we start our own families?  Embracing what we loved about our childhood, carrying on those traditions, and adding the things we as adults want to incorporate for the next generation.

Holiday time in Barcelona has been a brillant exercise in exactly this.  Thanksgiving morning I did have a few tears as I thought about my family -- it was always a day filled with happy memories as a child, a day our family loved in particular.  I missed my family this year, and it stung.  But, after a long hug from Chris, I decided to create the day I hoped to have.  A house smelling of turkey, sage, and butter.  A table set with the good dishes.  Candles lit.  Homemade desserts in the oven.  A drink in my hand. :)  And as I went about the day, creating the scene, the good feelings took over and I began to reflect on what it all really meant.  I especially appreciated that, while here in Barcelona, I am seeing this amazing holiday from afar and can appreciate its beauty at arm's length.  A whole new perspective.

Our actual Thanksgiving day was a quiet one, the four of us sitting around the table, talking about what it means to be thankful with the children.  We ate our turkey cutlet dinner, pausing to smile at each other and appreciate the moment....laughing at Mia's ice-cream mustache (and Chris' real one), and lingering at the table long after dinner was over, as Chris and I finished our bottle of wine and ignored the chaos of two toddlers on a sugar high.  It wasn't fancy, but was everything I wanted that day to be.  We were together as a family. 

 

That mustache...

 

The holiday extended into the weekend, as fellow American friends gathered together on Saturday for a large, more traditional day of feasting, laughing, drinking, and acknowledging a shared gratitude for life's incredible blessings.  A day hosted by some ex-pat friends, 3 years deep into life abroad, opening their home and doing what they do best -- offering friendship and support, celebrating this life abroad, and reminding us what it means to be part of a larger family.  Because, here -- this little community -- we are family.  In every sense of the word.  And it felt good to merge that new concept of family with an old tradition, miles away from the familiar faces we left behind.  It felt like we were exercising our emotional muscles, creating new relationships, finding the beauty, and making memories. 

Happy Holidays to all. 

Cheers XO

New Addition

Well, we fought the good fight, I think.  We came, we embraced, we sat idly by with infinite patience.  But, after 10 months, we have decided to expand our family...we are, once again, with dryer.  And is it pure heaven.

The new addition :)  She lives outside with her sister the washing machine, and brother the freezer. 

During the summer, I had no problems with drying our clothes hanging outside.  We got direct sun in the back yard starting in May, so a load of clothes would dry in the hot 90+ degree sun in the time it took for the next wash load to be done -- almost faster than an actual dryer would dry them.  I loved how the sun bleached the whites naturally, and the way the clothes smelled drying outside.  It really wasn't an issue...then October hit. 

The sun in back dissapeared, and I was left outside beside our perpetually sad, damp laundry, staring longingly up at the neighboring building behind us as their laundry flapped in wind and direct sun, almost mocking me with its vigor ...it's funny the things you start to envy.  It used to be nicely decorated houses with fancy seasonal hurricane glass displays.... now all I really want is sunlight and a stiff breeze.   For the past two months it has taken a solid 3 days to dry our clothes after they are washed.  And I use the term "dry" loosely, because they are never really dry.  Slightly damp at best.  And when I was having to plan my outfit 5 days in advance, and blow drying my children's pants in the morning while the laundry piled up to the ceiling, I finally had to pull the plug..or plug in the plug as it may be.  We bought an electric dryer.

Purchase day was actually kind of humorous.  We were like starving beasts in a room full of fresh meat.  As the very nice saleswoman tried to explain which of the units were the most energy efficient (clearly the top priority, as it should be for everyone, here in Spain) we couldn't be bothered.  After close to a year of living the earth friendly "no dryer" life, we really only cared about getting our clothes good and dry as fast as possible...

"Yeah yeah...energy efficient, we get it.  Which unit will scorch the living daylights out of our clothes in record time?" 

I kid. :)

That first load was like Christmas morning.  I held the hot, DRY clothes close, marveling that in just two hours, the clothes went from dirty to clean and dry.  Modern day miracle. 

I shall never take my dryer for granted again.  And while I will enjoy me some energy sucking laundering this winter, come May, I know we will resume our Earth friendly metal rack drying.  Until then, I am happily folding clean dry clothes inside, looking out the window at as it rains.  Ah, it is a good day indeed. 

Roaming Rome

The "Girls Trip".  

I can't remember a recent time back in the US when my girlfriends and I decided to pick up and take off for a two or three day trip somewhere alone.  Obviously, there are many reasons for this, the most obvious being that many of my close friends live so far away, the travel is mostly to get TO one another, not so much to see a new destination or have some much needed "girls-only" time away.  Add to this new babies, jobs, and hectic schedules to juggle, and it is clear why making these kinds of little getaways happen can be close to impossible while home in the US.  It seems it would take us weeks to plan just a dinner! (This needs to change!)

Here, we have a few things on our side...a simplified schedule, no little babies in the mix, close proximity to one another, and cheap travel!  In 90 minutes, and only 40€ for the flight (a measly 14€ each way minus the fees...seriously, we are taking the price for lunch!) we were in Italy.  Amazing.

With my rockstar husband happy hold down the fort so I can use this time to explore and recharge,  I headed out on a little mini-vacation with two new friends to Rome, Italy.

Looking down at the city from the top of the Spanish Steps

Rome was filled with several of those "I can't believe I'm here" moments...art and history books materializing at every turn, making it an almost impossible task to fully take in where I was and what I was seeing at any given moment.  Yet, there we were...standing inside the Sistine Chapel, staring up at that stunning ceiling...watching the Pope himself as he spoke to a crowd of thousands outside St. Peter's Basilica...wandering inside the Colosseum, looking down at the intricate paths once used by Gladiators.  Grateful, is the word the comes to mind, every time I think about this trip.  Grateful for the opportunity.

The Pantheon

The Colosseum

 

Fontana di Trevi

Inside The Colosseum

Julie and Chris mid audio-tour inside Colosseum

Inside The Colosseum

View of the Forum/Ruins from inside The Colosseum

My friends had both seen Rome previously, but thankfully they were more than happy to return.  As Chris put it, "I don't think it's possible to get Rome'd out."  Having now seen it myself, I must say, I couldn't agree with her more.

And so it began, as we walked and talked our way across the city -- impressively, not using any form of transportation, besides our own two feet, the entire three days we were there.  The walking was what I would classify as hardcore.  We are talking 8 hours of walking per day, with the first day starting at 3am to make a 6am flight, followed by a full day of walking/sightseeing and ending after dinner at 10pm.  However, it was well worth the small amount of physical pain, and it certainly made the incredible pasta, pizza, and gelato well earned and all that much more enjoyable. 

The plan was to see as much as we could, without too much advanced planning or sense of urgency.  This trip was about enjoying each other's company and just experiencing a change of pace as much as it was about sightseeing.  And so, walking and museums were punctuated with glasses of wine out in front of the Colosseum.  Lunches were long, and if we got lost, we sat by the side of the road, snapped a few pictures, and eventually found our way to the right path.  No big thing. 

View of St. Peter's Basilica looking down the Tiber River

Cause they can.  :)  This one is for my Mom.

The Pope out in front of St. Peter's 

Pope on TV

Vatican City Baby!

Inside the Vatican Museum

St. Peter's Basilica

Inside the Vatican Museum

Trastevere -- quaint little neighborhood, more locals less tourists

Julie and Chris contemplating life a top the Spanish steps :)

Trastevere

Pantheon at night

Our delicious "snack dinner" of local wine, salami, and cheese

Inside the Forum

Inside the Forum

Gelato!

The week wrapped up, and before I knew it, we were sitting on the floor of the dodgy Ciampino Airport, once again taking part in the Ryanair cattle call.  Sigh...

A fantastic three days, filled with great conversation and company.  I was happy to come home to hugs and lovin' from my favorite faces here in Barcelona, but already looking forward to our next adventure together.  Until next time ladies!


No Mail for You

There are many more important, meaningful things to write about right now...my trip to Rome, future planning, the upcoming holidays...

But, I need to share this.

Let me start by saying that there are many parts of Spainish life that are well organized, and logical.  For starters, the city is immaculate -- a fact that is made more evident the more I travel around Europe.  The city workers are out all day, every day, clearing the streets and parks of trash, washing roads, trimming trees, repairing and repaving sidewalks...hell, I even saw one guy yesterday meticulously replacing tiny tiles on a decorative mosaic sculpture at one of the parks down by the ocean.  And no...this was not a tourist site, or famous sculpture...just another sculpture with a little tile missing.  Decorative sculptures and structures are everywhere.  I kid you not.  This city is an artistic masterpiece, just gorgeous. 

The holidays come around, and, on cue, the city's decorations go up.  As we speak, neighborhoods throughout Barcelona are systematically being strung with lights and festive illuminated images.  Barcelona parties hard, after every city-wide fiesta and/or parade (which there are many...usually involving explosives) there is inevitably an army of cleaning trucks and workers, blasting through the mess with water, and sweeping up the debauchery leaving Barcelona the gleaming beauty she is, once again. 

And the cabs?  Amazing.  Just amazing.  Not only are they all marked exactly the same as yellow and black Priuses, they are plentiful and pretty much always spotless inside and out.  Unlike in the US, the driver isn't on his cell phone screaming in another language while simultaneously smoking and ripping you off.  Here the drivers are professionals -- always well dressed and groomed, they look like your uncle and are usually very friendly and willing to let you practice your sad Spanish skills with them.  At the airport they are lined up, and because there is only one taxi service and they do not receive tips, there is no one soliciting or trying to drag you away to their own service.  You just walk to the stand, let the guy know how many people/bags, and they point to the next available taxi.  NO other city I have traveled to has an airport taxi system quite like it.  It is heaven.  Is it possible the taxi driver will take you on a tour of the city if you clearly don't know where you are going to jack up the price?  Yes.  But I haven't had an issue with this yet.

While we are on the subject -- the public transportation also kicks ass.  I can firmly say that Barcelona is probably one of the most child friendly cities in the world.  Now that I'm savvy enough to understand and use the bus system, I'm obsessed.  The buses, also spotless, go EVERYWHERE, and are absolutely huge inside, room enough for 2 or 3 strollers to be wheeled right on.  Plus there is a tram system, also huge and big enough for strollers, and I think something like 80% of the subways have elevators (Poblenou, my stop, unfortunately does not). 

Now, on to the postal system.

Mail here, in my humble opinion, is kind of a joke.  Ain't nothing gettin' in...and today I've realized, ain't nothin' getting out, either.

Let's take it back to April, when my sister kindly tried to send us two care packages to our home address.  I had already received a package at our house previously, so I had no idea that having mail sent to a residential address can sometimes not work out so well.  When the weeks ticked by, and the packages still had not arrived, I checked the tracking online to find that both packages were in Madrid, stuck in customs.  "Great!"  I thought.  They are in Spain!  It will probably just be a couple days before they are released, and I'll have my stuff.

Yeah, no.

I won't bore you with the details, but what followed was a hair pulling charade of faxing, emailing, re-faxing, emailing, and playing cat and mouse with Spanish customs office over what seems to me to be an obnoxious amount of paperwork in order to have two small boxes of stuff delivered.  I would give them what they want, they would email a week later asking me to fax it again.  I would give them what they want, and they would email saying they had nothing.  I would give them what they want, and then they finally informed me IN JULY (this went on for three full months) that my stuff was on its way back to the United States.  Sigh.

After that debacle, I wised up.  If anything needed to be sent to us, it needed to be sent to Chris's work where professional Spanish speakers at his company can deal with customs issues should they arise. 

Since that time, we've had a few successful deliveries -- however, my mother recently mailed a birthday present to Mia, paying extra to have it delivered on time for her birthday (October 21st), and it still isn't here.  We got the dreaded customs "notice" in the mail a few weeks ago, faxed what they needed immediately...and guess what...we still haven't received her gift.  I'll bet you all the money in Spain that if I called them today, they'd ask me to fax exactly what we already faxed to them in order to get our stuff.  I would love to see that fax machine in the customs office.  I picture a lone fax machine, in an empty room, overflowing with paperwork sent by all the poor foreign schmucks like myself.

So basically, if stuff is sent here, about 50% makes it past customs unscathed.  The rest is caught in the web, and so far, we haven't been successful in getting it out of customs when it does get caught. 

OK, OK.  Can't win them all.  So I can't count on shipping here in Spain.  I can roll with it. 

But today I attempted to do my first mailing OUT of Spain.  And it was priceless. 

So, I had ordered some new glasses online from a great American website Warby Parker.  Somehow, I knew trying to order prescription glasses here in Spain would end up being more work than it was worth, and Warby Parker has fab glasses, amazingly good prices, and does all the work for you in terms of finding out your current prescription.  To me, it made sense to order them online, have them sent to my mother in law Judie, and have Judie ship them to me here. 

Well, the Spain Mail Gods were good to me, and we got the packages Judie so nicely sent us -- nothing caught in customs!!!!  Hooray!!!  Except, the glasses did not fit the way I hoped, and decided to call Warby to see if I could exchange -- which they were totally cool with.  Not only were they cool with it, they immediately mailed different pair, and told me just to ship the glasses I had back as soon as I could. 

Hmmm...I hadn't mailed anything from Spain yet.  It has been, what, 9 months?  The post office here isn't my favorite place, for obvious reasons.  They really, really don't like to speak English, even if they are able, and there is usually a line of angry people (just like in the US) behind me who aren't super excited that I'm stumbling along in my broken Spanish holding everything up.  So I avoid that place like the plague.  I had passed a Mailboxes, Etc. many times here in Poblenou, and always made a mental note that it was there.  We had one back in Rowley, that I loved -- they used UPS, and it was always so easy to just pop in, drop off what I needed to have mailed, and run out. 

So, today, I headed over there to the Mailboxes, Etc. to send my tiny little 1oz. glasses box back to New York, NY.  Now, I had just received an email yesterday from Judie saying the new glasses were on their way to Barcelona by way of USPS, they cost just $11 to ship. 

I could tell immediately when I walked in, this isn't like the Mailboxes, Etc. in the US.  Now, from what I understand, the only way to ship internationally to the US is through UPS or FedEx -- and this place uses UPS.  First off, there are no prices listed anywhere like they are in most UPS or FedEx stores.  I was handed off to what appeared to be the owner, and he informed me he had to take the destination address "in back" and do some figuring to find out the best price for me.  Ok....

After filling out the UPS form, showing him my minuscule glasses box, and waiting 10 minutes for him to write down three figures on a piece of paper, he comes back with a series of prices.  All between 90 - 110 euros (around $125).  Mind you, the glasses I'm sending back are $95.  I kind of smile, and explain that what I'm mailing back is not worth the cost of shipping, and I can't pay that much for shipping. 

I'm ready to get my box and leave, when he comes back with:

"What about 85 euros?  That's as low as I can go..."

Um, since when is postage negotiable?  I get the fact that I'm in a private company offering shipping services, but seriously? 

I'm kind of taken off guard, and everyone in the place is staring at me at this point...

"Um, no thank you.  I really, really appreciate you taking the time to find options for me, but the cost is way too high.  It costs $11 to ship this exact box from the US to Barcelona."

He THEN comes back with:

"Ok, Ok.  I have another company that does shipping.  I could ship it through them for 60 euros.  How about that?"

I felt like I was at a Toyota dealership, and this guy was trying to sell me a new Camry.  We are talking about postage here people.

I, again, politely declined, and asked for my box back...and get out of there, and everyone in the place seemed shocked and somewhat pissed I wasn't going to ship it with them. 

Where are we?  Antarctica?  How could it cost over $100 to send a little box to NYC? 

I fully get that there is likely a cheaper option, and I am being scammed...but I guess postage is one of those things that I assume isn't gouged too much -- you pay for speed or weight, but generally don't expect an owner to adjust the price depending on how naive you might be. 

I am now faced with the task of finding some Vistaprinters traveling back to the US soon to smuggle this to the US for me, or braving Correos, the local post office, to see if they are a little more fair and honest.  Sheeesh. 

And thus is the story of the hustlin' postal man.