Sister is Abroad! (Flashback to April...)

                

I can talk about our experiences...blog about them, and share pictures.  I can Skype, and take my friends and family on virtual tours of our apartment with our laptop and have the children pop in to say hello and talk about their day.  But ultimately, it feels like no one will ever "get it" without coming here to see for themselves.  The good and the bad.  For me, time abroad no doubt has altered my perspective on life and I often have a hard time trying to temper that little voice inside me that screams, "I realized an important lesson about life today, let's share it with the world!!!".  When I see beauty, when something rocks me to my core, when I'm humbled and feel like I'm seeing something for what it really is for the first time, I want to share it with anyone who will listen so they can feel it too...find that moment for themselves, and then tell me what they feel and think about it.  My greatest challenge is finding the right voice, the right forum, and the right audience, without imposing my thoughts and ideas of those who may not, quite frankly, care.  It's been hard when these moments are coming at me fast and furious while living in Spain.    

I knew coming here visitors would be limited.  Airfare is far from cheap, and when it is multiplied by four, as would be the case for many family members with children, well...we're talking about the price of a new car here.  Add to that school, work, kids, and I fully understood we would likely be just sharing stories and pictures of this experience with those who were closest to us.  

It was an added bonus when our parents all came to visit last year (Chris's mom, Chris's Dad, and my mom), spending time with us as a family and seeing for themselves what this experience is all about.  We were still newbies ourselves, figuring out life and slowly spreading our Barcelona wings, so their experience I think was also focused on our new view of life in Barcelona, and much of what we saw and did, we were discovering together for the first time.  

When I was home with Evan in the US in February, I sat sitting at my sister's counter having coffee one morning, the questions started to come...

"What is the weather like in April?"

"When you get to the airport, how do you get to your house?"

"What is the flight like?"

She was going to do it...my sister was going to come!  It wasn't as if I wasn't excited about our parents who had come to visit the year prior.  We were thrilled.  It was just that this would be my sister's first trip to Europe.  It was special, and something I knew she especially would love and appreciate.  There's something kind of unique when you step out of a plane for the first time in a completely foreign land, and realize that the places you had spent your life thinking and reading about actually do exist.  Seeing the similarities and differences, realizing the world was even bigger (or smaller) than you realized.  Maybe I'm just overly indulging my own little world view, but at the very least I knew she would not regret her decision to come. .  

Never one to miss the opportunity for a family Jamberoo, and much to my excitement, my mother decided to join my sister for the week, and so began their travel plans for a mid-April visit to Barcelona.  We were THRILLED to have them.  

I have to say, I'm not a huge planner by nature.  Most of the vacations that Chris and I planned included hotel and car reservations, but apart from that we usually just had a general idea of what we wanted to see and do, with no real plan on how it would all happen.  Over time, we've realized that it does work to our benefit to put together a loose plan going into it -- you eat better food, waste less time, and are able to see a whole lot more.  But never once I had a made an hour to hour itinerary...until my sister's visit.  I was DETERMINED to fill our week with as much of the European experience as we could fit into seven days to make her trip worthwhile.  We are talking a week filled with the best of the cuisine, Barcelona sightseeing, and even a two day excursion to Paris.  In hindsight, I think I took it to the extreme...I ran my poor guests ragged the first few days and after an epic alarm clock fail that was quickly followed a minor injury on the morning of our Paris flight, we all agreed to take it down a notch.  We included more downtime, planned a leisurely drive up to Carcassonne, France and a night in Toulouse instead, and just focused on enjoying each other's company, filling our time with sights at a more reasonable pace,

Overall, the week was a huge success.  I will be forever grateful and appreciative that my mother and sister were willing to come so far to see us, and to share this experience with us...An intangible life experience that, ultimately, really has nothing to do with Gaudi buildings or tapas...it's something we will always share.  

Some little snip-its from our week together...

First day -- Enjoying her first Napolitana Xocolata

Beach time snuggle with Evan

Family dinner

Plaça d'Espanya

Taking time to smell the flowers.

Juice and tortilla inside Poble Espanyol

Entering the castle at Carcassonne, France

Outside La Boqueria

In Toulouse!

Spring Madness

On our way to the USA

I sit here, amazed my children are in bed and quiet before 10pm for the first time this week (jet lag at its finest), faced with a small burst of inspiration and energy to put the last three months into words.  This isn't going to be easy.  Especially with a busted laptop that requires the use of a TV monitor as our screen.  First world problems, all of this, I am aware.

I have those moments in life when I truly believe we can do it all.  When having a third child amidst an overseas move seems like another fun adventure to take.  When I'm scouring Ryanair for flight deals, planning jam packed trips home to the US, rocking out some pot pies, and living in the moment.  Then I have those moments like this ENTIRE WEEK.  When the world comes crashing down.  When I am so exhausted I can't move, the bus driver yells at me in Catalan for using the exit door on the bus, my children are running in circles around me like wild Indians everywhere we go because their lives have been devoid of routine and adequate sleep for weeks on end, and laundry is spilling out of suitcases piled to the ceiling.  When I long for the familiar, stability, and routine.  We ask are ourselves, during weeks like this...is it worth it?

Yes.  The answer is always yes.

I've been running on a high since just after Easter.  The worst of the morning sickness was finally over, and I was feeling good...ready to take the next few months by storm, and see as much as we possibly could before the newest little man came into our world, which would soon be followed by the all consuming plan for the move back home to the US.  But my engine came screeching to a halt this week.  Could be that I am officially in my third trimester.  And horribly jet lagged.  Though, I think much of this "fried" feeling has to do with ending our spring of travel with a trip home to the US.  It was a different kind of a visit home this year, busy as usual, but mentally confusing as well... knowing the next time we would be back, we would be back for good.  It made coming back to Barcelona feel sad and weird.  Difficult to describe.  In so many ways I wish we could stay in Barcelona longer, see more, experience everything possible.  Continue to live this simple life, surrounded by children, families, and sunshine.  And in many ways, I didn't want to leave the US while we were home, feeling ready to be back NOW...to get some roots again, and feel grounded in some way.  Nesting is not so easy when you don't even know which forest you belong to anymore.  Enough to make a pregnant brain short circuit.

It helped coming home to one of the most fun and lively celebrations in Barcelona, and actually a very appropriate ending to our spring madness: the celebration of the summer solstice, Nit de Sant Joan.  Reminding us to continue to soak in every moment, be thankful for everything we've been able to see and experience, and continue to live what we love regardless of where we are.  The laundry will get done.  The children will get back on their schedule.  Life will be calm and predictable again...don't let these moments pass by in anticipation for what is next.  Slow down, and look.  The world is (quite literally) on fire.  And its beautiful. 

The last few months have been filled with some unforgettable moments that I need to get down on paper.  I'm going to plug away at some shortened versions of each over the next few days in hopes I can get caught up, and leave some time and room for some other thoughts that have been on my mind lately.  Anyway, next up on tap...because I always love a list:

1. April visit from my sister and mother

2. April Trip to Edinburgh, Scotland

3. May Trip to Costa Brava (Without Children!!!)

4. May Trip to Lake Geneva and Jungfrau, Switzerland

5. June Trip to USA

6. And that little person in my belly...update on pregnancy and birth in Spain

27 weeks!

Here we go...time to get typing. 

Another Rainy Easter

Easter never felt suited for New England.  Frilly pastel dresses, short sleeves, blooming flowers, outdoor egg hunts...all in weather that was typically grey and freezing with snow still on the ground.  As children we all usually had pained looks on our faces in our Easter pictures, trying to bear the cold as we gripped our daffodils outside of church. 

This year I had anticipated a truly special Easter.  Sunny weather, church bells all around us, and more ham than you know what to do with.  However, the weekend didn't quite play out that way.  For starters, this spring in Barcelona has been unusually cold and rainy.  Someone once told me Barcelona has about 30 days of rain per year, and if that is the case we should be due for straight sun until December.  This spring has felt like non-stop rain with temps unusually cold, but still -- I'll take it.  We didn't have any freezing weather or snow and for that I'm thankful.

Easter is a bit different here -- as usual, MUCH less commercialized.  No Easter Bunny (that I saw), Easter baskets, or peeps.  The children here typically get a huge football sized hollow chocolate egg on Easter, and that about wraps it up.  It was up to us to hunt out some baskets and Easter candy, which normally I would have just forgone all together, but the kids are finally at an age where they are very into the fantasy of the Easter Bunny and it is too cute to skip.  After a trip to the Chinese dollar store for some baskets, and the American Grocery store for some Cadbury creme eggs, we had pieced together an Easter basket of jelly beans, chocolate Cadbury eggs, new beach toys, and bubbles.  We hid the baskets, and they had a ball finding them in the morning.

The day after Easter we had planned to drive up to Montseny with Dario and Delphine -- a beautiful mountain range just north of Barcelona with several walking paths, a castle, and some restaurants at the top.  Let me back up a minute here back to Easter evening...We had rented a dapper electric blue Ford Focus for the occasion, and decided to take full advantage of having some wheels for the weekend by capping off Easter day with a drive up Tibidabo, a mountain overlooking Barcelona.  Now, we have made sort of a shocking discovery while here in Barcelona.  Our little Mia does not do well on winding mountain roads in the car.  Straight roads, boats, planes - no problem.  But once we start the winding, curvy hills in the car...no good comes of this.  We discovered this on our trip to Andorra during a particularly winding decent down the mountain when she very suddenly projectile vomited  all over herself in the car.  Assuming it was a fluke, we didn't think much of it...until Easter evening as we were heading back down Tibidabo.  Mia started to incessantly whine..."take my shoes off....take my socks off...take my pants off..."  I had a sudden fleeting thought that she might throw up which was almost immediately followed by her actually throwing up all over the place.  We pulled over the next off-shoot we could find, and of course, as I'm cleaning up a vomit covered car seat and child with baby wipes...my husband is off in the brush taking pictures of the city views and flowers.  *Sigh* 

Loving the colorful wheels

Poor Mia, now wearing my scarf as her shirt

Chris's shots of the city...I was behind him cleaning vomit

Yeah, he was legit taking still life photos while I was cleaning vomit

Clearly capturing the local cactus was what was most pressing at that moment

Anyway, on to Montseny.  The morning after Easter, we woke up ready for a little adventure north.  Unfortunately, the morning we were due to head out, it was...of course...raining.  Since we already rented the car, and had the day off with nothing else planned, we all decided to brave the "cold" (again, I use this term lightly, as it was probably around 50 degrees F) and rain and head up the mountain anyway.  We figured we could stand a little drizzle with some boots and umbrellas.  The mountain itself was gorgeous, but we were a little sad we couldn't see the view from the top with all the clouds and rain.  You could tell it would have been amazing.  It took us about an hour to wind our way to the top of the mountain road (I had now wised up and had a bucket ready for Mia, who thankfully slept the entire way up and down the mountain), and when we arrived at the summit, almost as if on cue, the rain stopped and we were able to take our nature walk all together.

**Thank you to Dario for sharing all these great pictures he took with us!!!

Mia's favorite seat :)  I think we have a pic of her on Dario's shoulders from all our trips together

After our walk, we popped into the local restaurant at the mountain summit for a traditional Catalan lunch.  I could honestly say, it was one of the best lunches I've had since we arrived in Spain.  They had a lot of hearty Catalan dishes like a wild boar stew, grilled rabbit, and fresh local fish.  And of course, pan con tomate (bread with tomato) which they served do-it-yourself style with a bowl of whole fresh tomatoes, garlic cloves, and olive oil for you to rub onto the bread yourself.  And Iberian ham, of course.  I opted for the grilled fish, and Chris had the rabbit.  Evan loved the bread mostly, but Mia did branch out as usual and had cannelloni -- a flat pasta wrapped around meat served in a white sauce.  It was all incredibly delicious.

 The day wrapped up and we wound our way back down the mountain home to Barcelona.  It wasn't the long awaited sunny "New England"-style Easter I had envisioned, but ultimately that's what I ended up liking the most about it.  Yet another holiday that didn't play out as we expected, but was memorable and one we will likely talk about in years to come..."Remember that rainy Easter in Spain we went up to Montseny..."