Microcosm

St. Lucia!  We spent the day driving along the southwest coast yesterday.  and we drove up the southeast coast before that.  We saw, from a distance, the hotel that has the honor of being the most expensive hotel on the island.  Your room comes with a private swimming pool and has one wall open to the sea.  $1500 per night. And we saw the house below.  When I took the picture I didn't realize that people lived in it.

While we were eating a delicious plate of rice, lentils, fish and macaroni and cheese, I saw a rail thin man come out with an empty plastic bottle in his hand.  He returned a short while later carrying the jug on his head.  Imagine what this man could do with $1500!

We see the new, the old, the wealthy, the poor, the happy, the sad, the entrepreneurs and the civil servants and the tourists and the locals.  At first it is easy to be critical and only see the differences from our own lives, and yet with reflection, we are coming to realize that this is just like home with all of its extremes and shades of grey inbetween.  We are so quick to judge.

On a lighter, brighter note, we have discovered that "our beach" (a short drive from the guest house) is the nicest beach we have seen so far!  We have clear blue water, calm waters, and a community of kite- and wind- surfers who lament the lack of wind and tell their stories while waiting for the winds to pick up.  The Reef restaurant supports us with smiles, asking how we are, and bringing food and Pitons (local beer).  It takes a special group of people to make so many transients feel at home.  I want to take a picture of them before we leave and hope that I can express how much we appreciate them.  Here is a picture of Jeff- you can see that he looks happy to be there!  How fortunate we are!

Blue skies!

Steeped in History

Joyce pointed out today that I have not posted a blog in a week!  I have been formulating some ideas in my head and am just getting settled in St. Lucia so have some time, and an internet connection to sit down to write.

Two of our stops last week were to visit the matriarchs- pictured below.

 

 

It is always great to go to my hometown.  I always feel a sense of pride and belonging even though I haven't lived there in over 30 years.  I am proud that I grew up in the town where my mother grew up, where her father grew up, and maybe another generation or two also grew up.  It gives me a sense of entitlement when I go there.  I am not "just visiting", and I am not a local college student's parent, and I am not a tourist, but rather, I am coming home to a city that is steeped in history and in which my history is steeped.

One of the things I like to do when I go home is to go to the famous local bathhouses and soak in a wonderfully large, deep tub filled with hot mineral water.  It is not very often that I find a tub long enough for my whole body to be underwater at the same time.  The mineral waters soften your skin and you feel like a million bucks!

I am steeped in history.

After my Hometown, we went to Jeff's.  Very different type of city.  He points out the tennis courts that he took the subway to play on.  He shows me the corner where he picked up the downtown express bus to go to high school every day.  We drive to the next county to go to a good kosher deli (which served the best chicken liver salad I've ever had).  We grew up in very different places and we are impacted by very different family histories.  My family had clowns and a long Yankee history.  His family survived the holocaust.

We are all steeped in history.

For the want of a pair of shoes

We left Burlington, VT yesterday heading south on Route 7.  We had mapped a few places to stop that had things that might be interesting to see.  The plans were skuttled.  It was President's Day, Monday and Jeff was looking for a certain pair of Merril shoes.

We stopped for lunch in Vergennes-smallest city (by population, 2773 people) in VT. There was a small cafe named 3 Squares  which was delicious.  On our way back to the car Jeff noticed a shoes store.  He has been looking for shoes.  I noticed a clothes shop 2 doors down.  We separated.  The clothes store was chock full of wonderful colors, textures, designs of women's clothes.  I tried on one that wasn't right.  Another, another.  Ah, here was one I liked.  $450.  thank you but that is not in my budget this year, nor next, I'm sure!

Jeff met me in the store.  The least expensive pair of shoes in the shoe store was $250.

We walked down the main street towards the river.  (more pics of waterfalls on my FB).  We passed a rooming house with 9 separate electric meters outside, we passed by a small, tired bungalow with a child's plastic climbing structure in the front yard, we noticed many skeletons of barns on the side of the road on the way into town.  There isn't any major tourist attraction in town.  WHO IS BUYING THESE THINGS?

Vermont is a study in contrasts.  Abject poverty just a mile down the road from unthinkable wealth.  Audi's seem to be the car of choice here.  They drive behind the 15 year old Ford Taurus which drives behind the logging truck.  The beautifully restored Victorian bed and breakfast is around the corner from the doublewide trailer with the rusty truck in the front yard.  Middlebury is just down the road from Ferrisberg.  Our "motelier" is a 20-something social worker with a wife, two kids under two who were birthed at home, who can't make ends meet but they have a 7 year plan to run this great motel (Brandon Motor Lodge) and hope for positive cash flow.  They dream of the day when they can do what we are doing right now.

Maybe these contrasts are everywhere and I've never had the time to notice?  Maybe I've never been in the position that I am in now to wonder what I will do next, and where.

All for the want of a pair of shoes...sort of.

Blue skies!

Early bird gets the worm

It is 6:30am, I have been awake since 5:00 and up since 5:30.  I love this time of day.  The quiet before anyone else gets up, enjoying a cup of coffee with the space to think in long streams of consciousness.

Here are a few threads:
Pictures from the last few days:
Here we are at the Ice Hotel.  Sort of touristy and sort of amazing!  More of the photos from the Ice Hotel will be on my facebook page.

We visited the Basilica of Ste-Anne-du- Beaupre where a Pee-Wee hockey team was in the gift shop and the coach bought 23 small plastic bottles for holy water.  The boys crowded around the holy water dispenser.   Luckily I took a picture of the church...

and what amazed me the most of what we've seen over the past few days is the ice on the river!!  The power of the water and the ice reminds me to be humble.  In some spots around the Ile d'Orleans the huge chunks of ice were nearly in people's front yards!  How do they live so close to the water?

and yet the ice can be made into something as stunning and familiar as this...

 

I learned during the tour of the hotel that if water is frozen without air in it, your tongue will not stick to it!  that is how they can serve drinks in glasses made from ice!

New stream- one of the things that we have wrestled with is what should we do each day?  When there is no need to live by the clock nor by the day (Mon-Fri vs weekend), nor by the expectations...does it matter if we don't go site seeing every day?  Do we have to be out of the house by 10am?  Why don't we stay up all night long?  Are we wasting our precious time?   I still feel the need for a plan even if we are just planning to not do anything.   Maybe this will change over time.  I drifted off to sleep last night thinking, "We have to firm up our plans for Morocco".

And last stream before my bum gets too sore...

I wonder about "luck" and how things have lined up so perfectly for us, and how they continue to do so.  In things as small as the day we decide to drive to tour the Ile d'Orleans the temps dip down and the wind picks up making it uncomfortable to be outside and the day we decide to go skiing the temps are perfect, the sky is blue and not too many people have the same idea!  The day we want to walk around Quebec it is very comfortable outside and the sun is shining.  And with bigger things:  We want to go away for a few months and someone wants to rent our house for just the same amount of time.  We have been lucky!

and the skies are blue!

Parlez- vous francie?

I love language.  I love to listen to people talk, I love to hear foreign languages, I love trying to figure out why people use which language when...(did I say that right?).

I have forgotten much of the French I have learned over the years- just like my mother warned I would!  But starting this trip with time in Quebec has certainly brought much back, and reminded me of how much is buried in the gray matter.  Yesterday in a restaurant I passed on ordering a particular salad because one of it's ingredients was "arachide".  I would have SWORN that "arachide" meant spider  (Latin (or is it Greek?) lovers will recognize the root...).    Guess I could have eaten it after all...it is another word for peanut.

At the wonderful B&B where we are staying, B&B La Bedondaine, we had a nice conversation over breakfast.  Jeff doesn't speak French, Mr. and Mrs. Tessler speak English and French.  At first we are speaking only in French.  Mr. T looks at Jeff and speaks to him in French.  Jeff looked at me for a translation.  I translated as best I could.  Mr. T corrected me...in English!  Remember the game of Telephone when you were a kid?  We thought it was hysterically funny when the message was mixed up.  Were we really mimicing grown ups?

There is a word, which I can never remember, which means a word that is the same or very similar in two languages.  We know it is a VERY dangerous to assume we know the meaning of a word in our own language because it is spelled the same in another.  The other night when we were trying to find a hotel in the dark, we pulled into a place that had a lot of cars in the parking lot, a store on the first floor, curtained windows on the second and third, and a sign that said Accommodations.  It was a liquor store...without accommodations.

Someone has had fun choosing which words will be the same in another language and which ones wont.  Do you suppose they sit outside of the Accommodations stores and watch the Americans drive up?  Good craic on a Saturday night in a rural town.

This only reinforces my need to brush up on my French while we are here, and before we get to France. 

Je vous souhaite les ciels bleus!

Poutine, asbestos and the Eastern Townships

Our first dinner in Canada I experimented with a local dish- poutine!  Hard to describe so that you can see it/taste it...fries smothered in gravy, sprinkled with cheese curd and topped with a variety of things.  We went to Chez Charlie's specifically for "smoked meat" so I got the poutine with smoked meat. 
After reading the description, is this what you pictured?  (well, I had already eaten the smoked meat off the top...):

We spend yesterday morning lollygagging in the fabulous 1950's retro motel in Lennoxville, and then got on our way mid-day.  Who would have ever thought I could "hang" for an entire morning when there were things to see and do!!?  We walked around downtown Sherbrooke which had a surprisingly large cultural base for a small regional seat.  The picture of the canal does not show the power of the rushing water nor the spectacular ice formations on the bridge structures or the surrounding trees!

We had a non-descript lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and hit the road for Quebec. 

I had never heard of the region call The Eastern Townships, but it is a beautiful area- picturesque lakes, and rivers, huge farms, rolling hills, mountains not far off and a great web of country roads- some of which we could not take with the "better suited for other climates" Prius.  I think that this area would be best explored in the summer.

We passed through a town called Thetfield Mines, and to see the surrounding hills (or what is left of them) is to understand the name of the town.  The entire area is asbestos mining!  I am glad we didn't realize what was being mined until we had already driven through.  There is even a hamlet called Asbestos.  The sunset over the fields and mountains was a study of juxtaposed blues, reds and purples with the barren hills with huge excavation equipment everywhere.

We pulled into Quebec City about 6:30pm- ready to get out of the car and stretch our legs and backs!

Today we find a bank, and approach Quebec City and Winter Carnival--walking!

Blue skies!

I just packed 2 pickles

We have not been buying any food for the past couple of weeks, trying to use up everything in the frig and freezer.  To see the refrigerator this morning was to be amazed!  I only had to throw away 1/3 of a container of yogurt, 1/2 of labne, 1/3 of fig jelly, 1/3 of soy cream cheese, one sad scallion and 1/2 a can of tomato paste.  Of course, in order to be able to say this...I had to pack 2 pickles and a sausage to take on the road with us this morning and feed the last of the bread to the squirrels.

Since last night we have been busy packing and vetting and kvetching.  As each hour passed, more bags piled up at the front door to get packed into the car.  As I do the last load of laundry this morning, I wonder how Jeff's khaki shorts will fit into his bag after they get washed, nevermind how all of those bags are going to fit into the car!  Considering that we are packing for nearly 4 months, 3 seasons, 3+ continents- not bad.

Jeff and I have dramatically different views of packing- I have always packed as little as possible, and been very proud of my carry on bag that contained clothes enought for a week- business clothes at that!  Jeff has always packed for every possible eventuality, having no shame in checking a bag.  Last night I happened upon him in the living room, where he had been staging his clothes.  He was just pulling the straps tight on his bag and looking rather smug.  He had gotten everything packed into the bags he had planned.  He went straight upstairs to get the scale.  First he got on the scale- 193lbs.  then he got on with his bag-235lbs.  then with my bag-240lbs.  I have to remember to be more humble when packing my bags.

In spite of the fact that I am going through the house like a madwoman- pick up this, move that, put that away, one more wipe of that, check the other thing one last time (those who know me best will recognize this focused state)...we are leaving in two hours. 

The trip has begun with a final cleaning, a packed car, a locked door and a cooler with a day old sausage and two pickles..

7-6-5-4-3-2-1

This is the countdown to our departure for our travels for four months.  Jeff has been saying for a couple of days that he is starting to realize we are leaving "soon".  Today I realized it when I started to clean out my closet and the medicine cabinet for the renters to move in.  Do I want heavy wool layers or light cotton layers?  T-shirts or fleeces? How can I pack for 3 seasons into one wheelie (albeit 99 l volume)?  Should we bring aloe vera "just in case" even though it takes up too much room.  How many bandaids will we use? I counted out the exact number of q-tips we would need.  Every inch matters. I bought extra allergy medication since we both have allergies.  Do they sell loratadine in Europe?  How many things will I bring that we don't use?

I dread the vetting process we will go through over the next few days.  Jeff will challenge my thought process for choosing certain things, sometimes failing to implement the same strict logic with his own choices.  We will laugh at each other and ourselves, grit our teeth, sneak a few extra things in the wheelie's pockets and know the other person will be proven right before the end of the trip.  Will we get out the door in just 5 days?

I am reading The Happiness Project which I read about on HeadButler.com.  While looking through the bathroom cabinet and closet I was amazed at how much "stuff" we had accumulated in just the 7 short months since we have been here.  Now I can understand how the author of The Happiness Project could get such satisfaction from culling 7 bags of give away clothes from her closet.  I felt good just consolidating 3 bottles of ibuprofin and packing enough q-tips to throw away one 500-count container so we only have one left.  Getting organized, cleaned out and aware of the cabinet contents DOES make me happy!  Time to go read the next chapter!  and start making a serious packing list!

Blue skies!