It's May and we have less than a month left in Europe. It's hard not to be thinking ahead. We're doing our best to stay in the moment, doing stuff we've been meaning to (this weekend we finally saw the fabulous new archeological museum and made our pilgrimage to the Oviedo cathedral museum), and looking forward to the upcoming week in Scotland. But nostalgia is a powerful thing, and sometimes won't even wait until the appropriate moment. I think someone has defined "kitsch" as pre-emptive nostalgia, and in that vein I present a very kitschy post. You can join me in your choice of an appropriate soundtrack, which for me is the album Paul Simon that Alex just downloaded for me. Sweet, self-indulgent nostalgia.
I'm going to miss being just a bus ride from the sea. More often a tram ride in Athens, but always just right over there any time I wanted to see it. There are few things in life I enjoy more than beach-combing, but maybe one of them is watching Annabel frolic in the ocean. Of course, the ocean is only six hours or so from Fairbanks, but not a lot of frolicking or beach-combing in the freezing, silt-coated waters of upper Valdez Sound or upper Cook Inlet.
I'm going to miss being able to walk everywhere, stop in anywhere, eat at a different restaurant anytime we want (although the food is likely to look very familiar). The eating and the walking go together, of course, because if I wasn't doing as much walking as I am, I would be enormously larger from doing the amount of eating I am. I think my sister Lauren and her husband were a little horrified at how much Alex and I ate at our meals together in Spain. And we still didn't manage to clean our plates very often. Don't want to insult anybody's food, right? And it all sounds so good on the menu, and is relatively cheap, compared to Fairbanks prices, if you don't actually pay attention to the exchange rate--how can you not order too much and then eat too much? It'll be interesting to see how our eating patterns settle out back home.
I'm not going to miss tiny bathrooms. In the last eight months I've discovered an amazing variety of ways to cramp one's style in the bathroom. The hotel we stayed at in St. Jean de Luz with Lauren's family required a Pilates-style swing of the knees to sit down. On the other hand, what am I going to do without ready access to a bidet? Suffer through, I suppose. We have two bathrooms in our apartment in Oviedo, both tiny, and I wish I could trade them both (and throw in the bidet) for one bigger one. On the plus side, it's important to be able to stand close to the mirror considering how dark all these bathrooms have been.
I'm going to miss all those museums that Annabel has suffered through, especially the natural history museums. There's something about all that old stuff that takes me away, seizes my imagination like a good science fiction novel. Despite the suffering, Annabel still includes "archeologist" on her list of desirable future occupations, and asked us yesterday if Alaska had any archeological digs. We assured her that it did. We've got a pretty darn good museum in Fairbanks, but I'll miss Bronze Age implements, cave paintings, medieval icons, not to mention some of those painters they have in the Prado and Louvre that the Museum of the North hasn't managed to acquire. It's fun to visit a little art museum like the one in Oviedo and see the odd Picasso or Dali among all the lesser-known artistic luminaries of Asturias.
I'm going to miss good cheap wine. Need I say more?
I'm going to miss mild, humid weather. Yes I am. We may be looking at a solid week of rain in the forecast today, but we know it'll be changeable, blue skies (like now) alternating with gray (like an hour ago), weather I remember fondly from my college days in Seattle (more nostalgia). Of course, the humidity was a little daunting in that tiny bathroom in the center of our apartment in Athens, and the rain four out of every five Sundays since we've been in Oviedo has weighed on us. And we'll be getting back to Fairbanks at the perfect moment in the seasonal cycle, first of June, ready for some clear blue skies and twenty hours of sun. But come the cold and the dry, me and my skin will be hankering back to the air in Athens (Grecian Formula H2O) and Oviedo (on the Costa Verde).
I'm going to miss all the generous people that have adopted us in Greece and Spain, taken us in, shown us around, spoken slowly and clearly for my sake, given us a glimpse of their lives and of real life in these places. It would have been a colder and darker year indeed without the open arms of Rosemary, Michael, Jorge and Merche, Helio, Carmen, and everyone else who has been kind to these American strangers.
I'm going to miss all the time with Alex and Annabel, our sense of being three adventurers together, the in-jokes and tag-lines, references to particular people and places and poor translations and generous gestures. It's not like we won't see a lot of each other in Fairbanks. Or that we haven't gotten on each other's nerves now and again (and maybe again) over the last eight months. But this whole adventure has been a lot more powerful because I've had two smart, funny, observant people to share it with.
And we've still got three weeks in Oviedo, a week in Scotland, a couple of days in Seattle, and the adventure of the return trip itself--it's entirely too soon to be wrapping things up. Let's get outside while the sun is still shining and enjoy this May Day holiday. Be seeing some of you soon. But not just yet.
I'm going to miss being just a bus ride from the sea. More often a tram ride in Athens, but always just right over there any time I wanted to see it. There are few things in life I enjoy more than beach-combing, but maybe one of them is watching Annabel frolic in the ocean. Of course, the ocean is only six hours or so from Fairbanks, but not a lot of frolicking or beach-combing in the freezing, silt-coated waters of upper Valdez Sound or upper Cook Inlet.
I'm going to miss being able to walk everywhere, stop in anywhere, eat at a different restaurant anytime we want (although the food is likely to look very familiar). The eating and the walking go together, of course, because if I wasn't doing as much walking as I am, I would be enormously larger from doing the amount of eating I am. I think my sister Lauren and her husband were a little horrified at how much Alex and I ate at our meals together in Spain. And we still didn't manage to clean our plates very often. Don't want to insult anybody's food, right? And it all sounds so good on the menu, and is relatively cheap, compared to Fairbanks prices, if you don't actually pay attention to the exchange rate--how can you not order too much and then eat too much? It'll be interesting to see how our eating patterns settle out back home.
I'm not going to miss tiny bathrooms. In the last eight months I've discovered an amazing variety of ways to cramp one's style in the bathroom. The hotel we stayed at in St. Jean de Luz with Lauren's family required a Pilates-style swing of the knees to sit down. On the other hand, what am I going to do without ready access to a bidet? Suffer through, I suppose. We have two bathrooms in our apartment in Oviedo, both tiny, and I wish I could trade them both (and throw in the bidet) for one bigger one. On the plus side, it's important to be able to stand close to the mirror considering how dark all these bathrooms have been.
I'm going to miss all those museums that Annabel has suffered through, especially the natural history museums. There's something about all that old stuff that takes me away, seizes my imagination like a good science fiction novel. Despite the suffering, Annabel still includes "archeologist" on her list of desirable future occupations, and asked us yesterday if Alaska had any archeological digs. We assured her that it did. We've got a pretty darn good museum in Fairbanks, but I'll miss Bronze Age implements, cave paintings, medieval icons, not to mention some of those painters they have in the Prado and Louvre that the Museum of the North hasn't managed to acquire. It's fun to visit a little art museum like the one in Oviedo and see the odd Picasso or Dali among all the lesser-known artistic luminaries of Asturias.
I'm going to miss good cheap wine. Need I say more?
I'm going to miss mild, humid weather. Yes I am. We may be looking at a solid week of rain in the forecast today, but we know it'll be changeable, blue skies (like now) alternating with gray (like an hour ago), weather I remember fondly from my college days in Seattle (more nostalgia). Of course, the humidity was a little daunting in that tiny bathroom in the center of our apartment in Athens, and the rain four out of every five Sundays since we've been in Oviedo has weighed on us. And we'll be getting back to Fairbanks at the perfect moment in the seasonal cycle, first of June, ready for some clear blue skies and twenty hours of sun. But come the cold and the dry, me and my skin will be hankering back to the air in Athens (Grecian Formula H2O) and Oviedo (on the Costa Verde).
I'm going to miss all the generous people that have adopted us in Greece and Spain, taken us in, shown us around, spoken slowly and clearly for my sake, given us a glimpse of their lives and of real life in these places. It would have been a colder and darker year indeed without the open arms of Rosemary, Michael, Jorge and Merche, Helio, Carmen, and everyone else who has been kind to these American strangers.
I'm going to miss all the time with Alex and Annabel, our sense of being three adventurers together, the in-jokes and tag-lines, references to particular people and places and poor translations and generous gestures. It's not like we won't see a lot of each other in Fairbanks. Or that we haven't gotten on each other's nerves now and again (and maybe again) over the last eight months. But this whole adventure has been a lot more powerful because I've had two smart, funny, observant people to share it with.
And we've still got three weeks in Oviedo, a week in Scotland, a couple of days in Seattle, and the adventure of the return trip itself--it's entirely too soon to be wrapping things up. Let's get outside while the sun is still shining and enjoy this May Day holiday. Be seeing some of you soon. But not just yet.
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