Kodiak Haakansons: October 2010

Tuesday- After the late night in Barcelona we decided to stay out of the car and explore a little more of the town. Not actually making out of the house until noon, we stopped for a take-out lunch of sandwiches and paninis and ate on the beach in the sun. Afterwards we all filled up on crepes then succumbed to the temptation of the tourist train, which seemed easy and kid-friendly, albeit a little bit mortifying. It turned out to be a nice little trip up to the hill-top forts (alternately occupied by the French and the Spanish) and through the neighboring town. Along the way we saw a park (hurrah!) and marveled at the terraced grape fields covering every side of the hills (wine here is spendy since it is all harvested via manual labor). Mostly we shushed the kids and enjoyed the down time. By 8 it was evident that the kids needed to immediately go to sleep, so we put them to sleep and were able to stay up and visit for a few wonderful relaxing hours.

Our buddy the praying mantis.

Climbing on the camera to check it out.

Making spears to show daddy.

A butterfly landed on me! He thought I was a flower!

A bunch of crepes, s'il vous plait...

Extensive grape terracing.

Wednesday- market day again! And a successful one since we found Ratatouille socks for Eilidh and Hello Kitty socks for Bella. And goat brie with figs for the rest of us. A surreal end of the market trip was the time on the beach watching the French marines do an obstacle course (complete with guns) in the bay. A yummy end to the morning was the rotisserie chicken from the market and grease-smothered potatoes, along with a cold bottle of chardonnay, outside on the patio. Afterwards we figured that we should go do something cultural so again we packed up the kids and took them to the uninspiring town of Ceret to see the modern art museum that has a fair number of Matisse and Picasso pieces. It was actually a lovely stop, as we were able to get the kids interested in sketching some Chagall chickens and cows while Sven and I admired Picasso’s unique pottery, including a set of bowls that featured different scenes from a bull fight. Not feeling too impressed by the town or the area, we headed home for dinner and some more downtime, which is just fine with us!

Just another day of commando training in paradise.

GPS route of travels in the Dordogne!

As we packed up and got into the car on Saturday morning Bubbe checked her email one last time - just in time to find out her flight from Toulouse- where we were supposed drop her off- to Rome was canceled due to a scheduled strike (the government is due to vote on raising the retirement age from 60 to 62, and the full retirement age from 65 to 67). A little bit panicky, we called around and tried to find out the train situation but couldn't get ahold of anyone. We finally decided just to drive towards Toulouse and see about getting my mom a train from Toulouse to Rome instead of flying, since no flights seemed to be available. A couple hours later we arrived in Toulouse and got immediately into a long, winding line at the ticket office to get an update on the train situation. After half an hour into our wait (and while Fish and the girls read Harry Potter in the car) Bubbe cracked a not so funny joke about how 'wouldn't it be funny if we made it to the front of the line just in time to find out that we were in the wrong line?'... naturally, an hour later when we got to the front of the line we did indeed find this out. Demoralized as we looked at the long hour at the international desk, we decided to just leave and figure things out later.... We checked in at my mom's hotel and got on the internet to find out that, while the French train system was in shambles, a flight from Barcelona (a 2 hours drive from our next house) to Rome was under $100. 30 minutes after checking her in to her hotel we happily checked out, taking Bubbe with us to the grandkids glee....

Around dinner-time we arrived in Collioure just 15 kilometers north of Spain and our home for the next week. I was especially excited about Collioure because I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Matisse and Picasso and how many of my favorite artists (including Chagall) were inspired by the light and the colors of this part of France, and in the case of Matisse, by this town in particular. We didn’t see a lot of the town coming in, as we were so excited to head straight to our rental. The house is a large rambling, 4 bedroom house with a huge yard filled with Mediterranean plants, owned by a British woman with an odd music collection. The only drawback we saw so far to Collioure is that it was blowing 50 miles an hour and was probably 45 degrees. But turning up the heat in the house and unpacking stuff, we started to get ourselves tucked in. Sven left around 10 to go pick up our friends Bobby (Sven’s best friend from graduate school) and Vicky and their two kids Tea (6) and Clara (3) who arrived two hours later than expected due to the train strikes. Waking up Sunday morning, the kids were overjoyed to meet each other again after almost three years and we decided to stick close to home to overcome their jetlag and catch up. Being market day, we ventured to downtown Collioure to pick up some supplies, then walked around the windy yet gorgeous town, stopping at the beach for a little playtime (kids) and a little coffee (adults). After a busy afternoon (4 kids makes a big difference to how much 2 families can accomplish) we headed back with all of our provisions to take care of dinner. We tested out the pool (cold!) and the bathtub (fits 4 kids), got them fed and into bed, and the adults went out to dinner. Bubbe graciously offered to watch the kids while we had a meal, which was amazing and it was wonderful to catch up with friends.

Tea and Bella on the beach.

The girls in the bath...

Barcelona for the day

Monday was the day to bring Bubbe to the airport in Barcelona so we decided to pack up all 9 of us and make it a day trip. 15 years ago myself and Bubbe had gone to Barcelona and had fallen in love with Gaudi’s architecture so we decided to head straight to the park he designed, Park Guell. It was a rather chaotic afternoon involving losing the daddies, trying to get a photo of the kids jumping off a bench and ending with our friends’ kids bruised up and crying, crazy porta-potties that looked like urinals, overstimulation and a few tears. But we made it and really enjoyed soaking up Gaudi’s inspiring architecture. In the afternoon we took Bubbe to the airport and after suppressing a lot of tears were eventually able to drag ourselves away. We all agreed that having Bubbe along for two fun-filled weeks was absolutely wonderful, and that we were very glad that she got stuck so we could add this day in Barcelona as well….

Around dinner time we headed to our other favorite Barcelona locale, Las Ramblas, a large pedestrian-only street for rambling, shopping and enjoying the local sights. The street performers were wonderful and exhilerating, yet often creepy. We had a wonderful Paella meal and enjoyed the sites. It was there that we tried to call our friends who we promised to meet here and realized that Sven’s iphone didn’t work in Spain and we started to worry about our friends without a GPS who were supposed to follow us home. Finally giving up on how to get ahold of them, we started the two hour drive back home and were eventually (actually, the second we crossed into France) able to use the phone to call them and give them directions.