Over the River and Back to School

 

     Our family of four juggles the schedules of five schools. You can see why my brain enjoys summer, despite the not-insignificant demands of writing a doctoral dissertation. My sons' schools begin tomorrow. The great summer we had will blend into fall, the same way our Prague metro tickets are mixing in with back-to-school welcome letters. I've suggested that if I receive my doctorate next May, as anticipated, that we will hop in the car and drive to the Grand Canyon. Just because.

 

 

 

 

     After crossing the Charles Bridge across the Vltava River in Prague this summer, a bridge begun in 1357, I've been paying more attention to the traditional New England covered bridges near my home. This one, which I cross occasionally, was built in 1853 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. When it was first built, a herd of cattle crossing it knocked it off its abutments, causing it to need repair. Two dairy farms remain in my town, but I've never seen a herd of cattle cross this single-lane bridge. It has taken us to a state park this summer, to get coffee, and now it can bring us home from school.

 



Lego my Eggplant!

     After picking up our CSA bounty, we stopped at a local farm for more deliciousness (peaches! apples! blueberries!) where my son spotted a vegetable we'd never seen or tasted before: Turkish eggplant. The fact that this ten-year-old boy insisted on trying some is less surprising than you might think. He also loves turnips and Swiss chard more than candy.
     The Turkish eggplant are the red, tomato-looking items (lower left in photo). Lightly coated in olive oil with a bit of salt and pepper, they were delicious. We also have two eggplant-colored eggplant for a repeat of a Sundays at Moosewood cookbook recipe, Eggplant Marrakesh, one of our favorites.

 

     We often spot these Eastern newts near our home during their red-eft phase. We love our colorful neighbors!

 

     While I headed back to the office, my youngest headed to a Lego camp where he learned about the laws of physics. Here he is tinkering with his motorized space station.

 

     My oldest son (a soon-to-be fifth grader) and I shared some mother-son time and delicious Indian food for lunch today, a rare treat. The boy who loves Turkish eggplant also loves curries and masalas and garlic naan. Surprise, surprise.

 

 

     On campus, where I am now spending much of my time, the banners are waving. Good-bye, summer. Hello, fall!

Saying Farewell to Summer

A Loony Time of Year

 

     My oldest son and I walked to our nearby lake where we were fortunate to be greeted by this solitary loon and the frog below. Loons nest on an island in the lake, so we see them often and hear their warbling calls, and sometimes see their young. While loons are common in northern New Hampshire—places like Lake Umbagog—and further north in Canada, they are not as common this far south and hazards like lead fishing weights have made them a species that is struggling. Loons have been around for 50 million years—relatives of penguins having retained their ability to fly and of albatrosses. Lead fishing tackle and other chemicals have harmed them, along with perhaps issues with the fish supply where they overwinter off the coast of New England and the mid-Atlantic states. This article provides good information on the loons' struggles here in New England and elsewhere:

http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/features/loons-squam-lake-nh

     I count every day that I see or hear a loon a good day. My son, the animal whisperer, remained silent and the bird swam closer. Then he whispered a word I so rarely use, "Perfect!"

 



A Good Mantra

Rock, Paper . . . Leaf, Fish?

 

     My husband and sons spent this perfect "fall" day fishing just down the road. My oldest caught this trout and released it back into the nearby pond, a sort of vindication since only his younger brother had caught one while fishing the Bitterroot River in Montana last summer. Thank you, Mr. Trout, for evening the score . . . even when we don't keep score. Right, boys? It's not a competition, and we don't keep score.

     Read/watch Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, a story with ties to Montana, where we used to live, and New Hampshire, where we live now. Wonderful book and film, two brothers, and some fish, too.

 

 

 

     I spent the better part of the day back with my books and writing, despite my fuzzy, jet-lagged brain, stepping out only to walk the dog. I brought this fall leaf back from our walk. I've only seen this one red leaf and that one yellow schoolbus, but still . . . Perhaps an early fall will bring the "leaf peepers" to New Hampshire soon.

 

Taking a Test Drive?

 

 

     We flew out of New England in the heat of August, and then this school bus pulled in front of me out of nowhere this week. Cool temperatures and this pencil-yellow omen tell me that the start of a school year is approaching. Dissecting the academic schedules of five schools for the four of us requires the skills of a neurosurgeon, which I am not. As much as I love my work, I am always a bit reluctant to say good-bye to the slower days of summer, the abundance of family time, time to write and think (I am NOT implying that I don't think for the rest of the year), and return to my very pleasant and happy hive. Then again, I also hate to turn in my sandals for shoes, but I love boots once they're snuggly on my feet with a pair of Smart Wool socks come winter. "Winter" . . . now that was a word I didn't intend to let slip out of my mouth just yet.

Ribbit!

 

 

     Look who greeted us on top of our somewhat grimy newspaper box! This tree frog, along with a dozen or more red newts, a hummingbird, a pileated woodpecker, and two painted turtles welcomed us home.

Packing It All In

 

 

     Packing it all in on our trip required unpacking it at home. This is the kind of "pocket litter" that makes me smile again.

How do they do that?

 

     The Rube Goldberg machine at Boston's Logan Airport proved entrancing when we arrived after being in transit for more than 24 hours. Having a delay of four hours while mechanics replaced a part of the plane we were on from Paris to Boston made us nervous. The idea of so many moving parts keeping us 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean is enough to make anyone queasy, never mind the mid-flight turbulence that woke us.

La Joie de Vivre

 

 

     Monday (that's lundi for you Francophones), we dashed out of the Aéroport Charles de Gaulle on our 7-1/2-hour layover in Paris and grabbed lunch with a view of Seine River and the Eiffel Tower, the landmark my children most associate with Paris. We'd also hoped to stop at Notre Dame and the Rive Gauche but ran out of time due to work on the RER-C line that caused us to hop onto the Métro and make a few additional stops to get to this famous tower whose elevators entranced my sons.

     Fortunately, my husband and I are familiar with the escargot-like layout of the arrondissements, as well as getting around Paris by Métro and RER. We first traveled to Paris together in 1991. In this pre-Internet, pre-cell phone age, we stayed with friends until we found a flat by looking at a bulletin board at the American Church and landing a place near the Guy Moquet métro stop in the 17th arrondissement. My husband flew home hastily when his mother died a few weeks later, and then I left after a month to begin a new job in Montana, as anticipated. Then we were married in 1995, a couple of months before we left for France. I had a year-long teaching fellowship at the Université de Bourgogne and we spent the following summer in Paris, subletting a friend's flat above a print shop where we could hear the presses begin each morning, again in an area not far from Place de Clichy and the Batignolles area. That all seems a lifetime ago.

     Sharing the world, our beloved far-flung friends, and the places that are special to us with our sons filled my heart with more joy than I can express, a sense that the world and happiness is growing as we bring places (like Prague and Paris) and people (like Manou's Mark, Suzanne, and Lucie; Valérie, Guillaume, and their three children, Ivan, Louise, and Jules; Véra's sister and her Czech family, and the many friends of Mark from Great Britain, Portugal, and beyond) into our lives.

 

 

 

     Even flying into Paris, I thought I detected an Eiffel Tower-like pattern in the trees near the bottom of this photo. Is this like seeing knights and dragons in the clouds after visiting medieval castles? Yes, I started doing that, too.

 

 



 

          Construction on the train lines, routing us through Bir-Hakim on the Métro instead of the Champ-de-Mars on the RER-C line, didn't dampen my sons' spirits. They even spotted Orangina, Orangina-flavored gummy snacks, and Petit Ecolier cookies (best cookies every my oldest declared) in the vending machine below ground, sampling the latter two. The crêpes with chocolate, bananas, and strawberries, a corner staple in Paris, were delicious above ground, too.

 

 

 

 

     We started the day in Prague, ate lunch here at the Eiffel Tower, and got into Boston around midnight, arriving home in New Hampshire at an exhausting 3:15 a.m. with the usual car problems to deal with, a 9 a.m. work meeting for my husband beckoning, a 9 a.m. allergist's appointment for my youngest, and an Eiffel Tower-sized pile of laundry. Voilà, ça vaut la peine!

 

 

 

Félicitations!

 

     We celebrated Manou and Mark's wedding in Prague Saturday and wish them a lifetime of happiness and adventures like those we shared this week. Manou and I shared an office and many adventures when we taught together 17 years ago, and I wish them a future as beautiful as the city in which they were married.

 

 

 

     The wedding was in a gorgeous Baroque garden with a 360-degree view of Prague.

 

 

 

     I shared a moment (and some sushi) in the garden after the ceremony with Manou and Lucie.

 

 

     My youngest looks over the Vrtba Garden, the site of Manou and Mark's wedding.

 

     The Vrtba Garden,  beautiful Baroque terraced garden with balustraded terraces that was designed in 1720, is a gorgeous spot in which to get married.

 



 

     My sons each have their own styles and chose their own clothes for the wedding. My youngest is more khaki-blue blazer traditional. My eldest channels The Beatles, pun intended. With the groom, Mark, being from Great Britain, there were plenty of British friends to assist him. They both have good taste.

 

 

     My youngest son and I were happy to squint into the sun while reclining after the wedding and requisite rolling of all the kids down the lawn (I didn't engage in that and sipped Champagne instead). The day before the ceremony, Friday, had been rainy, so we were happy to see the sun shine for Mark and Manou's day.







     Friday's rain gave way to sunshine for Saturday's wedding, and we walked to the hotel where the reception was held.

     The bride's family shares a laugh during the toasts, speeches, and songs. Manou's parents last visited us when we lived in New York about 15 years ago. It was good to see them again and meet her sister and brother-in-law, too.

 

     We took a train and bus to this waterpark complex, which my oldest son found for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 



     Sunday afternoon meant a relaxing Czech meal in a garden in Ricany with Manou and Mark's family and friends. Tomorrow we leave Prague, have a few hours in Paris, and return to the States. Our sons didn't want to leave their new friends at the end of the afternoon, and it is hard to leave such fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Kde je hrad? (Trans.: Where is the castle?)

     We used a bit of Czech to venture by train outside of Prague to see two royal castles. Karlstejn Castle, founded in 1348, was home to Charles IV, a Czech king and Holy Roman Emperor. Standing in the king's audience hall, in his bedchamber, and standing in the dining hall was majestic.

 



      As part of my ongoing obsession with Prague's doors, I offer this detail from another castle, at the more remote Krivoklat, also home to Charles IV but dating back to the 1100s. It has stunning beauty (as seen below) but also a dark side, a hungering room for starving prisoners to death, an ample array of torture devices from the rack to the iron maiden to dunking cages. The prison was a home, a hunting lodge, a horrible prison, and later the Furstenburg family added a gorgeous library with 53,000 books in many languages (Latin, Czech, Italian, French, Hebrew, and more).

 

 

     Krivoklat: Our boundless sense of adventure led us to a remote, shuttered train station and down little-used trails to this amazing castle.

 

 





     My oldest son has caught my love of doors . . . or else it looks like he's caught something else.

 

 

     After eating some schnitzel and being assured a train would arrive at the abandoned station, we could smile.

 

 

 

      This mural shows the level of the water during a flood of the Berounka River, but even before coming to Prague we were enchanted by Vodnik, the water man from Czech fables, who is seen here. He is protective of rivers but also mischevious. We encountered him in research of the famous Czech marionettes and have seen him, too, in the puppet stores. Last night, we saw Mozart's Magic Flute at the National Marionette Theater with friends of friends from Portugal. The puppets, scenery, and music were brilliant. 

 

 

 

     My three guys on the famous Charles Bridge (Karluv Most), a memorable night.

 



 

     My sons said that the Kafka museum "creeped them out," but they seem to have recovered. His writing is relevant to my dissertation, and the ideas of internal and external topographies and existential spaces in the exhibit intrigued me.

 

 

 

      At the request of my sons, we stopped briefly at the KGB Museum, which "creeped me out." I think they quickly realized that real espionage is not at all like the Spy Kids movies.

 

 

 

     After climbing the Petrin Hill tower, a mini-Eiffel Tower, we played at this playground, which has the same red webbed equipment as the elementary school near our New Hampshire home. Everything is the same . . . and yet very different . . .

 

 



     . . . as seen in this window sign at the KFC down the road (across from McDonald's and Starbucks). We've done our best to eat schnitzel and goulash. Next on the menu . . . tripe soup!

 

 

 

     It's impossible to fit the façade of the Saint Vitus Cathedral, sitting inside the walls of the Prague Castle, into a single frame. The Gothic, neo-Gothic, and Baroque architecture is amazing. I loved the colorful stained glass, and my boys loved the trip into the royal family's crypt. There's no accounting for taste!

 

 

 

     Ducks on the Vlatava River with the Charles Bridge in the background. Swans swam nearby.

 





 

           We have skipped the art museums, but the art came to us. This sculpture by artist-provocateur David Cerny is called Proudy (Piss) involves two men urinating in a puddle with the water spelling out famous quotations from Czech literature. The puddle is shaped like the former Czechoslovakia. My sons were . . .  intrigued!

 

     Tamino, accompanied by his sidekick Papageno, receives the magic flute from the Queen of the Night to aid in Tamino's search for the kidnapped princess Pamina in Mozart's opera. We've worked with Czech, English, French, Latin, and German here. Tonight my youngest said he wished he could stay a whole year in Prague, a true tribute from my most shy son, who sat in the second row between two strangers at the National Marionette Theater's production to get the best view of all the magic Prague has to offer.