Halloween in the US

Unlike England, Halloween is a big deal in the US and it seems to me like everyone in New Jersey loves it even more. It's not my favorite holiday - giving unhealthy treats to random children who knock on your door, but I loved it as a kid, and Olivia and Eliot had been discussing it the whole month of October.

Olivia decided to be a pirate this year after some consideration. Her first choice was Laura Ingalls Wilder, but then after we couldn't find a sunbonnet and she really thought she should have long hair, she switched to a pirate. I was proud of her because she designed the whole costume herself, using things from her dress up box.

Eliot didn't really care to dress up, but wanted to wear his red binoculars to school, so he came up with the idea of a bird watcher. He wore the hat for the pictures, but wasn't too keen on wearing it the whole night.

They feel like they are living the good life now, since they have more candy than they'll see for at least another year. They're so honest about it too, asking us each time before they eat some if it's okay.

The Dangerous Paddling Pool

Across the street from our flat in Cambridge was a a huge park, outfitted with a seasonal paddling pool. When we arrived last September, hearty British children were splashing about in this greenish water from the Cam in various stages of undress, and having a blast. It looked like there was a thin film on the bottom of the pool. There was no lifeguard in sight, and I didn't even want to begin to estimate how many kids had "weed" in it. I was completely disgusted by this pool and preferred not to go near that end of the park. Of course Eliot and Olivia wanted to try it out, but I was not about to let them make a habit of it. It was unsanitary, unsafe and besides it was only 55 degrees out anyway.

As you can see from the photographic evidence, Olivia and Eliot did make it into the paddling pool eventually. By June it was refilled and ready for another season. By June I realized that sitting at the side of the pool, reading my book, was a much better option than explaining, for the umpteenth time, the reasons they couldn't splash around with everyone else. Cross cultural studies often remark that it takes around one year to begin to assimilate to the foreign culture. In my case it was only 9 months.

Food

Once upon a time—1992, to be precise, the first year I lived in England—I entered my college’s dining hall just as dinner was being served. I was hungry, and I dived right in to what was set before me. But after one bite I turned to the student next to me and said, in a voice of outrage and disbelief: “What is this stuff?”

My fellow dinner looked at me quizzically for a moment, then raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “It’s steak and kidney pie.” Observing my continuing consternation—agony, really—he went on: “I’ll eat yours if you don’t want it.” Wordlessly I pushed my plate towards him. Then I gulped some water.

If you’ve never tasted steak and kidney pie—well, some things are beyond words. But take a moment and remind yourself what kidneys do. Yup, that’s right. Now you have a rough idea what steak and kidney pie tastes like.

For years, this little event has lingered in my mind as a symbol of English food in general. (British food, really, since Scotland doesn’t get off the hook here: ever had haggis?) Even the most resolute Anglophile will admit that the English national taste is, well—let’s just say that there’s a country just south of here where they do things a little better. (I’ll give you a hint: it starts with an “F.”)

A few years ago Jamie Oliver, a high-end chef, called English school meals the “laughing-stock of Europe” and went on a campaign to try to get kids to eat better. He got the government to commit millions of pounds to cutting out fat and cholesterol, and offering fresh fruit and vegetables. But at a school in Yorkshire, a number of mums got together and started selling food to students outside. "We go up at break time and take down the orders through the school fence. We then go back at 1pm to deliver the food and give them their change,” said one. "We are now delivering around 50 to 60 meals a day and we have no intention of stopping." The kids’ favorite, aside from hamburgers and fish and chips, is the so-called “Chip Butty:” two pieces of buttered white bread, with chips and ketchup in between.

Anybody who’s stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in this country has encountered one of those breakfasts that the English apparently regard as one of their Major Contributions to Civilization, right up there with Shakespeare and Big Ben. Unless you intervene the night before, and request a “cold breakfast” (and if you do, be prepared for a shocked look from your kind hostess; you might as well have told her you always thought Princess Di was ugly)—unless, I say, you intervene in time, you will be met the next morning by a plate full of the following: two eggs fried until stiff, some sausages, several hunks of bacon (the ham-like stuff we call “Canadian bacon”), some bread that has been toasted and then deep fried in bacon fat and who knows what else until the fibers break down and it looks and tastes like an old sock, a fried tomato (this is the only way the English eat tomatoes; they seem never to have heard of putting one in a salad), and—the pièce de résistance—some canned mushrooms, nuked until lukewarm.

Oh—and instant coffee. Don’t even get me started on the coffee.

Now the first day, or maybe the first two days, you might be feeling game, generous, culturally sensitive, even. So you tuck in. But you’ll notice, if you keep this up for very long, that it really starts to wear you down. You roll out of bed, you swill down some Nescafe, and there, staring up at you, is enough cholesterol to power a small locomotive. With every mouthful you feel your best years slipping away. Every morning there seem to be more mushrooms. And eventually you ask yourself: “must I do this?” And you realize that you’re having one of those existential moments when you’re called upon to stand up for what you believe in. So you stop pretending to like it, and you ask for some cornflakes, and you resign yourself to always being an Outsider. I heard once that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote Nausea after staying at an English B&B for a week. Seriously.

And yet.

We’re eating better here than we do at home. And it’s really quite easy. Every week we get a box of fresh organic fruit and vegetables delivered to our flat. We get this really amazing yoghurt that the kids devour. We get non-homogenized milk, which is remarkably better than the homogenized stuff. We shop at the market in downtown Cambridge, where we can get local produce, fish, fresh bread, and excellent cheese. There’s a butcher five minutes away where we buy our meat. Even the food from the supermarket is better. Because it isn’t pumped full of hormones, a chicken here looks like a chicken, not like one of those Frankenchickens with distended, rubbery chests so typical in the States. None of this is prohibitively expensive—in fact, we spend about the same amount on food here as we do back in New Jersey. As I remarked recently to our friend Katherine when she came to visit, “you don’t come to England for the food.” But, actually, you could.

Scotland - Olivia and Eliot's Favorite Parts

In June we drove through northern England with my parents and up into Scotland. We stayed on a working farm for a week in a little town called Peebles. We were there to experience history first hand - the Romans, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, and Sir Walter Scott. Olivia couldn't wait to get back to our cottage each day to visit the horses. Eliot couldn't wait to go into every gift shop, dress up and see what his parents would buy him. All I can say is that Colin bought him the first foam weapon and the rest is history.

Germany

At the end of May we took a week long trip to Germany. While we were there, we were able to stay with good friends that we had met in Cambridge 5 years ago, Eva, Philip and their boys. They were wonderful hosts and we toured the southwestern bit of the country. We saw castles and Roman ruins and a monastery, not to mention amazing scenery. We also met up with Kathy, who lives right across the street from us in Highland Park. She was visiting her brother in Germany at the same time. We had a lovely afternoon with her family. Germany has so much to see, we will have to go back.

An English Country Fair

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, we decided to set out for the Granchester Fair on our bikes. Granchester is a lovely little village - thatched cottages, an ancient church, 2 pubs and tea gardens. It's just south of Cambridge and you can easily walk or bike there across the fields, as long as you make way for the grazing cattle you are bound to meet in transit.

We arrived without mishap (although 20 some large brown cows in the path meant we had to walk our bikes part of the way) and had a great afternoon. Typical fair events included a Suffolk Punch horse show, sheep shearing, a working dog exhibition, a falconry demonstration, Punch and Judy, and a bunch of re-enactors dressed as knights.

The sheep shearing drew a big crowd of Brits. It was discouraging to hear the average shearer makes 1 pound ($1.60) for every sheep he shears. At his best, the guy doing the demo said he could shear 400 sheep a day, but this is after years of practice and the problem is that in the begining you can't shear many sheep a day, so fewer and fewer young people are learning this trade.

Colin and I were amazed at the falconry demonstration. The strength and beauty of these birds was incredible. Olivia and some other children got a close up view of an Eagle Owl as it flew silently over them.

Eliot wasn't sure what to make of fighting knights. He kept asking, "Is he dead? Is he dead now?" It was tricky to explain the complicated dynamics of re-enactment to him. Both of the kids sat down eagerly for the Punch and Judy show, but after 10 minutes of puppet violence they were done. We moved on. However, they now like to say to one another, "Ow, I bumped me nose again," over and over and over and this brings on gales of laughter, so obviously they thought it was a bit funny too.

Of course, the fair had over priced rides and junky, greasy food, but that wasn't unique to Britain, so we had to skip over it (okay, we did let them go down the inflatable slide and eat french fries, but don't tell).

Cricket

Sometimes when I need a laugh I get a newspaper and read an account of a recent cricket match. It’s an amazing experience, for although it’s written in my native tongue, I can read paragraph after paragraph without understanding a blessed thing. Just to give you a sample, from a recent account in the Times of London:

Praising a player named Bopara: “His straight-driving and leg-side play in general was a delight and despite one instance of a loss of concentration when, half-forward to Sulieman Ben over 40, he ought to have been given left-before out, yet he was utterly untroubled until the final session. Then, perhaps aware of the approaching landmark, and running out of partners, after Broad cut airily, he began to infuse his calculating approach with greater risk.”

Got that? Maybe this guy is a banker?

Also, you may wish to know about someone named Edwards: “Finding his best rhythm after lunch from the Nursery end, no batsman looked at ease against his slingy thunderbolts and he pegged back England each time they threatened to get away. He finished with four wickets but deserved better.”

OK, then. I’m sure he did deserve better. Meanwhile, I’d love to know how to peg someone back with a slingy thunderbolt. Kind of reminds of me Jabberwockey: “’Twas brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” I wonder what would happen if someone just substituted Jabberwockey for the cricket column—would anyone even notice?

In any case, Edwards kept at it, transforming himself, meanwhile, from Jove into a schoolmaster, or possibly a doctor: “In a magical six-over spell from the nursery end, the Boscobel Bullet sent back Cook, Pietersen, for a first-ball blonger, and Collingwood, each batsman undone by a combination of swinging balls and questionable technique that will add weight to the claims that they came into this match ill prepared for the kind of stern examination to which Edwards subjected them.”

Ouch. Clearly you don’t want to be a first-ball blonger. And as for being undone by swinging balls, well, I don’t really want to touch that one.

Finally, since this is England, we need to talk about the weather. The pitch (that is, the field) began “green about the gills and damp to the touch.” (I assume that means it was raining.) But things improved later: “Nash opened the bowling after the break with his filthy left-armers, with two England batsmen set, the sun shining and the pitch now docile.”

Amidst swinging balls, filthy left-armers, first-ball blongers, and Broad cutting airily, we have, at last, a docile pitch. Thank goodness for that.

Paris in the Spring

Happy Easter

Happy Birthday Eliot and Colin

Colin and Eliot celebrated their birthdays at the beginning of April. We were joined by my brother Nathan and sister-in-law, Bethany that week and it was nice to have family around to add to the festivities. For Colin's birthday we all went to the Red Bull Pub, which is about a 10 minute walk away and had pizza.

Eliot had a small party with 4 friends and a Lemon boat cake for his birthday at home. Many of the presents he got make noise (a bike bell, a drum, a playmobil circus set). None of those came from his parents. He also received a 'Like-a-Bike' which is a wooden bike with out wheels. They are common over here and children as small as 2 zoom around on them in the park. The idea is that you learn how to steer and balance on a bike and then graduate up to a regular bike, skipping the training wheel phase. Eliot seemed to get the hang of it quickly and he is now faster than ever.

Castle Acre Priory and Castle Acre Castle

We had a great time when my Mom visited a few weeks ago. We took a day trip into Norfolk and visited 3 different historic sites. The first was a Neolithic flint mine called Grimes Graves. It was in operation around 3000B.C. We donned hard hats (all except Eliot, as he was too small) and climbed down into one of the many shafts they've found and saw the pre-historic tunnels where flint was mined using the antlers of red deer as pick axes. This place was in the middle of nowhere and a bit creepy, I thought. Colin was pretty sure he spotted some Neolithic men loitering about some run down cars just off the road before we entered.

Next was the Norman town of Castle Acre with a Cluniac Priory established in the 11oos. The ruins were impressive and Eliot and Olivia found lots of places to run and hide in. After lunch and a visit to the local church (which had a door big enough for a knight in full armor to ride through on horseback to receive a blessing before battle) we moved on to Castle Acre Castle also constructed in the 1100s. Very little of the castle is left there, but the earth work defenses are quite dramatic. Eliot and Olivia continued their running around while we 3 dashed after them hoping they wouldn't fall into the huge moat or ditch or off a ruined wall.

We stopped off on the way home and picked up groceries (taking advantage of actually having a trunk to carry our groceries home in instead of on our bikes) and made a quick visit to Olivia's school, so she could show it to Grandma. After a quick dinner of frozen pizza we hustled the now very tired kids off to bed. Eliot thanked God for ruins in his bedtime prayer. We continue to be so happy here.

How We Really Kept Olivia and Eliot Happy in Spain

The secret of our success in coaxing our offspring from one cultural moment to the next - rip off rides, playgrounds, ice cream, and let us not forget the old "play with a rotten orange in a public fountain" trick.

Grazalema

A few photos from Grazalema. This seemed to be one of the more prosperous "White Villages" we visited. At least it seemed in a slightly better state of upkeep and it was the one mountain town we found other tourists in. All of us sat around in the plaza and waited out the day's siesta.

Walking the Roman Road

We were hoping to visit Ocuri, the site of a Roman town, but when we got there we found our way blocked by a huge gate, tall chain link fences and barbed wire. The combination of insufficient funding and vandalism had closed it down. We settled instead for a walk down a Roman road between Benaocaz and Ubrique. We wanted to do something specifically Roman since Olivia had studied the Romans this past term in her history class. Eliot found a good walking stick which entertained him, and both of them enjoyed scrambling among the rocks in the pasture on either side of the road--probably more than walking this historical road itself. The pasture was much easier on the feet than the actual Roman road, which is cobbled and tricky footing now. Still, I think it's the oldest road I've ever been on.

The White Villages of Andalucia

My favorite part of our stay in Andalucia were the days we drove east towards the mountains and visited various 'pueblos blancos'. Most of these towns were founded by the Moors, some built on Roman foundations. Most of the buildings are painted white in order to deflect the summer heat. The towns are striking from a distance because you spot them as you round the corner of a mountain road or dip down into a valley and they show up looking like foaming water cascading down the mountain sides.

Our general approach was to park on the outside of the town we were visiting, thus avoiding the narrow, steep streets and unexpected one-way signs, and walk into the towns. After wandering around for a bit soaking up the sun and that town's particular atmosphere, we would rest in the main plaza, bribe our children with ice cream before going on to the next town. We spent time in 5 different towns over the course of 2 days - El Bosque, Grazalema, Zahara, Ubrique, and Benaocaz. The 2 pictures above are from Zahara and the Moorish tower there that we climbed up the hill and peeked into.

Sun and Spain

Andalucia is the southernmost part of Spain. Parts of it get 320 days of sun a year. And having survived a couple of month’s worth of English winter—which isn’t harsh, just very, very, grey—we decided we needed some sun. Europe is full of these wonderful discount airlines that will whisk you anywhere for just a couple of pounds; the one we flew, called Ryan Air, is typical in that there’s no assigned seating—everybody just piles on board and sorts it out. When you’re flying with a family of four, and you want to sit together or at least within shouting distance, it can be a bit stressful—but we managed to secure seats near each other, and last Monday we flew to Jerez (pronounced “Hereth”) a moderately-sized city near the coast known for sherry (“sherry” is actually an Anglicization of “Jerez,” and the English have historically imported tons of the stuff), flamenco dancing, and horses. We didn’t get much experience of the first two—in fact, I don’t really like sherry, and flamenco dancing usually happens after midnight—but we got the third, in the form of the Andalucian School of Equestrian Arts. This doesn’t mean pictures of horses, but rather the art of getting horses to do things they don’t naturally want to do, like arch their necks in a particular way and dance on their hind legs. We watched them training some of the horses. We knew Olivia would love it, and she did. It’s all very beautiful, and stylized, and, well, Spanish.


This the part of the Spain that was under the control of various Islamic dynasties from about 750 to 1350, so there’s an amazing blend of architectural styles and cultural traditions still visible. In fact, Andalucia is probably one of the few places on earth were Christian, Jewish, and Muslim peoples lived together in relative peace. Jerez has a modest—though still impressive—complex called the Alcazar (a much smaller version of the famous Alhambra in Granada), which contains a Moorish castle and baths, a mosque, and a beautiful garden that’s been restored to what they think it looked like a thousand or so years ago. On our last day we spent a peaceful afternoon there, basking in the sun and absorbing the feel of the place. It’s striking to be reminded that while the Islamic dynasties in southern Spain were installing running water and heated floors in Cordoba, creating extraordinary works of art, and reading Aristotle, the rest of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, basically grunting at each other and eating with their hands. Certainly Eliot was impressed when I told him all this.

Snow in Cambridge

Last week it snowed, and everybody freaked out. London pretty much shut down; Colin's parents, who were staying in London at the time, reported that they couldn't get any food, the buses and the tube shut down, and all the shows in the West End canceled. Well, it was the biggest snowfall in 18 years, all five inches of it. Colin walked in to town on Monday and came back shaking his head: our bank was closed, and the sign in the window said: "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to open the bank today." Given the current financial meltdown here, Colin said he thought maybe the bank had run out of money. But he looked around and nobody was rioting. Just a few inches of snow, and a few kids throwing snowballs.

There's a general sense of having survived a traumatic event, like living through the blitz. The normally emotionally reserved British got all emotive about things, too, especially on the radio. The local BBC radio station turned into a massive self-help exercise, with the announcers pleading with people to "tell us your story." How were they all managing? Where were the trouble spots? Had they gotten to work? We deeply needed to know.

No one owns a snow shovel in this town. In fact, I took an informal survey of my British friends and none of them had ever even seen a snow shovel for sale - anywhere. I had to describe it: "It's a shovel with a wide squared edge, used for shoveling large amounts of snow. No, not a garden shovel. These have a flat edge. No, not a spade, much larger, with a flat edge. No, not a trowel. You want to pick up the snow with it, not weed with it." You get the picture. The end result of the snow shovel shortage was that all the side walks became slushy and then froze, becoming absolutely impossible to navigate, especially when holding a 3 year olds' mittened hand. Especially when your 3 year old thinks sliding on the ice is really what walking is all about. We did manage to get Eliot to and from nursery without any major mishaps, just slogged through the slush and slid through the icey bits, and put our boots under the radiator to dry out when we got home. We were both wishing we had wellies!

What's interesting though is that people just accept this mess of slush and ice. None of the walks are cleared and so people will have to walk on ice for weeks, but instead of doing anything about it people just carry on. The circumstances are just beyond their control, I guess. On my way to yoga class last Tuesday night, I almost fell a couple of times on some black ice along the sidewalk behind the church. When I left my class an hour later, I decided to walk on the crunchy snow so as not to fall. Ahead of me, 3 British women walked single file, carefully placing each foot on the ice-covered walk. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch! I walked confidently by, stepping on the snow covered lawn. As I passed them one of them said, "Why didn't we think of that?" And I said (and thought later I really shouldn't have), "Because you are all well trained British women and when the signs say 'Keep off the Grass' it's hard to change."

Ely with Olivia - A Perfect Day Trip from Cambridge

Last week Olivia and I took the bus to the cathedral town of Ely. The history of the cathedral is particularly interesting to us because the original monastic community there was begun by a woman, a Saxon princess named Etheldreda . 1400 years ago Etheldreda married to a local prince and was given the Isle of Ely as a dowry. At that time, Ely was surrounded by marshes and accessible only by boat. Etheldreda’s first husband died and she married another prince, Egfrid. Seven years later Etheldreda had a vision and wished to become a nun. Egfrid released her from the bonds of marriage and she joined a monastery, but before long, Egfrid changed his mind and came to collect her. Etheldreda fled to the Isle of Ely and took refuge there. She founded a double monastery for monks and nuns in 673, but died six years later of a throat tumor brought on by the bubonic plague. When her wooden coffin was reopened in 695, her body had been preserved and the tumor healed. Thus the already revered woman became saintly. For 200 years the monastery flourished, but in 869 the Danes came and burned and pillaged everything.

In 970 the ruined monastery was reopened and in 1081 the work on the cathedral began. Many of the materials used in building the cathedral were brought to the site by boat. The cathedral is a wonderful mix of architecture from Norman all the way through to Victorian. Two unique features are the Lady Chapel completed in 1349 and the largest of its kind and the wooden octagonal lantern.

The Lady Chapel would have originally been brightly painted with beautifully colored stained glass and adorned with statues of saints. All this was destroyed in 1541 after the dissolution of the monasteries. Now, it is completely white with an striking statue of Mary in a bright blue gown, arms reaching towards the heavens, responding to God’s call. We both like the statue very much, but some people have criticized it for not being reverent enough.

The octagonal, wooden lantern was constructed after the central Norman tower fell in 1322. Instead of rebuilding a square tower a monk named Alan de Walsingham had the idea of opening the space up even more and created an eight-sided tower topped with a striking combination of 200 tons of wood and lead.

As we walked through the chapel pointing out scenes to each other in the stained glass windows, we both whispered. It does fill you with awe and wonder to be in such a place, marked and visited for more than a thousand years. As we left, we walked down the street and through the old porta, the huge stone gatehouse that you would have entered to get to the monastery originally. In a pasture on what used to be the site of the medieval vineyard, we watched 3 shaggy ponies munching on parsnips .