Christmas in Cancun

Christmas in Mexico = great times swimming, snorkeling, eating gobs of badly matching food, drinking terrible wine, shopping in vain for the perfect souvenir, painting ceramics, happening upon dear friends from “back home”, perusing ancient Mayan ruins, talking forever and working our evenings around the "entertainment", such as it was. Johanna realized a childhood dream and swam with the dolphins, replete with “dolphin push”. Daniel bombed around Cozumel on a scooter. Maddy’s painted ceramic outshone the ones you could buy. Ed and Nathan rented a boat aiming to find coral. Millie read two books. As for the “all inclusive” part ...... well, we'll let it go as "been there, done that"! Unceasing din. Noisy music piped in everywhere, water aerobic instructors hollering through titanic speakers. A few times Ed and I got to comparing it to Bucharest, where the "house music" whacks away in most public places! I guess the sound of waves and the birds doesn’t quite cut it for the savvy tourist. We did have very good flights, smooth and uneventful except for the Mexican airport guys who tried to tell us that there was no airport in Bucharest. For a minute there, we contemplated telling that to our school board. But we are back, luggage and all, awaiting our next adventure.

Christmas in Romania

"O Tannenbaum" or “O brad frumous”:
Romania loves Christmas and celebrates it to the fullest. Bucharest is aglow with lights and ribbons and decorated trees throughout. The trees are hung with anything from wrapped boxes to stuffed animals. Massive garland is usually strung from top to bottom rather than ‘round and ‘round, some symmetrically and carefully laden, others more haphazard. Every Piata has its own décor, making each easily identifiable for drivers still figuring out the city. All are beautiful and blue seems to be the favourite colour.



"Here We Come A’ Wassailing":
At 8:00 a.m. on December 24, we were aroused by a sharp knock at the door. In his non-dressed state, Ed peeked through the peephole, and beheld ---- carolers! Four young men, occasionally on key, stood in the apartment vestibule outside our door and favoured us with Romania’s best-loved carol, “Dimineata lui Craciunu”. (Tomorrow is Christmas day.) In the next couple of hours, we determined that this was indeed a Romanian custom, as they were only the first of a string of carolers, all singing the same song (!), all expecting favours of money or food in return. This however, proved to be the mild version of the custom. From our fourth floor apartment windows, we became aware of large bands of roving well-wishers, going house to house in the early morning hours. Singing is only part of the tradition, which also involves great banging on drums, pipes of all kinds, and raucous shouting. The cacophony set up a bellering and baying of stray dogs the like of which we’ve yet to see surpassed. These revelers are cross-generational, all of them dark-skinned (gypsies?), many dressed in red, with some of the kids in complete bearskins, head to tail. We are told that some of them sing rather well. This revelry reminded us of the tales of the Brummtopfers of our ancestry.

"Dimineata lui Craciunu" (in tune): Christmas Eve at the Athenaum : An evening of Romanian carols sung by ”Preludiu”, one of Romania’s leading choirs

Although we were in a receptive mood for an evening exactly like this, we were hard pressed to think of another choir as fine as the one we heard tonight. These rich harmonies, warm voices and divine tuning, sung from memory with most heartfelt faces, proved that all the awards in the world have not wearied these singers. They finished the concert with an audience sing-along, including “Chingle Bellss”, which got the most applause of all!

“Oh Bring us Some Figgy Pudding":
Supper at Caru cu’ bere was nothing to write home about, although the setting and the entertainment that came with it offset the food quite nicely. We should have stuck with the figgy pudding.



"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day":
At 11:00 p.m. we attended the service at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which proffered more Romanian and German carols, spiced with pipe organ. By midnight there was standing room only; the community of worshippers arriving to celebrate the mass spilled out into the street. From 11:50 to midnight the bells rang nonstop.

"Joy to the World":
7:00 a.m: As we made our way across our vast apartment to call our kids, the phone rang! They had “beat us to it”, and we all talked at once for about half an hour. They were celebrating Christmas Eve together, just like we always did, with gifts and games and encircling each other to say nice things on purpose. If your morning coffee can have a “spring in its step”, ours did today. As for us, our “no gifts this year" promise to each other held up in its usual way. Millie just happened to have picked up a “Kleinigkeit", upon which Ed was obliged to extract the “Kleinigkeit’ that HE had just happened to pick up also. And as usual, the "trifle" that Ed had got for Millie was much nicer (and bigger) than the one she had got for him, he protesting all the while that it's for "both of us"!!! Ah, tradition.....

"O du Froeliche":
This was the opening hymn of the service at the Evangelische Kirche (Lutheran) this morning. The sermon, in clear and (to us) surprisingly comprehensible German, compared the accounts of the Christmas Story in Luke and John. It was lovely to hear the story read in the language in which we first learned it. It was nostalgic.




“Bring me flesh….”:
Noon: And now we were treated to a feast, the likes of which Good King Wenceslas himself would have admired. Christmas dinner consisted of the finest flavours surely to be had in the city. The best part? The beef! Our declaration begat the curiousity of the waiter (Romanians don’t eat much beef), and a discussion ensued covering a plethora of topics which included the farm and my beef-producing brothers back home. The waiter was partial to saying, “Wow-wow!!"
"We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"
As Christmas day in Romania draws to an end, somewhere it is just dawning. Our hearts are full as we send our thoughts, good wishes and hugs out to our friends and families. May “auld acquaintance” not be forgot, and may you experience many blessings in the New Year ahead! Against the night sky, we can see brilliant fireworks as the celebrations continue.

Crăciun Fericit!
Millie and Ed

Istanbul

This is the city to travel to if you want to open a floodgate of conversation with the folk you happen to be talking with at the time. Well-traveled people acknowledge Istanbul as near the top of the list of cities not to miss. Having now been there, we keenly agree, although we are hardly an authority on any aspect of it, except maybe how to ignore a hawker!

We had all of three days (!) and barely skimmed the surface of what this great city has to offer its visitors. Nor did we spend enough time delving into its extraordinary history in advance, particularly as relates to past opulent Empires still evident in the architecture, the mosques and the bazaars. Istanbul is the only city in the world that served as the capital to three major empires—Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman. It the second largest city and third largest metro area in Europe.

A friend from school had seen to it that our hotel not be in the tourist-ridden Sultanhamet area. Once we visited this old section of the city however, we were sorry that we had listened to him! What an adventure!
On the other hand, had we not been “across the strait”, we might not have appreciated the smooth and unruffled manner in which Istanbul moves its millions of people. All public transportation is fast, effortless, on time, and uses the same system of “tokens”. Remember that we are comparing all these cities to Bucharest.

Among the great sights, sounds and smells that Sultanhamet offers are the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Grande Bazaar and the spice bazaar. We awoke to the prayer calls that are piped into every corner of the city via public address system five times a day.

It is astonishing to stand in the Hagia Sophia that, for over 900 years, was the most important church in Christianity. It was commissioned as a cathedral in the 6th century and remained that way until the 15th century, when it was converted into a mosque by Mehmet II. In 1934 the Turkish Republic declared it a museum. The mix of features of cathedral and mosque bestows a peculiar aura to this building that juxtaposes incredible Byzantine mosaics, icons and marble columns with a mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) and Islamic calligraphy inscriptions on the dome from the Ottoman period.

The Blue Mosque was constructed in 1609 as an Islamic rival to the Hagia Sophia. We arrived just before eleven o’clock prayers. Alongside the building, men were washing their feet under the waterspouts. We were expected only to remove our shoes. The interior, one of the finest examples of Ottoman architecture, is decorated with thousands upon thousands of blue and white Iznik tiles embellished with traditional Ottoman flower patterns. Inside we heard a sermon chanted by the Imam, and then we had to leave.

Some would say that if you haven’t visited the Grand Bazaar, you can’t claim to know Istanbul. We’ll not soon forget this labyrinth of 65 twisting streets crammed with more than 4,000 shops! Endless arrays of carpets, jewellery, textiles, clothing, candy, tea, ceramics, etc. etc., become the object of that great institution called bargaining that will release either the beauty or the beast in the tourist. Here again, we walked over streets that have been teeming for centuries, when this very area became the centre of trading during the Ottoman period.

Millie will begin with “How to talk to a vendor at the Grande Bazaar”:

Vendor: (proferring a boxed set of perfumes stamped “Chanel”,”Givenchy”, etc..) Lady, lady. Hey lady, you would like thees perfume ..…very naheees. Like you lady. Very beautiful like you, lady… hey, lady!! Only 50 lira.

Lady Millie: No thank you, I don’t wear perfume.

Vendor: For you lady, low prahees, 40 lira, lady. Very beautiful, good quality, lady. For you nahees prahees.

M: That’s fine, but you see I don’t wear perfume, so the price doesn’t matter…

V: (interrupting): Ahhhh, Lady, ver-r-r-ry good prahees, for you—30 lira.

M: (less “lady”-like now): Well sir, I hope you can sell it to someone else for that sir, because you’re not going to have any luck with me! Sir! (laughing)

V: (follows suit with the laughing ‘cause that just might be the way to go…) Lady, for you 15 lira! Best prahees.

M: (trying not to look at the boxes in spite of her curiousity to see if all those perfumes are spelled correctly) Well that’s probably more like it but you see, I don’t wear it.

By now, the vendor has tailed Millie far from his original roost, and he scuttles back whence he came. He finds her again later. The same box of ill-fated scents are down to 10 Lira!

Millie: If you keep this up, you’re going to have to give it to me!

Vendor looks puzzled.

M: (on a roll) But guess what, I won’t take it. Know why? I ---- don’t ---- want ----- it!!! . (She chooses a laugh that borders on the hysterical. The vendor is taken aback and turns on his heel. They do not meet again.)

Of course, to respond to the vendors is entirely optional, but if you’re at all in the mood, it can be great fun. They are not all as pushy as this guy, and many of them are entirely good-natured and probably hopelessly bored. But if they see that you’ve just been in the neighbouring store, they will insist on having their turn. This is not to say that we didn’t buy anything. We did. Even rugs. We were prepared in advance for that undertaking however, as Ed will tell you.

I’ll take over. I think that encounter with the ersatz perfume huckster plum barely scratches the surface. Now, let’s see what kind of stamina I had. When I finally found her, Millie’s eye had been captured by a scarf shop, and she’d just settled on a price per scarf for some really serious quantity gift buying. I periodically ducked in and out of this shop, monitoring the progress of this lengthy task. I must have exuded husband-in-waiting pheromones as my patient ennui remained quite undisturbed by the ever vigilant shopkeepers who hovered just outside their tiny premises, casting about for potential suckers for their wares, with an always ready and smiley “Excuse me sir, where are you from?” or, when ignored, “Guten Tag mein Herr, kommen Sie herein!” I flatter myself and my international attitude with the fact that time and again I was mistaken as German, Danish or miscellaneous Scandinavian, whereas in Bucharest, I seem to have American writ large all over me. But I digress. When Millie’s dealings were all but wrapped up, we made a pact to meet at the entrance of the bazaar in five minutes. I guess my listlessness was now gone, having a concrete destination in a finite time frame. Gone as well was my erstwhile curtain of untouchableness. Out of nowhere, a salesman swooped upon me, promptly found a chink in my armour and we entered into an agreement that we would “just look” into his “very” special carpet store. I warned him that I had 5 minutes maximum, but he insisted that was PLENTY time to “just look”. OK, where is it? As he took off at a gallop, making sure I was following, I protested that we had but 5 minutes. “Just around the corner!” he shouted, all at the run. Actually, 7 or 8 corners! I had the foresight to memorize the landmarks as we ran along. At last, there it was, a carpet shop like the hundreds of others, with spectacular inventory, like the hundreds of others. He barked a few Arabic orders to his underling, who brought out carpet after carpet, rolling them out to my feet, one after the other, with the practiced grace of someone to the manner born. “Tea?” he offered. “I only have 5 minutes!” I protested yet again. “Do you prefer the reds, or would you like to see more tribal patterns?” Eight more dazzling carpets in rapid succession, in spectacular array. “I’m sorry, I really do need to go now. My 5 minutes are up.” “What??!” he protests, genuinely dismayed, “Your wife gives you 5 minutes to buy a carpet???!!” Any defense would have been futile, so I wished him a good day, as I made my hasty retreat to the appointed rendezvous.


Shortly after this, we arranged to meet a bona-fide carpet dealer who came highly recommended by friends who have the real thing to show for their troubles. The carpets were bought after much apple tea, wandering conversations and an overnight sleep! Our “souvenirs” pictured here, give our Bucharest apartment a warm and friendly touch and serve to remind us of a wonderful trip.

Backpacking

HOW TO PICK UP YOUR KIDS FROM SCHOOL

a. Send the driver: At the end of the school day, the AISB parking lot jams up with every stripe of Mercedes, lovely BMWs, top-end black sedans and massive SUVs. (Who knew that Porsche, BMW and Audi would find a need to build one? Or that anyone in crowded Bucharest would find a need to own one?) Soon the lobby fills with men with no necks, generally disinterested large Romanians who seem to have all the time in the world to pick up their kids from school. Of course they are all talking on cell phones, but what Romanian is not! How did all these guys get their money, I wonder, for vehicles like that, a school like this, and leisure to pick up your kids in the middle of the afternoon? Since then it has been borne in on me that these are not dads at all, but drivers and bodyguards of the kids that attend here. The actual dads are out big-business-dealing it in sundry world metropolises. Hence the Porsches, this school, the drivers (the nannies, the maids the housekeepers….) the list goes on.

b. Give your kid a cell phone, and have him call the driver himself. One of these kids (age 15), whose family came out of the post communist chaos not too badly, owns a not-too-shabby Maserati Quattro, replete, of course, with driver.

c. Give your kid subway fare to take the metro and then the local bus home. This is the reality for most of our local Romanian scholarship students.

d. Here is the last word in how to pick up your kids: Phone ahead to the guards to be sure the school gates will open for you just as you come roaring into the school yard in your SUV accompanied by an unmarked dark vehicle with dual flashing blue lights atop it. Have five men in dark glasses and suits get out and methodically look around. (Think 'nerves of steel'; we've seen it before in the movies.) Have one of them walk over to the guards in the gate house, and perform the universal "everything's cool" gesture, that is, casually light a cigarette as you walk. Have two of the suits open the SUV trunk and throw in the back packs of the 2 kids that arrive, open the doors for the kids to enter, have the remaining four men take a slow last look around, get back into both vehicles and drive back out through the gates, blue lights still flashing, leaving the cigarette man chatting to the guards. No analysis here; just one of our every-day scenarios.

But do I feel guilty for having “made” my kids walk home from school every day? Not one little bit.

- Ed

Incredible Italy

We have returned from our magical week in incredible Italy. Its slightly rocky beginnings in Milan assured us that things could only improve (…waiting for our host to evict the ne'er-do-well who was still occupying our bed, leaving our bags to be watched by Giuseppe at the "desk" who assured us of his honesty by waving an impressive hunting knife while pointing in the direction of our precious belongings…..) Some Italian beers and Focaccia prepared us for our tromp through the streets of Milan. The first thing that we saw was a car burst into flames. Have we walked into the set of “Godfather V”?

Italy remains a vivid memory upon which we plan to draw for a very long time, which is why the travelogue is written in the present tense! We have many wonderful pictures to add, and will let our readers match our written highlights as follows.
Milan:
We arrive in Milan on Saturday with great enthusiasm and one small backpack each. For this we are grateful in ensuing waits among train stations and hikes to hotels. Giuseppe, our one-star host, turns out to be a loquacious enthusiast for all things Italian, in particular Cinque Terre, after which we will supposedly "never want to go home". He makes a very fine breakfast cappuccino.

The Armani, Versace and Gucci shops in the square don’t hold a candle to Milan’s Duomo that towers brilliantly in the sunshine above the rabble of the crowd in the market. We hear a Mass there at 12:30 on Sunday. We carry on to stand in front of La Scala, where Millie starts to drool. And what will the chances be of securing a ticket-any-ticket for Don Giovanni next Saturday, we ask at the ticket office. Absolutely none; this information is delivered in a style to which we become accustomed over the next few days --– with haste and finality, tsak-tsak-tsak! We retreat to a lovely outdoor café supper where we share the air with two effusive Irishmen who have just bought new blue jeans at Versace’s. The jeans are full of rips and holes that would have had our moms at the mending machine for hours.

We know that Milan houses Da Vinci's "Last Supper" in the church of St. Maria della Grazia. We also know that access to this painting is available only by purchasing tickets in advance --- three months in advance, as it turns out. We walk to the church anyway, and it’s a breathtaking edifice. An off-work official notices our interest and offers to see what he can do. He finds us two tickets. Because we are not with a tour group, we enter the refectory alone. We stand in front of “The Last Supper” for a very long time. We are initially astonished at the size of the mural, and then we deliberate on the light and shadow, on the energy in the bodies, the character in the faces…. It is a stirring experience and oddly, I feel close to tears. How remarkable that art can move us in this way.

On Monday we are on our way to Cinque Terre, armed with a fine picnic lunch that we anticipate enjoying on the train as we speed through the hills of Italy. The train is packed. We sit tightly knee to knee, across from fellow passengers who seem less than interested in our company. The Italian girl by the window talks loudly on her cell after scarfing her meal of loud crackers, prosciutto and chocolate. The hefty fellow that she ousted to gain her rightful seat is hopelessly uncomfortable. She closes the curtains. Our picnic cheese in the overhead bin starts to stink.
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Cinque Terre is many wonderful things, but mostly it is an escape from all things metropolitan. Who could tire of the jaunts from village to village, alternating between paths along the turquoise Mediterranean and those over hill and dale, among the olive and lemon groves, vineyards and sheep cotes, squeezing in through narrow passageways among the homes of the villagers. Some of the trails are rugged and extremely difficult. We meet only a very few “vacationers” on those, and are thankful to be halfway fit. We are in high spirits about the sunny, hot weather. We are also happy for the picnic items in our packs – yesterday’s cheese, foccacia and a half bottle of great wine. In our three days there, we stay in a pretty room in Vernazza, where our "conversation" with the proprietor is carried out amidst charades and chuckling. We eat the best seafood and biggest prawns we've ever seen in quaint taverns in Monterosso. Ed goes swimming in the Mediterranean. We take a boat ride to view the villages of Cinque Terre from the sea. They seem to be hanging from the very cliffs. We buy an original painting, a view of Vernazza, from a sidewalk artist. We think of Daniel as we listen to a guitar-playing busker in the train station. We meet wonderful people on the trails and in the trains, sharing our experiences, writing down their advice... We are surprised at the number of American tourists.


Thursday: Florence
Florence is crawling! This we hadn’t expected, the sidewalks are packed and jostling is not out of order. We find cheap lodgings right downtown, doff our backpacks and go for a stroll. It threatens rain. We eat more foccaccia and pizza and decide to take in a comedy. It’s a mime send-up of the Baroque era ----plays, operas, etc. Millie wishes Johanna were there so they could go into hysterics together.

On Friday, we are told that the Uffizi Museum is booked, but we remember our experience at the Last Supper. And indeed, we crowd into a cue for tickets. “This time of year—no problem!!” pronounces the guard. We spend the better part of the day in awe in front of Raffaels, Rembrandts, Botticellis and Durers. The Da Vinci exhibition is also part of this gallery, and we realize we can’t get through it all. We move on to the National Art Museum to view Michelangelo’s statue of David. Our marvelous adventure continues to surprise and astonish us.

We walk along the Ponte Vecchio on our way to a concert in St. Margaret’s English Church. Ed takes pictures of Millie standing beside unthinkably expensive jewelry in stores supposedly reminiscent of the Medici days. Millie will have to be content with hanging the picture around her neck. The concert is delivered by an ebullient, tightly-wound tenor with an arbitrary sense of timing, accompanied by a pianist whose improvisations alone are worth the price of admission. However, the same slaphappy technique is visited upon his classical piano solo pieces, some of which Madeline has also played. His renditions were one-dimensional to say the least, mostly consisting of beating the piano to death! He does favour us with Maddy-style final chords that lift him right off the piano bench and into a bow upon which the audience cheers. BUT (and I know how Maddy hates it when I say things like this) I honestly prefer her interpretation with its subtleties that give the thrashing parts so much more meaning. There are chocolates at intermission.

Back to Milan:
We arrive back in Milan by train on Saturday. It is 3:30. Our bravura brings us once again to the ticket office of La Scala. There seems to be some excitement among a little knot of people, tightly jammed into a circle facing inward. We crowd around and see that the centre of the hubbub is a little bald man, writing down names. It doesn’t take long to “put 2 and 2” together and we become numbers 122 and 123 on the list to see Don Giovanni. We soon learn that our sincerity will be tested, as we must come back at 5:00 to receive our tickets. Come back? No, no, we will stand right there, even if it’s til 7:00!! We stay. Everybody stays. More people come, and more and more, forming an Italian cue that consists of something akin to an apple press. We have a great conversation with an Australian and an Israeli who are traveling together and in no time, it’s 5:30. Now I am truly thankful for my backpack, which provides some space from the merciless pushing. The little bald man is now at the height of his clout and loving every second of it. He is joined by a smiling fellow whom we presume has the tickets. Wrong. He has little pink slips with numbers on them --- coupons, if you will. All the names are now read in order, and this is worth the wait alone. Our little friend has great fun with the pronunciation of our names and we laugh along as we collect coupons #122 and #123. There is angst as names are read and no one comes forward. Someone turns up late. He doesn’t get a coupon. We maintain our post. At 6:00 our two “hosts’ are joined by a woman who turns out to be the barker. Literally. As she shouts the numbers in Italian, we press into the ticket office to exchange our coupons for the real thing --– tickets to La Scala. There is great rejoicing among all 140 of us who have secured such a windfall. We feel like a family. And now we return to Giuseppe. Who wouldn’t? We have SO MUCH to tell him.

In our jeans and shiny faces, we are in good company in La Scala’s peanut gallery where one risks life and limb hanging over the rail to see the stage. But ahhhhhhh... the VOICES….. Millie nearly cries. And the acoustics are beyond description as methinks we don't have "such' in Canada. The orchestra --- well, the orchestra was perfect. The subtleties, the dance, the drama, all these musicians are in love with their art. Oh my goodness. The evening ends with a glass of wine on a sidewalk in full view of Milan’s Duomo at night. Are we dreaming?

Happy Thankgiving!

Hello there!

Thought I'd send a quick hello to accompany this new round of pictures. We thought of home as we picnicked on tomato sandwiches by the Danube River, thinking we'd rather be sampling three kinds of church potato salad and pie! As it was, we had to share the air with greasy riverboats, dogs and dumpsters, so anything more delectable would have been lost on us. A romantic picnic in a shady nook at the Danube will have to wait for another trip. We were happy to find this bench. However, last Sunday's trip into the country west of Bucharest offered up some great photo opportunities, as you will see in the post below. The final picture here is a typical sight from our balcony.

We are headed into Week 8 at school, after which AISB takes a week holiday. We have decided to visit Italy on this first "vacation", which will take us to Milan and Cinque Terre. Writing those words from this vantage point seems at one time both natural and surreal.

Tomorrow the Canadian teachers will wish each other a happy thanksgiving on their way to class. Mind you, students in Grades 3,4 and 5 are writing standardized tests for the next two days, which means that I don't do any teaching at all! So I get to pretend that I'm having Thanksgiving Monday "off" as usual. This is one of the perks of being a specialist, haha.
Maybe tomorrow's cafeteria menu will include chicken. We will choose it and pretend it's turkey. So here's to great times around your tables this weekend with family and friends. We are thankful for all the wonderful people that bind us together in any circumstance, even halfway across the world. God bless you, every one!

Love, Millie (Ed is already in bed after a day on the road. There are no "Sunday drivers" in Romania.)