We Are Home
Wednesday 01/06/2010 1:51 PM
Coming home was strange. Stranger than coming back to the US. Walking through the house kind of felt like walking through a dream. We both moved quietly from room to room, even checking out the basement, and then we ended up sitting together on the first few stairs leading back up to the rest of the house. We didn't say anything for a minute or two, but the loudest question in my mind was, "What now?"
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Christmas in Florida
Wednesday 01/06/2010 1:19 PM
When we got into Florida at 7:30 pm, it felt like 1:30 am to our bodies. Nevertheless, after loading up the luggage, we went to Village Inn to get an omelette for me and crepes for Alex. Village Inn has, by far, the best omelette I've ever encountered, and our Florida tradition is to have our first Tallahassee meal there every time we visit. After our breakfast-dinner, we drove through Oven Park to look at the Christmas lights, and then to Peter's were we were reunited with Freya and Calvin. We met Freya in the backyard since we knew she'd do "the happy dance" she does when anyone she recognizes comes home, and when she's really excited, she becomes a spinning canine fountain. When Peter brought her into the backyard, though, she eyed us cautiously and kept her distance for a few seconds before the recognition set in. Then she looked back and forth between Alex and me a few times like she was making sure it was really us. We had left her, afterall, five months earlier, and in her mind, we were probably gone for ever. Once she realized who we were, though, she was wiggling and spinning as we'd expected.
We stayed up a little longer to visit with Peter and Candy and get settled in, and then crashed. We all figured that jetlag woould entice us to sleep late on Christmas morning, but Alex and I were wide awake by, I think, 7 the next morning. I stalled him as long as I could and then he just HAD to go wake up Peter and Candy so we could open presents:
Once the coffee was brewing, he got to look for what Santa had left him. He went to the tree, looked right past the unicycle in front of it with a red bow, and started shuffling through the presents to see which ones said, "From Santa." Candy and I watched in amazement, asking, "But Santa's presents aren't usually wrapped, are they? Are you sure there isn't anything else?"
He DID finally spot it, though (roll eyes here). And then the present opening commenced. Freya's stocking had and elf hat, which she tolerated long enough for me to get this photo:
Peter and Candy had matching tshirts:
And Peter found Rausch chocolate in his stocking, which proves that Santa exists, since Shannon curiously wasn't able to find it ANYwhere in Frankfurt.
Alex with the Lego plane Grandma sent ...
... and looking like he's got some seriously mischievious plans in mind for the erector set from Grandpa:
Freya, my much-simpler kid to buy for, was perfectly content with her new tennis ball, and Calvin was just happy to have his boy back:
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A few days later, Heidi drove up for a quick visit, which obviously meant it was going to be a Wii Rockband night:
The next day, we spent some time at Lake Ella before Heidi headed back. We climbed a big ole tree by the lake and Alex practiced balancing on his unicycle:
And then it was a great lunch with Gil, who was both my and Peter's most influential high school teacher (I don't think I'm overstating the situation when I say that this man saved our lives back then), and afterwards, packing up for the long drive back to Ohio.
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One Night in Frankfurt
Wednesday 01/06/2010 12:07 PM
We're back in Ohio and both of us are back in school, but I still haven't finished this blogging spree. To say that I'm reluctant to do so is an understatement. But as fine a country as Montenegro is, I don't think it's right to just leave you hanging at the airport. We flew to Frankfurt on the 23rd and spent the night. I told Alex in advance that I'd planned a Frankfurt surprise for him, and once we got settled in our hotel room, we headed out. We took a taxi to a ceramics shop I'd read about and then told him we could walk to the surprise from there. I took him to an indoor market and told him this was the surprise: wasn't it cool? all these different stalls with authentic German products? how cool was that?
He tried to hide his initial disappointment and said, "Yeah," but I know he was wondering why I was acting so excited when we'd explored these in nearly every country we'd visited. So we wandered the stalls, sampled lots of goodies, bought a few things to bring home, and gawked at the meat selections:
Alex headed down the stairs excited to see fish and then slowed near the bottom when he saw the guy in the background, pick one out of the tub and clean it (Merry Christmas!):
When we got back to the street, I told him that the market wasn't the real surprise and that I would have to blindfold him for the walk around the corner to the real deal. He was more than a little self-conscious, and excited, and confused as I realized that the surprise wasn't actually "around the corner," but around the corner and down a couple of blocks. We had to walk through a pretty crowded pedestrian mall, passing a couple of street musicians along the way, which just added to his disorientation:
Once I got him positioned in front of the Lego store we'd visited on our first trip to Frankfurt, though, I took the blindfold off and told him that I was giving him a Lego shopping spree for Christmas. He was ecstatic. He's been watching Lego building videos on youtube and cruising the Lego website for new products for months.
I set up camp in a kid-sized chair next to a building table while he shopped. Of course, it was a very serious process and took lots of deliberation. We switched from one huge lego box and a couple of small ones to a pile of several lego boxes and back to the big one again several times.
Finally, he settled one one large Lego set and two smaller ones:
Afterwards, we found a place for schnitzel and streudel, and Alex was delighted to find HEINZ ketchup for the first time in months:
On our way back to the hotel, we found the spot where the Frankfurt Christmas market had been. Earlier, I'd planned that we could go there as well as the Lego store, but then I learned that the last night of the market was the night before the one we spent in Frankfurt. The tree was still lit, though:
The next morning, we flew out to Charlotte, North Carolina ... and then Tallahassee to be reunited with Freya, Calvin, and Peter & Candy.
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