Thanksgiving with family

November is a very busy month in our family. First there was the culmination play at a Japanese Class.

Then Calder had his fourth birthday. He made the cupcakes for the family party.

A few days later he had a Spiderman themed party for all of his friends in his own backyard.

All 6 of us went to the UCLA - YALE Basketball game. We were known as an interfaith family, since almost all of us were wearing gear from both teams. Calder decided that the girls could root for the "bulldog team" and the boys would root for the "bruins." He was really upset when Alec said he would be rooting for both. Calder wore UCLA and Branwen wore YALE.

We were really blessed this Thanksgiving. My sister Susan and her 2 boys (Ford - 12 and Luke - 3) came to visit. It gave the cousins a chance to really know each other.

The little boys went to Legoland while Ford went to the UCLA Football game with Chuck, Alec & Branwen.

We went to the Noah's ark exhibit at the Skirball Center. The boys are listening to a Flood story from Africa and Branwen is exploring a music activity.

I am using this post to experiment with the slide show and movie features.

We are in Prague

June 30, 2007 Saturday

What can I say? A very long train ride. We upgraded to 1^st class and sat in the same car with Huan and Xiaoyan. The train station in Poprad is under renovation so there were a lot of steps to get us to the correct platform. Then the VERY LONG TRAIN RIDE and a lot of steps in the station in Prague.

The representative from Old Town Apartments met us on the platform (wasn’t that novel? He had a sign with our name on it and everything. Chuck has become very suspicious and was convinced that we would be left to wander like at Poprad!) He took us to the apartment, showed us where everything was, and made arrangements for our transportation to the airport when we leave. Since this is at 3:40 am, it is a very important arrangement.

A lovely apartment near metro and tram lines, supermarkets, bookstores and places to eat.

A living room:

Bedroom:

Kitchen:

And bathroom. The only trouble with all of the bathtubs in Eastern Europe is that they are very high. This one came up to my mid thigh when I was standing on the floor. I had visions of catching my foot and landing with a big thump.

It was dinner time, Chuck has been reading the restaurant guide all the way here – so I made a reservation and off we went. It started raining so we really didn’t look at anything – just scurried to the restaurant. On the way, we did spot an adorable elephant mug. Calder’s favorite animal is the elephant, “and my favorite elephant is the African elephant” which he explains often. We made note of the store and will come back when it is open.

Our dinners were good, but mine was a little strange. The waiter kept saying that the special was mussels. I noticed that the word on the board was not the French word for mussels, but ordered anyway. It was the French word for clams and that is what I got. They were tasty anyway.

We had figured out the metro, found our way there and back and now were more than ready for bed.

Last Day in Lavoca

June 29, 2007 Friday

Today is the last day. The conference finishes after lunch. Several of us are staying until Saturday, because the transportation is spotty. The main topic of conversation is “And how did you get here? How did it work? Not well, eh?” Some people changed airports in London and had to run for miles through a tunnel to catch the bus. One guy’s plane was late and he ended up on a 13 hour train trip because he had to take a local instead of an express. Huan’s luggage was lost for days. It went to Bratislava, because that was the only city in Slovakia that the airline had a contact with.

Anyway, I was delegated to find some tour that we could take. I talked it over with the hotel desk and we decided that the church and castle that I had already been to was the only good choice for a short afternoon’s trip. We started with 5 for sure and ended up with the 7 that was maximum for the group. The tour company reduced the price slightly because we were cutting out some of the normal trip. Instead we added another church that one of the Slovakian guys said was a must. I was really impressed with the guide (Ondrey again). He called his company. They called the priest of the church. He made arrangements with the woman who has the key and gives tours. All while we were on our way to the first church.

Here is our happy little group:

We were locked in the church again. We can’t take pictures but I convinced the guide to let me take a picture of her key.

The second church had been a drive-by the first time and I was glad that I got to see the inside.

It had been frescoed in the 12 – 14^th centuries. Then during a plague, all of the walls had been painted white as a disinfectant. It wasn’t until the 20^th century, that it was discovered that the frescoes were there. The only problem about this church was that the woman with the key needed to tell us waaaay more that we really were interested in hearing.

Then off to the castle. You really can see it from anywhere in the area.

Ondrey is a good guide and he gave a very interesting tour. Just enough information. This time I climbed the keep.

The stairs inside are worn stone and very very very narrow.

The view from the top was worth it.

You can see how empty this country is. It only has 5.5 million people. On the way back Ondrey took us through a gypsy village. He said that it is important to show people the bad things as well as the good. He explained about the problems of the gypsies – some the government’s fault, other’s the gypsies.

A group went to Barakan for dinner. I shared a greek salad with Chuck and had grilled pheasant breast with wood mushrooms and prunes and of course roasted potatoes.

Packed to leave the next morning.

Banquet in Levoca

June 28, 2007 Thursday

Another very quiet day. Did my jaunt around the town – it is still there and hasn’t changed at all. There are a lot of people who come here on tour buses. As far as I can see, they all get off the bus and run to buy ice cream cones.

Tonight is the Banquet. (Every conference has an excursion and a banquet – the attendees spend the rest of the time from 9 am to 6:45 at the conference, conferencing!!)

The limitations of this place showed up in the food. They tried hard, but it was worse that normal banquet food. They started with smoked trout and stale rolls. (I guess that they were left over from breakfast, where they were quite good. Then we had turkey breast with asparagus – but they filled in with green beans, so everyone had exactly 2 spears of asparagus and several green beans. The white wine (or should I say vinegar?) was undrinkable. The red only slightly better. We all switched to beer.

The best thing was the really short, very cute, after dinner speech.

Conference excursion

July 27, 2007 Wednesday

Took my constitutional around the town. It’s still the same. There was a farmers’ market this morning. All 4 stalls of it. They were selling potatoes, onions, cucumbers, cabbages, cauliflower, pale green peppers carrots, tomatoes and watermelon.

There was also a sweet baby.

There are a few stores around the square. It is quite strange - their windows look OK, but inside every one looks like a thrift store.

After lunch was the conference excursion. We all loaded onto two buses and set off for the Pieniny national forest for a river raft trip.

We were merrily on our way when there was a loud crash. It sounded like someone’s computer had fallen out of the overhead shelf. No – the driver had taken off his side mirror on a tree. After a short distance we stopped. We all assumed that the mirror had somehow caused a problem, but no – the engine was overheating. The 2^nd bus stopped with us. The driver changed some belts and we all loaded on again. A short time later our bus stopped. We couldn’t continue. Bus 2 waved as they went by. We waited for a replacement. We all went to a field across the street and took a group picture to commemorate this event.

Another bus arrived and off we went again. It was beginning to be a little late but always troupers we all loaded onto the rafts. They are 4 long skinny boats tied together. The boatmen put a plank across the back and seat 4 people – a plank is put in front of them and 4 more people get on, and so forth. It was important to them to have Chuck in the middle.

The raft that you see on the river had started from the Polish side, further upstream.

Our boatman had a line of patter somewhat reminiscent of Disneyland. It was translated by one of the conference organizers. Originally, these people took logs down the river to the black sea. When this became a national park they had to switch to tourists.

We had a fine time boating along. This is a very gentle raft ride with lots of lovely scenery. We saw 3 of the 6 black storks that nest in the park.


You could volunteer to help pole the boat. (During a particularly calm stretch.)

At the end of the ride we had a picnic at a pavilion in the woods.

First, they honored the best student talk with induction into the local group.

He was given a scroll and a hat like the boatmen wear.

Dinner started with “Slovakian caviar” (smaltz with lots of paprika), cheeses and bread. Next we had dumplings with sheep’s cheese and bacon renderings. The main course was goulash. We all had a glass of local white lightning while on the boat (with larger portions to the ones who said that they were “very afraid.” We then started the dinner with a toast of the white lightning and then switched to draft beer that had been cooled in the river.

Back on the bus for the ride home. Chuck slept the whole way. (Even snored.) We got back at 11 and went straight to bed. He says that he was up working on the computer, but I slept through it.

The ladies take a tour

July 26, 2007 Tuesday

Today is the Ladies’ trip. We all gathered after breakfast in the front of the hotel. There are 6 of us on the trip. Julie – an American from Boston, Vonda – a Pole from Boston, Rilla – a Belgian from South Africa, Eleanora and Dunna – both Hungarians from Budapest. Do you get the idea that these meetings are a great variety of nationalities?

1^st we went to the the Belianska cave in the High Tatras. This involved a 20 minute hike straight uphill to the entrance. I am really impressed with Vonda. She talked nonstop all the way up. The rest of us were gasping for breath.

We all took the opportunity to visit the ladies room while Ondrej (pronounced Andre) bought the tickets. We had a short wait, because it was a very crowded day and they only allow so many people in at a time.

Ondrej explained that there were 826 steps in the cave (that’s 33 flights by my recent reckoning method!) But he hastened to assure us, it took 70 minutes and there were rest stops along the way. What he didn’t explain very well is that the 826 steps were both up and down. There were many more down steps because that route was steeper. The up route had a lot of switch back paths.

What can I say? It was a cave with all of the cave things. Pools (with coins including some floating ones), stalactites, stalagmites, rocks in the form of imaginary things – if you have been on a cave tour, you know what I’m talking about. This cave had several kinds of bats, but we didn’t see any. As far as I can tell, every cave has one large room that is referred to as a music room. This one didn’t disappoint. The music is provided by drops of water falling into a pool. The guide invited people to sing. Vonda did.

Then we walked straight down hill to the parking lot.

Next on the agenda was a drive to a farmer’s yard where we were to get the carriage ride. This being a group of women, we all used the bathroom in the farmhouse.

Over the river (on a washboard kidney rattling bridge)

And through the woods (at a pretty good clip)
To the mountain meadow we go


We saw the wooden houses which are typical of the region

When we reached the meadow, we were able to get down and take some pictures of our transport (the carriage was really a farm wagon with benches. Nice warm sheepskin to sit on (Vonda mourned the poor sheep) and a blanket which we spread over our laps because it was damn cold.) We have seen the High Tatras, the Low Tatras, the White Tatras and the Polka dotted Tatras as far as I can tell. The guides are very explict about which ones are which, but they all look the same to me.

Our estimated 4 hour tour took 6 ½ hours. I do not know why – no where on this trip were we wasting time. We did stop at a small market in the farmer’s town to buy snacks since we missed lunch.

Chuck and I went to the 3 Apostles for dinner. This is the “high end” restaurant in Levoca. I had sauerkraut soup and beef stew in a potato crepe with potato rosettes, Chuck had garlic soup and 3 meats with roasted potatoes. All plates come with the small cabbage salad. We shared a crepe with Schlag. (aka whipped cream.)

Back to the room. Chuck falls asleep immediately, because he is so tired – but still wakes up in the middle of the night.

Another day in the Back End of Beyond

July 25, 2007 Monday

We had our “companions” meeting in the morning to see the available tours. There was only one that was reasonable for our group. It was a trip to a cave and then a horse drawn carriage ride through the forest. The rest took 8 to 10 hours each and weren’t good for people that were attached to others that weren’t on the trip.

The schedule here is: Get up at 7. Breakfast from 8 to 9. Chuck goes to conference and I wander, blog, read, knit, etc. Lunch is from about 12:45 to 2 and everyone eats together. Chuck goes back to the conference till about 6:30 and I wander, blog, read, knit, etc. Most nights we are on our own for dinner. There are about 5 restaurants in the town – most of them serving the same type of Eastern European food – meat, potatoes, garlic soup.

Since the conference is the biggest event in the town, we keep running into each other, so have dinner or sit and talk etc. after dinner.

Bedtime. 3am Chuck wakes up, gets up, turns on computer and lights and wanders around for an hour or so.

Lunch today was Broccoli soup, pork cutlets with sauerkraut, potatoes “American”, cabbage salad, cake.

I visited 2 of the museums in town. The first is billed as the “Creative culture in the Spis region”. What it is is a bunch of really bad paintings and a few jugs and plates. I went in and paid my entrance fee. The girl unlocked the door to the “museum” and turned on the lights. It was on several floors, so I wandered slowly, perusing each piece, just in case there was a hidden gem. I guess that she thought that I was taking too much time, because after awhile she came and started turning off the lights. As she was relocking the door, she asked if I wanted to visit the House of Master Paval? Yes, I was planning on that. I needed to buy the ticket from her and someone would escort me across the square. Master Paval is a BIG deal in this town. He is really their only claim to fame. I bought, was escorted and as we walked across the street, my guide asked if I had enough time to see the short film about the town and Master Paval? I told her that I had all the time in the world.

The film was quite good, but at the end the sound cuts out, so the girl came in and said that’s it. Then I again looked very carefully at all of the exhibits and read all of the explanations. Master Paval carved all of the statues and altar pieces in the cathedral in the town. His house had copies of the things. Since it was hard to see them in the dim church, and because some of them were far away, it was good to see what he had been doing. She started to turn off the lights, too.

I went back to the room for a nap. Chuck’s night time wanderings have been disturbing my sleep.

We had dinner at the hotel again: Cucumber salad, turkey with bacon & onions, potato croquettes and cabbage salad.

We walked around the square for ice cream and sat and watched the town drunks stagger down the street. It was a couple. The woman was quite loud. The man gave up and passed out on the grass right across the street from us.

We went back to the hotel and chatted with some guys in the atrium.

Day 1 Levoca

July 24, 2007 Sunday

Breakfast buffet at the hotel. Eastern European breakfasts are great. Meats, cheeses, eggs, hot meat, yoghurt, incredibly great breads & rolls.

After breakfast, Chuck went off to the conference (out a door in the dining room and into the conference hall.) I walked around ½ of the town, following the walls.

This is a pilgrimage church built on the neighboring hill.

Steps down to the moat.

The moat is now vegetable gardens.

The style of houses in this area includes the wonderful paintings on the outside.

One of the important things about this town is that it had a cage for “wanton women” outside of the town hall.

I keep finding out more about this cage. Sometimes many women were crammed into it. Saturday was a favorite day for this public humiliation because it was market day. There was a list of offenses, among which were screaming at husbands, and walking after dark. I think that I would have probably been in the cage – uppity women for sure would have been there.

We met up for the conference lunch, chicken soup, chicken cutlets, rice, salad and ice cream for dessert.

After lunch, Chuck went back to the meeting (he is chairing the afternoon conference) and Han Georg and I had a coffee at a table in front of the hotel. Just as he was deciding to take a nap instead of going to the afternoon meeting, Vonda and Vic (I don’t know their last name, as I had never met them before) came running over and invited us to go with them for a tour of some of the sites in the area. They have a car. Give us 2 minutes and we were ready.

Vonda loves to visit UNESCO sites and there were 3 nearby in close proximity. When we got in the car (Hans G and I in the back) Vic asked if either of us could navigate. It seems that Vonda isn’t very good. Hans replied that he usually drove so wasn’t sure about the navigating. Since I am the navigator for all of our trips, I said that I could do it. First Vonda had to explain where she wanted to go. She couldn’t find it on the map – but was sure it was there somewhere. Yes, it was and I found it.

Vonda loves the fact that Slovakia is so “unspoiled” without a lot of tourists. One side effect of this is that the signs aren’t very good. Half the time, I was directing by the seat of my pants. We stopped to take a picture of the castle from a distance and discovered that we were directly in front of the town and church that she also wanted to see. (They thought that I was a bloody genius!! I didn’t correct their impression.)

The town consisted on the clock tower and one street. At the top of the street was the church.


We bought tickets so that we could have the tour inside. The guide unlocked the church and gave us a booklet in English for us to read while she gave the tour in Slovakian. We could wander at will and this was really good. Unfortunately, just as we were about to leave, she came over to give us some tour in English, so we had to look at everything again. It turned out that we couldn’t have left anyway, because she had to unlock the door to let us all out. (I wondered why the others were sitting on the pews waiting.)

Finding the castle was quite easy – it was the highest thing around and visible for miles.

We drove as close as we could and then hiked up the hill. Here I am with Vonda and Vic:


We had a grand time exploring the castle, but had to get back by 5:30. There was a tour of the cathedral in Levoca and then a welcome reception.

In this town, there was a master carver named Master Pavel of Levoca. He carved an altar which is 88 meters high. He also seems to have carved everything in the town.

The reception was in the old town hall.

They had a whole roasted pig:

This is something that I had read about a lot, but had never tasted. I expected the skin to be crispy and tasty, instead it was hard and bland, but the meat was very good. They also had a lot of Slovakian wines to taste.

We all went home to bed in a happy mood.

Chuck is suffering from jet lag. He wakes up at 3am and turns on the computer, so I am awakened by the windows welcome chime. Why did I ever teach him how to use my computer?

On our way to Prague and Slovakia

June 21, 22, & 23, 2007 Thursday

Again, it was a relief to go to the airport. I have been so busy getting ready for this trip, making the arrangements for the Paris trip in August, and filling out forms for a money thing that I was quite exhausted. I think that Slovakia will be restful also. We are going to a really small town.

Chuck and I were assigned separate seating areas again. This time it was because the plane was absolutely jam packed and a lot of groups had pre seating. He had a window and I had a bulkhead aisle seat. This was a short space bulkhead though. It was fine for me, but the tall guy sitting next to me wanted to switch. No way! He managed to get switched with a college student who was happy to be able to sleep with her feet braced on the wall.

Our plane change in Frankfurt was chaos. Our plane was late and the gate had been switched to another building. They collected all of us who were going on to Prague, put us on a bus and escorted us to the security check point where they just dropped us in a huge scrum. It turned out that our plane was going to be late taking off, but there were a lot of very nervous people, as we waited in a line that didn’t seem to move.

The Prague Holiday Inn was lovely. First we made a quick trip by metro to the train station to buy our tickets for Poprad. I think that is quite impressive – to be in a city about 15 minutes, in a state of total exhaustion, and already taking metro trips.

We went back to the room and Chuck napped for an hour until dinner time. I knew that if I fell asleep, I would not want to get up again, so just toughed it out. We ate in the hotel dining room which had been designed by Phillip Stark.

Our table overlooked the garden:

Chuck had smoked salmon and I had asparagus soup for starters and then we both had the asparagus main course. (It is asparagus season.)

For dessert we shared an apple strudel.

The presentation was lovely and everything was quite yummy.

Fell into bed about 7:30 and slept until 6 am. Had the breakfast buffet and got on our train at 8:07.

It was a 7 hour trip. (This was a Sunday drive on tracks.) Chuck loved it and kept track of the time of every stop so that he could see if we were “on time”. Even he is a little worried that the trip back will be a “little” boring. I knitted while looking out the window. A young man in our compartment (6 seats facing each other in a compartment that can be closed – just like the movies show European trains.) slept most of the way. Every chance he got he sprawled out a little more. When he woke up we asked him why he was so tired. He had finished his exams, celebrated until very late and then had to pack up all of this stuff to go home for the summer holiday.

The organizers of this conference (who weren’t very organized) had emailed us (after many emails from us) that transportation would be arranged when we arrived at the station in Poprad. Normally, this means that someone will be standing there with a sign with the conference name on it.

When we arrived at the station, we first looked on the platform – no one. Then we went into the station – no one. I guarded the luggage while Chuck looked at all of the entrances to the station – no one. I was getting ready to start dialing every number that we had. Chuck wanted me to just start making arrangements with a taxi – “because you’re better with that kind of thing.” I went to the ATM so that we would have some money to pay a taxi.

Just then, a man comes wandering in with a paper at his side. We were only able to see that it was the SQM sign because he moved his arms when he walked. Strange Quark Matter we exclaimed with glee. He had been waiting in a van outside and didn’t seem to understand that the van was parked in a place that we were not going to check.

There was a young Polish guy already in the van. He had arrived from Vienna earlier. He had stumbled across the van when he came out to try to take a taxi after giving up on the promised transportation. He said that he had made the guy come into the station with the sign to look for us. Now that the driver saw how successful that was, he was willing to go in again for a couple coming from another direction. By this time we were all in hysterics.

Next we went to the airport, to collect the people coming from London on “Cheapairline.com”. Getting to the airport was like being a salmon swimming upstream. There had been an air show of old airplanes and everyone in Poprad was there. Whole families were walking down the middle of the road on their way back to town. The police didn’t want to let us drive into the terminal, but we had to pick up 10 people. Another van was on its way. We were sure that the runway was grass. Our driver parked in an illegal spot and we waited. Another car parked in front of us, thus blocking us in, and got out – leaving a small baby in the car.

When some more of the air show traffic cleared out, the car person came back a moved his car by backing it into a hedge (he parallel parks even more poorly than I do) and left the baby again. This time the sun was shinning directly on it and it was waving its little fist. It looked about 3 months old. It was also in the front seat! We were all horrified, but the Polish guy said that without airbags the front was OK, but everything else was still wrong. The plane landed and our driver went in to pick up the group. The second van still wasn’t there. Suddenly, I noticed that I couldn’t see the baby waving any more. Chuck and 2 guys immediately got out of the van to go check. No baby! Then we saw that someone must have picked it up without our noticing, because they came back with the baby and a grandmother dressed in native costume (complete with head scarf).

Managed to squeeze everyone into the 2 vans. They had had to change airports in London, so were really exhausted.

Off we went to Lovača. We would never have been able to get there on our own, because we had been pronouncing it as Lovaka instead of Lovasha. Now we know why no one seemed to know where we were going. Luckily, Poprad was pronounced just like it looked to us.

Our hotel is from the 16^th century, but completely redone. It is really nice. Our room is huge:

There is a sign on the wall that says that the President of Italy stayed in this room.

It has a third bed, an entrance hall way, and a nice bathroom. (With lots of toilet paper, towels and soap.)

The walls are two feet thick which meant that when we first looked for a wifi place – the best reception was the windowsill in the bathroom. This was a little inconvenient – it was impossible to use the bathroom while Chuck was checking his email. He is also a very very slow typist – so if he answered anything, he was going to be there all day. I have now, after much experimenting, found a better spot in the room.

We ate in the atrium of the hotel. Tomato salad for both of us, then Chuck had trout with mixed vegetables and I had pork “tolers” (cutlets) with latkes. Slovakia has fabulous beer. We were joined by Hans Georg (from Berkley) and Sylwester (guy from Poland). For dessert we had crepes.

After dinner we went for a walk. We may have seen the whole town.