South of France, with Kids

Au revoir and dovidenja

2011-07-13T06:30:00.001+03:00

Meeting new friends is probably the best part of going to a new place. We were lucky enough here in France to meet, through David’s work, a wonderful family that showed us all sorts of corners of Auvergne that it never would have occurred to us to visit.

They hiked with us to this volcanic crater lake, Tour de Gazenat (it’s sixty meters deep in the center!), and then fed us an incredible meal—food and company-wise both—in their country farmhouse.

They spent Fourth of July hiking with us to this crater where we had a picnic with their homemade quiche (and spelled out the initials of our respective academic institutions with lava boulders!).

They also took us to the charming medieval town of Puy-en-Velay where we visited churches built on the top of volcanic chimneys.

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All the outings were great, and France is beautiful, but the thing we will remember most fondly are the dear, kind people we got to know.

We are sad to leave new friends but happy to be heading back home to the USA after this wonderful year abroad. It has helped me be more reflective and observant to keep this blog, but now we are heading back to the familiar hurly-burly of our lives at home, and I won’t be posting.

Until we go abroad again, anyway…

The Bosnians say Dovidenja, and the French say Au revoir. Both mean, “Until I see you again.”

Making knives

2011-07-12T06:30:00.000+03:00

(The cords to transfer photos to my computer are buried somewhere inside one of our carefully packed and weighed 20 kg. suitcases, so none of our own photos today.)

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Thiers is a charming medieval town known throughout the world for its fine knives. This spring the city started a new program where tourists can make their own knives. Isaac and Eleanor each made their own tartineur, or spreading knife (i.e. not sharp) with their names etched in the blades. It was a straightforward half hour of assembly under the gentle guidance of one of the workers.

Emma Lucy made a sharp folding knife. The process for her was much more detailed and involved—she used a lot more machines than Isaac and Eleanor did and went through a lot more steps. It took a little over two hours.

They are obviously not used to English speakers; no one in the workshop spoke any English. This was not a problem with Isaac and Eleanor. I could figure out what their guide wanted them to do with a combination of my very rudimentary French and her expressive gestures. It would have been a problem if Emma Lucy spoke no French but it was actually very gratifying to her to realize that she understood pretty much everything.

A little pricey, but a fantastic and memorable experience for everyone. One we’d do again in a heartbeat.

Maybe we need a boar or two as well

2011-07-11T06:30:00.001+03:00

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We love Asterix and Obelix comics, the brilliant comic series about a tiny Gaul village that over and over outwits their would-be Roman conquerors. In fact, our oldest son became a reader the summer between kindergarten and first grade trying to decode all the words in one of our Asterix books.

We have landed squarely into the land of Asterix and Obelix here in Auvergne. Just outside of Clermont-Ferrand is the field where Vercingetorix, who grew up here in town, defeated Julius Caesar with his hardscrabble army of peasants. The revolt didn't last long--in less than a year Vercingetorix had surrendered to Caesar--but Vercingetorix is a French hero.

The body Vercingetorix is trampling in this statue in the central town square here is presumably a Roman soldier.

I thought all we were missing was a menhir or two, but then we saw one (in someone's yard!) in a village near here.

The artist at work

2011-07-09T06:30:00.001+03:00

Who knew you could draw on glass with dry-erase markers?

And luckily my kids are old enough to know to draw only on glass with dry-erase markers!

bicycling

2011-07-08T06:30:00.001+03:00

The city we're in has set up a public sector initiative to encourage biking: you can rent a bicycle for an hour, a day, a week, or--for an even cheaper price--for a month at a time. (And this is not unusual; Lyon, for example, has public bikes available around the city.) We've rented bikes for the whole time we've been here. It makes a huge difference in feeling willing to explore the city, to say nothing of getting to church every week, to have bikes. They rent only adult-sized bikes, but you can get bikes with baby seats, and Isaac has gotten really good at riding on a bike rack.

Back home we're used to flat ground, and Clermont is built on a volcano, so we've had to get used to climbing hills, but we'd rent bikes again in a heartbeat.

Grasping the, er, Green Tassel

2011-07-07T06:30:00.000+03:00

One of Eleanor's great desires before we leave France was to ride the carousel in the park. She finally got her wish. We usually don't indulge all our kids' carousel wishes, but we've learned that riding a carousel in another country often has unexpected surprises--there was the merry-go-round with real horses in Germany and the one that never stopped moving, even when kids were getting on and off in Holland.

This one was no exception.

For half of the ride, the carousel operator dangled a large green tassel over the young riders. All of them snatched at it, but Eleanor was the one who successfully grabbed it.

She was happy enough with the game, but then it turned out that catching the tassel meant she got a second ride. Free!

Bliss.

So I suppose the carousel at Jardin Lecoq in Clermont-Ferrand can now be added to Wikipedia's select list of fewer than twenty carousels that still have brass rings for snatching. Well, if they'll expand the definition of "brass ring" to include large green yarn tassels.

Ruth heard about our carousel adventures and sent us this great link to the best-ever carousel horse race.

Flowers in the trees

2011-07-06T06:30:00.001+03:00

How is it that I had to come to France to discover the catalpa tree? My identification site
tells me it grows all over the southern US.

The blossoms were there only briefly, but they're so beautiful.

Like little tiny orchids.

L'Aventure Michelin

2011-07-05T17:04:00.002+03:00

Clermont-Ferrand is the corporate headquarters of Michelin, Corporation. Basically, the tire on the car you drive was invented right here in the center of France.

Michelin has a large museum here that is well done (but do all corporate museums prohibit photography? very annoying)--lots about how the tire came to be invented and promoted as well as information about other industries that Michelin has been involved in. I'm always a sucker for historical advertisements, and there was one room devoted to Michelin advertising.

I finally figured out why the Michelin man is white. The first tires used white cotton fibers with the rubber, and they looked not exactly white but at least whitish.

And did you know the Michelin man has a name? Bibendum. It comes from the first ad that featured him. Michelin's great innovation was inventing a tire that could be quickly and easily repaired in case of puncture. Its competitors, notably Dunlop tires of Britain, fought furious ad campaigns over whose tire technology was preferable.

In this ad, other tire companies' tires are sitting around watching with amazement as the Michelin tire drinks a toast with a glass full of shards of glass and other sharp bits of things Roughly translated, the ad says, "Now drink up! To your health! That is to say, the Michelin tire drinks up the obstacle."

And thus, Bibendum, aka The Michelin Man, was born.

Hollywood stars, Auvergne style

2011-07-04T06:30:00.000+03:00

Embedded in the sidewalk here and there around the city are metal plates celebrating native sons and daughters. At first we thought they were (very cool) drain plates, but they're just public art.

There's one of the founders of the city--she lived in 1195!

And the Gaul commander who defied the Romans for years (1200 years before Comtesse G!).

Pope Urban II who opened the first crusade in Clermont-Ferrand in November 1095.

And finally, that Johnny-come-lately, Blaise Pascal, who was born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1623 and helped to develop geometry and to defend the scientific method.

Sometimes living in Europe reminds me just how very, very young the United States is.

Happy Fourth of July!

Beware your food

2011-07-02T06:30:00.005+03:00

Health warnings printed on advertisements originated in the US, but they've adopted them here in France as well. All alcohol ads contain warnings like this one, "Alcohol abuse is dangerous to your health. Consume in moderation."

But French health warnings don't end with cigarettes and alcohol.

Down at the bottom, these say, "For your health, eat less fat, less sugar, and less salt.

This one urges, "Eat a varied diet. It's better for your health."

And this soda pop ad reminds, "For your health, avoid snacking between meals."

We may be in the land of cheese and butter-filled pastries, but it's also the land of nutritional awareness.

Up a tree

2011-07-01T06:30:00.001+03:00

I always loved climbing trees when I was little. (Actually, I still do.)

One of the great gifts of going almost every day to the park without an agenda, without a plan, is that Isaac and Eleanor, all on their own, discovered that they love climbing trees too.

Lots of scuffed knees and heart-stopping moments for Mom, but sheer delight for the kids.

More tree love

2011-06-30T06:30:00.001+03:00

I loved the 100 Species Challenge that swept (well, maybe it just burbled) through the home-schooling community a couple of years ago The challenge is to identify 100 plants growing within a mile of where you live. What a great way to engage with and get to know the natural world! And besides, I just like knowing the names of things.

But I'm not very good at it. I collect leaves and come home and look them up and discover I don't remember whether the leaves were opposite or alternate or whether the fruits hung singly or in pairs. I always intend to go back and answer my questions, but it seldom happens.

Which is why the park here is perfect for me.

The city provides free wi-fi all through the park. So I just bring along my laptop and identify in situ. I cannot tell you how satisfying this has been.

This, ladies and gentleman, is (I think) from a horse chestnut tree (which also grown in the parking lot behind our dormitory).

Voila!

Medieval Fest

2011-06-29T09:57:00.000+03:00

One of the good things about settling into a place when you're abroad is that you end up doing things that might not have risen to the top of your list in a more ambitious tourist experience. Our town, Clermont-Ferrand, had a weeklong medieval fair in the medieval part of town, so one day we bicycled up there to check it out.

We were amazed by the buildings (though they're there year-round), the costumes, the fun, and the price (free!).

Chivalrous knights let our kids try on their armor.

And enjoy their tents at the jousting yard.

We had thought the jousting re-enactment would be the highlight of the day, but it turned out we loved everything else even more--a tiny petting area, presided over by a teenaged swineherd in medieval garb, the performers on the street, the retro-fitted playground.

And this game? Completely addictive. Someone with a jigsaw should definitely make one for the family reunion circuit.

Vulcania

2011-06-28T06:30:00.001+03:00

The town of Clermont-Ferrand is ringed by ancient volcanoes. Sitting on our balcony, we can easily see their silhouettes against the sky. The volcanoes have been silent since pre-history, but the university here has an active volcano study program, and there is Vulcania, a local theme park that another professor explained to us is much more akin to Kennedy Space Center than to Disneyland. \

They had several movies with good volcano footage, some of them with 3-D glasses and moving seats.

My favorite part of the whole park, though, was the grounds. They have fountains to operate--and run through.

Large swaths of the grounds were left as wildflower-studded meadows. And we loved the playgrounds dotted around the grounds.

Not quite what we'd expected from our day at Vulcania, but happy memories.

Ratatouille, un-Disneyfied

2011-06-27T06:30:00.001+03:00

The most famous chef in Lyon is Paul Bocuse.

He has three stars from Michelin and a very famous restaurant in Lyon and there is even a prize for the world's best chefs named after him.

He also has, in Lyon, two fast food restaurants.

His famous restaurant is beyond our family's budget, but we ate at Ouest Express, his fast food eatery--quand la cuisine se fait rapide. It was a sleek, chic space on a terrace. The food was more expensive than American fast food, but only slightly more than French fast food, and it was really good.

We loved the presentation--the crusty roll that came with the salad, and the tiny bottle--a real bottle!--of dressing.

I'm not sure whether this is Bocuse selling out, but our family enjoyed our tiny brush with fine dining.

Six!

2011-06-25T06:29:00.001+03:00

She turned six today, and yesterday she learned to ride a bike!

David (who is good at stuff like this) bought her a cheap bike from the French version of Craig's List and she has been trying to ride it since Monday. Mostly David has run along with her, holding onto her bike seat, but today he was at the office, and she wanted to take her bike to the park.

I offered to hold on and run beside her, but she didn't want my help, so I sat on the lawn with my computer and worked on a manuscript I'm editing. Then I happened to glance up, and she was riding her bike past me.

Almost all the photos I snapped are of her back. She rushes by so fast. Kind of like where we are in life--I'll mostly be running along behind her from now on, admiring the fantastic places she's going and shouting encouragement, marveling at her competence and verve.

Happy birthday six year old!

Puppet heaven

2011-06-23T06:30:00.000+03:00

Musee Gadagne is a dual-purpose museum in the heart of Lyon. Half of it is a history museum, which we did not visit. The other half is a puppet museum. A great place for kids!

Remarkably affordable (6 Euros, but children up to the age of 26 !!! are free and receive a free audioguide), the museum works hard to make itself accessible to the English-speaking world. They have even translated all of their children's guide materials into English. Eleanor and Isaac had a lot of fun with the museum-provided clipboard (the perfect sketching accessory) and the challenge questions in the children's guide, and Emma Lucy found the audio tour interesting.

The puppet museum made us appreciate stumbling across a puppet show in the park--one of those happy bits of serendipity!

Roman ruins

2011-06-22T06:30:00.000+03:00

Lyon has two gorgeous Roman amphitheaters so well preserved (and restored) that they use them for shows today. But you can also wander around them on your own during the daytime.

Those feats of Roman engineering will never come close, however, to the joy of finding bugs. We spent ten minutes on the theater and over an hour on the bugs. Happily, there are still lots of loose stones around the edge of the amphitheaters (some of them still with the marks left by the ancient tools that formed them!) for those bugs to hide in.

Libraries on the itinerary

2011-06-21T15:28:00.001+03:00

Every European city has its tourist attractions--ancient ruins, Renaissance churches, medieval castles. They're cool to visit. But families shouldn't discount the charm of visiting the public library, either.

In my experience, European children's librarians are warm and welcoming to any patron who comes through the door. They love having kids paw through the books on their shelves. And a children's library is a great glimpse into the culture of a place--the Bosnian children's library is tiny with lots of black and white books by local publishers and usually full of kids playing; the Dutch children's library is large and sleek and clean with large holding in languages other than Dutch.

We spent part of last week in Lyon, France and spent two afternoons, exhausted from our other adventures, in the children's section of the library. There is a robust publishing French language publishing industry, it appears. The library had a large collection of gorgeous full color picture books and even a special room with toddler books (about where our French language skills are). There was also free and easily-accessible Wi-fi for me and Emma Lucy.

One of the kids found the book "Le journal secret de la Sorciere Camomille." Iin it, the witches all get together for a big party. In addition to eating and drinking, they play petanque.

Which I guess pretty much proves it is the national pastime!

Reading labels

2011-06-20T06:30:00.001+03:00

We buy mostly the store brand at the supermarket where we shop. We've been very impressed with the quality, and the cost is significantly less than other options.

Buying the bargain brand, we expected bare-bones packaging, but Eleanor--no surprise it's the youngest of us all!--noticed that most of the packages we buy have Braille labels.

Now it's a game to find the Braille on each label.

I'm impressed that the brand has such a commitment to accessibility for all its customers. My customer loyalty has just increased.

Weighty matters

2011-06-18T06:30:00.001+03:00

It may not be true that French women don't get fat, but it is true that a French woman would have a hard time knowing if she did.

We are travelling with very tight luggage restrictions, so in Bosnia we bought a bathroom scale to make sure each piece of luggage was at the maximum weight allowed but not overweight. We had a choice of six bathroom scales at the store where we shopped. But of course our weight restrictions didn't allow us to bring the scale along to France.

We have been trying to buy another bathroom scale here to prepare for our return home next month, but we couldn't find one. So we started asking locals where we should shop. After an initial look of puzzlement, most people recommend a pharmacy. But every pharmacy that we checked told us that they didn't carry scales.

Finally we found one pharmacy that had a scale. A coin-operated one at the front door.

So we bought a luggage scale instead.

And I think now I'll walk over to the patisserie and buy some pain au chocolat.

Behind the Scenes

2011-06-17T06:30:00.002+03:00

One of the great things about spending some time nearly every day in the park, is that we get glimpses of the magic that goes into making it so gorgeous.

So beautiful!

Swimming pool

2011-06-16T06:30:00.002+03:00

Clermont-Ferrand has a great municipal swimming pool just two blocks from where we live. There's an Olympic-sized pool for laps, a recreational pool, a baby pool, and even a serpentine water slide. It's taken some work to actually swim there, though. The first day we tried, the pool was closed for a strike.

The next time we went, David and Edward were stopped from getting into the pool at water's edge because they were wearing men's style swimsuits--the only kind I've ever seen men or boys wear in the US. In France, men and boys have to wear maillot style suits--skimpy little Speedo-style suits.

David decided he just won't be swimming in France, but we bought a French style suit for Isaac. Emma Lucy has made him promise to never wear it in the US.

Next time maybe we'll get through an entire visit to the pool without being informed we're breaking a rule!

Internet problems...

2011-06-15T06:30:00.002+03:00

Hopefully I'll be back on Thursday...

The National Pastime?

2011-06-14T06:30:00.001+03:00

There was a petanque tournament here last week. Petanque originated in southern France, so I guess if baseball is as American as apple pie, petanque must be as French as pain au chocolat.

As we neared the playing fields (is that what they call them?), Isaac said, "This looks like a sport for grandpas!" But such character-filled grandpas!

No grandpas around here (though Eleanor has been commenting often on David's silvering hair), but we're having fun with a minor league boule set in the hallway outside our room.

And we've worked out a system where we almost never hit students' doors with the balls anymore!

Riddle me

2011-06-13T06:30:00.000+03:00

On a long car drive, Emma Lucy read aloud a book Aunt Joanne gave us for Christmas, Luka and the Fire of Life, by Salman Rushdie. It was delightful! Funny, inventive, absorbing.

The protagonist has to duel an adversary with riddles. The scene captured Isaac's imagination, and he has become fascinated by making up riddles. He stands with his legs a little apart, his hands behind his back, makes his voice as deep as possible, and tries to stump us all with his latest creation. We have heard many, many, many riddles recently. Here, winnowed from the torrent, are some of his best:

I'm graceful but fierce. Who am I? (Hint: directly inspired by the inhabitants of the local park, Jardin Lecoq.)

When it's light I'm dark. When it's darkest I'm gone. What am I?

The rest of us have gotten into the spirit of it, too. Here's David's best one:

It's best not to have me, but if you do have me, you'd better not lose me.

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Answers: A swan, a shadow, temper.

Sucre ou sale

2011-06-11T06:30:00.000+03:00

"Salt" means something different in French than it does in English.

The brasserie across the street advertises: "Complete Breakfast, Sugar or Salt."

It would never occur to me to call a savory dish I prepare a "salt" dish. But that's how you say it in French.

Yesterday Emma Lucy, one of our resident French experts (who just tested out of all the French grammar classes for her first year of college! Woo hoo!), started smiling as she read the label on our salt. "It's a story!" she told us.

My translation (errors not Emma Lucy's fault): There was once a sick little boy who refused to take his medicine, it was so insipid. A bird, called by the child, went in search of the purest salt, and he put it into the medicine, so the child took the medicine and got well.

Basically, a spoonful of salt helps the medicine go down!

Strange Doings in the Park

2011-06-10T06:30:00.001+03:00

European Circuses

2011-06-09T06:30:00.000+03:00

Years ago, when we lived in Holland, we planned a leisurely trip to Italy. We rented an apartment in a quiet little town and planned to spend the week taking long leisurely rambles through the Tuscan countryside. Unfortunately, every day we were there it rained. Or snowed.

Desperate for something to do, we went to The Great American Circus with Alberto Togni. Despite the name, there was exactly one American performer, a desperately-homesick clown from Philadelphia on his first circus tour after graduating from Clown College. He attached himself to our family, chatting with us while distractedly making balloon animals for the clamoring Italian children around him.

We loved The Great American Circus and its two rings: stunning acrobats, camels who wouldn't do what their trainer said, fun conversation with the clown.

Shortly after we arrived here in Clermont-Ferrand, posters went up for Cirque Pinder. We had to go.

This circus was even smaller than The Great American Circus--just one ring and, by my count, thirty performers. The acrobats were still breathtaking (at least for those of us who are suckers for that kind of thing) and the camels were better-trained (though I'm not sure camel acts are ever going to be the highlight of a circus).

No Americans, but we heard lots of some Slavic tongue. And David earned a huge smile from an usher when he accidentally mixed his French with Bosnian.

We got to wander among the temporary streets created by the circus performers' trailers. This homey little spot made us wonder what it must be like to make your home on the road.

They may lack the polish and gleam of Ringling Brothers or the sophsticated wit of Cirque Soleil, but there is something charmingly homespun, and perfectly suited to a five year old and seven year old, in traditional European circuses.

Exactly the kind of circus you might imagine running away to join.

Trees, Dinosaurs, and Us

2011-06-08T06:30:00.000+03:00

In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv argues persuasively that children need the natural world (some of my favorite blogs make the same argument from a mom's point of view--here and here, for example).

But we are currently living in the center of a town of 144,000 people. We spent the last year living in the center of a city of 400,000. In the US we live in the center of a city of 800,000 people. And I love living in downtown areas! But where do I take my children when we need dirt?

Luckily for us, we are very close here to the beautiful Jardin Lecoq, a lovely city park. It is carefully manicured, as you might expect of a French park, but Isaac and Eleanor and I decided to each choose a tree that we can visit throughout the summer.

If you're making a friend, even with a tree, it's only polite to learn its name. So we've been trying to figure out who our trees are.

I picked this beauty. We used this user-friendly tree identification guide (even though it's based on Ohio trees) and decided that mine is a beech tree, probably a copper beech.

Trying to confirm that mine was indeed a copper beech, we stumbled on a blog about trees (which now, sadly, I can't find) and before we found the beech photo we were looking for, we found a photo of Isaac's tree!

This oddball tree is called Monkey's Puzzle (or in French, désespoir des singes--monkey's despair) because it would puzzle a monkey to know how to climb it. The tree is spikes all over.

Monkey's Puzzle trees have been around since Jurassic times. The theory is that the tree developed the spikes to discourage dinosaurs from grazing on it! It grows in Chile and Argentina where indigenous tribes still eat its nuts (kind of like pine nuts) and use its wood.

Isaac has written a little song about it:

Monkey's puzzle is a spiky tree, spiky tree, spiky tree.

Monkey's puzzle is a spiky tree, and monkeys cannot climb it.

Eleanor chose an impressive tree, the tallest one in the park, we think. We had a really hard time figuring out what it is, but I think we've finally cracked the case.

A Giant Sequoia! Native to California, it was first planted in Europe in 1853 and since has spread across Europe. One estimate is that there are 10,000 giant sequoias in Europe. Eleanor's tree has an even older history than Isaac. Sequoia fossils have been found with the earliest dinosaurs in the Triassic period.

How perfect is it that my kids happened to both choose dinosaur trees?

(The photos on this website were what finally convinced me on the Giant Sequoia ID. This site and this one tell about the history of the Giant Sequoia in Europe, and this site has photos of them all over the world.)

Our kitchen(ette)

2011-06-07T06:30:00.000+03:00

When feeding a family, it is prohibitively expensive to eat out for every meal. (Actually, in Western Europe and can be prohibitively expensive to eat out for ANY meal!)

Happily, our dormitory room includes a kitchenette: a small refrigerator, a sink, and two burners. The staff here at the dormitory thoughtfully rounded up enough plates and cups and silverware for us and even found us a big pot--which I use every single day!

I have been happily surprised at how easy it is to cook three meals a day in this space. Only having two burners has been the most limiting factor--if I need two burners for the main dish (pasta and sauce, for example), we have to have a salad instead of a cooked vegetable as there's nowhere to cook it!

We do most of the food preparation on the table since we have no counter space, but that generally works fine. Washing the dishes is really a one-person job, given the space limitations, so I'm afraid the littlest ones are not getting the soul-improving experience of dishwater hands.

I like to think of it as the sonnet approach to food preparation: in sonnets, you're strictly limited by the rhyme and the rhythm scheme, but you can still make beautiful poetry. Similarly, we're strictly limited as to what food we can make and how we prepare it, but within those limits, beautiful meals can still happen.

City of Roses

2011-06-06T18:11:00.001+03:00

OK. I know it's really Portland, Oregon, but Clermont-Ferrand should at least be a sister city.

Doors and windows

2011-06-04T06:30:00.000+03:00

On the walk to the grocery store (only two blocks--hurrah!)...

"Our Joy"

I'm dying to actually use this door knocker--wish I knew the people who live here!

Almost all the houses have these metal shutters (and the lace curtains behind them). If I walk to the store at the right time, I can see housewives opening them for the day.

Our summer home.

2011-06-03T06:30:00.000+03:00

We are living in university dormitories.

When we planned this, I had visions of cinder block walls. But dormitory life here is nothing like what I remember from college.

The lobby of our building. Miro and Kadinsky and Klee prints hang on the walls in the common areas and the rooms.

A glass elevator to get us to our room. (And we have worked out a system for pushing the buttons so nobody gets more than their fair share of pushes.)

Beautiful wood paneling in our room. The wall opposite the bed, in fact, is made up of sliding wood panels so we can see the view or block the light, as we prefer.

We eat on our room's balcony.

Tres chic, non?

The basics

2011-06-02T06:30:00.001+03:00

Where we are:

We're in the center of Auvergne in South-Central France, in the city of Clermont-Ferrand.
Clermont-Ferrand has 144,000 people, 35,000 of them students.
Clermont-Ferrand is also the corporate home of Michelin (Tires and Guidebooks).

Source

How long we'll be here:
We'll be here about seven weeks, until mid-July.

What we're up to:
Dad's teaching. Emma Lucy's finishing (online) high school. The rest of us are exploring Clermont-Ferrand.

Sarajevo to Dubrovnik

2011-06-01T06:30:00.001+03:00

Before leaving Bosnia, we retraced the steps of a trip we made nine years ago and one most tourists to the former Yugoslavia make: we drove from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik, the ancient city of Ragusa on the coast of Croatia. We were startled at how much it had changed in those nine years.

Halfway between Sarajevo and Dubrovnik is Mostar, whose already-famous bridge was spitefully demolished during the war. When we were here before, a massive bridge reconstruction project was going on. Today the bridge is fully rebuilt and the center of Mostar is full of tourists. It's a beautiful bridge (and the rocks below to it are perfect for climbing).

Near Mostar is Blagaj, one of the many springs that emerge from the limestone hills here. There is a very old mosque at the site of the spring and, nine years ago, that's all there was. Now we could barely get to the spring because of all the restaurants that have been built on the shores of the river and on platforms straddling the river. It's still an impressive sight and there is one spot, if you can find your way to it through the restaurant tables and along the path behind the kitchens, where you can get to the springs.

Also near Mostar is a beautiful old village, Pocitelj, which clings to a hillside and has ancient stone fortresses that look out over the entire valley that makes up Herzegovina. When we were here before, I thought the village had been abandoned for centuries until, crawling through ruins, we discovered the remains of a modern bathroom. Pocitelj was a majority Muslim community in the midst of a majority Catholic region and was nearly leveled during the war.

We were surprised to have a hard time finding parking on this visit to Pocitelj. There were tour buses there and lots of cars. At the entrance to the village we were greeted by vendors selling white paper cones full of gorgeous fruit--apricots, cherries. Nearly all of the houses have been rebuilt, it looks like, and people live here again.

Most wonderfully of all, the mosque has been beautifully reconstructed.

When we were there nine years ago, Dubrovnik was already rebounding as a tourist destination. Or so we thought. We couldn't believe the difference now: crowds and crowds of people--buskers in costume, Spanish and French and Italian and Japanese conversations, lines to get up on the walls of the city and no-nonsense signs insisting you go around the walls one directions only to improve pedestrian traffic flow. Everything in the city is also much more expensive than it was nine years ago, too.

Still, Dubrovnik is a beautiful and special place. Florence and Paris are crowded with tourists, too, and still worth visiting. Dubrovnik is the same.

Our favorite places, though, on this trip, were the little coastal towns near Dubrovnik. We stayed in a nearby town in a modest hotel with views to die for.

And we loved the little fishing town of Catvat. The town center was charming, the boats in the town harbor (yachts and fishing boats) were fun to look at, and the beaches were lots of fun.

While there were tourists everywhere we went, it was only in Dubrovnik and Mostar that the tourists appeared to be internationals. In Blagaj and Pocitelj, as in most of Bosnia, we heard only Bosnian being spoken. Tourism is returning, but slowly.

Istanbul with Kids: Street Finds

2011-05-31T06:30:00.000+03:00

Our favorite part of Istanbul was the stuff we just stumbled on in the streets.

Riot police prepared for action

We accidentally stumbled upon a political protest march (especially interesting to us since part of David's conference was cancelled over fear of protests). This was a young, cheery crowd carrying signs complaining of Internet censorship by the government. At one point, protesters started swing dancing with a sidewalk jazz band.

Restaurant with three goats' heads. How could we not eat here? It was actually very good.

City Walls.

The precipitousness of the "steps" should have warned us--sheer, terrifying drops everywhere off these remnants of the city walls. But the views were staggering.

Fat mannequins. Our hotel was in the garment district. I have never before seen so many clothing shops in such a small space. And some of them used fat mannequins! We even discovered a mannequin store where they sell them!

Tiled houses. In the neighborhoods outside of the city center, many of the houses are covered outside with tiles like you would find in a kitchen or bathroom.

Street Food. Turkish ice cream. Sesame breadsticks (my favorite). Freshly-squeezed juice. And lollipops. As you watched, the lollipop would create a richly fruit-flavored lollipop just for you.

A creepy chess set--Western political leaders versus Al Qaeda.

Istanbul with Kids: Places to Go

2011-05-30T21:41:00.001+03:00

The big tourist draws in Istanbul, it turned out, were great places to go with our kids.
Basilica Cistern.

Of all the places we could have visited, we came here first. But to be honest it was only because we were lost and found it before we found Aya Sofya. Still, it was a great introduction to the city of Istanbul. This huge empty underground space held the city's water supply. People would dip buckets through holes into the ground, into this beautiful, atmospheric space, to get their drinking and washing water.

Aya Sofya, aka Hagia Sophia

We talked a lot about why this building was special before we ever got there, which helped a lot. Spots which best grabbed my kids' attention:

ancient Viking graffiti, carved into an upper rail while the mercenary Viking guards were supposed to be guarding the empress;

the hole in a pillar either where the angel protecting Constantinople escaped two days before the Ottomans took over the city, or where the angel put in his hand to turn the building and reorient it toward Mecca, thus making it suitable to be a mosque (depending, obviously, on whether you're on the Christian or Muslim team).

Blue Mosque.
Quiet and beautiful. We sat on the thick carpet mostly and just rested and watched people. Sarajevo is majority Muslim, but most Muslims there are not devout, so it was interesting to the kids to see the serious facilities for the pre-prayer washing.

Cruise on the Bosphorous.

Absolutely, positively wonderful. We were going to take one of the cruises to an island, but because we were there off-season, the ferries were not running the days we could go. Luckily for us, the conference organizers organized a private cruise. Even if you can't go to one of the islands or on a private cruise, though, there are the city ferries. Well worth it.

And it was the first time for me and the kids to ever set foot in Asia!

Topkapi Palace.

The harem was fascinating, and although the lines to see the treasures were long, once we got up to the display cases, we were glad we had waited. The gallery of Islamic treasures (Muhammed's beard hair and tooth, Moses' staff, Abraham's saucepan--that kind of stuff) was packed and didn't speak much to us. We were disappointed the kitchen displays were closed when we were there.

Image source

Spice Market.
The spices were gorgeous and smelled good,

but our very favorite part of the spice market was outside where the animals and the pet food and the leeches were for sale.

According to the signs, leeches cure just about any ailment.

Gulhane Park.
Just a city park with trees and benches and modest playground equipment and statues and ducks (and an odd little museum about the influence of Islam on science). It was the perfect respite when we'd sightseen ourselves out.

And a bonus photo for all those Bays I grew up with!

Istanbul with Kids: Strategies. Tomorrow: Final Istanbul post.

Istanbul with Kids: Strategies

2011-05-28T07:18:00.000+03:00

David spoke at a conference in Istanbul, and the organizers graciously invited our family to come along. How can you turn down an opportunity like that?

This was our first visit, so I was worried about how to make the trip happy for a five year old and seven year old as well as the rest of us. These strategies worked well:

1) Give the camera away. To the youngest members of the family.

I was inspired to do this by Design Mom. Maybe her kids' photos are more successful because she passed on good design genes to them or something. We, on the other hand, ended up with 681 (true) blurry pictures of dubious value (why, for example, do we have a photo of the top shelf of a rack in the gift shop?).

I'd do it again in a heartbeat, though.

Being the family photographers kept the little ones fully engaged for all the time Emma Lucy and I cared to explore places. And as I just now, three weeks later, looked through the photos he took with Isaac, I was surprised at how well he could identify each picture and where he had snapped it.

The young photographers also didn't break either of our cameras, for which I am very grateful.

2)Take guided tours. Without the human guides.

The government in Istanbul registers tour guides, and you can hire one from their list to show you around the most famous sites. Since these sites have few explanatory signs, it is a very attractive option.

I debated about whether to a hire guide but ended up instead renting an audio guide at each place. One person (sometimes me, sometimes Emma Lucy, and for one afternoon that made her feel very powerful, Eleanor) listened and then retold anything interesting to the rest of us.

Later we went back, as part of a conference event, to two of the sites we had already visited with a guide the conference had hired. Our guide told us a completely different set of things than we had heard on the audio guide: equally interesting, but not more so. He was, however, much harder to hear than the audio guide. And he also went on at greater length than my young crowd was interested in (being by far the youngest in our group doubtless contributed). The kids were frustrated to be stranded at a spot they didn't think was interesting but then to be hurried past one of their favorite spots.

Isaac waiting for the tour guide.

So, with kids, my advice is to skip the human guides and to use the audio guides judiciously. The kid-friendly pace it allows is well worth it.

3) Build the anticipation.

One of my favorite blogs talks about the role of anticipation in happiness. Too often when we travel, trip preparations eat up all my energy and I find myself having to explain to the kids when we get wherever we are going why it is we want to see this. This time, determined to give my kids a reason to be excited in advance, we spent an evening the week before our trip looking at pictures of where we would visit and talking about why they were cool places--thank you Wikipedia! To my happy surprise, whining was greatly reduced, and kids even pointed out things to me that I had forgotten about!

But at the same time, it was important to...

4) Seize the surprising moments.

Always a good idea when travelling. Street food, strange restaurants, unusual shops, protests. After all, that's what makes it a visit and not an encyclopedia entry!

Monday: Great Istanbul sites to visit with kids.
Tuesday: Istanbul street life surprises that delighted the kids (and us).

hello goodbye hello goodbye hello goodbye

2011-05-27T16:57:00.000+03:00

Image source

This week was full of lasts--our last walk home from school, last visit to the open produce market (and saying goodbye to a vendor friend there--sad times), last visit with this friend and that friend, last ice cream cone from Burek Forino, last walk up the hill to where we go to church.

I told Eleanor, on our last walk home from her school, that I remembered her oldest sister crying after her last day of kindergarten because she knew she would be starting at a new school the next year. "But it will be a really good school," I had reassured her.

"I know," she had told me, "but I'm still sad that I'm leaving these friends."

Eleanor listened to the story and said, "Yeah, it's sad. But I knew I wasn't going to be in Sarajevo forever. And besides, with my dad you never know how long you'll live anywhere!" Ah. Savvy beyond her years.

Ruth--who cried after the last day of kindergarten so many years ago--sent me last month an email titled "a poem about us." She's right. This poem perfectly summarizes all the brilliant flashes of wonder and beauty and all the tiny sadnesses that go with this kind of life.

Early Childhood Education
by Michael Blumenthal

Because i want to educate him early
in the ways of loss, I move my son
like a fugitive from country to country,
language to language, house to house.
Easily as wind, he flutters
over the world's landscapes,
kissing the surfaces, lifting
the splotched graffiti of his toys
from box to box like a traveling salesman.
Strange cities pass, countries
in various stages of transition, currencies
and economies packaged and sold like trips
to exotic places we can never visit. But my son
visits them all, traversing the world
to a postmodern music of cities and countries,
murmuring Budapest Haifa Quito Cambridge Austin
under his breath like a National Geographic,
time zone to time zone, vineyard to desert.
In the mere seventh year of his life,
he is already a wise man: He moves
through the world like a bodhisattva,
a Zen monk, a Hassid, a politician,
kissing the hands of widows and children,
endearing himself to everyone, waving
in a universal tongue as he leaves and arrives:
hello good-bye hello good-bye hello good-bye.

Whew

2011-05-27T14:11:00.000+03:00

A very kind and very savvy friend helped us navigate our way to taking 175 kg. of luggage on the plane with us instead of 100 kg. We're not quite down to living with only 100 items or, it appears, with 100 kg. worth of items. One-hundred-and-seventy-five we can do, though.

Aargh!

2011-05-23T06:30:00.000+03:00

We just discovered that, because we are going to France for the summer instead of flying trans-oceanically (is that a word?) back home, we can take only half as much luggage as we brought with us to Sarajevo. And we managed to accumulate a tidy amount while we were here, too.

We are scrambling frantically to figure out what to do, so I'm pretty sure I won't be posting for the next few days.

Ruks

2011-05-21T06:30:00.001+03:00

Lately, rocks have become a big deal at our house. It's probably partly my fault for loving the rocks at the beach in Montenegro so much that I brought some home. But I like to think I'm discriminating in my rock love.

Eleanor and Isaac love every rock they meet equally. They bring many, many rocks home. Eleanor has taken to painting them on the balcony. We have bags of them on the living room floor. Piles of them in the bedroom.

I finally put down my foot and told Eleanor she had to choose one spot for rocks.

So she did.

Beggars

2011-05-20T06:30:00.000+03:00

Sarajevo is not overrun with panhandlers. On sunny days, you may encounter aggressive beggars in the areas of town frequented by tourists. There are occasionally a few performers (with varying degrees of talent) busking on the main pedestrian thoroughfare. And there are often head-scarved women standing or sitting silently, head bowed, hand outstretched, near mosques.

The most surprising type to me, though, is the neighborhood beggar. Our neighborhood has our own beggar. She has a particular spot where she sits on the main street running through our residential neighborhood, summer and winter, sun and snow.

When we first moved here, I was confused by her presence. I wasn't even sure if she was begging or just sitting there to enjoy the sun. So I watched my neighbors. Many of them stop and chat with her as they hand her money or loaves of bread. Sometimes they slow down as they drive past to call out greetings and hand her coins. I wondered if she lives here in the neighborhood, but I've seen her walking toward our neighborhood before her morning shift, so I think she lives somewhere else.

Emboldened by the example of my neighbors, I give her money sometimes and stop to exchange pleasantries. She has a very strong accent and almost no teeth, so I find it very hard to understand her, but I think she's blessing me and my children (she loves Eleanor!) and telling me I'm a good mother.

I love the kindness and gentleness with which everyone treats her, the dignity and respect they give her. After all, she's just sitting there doing her job.

Names

2011-05-19T06:30:00.000+03:00

I have a hard time remembering people's names here because most of them are so unfamiliar:

Darko, Radomir, Timor, Mila, Rua, Emina, Ratko, Goran, Henna, Inan, Adi, Armin, Ajdin, Aldin, Dzena, Mirala, Irfan, Nena, Esma, Goca, Luna,...

When I meet someone new, I have to silently chant the name to myself if I have any hope at all of remembering it. But while all my attention is focused on just remembering the name, a Bosnian hears someone's name and instantly knows that person's ethnicity.

Names are Serb, Croat, or Bosniak. Which explains one reason that ethnic divisions survived Tito's attempt to squash them and are not going to go away anytime soon.

But these subtleties are entirely lost on me. I, for example, have no idea if I have achieved ethnic diversity in these snapshots of grafitti. I think Andrej must be a Serb or Croat name since it's the name of an apostle. And Emina and Hasan I'm pretty sure are Bosniak names. But the rest? Haven't a clue.

Cooking the Pantry

2011-05-18T06:30:00.008+03:00

The end of our stay in Bosnia is nearing (sniff), and we're getting ready for more European adventures. I've been cleaning out my drafts folder as well as our apartment. I wrote this at the end of October and was waiting to post it until I had a photo. We did indeed eat Mujadra all winter, and I apparently never did take a photo of it. Image source.

The thing about shopping European style--daily or nearly daily--is that I run out of food, especially produce, pretty regularly. It's not a big problem since we live close to the produce market, but often dinnertime is approaching and I don't want to head out to shop, so I find myself cooking the pantry.

The day it snowed, we all wanted something warm that wouldn't require yet another trip out into the snow.

Mujadra.

Absolutely to die for. The girls at the table all liked it with feta cheese and roasted vegetables stirred in. The boy at the table was a purist and kept things separate.

I think we will be eating this a lot this winter.

A Pillar of Islam: Charity

2011-05-17T06:30:00.001+03:00

One of the five pillars of Islam is giving charity. Muslims revere not only alms-giving but also charitable foundations of many types. Near our home is the Bosnian Institute, just such a foundation.

Adil Zulfikarpašić was born in Bosnia but fled during Tito's regime. He lived in exile in Switzerland and got very rich there (banking, I believe). Late in his life, he came back to Sarajevo, purchased an old Turkish bath, and renovated it into an amazing facility.

In the old part of the building, there is an auditorium where concerts are held and some of the bathing facilities have been renovated as museum galleries, showing typical Bosnian furniture, for example.

In the newly-constructed part of the building, a fantastic twentieth century art collection hangs on the walls (my college kids and I spent a completely absorbing afternoon there during the Christmas holidays). The new part also holds a great research library. I've been doing research in it and am very impressed with their holdings and with the helpfulness of the staff.

All of this--museum, art gallery, library--is free and open to the public. As one of the beneficiaries of the charity of Adil Zulfikarpašić: many, many thanks.

Steep streets, here and elsewhere

2011-05-16T06:30:00.000+03:00

On the right you can see the rail, handy for pedestrians trying to make it safely down this road--which cars also drive.

Recently I found this article online about the steepest streets in the world. They range in grade from 32% to 37% and are all in the United States and New Zealand.

This makes me wonder: exactly who is it who says these are the steepest streets in the world? And do we really believe that the very steepest streets in the world also happen to be in the countries with active zoning commissions and rich traditions of self-promotion? None of the steepest streets are in the Himalayas? or in the Andes?

Or in Sarajevo?

We have tried many times to take photos showing how very steep the streets of Sarajevo are (see the photo above, for example), but I can't capture it. Inspired by this list of the steepest streets, I decided to use math to show just how steep our Sarajevo streets!

Basically, the grade of a road is a ratio of how far it rises vertically over a horizontal distance. So if you imagine the surface of the road as the hypoteneuse of a triangle, you just figure out the lengths of the other two legs, divide them, and multiply by 100.

This would, I imagine, be a piece of cake with a surveyor's transit. Which I don't have. You could also figure it without too much problem with a measuring tape and a level. I don't have a level either (though I did find directions for making a homemade one; all I would need would be a length of surgical tubing; sigh).

In the fine expat tradition of making do with what I have, I pulled out my fabric dressmaker's measuring tape and decided that I would measure only roads where the masonry on buildings along the road gave me a pretty good indication of what was level.

My conclusions?

30% grade is really, really steep. Even steeper than most streets in Sarajevo.

Our street, for example, is 15.3% until the steps begin. (At the steps, the grade steepens to 34.7%! Take that, Eldred St. and Fargo St., US New & World Report's third and fourth steepest streets.)

The street that starts just below our steps (seen in the photo at the top) ranges from 17.5%- 19.9%.

Steep though not quite world-record steep.

But I measured only my neighborhood, with only my homemade measuring apparatus. I suspect there are other, even steeper streets in the city.

And I doubt there are many cities that could claim the sheer number of steep streets that Sarajevo has. So bring on the surveying transits! Let's find some new steepest-in-the-world streets.

Meat, Meat, and more Meat

2011-05-14T06:30:00.002+03:00

When we read Little House in the Big Woods, we decided Pa would feel right at home here, smoking his meat to last the winter.

Smoked meat is a very typical Bosnian food. People smoke their own--an acquaintance gave us a packet of meat he had smoked himself.

Or you can buy it at the market.

And I have decided that smoked meat, sliced thin and used as a topping, is what gives this, the best pizza in town, its distinctive flavor.

Call to Prayer

2011-05-13T06:30:00.001+03:00

The longer we are here, the more I forget to notice things.

One of the things about Sarajevo that startles at first and that now I, sadly, barely hear, is the call to prayer. Sarajevo is a city of mosques--there are minarets all over the city--and atop each minaret is a speaker through which the call to prayer is broadcast five times a day.

The mosques obviously don't coordinate their clocks, because one call to prayer will begin and then a few seconds another and then another and another, the sound cresting and then dying away.

It's a sound I love.

Collecting

2011-05-11T06:30:00.000+03:00

Do all seven year old boys like to collect things? Isaac is collecting coins, rocks, and Nerf guns. He's been working on his times table for our homeschool math, but he didn't get excited about it until he discovered online multiplication games that allowed him to print a certificate every time he won the game. He printed out so many certificates that we finally suggested he set a goal of how many certificates to earn, and we promised him a big celebration when he succeeded. Here he is on our celebration day with all the certificates he earned.

A couple of days later I walked into the room and found him printing out another certificate. "Didn't you finish that up?" I asked him.

"Those were multiplication certificates," he told me. "This is fractions."

I think we'll just buy another ink cartridge for the printer.

Isaac's favorite online multiplication games are here and here and here and here. I love this use of computer technology--can't think of a better way to do rote memorization. We're always glad to get more suggestions of great (free) online math games.

Surprise in the park

2011-05-10T06:30:00.001+03:00

I never know what I'll stumble upon in the park.

Comic book fix

2011-05-09T06:30:00.000+03:00

Every few blocks is a trafika like this where you can buy newspapers, magazines, minutes for your cell phone, cheap toys, and cigarette lighters.

Because I'd never seen any Alan Ford comics for sale before, I was surprised recently to see three in the window of the trafika we pass every day on the way to school. You know how once you learn a new word you start hearing it everywhere? I decided it must be like that--I learn about Alan Ford comics, so I start seeing them.

But two days later (as I was still debating whether to buy one to try to stuff into our luggage for the trip home) they were gone. So I guess they must sell out very quickly, and maybe I never did see them before!

Before and After

2011-05-07T06:30:00.001+03:00

Lots of rebuilding has gone on in Sarajevo in the past decade. But there's still a lot of cosmetic damage left over from the shelling. The facade of Isaac's school, besides being painted an institutional green, still had lots of superficial damage when he started school this year.

But they closed the playground for a month and redid the entire facade. It's beautiful now.

(Now that the playground is open again, teachers are using the outdoor classroom. Isn't it sweet? a half-circle of stone benches faced by the wooden bench, all circling a newly-planted tree. Why didn't we have an outdoor classroom in elementary school?)

Fizzy fun

2011-05-06T06:30:00.002+03:00

When we travel, we love to cruise grocery store aisles looking for unfamiliar soda pops and cookies.

And we buy them.

Isaac suggested we buy Cokta when he saw it on the grocery shelf. It's a favorite of one of his school friends.

We had a big debate over whether Cokta is trying to act like Coke or not with its red label. It doesn't taste like Coke, anyway. David thought it tasted exactly like chinotto, a soda he used to drink in Italy.

A few days after we first tried it, a new advertising campaign went up all around town. Good thing we tried it when we did. I'm not sure I would have been inclined to taste it after seeing these ads. Maybe for the hardcore Twilight fan...

Rafting in Bosnia

2011-05-05T06:30:00.007+03:00

The Huffington Post published a list of eleven reasons to visit Bosnia. Some of them I'm dubious about--a Bosnian pyramid?--but reading the list you do get a sense for what a gorgeous landscape Bosnia occupies. Three of the eleven reasons have to do with Bosnia's rivers.

It's a stretch to say that the rafting season has started, but we wanted to go down a river before we move next month. Last time we were here we rafted the Tara River--a fantastic trip. This time David found us a tour guide for the Neretva River, just an hour out of Sarajevo. We were the first trip of the season and probably their next one won't be for another month.

They weren't quite sure how to outfit children, but they made do with short style adult wetsuits for Isaac and Eleanor.

The trip was spectacular.

Our tour guides were skilled at maneuvering the river and great at gauging our responses to make sure we got the trip we wanted. They even paddled upstream when they realized we weren't kidding that we wanted to jump from the rocks into the (snowmelt--brrrr!) water.

Isaac--unlike me--was fearless jumping in.

Part of the river cuts through a deep canyon. Springs of fresh water pour from the walls of the canyon, feeding the river. (And the Huffington Post list is right--the water is safe to drink and delicious.)

On the left, you can see a spring pouring out of the canyon wall.

Another spring.

Eleanor and I liked leaning over the side of the raft and watching the rocks three and four meters down through the clear, beautiful, sweet water.

After our trip, we went back to the home of one of the guides, and his family grilled fish and chicken for us outside and served us dinner in their garden.

Bosnia is hard to get to right now--there still aren't good roads into it or easy train trips or even many affordable flights--but it is such a beautiful place that someday you will be sorry you didn't get there while it was still a quiet place.

My interview of Susan Anneveldt, a friend from Holland, is up at Mormon Women Project.`

Susan Sontag Square, Sarajevo

2011-05-04T06:30:00.000+03:00

This surprising sign labels the plaza in front of the National Theater. The plaza was named after the American essayist just last year in honor of her courage in 1993, soon after one of the Markale massacres, and putting on Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" in the National Theater.

The Guardian said it should have been called "Waiting for Clinton." I think I'll never watch the play the same way again.

The long reach of a benevolent (?) dictator

2011-05-03T06:30:00.002+03:00

We loved the name of this cafe near the National Museum.

"We are Tito's."

And on the back of the banner, "Tito is Ours."

Happy International Workers' Day!

2011-05-02T15:32:00.000+03:00

While Americans are going about their business as usual, most of the world--including Bosnia--has the day off. It's May Day!

Here in Sarajevo, it's an official holiday both today and tomorrow since May 1 fell on the weekend. Banks and many stores are closed. The streets are quiet. It's a day for picnics, sunshine, and hanging out with friends.

Only a few vendors are selling today at Markale, the downtown produce market.

The normally traffic-clogged thoroughfare along the river.

Happy May Day!

Climbing on the tanks

2011-04-30T06:30:00.003+03:00

The most recent war in Bosnia is so obvious that sometimes one forgets that Bosnia was occupied territory during World War II and has a robust World War II history with its own heroes and villains and thrilling resistance stories. A park in the center of town displays some World War II tanks and armaments.

Isaac and Eleanor love the park because no one bats an eye if they clamber all over the things. As Eleanor put it, "It's just like stuff in a hands-on museum in America except you can climb on it."

The Royal Wedding in Sarajevo

2011-04-29T13:58:00.000+03:00

The British Embassy rented the poshest cinema in town and invited all UK citizens in Sarajevo to a watch a live feed of the royal wedding. (Note the white tablecloths on the cinema cafe tables--not their usual casual state!).

The rest of us weren't left out, however. The huge screen on the mall adjacent to the cinema showed the wedding, too, and many, many people stopped to watch.

No matter where you are, everyone loves a wedding!

Sarajevo Zoo

2011-04-28T06:30:00.000+03:00

Right before a zookeeper warned Eleanor the donkey would bit her hand if she kept trying to feed him.

When we first moved abroad, we didn't go to zoos. A zoo you can do back home; why do it in Europe? When I realized that my two year old had never been to a zoo in his entire life because of this policy, I decided that I needed to rethink things. Since then, having visited several European zoos, my attitude is very different.

There are traditional zoos, like the ones in Rotterdam or Vienna. But we've had great experiences at more quirky zoos, too, like a small private zoo in rural Austria and the fascinating Apenheul in the Netherlands.

Sarajevo has a zoo, too, with a very sad history. Before the war it had 150 animal species. The siege line was at the zoo, and even if there had been enough food to feed the animals, those who tried (and some did) risked their lives. By the end of 1992, eight months after the siege had started, all the animals had died (a gripping New York Times article from the time).

When we lived here in 2002, the zoo was struggling back. It was, as I remember, mostly cramped cages lining the sidewalks. Enterprising Sarajevans set up charcoal grills and sold cevapi (traditional Bosnian sausages) along the sidewalk.

In the years since, a lot has happened at the zoo. There is a huge playground, the biggest and best-maintained one I've seen in Sarajevo. The landscaping is lovely, and the animals are in well-designed enclosures. I don't know what the official statistics are, but the kids and I counted 32 different types of animals (including 2 types of ponies, three types of goats, and assorted chickens, geese, and ducks)--nowhere near what the zoo once had, but the animals are well-selected and fun to watch.

On sunny days, the zoo is busy and the playground, especially, rings with children's happy voices. Yes, you can visit zoos in the US, but no zoo with the history this one has.

Soft play, or what to do when the weather's bad

2011-04-27T06:30:00.000+03:00

Scattered about the city are indoor playgrounds, called "soft play" by English speakers. Some of them are connected to shopping centers, some free-standing. You sign in your child and for a small fee the staff supervises their play while you run errands. After her initial rush of intoxication at the bright colors, Eleanor has decided she is not so fond of them unless she has a friend with her. If she's with a friend, though, she loves soft play.

Do they have these in the US too? I know about IKEA's play area drop-off, but that's it. I think it's a European thing (which explains why IKEA, which originated in Sweden, has them), but maybe I'm just clueless and they're all over the US too. Kind of a nice option for when little ones are exasperated with errands.

Bosnian cooking measurements

2011-04-26T06:30:00.000+03:00

Most American recipes use volume measures for ingredients--a cup, a tablespoon. Most European recipes use weight measurements (grams). Luckily for me--since I don't have a scale here--my new Bosnian cookbook also uses volume measurements.

This is our scale for now.

But the measurements are all new to me. It measures ingredients in glasses, fincans, soupspoons, tablespoons, and coffeespoons. In the US, I could just go to the store and buy a set of standard-sized measuring spoons and cups. Not the case here. Cooks measure with the cups and spoons they use for eating.

To my surprise, comparing the mismatched cups and spoons in our house, I have discovered that they are perfectly consistent in size--all my mugs hold exactly the same amount of liquid, all my spoons hold the same amount.

With some detective work, I've figured out American equivalents for each measurement.

A "glass" is a full mug, or 1 American cup.

"Fincan" is the tiny little cup that you use for strong Turkish coffee. We don't drink coffee, so we don't have any fincans in our house, but when I use a 1/4 cup measure to replace "fincans," the recipes seem to turn fine.

A "soupspoon" is equivalent to an American "tablespoon."

A "tablespoon," confusingly, is equivalent to an American "teaspoon."

And a "coffeespoon" (the Turkish influence in Bosnia--coffee is the standard, rather than tea) is equivalent to an American 1/4 tsp. measure.

Mystery Solved

2011-04-25T06:30:00.000+03:00

Earlier, I wrote about mystery greens I bought from a sidewalk vendor.

I recognized them in a New York Times article about foraging for food in the forest. Ramps!

Mystery solved (and lots more recipe possibilities now that I know what to search for online).

Celebrating Easter

2011-04-23T06:30:00.000+03:00

Our family has lots of Christmas traditions. It troubles me and David that we don’t have so many Easter traditions. And yet, Easter is arguably even more religiously significant that Christmas.

It’s tempting to say that we have fewer traditions for Easter because we’re trying to make it more holy, but the way it’s actually worked out is that Easter is just easier to forget than Christmas. So in the last few years we’ve been thinking harder about how we celebrate.

We spend our daily family scripture study during December re-memorizing and reciting the Biblical Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. About three years ago we started memorizing and reciting the Easter story from the gospel of John. This year, for the first time, it feels like a welcome, familiar tradition. I like the way the daily recitation gives shape to the season. It also prompts lots of conversation about tiny details of the story that deepen the significance of the season for me.

We’ve always colored Easter eggs. This year we did it in the traditionally Bosnian way, a tradition I’d like to keep, connecting up our family history to our religious history.

Another change this year that I think worked: we had an Easter meal the week before Easter. We’ll still have an Easter dinner on Easter Sunday, but why not extend the holiday? At Christmas there are lots of foods we eat throughout the month just because it’s Christmastime.

So last Sunday we had trout—fresh trout is plentiful, reasonably-priced, and delicious in Bosnia—and honeycomb that we had picked up at a honey fair (luckily we had a friend visiting who coached us on how to eat honeycomb—you spread it on warm toast). While we ate, we read the account of Christ’s eating fish and honeycomb after his resurrection and cooking fish on the beach to feed his disciples.

“Next year let’s cook the fish over fire,” suggested Isaac. Just what I want to hear—my child suggesting an Easter tradition.

I’m curious about what Easter traditions work for your family.

I loved this article by one of David's former students about Easter at her house.

Onion-skin Easter Eggs, Bosnian-style

2011-04-22T06:30:00.001+03:00

Here in Bosnia, Serbian Orthodox families traditionally dye Easter eggs with onion skins. We decided to do our Easter eggs the traditional Bosnian way.

First, we gathered leaves and blossoms, dipped them in egg white and affixed them to the raw eggs. (Happily, only a few eggs got dropped by my enthusiastic 5, 6, and 7 year old helpers.)

Then we carefully put the decorated eggs into an old nylon stocking. Not carefully enough, it turned out. The stocking knocked the foliage off all but one of the eggs. Every experienced Bosnian egg decorator I asked about it told me I just didn't do it carefully enough.

We dumped onion skins on top of the eggs--we've been saving the colored skins of our yellow onions for weeks now. Today at the produce market we saw an enterprising vendor selling not only onions but also bags full of onion skins.

I covered the whole mess of eggs and onion skins with water and squirted in a bit of vinegar, too, about a tablespoon. We boiled the eggs for 15 minutes, turned off the heat, and let them continue to soak in the onion skin water for about an hour (until dinner was over).

The last step was to dry off the eggs and rub a tiny bit of oil into the shell to make them glow.

I had been dubious about how well our brown eggshells would take color, but the results, even without the shadows of leaves and flowers, were beautiful. Not pastel: vivid and gorgeous.

Spring?

2011-04-21T06:30:00.001+03:00

After my going on and on about spring in Sarajevo, it snowed mid-April. On Emma Lucy’s birthday. It’s all melted now. I have my fingers crossed that this time it’s for real.

Mystery Greens

2011-04-20T06:47:00.000+03:00

I usually buy produce at the open air produce market. There, dealers buy from their regular suppliers and they show up every day, just as if they had a bricks and mortar store.

Near the official produce market, people--often scarved women--set up shop on the sidewalk to sell stuff from their gardens. This spring I've been buying greens from the sidewalk vendors.

We tried stinging nettles. (Do you really grow these in your garden? Maybe they were gathered from the wild.) My new Bosnian cookbook (and many Internet sites) handily explained how to cook them so they won't sting you when you eat them.

And we tried these, too. I don't know what they are. The Bosnian friend I counted on to tell me didn't know either, but lots of people are selling them on the sidewalk. The woman I bought them from told me not to cook them but to serve them in a salad. They're slightly spicy.

Anyone know what it is we're eating?

Sarajevo Rose

2011-04-19T06:30:00.001+03:00

During the war, the streets and sidewalks of Sarajevo were pounded with shells. Many of them killed people. All of them contributed to a climate of terror.

In silent witness to the violence, Sarajevans began filling the holes with red resin. They named them "Sarajevo Roses."

Today, some of the streets and sidewalks have been repaired. Even where they haven't, most of the resin has worn away. It's a lot harder to spot a Sarajevo rose now than it was nine years ago.

But on April 6, Sarajevo Day, someone quietly reminded us all of that not-so-distant past.

Counting on your fingers

2011-04-18T06:30:00.001+03:00

My library story time kids enthusiastically recite the fingerplays we do every week. In English! Most of them don't speak English yet, but all of them sing along with fairly sophisticated vocabulary--"creep them, crawl them"--and do all the hand motions.

But on one of our counting rhymes, although they would sing with me, none of them ever did the hand motions. This puzzled me, since they are so good at the actions on all the other songs, until our Bosnian tutor mentioned to us that she finds the way Americans count on their fingers odd.

She showed us the way Bosnians count their fingers--palm facing the sky, starting with "one" at the thumb instead of the index finger.

So at the next storytime when we did our counting rhyme, I held my hand palm up and counted starting with my thumb. All the kids did it along with me!

Uncles and Aunties

2011-04-16T06:30:00.003+03:00

Image Source

Bosnian has a complicated set of words for uncle and aunt. There are different words for your father's brother (stric, unless you're Muslim, in which case it's amidža), your mother's brother (ujak, unless you're Muslim, in which case it's daidža), and yet another word for the spouse of one your parents' siblings (tetak).

You also use the word differently in Bosnian. In Bosnian you don't append a first name to the title. So, when you spoke to your uncle you might address him as Stric but never as Stric Darko. I had a hard time figuring out how this would work out in real life (not call my Uncle Paul "Uncle Paul"?!) until I realized it's the same way we use the titles "Grandma" and "Grandpa" in English: we rarely append a first name to them; we simply use the title by itself to address the family member.

There is one exception to that rule. If you are talking to an adult you are not related to and want to show them respect but using the formal equivalent of "Mr." or "Mrs." would be too stiff, you call them Čiko or Teta along with their first name. So our landlady taught our children to call her Teta Fatima when we lived here before. It's a lovely tradition, kind of like "Don" or "Doña" in Spanish. The closest English equivalents I can think of are the Hawaiian use of "Aunty" as an honorific and the Southern use of "Miss" before a grown-up woman's first name.

"If you want to win, you must not lose." --Number One

2011-04-15T06:30:00.001+03:00

One of the most disorienting things about living in another country is discovering whole corners of the world that I didn't even know existed.

After I published a post about a whimsically-painted RV, one of my kind-hearted Bosnian readers (thanks!) told me that the pictures were not only not random but also a very central part of Bosnian, and Yugoslavian, popular culture. They pictures were of characters from Alan Ford comics.

Alan Ford?

Originally an Italian comic strip, it was only mildly successful in Italy, but the Serbo-Croatian translations were wildly successful. The spoofs of James Bond and Western culture appeal to the Yugoslavian sense of humor. Alan Ford characters (like crotchety old Number One), phrases, and jokes are part of the language and the culture here. I asked our tutor about Alan Ford, and she told me she has a painting of an Alan Ford character hanging in her house!

This site allows you to read the comic strips online. My favorite part of it, though, is the gorgeous cover art.

I'm either going to have to quickly improve my Bosnian language skills or wait for the English translation.

Enjoy!

I'm lovin' it

2011-04-14T06:31:00.001+03:00

This is a collection of signs in the center of town.

I especially like the one for doner kebab and like that it's spelled "Mak." In Bosnian, "Mac" would be pronounced something like "mahts."

It's a lot more subtle than a similar knock-off near our old house in Khartoum, Sudan.

Signs of spring: blossoms on the trees

2011-04-14T06:30:00.001+03:00

By Eleanor's school.

Out our dining room window.

Seventeen

2011-04-13T06:30:00.002+03:00

The music is "Sretan Rođendan" for our newly-minted seventeen year old. This is the second time she's had a birthday in this country (her dad's the only other one of us who shares that honor) but last time she turned eight.

She's turning from a square to a prime, something that will only happen again when she turns 37 and 101 (and unique this year in our family, even though six of the eight of us are turning prime numbers).

It's a big year for her, and we hope all her plans and dreams turn out even better than she can imagine.

Sretan Rođendan!

I didn't even know anyone made these anymore

2011-04-12T06:30:00.002+03:00

This is the current front window display of a posh stationery store on Ferhadija, the main shopping street in Sarajevo.

A NEW manual typewriter?!?

I have a guest post up on Women in the Scriptures about our family's weekly evening together.

Signs of spring: sidewalk food

2011-04-11T16:44:00.000+03:00

The first sidewalk ice cream case of the year! (We had to test it--along with half of Sarajevo. I think there may be significant advantages to being the first one of the year!)

Signs of spring: flower boxes

2011-04-09T06:30:00.000+03:00

The first window planter I've seen with plants so far this year. Not flowers yet, but it's only spring!

We happened to be on Ferhadija in the center of town when city workers were finishing planting the curbside planter boxes. The tiny plants, carefully spaced, the brave flowers--it's all so hopeful!

Signs of spring: more flowers

2011-04-08T16:25:00.000+03:00

Even the weeds are beautiful.

And flowers are blooming on some of the many graves in town.

Signs of spring: bugs

2011-04-07T06:30:00.000+03:00

The first worm and beetle of the season, and the seven year old who has to pick them up.

Signs of spring: scooters in the kindergarten cloakroom

2011-04-06T06:30:00.001+03:00

Dolmas, or Stuffed Vegetables

2011-04-05T06:30:00.001+03:00

Our new Bosnian cookbook bristles with sticky-notes reminding me and Isaac where there are recipes we want to try. Dolmas, or stuffed vegetables, are one of the most typical Bosnian dishes. They're on practically every restaurant menu and have always been one of the dishes Bosnians serve us when we eat in their homes.

So, we tried stuffing peppers and zucchini and tomatoes. My photography isn't as luscious as the cookbook's, but the dolmas, especially the zucchini ones, turned out well.

Sealed door on insurance company

2011-04-04T06:30:00.000+03:00

Lately, an insurance company we pass on the way to school has always been closed. Then one day a notice appeared on the door, saying that the premises had been sealed by a government agency and that it is a crime to tamper with the seal.

They're not kidding. The string tied around the door handle is affixed to the door with an actual seal, probably made of wax (I didn't touch it to test!) and sealed with an official seal. Makes me wonder what story is behind the closing of this company...

Sebilj Česma: Pigeon Square

2011-04-02T06:30:00.000+03:00

Fountains are an important part of Sarajevo street life, and this fountain, in a square in the old Turkish part of town, is one of the most famous. Its official name is Sebilj Česma, but our family calls it Pigeon Square for all the pigeons that congregate there.

I have heard that the pigeons all left during the war. They're skittish, so it wouldn't surprise me they'd flee the mortars. But they've been back for generations now.

You can buy corn from people who sit there near the fountain selling it and feed the pigeons.

Dreaming

2011-04-01T06:30:00.000+03:00

Isaac dreamt that he was in Hogwarts, exploring shifting hallways and stairways with Ron and Fred and George Weasley.

The same night Eleanor also had a Harry Potter dream. She dreamt she was a chocolate frog.

No April Fool.

Image Source

Gurabije, or Bosnian Biscotti

2011-03-31T06:30:00.000+03:00

Our new Bosnian cookbook has a several recipes for "Gurabije" in the Sweets Section. The recipes are quite different from each other in both ingredients and techniques. I think the word must roughly translate as "cookie." Always on the lookout for low-fat cookies, I tried this recipe. It's not low fat (sigh; no cookie recipes ever are) but its only ingredients are nuts, flour, sugar, salt, and eggs.

I really liked them. David and Emma Lucy thought they tasted like biscotti. Eleanor said they were too hard, but she ate three of them in one sitting. The cookbook said that gurabije are often served for breakfast with tea, so we had them for breakfast too, and with our favorite cranberry/raspberry herbal tea.

Cookies for breakfast. An idea whose time has come.

We'd love to have you for dinner.

2011-03-30T06:30:00.001+03:00

Image Source

A man walks down the street holding a lobster.

"What you doing?" his friend asks.

"I'm going to have the lobster for lunch."

The lobster pipes up, "No thanks. I've already eaten.

This joke does not work in Bosnian because you use one preposition, za, if something is going to be lunch and a different preposition, na, if someone (or something) is joining you for lunch.

Prepositions are hard for us to remember and get right. We convulse our tutor in laughter as we tell her, in Bosnian, about having guests za dinner.

I only wish, when we were having guests na dinner, that we were in Phoenix and could get dessert from the bakery where our niece works.

Žuta Tabija, or Yellow Fortress

2011-03-29T06:30:00.000+03:00

Image Source

Žuta Tabija, or Yellow Fortress, is part of the old defenses of Sarajevo. I suppose it must have been painted yellow at some point? It is high up in the neighborhoods above the city, and there are spectacular views from it.

Dad takes a beautiful photograph while Mom says, "Step closer to me! No, no! Don't lean that direction..."

At least as fascinating as the view, though, is watching the (mostly teenage) crowd watching the view on a clear, springtime afternoon.

A Walled City

2011-03-28T06:30:00.000+03:00

If you hike up high enough into the hills, you discover that Sarajevo was once a walled city. Now, the central shopping and business area is down at the bottom of the hill along the river, where it has almost always been, but as I understand it, these walls were built a few centuries ago after the Miljacka River flooded its banks and sent Sarajevans scurrying up the hill. It doesn't flood all that often, though, so downtown Sarajevo eventually moved back down and left city walls high up in the hills.

Strange Exports

2011-03-26T06:30:00.001+03:00

A chic cafe just off Ferhadija, the main pedestrian walkway through the center of town.

Sretan Rođendan

2011-03-25T06:30:00.002+03:00

Cubist cake by the talented Liz Pimentel, niece and pastry chef extraordinaire in Phoenix, Arizona.
Image used with her permission.

One of the great joys of parenting is watching our children become competent, interesting, good-hearted grown-ups. I feel lucky to count my grown-up children as my friends.

Happy birthday to our girl who legally becomes a grown-up today. (But you still need us to rent a car).

Pennywhistles in Kosovo

2011-03-24T06:30:00.004+03:00

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When we first moved to Sarajevo, we heard about an American woman, also a Mormon, who, like us, was here in the former Yugoslavia without being with the military. She was in Kosovo, we heard, on some quixotic venture to teach refugee children to play the pennywhistle.

Well now, nine years later, she's still there, and her music program operates in Uganda and Northern Ireland as well as in Kosovo. I had the great fun of interviewing her for the Mormon Women Project. I invite you to visit that site and read my newly-posted interview with a remarkable woman, Liz Shropshire.

Little House in Sarajevo

2011-03-23T06:30:00.001+03:00

Another blogger is occasionally illustrating passages from favorite books with photos from her own life. I like the idea. She gets her passages from serious novels, but the books I'm loving the most and spending the most time with are children's books. From our current read-aloud, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods:

For breakfast there were pancakes, and Ma made a pancake man for each one of the children. Ma called each one in turn to bring her plate, and each could stand by the stove and watch, while with the spoonful of batter Ma put on the arms and the legs and the head. It was exciting to watch her turn the whole little man over, quickly and carefully, on a hot griddle. When it was done, she put it smoking hot on a plate.

Whimsy

2011-03-22T06:30:00.001+03:00

Wandering around high in the hills above Sarajevo, we stumbled upon this motor home.

Inspired by or inspiration for Miyazaki?

Whiny postscript to spring

2011-03-21T15:02:00.002+03:00

It's snowing.

Welcome, Spring!

2011-03-21T06:30:00.000+03:00

Signs of spring: on the streets

2011-03-19T06:30:00.002+03:00

Roller skates.

Vespas.

Football in the street.

And the first ice cream cones of the year.

Signs of spring: flowers

2011-03-18T06:30:00.000+03:00

After days of freezing weather and snow, it has suddenly gotten warm and the snow is melting. The second day of warm weather, the vacant lot on our street was covered with wildflowers.

Bosnian Cook

2011-03-16T06:30:00.003+03:00

For Osmi Mart, my family gave me a gorgeous Bosnian cookbook, translated into English. It's Bosnian Cook by Lamija Hadziosmanovic. It is full of photos, and so far we've liked everything we've made from it. Eleanor and Isaac have proposed that we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner exclusively from its recipes until we leave Sarajevo.

When I started to put the book away, I said, "Oh! They printed the spine backwards."

"No," David told me. "That's the way they do it here. You just turn your head the opposite way when you look at the bookshelf."

So I got out all the books we've bought by Bosnian publishers. Sure enough, their spines are all printed bottom to top instead of top to bottom.