Posts Tagged With: travel with kids

Salvador Dali: Cool, Crazy and Creative.

Posted on October 30, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

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These are the words our just-turned-nine year old used to describe Salvador Dali today having spent three hours perusing his works at the Dali museum in his birthplace, Fuegeres, Spain. Now, just so we don’t get ahead of ourselves, she was really tired and pretty fed up by the time we left, and we did have to rush the 21st and 22nd rooms a bit. But still, its great that she was able to come up with such positive words to describe Dali’s work. Let’s face it, there could easily have been harsher words used to describe it. And she was quick to point out that it is his work that is cool, not him. Him, apparently, not cool at all. What with that mustache and the crazy eyes…
She was fascinated by the constant reappearance of Gala, and spent a while speculating on who she might be, and whether she would have been mad that he painted her with her boob showing. Because its disgusting, obviously, and if it were her, she would have been furious.
The older two girls would have been happy to spend more time there – there is so much to see in every picture, you could spend an hour on each one. (I couldn’t, but apparently they could). That would mean we’d have been there until next Wednesday, I think. They are not kidding when they say much of his life’s work is housed there! Some of the kid’s other thoughts today:

It’s amazing that he could do really normal paintings and sculptures, and then do these!
I wonder why he decided to do his Soft Self Portrait with a piece of grilled bacon…I guess everything’s better with bacon.
Who would think to put corn around someone’s neck, and a baguette on their head?
Do you think Dali was a poacher? (in response to the one with all the stuffed squashed pheasants)

They loved it though, which quite surprised me. I guess when you think about it, the eyes of a child are the perfect eyes for a lot of this work. No judgement really, just fascination and wonder. We have lots of questions for Google tomorrow.
And I think we almost succeeded in our attempt to pass it off as a Halloween Field Trip. One of them even suggested they could do a Dali inspired Halloween picture tomorrow since so much of the crazy fits in well with Halloween. All in all, I think he was a big hit. And our children continue to amaze me with their incredible insight and open-mindedness.
Road School is so enlightening. For all of us.
By the way, it was very cool, and well worth a visit. But make sure you have lots of time, because you really could spend the day.

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Archeology and Stuff

Posted on October 18, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

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So, I emailed the kids’ teachers today for the first time since we left. I wanted to check in to see how what we were doing compared with what they were doing. Because if I’m honest, I don’t feel like we’re doing much. Weeks where we are on the road, nothing really gets done, and even now we are settled in one place for a few weeks, it’s hard, somehow, to make the time to do “school”. Yes, I know travelling is an education in itself, but as I think I may have mentioned before, I don’t want them to return to school feeling lost in any way. Hence the need to check in.
One teacher got back to me almost immediately with a pretty detailed run-down of what they were doing, and he happened to mention that they were doing an archeological dig in class tomorrow using rice as soil, and with real artifacts supplied by Parks Canada so they can learn how we discover information about the past. Excellent idea – what an exciting hands on lesson for a grade five class!
It occurred to me as I finished reading the email that we had been to the “Dig” archeological museum in York where our own little students had a similar experience. They were able to dig up real artifacts from York’s Roman occupation, it’s Viking era, and it’s Tudor period. I was pleased to make the connection, so I started to tell the teacher about it in my response email. Then I remembered we had also been to the current Roman excavation of Vindalanda near Hadrian’s Wall. Then I thought about our brush with The Acropolis, our tour of The Roman Colosseum, and finally our visit to ancient Akrotiri in Santorini where we actually walked on the streets that had been buried in volcanic ash for the past 3,500 years.
Then I stopped writing the email because it sounded braggy. I just deleted it and said instead that she was familiar with archeology from our trip, so she should be ok for social studies.
The great revelation for me, though, was the fact that even when I think we aren’t doing any “school”, we are, of course, doing all kinds of it. It’s just not the kind where we are in a classroom or sitting at a table. I need to make sure I remember that more often. The experiences our kids have had with just that one topic in the past two months are more than many will have in a lifetime. It reminds me how lucky they are. How lucky we are. What an amazing gift to our family and to each other this year is, despite it’s ups and downs. In fact, there aren’t really any downs, are there?

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Living with Less

Posted on October 14, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

As I sit here applying a little lipliner from the stub of my MAC spice liner that happened to be in my purse, not in the broken-into car, I feel cranky again. This is the only cosmetic I have left. So, I’m applying a little and putting vaseline over the top. Why? Not sure…that’s a whole other blog post I imagine. Or maybe some sort of self help book…
Anyway, the robbery happened a week ago today, so we have been here at La Fougere in the beautiful Pyrenees for almost that long. And have we done much hiking? Have we enjoyed long rambling walks around the lakes and along the rivers? Have we taken advantage of the fact that we finally don’t have to drive every day? Have we been to the numerous amazing thermal baths we keep reading about?
No. We have not.
Why? Because it has taken us almost a week of driving around to any town big enough to stock walking shoes to actually get a pair of shoes. I have big feet, and apparently either all women in France have big feet and so they’re sold out (which is not the scenario I expect is true), or more likely, no women in France have big feet. Merrell lady’s shoes come in sizes up to European 44, but no store here has any over 41. I take a 42. So, every store I went in had maybe one or two pairs of shoes in that size, but all of them were men’s. Which is fine as long as they’re not really wide, and big and black and clunky and manly. Which they all have been. I did finally get a pair yesterday afternoon. They are big and manly and not something I would really want, but they were on sale, and so my thought process is that I can wear them now and buy something I really want when I get back to England.
This is only one of the inconveniences that has resulted in us not being able to fully enjoy our beautiful surroundings. It takes a really long time to find a place where we can buy underwear for the whole family. And don’t even get me started on bathing suits. I have a big body too, and buying a bathing suit generally takes me longer than buying shoes. Or any other item, really. Even for the kids, it is not the right time of year to be buying bathing suits. None of us has found any yet, and so no mountain hotsprings.
The thing is, we did not come here to shop. It is not a shopping sort of a place. Half the stores don’t even open unless they feel like it. In France, they close from 12-2, and then reopen. Maybe. And in Spain they open 10-2 and then close from 2-4:30 or 5. Depends. Some of them only open at the weekends. Some close on the weekends. Some close on Mondays. Some on Wednesdays and Fridays. In short, it is almost impossible to go anywhere with the intention of shopping without a written schedule of opening and closing times. Which, naturally, does not exist.
What I need is a mall, a really big one that opens from 10-10 and has stores I recognize. We could go to Barcelona, but with the car window still out, we can’t really go too far. Oh, and that’s the other thing; we have now driven to Spain twice where the closest Citroen dealer supposedly was, and it was closed both times. Yesterday we finally found one open in Bourg Madame, on the border, but they need to order the glass so it will be Wednesday or Thursday by the time we get the car fixed.
Now, this all sounds very negative, and I don’t want it to appear that we are not appreciating our time here. Most of the time, everyone is very positive, and we are just getting on with it. We are learning to live with less, which is never a bad thing. For example, when I get up in the morning, I don’t have to decide what to wear. If it’s cold and cloudy, I wear my long pants and my long sleeved top, and if it’s sunny and warm, I wear my t-shirt and my short pants. And up to today, I always wear my flipflops, regardless of the weather. Today, though, I will wear my men’s walking shoes.
Another positive, I asked one of the kids to go upstairs and get dressed this morning, and she said, “I have no clothes”. Right. Much easier. Pajamas are clothes and clothes are pajamas. Good.
Also, our kids have always been pretty good at entertaining themselves without much, but this brings new meaning to it. They have been playing very intricate and detailed games with a wooden chess set and board they found in a cupboard. I believe one kid controls the white guys and the other the brown guys who live in the “castle” which is the box. The pawns are villagers who also live in the castle, the bishops and knights are servants, and the coloured pieces from the Ludo game are the evil interlopers trying to take over the castle. Fabulous.
It’s all good. But I still get cranky over the fact that all our belongings are probably in a dumpster somewhere in Rome.

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Beaches

Posted on October 4, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

I am currently sitting at Kamari beach, Santorini, watching the kids pop up out of the water occasionally and yell excitedly to each other about the new kind of fish, the size of the fish, the number of fish, or the really cool seaweed directly below them. They have been enthralled by these beaches, from Monterrosso in Italy where the snorkeling craze began, to each of the beaches we have visited in Santorini.
Now, I have always said we are completely spoiled on PEI, and we are. We have the most amazing sandy beaches. But this is different. We have been avoiding the sandy replicas of PEI beaches, and heading to those that are more unfamiliar and interesting for the kids. The black sand of Perissa where the ocean floor is just a big volcanic slab, the charcoal gray pebbles of Kamari, and the creamy pumice cliffs of Vlyxada have all been favourites, each one surprisingly as good as the last (even though they only ever want to go to the last one they went to!). There is a very famous red beach here as well, and we did go check it out, all the while thinking “what’s the big deal, we have tons of red beaches”. And although we didn’t venture down the cliff to get to the actual beach, it was interesting to see. Not like ours at all really except in colour – massive red volcanic cliffs, and red porous rock almost like pumice, but the wrong colour. Not sandstone.
It has been such a pleasure to see the kids exploring these new ocean playgrounds and listening to their tales of exotic creatures!
We even do “beach math” with pebbles!

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Food/Nutella

Posted on September 26, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

I had a comment recently that remarked on how good the food must be in Cinque Terre, and we did, in fact, have a meal in Monterroso that was exceptional. Risotto a la Mare, complete with eyes and antennae. Dev said it was the best meal he’s had in a very long time, and once I picked the offending items out, I have to agree, it was delicious. We also had pasta one night, and pizza the other, so we covered the essential Italian fare in our first three nights.
However, accommodation has cost us more than we anticipated, gas is ridiculous, and there are tolls everywhere (over 100 euros in tolls just getting to our first destination), so really, food is where we’ve been cutting corners. Our staple picnic fare has accidentally become breadsticks dipped in Nutella (which our youngest calls Nutzerella). And I say accidentally because our first day in Monterroso, I was charged with bringing lunch down to the beach and I couldn’t find anything suitable, so I went to the little store and bought the two items most easily recognizable (and some fruit). The kids said it was the best picnic ever, so it has become a bit of a standby. In fact, at the cafe here on the camp, if you don’t want to eat a raw ham sandwich (which they generally don’t), Nutella is pretty much the only other choice.
I remember a friend of mine travelling in Europe in her early twenties and blaming weight gain on Nutella. Now I can see why. It is everywhere, in very large quantities. And it’s cheap. And when you can’t understand the words on a package or menu because you did not learn enough Italian before you came to Italy, Nutella is a pretty safe option. Europe’s answer to PB & J.

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Back to the Real Italy!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

On our third day of Italian camping, we set off on a ferry from Punta Sabbioni to Venice to get back to some real Italy. Our kids begrudgingly joined us (like they had a choice). So much for their week’s respite from sightseeing, but this was small time. A half hour on a boat can hardly be called “travelling” surely. It was an overcast day, so we dragged them away from the waterpark and had a great afternoon walking around Venice, and touring the grand canal by waterbus. The boat there was fairly expensive for all five of us, so we did the freebies – Piazza St Marco, a quick look in the Basillica, the Rialto Bridge, and all the little photo ops in between. Venice has a reputation for being one of the most expensive cities in Europe, but there’s still lots you can do with a family for free.
We even had a great big gelato each for only a euro more than it would have been anywhere else in Italy. In the end, the kids loved it – the gondoliers in their bright stripy shirts and straw hats, the fancy glass shops everywhere, and the elaborate masks in almost every window. well worth an afternoon out of the pool. It wasn’t sunny anyway. In fact, there was a huge thunderstorm on the way home!
Today, however, perfect pool day. Not a cloud in the sky and 26 degrees. Bet they’re glad we did Venice yesterday!

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Birthdays on the Road

Posted on September 25, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

Our middle daughter turned 11 yesterday, and we weren’t very prepared. I had booked us into Marina de Venezia, a Eurocamp destination with a massive waterpark, specifically to arrive on her birthday – her gift. What I hadn’t factored into those plans was that it was a five hour drive from Monterroso to the Venice Lido where the camp is. So, instead of waking up on her birthday morning and being able to enjoy the water park, she woke up to packing and then driving. And five hours was the actual driving time. As in, if you don’t stop to pee or eat, and you don’t take any wrong turns, which of course, we did. Although, I must say, I was much more adept at getting us back on the right road this time. I didn’t panic, and now that I know that just because one road crosses another on a map, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can get on it, things are better. Duh.
So, we arrived at the camp ground at about 3:30pm, and by the time we registered, found our caravan, unpacked a few things, and walked a very roundabout route to the waterpark, it was a half hour before closing. No matter, the looks on the kids faces when they saw it, and the squeals of delight as they launched themselves into one pool after another was worth it. Still, a weird birthday for her. No cake. No friends or family to celebrate with (except us of course), no gift wrap for the couple of little gifts we’d been able to find in Monterroso…different. She had mixed feelings about her day. It was fun, and she’s excited to be here for a week, but it was a day of missing people as well. It’s even harder since we have no Internet access now, because she doesn’t have that instantaneous contact with anyone.
This place is great for the kids, and that’s what it’s for, really – a week’s respite from travelling around, sightseeing. For us, the respite from driving, packing and unpacking is great, but this no longer feels like Italy. Actually, it feels a bit institutionalized. You stick your hand out the car window on the way in and have a permanent bracelet strapped on, and then you go out and find reception for your “holiday provider”, one of their couriers shows you to your quarters, and there are occasional instructional PA announcements that feel slightly disconcerting somehow. There is everything you could ever need here, shops full of grocery items with German, French, British, Swiss, and Italian names, catering for familiarity regardless of where you’re from, restaurants, toy and hardware stores…I’m not a huge fan of places like this. Doesn’t seem authentic – I could be anywhere.
On the other hand, there’s also miles of sandy Adriatic beach where I could surely get lost with a book from time to time while Dev takes over the demands of water slides and toy shops…

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Culture Shock

Posted on September 22, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

Well, I don’t think you can get much more Italy than this. Cinque Terre, meaning Five Lands, is exactly that – five villages connected by hiking trails and a railway. We arrived in the first of the five, Monterosso al Mare on Wednesday evening at about 6:30, and we wandered aimlessly until the guy we were renting an apartment from, Fabio, appeared on the street calling “Janet” (which was me, as it turns out). The kids were overwhelmed, and I was too, to be fair. It was a lot to take in after two full days of driving. Bustling streets, raucous Italian voices, and colourful stucco buildings – all very unfamiliar.

Here are some of the comments over the first few hours:

I don’t like it here.
I didn’t expect it to be so foreign.
It reminds me of India; I didn’t think it would be like India.
I feel like I’m in Alladin.
I want to leave; it’s scary here.

Here are some of the comments on our third and final night here:

I wish we could stay here.
It’s so comfortable here.
This is the best beach I ever went to.
I love Monterroso the best out of all the towns here; it’s so comfortable here.

It’s amazing how you get used to a place, and how quickly it can feel like home. The first night they were clinging to us, and tonight they were racing around the streets, dodging tourists, laughing and shouting just like the local kids. They can order their own gelato, count to ten, and say thank you. They even hiked the arduous trail from Monterroso to Vernazza today, a stunning part of the Cinque Terre UNESCO World Heritage trail that links the five towns. It was a two hour, steep uphill trek, on which Liah was occasionally “going to die”, but all in all was quite successful. We saw lemon orchards, and lots of grape vines connected by a little “grape roller coaster” that allowed the farmers to pick way up on the cliffs and get the grapes back down again. The views of the ocean were absolutely stunning.
We also took the train to Riomiaggiore to have a little visit there, and then came back to an afternoon of snorkeling. A lot to fit in a day, but a great one.
This quick trip has reminded us that we need to stay longer in places. We are really just getting our bearings, figuring out how to read the menus, where to buy the best bread, where the freshest pastries can be found, and it’s time to go! Well worth the stop though, even though it was a hairy drive getting here – I would definitely consider a train in if we were to ever do this again.
Off to the Adriatic Coast tomorrow!

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Sat Nav Shenanigans

Posted on September 21, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

So, for those who are not aware, a sat nav is a gps system, you know the ones that talk to you and tell you when to turn, what lane to be in, and generally lead you straight to your destination once you plug the address in.
We’ve never actually used one before, but on the way down to St Ives, we tried out the one Dev’s brother had lent us, and by the time we got through the motorway confusion at Birmingham, we were sold! The girls named our sat nav voice “Josie Porgie” and Josie quickly became like part of the family. We praised her constantly, and she got us to Plymouth, then Swanage, without incident. Right to the doorsteps of the places we were staying. Fantastic. We even joked about the sat nav in the Picasso and pretended to be Bryn talking to Nessa….(you’ll understand that if you’re British and you’ve ever watched Gavin and Stacey).
So yesterday morning, we left for France feeling pretty confident, and ready for our 10 hour drive. Josie was fully charged and ready to go. But I wasn’t sure I really liked the way she got us out of Swanage – wasn’t the quickest way. So, we lost an hour there. This should have raised suspicion, but I think she may have been lulling us into a false sense of security. And you know how the rest of that day went if you read my last post…
Then when we finally got to France, Josie kept trying to get us off the highways onto little roads. Little roads that would only add time to our already arduous driving schedule. I started to get cross with Josie and turned her off from time to time. But I forgave her each time for her misdemeanors, and when we were finally able to get her to accept the name of the town in which we had booked our hotel, we went back to full reliance on Josie. Even though the route she was taking us was not the same as the one on the iPad. Which again, should have raised suspicion. But we still trusted her (although not as much, it has to be said). So, when she announced, at 10:30pm (which was already an hour and a half later than we were supposed to arrive), that we had reached our destination, we were very relieved.
Until we realized we were at a motorway service station. With one guy working. Who didn’t speak a word of English. Then I wanted to swear at Josie.
Turns out, she took us to the service station because it was sort of close to where we were going. On the map. But unfortunately, there was no exit to get to it. So after three very stressful attempts at communicating with the guy in the services, during which I realized how bad my French actually sucks, we figured out that we had to drive another 12 km down the highway and then double back on a parallel road to get to the hotel. Meanwhile, I had managed to contact the hotel, and a very stressed and tired sounding woman informed me that reception closed at 10pm (it was now 11), but that she would come back when we got there. When we got there, it was 11:53. Which made the grand total of driving time 14 hours, with three short bathroom stops. This was no sat nav misdemeanor. This was a full on felony.
Josie has been disowned. I turned her off today and shoved her in the glove compartment. If she had been ours, and not on loan, I would have shoved her under the tire. Right before we drove off.
Bitch.

On the up side, when we woke up this morning and ventured outside our hotel (Hotel Arts et Terroirs – which I suspected at midnight last night may mean Arts and Terror, and wondered why I would ever book a place with a name like that), we were deep in the Burgundy region. The little walk down the street to find a bank machine for euros, a post office to pay the toll fine we incurred last night when the toll booth would not take a credit card, and a patisserie for some breakfast, we were greeted with right-out-of-a-movie vineyards as far as the eye could see. It was really beautiful, and we regretted having to rush off so quickly to begin today’s driving adventure.
And another upside to the day was confirmation that we have the three best kids in the world. What other kids would quietly endure 14 hours in a car, making their own sandwiches along the way, and silently panicking as their parents flounder until 11:53pm?

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Ugh.

Posted on September 19, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

So today is slightly stressful for me. I can’t seem to control everything. Well, I cant actually control anything!
First of all, we stayed at a B&B in Swanage last night, which was wonderful, don’t get me wrong. That’s not the stressful part. We had a fabulous full English breakfast, our hosts at The Castleton were lovely, and the weather was glorious. There is so much we would have loved to explore there. We managed to get to Monkey World, an ape rescue centre the girls had been dying to go to, and we saw Corfe Castle, a spectacular ruin on top of a hill that literally makes you gasp as it appears on the skyline. We also had a great dinner at la Trattoria, a family owned Italian restaurant. This was all good.
The part that gets a little stressful is that we enjoyed our breakfast from 8:30-9:30, so we were much later getting going than we would have liked. Then everything seemed to take much longer than we thought. We did not make the best route choices, so we were delayed even further by that.
Then when we eventually got to Folkestone to board the Chunnel, went in the wrong lane, had to get out of that lane, only to find out our ticket would have been a LOT cheaper if booked in advance. So then we had to go into the terminal to buy a ticket instead of going straight through. Consequently, we missed the crossing and had to wait 45 minutes for the next one. Then we went into the wrong lane to actually get on the Chunnel, and had to go back and start over. Oh, wait, forgot to mention that when we got to passport control the passports were in the trunk in the bottom of a suitcase. “Who planned this trip?” said the passport officer with a little shake of his head. Hmpf.
So, now, we are finally on the thing (which, if you didn’t know, is a tunnel under the ground under the ocean, as Dev keeps enthusiastically telling the children). So it’s hot and claustrophobic in here, and my ears are popping, and I keep thinking of the fact that we are under the bed of the sea…
Oh well, we’ll be out soon. Then it will be about 4pm, and we will have 6 hours of driving to get to the hotel I booked us for tonight. Excellent. OMG. I forgot we now have to go back to driving on the right. But in a lefty car. And it’s not even 4pm because we just entered a new time zone. It’s 5pm. Crap.

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