bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Windier beach day.

    Oh man. I just had half a bottle of wine and a couple of shots of limoncello. And I am sitting across from Mark and there is more limoncello here. And it’s late on Monday and I still haven’t written my blog post about Sunday. Let’s see what I can do.
    + + +
    So the first thing that happened on Sunday was that Mark and I went for a very pleasant walk to find coffee and pastries and to scope out a different beach to play on with the family.
    Mark got a hazelnut pastry cornucopia thing, and I got a quilted puff pastry full of “crema.” Which was a sort of eggy custard.
     
    One of the things I like about Italian dolci is that the “neutral” dessert flavor is not vanilla. Vanilla is okay, but I can overdose on it. The neutral dessert flavor is just sweet cream, or sweet custard. No vanilla. Just the flavor of the milk and cream and sugar. In ice cream, it’s fior di latte, the flower of the cream. Or crema dell’uova, the cream of the eggs, for an eggier flavor. No vanilla. Sugar and cream; or sugar, cream, and eggs.
    Good cappuccino, and a sea breeze, and a faint but not unpleasant scent of tobacco from neighboring coffee drinkers.
    It was windy on Sunday! The waves were breaking all over the beach, and people were surfing! And windsurfing too.
    We decided to go to a beach that had a play structure for kids, Tortuga Beach, in case the wind was too strong for the little ones.
    We made our plan: We would go home, gather up the kids and dress them with clothes over their swimsuits, go out for a full Italian lunch, then go straight to the beach, then go home and have dinner in the apartment with our tired children.
    We stopped at the grocery on the way back for dinner food. Look! Proscuitto in single-serve packets:
    We bought breadsticks, and cheese from the deli (sold by the weight, so you have to talk to someone to get it). Cereal. Crackers. We moved on to a pastry shop and bought loaves of fresh bread, and six cookies for the children, and two stuffed cannoli. We stopped at a final small grocery and bought wine, and apples. The store owner’s two little daughters brought me a basket to put the apples in as I selected them.
    + + +
    We gathered the children and went out walking, looking for a good full lunch. The first place we tried would not seat us without a reservation. So we walked back, and found a good-sized table at “Il Bastione,” a restaurant in a medieval stone tower.
    I asked for a smile from these two and got this:
    I don’t think I could have gotten a smile out of the 3yo. He was rapidly melting, saying things like “Your red car is better than our car in Italy. It has faster tires.” And there were no breadsticks to be found! Mark picked him up and carried him around the restaurant, looking at the interesting windows and lamps.
    We ordered penne pomodoro for him, and a marinara pizza for our 11yo and 7yo, and a shared pasta with tomato pesto for Mark and the 17yo. Me, I saw “insalatina di farro con tonno rosso” on the list of antipasti, and knew I had found my lunch. Chewy wheat berries, herbs, olive oil, lemon-soaked raw fresh tuna, and thick shards of parmigiano reggiano? Please. I didn’t want to share with anyone.
    Except the 13yo, who had ordered the pizza Genova: pesto, with roasted potatoes and slim green beans. The crust was perfect, crisp and light. We traded some. It was heavenly.
    For dessert: gelato, and crème brulée (very like eggy vanilla pudding), and a fudgy chocolate log with hazelnuts sliced and served with gelato, and a fantastic panna cotta served with seasonal fruits: melon, kiwi, peach. I had a semifreddo with pistachio and chocolate, a bit too rich but lovely. Finished with espresso.
    On to Tortuga Beach!
    By this time the wind and the waves were quite strong. We tried to take the little children to the play structure, but it was closed for lunch and wouldn’t open for twenty-five minutes. So we went down to the beach, where there were literally no families playing in the waves and no one but wet-suited surfers in the water.
    Our older kids were excited and ran in, but then the lifeguard and a manager both came out to tell us not to let them in deeper than their bellybuttons, because the water was “molto pericoloso” today. The waves crashed and broke all around us. I saw a jellyfish washed up on the sand, told the 3yo not to touch it. “It will sting me,” he said gravely. Kid has watched a lot of Octonauts.
    + + +
    So I kept a firm grip on the 3yo’s hand, and Mark kept the 7yo, and we ordered the tween and teens to stay close in. And the lifeguard watched us nervously, as we were literally the only family on the whole beach. And at three o’clock the lifeguard got my attention and said: Il parco de gioca è aperto adesso. And I said “Thank you! Grazie!” and asked the two little boys if they wanted to go to the playground, and they shrieked yes and ran over the sand, with me chasing after them warning them not to step on the jellyfish.
     
     
    The wind from the sea blew a fine sand into my eyes, even with my sunglasses on; I pressed them closer to my face. The two little kids attacked the play structure with relish, and I sat on a bench and felt the sun—even with the wind, it was warmer today.
    Eventually the water got so rough that Mark called it off even for the older kids. They all came in and hung out with me in the play area.
     
    We didn’t stay long, long enough for some play on the play structure, and for the big kids to get money and go buy themselves a soda. Then we walked tired home through the town.
    There is a little herb garden here. Lemon thyme, and oregano, and rosemary, all carved into little signs.
    Home, and a little rest. Mark produced some espresso from the machine and handed it to me proudly. I tasted it: “Sorry, it’s brown, but it’s ice-cold. Freddo.”
    “What?!” He bent over the machine to tinker with it, and I microwaved my espresso. Then I started pulling things out of the fridge. Cold meats, and the cheese from the deli —both goat cheeses, it turned out—wine, and a can of borlotti beans that I doused with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper; and a jar of roasted peppers, and a bag of hard breadsticks, and a plate of cut apples and yellow plums. We set it all out on the patio and fell to.

     

    Afterwards, while I wrote the previous day’s post, Mark and the big kids cleaned up, talking late into the evening of college majors, of management and finance and engineering.

     

    While the youngest curled up in a blanket and looked up at the stars.

     

     

     

    —

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  • Beach day.

    I woke up on the first morning in Andora and got dressed before anyone else was up. First I took some photos on the balcony.
     

    It is really a dream of an apartment, the kind that makes it easy to imagine living a beautiful life surrounded by sun-soaked potted flowers and succulents, drinking wine with friends on the terrace, retreating under an outdoor roof should a shower interrupt your dinner.

    Never mind that I can’t keep a single houseplant alive in my real life. Look, a potting bench with a sink, or maybe it is a wet bar. Either, neither, both, it doesn’t matter. It’s a fantasy, remember?

    I took a mirror selfie on my way out the exterior door. It was a little chilly so I wore leggings and flats and a fleece and a scarf over my little knit black dress.

    We are located on the west end of town, on the other side of a little river with a big marshy bed that flows down to the sea. If you look up the river from the bridge, you can see the low mountains we drove over, and the viaduct for the big coastal highway. There is a sign on the bridge touting the natural beauty of the marshy river, indicating that more than 40 species of birds live in this little valley. We have seen swans and a couple different kinds of ducks in it, ourselves, besides the pigeons and seagulls that frequent the beach area.
    My first order of business was coffee. I found a corner place on the way to the beach and ordered a cappuccino. I had difficulty understanding the barista when she was trying to ask me if I wanted “cacao” on my drink, probably because I forgot that that is a thing one gets on cappucino and I wasn’t expecting it. I hear words I am expecting much more easily than words I am not expecting.
    I took my time with the drink, and watched people come in and go out. An old man ordered a ristretto; I think I know what that is, but I am not sure. Somehow, I have never learned all the necessary vocabulary to order coffee made in different ways, either in Italian or in French, and somehow I find that sort of embarrassing. I want to know what I want, and I want to know how to ask for it, and I still don’t know either of those things. Because at a coffee shop at home I generally order a twelve-ounce dark roast, black drip coffee, or sometimes I ask for half-caf; I don’t think they have this here.
    So in France I order a café allongé (and I am not even sure exactly what that means, but it proves that I know enough to order something slightly more involved than just café), and in Italy in the morning while no one will laugh at you for it I order cappuccino, del caffè più tarde, but I feel like there is a whole world of other ways I could order my coffee that is still closed to me.
    By walking a few blocks from the apartment, I became the first member of the family to see the sea today.
     
    Palm trees and winding flowers everywhere. I associate palms with hot weather, so it was a bit odd to be walking around in a fleece against the brisk wind coming off the water.
     
    In the center of town was a piazza with knobby low trees that children could climb in, public phone charging stations, a play structure, and the parish church. This was a modern, modest, but well proportioned church, with a geometric steeple, and dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There is a much older and more historic church farther away from the beach, up in the hills, but this is within walking distance of our apartment. It was Saturday; I took note of the posted Mass times.
     
    I stopped at a store as I had promised, and bought things for breakfast: milk and granola (“muesli croccante con pezzi di frutti,” crunchy muesli with fruit pieces), square white bread, plain yogurt and fruity yogurt, and some plums.
    I came back to find Mark struggling with the espresso machine in the apartment. As the children leaped on the cereal and white bread, he served me his latest experimental cup. I sipped and pronounced it warm and brown, and therefore acceptable. “I think this is robusta, not arabica,” he said, and I said that was all right and I would drink anything, and we coul
    d buy better coffee in town if necessary.
    + + +
    The apartment came furnished with a bag of beach toys and straw mats. We collected a few bags of these, with towels and such, and put on our swimsuits and walked to the beach.
    The sun went in and out of clouds. It was cool and breezy when the clouds hid the sun, and perfectly warm when the sun came out. I held the 3yo’s hand and we let the waves roll up and foam around our ankles, and he shrieked and ran away, then back in. The 17yo took the 3yo and swung him up over the water. I went back and transacted to obtain rental chairs with umbrellas, one set in the front row facing the sea, and one set just behind (all the others, though empty, were already rented, some of them by the week). And I settled down, wrapped in fleeces and towels against the chilly breeze, to enjoy the sun.
    And the company.
    The waves were gentle and rolling. All the children ran in, and were whistled at by the lifeguard who explained to me that they were much too close to the rocks, and showed us by pointing where they could be. We redirected them, and then set them loose. The 17yo stuck close to the 3yo (who didn’t want to get any closer to the water than he had to to scoop it up in a bucket, anyway). The 7yo tried to bury himself in sand to get warm. The 13yo dove headfirst into the waves, over and over. The 11yo joined one, then the other, then the next, trying to do it all.
    At one point the 17yo brought the 3yo to us wet, spitting and coughing. “Just so you know,” he told us, “he’s okay, but he fell in the water.”
    “Did you taste the sea?” I asked him. “How did it taste?”
    He pulled a squinty, grinning grimace. “It tastes,” he roared, “like a sugar mistake!” We laughed till tears came. He ran right back to the sea.
    Later, having ventured farther out, he came back shrieking, “A big wave came! And then! Another big wave came! And! They both beat me!”
    + + +
    The beach was starting to fill up. It was no longer high season, but it was a weekend, after all. Everything was still warm and beautiful, but also everything was a good deal cheaper than it had been in August. The beach chair rental was half price.
    When Mark and I got hungry, we gave six euros to our 13yo and told him to find out what sort of food they had, buy some, and come back. He returned with a basket of hot french fries, with ketchup, and some change. “They have six kinds of panini,” he told us, “well, three of them I think they’re out of. One is tuna. They have french fries and something risotto. They have wine and Coke and potato chips.”

    I left the 3yo with the 17yo and went up to investigate myself, promising to buy him something.

    I ordered two panini with ham, cheese, lettuce, and tomato—one for me and one for the 17yo—and got tomato-flavored potato chips for the 3yo and also a Coke for the 17yo as a treat for having watched the little guy so attentively. And we got more french fries, and a glass of wine for me.

    When the man behind the counter brought our french fries, he had a big bottle of ketchup. “You need?” he asked, gesturing.

    “Yes, yes!” said the seven-year-old, pointing, and I said: Siamo americani. È…. necesario? and then thought, wait, was that a Spanish word?

    He laughed, squirting ketchup into the french fry basket, “È indispensabile!”

    My panino was good, hot and crisp with cool lettuce and tomato, and my wine was tart and slightly frizzante. One thing I have noticed about wine here is that if you ask for a glass, or a carafe, of wine, they only want to know: Rosso o bianco? And after you tell them, they might ask if frizzante is okay, as if they’ve been burned by tourists who weren’t expecting their not-champagne, not-prosecco wine to have little bubbles in it. A lot of it is frizzante, and some of the reds are pale and pinkish, almost rosé.

    But nobody yet in Italy has shown me a wine list. Maybe if I ordered a bottle? So far it has all been glasses and carafes. They always bring me wine, red or white according to my request, and il vino frizzante mi piace, so I guess I don’t need to know what I am drinking exactly.

    Around here all the wine, it seems, even the red, is chilled, not cold but cool, and also it all has a vinegary nose: like sniffing red wine vinegar, or sour ale. It tastes surprisingly tart, most of what I have had. But it goes down very easily, refreshing before the food arrives; and when the food arrives, it folds itself smoothly into the dish and seems softer, warmer, luscious, part of the meal.

    + + +

    We went back to the beach and spent another hour or so. I was enjoying just lounging around in the sun, which is a recent development; I have been training for it. Honestly, it is hard for me just to sit and be, a lot of the time; there is always something at home I ought to be doing, and sitting in the sun reading a book or just thinking is hard for me to do. The last couple of summers at home, I made a real effort to go outside for fifteen minutes at lunchtime, every nice day; put my feet up, read a book, feel the sun on my bare feet and arms.

    I put that practice to use.

    While I was there on the chair, wrapping up and unwrapping as the sun dove b
    ehind clouds or came out to warm me again, I got a lot of pictures of the family. This is one of my favorites.

    I am a little sad that I am not in it. But I wouldn’t have the picture if I had been there. I guess I’d have something else, sand between my toes, a memory of whatever it is they were saying to each other in that moment.
    You can make a memory, or you can make a record. You have to choose.
    She says as she sits at the table in the Italian apartment kitchen, writing on her iPad.
    Oh well, you need down time too, and one of my goals—a goal is a choice too—one of my goals for this vacation is to blog every day. I have a hope that it will get me back in the habit.

    + + +

    After showering and resting, we decided to go to Mass on Saturday evening and then have dinner in town.

    Church was at six p.m. We got there on the dot and were astonished to discover that it was utterly packed. We had to stand off to the side, in an alcove where the baptismal font was. The 17yo was carrying the 3yo in the carrier on his back; the 3yo fell asleep, so there wasn’t much for the 17yo to do other than to keep wearing him for the whole mass. He stood, leaned on the font, leaned on the windowsill, made do.

    The 7- and 11-yo had their Magnifikids. They sat on the floor, backs to the wall, which I think was okay because we really were out of the way in the baptismal alcove. Most of the standing people were by the front door (“the back of the church”) where they had a better view. There were also benches along the side walls.

    In case you are wondering why nobody offered our young and tired family a seat: Nearly everyone near us was elderly. There were a few families here and there; this town is not at all devoid of children, not the way Rome was. But there really was nobody around who ought to have offered us a seat! It was fine to stand.

    I would have liked a song book, though.

    When the Gloria started, my daughter perked up, because it was exactly the melody for the same Latin Gloria that she chants in the youth choir in our home parish. “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” sang the cantor, and my daughter jumped up and loudly started in on “Et in terra pax hominibus—” and then shrank back in embarrassment because nobody else was singing, after the cantor started they had all just started reciting the rest of the Gloria. In Italian.

    Oh well, she survived.

    It really is nice that the Mass ordinary is the same everywhere. Except for the homily itself, you know exactly what sort of thing is being said. The language may be different, but you know what is going on. If you want you can keep up, saying your own parts in your own language, or you can listen intently and find out how they do it here: Signore, pietà.

    I concentrated as hard as I could on the homily, and I gathered that today there was some couple in the parish who was celebrating a notable wedding anniversary, perhaps a fiftieth; and the pastor started out his homily talking about marriage and its gifts, especially the gift of forgiving each other many times, and then segued into a discourse on forgiving “seventy times seven” (I am good at catching numbers as they fly by). I hadn’t checked what the gospel was, but just now I am looking at iBreviary and I see that I was correct, that the “how often must I forgive?” story was the gospel for the day. So I caught that. Also that he finished by talking about marriage again.

    Most of it goes right by, but I catch phrases that come whiffing past my ears: “live in Christ and die with Christ,” “the gift of his whole self,” “a large sum of money,” and pretty much all the numbers. Also the priest made a joke when somebody’s cell phone went off for the third time, which made people laugh in the way they laugh to humor Father when he makes a joke from the pulpit; and I am not sure, but I think the joke was along the lines of whether the phone would ring seventy times seven times. Anyway, no more phone ringing after that.

    I coached the kids to go slowly and see what the other people do when they go up for Communion. In both Italy and France, the people have gone up more or less in rows, but oddly enough they go from back to front: the standing people and the baby-rockers in the back come down the aisle first, and then the back rows file up past all the kneeling people, down the center aisle and then after receiving split out to the side aisles and walk back. The front row goes last, and the last row goes first.

    Mark told me later that our mopheaded 7yo, who had his hands folded and was concentrating hard on not messing up or stepping on his sister’s heels as he came down the aisle for communion and therefore looked more angelic than usual, drew all manner of Italian-grandmotherly attention. I didn’t notice, but I don’t doubt it.

    + + +

    Afterward we let the kids play on the playground next to the church.

    It was a nicely appointed playground, with big wide terraced steps for parents to sit, and a long rampy thing down which one child rode seated on a skateboard, over and over and over. It was lovely to sit and feel the cool evening and let them play.

    Mark ran home to get our 7yo a Benadryl. Something about the salt water had made him very itchy.

    Pro tip: Always travel with children’s Benadryl.

    Then we headed off to find a restaurant.

    + + +

    It was about eight o’clock on a Friday night, and many places looked quite empty, so we were a little confused when we kept getting turned away and being told that without a prenotazione we couldn’t be seated. Finally we figured out that it was only eight o’clock, and so of course nobody was in the restaurant yet, because who would be eating dinner that early in Italy?

    But they’d reserved their tables! And when they showed up at eight-thirty or eight-forty-five, they were not going to want to see us in any of them.

    Finally, just when I started to despair (and when the 3yo was starting to tell me, “But they had chairs in that restaurant! They were not full!”) we found the Bottega di Cibo. And they had a table on the patio, under cover and sheltered from the wind, which they were glad to give us.

    With breadsticks right away for the 3yo.

    We asked to have all our food served all together so
    we could share in the family and so that the most small one would not get any more less happy, and that was all fine, and then we started listing pastas, and the waiter interrupted us to explain—Mark figured this out before I did—we can’t order everything to come all at the same time and have pasta for everyone. We would have to order some things that were not pasta.
    Put this in your list of useful proverbs: “Too many pastas stops the kitchen.”
    So I changed my order from the linguine alle vongole to a fritti misti di mare, and my oldest changed his pasta to a pizza “4 stagione.” The middle sized kids got ragù and Mark got a beef filet with green peppercorn sauce, remembering a memorable dinner in Rome. Number two son ordered pesto, and the più piccolo got a simple pasta pomodoro. We asked for wine and a liter of acqua naturale and a half-liter of acqua con gas.
    The waiter gestured toward the children. “Coca? Sprite? Fanta?”
    “No, no, solamente del vino per noi e dell’acqua per i figli,” I said, probably a little bit irritated, but Mark thought he detected in the waiter’s expression some approval of our choice not to give the children soda.
    My fritti misti came with a few more legs and tentacles than I usually find appetizing, but the calamari and shrimp were very good. (I admit to mourning for the lost linguini for which I had been jonesing, but I drowned my sorrows in a very nice glass of wine.) The 13yo’s pesto was perfect. The youngest children were happy with their sauced pasta. Mark’s steak was good and so was the oldest’s pizza, especially the part with the mushrooms, which were tiny whole ones with perfect little narrow stems and a slightly acid flavor.

    Afterward (oh my gosh, it takes forever to get the waiters’ attention for anything, I wanted a second glass of wine and I never had a chance to ask for it, and we should have asked for the check right away, I know there are downsides to a tipping economy but Americans reap the rewards in excellent attentive service) we decided not to order dessert.

    We went for gelato instead. And since the first three gelato shops were closed we were quite happy to find one open. Mark and I were too full, but all the kids got some. The best flavor was our 11yo’s sorbetto, pineapple with pineapple pieces.

    At the end of that day I had no trouble sleeping, let me tell you. We opened the windows and listened to the motorcycles, and fell right to sleep.

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  • Driving to better weather.

    Friday we got up early and packed smaller bags to drive to Italy for four nights where there would be sun.
    “How warm is warm enough to make it worth it to go to the beach?” Mark had asked me.
    I knew the kids could stand it much cooler than me, so I answered: “Sixty-five degrees.”
    And that is how we wound up heading for the Riviera Ponente, the Riviera Levante’s less-prestigious—and this week less-cloudy—western sister.
     
    We drove past Aosta, past all the castles in its little valley. Here is the very impressive Fort Bard, which commands the top of a hill-within-a-valley. We might take a tour of it on the way back, if we don’t decide to go to Turin instead.
    Our 17yo had some impressive views of Fort Bard when he went climbing a few days ago with the guide. He pointed out where he was climbing; you could see the face from the highway.
     
    We stopped in Nebbiolo country for lunch and found a little cantina being operated by a winery. Nobody switched into English there. I managed.
     
    Mark and our 13yo reverse-engineered the breadsticks. Do they extrude them in a long string and chop them apart, or do they finish the ends somehow?
    Reporting on lunch. The place had a menu that changed daily. There were only two choices of pasta (primi piatti) and two choices of main entree (secundi piatti).
    An aside: I know that Americans are supposed to be terrible with our supersized platters and all, but really, you basically eat dinner twice in every Italian restaurant I have seen. First the salad, then the pasta plate (surely enough for an adult), then the plate with the meat or fish, the potato, and the vegetable.
    Anyway, besides a simple rotini with tomato sauce for the two littlest boys, the pasta choices were puttanesca (heavy on the olives, light on hot pepper) and the same tortellini with ham and nutmeg-scented cream sauce that we have seen all over Aosta. We got pasta for everyone, and then we only ordered one each of the two secunda. These were roast beef or fish steak (I don’t know what sort of fish it was; it was mild and white and tasted good), served with herbed well-cooked peas, really delicious diced browned potatoes, and a weird little omelette rolled up with a soft cheese inside.
    I ordered 50 cL of the house red wine, forgetting that Mark had to drive, and was forced to drink a lot of it myself.
    I am blanking on what the kids had for dessert. I can tell you that Mark and I got espresso afterward and they offered the kids more gelato to have while we drank our coffee.
    No, wait, I remember: panna cotta with caramel drizzled over it, and an amaretto-chocolate-peach thing. And something else. I am sorry, I can’t remember.
    + + +
    Back on the road. But first the children have to play for five minutes on the slide out back of the winery.
    And contemplate the grapevines.
    Mark decided that everything would be more fun if it took longer, frightened me, and made our daughter throw up into her brother’s Klean Kanteen, so he took this road.
     
    Why go through the tunnels on the highway when you can drive directly over two mountain ranges?
    When we finally found a place to stop and dump out the soiled Klean Kanteen, we discovered that we were at a trailhead for a long hiking trail that winds along the top of the mountain range that separates Liguria from Piedmont. I had looked into hiking one of the sections as a cold-weather activity.
    Onward.
    Actually, the drive was really quite beautiful, and the road was at least well maintained and signed, with lots of room at the hairpin turns—I have definitely been on scarier mountain roads in the States. We are at the change of seasons here, so the mountains are green in some places and beginning to show autumn colors in others. There are a lot of ferns in the underbrush; the vegetation does not look like what I am used to.
    It is really striking that you can drive from the snowy mountains to a warm Mediterranean climate in just a few hours. I guess it is like parts of California, or maybe Oregon in the summer.
    + + +
    We stopped at a service station/truck stop place, used the bathroom, and went in to buy snacks. The gas stations in Italy have a cornucopia of food and packaged goodies that is similar in scope to what is sold at a better American gas station, but of much higher quality. There is a counter piled high with freshly made sandwiches of all types, and hot pizza, and espresso. There were bags of locally made meringue cookies and hard-pretzel-like snacks. There were plenty of different kinds of candy, and a small fridge of cold tea, energy drinks, soda, and beer. There were jars of olives, jams, pestos, and pickles.
    I picked out gummy bears, Haribo berries, and gum drops for the children, some coconut amaretti cookies, and a Red Bull for Mark’s afternoon caffeine fix.
    “What? Full priced American energy drink? Wasn’t there a cheap weird Italian one?”
    “Yes,” I said, “but it was called ‘Bee Bad’ and contained royal jelly. Isn’t that a little froufrou for you?”
    “If it’s cheaper than taurine, I don’t see how it’s any weirder,” he replied.
    “My favorite energy drink is the giant Starbucks Mexican Mocha,” piped up our 17yo from the back seat. “They didn’t have those.”
    + + +
    Finally we came into Andora, tantalizingly dotted with fat palm trees, and navigated to the coordinates of our apartment. The caretaker, a young woman with two young children at her heels, showed us around. She spoke a little English, but also French and German, and among all those languages we were able to work out where almost everything was.
    The place is really lovely, nice and new inside. Well stocked with toys for the children. Loud and echoey, though, with lots of marble and high ceilings.
    Gas range. Oven. Espresso machine.
    Dining balcony. Gnome.
    + + +
    We got a recommendation for a pizza place and went out, well after seven-thirty, to dine on a covered patio. It was cool out, cool and humid, but not cold. Still, it was nice to be under cover.
    The 3yo methodically destroyed the breadsticks and did not even stop to decide whether they had been die-extruded onto a belt or not. Then, when those were gone, he started in on the basket of baked bread rolls.
     

    We ordered:

    • smoked swordfish with arugula, which came thinly sliced with a half lemon to squeeze over it, and which I adored. We debated whether the greens were actually arugula though; the leaves seemed wrong, more like watercress, and our teenager and 7yo liked them. Unlike all previously encountered arugula.
    • linguine al pesto, which was luxurious and, this being Liguria, local.
    • pizza marinara, which had a lot of parsley on it.
    • pizza cepolle, which despite not looking like more than a cheese pizza with a few strands of red onion, had a deep onion flavor that seemed to be infused into the sauce and the crust.
    • pizza prosciutto, tasty as advertised.
    • pizza diavola, with spicy pepperoni and spicy oil drizzled on top.
    • 50 cL of red frizzante wine, which was not quite enough for Mark this time. I cannot seem to calibrate.
    • 2 L of acqua naturale.
    • Several tiramisu.
    • Mousse frutti di bosco, which our daughter traded for my tiramisu after she discovered she didn’t like it. I liked it just fine. She thought it was like a cheesecake but I thought it was more like an ice cream cake, coated with berry glaze.
    • Chocolate gelato and lemon gelato. Both very good.

    The town was so very quiet, even on a Friday night. The streets were nearly deserted. It is definitely the off season: all the prices go down between August and September. We read later that Andora has a population of about 7,600 which increases to 10 times that in the summer. Many restaurants appeared to be not open at all. But there were bars and pizzerias and shops. “I wonder if it will come to life tomorrow,” said Mark.

    It would.

    —

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  • Two meals.

    The weather wasn’t looking good in Cham for the next few days, so we started thinking about making a break for Italy sooner than we had planned. We had a lot of flexibility, actually, because the Cham apartment is free all the way until we are to depart from Geneva to London later this month. We had already asked if we could leave baggage there while we went on a five-day jaunt to Italy, and stay the last night before our London flight. Now we were thinking maybe we would leave earlier, and come back and stay several days at the end instead.
    I write this as if it were easy for me, but it wasn’t. Here we were thinking about driving to Italy tomorrow and Mark hadn’t even found us an apartment yet. I got upset because there were no plans. Mark decided to calm me down by driving us to Italy for lunch.
    Rain on the French side of the Mont Blanc tunnel.

    Rain on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc tunnel.

    We chose a little town called Morgex, and our oldest and I each mapped out a restaurant. The one I chose turned out to be all boarded up despite the posted hours on the outside. So we got back in the car and drove to the one our son chose, and that one was cheerful and open, and had a table ready for seven.
     
    We ordered seven plates:
    • mozzarella bufalo with local cured ham, sort of like proscuitto;
    • carpaccio di bresaiola with arugula and shaved parmesan;
    • pizza marinara;
    • pizza valdostana, that is, with ham and local cheese;
    • spaghetti bolognese;
    • tortellini with a cream sauce, dotted with ham and scented with nutmeg;
    • and a mixed grill, with tender steak, veal, and split sausage, and eggplant and zucchini and peppers, and a small pile of french fries.
    There is no way we will eat all this, said Mark, but then we did. The small children chowed down on french fries, pizza marinara, and spaghetti bolognese. The rest of us found room for everything else.
    And 50 cL of the house red wine for the grownups, thank you very much.
     
    I think the buffalo mozzarella with the ham was the winner. The cheese was mild, runny, a bit bland, and creamy; with the salty, sharp ham it became perfectly balanced and luxurious.
    I didn’t think we would have room for dessert, but the minute the server said “Affogato” I immediately ordered one for Mark and me to share. Sorbetto for the children, lemon and raspberry, except for our daughter who got gelato with chocolate sauce.
    The affogato—plain ice cream, I thought more likely to be fior de latte than vanilla, doused with a shot of strong espresso—was the best ever. Mark and I fought our way to the bottom of the dish with both spoons. The sorbettos, to our surprise, came in tall glasses with straws, and were drinkable. The girl was happy with her “affogatto cioccolato.”
    + + +
    That is literally all we did in Italy, spend two hours eating lunch and then drove back. Then we packed to go to Italy for longer the next day. Some people went shopping for a new backpack and things like that.
    After it all got sorted out, so that we had an apartment—not east of Genoa where we originally planned, but west, on the Riviera Ponente, where the weather promised to be better—Mark and I set out for a walk and a dinner on the town.
    + + +
    Mont Blanc is the highest peak in Europe, and it is quite close; but from the center of Chamonix it does not look like the most impressive peak. There are other peaks which are closer as the crow flies, and those look pointier and seem to tower higher.
    But just as the sun is setting, you can tell that Mont Blanc is the highest, because it is the last peak to light up pink with the rays of the sun.

    + + +

    Mark and I walked all over town. I had a problem: having had lunch in Italy, I was not hungry at all. Finally I told Mark to pick, and he settled on Le Chaudron on the Rue des Moulins. It had a tapas menu. Mark ordered fries for an entrée, and risotto with shrimp for the plat. I just ordered gazpacho, which came with another ball of buffalo mozzarella in the middle, and drank Argile wine from Savoie.

    The wine cut
    the raw-garlic taste of the gazpacho just right, and it was light enough not to make me overfull. Mark ordered dessert (baba au rhum, something I had seen on many menus but never had; it was pretty good). We walked some more on the way home.

    Next day, to Italy for longer.

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  • Big day.

    On Wednesday we had reserved a spot for our daughter to paraglide off the mountain. We left the other kids in the apartment and took her over to the Brévent lift. She was warmly dressed and very excited.

     

     
    We bought her the one-way ticket to the top, and waited for Sandie, the same pilot who had guided our oldest down from the mountain, to arrive.
     
    But when Sandie showed up, she told us that the wind was coming from the wrong direction to fly from Brévent, and we would have to send her off from the Midi instead. So we all hopped into the van from her parapente company and drove across town to the other lift. Sandie arranged for the money we’d paid for the other lift to be applied to this one. And we sent our daughter with her, walking across the plaza.
     
    The van took Mark and me to the landing field where we had a chance to examine a mock-up of the parapenting harness, hanging there for the parapente school.
     

    There was a nice view all around the valley. We chatted with the driver of the van, who had such a strong British regional accent that I thought for sure must be a UK expat. But he had trouble with some English. After I complimented him on his accent he said that though he was raised here in the valley, his dad was British. He had a French-speaking chestnut-colored dog who ran free, snuffling and digging holes in the ground: “For the flyers to break their ankles on,” he said, kicking a divot back into place with one foot.

    He offered us coffee, which we drank from a blue plastic camping mug, warming our hands while we waited for our daughter to come flying out of the sky under an orange wing.

    + + +

    But then the driver’s phone rang, and it was Sandie: the air was too moist, it was not safe to fly; they would be coming back down on the téléphérique.

     
    He offered to drive us over, since he would be going to pick up Sandie, but we elected to walk across town instead, and decided to take her out for a pastry afterwards.
    We waited and she came out with Sandie. “Are you disappointed?” we asked her, and she said not really; she had not expected she would really be able to fly today.
    “If you think it won’t really happen,” she said, “you won’t be disappointed if you can’t, and it will be a nice surprise if you can.”
    Everything is weather dependent in the mountains. It is a good lesson, even if a little sad. She still has a chance to try it again when we pass through France next week, but you never can tell.
    + + +
    So, back to the Best Bakery In the World (TM) where she asked for an apple-filled turnover and a bottle of green tea.

    Mark had a petit pain au chocolat and an almond-paste-filled, sugar-dusted confection. I had a perfect plain croissant, and a cappuccino.

    + + +
    Then Mark got in the rental car and drove away. I went back to the apartment and crashed, with a long nap.
    Mark and our oldest were gone all day. The 17-year-old had quite the windfall. Jeff the guide had invited him to come along for free as the “guest” (re: guinea pig) for a climbing certification. A Dutch guide was about to take the test to become an aspirant guide, and he needed Jeff (the instructor) and also someone to play the part of the client. That would become our son.
    We decided not to let him go on a multiday trip where he would stay overnight, but we agreed to allow them to take him out of the Chamonix valley into Italy, where the weather was much better. I sat down and wrote a note in two languages stating that he had permission to travel across the French-Italian border in the company of Jeff the mountain guide, for climbing, with our Chamonix address and phone numbers; and we gave him the note and his passport, and sent him off in the morning.
    He sent us some photos.

    Clearly the day was working out better for him.
    + + +
    Me, I was tired, and Mark was gone too. The trip isn’t entirely leisure; Mark planned five days of work in total. He had a meeting in Switzerland, and had taken the car.
    The meeting was a teleconference back to the States; his employer has a facility in Switzerland, so he went there to have the teleconference. An unusual meeting: he was set to appear before the promotions committee. Much of the previous evening had been spent preparing for it.
    I let the 13yo and then the 11yo take turns walking in the town. The rest of us stayed in the apartment. With Mark gone, and me tired, we had warned them that it would be a “down day,” a work day. If they bothered me I was authorized to teach them math or something.
    Eventually I had to put some food on the table, so I put on my coat and walked down into town and found easy food at the grocery store: bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches, and sliced turkey for my turkey-sandwich-loving daughter, and a box of surprisingly tasty and sweet tomato soup, and a take-and-bake pizza.
     

    Eventually both Mark and the 17yo arrived home, around the same time. Mark was in a good mood, feeling that he had done well in his interview before the board. There was an amusing story involving the conference room booking and a misunderstanding concerning the time change and a wild goose chase in the Swiss facility, booting people out of the unbooked conference rooms they had been squatting in, ending with a Skype connection instead of a teleconference that was set up merely seconds before the interview was supposed to begin.

    But we opened the champagne anyway (Aldi champagne; it had a Concord grape nose, but it was pink and bubbly and we gladly drank it). And the 17yo told about his multipitchclimbing day, and Mark told about the questions he was asked and how he answered them, and we planned what to drink later if we got something to celebrate.

     

     

    —

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  • A not-many-things day.

    I am more used to one-week vacations, or a week plus a weekend. The kind where, to maximize the value of your trip, you pack things in one after another, and you may come home mentally refreshed (because you did things that are different from the usual) but physically tired.

    But when there is a long vacation—even a vacation broken up by some work days, as this one is—you get down time. Days where you don’t plan much at all.

    Tuesday was like that. I barely even took any pictures.

    The weather has taken a turn for the dreary; snow fell the night before, up high. We are thinking of bailing from Chamonix and heading for Italy sooner than we thought we might. Mark was worried I would not be happy about changing plans, but I told him, look, we’ll be in France for a while, then Italy for a while, then France again; I don’t need to know how long each part will last.

    Anyway: we mostly stayed around the apartment. In the very early morning Mark took some of the children to the crag to climb. I had yogurt for breakfast, with cereal stirred in, and some green plums, and then for lunch I boiled pasta and mixed it with sauce and cheese and baked it, and set out a fruit plate, for the hungry climbers. And then I rested some more.

    A friend (expat met on a previous trip) came by with one of her sons, the same age as our second-oldest; and he stayed to hang out with our kids while Mark and I and she went out for coffee.

    Two coffees, actually: the first café allongé in a bar, seated at a too-high table (my feet dangled from the banquette) that had its own beer taps in the center of the table, with a sort of digital flow meter to know how much you should pay. The second in a very American-feeling coffeehouse, with comfy modern low chairs, people using laptops, and bagels for sale instead of croissants.

    By now my caffeine buzz had grown formidable, so I went with the decaf americano.

    We chatted about homeschooling and living in the valley. After our friend took her leave, Mark and I stopped at the grocery store and bought pain complet and pain de mie, grated gruyère, vacuum-packed steamed diced potatoes, salad vegetables, local jambon cru, plain yogurt and little flavored yogurt, pasta, wine, and melon.

    We went back to the apartment and I rested (apparently I need a lot of resting) while Mark did some work on his laptop at the long table and the kids took turns going out to spend money in the town. Then I stumbled out and made dinner: green salad with thin-sliced raw turnip and red pepper, in a dressing of lemon and pepper and olive oil. And an omelette savoyarde.

    The omelette was very basic, like a Spanish tortilla in style. The potatoes already having been diced and steamed, it was also quite fast. I melted a chunk of butter, maybe 2.5 tablespoons, in a nonstick pan, and cooked 250 g of potatoes until they were a bit brown and with some crispiness to them, but still soft, turning a couple of times. Then I beat 8 eggs and mixed in about 100 g shredded gruyère from a bag. Emmenthal would also have worked. I added a dollop of liquid cream and then dumped the potatoes and butter into the egg, mixing well, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

    It all went back into the hot pan. I stirred and cooked gently for a while, lifting up the cooked egg to let the uncooked egg run down underneath, until it began to firm up; then I turned the heat down and put a lid on the pan until it had mostly cooked through. I inverted it onto a plate and cut it into wedges.

    I think a bit of onion and parsley would have improved it, but it was quite good as is. Mark and I ate about half of it with salad and a bit of jambon cru and white wine. The kids were skeptical and ate leftover pasta. More omelette for me for lunch tomorrow!

    After supper I rested (again) while the kids cleaned up the dinner. I was keeping tabs on an Internet friend who was in the midst of having a baby back in the states. As for Mark, he planned to meet our expat friend’s expat husband for a beer, and so after a while he put on a coat and set out. The kids finished dinner and settled themselves in front of computers to watch the Apple keynote and later some weird Spanish-language sitcom dubbed in French.

    Mark came back late at night and settled down with me, gave me a kiss and reminded me how very lucky we are, lucky to have work that supports our family without ceasing to serve it, lucky to have shared values, something outside ourselves to believe in, and well-worn language for working out our differences; lucky to have each one of our five children, lucky to be raising them surrounded by other like-minded families, lucky to believe in each other, to believe in taking what we have and always looking for the way to make it work even better. Lucky to be acutely aware how lucky we are. It is impossible not to be grateful for everything, our material success obviously that lets us be here and having this time together, but most of all for the strength of these relationships laid down over years and years, days, mornings and afternoons and evenings, glasses of beer after dinner and cups of coffee before work.

    Some time on vacation is worth spending doing nothing at all, nothing visible on the outside anyway.

    —

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  • Hiking the high road.

    Monday, with the days of fine weather growing shorter, we decided to hike at the mid-level of the mountain from the Aiguille de Midi lift (not the second lift that takes you to the needle, but the first lift) across to the Montenvers train at the Mer de Glace glacier, taking the train back down to the town.

    Had to dress a little bit more warmly.

     

    Mark went to buy the sandwiches, and I went to buy the tickets. Being in France is a little bit weird because we often have to reverse our well-worn roles. For years it has been my job to keep a passel of children quietly waiting while Mark does things like stand in line to buy the tickets. Here, though, since Mark doesn’t speak French beyond well-practiced useful phrases, I have to go buy the tickets. There is no problem with this, it just continually surprises me.

    “What? I am supposed to go buy the tickets? Again?”

    “You want me to order the pizzas? On the telephone?”

    Anyway, I went to the ticket window (passing on the way a woman who warned us that it was bad for the 3yo’s ears to go up on the gondola) and worked out that I needed to buy a family pass plus an extra adult pass for the 17yo because only kids under 15 could be included on the family pass, and also that the 3yo needed a ticket even though it was free, and bought the tickets. The cashier warned me about the 3yo’s ears. I said, in French, I know, I know, everyone says this, and she repeated the warning.

    This also happened last time, when he was eight months old. The only one who had in the end had ear trouble had been the then-14yo. I got a lollipop for the 3yo out of my shoulder bag, intending to brandish it as proof that I was prepared to defend his ears against the dangers of what is essentially a big ski lift. But nobody else bothered us about it.

    Up we went, crammed in tightly. When the gondola went past one of the support towers, it swung deeply, and a gasp and a “whoooaa!” went up from the crowd.

     

     

     

    At the top it was much colder, and we put on extra layers. I took the 3yo off my back so I could go to the bathroom, and the 17yo put him on his back; we decided we would switch again after lunch.

    We hiked around a bit till we found the trail we wanted, beginning above this refuge (Mark has spent the night here:)

    The trail is narrow and rocky, and on either side there are many myrtille bushes. The berries are very much like blueberries, perhaps a little more tart.

    At lunch we ate our sandwiches. Tuna again for the 11yo, also for Mark and me, and lyonnais for the teen boys. The little boys ate homemade sandwiches on pain de mie again.

    Orange-colored processed cheese is working pretty well for the 3yo, and butter-and-jam for the 7yo, and I won’t complain.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The trail turned more rocky as we got up into the cloud layer.

     

    It was amazingly well-maintained, almost a pavement or a staircase of broad flat rocks. It was eerily beautiful, but I couldn’t help feeling nervous about the weather. I knew the forecast called for clouds and no rain, so it was exactly as expected. But the quality of light was so much the sort that, where I come from, heralds a coming rainstorm, that I could not shake the feeling that we ought to get down to the treeline.

    I knew better, but it made me anxious.

     

     

    Finally we arrived within sight of the once-magnificent, still-pretty-impressive Mer de Glace.

     

     

    The clouds lay spread heavily over everything, but we could see sunlight up the valley.

    We found a leftover trail race marker, from the UTMB, I think, its little flag flapping wildly in the wind.

    And eventually reached the Montenvers refuge.

     

    There were a series of historical illustrations of the glacier.

    It hardly looks like a “sea of ice” anymore at this point. Really, it is sobering how much it has shrunk and retreated.

    Rather than spend money in the restaurant, since we were so tired, Mark passed out Snickers bars to everyone. And then we took the train down.

     

     

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  • Sunday.

     
    Sunday morning I dug the Magnifikids out of the bags. We cleaned up and dressed up a bit—thankfully my ballet flats did not hurt my blisters anymore—and walked down the hill to the sound of clanging bells from the église Saint-Michel.
    Perhaps I will wander in and take pictures of the pretty little church outside Mass time. It is pale blue inside with wooden pews and some very nice statuary. There is a colorful St. Michael behind the crucifix, and large paintings for the Stations.
    My 3yo was more interested in the art than he usually is at home and wanted me to tell him all about things, so I whispered in his ear and couldn’t listen to the homily. Which was too bad, because the priest was fairly loud, clear, organized, and slow; I bet I could have understood it.
    I was a little bit amused because I have been here exactly three years ago and the readings were the same readings. The priest was the same priest. I wonder if it was even possibly the same homily.
    + + +
    We had expected rain, and had therefore planned a day of resting. But somehow Mark had read a forecast that was completely wrong, and it had turned out to be gorgeously sunny. He had taken the younger kids to the crag the day before; today he wanted to take the older ones; but not all day. My turn first!
    So we left the kids in the apartment with all the tasty food in the fridge and all the cookies and such, and went out for a walk and lunch.
    I wanted my favorite, most reliable French restaurant meal: salade avec chèvre chaud. So we went to a crêperie that has such things: La Ferme. It is a little too chilly for my taste or Mark’s, even though many coat-wearing people were happily eating and drinking on the patios and terraces in the sun, so we asked for a table in the intérieur.
    Because I was jonesing for a salad, I suggested we not drink wine, but have cidre brut instead.
    It came in a 50-cL pitcher with broad, handled porcelain cups. Given that there was a cidre doux also on the menu which we didn’t order, I was surprised at how sweet this turned out to be; “dry cider” at home is pretty dry! This was nicely balanced, with noticeable apple to it, and it was going to work perfectly well with my salad.
    I got what I wanted: a big green salad with a luscious vinaigrette, prettily and deliciously garnished with sweet, thin-sliced raw beets, the kind with a pink-and-white bullseye pattern in the slices, and long pared ribbons of yellow carrots. It had a few slices of salty, glossy air-dried ham, and three slices from a 3-inch-diameter log of goat cheese, with the friable texture in the middle and the creamy texture around the rim, each on a slice of toast. I dug in immediately, forgetting once again to take a picture. Sorry.
    Mark ordered a sprawling buckwheat crêpe with lardons, cheese, and a bright yellow-yolked egg in the middle; it came folded in on three sides like a triangle, with a little pile of green salad in the middle. He ate about a quarter of my salad, too.
    I got a few texts from kids wanting to know when we’d be back. “Still at lunch,” I texted.
    “Mom it is almost 2”
    “See you later”
    + + +
    We elected not to order dessert and to walk around a bit and have coffee elsewhere. Many stores are closed on Sundays, but the town seemed to have been transformed into a giant end-of-season sidewalk sale for outerwear. I had to stop and let Mark do a little window shopping.
     
     

    I didn’t need any gear, and was only briefly saddened because a few days ago (lacking our luggage) I had bought a pair of approach shoes at full price, and now there were some really nice ones in front of Arcteryx, of all places, in my size, and an awesome color, for €50. Drat!

    Mark didn’t find the ultralightweight hooded windshirt he was seeking, so we went to the bar nearest the road uphill to our apartment, went inside (it was warm; I took off my scarf and my cardigan) and ordered two cafés allongés.

    I like these because they take longer to drink. Mark thinks he prefers his espresso stronger.
    We got more texts. I was ready to go home. And the teen boys were ready to go climbing with Mark.
    (Incidentally, my daughter had had a fantastic climbing outing the day before. I didn’t blog it because I wasn’t there and didn’t take the pictures. But she was so proud of herself for finishing a difficult route that she had tears of joy and probably relief when Mark lowered her down.)
    Today that girl was ready to go for a walk on her own in town. We coached her on where to cross the big street and what to do if she got lost, then gave her some money and the spare iPhone we use for such purposes.
     
    She texted me back a photograph of what she had obtained:
    Pistachio and raspberry something.
    Then she texted me a picture of a tiny, one-item playground:
     

    She made it back safely, and she and I and the smaller kids spent a quiet late afternoon in the apartment. Taking turns doing whole-family outings, fun things with just some of us, and resting: that is how it has to work.

    + + +

    Dinner was prepared food from the Italian grocery store. I set out some cured meats, mozzarella balls, and olives to have with our wine, a Valpolicella Ripasso.

    Ignore the licorice in the background. Doesn’t go with Valpolicella.

    We snacked on this while we waited for three pots of water to boil our fresh asparagus ravioli, meat-filled tortellini, and long egg noodles.

    And set three bottled sauces on the table.

    With a little grana padano cheese, it was just fine for everyone. Mark and the boys relived their climbing adventure of the day. We drank wine and Campari-soda, and the children shared their candy (how is Italian sugar candy for children so amazing?) and we laid out our things for the next day too.

     

    Good weather tomorrow!

    —

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  • Drizzly day in Italy.

    We woke up on Saturday to rain here in Chamonix, so we decided to drive to Italy for the day. We would find a place to have lunch, then if we felt good we would drive into the Aosta Valley to tour a castle, and then we would go grocery shopping at the big store in Aosta, buying food for the next two dinners.

    Unfortunately, our big hike from the previous day—and my decision to hike hard and fast with the 3yo on my back—had left me with major blisters. Mark dressed my wounds and then I tried to get my feet into some decent walking shoes. But the only shoes that didn’t hurt my heels too badly to walk were my high-heeled ankle boots. (Not really surprising as gravity drives your foot forward.)

    Oh well, I was going to Italy after all. Might as well look stylish.
     
    We headed out in the rain toward the Mont Blanc tunnel. (The golden-colored flame sculpture is part of a memorial to the people who died in a fire in the tunnel in 1999.)
    This is a pretty long tunnel. We bought a ten-trip pass, since we will go back and forth quite a bit, and there’s a discount.
    They have blue lights every so often on the tunnel wall. The space between the blue lights is the minimum following distance. Pretty easy; you just have to keep two blue lights between yourself and the car in front.
     
     
    Sometimes the weather is completely different on the other side of the mountain, but today it wasn’t. Still: Italia!
     
    We passed the big lift that goes up just outside the tunnel (Skyway Monte Bianco)…
     
    …and many houses with slate roofs. Sorry they are so blurry.
     
    Our goal was lunch. I found a list of restaurants that were certified to carry specialties local to the Val d’Aosta, which is an A.O.C., and we found a town that had several. We didn’t have to go to one of the certified restaurants, but we figured we’d find something there. The town we chose was Pré-Saint-Didier. We switchbacked down the mountain a bit, my oldest navigating for restaurants on his phone, and when we passed a pleasant-looking one Mark made up his mind; he went past the end of the switchback, turned around, and we headed back up to Ristorante Emma.
    There seemed to be an odd parking spot by the kitchen door (there was a man in a chef’s toque smoking a cigarette outside it); we parked and Mark made me ask about it.
    “Buon giorno,” I said, then, blanking out, I pointed at the car: “È okay?”
    “Si, si.”
    “Where do we go?” asked Mark, and this time I remembered, sort of: “Dov’è il entrata?” I swallowed the “il” a bit just in case I should have been saying “la.”
    He pointed, and I went around the corner and found the lovely little entrance. Perfetto.
    The menu.
    + + +
    Inside I remembered how to say there were seven of us, a family with five children, and we got a lovely big table by the window. The 3yo cried for a high chair. My mind blanked on the word “chair” and then I forgot how to say anything else, so we sort of gestured blindly until they brought us one.
    In Italy last time people of all types and ages absolutely fawned over my bambino (che bella testa!) and I can report, sadly, that he seems to have grown out of it. But the waiters were still very quick to bring a basket of bread and crackers for the table.
    We got English menus, and quickly decided to revert to our pattern of ordering six things and sharing them. Seven, now, since there were hungrier, bigger children.
    Due antipasti (beef carpaccio and a plate of cured meats) to start, and then, with the help of a French-conversant waiter
    , we asked for four different primi piatti (pastas) and a secundi piatti (roasted pork belly) to come all together for sharing.
    As for the wine, Mark pulled out his well-used phrase, “Che cosa mi consiglia?”
    And we waited a bit.
    And red wine appeared. And it was very good. We had a lovely view out the window, which I photographed
    … but sorry, I didn’t get the food. I hope you understand. It was gone too quickly.
    The carpaccio was different from any I had had before; it was not sliced super thin, but it had been pounded super thin. It had little dollops of a creamy pungent sauce, almost like a horseradish, and also of a gel-like fruit sauce, and big fat caper berries. I loved it, and so did our oldest. The kids devoured the charcuterie plate, which came with little pillows of fried dough that the former bambino gobbled up.
    For pastas, there were different raviolis, which were good, and a penne with lamb ragù especially requested by the 7yo, which I thought was the best of all the pastas. But the real star of the show was the pork belly. It didn’t look like much, but it was melt-in-your-mouth tender with a chewy, caramelized crust. Mark and I stared at each other and grinned over it.
    With a little help from Google Translate, I practiced the sentence: “Generally, we share several dishes.” Condividiamo diversi piatti. And then we got ready to order dessert. Three desserts: strawberry sorbeto with something something cocoa, a peach tart with amaretto gelato, and cannoli.
    “Metta i cannoli qui,” I added, pointing to a spot directly in front of my plate.
    And indeed, that is where the cannoli ended up, much to my pleasure, although Mark preferred the peach tart.
    My oldest, however, was with me on Team Cannoli.
    + + +
    After that great success we were off to Castle Fènis. Into the rain again.
    Not a very far drive past Aosta, Fènis came into view. This excited the 7yo very much.
    We bought tickets for a 4 p.m. entry, and had to wait a bit. We walked around the castle grounds, on a path between two fields. Old-fashioned irrigation canals ran swiftly alongside the fence; I pointed out to the 7yo where the sluice was gated with a wooden board set in a slot, and asked why he thought it was there.
    “To make the water all go that way,” he said, “but it’s leaking!”
     
    Back in the castle courtyard the kids jostled for control of the cameras, and we realized too late that we should have brought a dummy camera for the 3yo.
    Fortunately, I had a lollipop in my pocket, which we used to bribe the 3yo away from the camera and into the cloth carrier.
    The castle tour was pretty cool, except that the children had hoped to be able to roam freely around, and this was definitely not allowed. Only following the guided tour was possible. There was an Italian-speaking docent, who tossed a little English our way, but far too many people for her to give us the whole spiel in English. And my receptive Italian is enough to catch words I am already expecting (“castello”), but not new ones.
    So it was a long slow hour for the younger children, with a few treats along the way, like being invited to crowd into the big kitchen fireplace—the size of a freight elevator—and look up at the chimney far above.
    There were some lovely frescoes, and a collection of wooden chests for brides’ trousseaus, and a very cool courtyard with gutters overhanging cistern-drains that went into a central water collection system.
    But the kids were glad to be done with the castle, only because the tour was slow; we could have seen it all ourselves in ten minutes. If the tour had been in English I think they would have liked it better.
    + + +
    On to the Gros Cidac grocery store in Aosta.
    We chose cured meats, fresh pastas, cookies, yogurt. This weird tube of paste called “flavor tuna and ketchup,” which I had irrationally fallen in love with last time. Square bread and slices of orange cheese, which it is abundantly clear we had better not run out of. We let the kids buy a bunch of candy because they wanted to go pick something out themselves.
    Somewhere in the cheese department my head began to spin.
    Also the 3yo was melting down. So we got the heck out of there and drove back to France. My body said to me: “You want to lie down and not get up again for a while.”
    So I did.
    And while I lay there going “uuuuuuggggh,” Mark set up the dinner, mostly things we had bought at the Gros Cidac, and opened a bottle of bubbly wine, and miraculously when it was all on the table I felt well enough to get up and sit there and demolish a plate full of it.
    Including half a tube of tuna-and-ketchup-flavored-paste, squirted onto boiled potatoes.
    Italy food is definitely best.
    I slept very, very well that night.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    k,k

     

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  • Hiking day, and a date night.

    Because kids can’t go go go forever, there is some down time in the apartment every day, in which I can blog. I am falling into a pattern of uploading my photos to Blogsy right before bed, then getting up and writing my blog post in the morning with my coffee before we all get moving. I wonder if I can keep this up daily. I am going to try. Today Mark went off early with three of the kids and I stayed in with two others who are still sleeping, for now.
    + + +
    The weather was to be especially fine on Friday, so we planned a family hike.
    Our first idea was to hike across the Midi-Plan, taking the train up on one end and the lift down at the other. That really would have been a good hike, but we didn’t get ready fast enough; we wouldn’t have gotten up there before 11, we estimated that the three-hour hike would take our family five hours, and the last lift goes down at 4:30.
    This would not have been very relaxing, even though the worst-case scenario would have been spending the night in a fully staffed French mountain refuge with beds, food, and beer.
    So we decided to go for something that would require less commitment.
    + + +
    Three years ago we attempted to hike to the Refuge de la Pierre à Bérard from Le Buet, through the Vallée Bérard. It was a gorgeous hike, estimated to take 2 hours up for a fit adult; but difficult and slow for our then-four-year-old, with nearly 600 m vertical gain (most of it in the first third and the last quarter or so). Rain threatened, and we eventually turned back.
    So we decided to give it another go on this sunny day.

    We parked in the train station lot at Le Buet. I carried the 3yo on my back in the Boba, plus I carried a crossbody bag that works well with the Boba and that gave me quick access to my phone for its camera. The teen boys had one big backpack between them, because I intended to transfer the 3yo to one of them later. The two younger walking children each carried a daypack. Mark has a brand new lumbar pack that he is trying out, since shoulder straps seem to exacerbate his upper back and shoulder pain.

     

    This hike begins by winding through a little town, right past farmhouse windows, and then enters a forest. You pass a gorgeous waterfall, the Cascade de Bérard, where there is a little buvette (restaurant selling drinks, desserts, and small meals) that does a brisk business extracting euros from people who walk that far to see the falls. Then you keep going up… and up… and up.

     

    Hiking upward with my 35-pound child on my back, I hadn’t enough breath to engage in conversation and had to pay close attention to where I put my feet. My oldest offered to take him, and Mark asked, “Don’t you want to trade off a little bit?” But I didn’t. I may not have looked like I was having fun, but climbing a steep hill (for real, not on a machine at the gym) is one of my favorite strenuous exercises. I don’t get to do it very often, and I was enjoying the challenge.
    Besides, I intended to do my time now, and make someone else carry him later.
    The one thing I had to concentrate on, besides setting my feet down securely, was alternating my legs. For some reason, I tend to lift my weight with my right leg more often, and that can wear me out early if I forget to climb with my left some of the time.
    + + +
    After about an hour and fifteen minutes of steady climbing we came into a flatter, grassier place with scattered, lichen-dotted boulders and a tufty soft turf. Lunchtime!
     

    We walked a little off the path to where some scrubby little trees cast some shade and there were rocks to sit on. I let the 3yo off of my back and gratefully eased myself onto the grass. Then we distributed the sandwiches from what is, according to Mark, The Best Bakery In The World (TM).

    (It is the sandwichmonger closest to the lift that takes you up to the Aiguille de Midi).

    Mark and I do meatless Fridays; this being optional, we don’t require it of the kids. The 17yo had a leftover sandwich from the day before; the relatively selective 13yo had a sandwich lyonnais (sliced rosettes de porc—-think hard salami, but French—on a chewy baguette with butter and little French pickles); Mark and our daughter had the most excellent sandwich pecheur (tuna in mayonnaise with sliced egg, lettuce, and tomato on a very soft kind of long bread); and I had the panini végétarien (soft rectangular bread, toasted, with sun-dried tomato spread, a shredded provolone-like cheese, and slices of grilled eggplant).
    I also had an apple, which I ate first; and I gave half my panini to my still-hungry 17yo, who declared it a delicious pizza sandwich.
    The two little boys, who needed to be fed even in the event that they might refuse strange food, had homemade sandwiches on grocery-store pain de mie. For the 7yo, lots of butter and confiture de fraise, with a Babybel for protein. For the 3yo, butter and three (individually wrapped, processed) slices of “orange cheese” that had been labeled “Cheddar.” I had also impulsively bought a small can of Pringles (paprika flavor) which were much appreciated.
     
    The 17yo took the 3yo for a brief frolic down by the river (before we stopped him; the valley is full of warning signs about sudden flash floods even in good weather due to an upstream hydroelectric plant), and then we strapped the 3yo onto his back for the rest of the hike. The 17yo is fresh off of Boy Scouts hiking high adventure, and used to carrying a heavier pack than the 3yo. My workout was over.
    Off we went.
     
    About that lumbar pack of Mark’s: Apparently when he took it up on his glacier traverse with the boys the other day, a couple of climbers from other parties (British, I think) made fun of him for carrying a weird pack. It bugged one of their guides enough that he said something to one guy, about Mark having had a shoulder injury.
    I don’t think it bothered Mark — assholes are assholes everywhere, even on top of the mountain — but it got me to thinking quite a bit about manners, and also about invisible disabilities, and also about young and fit people not being able to imagine themselves older and broken and still wanting to go places and do fun things.
    My thoughts boil down to this: Wherever you go, don’t be that guy.
    + + +
    Lunch helped, and the long flat trek across the valley was refreshing, but the 7yo still struggled with believing he could make it that far.
    I took pictures of some end-of-season aster-type flowers that had petals that glimmered like silver.
     
    Soon we could see far ahead of us and partway up a steep slope, the refuge nestled into the side of the mountain, with a bright white dome as part of its roof. The 17yo told the complaining 3yo that we were headed for the white building, and repeated it over and over as we climbed the twenty or so switchbacks.
    And… we made it!
    (We had started 5 km away at altitude 1350 m.)
    The 3yo cried because we had not reached “the white building;” the 17yo had to take him up a little farther towards the pass so he could see the domed roof.
    Then we settled in for the promised snacks and drinks.
     
     
    Coke for our daughter. Juice for the 3yo. Sirop de cassis for the 13yo. Perrier and un petit café for me (it turned out to be a tiny but welcome espresso). Tarte des myrtilles for everyone else. Fantastically buttery crust.
     
    I wandered around the refuge a little bit. There are bathrooms, and a big dark room with a couple of bunk beds visible through the open door, many more inside, I think. They serve one kind of draft beer and two kinds in cans. They make their own ice cream and tarte.
    The waitress here was the first person on our trip to comment on how, as we only have one daughter, she must feel very protected by all of her brothers.
    In our experience, she will hear that again.

    Flush with success, caffeine, and tarte, we headed back down the trail.

    I took more pictures of flora…

    and fauna, of the sort that carries the supplies up to the refuge…

     

    …and we made it down by about four o’clock.

    + + +

    In the car I hatched a plan for Mark and me to go out to dinner by ourselves. We stopped at the big Carrefour outside of town, and the 17yo and I went in for supplies.

    I boiled two kinds of refrigerated ravioli for the kids and gave them two kinds of bottled sauce (tomato-basil and arrabbiata), a baguette, and boxes of kiwifruit and sweet green French plums. Then we left the apartment, with the 17yo in charge.

    Partway down the hill Mark got a text from him announcing that the 7yo had locked himself in the bathroom and couldn’t get out.

    “I am trying to instruct him”
    Mark texted back: “Should we come back?”
    Reply: “Not much you could do if you were here”
    I couldn’t even remember seeing a lock on the door in there, as I had only gone in to do laundry. “Ask if he is panicking,” I said.
    Mark started to type that, then stopped. “I don’t want to distract him.”
    We paused.
    “Let’s just keep going down. We can come back if he wants us.”
    So we kept going down the hill, and a little while later we got a text saying “It’s ok, he is out.”
    + + +
    An interlude: This is the bathroom door from the inside. The tiny slider latch is 5 ft 3 in off the floor, out of his reach. The 7yo, concerned about privacy, had jumped up and smacked it closed with his hand. Then he couldn’t smack it open again, because of the wall.
    This is the one that contains a toilet, laundry machines, and handwashing sink. It has only glass-block windows, not even to the outside, but into the shower in the other bathroom.
    The 17yo had gotten him to tell him, through the door, all the things that were in the bathroom that he might be able to use to help himself. It was like Apollo 13, if Apollo 13 had been set in a French W.C. Eventually he talked him through using a tall t.p.-roll-holder to reach up and manipulate the latch open.
    I feel like my babysitter deserves a raise.
    + + +
    Anyway, our desired restaurant wasn’t ready for dinner yet, so we stopped at a wine bar, drank reds (Côtes du Rhône for me; Bordeaux for Mark; mine was better), and hungrily watched people chowing down on piles of cured meats.
    We took our first European date-night selfie.

    And then we went to the restaurant, which we had eaten at three years before with the kids, but which looked very different, less down-homey, more hip. I don’t think we would bring five kids with us into a place like that for a dinner which didn’t start before eight.

    Mark encouraged me to try asking the waiter what had happened to the restaurant (my desire to practice my French is always in tension with my introvertedness) and so I did. I gathered that there had been a change in ownership due to the previous owner becoming ill, and that the new décor had only come on line a couple of weeks ago.

    The menu was the same.

    Mark started with a French interpretation of a Caesar salad, with shredded lettuce, strips of grilled chicken that had not been documented on the menu, croutons, and a couple of medium-boiled eggs with soft, deep-yellow yolks. I started with salmon “façon gravlax,” which was delicious and came with two little toasts, dill crème fraîche, and a small salade mixte.

    Then we had fondue savoyarde. Because if you are going to go meatless for an evening in the land of cured meats and cheeses, a half-liter of bubbling melted cheese is the way to go.

    We split 25 cl of the recommended local white wine and walked back to find nobody trapped in a bathroom and everybody just about ready for bed.

    This time, however, we got stuff ready the night before so that we could make an early start if we chose. Lesson learned.

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  • Rest day for little ones and me. And a lot of food.

    On Thursday Mark had scheduled an alpine climbing day for himself and our two teen boys with Jeff the guide. More of a traverse, really, to the summit block of the Aiguilles Marbrées and back from the lift in Courmayeur, Italy. (Route is pictured here, and described in French.)

    My job was to hang out with the younger kids all day. I planned two outings: the grocery store in the late morning, and a trip to buy macarons for afternoon snack. In between, we would rest. The kids are still fairly jet lagged, and Friday would be a bigger day for them.

    Region 2 DVDs and chill, you might say.

    + + +
    Let me introduce you to our apartment.
    The first thing I noticed when we went in is that it is well stocked with Duplos, toy trucks, stuffed animals, and some kind of plastic fortifications-building set with little plastic soldiers. Also lots of board games and children's books (all French of course, but some of them recognizable). This was also the first thing our 3yo noticed. He has been happily playing with Duplos and toy trucks since we got here.
    It has a washer and a dryer, plus a big folding drying rack, which is important because European clothes-dryer technology is apparently not very advanced. The first load of laundry I did (immediately after getting our suitcases containing something else we could wear while our traveling clothes washed), I ran through the dryer 3 times—the last time on the hottest and longest setting—and they still were damp to the touch. Finally I gave up, found a place in a corner of one bathroom to set up the drying rack, and hung them all up to finish the job.
    I have a theory that Europeans believe strongly in the health effects, or possibly the environmental virtues, of airing out one's clothes such that they distrust a clothes dryer that would take the clothes all the way to dry without the vital final step of hanging them up for a couple of hours. That the sole virtue of the clothes dryer is its ability to speed up the process so that you can have a bit less of your floor space taken up by the folding rack should you wish to do more than one load of laundry in a day.
    I completely made this theory up, but I like it, so I am going to quietly go with it until I am corrected by someone who knows better.
    We have three bedrooms, plus a daybed couch in the living room, where our daughter has been authorized to decamp in the middle of the night in the event that her roomie and next-younger brother bothers her. There are a couple of trundles under some of the beds; we took one of the mattresses and put it on the floor in our room for the 3yo. There is a full bath off Mark's and my room, with a soaking tub and a rain shower; and two separate washrooms, one with a tiny handwashing sink and a toilet (also the stacked laundry machines) and one with a shower and a vanity sink (also just enough room to fit the drying rack).
    The galley kitchen is tiny but serviceable with enough counter space to work. It has a dishwasher and a small fridge and an electric stovetop. No oven, but there is a combination microwave/convection oven thingy; it is capable of crisping a take-and-bake pizza. There is a nifty toaster with one wide slot and two little metal wings that rise up over the slot at the turn of a dial, which are apparently for warming a whole loaf, say a ciabatta or a small baguette, from the underside. There is a drip coffeemaker and a fondue pot and a raclette set.
    I brought my own chef's knife, paring knife, and bread knife. This was the right decision. The bread knife here is okay, but the only other knives I can find are steak knives. I wonder if rental properties lose knives a lot. If Mark and I are going to travel more often, I may need a travel knife case.

     

    There is a tiny balcony off the boys' room facing west, and a larger balcony off the great room facing east. Mark refuses to say "north" or "south" around here and only says "up valley" or "down valley," which works when I am dealing with Google Maps in the passenger seat if I can remember which way the river Arve runs. Still, it makes sense to get your bearings primarily by the landmarks that rise up impossibly close and tall on either side, every day stretching out the dawn, every day hastening the sunset, the first and last points glowing with the direct daylight.
    Anyway, we can see the gondolas of the lift rising up out of town from our large balcony, and the spire at the top of the Aiguille de Midi, perfectly.
    We have a long dining table with a mix of chairs and benches, a TV with a DVD player (there is a collection of DVDs; we brought our small collection of British Region 2 DVDs with us), and a fireplace we are not supposed to use, with a madonna-and-child hanging above it.
    The apartment is more than halfway up the steep hill that leads from the town center to the base of the lift. By the time we have hiked with the groceries, we are always sweaty and hot. It is steep enough to make it bother your knees on the way down, at least if you are carrying a 3yo on your back.
    + + +
    I let the kids sleep in and have a slow start, figuring that my biggest challenge would be passing the time. In late morning we walked to the grocery store. I promised them they could choose things for their lunches.
    The 11yo was instructed to navigate to and from the store, because she has to prove she can do it reliably before we let her go by herself.
    I bought coffee and milk and cream and vegetables and wine (Graves, just about my favorite white, €6) and pain complet. The 11yo chose sliced turkey and Lay's potato chips, "moutarde et pickles" flavor, and asked for a Coke, which I allowed. The 7yo chose a new kind of Babybel that was like string cheese coiled up in a little sealed cup, and juice. The 3yo asked for "salami" (rosette de porc). I also bought a couple of toy trucks and pens and a notepad. We piled it all into the backpacks and hiked back, the 11yo in the lead.
     
     
     
    I made the kids' lunches, with buttered pain de mie and tiny yogurts.
     
    My lunch was part of a leftover proscuitto sandwich and a salad of leftover greens and cubed cooked beets with vinaigrette.
    Then we relaxed for a couple of hours. I read. The kids played with toys and read and watched a DVD. And then we cleaned up the lunch and swept up the toys, and went out again, this time for snack.
    Goûter, I mean.
    + + +
    I instructed the two older kids on how to order, and forbade them from ordering more than one flavor each. "You can get three macarons of one flavor, and then you can trade them with each other; I don't want to make her have to get you nine different kinds."
    We looked in one shop, then the other, and examined the flavors. The 7yo is intrigued by the mysterious name "passionfruit" but afraid to commit to it in the presence of so many others. Café, "equatorial" (dark chocolate), noix de coco, framboise, myrtille, fraise, citron vert, vanille, chocolat-mangue.
    Finally we went in, and I greeted the proprietaire. I nudged the 11yo, who recited: "Je voudrais trois macarons framboises." (Actually she said "frambois" but it was ok.) The woman smiled and took a silver tray and a pair of tongs and carefully picked out three brilliant pink macarons with deep-pink paste filling.
    And the 7yo nervously followed: "Je voudrais…trois…" he paused, panicky, hyperventilating.
    "Merci de votre patience," I said to the woman with the tongs and the silver tray.
    "You can order in English," she said to him.
    He exhaled with so much relief that he nearly fell over. "I would like to order three blueberry macarons, please," he said, and she nodded and began adding macarons to the tray.
    "Et pour le petit, trois macarons 'tarte de citron,'" I added, "et trois petit sacs, s'il vous plaît, parce qu'il y a trois enfants."
    Soon we had our three little sacks with three macarons each, and I set the 3yo down in the plaza where he could watch pigeons to his heart's content while eating.
     
     
     
     
    I am more of a protein snack person myself. Behold, the magic that is the petit saucisson sec:
    + + +
    For dinner I sautéed onions and lardons in olive oil…
    …added cream…
    …and stirred in cooked crozets, a local buckwheat-semolina pasta in a square shape.
    For the salad: Chilled cooked broccoli florets and raw, thinly-sliced red peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini, in balsamic vinaigrette with grana padano cheese.
     
    + + +
    Mark and the boys returned tired and happy. The 13yo went straight to bed, still jet-lagged and suffering a bit from the altitude and a blister. The 17yo was nothing but pleased (and hungry).
     
    Good wine, good food, and a good rest.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

     

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  • Climbing day and pizza.

    Up early on Wednesday for our first family day of climbing at Les Gaillands, the magnificent crag just outside of town.

    Mark dropped me and the 17yo off in front of the bakery across from the Aiguille de Midi lift, and I bought six sandwiches and a bunch of pastries and a couple of quiches. (I did a fine job ordering the sandwiches according to the placards that were posted in front of them, but we discovered later that the placards had not been placed in front of the corresponding sandwiches, so we had different ones than we wanted.) For pastries: two petit pains au chocolat, one croix de Savoie (a local specialty), a fat brioche chocolat-orange, and something with nuts on it called a “canadienne” (maybe it had maple? I don’t know, I didn’t get any).
    The quiches Lorraines for breakfast between Mark and me, even though the women behind the counter at the bakery will laugh at you if you commit the faux pas of thinking that it is all right to eat a quiche for breakfast. Quiches are lunch food in France as far as I can tell and only weird people and Englishmen would think of having so much protein before noon. You are supposed to have something healthier, I guess, like black coffee and a cigarette.
    But I think the little quiches make a marvelous breakfast.
    Mark picked us up after stopping at the grocery store for drinks and snacks for the next day’s outing, and we were off — only a ten-minute drive.
    + + +

    We have been here before. It is a great climbing place for a family, because there are often children there; not French children now, because they just started school, but there was a large passel of British children climbing next to us. There’s a big grassy field with boulders here and there to climb on, and a little lake for fishing, and some caves and interesting old building foundations. Also a little café/concession stand thing that sells drinks, snacks, and crêpes, and public toilets.

    Also, the ground by the crag is covered with interesting small rocks. Which is good when you are a three-year-old with a toy dump truck, and your siblings are going to take turns supervising you. My daughter took the first shift, and was promised more climbing than she could stand later in the morning.

    Jeff (green shirt) is an American who splits his time between Colorado and Europe. He couldn’t believe it had been three years since our last trip. I think he’s great with our kids, and Mark has been out with him several times. Nothing we will do here at this crag will be very technically difficult, so we don’t really need a mountain guide for this; but we do need another adult who can belay, since somebody has to be watching our younger boys all the time, and Jeff needs to get an idea of how well our older boys can take instruction since they’re going out with him on the mountain the next day. So he spent some time taking them through a few drills which he suggested they could practice at home.

     

    Meanwhile, the rest of us put on our harnesses and shoes. Mark prepared to belay the 7yo. He is quite small for his age, so we still have him in a chest harness; flipping upside down is more of a possibility for small ones, and so you want them in a harness with shoulder straps.

    After the 7yo came down, Mark belayed me for a quick and easy warmup climb; and then when it was my turn to be lowered, which entails leaning back into the rope and “walking” backwards down the rock, I was surprised to find that it was kind of scary. Surprised only because I have spent enough time in the climbing gym on auto-belay to not find that scary; but it turned out the comfort didn’t transfer very well. I got used to it, though, and found my feet.

    The 11yo girl got her chance soon to have some instruction from Jeff and then to start climbing.

    Meanwhile the 13yo, looking cool, was to take over the 3yo (still not a difficult job; he was making avalanches by piling small rocks on top of the boulders and pushing them down). The 17yo, a member of the high school climb team at the local gym, earned his keep by belaying the 7yo.

    I don’t belay. Most of the time, there’s no need for me to do so. I have learned how (theoretically) but have not practiced enough for it to become second nature. Mark showed me how with his easiest belay device and practiced with me for a couple of hours, and then declared me competent enough to pass the belay exam at the climbing gym, which he said was just a formality because you only had to be good enough to get started and then you could get better by practicing in the gym. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I went along with him anyway and we got a gym employee to give me the belay test. I failed immediately and humiliatingly, humiliatingly enough that I think Mark was embarrassed on his own behalf.

    Anyway, I am not sure that I want to belay my own kids; it seems like the sort of thing that would make me very nervous. I also don’t like very much to have my oldest belay me, although I have, a few times. Oddly enough though, I am completely comfortable with the 17yo belaying the other children.

    Which is handy when you are all out at the crag.

    + + +

    The lit
    tler ones did not like the sandwiches, and they did not like the petit pains au chocolat (it is a dark and bitter chocolate, perfect à mon goût but not to theirs), but they did like the croix de Savoie and so they ate it for lunch. Along with some fruit snacks that were left over in the 3yo’s back pack from the supplies I had packed for the plane.

    My daughter is fond of tuna subs, so I had made sure to order one sandwich de thon. She was surprised how much she liked it. “The tomato and lettuce are good,” she said. “I don’t like how the hardboiled eggs are sliced instead of chopped up into the tuna, because you get a lot of egg in every bite, but it’s okay. The tuna part tastes amazing.”
    I tasted it too and thought about it. “I think there’s more mayonnaise, possibly better mayonnaise, and it’s probably different tuna than you are used to. We might have to try recreating it at home.”
    The other sandwiches were proscuitto-and-goat-cheese on ciabatta and ham-and-butter on baguette. Very nice. We also had some lovely green plums, “reines claudes,” a fruit I cannot get enough of when I am in Europe. They are sweet and apricot-sized, and the skin is tender, without the jaw-clenching tartness that you sometimes get with fat purple American plums. They are juicy enough to be flavorful but not juicy enough to drip down your chin or to fall apart into mush as you eat them. The stone is free so you can eat all the lovely pale green flesh in a few bites.
    + + +
    After lunch everyone had a chance to climb a longer and more interesting route. The 7yo is not frightened at all anymore.
     

    The wall had a long smooth section with very few toeholds, good for technical practice; but practically had stairsteps on either side. I really can’t overstate how marvelous the rock is. It is very rugged and steppy, easy to find footholds and handholds almost anywhere you look, with ledges here and there on which grow spiky grasses and tiny tufts of mountain flowers. The rock glitters with mica in places and in other places so iron-red and smooth you wonder if it would attract a magnet. And yet there are smooth sections where you must “step on nothing and trust it will hold you,” as Jeff put it. There are bolts fixed in places to practice lead climbing; in the afternoon, my oldest would get some practice and instruction with those, after I went home with the other four kids for a rest, to let Mark and the 17yo profit from the afternoon with the guide.

    Before I left I wanted to get some vigorous exercise, so I asked to be belayed several times on the same route one after another. First Jeff belayed me, and then after a while, Mark took over the belay. I watched from the top as they transferred my rope from one to the other, and Jeff teased me: “You’ll only be off belay for a couple of minutes. I think. I’ve only done this a couple of times.”

    I got the 17yo to take some pictures of me climbing. I swear I am better at it than I was three years ago, even if I still kind of look like a dork.

    I am not at all happy with what the harness, under load, does to the abdominal material left over from my pregnancies. Good thing it is not a fashion show.
    After I went up and down quickly a few times, I felt ready to take the younger kids home. We intended to let the 13yo climb more, but he still suffered pretty terribly from jet lag, and wanted to sleep. So we loaded most of the stuff in the van (as well as the 3yo, who had to be dragged weeping away from his beloved pile of little rocks), and Mark drove us back to the apartment. Then he returned to finish the day out with Jeff and the 17yo.
    I snapped this picture of the Bossons glacier from the car. It’s one of my favorite views from town.
    We rested all afternoon, until Mark and the 17yo returned, pleased with himself for having had lots of lead climbing practice. And then we all got dressed and headed out for pizza. Our walk took us past the field where the parasailers land and through the town to a little pizza place that we had eaten at before: a sort of a wooden train-car-shaped shack, cash only, with a Neapolitan-style pizza oven inside and a couple of picnic tables outside.
     
    I ordered a pizza margherita with black olives on top; a pizza “quatre saisons” with capers, mushrooms, cheese, and ham; a spicy pizza with a tangy tomato sauce, hot peppers and spicy pepperoni; and a pizza “di parma” with proscuitto, herbs, and white sauce. Also some Sprites and two plastic cups of red wine.

    The only other party dining on the premises was a group of about seven Brits, one of whom had come up to the window next to me as I was paying, carrying a bottle of wine to ask after a corkscrew and some plastic cups. “Oh, you speak French, that’s lucky,” said the nice British lady. “I got him to sell me a whole bottle of wine but we haven’t any cups, can you ask?”

    He came back, I asked, he showed her a single plastic cup and said, “Last one, no more.” (I had already been given my two cups of wine). She was perplexed and stammered.

    I peered into the window and saw a tall stack of black-and-white-printed styrofoam cups, the sort you use for coffee. “Est-ce que vous pouvez lui donner ces… uh (the word for “cup” momentarily escaped me, darnit)… choses-là, pour les boissons chauds? Les noirs et blancs?”

    He looked irritated and came back and pulled a few of them off the stack. “These are not for wine.” He handed them to her and as she went away, pleased, explained to me rapidly something that might have been: “How was I expected to know she would be willing to drink wine out of a coffee cup?” and might also have included: “She should have asked for the cups when I sold her the wine.” and definitely included an explanation that he was closing up shop tomorrow to go on vacation for ten days so he was letting his inventory run low on purpose. I am not sure whether he was being defensive or whether he was complaining about the bizarre willingness of the nice British lady to (a) ask for a whole bottle of wine or (b) drink wine out of an inappropriate container.

    Anyway, we waited quite a while for the pizzas, as he was doing a brisk takeout business, but it was a lovely night and the little boys were pretty well-behaved. And when they arrived, the pizzas were delicious, and just the right amount of food; and my wine tasted lovely, perfect with the pizza, so that I was glad I had managed not to drink it all while we waited.
    Even from a plastic cup.

     

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