05 Mar The Wa
December – January
Since our last update our lives have vacillated between the mundane and exotic. Much to our own surprise, we’ve delighted in both extremes, finding tremendous pleasure in the rituals of everyday life as well as loving the adventures of our travels.
We spent much of December preparing for an extended trip, not only the logistics for visits to the Alps and Paris, but also making the necessary arrangements to have our boat hauled out of the water for some bottom work and other minor repairs while we were gone. For a variety of reasons – language, vacation closures, different views about what work was necessary, and our inability to pin people down on work plans (welcome to Italy) – what should have been a relatively simple exercise became quite complicated. In combination, this, a whole bunch of other logistics, and a desire to work through a lot of curriculum before we started traveling, made much of December feel surprisingly crunched. As new friends down the dock observed, “you guys have definitely lost the WA.”
What’s the WA, we hear you ask? As we understand it, the WA is a state of being and a stance toward time and life. It’s a feeling of composure, a slowness, and, most important for us, the ability to be completely present. According to our friends who did a year like ours in 00/01 and introduced us to the term, the cruising life helps one find this state — but it takes a good three months to get into it and can easily be lost. We have come to agree with that view.
And yes, for those of you who knew us in our more hectic lives at home, we actually did get into the WA. We knew we were there one Sunday in early November when the entire afternoon and part of the evening had passed and we were still hanging out on our boat, sipping wine with our new Dutch friends in the marina who had just stopped in unannounced. Adam recognized it in me (Deb) when he observed that I was perfectly happy hanging out to wait for him to do something or other, with absolutely no desire to “make good use of the time.” Sarah also observed how odd it was to have mom go to the weekly market without any particular objective beyond simply talking to the locals. We both delight in this state almost daily as we walk back from the marina shower (showering on board exacerbates the typical condensation problem on boats during colder weather) with the wind in our faces, taking in the spectacular surroundings, and feeling intensely alive. We also sense it during our frequent routine of hanging our laundry out and contemplating whether the clouds will cooperate and allow our underwear to dry (usually not). And, our favorite, the almost daily walk down Gaeta’s cobblestone shopping street (Via Independenzia) to buy the evenings meat, veggies, cheese, pasta bread and/or pastries (all at different shops or stalls) and returning to dinner prep, when we simply are all together in the salon making dinner and listening to the only English radio station we receive (usually we’re treated to Dr Laura). The great thing about this winter, when we are in our routine, is that we can be sufficiently present to notice and relish these moments. We know they are there for the taking at home too, but we don’t feel like we’ve accessed them very much. Needless to say, we’re starting to get pretty contemplative about the tyranny of the pace of our previous life, and talk regularly about how we can best bring some of this home.
So while being in the WA allows us to feel the joy in everyday moments – probably the most significant aspect of this year for us – we have also made time for some exciting travel and visits with family and friends.
On December 20th, with train pass and 11 duffels in hand, we left our boat on the hard for repairs and began a four week journey with an overnight train from Rome to Geneva. Actually, we really began with a taxi from our boat to Formia, then train to Rome. (This is significant if you remember the 11 duffels). From Geneva, we took two more trains and a taxi (remember the bags) to reach our destination of Courchevel, a ski area within the Trois Vallees region of the French Alps. Since we spent a few sessions of P.E. practicing getting on and off trains quickly with 11 duffels, the journey was not nearly as bad as it could have been — actually it was pretty enjoyable. At least for us. The poor Italian woman of 70 years or so, who shared the couchette compartment with us and our luggage, might not have had so much fun; actually, she seemed to enjoy the trip.
Despite the lousy snow (we arrived during a rain shower), we had a wonderful time skiing in the Trois Vallees, which incorporates the areas of Courchevel, Mirabel, Val Thorens, and Les Menuires. The best part was meeting up and playing with our French friends, Noah, Shane, Jean Pierre, and their friend, Fabrize, most of whom had skied this area many times before. The kids decided that it was really fun to ski with these guys, which meant keeping up with them, which meant skiing really fast for a very long distance, which meant leaving mom lagging. So yes, the biggest adjustment was for me (Deb) – I had to get used to being the slowest one down and then hearing about it constantly from the kids. Actually, it was a joy. When contemplating this trip, we really hoped that the kids would all be good enough skiers by this year to enable us to ski entire mountains as a family. We are definitely there and it was a blast.
After a week of skiing on sparse coverage, we left Courchevel during a blizzard bound for Paris. (By now we had 12 duffels.) Deb’s mom, Marcia Meyerson, met us there the following day and we spent the next 12 days hanging out and exploring Paris, sort of. Touring Paris usually involves lots and lots of walking. But Paris greeted us with rain, which then turned to snow. It stopped precipitating when it turned really cold, and we’re talking really cold – to the point of shutting down the elevators of the Tour d’Eiffel. So our casual strolling was kept to a minimum.
Even so, we had a great time in Paris with Marcia. Best part was that she showed up with the knowledge, enthusiasm, and books to teach the kids -and us- about art, particularly impressionist and post-impressionist painting, and her passion was contagious. Most days began with a brief “lesson” followed by a fieldtrip. Highlight of this was watching Danny show Sarah how to look at a Monet and listening to Adam describe why he preferred Van Gogh over others of this period. We took great pleasure in coaxing Danny to move at a reasonable pace through the halls of the Louvre. That he was mesmerized by the sight of many of the great paintings and artifacts he had studied the year before (he refused to leave until he saw Hammurabi’s Code) is credit to a wonderful teacher at La Entrada (and to Danny’s capacity to absorb it). It was also a great treat for us to learn something about art and to have the luxury of time to really enjoy the museums. We both felt that unlike our previous trips to museums motivated primarily by obligation (“must sees”), we truly enjoyed these visits. A little knowledge is a wonderful thing – thanks mom. And beyond the museums, having 12 days in Paris, we felt like we could just hang out, explore neighborhoods, and get a sense of the city.
In Paris we also enjoyed playing with our French friends and meeting some of their babies. Deb and Steve joined the gang for New Years Eve. In French form, New Years Eve dinner began at 11:30 and continued for several wonderful hours. Some commented that this was an unusually mild and early evening because of the number of infants recently added to the mix. Thank goodness for that! A generous offer by our friend Sam to tour us through the Loire Valley also resulted in, well, a memorable day. Not even in the Alps did we see so much snow. We made it to Chambord and hovered over the few lit fireplaces in this spectacular chateau to stay warm, then after a quick lunch and a peak through the locked gates at Chenonceaux (took longer than expected to get there so we practiced our visualization techniques) we spent most of the day in two cars (we couldn’t fit in one) experiencing the equivalent of Friday night traffic on highway 80. Actually it was worse, but we escaped the real stall. After moving for several hours at about 5 km/hr, we detoured onto the back roads. Though we didn’t make it back to Paris until after midnight, we learned the next day just how lucky we were to make it home at all. About an hour after we exited the highway, it shut down for the night due to the road’s deadly slippery state – complete stop, done – and people shivered their way through the night while the police allocated coffee and blankets among the unmoving cars. Smiling broadly through the entire day, Sam demonstrated once again just how good humored a person he is.
Other highlights in Paris were a of course some memorable meals, including a very special adult dinner at the Tour D’Argent, compliments of Marcia, and an “authentic” regional meal with our French buddies. During the latter, Noah persuaded us all to try his interesting looking entrée and afterwards fessed up that he was dining on blood. And one of the major side benefits of meeting up with the French gang is that they introduced Deb to Boris, their official hairdresser; she’s now trying to figure out how she can visit him semi-annually…
As we approached the end of our stay in Paris, we relished in the notion that we didn’t really need to be anywhere specific by any particular day. And since the repair work on the boat was behind schedule (surprise, surprise), why go back to Gaeta to stay in a hotel? So… with all of our ski junk in tow (all the clothing and gear, except skis and poles – do you think we’re nuts?) and a route home that would take us right by the Alps anyway, we decided to do one more tour d’Alps before heading home to Gaeta. It was pretty amazing to realize that we had no constraint beyond our budget and a faint sense of responsibility to get back to school eventually. Inevitably when we ask ourselves whether or not we should do something , we end up answering ourselves with “why not”? Or, more dangerous – “we have the next n years to work and for them to be in school…”
So, with train pass and 12 + duffels (including several new books) in hand, we headed back to the French Alps. Since we wanted to sample a bunch of areas, we rented a car in Chamboury at the foot of the Alps and drove up to Val D’Isre, booking lodging on the way up the valley. After a wonderful day of skiing the open expanse of Val D’Isre – though all fresh powder had been skied off – we decided to splurge the next day and head out with a guided group, hoping to find the virgin stuff. Since it had been a week + since the last snow, the guides thought that the trip would entail too much hiking for the kids. So much to their delight we signed them up for a snowboarding lesson with Jay, a way-cool guy we had previously played with on Corsica while he was in his summer incarnation as waterski and wakeboard instructor. They had a great time snowboading, and our morning in the backcountry was an absolute highlight. With crystal clear skies, we spent about 2 ½ hours traversing across and, with the help of skins and binding adapters for walking, hiking up, some of the most beautiful mountain expanses we have ever seen. After the first half hour of hiking, our small group of five was alone with the mountains. And while the two long pitches of untracked powder were a blast, we were perhaps even more wowed by the trek up and the whole experience of being way out there. Any takers for a backcountry trip in the Sierra next year?
From Val D’Isre we drove to Chamonix, France, again booking our rooms on the fly. This time we lucked out, finding a great B and B, complete with two girls Sarah’s age. We are not sure at what age language becomes a barrier, but its not at age 7. With only a few dozen shared words, they managed to play games, torture the house cat, and communicate together just fine. And skiing there was great. Deb in particular fell in love with this narrow valley, which rises dramatically from one of the lowest valley floors of the Alps (3 thousand feet) to the top of Mt. Blanc, the highest peak (at about 14k).
Of our two days here, we spent the first at le Brevant/Flegere and at lunch got some advice about terrain from a couple two tables down who heard our clearly American English. Turned out to be Chappy and Suzanne of Sacramento, who happen to be good friends of our great friends Molly and Tony from Tahoe. Deb even discovered that she had taught skiing at Squaw at the same time as Chappy oh so many years ago. So we played together for the afternoon before they caught their shuttle back to Geneva. But our real highlight at Chamonix came the next day at les Grands Montets where we took our friends advice and hired a guide to take us up the Glacier. It was particularly exciting gearing up with harnesses and putting on our peeps while warning the kids about the danger of crevices that change daily with the moving snow. The kids were sufficiently impressed to stay directly behind our very cautious guide who warned them that he’d only lead us down if they followed exactly in his tracks, and he took us down several rehearsal runs to make sure they could (and would) do it. While the skiing on the glacier was actually very gentle, it was pretty exciting skiing by ice falls and peering down the crevices, and even Sarah followed his lead perfectly. The only casualty was our camera, which Deb dropped during one of our many scenic stops. We’d definitely go back to Chamonix, and Les Grand Montets in particular, given the chance to do so.
Next, for some insane reason, we decided it would be fun to try Courmayeur in Italy, just on the other side of the Mt. Blanc tunnel. What makes this nuts is that we had also decided we’d head that evening to Zermatt, Switzerland, which was the other way. We all thought it would be pretty cool to be in three countries in one day, our plan being breakfast in France, lunch in Italy, and dinner in Switzerland. Well, skiing for half day in Cormayeur was pretty weak, as was the pasta on the mountain, and our drive to Switzerland that evening was much longer than we anticipated, so dinner never quite happened that night. A few pieces of Swiss chocolate completed our international culinary trifecta, but the breakfast in France won the contest. We landed at the train station just outside of Zermatt at about 9 p.m. and that’s when it got really fun. Having just missed a train up the valley (no cars are allowed in Zermatt), and too tired to wait for the next one, we hired a cab to take us up. When we piled in, the guy doubled the price and refused to give us back our luggage unless we paid in full for a ride we refused to take at the inflated price. You can imagine how Deb – no longer in the WA – reacted. Well, maybe not quite. While Steve was at the back of the van arguing in a combination of languages for him to give us our luggage, Deb grabbed the keys from the ignition of his van, and showed some pretty impressive footwork as she dodged his attempts to get them back until Steve and kids had successfully unloaded all the luggage. The language got ugly (we could tell, even though we didn’t speak it) and we eventually got all our bags onto the train that we didn’t want to wait for in the first place.
After this introductory incident, the kids were completely wowed by Swiss efficiency, technology, and chocolate. They particularly loved the lift ticket scanners that read our tickets through layers of clothing, and, despite the “hard” snow, we all enjoyed our day skiing under the shadow of the Matterhorn. Since our intended return back to Gaeta was delayed a day due to another Italian rail strike (back in the WA a bit, it didn’t even phase us this time), we spent an evening in Montreau and an afternoon bathing with the Swiss in spring fed pools. This was something like a vacation from our vacation from our year away (which our friends invariably call a vacation!)
We came home to Gaeta on January 20th, a full month after our departure, to find Nowornot, our boat and home, within hours of being ready for its return to the water. After spending a very rocky night in the boatyard’s slip, we came back to our winter slip at Base Nautica Flavio Gioia, which really felt like coming home.
While it felt great to be back in Gaeta, and in many ways were ready to just hang out for a while, we still had two trips remaining on our limited Eurail passes so we decided to take a quick trip up to Venice that next weekend. Venice was, of course, beautiful, and we had a great time just hanging out. Given how many museums we visited in Paris, we were sort of museumed out, so we spent a lot of time just walking around and watching Sarah play with the pigeons (yuck) in Piazza St. Marco. Besides the train trips, the highlight was clearly our visit to a glass making factory on the Isle of Murano, where we managed to sneak in the back door of a small working factory, instead of the exhibitions geared to tourists.
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February
Since the first of February we’ve been in Gaeta, sort of. Early that month we had a nice visit from Steve’s parents and sister. In addition to enjoying our winter home with us, at our request they rented a big ole van (room for 9) so we could take some short trips to see a lot of stuff nearby that’s tough to get to on public transportation. So about every other day we ventured out to see some of the incredible things within a few hour drive of Gaeta – the Abbey at Monte Cassino, the old town of Sperlonga and the remains of Tiberius’ vacation grotto, the ancient city of Herculeneum (less well known, but better preserved than Pompeii), the Casserta Palace (the “Verseille of Italy”), and even some heavy duty shopping at the nearby Panorama mall, complete with really big grocery store. But the two most memorable trips of those two weeks were to Naples and the Amalfi coast.
As for Naples, it was one of those days that shouldn’t have been. We made the cardinal sin of taking our car into the city. All the fun started when we were pulling to the curb to drop people off at the National Museum, and a woman on a scooter (with daughter on back) crashed on the curb behind us because she had just begun to accelerate by us on the right when we headed for the curb. Fortunately they never made contact with our van and the daughter was unhurt, but the mom was taken to the hospital by ambulance. As the Italians who were first on the scene spoke with the police (two different branches) and the daughter in rapid Italian, Steve had visions of Midnight Express and getting thrown in the slammer. After about three hours all ended well when word came back from the hospital (another law, neither the police nor witnesses can leave the scene of an injury accident until word comes back from the hospital that it’s not a really serious injury – not sure what would happen if it was!) that mom wasn’t badly hurt and all could go home.
But that wasn’t all. While we were sitting in the van waiting for that call from the hospital, a car pulled to the curb in front of us to park, and backed into our front bumper! Fortunately no damage. So when the word came that we could leave, Steve (with Deb for moral support and spotting) began to navigate our way back to the museum entrance to pick up the rest of the crew. After a few turns we found ourselves on streets so narrow that we thought the van literally wouldn’t fit through, some of which had hundreds of people out for their evening walks, with little or no demonstrated desire to avoid being run over! Tough to stay in the WA on that evening. Finally got to the pickup point, and headed straight out of town. Well, not quite straight, as we got lost. But we finally found a main drag that was heading out of town to the north (the desired direction) and didn’t plan to stop until we safely left the city. Wrong again. Out of nowhere, a car went speeding by us (again on the right) and side-swiped us. So stop again we did, and talked with the young driver who we think was saying, “no problem, no damage” or something like that. There was no damage, so we all went on our way, though Steve and Deb never left the car in Naples. So much for our visit.
Not without its driving excitement, our other “most memorable” was a lot more pleasant. We took a two day excursion to the Amalfi coast, an unbelievably gorgeous piece of coastline a bit south of Naples. My parents had been there before, and my Mom said it was the one place we just had to go. She was afraid that with all her hype, we might be disappointed. Anything but! The only way we can describe it in comparison to our past experiences is: all the beauty of Big Sur and the 17 mile drive in northern California, and then some; ridiculous mountain engineering like the Going to the Sun Highway through Glacier National Park; sheer drop offs into the ocean like the coastal highways in Maine or the road that rings Cape Bretton Island in Nova Scotia; and all this being enjoyed by the best (or should we say worst) of the drivers from Naples! Fortunately, we were very off season, so the road wasn’t too crowded. Our only real driving excitement came when we faced off with a tour bus who, coming around a turn, simply couldn’t fit past our van. We backed up a bit, he inched forward, back some more, and he finally squeezed by with our right hand side view mirror (folded in) missing the rock wall by millimeters and his bus missing the left side of our van by the thickness of the paint.
But it was all worth it, as the sights were simply magnificent. We won’t detail all the stops along the way, but we enjoyed some truly spectacular little towns and found our best hotel bargain of the trip — a great and very reasonable little place outside Amalfi where sitting in the dining room for breakfast left you looking at nothing but open sea and the town of Amalfi perched into it a bit down the coast.
Just before Steve’s family departed, Deb and Danny left for a 10 day trip back to the U.S. We gave in to Danny’s request to return for the annual trip his school’s 8th grade class makes to Washington D.C. So he flew home to SF, spent one day there, then flew with his group to D.C. for 6 days of historically-oriented sight seeing. Then back to SF with the group, one night there, and back on a plane to Europe. Can you spell jet lag? Actually it was more than that. After a week with his friends in snow bound D.C., he had had a blast, slept very little, and caught the same flu that everyone on the trip seemed to get. So by the time he got back to Gaeta he was ready for nothing but sleep, which he did for almost three straight days. It’s been a bit hard for him to get back into life here, though his attitude has been better than we feared. Deb too was a bit jet lagged, but nothing like Danny. She enjoyed a productive trip organized around helping to make some decisions that needed making with colleagues at her new post at the Stanford School of Education to which she will be returning. She also was able to visit with quite a few friends and was moved by how wonderful they are. She also really enjoyed the ability to do some “mid stream reflection” on our year.
I (hard to do this in third person) was particularly struck by how I heard myself describing our year to friends. What I kept coming back to was the joy of the everyday moments and the importance of time (having enough of it). Sounds cliché, but I kept describing my walk back from the showers and the family ritual of listening to the radio during dinner prep as scenes that capture the essence of this year for me. Yes of course the travel has been fabulous, but the significance of the year seems to be much more about being able to notice the good stuff, getting to know our kids well, home-schooling ups and downs (another topic), giving the kids as much responsibility and independence as they can handle, and, as silly as it sounds, getting enough sleep. For the first time in years and years, I am not sleep deprived or stressed, and I think the implications of this go far beyond just being a bit tired and jumpy. It has implications for how old I feel, how open to new people and experiences I am, how hassles and disappointments affect me, and of course how (and if) I appreciate my friends and family or other sources of joy in my life. Not sure what this means for the future, given the job I’ve signed up for (and am excited about), but it’s the source of some soul searching and my trip back home sure fueled it.
Since Danny and Deb returned, we’ve been settling back into life at “home” in Gaeta. It feels like spring is nearly upon us, as the rain is less frequent and the air less nippy. The kids have gotten back into more of a routine, which helps us get school back on a more consistent footing. Sarah is enjoying her participation in a local American Brownie troop, and consistent romping and playing with her new best friend, 9 year old Charlotte off the Dutch boat in the harbor. All three have just finished with the Navy school’s winter basketball program, and Danny and Adam are playing in an Italian tennis and basketball program, respectively. They would rather do without that, but we thought it important that they have some connection with the local Italian community and held our ground over their objections. Danny and Adam, both eager to keep up with their baseball, have also been stepping up their workouts in the parking lot, and dragging dad out of bed for some early morning stints before school.
With one of the wintering cruisers having just left (unfortunately the third boat with kids), and others, like us, getting more serious about preparing their boats for April departures, we’re starting to contemplate the end of our stay here in Gaeta. While we’re excited about getting back on the seas, we also are feeling sad about the idea of leaving such a great little town. We’re trying to spend more time connecting with the rest of the cruising community here, which is a really wonderful collection of international perspectives and personalities. We hope to cement several relationships that we will carry with us and maintain after our return from the seas. When planning our trip we saw the inability to sail through the winter here in Europe (as opposed to the Caribbean) as a negative. The fact is we have really enjoyed our time here and the travel we’ve done, and think we’ll look back on this period as a particularly rewarding part of the whole year.
Well, not sure many will read this far, but if you have, thanks for listening and hope you enjoyed it. We’ll sign off for now, and we promise to try very hard to make the rest of our updates much more frequent and far less lengthy.
Please join us in keeping our collective fingers crossed for a solution to the Iraqi situation that doesn’t involve our troops moving in. That particular situation, and other related and unrelated time bombs around the world, represent our biggest sources of stress during this otherwise incredible year. We continue to count our blessing for the ability to have this time with our family, and we hope things are treating you well wherever you are.
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