My diminutive spire

It is a glorious day outside--May has treated us well, weather-wise--but I am tucked in bed at noon on a Tuesday. First the Mister got sick, this weekend, when we had planned a grand excursion to Brussels that included a trip to see this Baby Animals exhibit at the Natural History museum. Gabriel was so excited. We didn't go, especially when I woke the next morning with stomach upset and cramping.

I thought I was feeling better, and managed to get through the day yesterday, albeit weak and dizzy, but threw in the towel and asked the Mister (who still isn't feeling great himself) to come home early, and then experienced the worst night of, um, intestinal distress I've ever had. The kind where I had to throw the baby back in his crib and listen to him scream at 3:30 am while I hunched in the bathroom. I had to yell to M (who has been sleeping in the guest room for a few nights so he doesn't wake the baby with snuffles and sneezing, or pass on whatever he has) for help. Oof. I've barely eaten for three days.

I'm praying, hard, that I recover, and that the kids don't get sick, because we fly to Boston on Friday for a couple of weeks. This trip was already planned (I'm scheduled to present a paper at a conference), but it's providential that we're headed to see my family now.

Because mom's cancer is back. Another tumor, another round of different treatments. We're still waiting to find out what's ahead, and absorbing this news. My birthday is tomorrow, Mother's Day is Sunday, and my mom's birthday is a week after that. Somehow all of this, and being sick myself, coalesces into a swirl of fever dreams and happy sadness. Sad happiness. Being sick inside on a perfect May day. I think about her in the walking moments and the still moments.

Friday I stopped in our beautiful Beguinage just to breathe a little, listen to birds chirp in silence, to soak up the delicate morning sunlight and gentle breeze. And I thought about mom, feeling worried and brave at the same time, scared and calm and trusting that she--we--will all just take this as it comes.

I came across this poem by e.e. cummings, one I hadn't known before, and somehow it's the right poem for right now, winter by spring. The right poem for sitting in the Beguinage, asking God to give me the patience of mountains. I lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him.

Poem 77, from 95 Poems
e.e. cummings

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
--i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
--i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

Easter break

We're back from our two-week trip to Catalonia, and I'm so thankful to be home, and thankful that I don't have to get on an airplane again before we have this baby. Even apart from the baby belly and baby aches, I really love coming home again after a trip, getting to sleep in our own bed and getting back to our cozy life. I'm a homebody with a travel bug, so as much as I love going places, I love coming home again just as much.

Gabriel did very well, by and large, on all of the flights. Our most difficult moment came when we boarded the 6:45 am flight back to Brussels and realized that the check-in person had given us separate seats. With the Mister across the aisle and stuck in the middle seat, no one wanted to change with him, because the aisle seat guys had, as they legitimately pointed out, *paid* for an aisle seat. So we grinned and bore it, until the dude next to me finally relented after Gabriel realized he wasn't M. and started screaming "Dada, dada!!!" and lunging over our laps. (Good job, Gabriel!)

We had a perfectly lovely stay on the Costa Brava, in the tiny apartment that the Mister's parents own. It rained almost every day of our week-long visit, but actually that was just fine with us, since the Mister had to work on his dissertation for a few hours every morning and a few hours every afternoon. We settled into a nice rhythm of breakfasting together, then M. working while Gabriel indulged in cartoons and I indulged in reading (as well as, once he had watched a couple of shows, epic sessions of reading books, coloring, stickers, etc.), then a short walk if it was clear, then lunch and naps (I had a nap every single day, lucky me!).

The afternoons were much the same, working/tv/reading/coloring and another walk before dinner unless it was raining. Gabriel went to bed without protest nearly every night, sleeping through the night in his own little room, which made our evenings that much more relaxing--we mostly spent them watching documentaries or doing more reading. (I know, we like to live on the edge.) No internet meant we truly were able to disconnect from everything. We went out for a meal just once, to a pizza place as soon as it opened at 7pm (all the other restaurants open at 8 or 8:30, well past Gabriel's bedtime), with no one else in the place but us. (One thing about the Iberian lifestyle that I can't get over now that I have a kid is how late children go to bed, in part due to late mealtimes!)

During our trip I read four and a half books, only one of which I really loved: Jennifer Eagan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. I also read two short story collections, and I was reminded why I love short stories but not short story collections: each story should be read on its own and savored, instead of jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with others. Plus, especially for vacation reading, I really miss the momentum of a novel's plot, the kind that drives you forward and makes you lose track of time as you devour masses of pages. One of the collections was a Don Barthelme set, and his books of stories have been on my wish list for ages, which made me anticipate them greatly and then be disappointed greatly (plus, it was prefaced by maybe the most glowing introduction I have ever read, by Dave Eggars, and set me up for even more disappointment when I wasn't a fan). Finally, I read John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River, which was all right plot- and character-wise, but which I found repetitive and relied overmuch on that temporal overlay writerly crutch: "Later, so-and-so would remember how the..."; or "When he thought back on that night as an old man, he saw..."; etc.

We actually did have a few sunny mornings, including Palm Sunday and Good Friday, during which there were delightful events. Palm Sunday, all the children carry elaborately woven palm branches to the church and wear their best new spring clothes (see my description from a couple of years ago here)--since this was a family town, the area in front of the church was jam-packed with kids, strollers, and families taking pictures. On Good Friday, the same plaza held a wonderful market of artisanal cheeses, breads, and pastries, including Eastertide confections, bunyols, which are sweet anise-flavored fritters, fried dough formed into small donuts or triangular shapes and rolled in sugar. We bought samples of all of the above. Plus, there were espectacles or shows for children, and Gabriel got to watch clowns and dance very charmingly with other little tots.

We were back to my in-laws' for Easter, and Easter morning we attended church in the city, but I was badly disappointed by the service, with its lugubrious synthesized organ renditions of what should be joyful Easter hymns, and a complete lack of flowers/trumpets/choir or other signs of Easter festivity. It's the day of the year, I realized as I spent half the service in quiet tears, that I am most homesick for the US and the traditions of our family and churches past. Plus, there was no nursery as advertised, and Gabriel fell right away while clambering over the pews, so M. had to take him out of the sanctuary while he screamed his head off for half the service. (He was literally the only child in the room, which is often the case at the churches we attend in Catalonia.)

Things got a little more Easter-like (in a secular fashion) once we returned home and staged an Easter-egg hunt for Gabriel, his cousins, and friends of theirs visiting from France (where egg-hunts are also a tradition, although they are not in Spain). The five kids loved scouring the courtyard for chocolate and hard-boiled eggs, and each carrying his or her own little homemade paper basket. On Easter Monday we did the Spanish Easter tradition, which is the mona, a cake for each child topped with large chocolate eggs or other shapes, candies, and colored feathers or other decor. Traditionally, each child receives his or her cake from the godmother, but in our family we just make them for the kids. As we discovered, five cakes is an awful lot of cake!

As usual, we came back to a very rainy and quite chilly Belgium, but the flowers are bursting and it still feels like spring. (Ironically, I often feel colder in the spring because the temperatures are still low but I've abandoned the idea of mittens and parkas and wool hats.) Our street is a vast mud pit, which I have great difficulty getting the stroller through, since the wheels get stuck in the mud, and I can't or shouldn't lift it out. I've had to ask for help from strangers, or abandon the stroller, take Gabriel to our door, and go back for the stroller. None too fun. Our shoes are permanently coated with clayey orange mud. But again: it's spring. We walk past adorable parades of ducklings every morning on our way to daycare, and the sun does peek out every once in a while, promising nicer things to come. It's good to be home.

Babifying

We flew back from a sunny Barcelona to a sunny Leuven (with a nip in the air, but still sunny)! Gabriel did great on the flights, and him having his own seat made them so much nicer for us. The house is very clean and the walls didn't cave in, although the diggers seem to be mysteriously redigging holes that they had already dug.

The crazy thing is that we fly back to Barcelona again next Thursday already--we deliberately squeezed another trip in before I could no longer fly, and since it will be a long holiday during Easter week M. had days off. But this time we'll go up the coast and spend much of our time having an actual vacation, just us, no internet, and hopefully plenty of sun and walks on the beach.

Before that happens, though, we need to make some progress on the babifying of our house, which means a trip to Ikea. I know Ikea is a cliché of frustrated couples compromising over cheap, mass-produced shelving units (and we have certainly lived the cliché), but I still really love going there. I have childhood memories of going to one of the early Ikeas to arrive in the US, and I always loved (still do!) strolling through the cleverly composed floor model apartments, locating items in the giant warehouse, eating in the cafeteria, and so forth. The whole Ikea package.

I'm also trying to decide about the best sleeping arrangement for when the baby comes, which impacts what we buy at Ikea. Ideally, I'd like to sleep in our bedroom and put the baby in a co-sleeper or bassinet next to our bed. But there's barely room for that, and even if we found room, there's no room for a chair to nurse in (I found that the first weeks were better nursing sitting up, until baby got big enough for side-lying), or a place to change his diaper. The normal changing/diapering area (on a dresser) will be in Gabriel's room, as will the full-size crib. Since Gabriel's room adjoins ours, we also risk waking him up during the nighttime wakings.

The alternative, probably more practical option is to relocate, temporarily, to the guest room/office, which is twice as big as our cozy bedroom. We can stick a chair for nursing in there, and even the crib if we want to, and we could use the desk for nighttime diaper changes. But I'm not entirely happy about that prospect, for several reasons: the bed is smaller (roughly a double compared to our queen, which when you add a little baby--and potentially a toddler--in the middle makes a big difference), the windows face the street (noise issues), our massive wardrobe and thus clothes would have to remain in our room which is where my mom would be staying if we took over the guest room, and, well, it's just not *our* room. I imagine nuzzling our new baby in the family space we've already created, not in the somewhat disjointed all-purpose guest room (a corner of which serves as suitcase/baby gear/Christmas decoration storage, since as I'm sure I've mentioned before, Europeans don't believe in closets, grrr).

All of this leaves me going in circles. If we do need to create a new setup, I want to start doing it in advance so Gabriel gets used to us sleeping elsewhere. This is why I'm feeling pressure to get things settled and decide already! I realize that the difficulty is in large part my inability to imagine just how life is going to be: M's the visionary and I'm always stuck dithering about things until I actually start seeing them unfold in real life and then I feel much better. So I probably just need to take the plunge and start setting up the guest room as a new-baby headquarters, reminding myself that it's only temporary, and then I'll settle right in. Although--again with the althoughs--I'll have to wait until after our last round of visitors (M's entire family!) at the beginning of May, so they can use the current guest room.

Baby is kicking me right now--he's getting very baroque with the kicking and stomach-rippling effects lately--as if to remind me that the main thing he'll need he already has: a spot in my arms and my heart. So I guess we'll be OK, wherever we end up spending our (probably sleepless) nights.

Rumbles and travels

I'm still here, although I've somehow let more than a few days go by without further commentary. March is being very...March-y, with a few scattered days of sunny promise tucked into the usual damp gray cold of Belgium. We're flying to Barcelona today for a long weekend and another grab at Catalonian spring, and the forecast promises some lovely weather. Gabriel is finally old enough to require his own seat, which I'm relieved about because it means we have much more space and take up a whole row of our own. Plus, the flight is not rescheduled for some late hour, instead falling in the middle of the afternoon, which *should* make things smoother (although my first rule of travel with children is that any time I anticipate a smooth flight the whole thing is a disaster and vice versa).

Other than that, we've had more visitors, which is always a treat, I've been plugging away at Dutch and a few academic projects, and Gabriel has been a delight and a crazy two-year-old (more blogging on that later, I promise). Oh, and this has been happening ten inches from our front door:

Most mornings I have to wave somebody down to make sure the digger operator sees me and doesn't swing the...digger part towards me and Gabriel, then precariously maneuver the stroller along the soft dirt edge of the massive pit that is our street. Someday, this will pass. Someday.

I've entered the third trimester of this pregnancy, which means there are three months to go. ONLY three months to go! I'm mostly taking it easy and alternate between feeling like we still have lots of time and worrying that it will be here in a flash.

For now, a weekend in sunny Barcelona with extra grandma-aunty-cousin hands to help wrangle the toddler sounds pretty nice. We're bringing no computer, just the iPad, so I plan to read and play Words with Friends and check Facebook and blogs but not much else. We'll come down loaded to the gills on the return flight, of course, because there are still piles of baby blankets and baby clothes that we migrated from America to Barcelona but not yet to Belgium.

One of the construction men with a rather smelly cigar, in fact one of the guys from the picture above, just knocked on the door and asked to see our basement. I hope this doesn't mean the walls will cave in, which we actually do worry about given how much the house shakes at 7am and throughout the day as trucks rumble past and diggers smash into the ground. Here's hoping that the house is intact when we get back from the weekend away!

Or, why we love the Ergo

We are back in cold, but not quite as cold as it was when we left, Belgium. A brief thawing out in sunny Catalonia did me good, and having grandmother/auntie/cousins to entertain Gabriel did my sore neck and sore...whatever muscles are at the base of my belly...good. It's actually kind of amusing to hear our family and friends there complain about the cold, and solemnly admonish us to put on winter hats and scarves when we go out, because it's so cold "your fingers tingle."

The flight today presented different challenges than the flight going to Barcelona. It wasn't full, hallelujah, so Gabriel got his own seat. I'm actually really relieved this is his last trip as a "lap infant"--such a misnomer, and has been a misnomer for close to a year now. But since it was a mid-day trip, it fell right during Gabriel's nap, and of course he didn't fall asleep, despite our greatest encouragements, until the final descent into Brussels. Which left us with too many carry-ons (as always, we're transferring a large assortment of objects, such as stored baby clothes, G's birthday presents, inherited items, and books we need here, from one city to the other), a dead-weight sleeping two-year-old, bulky coats, and oh, a pregnant belly to haul through the long hallways of Brussels airport.

For here's something that makes me fume just about every trip we make: in European airports, they no longer bring up the stroller to the airplane after deplaning, leaving bedraggled families everywhere wondering how on earth to corral toddlers or lug heavy babies or sleeping children through large airports to get to the baggage claim. Even with modest amounts of carry on luggage, this presents a serious challenge, and it is beyond me how airport planners can allow the most urgent items--the strollers--to appear LAST of all, long after the last suitcase has rolled through and the rest of the passengers are merrily on their way. This is the moment when travel-weary children are at the end of their tether, when parents are exhausted and just want to get home, when the last thing you want to do is stand and wait without a way to contain or carry a child. Over and over again, I've watched parents having to make sure kids don't crawl on the baggage carousel, or escape in the crowds, or get in the way of large rolling objects and their human carriers. And of course, I've been that parent.

Thank goodness for the Ergo baby carrier: we always wonder--especially now that we don't use it much anymore--if we really need to bring it and we are always SO glad we brought it. I carried sleeping Gabriel on my back in the Ergo, plus assorted winter coats and Gabriel's mini-backpack, and the Mister carried two (pretty loaded) backpacks plus our two rolling suitcases plus a heavy bag with four landscape paintings in it (originals painted by his grandmother, which have always hung in her apartment and which will now hang in our house here). Needless to say, we went very slowly, taking breaks every once in a while.

This time, the one other family on our flight with kids (three! a tiny baby and two tots) were waiting, too, when we finally got to the baggage claim, and the father had gone off to find out where the strollers were. Of course they appeared while he was gone, and the mother asked the Mister to pull her strollers (plural!) and car seats off the baggage claim. But he couldn't open them (why does every stroller have a unique, non-obvious trick for opening?) and she couldn't explain how to open them due to a language barrier, and her arms were full with the sleeping infant, while the two older kids ran around in circles. So I offered to hold the baby (I was sitting down, with Gabriel still on my back) while they figured out the strollers and even though my back and belly ached I cooed at the baby and was glad I was not in her shoes, while simultaneously worrying that someday I could be.

Anyway, a short train ride (free first class for pregnant ladies!) and a fifteen-minute walk in the misty cold of Leuven later, we were home. With the stroller, everything was so much easier, although Gabriel whimpered the whole way, having woken up from his nap into the unpleasantly cold air, and the Mister still carried most of the luggage weight, with our ridiculously torn-up, still under construction, muddy, rubbly street being sort of the last straw.

The week ahead will be busy, but busy in happy ways: tomorrow is Valentine's day, of course, and M. and I had planned to meet for lunch in Brussels until I realized that I wouldn't make it back for my first (second, really, since I missed today's) Dutch class. So we'll probably go out for a not-terribly-romantic dinner with Gabriel in tow tomorrow night. Then Wednesday is Gabriel's actual birthday, and he already caught a glimpse of the presents that I wrapped for him before we left ("Open! Open!" he said until I distracted him with a short-lived valentine-making project involving doilies and felt shapes). I still have to figure out a snack for him to bring to school and something special for dessert that night.

Friday--or actually Saturday, but for the schools Friday--is Carnival, which in Europe means dressing up in costumes. Gabriel's got a cute hand-me-down ladybug costume made by M's mom and worn by his cousins. Then, Saturday, we're throwing a bash for Gabriel's birthday, to which we invited basically all the families we know who have kids. It's not necessarily a ton of people, but it's the most we've ever had over, and there will be soup and sandwiches and I plan to make an owl cake and some simple goody bags for the kid attendees, so there's (fun) work to be done. So! A week of celebrations, of all sizes and shapes. But mostly all about a charming two-year-old who we are so, so proud of, even when he's a heavy, sleeping lug needing to be carried through a very long airport.

Baby (and not such a baby) on board

We flew from Brussels to Barcelona on Thursday evening, and the flight was simultaneously wonderful and horrible. Horrible, because the heat was cranked up and I was sweltering the entire time, even more because of my built-in incubator, I'm sure. M. put his hand on my belly at one point to feel the baby move and I couldn't even stand that iota of extra warmth. Gabriel was sitting mostly on his lap, but also stretched out onto mine, and my feet swelled up to the point where I laboriously took off my boots and wasn't sure whether I would ever get them back on. The seats seemed impossibly close together, my kneecaps smashed against the row in front of us, and I couldn't manage to reach anything on the floor (and of course Gabriel regularly dropped his crayons). I got a violently painful knot in my shoulder that I couldn't shake out, and I had to pee but couldn't fathom getting out of my seat, unbuckling the kid (who would refuse to be buckled again), and crawling back over the seemingly insurmountable distance of three airplane seats with no leg room.

The flight was only two hours but it felt like ten.

However! There is the wonderful part I mentioned. The schedule was changed from an afternoon flight to an 8:30pm flight, which meant checking in at around Gabriel's bedtime, landing at 10:30, and arriving at my in-laws' house at nearly midnight. But Gabriel surpassed all expectations, sitting quietly during the whole flight and coloring or reading. For the first time ever, we didn't bring a diaper bag, just a little backpack for him to carry himself, and he wore it onto the plane and off like a little champ. (In fact, the only time he did cry was when we made him take the backpack off after boarding.) When we got off the plane, we had to climb down the stairs to a waiting bus, and since the Mister had the suitcases, I was in charge of Gabriel. Instead of trying to carry him, I had him walk down himself, holding my hand, and even with the loud roar of the plane engines, the cold and semi-dark and rushing wind, he bravely marched down those stairs. I could tell he was a little scared, but he didn't stop or beg to be carried, and I was SO proud of him. We hopped onto the bus and he sat there, pleased as punch, and walked all the way through the airport with his little backpack, giddily running into the arms of his grandfather like something out of a movie. He didn't even fall asleep during the car ride home, and stayed awake to greet his grandmother with equal joy, then playing delightedly with the toys that are here.

In sum, Gabriel made the trip twenty times more tolerable. (Not sure where that puts the math...)

(It makes me wonder, as does much of his great behavior lately--solidly sleeping through the night without bedtime protest, eating well, understanding our explanations and responding to them, and so forth--how crazy we are to introduce infant chaos back into our lives just when things are getting so good!)

The Cape

Two days ago we made the trip back over the Atlantic to join my family at that lovely curving hook of land jutting out of New England, Cape Cod. We did the trip without a stroller for the first time ever, so my back is a tad sore from lugging baby G. around, but it was also fun to see him proudly stomping around in his little red sneakers and holding both of our hands tightly as he navigated the airport. It was one of our smoothest trips ever, since we were traveling so lightly, and had oodles of time.

With a four-hour layover in London, we enjoyed a nice meal of fish and chips, then hung out in our little secret Heathrow Terminal 3 corner, the wheelchair waiting room, which provides an enclosed, relatively quiet space with comfortable chairs that gets us away from the shopping center chaos that is the terminal at large. As is Murphy's law, the trip on which we had extra time and little luggage was the one where we encountered short lines and few problems. Still, even a smooth and easy 6-hour flight with a toddler on your lap is neither exactly smooth nor exactly easy--it's six hours with an active toddler on your lap.

But oh, it was so worth it. Summertime heat, for real. Beautiful beaches, sand. Cape Cod hydrangeas and weathered shingles. Cousins romping around the house in their matching t-shirts. Little tow heads and dimples. Time for reading, iPad and iPhone games, photo sessions. Walks. Board games and card games with siblings and parents. Seafood. Bundling a happy, sea-salty shivering kid in a towel and holding him in my arms as the evening sun warmed us. And we've only been at the rental for a day!

I brought the book Cod by Mark Kurlansky, and I'm already in the middle of Moby Dick on my iPad. Perfect reading for Cape Cod (isn't it good geeky fun to match books and location?!). I also have David Mitchell's new novel, which I was half way through when I had to leave it in Boston two months ago (and um, really doesn’t match our location since it’s set in a Dutch trading outpost in Japan), plus a pile of other books on the iPad. I can't wait to devour them all.

From Barcelona

After the exhausting solo overseas trip with little G., a two-hour trip to Barcelona (light on the luggage and an extra helping of hands in the form of grandparents) was a breeze. We flew here Wednesday morning and are luxuriating in the actual summer weather, after a solid week of drizzly gray days requiring layers and umbrellas. Having M's parents around, though, was a treat: not only did they watch and entertain the tyke, they also cooked and shopped and tidied our garden and assembled huge furniture (those super-tall Ikea PAX wardrobes are no joke) and hung curtains and accompanied us on yet another epic Ikea trip and generally were very, very helpful.

With their help, too, we have managed to begin the weaning process in earnest; Gabriel hasn't nursed during the day in almost two weeks, with the exception of the airplane. Night weaning will be another stage, but we'll wait to establish the daytime thing first. I'm a little bit sad about it but also eager to experience the possibilities accompanying the fact of a child no longer requiring my body as sustenance: I can be away from him for longer than a few hours! I can wear a dress! Someday, maybe, we'll be able to hire a babysitter and go out on an actual nighttime grown-up date! We're already seeing the effects on mealtimes: over the past few days he's shown unprecedented hearty interest in his food....lentils and fish and eggs and yogurt and peaches oh my!

As always, arriving in Barcelona makes me deeply joyful. There's something about this place that makes me breathe easier--the light, the warm air, the simple delicious food, the plazas full of people, the smell of sea, the familiar, the new. I love getting back to our little nest, too, the welcoming spines of books, neighbors happy to see us, the breeze on the balcony, our big bed, Catalan TV, the round dining room table worn smooth with age. Work has begun on the elevator, at long last, so the days of hauling child+stroller+bags+shopping are numbered (even if that number be large, given the sluggishness with which all building projects take place in Spain--the building residents approved the elevator ONLY, what, three or four years ago?). Over time I'll remember the faults of this place too, but I take it, warts and all.

I'm heartily enjoying watching toddler Gabriel interact with his two cousins and aunt and uncle here, and seeing how his Catalan language acquisition develops more quickly when he is immersed here. His language exploded right at 15 months--at his May checkup in the US I could list maybe a dozen words (mama, dada, no, all done, panda [his stuffed lovey], woof, dog, nigh-nigh, bye-bye, knee, moo, and I'm probably forgetting a couple) and then over the next days he proved me wrong by easily doubling that number. It's been cool to see him modulate his vowels: "knee," for instance, began as "knay" and when I repeated it I could hear him try "knay-ee" until it morphed into "knee," although he still says "knay" sometimes. "Moo" also is often "mohhhh," which I find adorable. I repeat it correctly, though, and he says "mohhh-ooo." With gusto. His early words were also, funnily, spoken in a softer, higher-pitched voice...he'd be babbling along in a lower register and very carefully, precisely say "nigh-nigh" in his sweet upper register. Too cute.

So far, his English vocabulary dominates, but he's always said "Hola" along with "Hi" (I walked downstairs this morning at our in-laws' house and said a general "Hola" and Gabriel was the only one who piped up with his tiny, bright "HOLA!") and "bye-bye" along with "adeu." To that he's added, in recent days, "gràcies" and "ja está" (all done), "sí!" and "iaia" (grandma), "va" (come on, or go) and "té" (here you go, used when handing off an object). In general these days, he repeats words at surprising moments, so you are caught off guard and charmed to death when he suddenly decides to echo, quite adorably, "tomato" or "cake" or "uh-oh!" He's pleased as punch, too, of course, so there is all around beaming and repeating of words. I've also witnessed him easily sliding between languages--the aforementioned "va" appeared when he was saying his favorite "Go, go, go!" (always used to refer to cars, sounds a bit like "doh, doh, doh!") and I translated it for his relatives here, at which moment he immediately picked that up and said "Va, va!"

We'll see what happens when we throw a Flemish daycare into the mix! (Enrolling in said daycare is priority number one when we get back to Belgium.)

Anyway, being fascinated as I am by developmental psychology/neuroscience AND languages, I am bound to get geeked out by this and prattle on about it on my blog (which also serves as something of a record for posterity given that Gabriel's baby book remains sadly, woefully blank). Apologies if I'm one of THOSE moms.

Valencia

In the spirit of relaunching regular blog posts, today I am writing from Valencia, Spain. When the Mister suggested that Gabriel and I tag along on this business trip, I couldn't resist, even though our lives have been very busy lately, and my parents arrive for a visit the day after we get back. It's a whole new city! A whole new Autonomous Region of Spain! I actually have stood on a mountaintop on the spot where Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon converge, but I had never visited the capital of Valencia (which is beautiful, from what I've seen so far). Just a three-hour train trip from Barcelona, and besides, a good way to celebrate the anniversary of our wedding day!

So Gabriel and I are about to head into the city for some sightseeing, while the Mister sits in the kind of conference room that has little microphones, water glasses, and hard candies at every table, and listens earnestly to people talk about the kinds of things he's heard a thousand times already. I think we get the better deal.

I do have some more blog posts in my head, so I will try to continue to update regularly.

Also: happy anniversary, my Mister. Four years ago today was one of the best days of my life, but every day since then has been better than it would have been, just because you're in it.

Departures

It seems like every half a year or so we pack up one household in a crazy rushed effort to stash our belongings somewhere, all in order to go to another household. That's what we did last weekend. We have subletters living in our apartment this summer, so we had to find unobtrusive corners of our place to stick things and then move boxes and suitcases to M's office and the home of our longsuffering friends, leaving the apartment scrubbed of too-personal items.

And then we will get to the other place (which has been similarly sublet), and face the task of unpacking the same kind of too-personal items that we stored at M's grandmother's house and in our pint-sized second bedroom. (Pint-sized is the right size for a baby! And we have one of those! But it's full to the ceiling of random crap that a closetless apartment is bound to accumulate, plus all that stored clothing, PLUS a ton of stuff from our previous Brussels-Barcelona move.)

So. After packing up, which was accomplished in due time, we drove for twelve hours with an eleven-week-old baby. This went much more smoothly than I had feared, with the crying jags limited to easily-fixable episodes: hungry! wet! So we would: stop car at nearest rest area/ gas station (ideally coinciding with our need to eat, pee, or fuel up, but not always), feed and/or change the baby, get back on the road. He is now marginally distractable with jangly toys, so M. jangled some toys in front of him every once in a while and that helped.

And now we're in our nation's capital! Happy to be at my parents' apartment, although I think M. will be happier when grading is finished. We spend a week here, then a week in Boston (which means, yes, another long car ride), and then off to Barcelona.

In the midst of all of this, Gabriel has decided that sleeping through the night agrees with him. We went from waking up every. two. hours. like clockwork to sleeping for five hours at a time, say, from 10 to 3 and from 3 to 8 (no transition nights of three or four hour stretches, which is strange). It's like he's growing up or something! It's like I have a new non-fogged brain!

We went to the national zoo yesterday. Zoos always make me a little sad for the animals in their enclosures and cages, but also fascinated by these gorgeous creatures that I would never otherwise see so up close. Gabriel slept through the whole thing, pretty much, and when he was awake, his hands were way more interesting to him than lions or pandas. He's just discovered that there are these objects stuck on the end of his appendages that he can move back and forth and this requires intense scrutiny. I'm sure he'll have a detailed report on my desk in the morning.

And speaking of tomorrow morning: I turn 32! Which is basically the same as 31, so it's not too big of a deal. But then again, it's so not the same, because now I have a baby, and if that doesn't blow my mind... Convenient that it's Mother's Day one day later. It took me several weeks of seeing Mother's Day advertisements and store displays and thinking about my own mom before I realized that Oh! This applies to me now! I'm a mom. Wow.

30 weeks

Ah, yes. I have a blog. I'm sorry I haven't written, and surprised I haven't written much here, because pregnancy is such a weird and cool and shocking thing, and I'm weirded out and shocked almost every day. And I love reading about other people's pregnancies, have survived by doing so. Yet this at the same time it is all so personal and interior and inward...all so our experience that I want to savor it with the Mister, and friends and family--writing about it just seems to place me squarely in cliché-land. Oh, yes, I suppose there's another reason I haven't written much: trying to eke out a dissertation, grading the never-ending pile of student papers that threatens to slope off of our coffee table, and making lesson plans (only a couple more to go!) have just been a *tad* bit time-consuming.

We flew to Barcelona for Thanksgiving week; it was our last chance to see everyone there before baby, and to show off the belly (I finally have one!). We filled the too-quick trip spending as much time as possible with our friends and family, especially the Mister's grandmother, and eating as much tapas and delicious seafood as possible (fortunately, these two agenda items were perfectly compatible, although not with my smooshed heartburn-prone stomach). We made a Catalan-American Thanksgiving dinner: I contributed stuffing, potatoes, and an apple pie to others' roasted chicken, salad and vegetables. It only tasted a little like Thanksgiving, but at the same time I was so thankful for...everything...that it was indeed a Thanksgiving day.

However. I don't exactly recommend a 9 and a half hour flight crammed into the tiniest seats known to man plus two layovers when one is thirty weeks pregnant. It didn't help that our alarm didn't go off the morning of our return trip and at 6am the taxi driver woke us up. But at the same time, the travel went well and I stayed hydrated and on my feet (although my ankles resembled tree trunks by the time it was all said and done).

Speaking of which, how did 22 weeks become 30? How did I suddenly turn into the pregnant lady who "oof"s and groans every time she sits down, stands up, or rolls over? I really do think it happened overnight, because only a few days ago I was still amazed that I felt rather sprightly and was surprised every time I looked down--what I looked like didn't correspond with what I felt like. But now the two are starting to come closer together: I am definitely starting to feel like what I look like. As one of my students oh-so smilingly pointed out today, I am huffing and puffing a lot when I arrive to class. (Thanks, buddy! I hadn't noticed!) Also, turning the corner into the last ten weeks makes it seem a bit more real--in the 20-something weeks you're only about halfway. But in the 30-something weeks it's all a countdown to the big day.

There's still so much to do! So much to buy! My mom, sister, and sisters-in-law threw me a fantastic baby shower in Boston the day we flew out from there to Barcelona, and in addition to being really fun and a perfect chance to see some of the Boston-based lovely ladies in my life, they gave us some wonderful gifts. Then in Barcelona we were also given so many cute little outfits and bedding and hand-me-downs that we came home with quite a nice start to filling out this baby's wardrobe and swaddling needs. (We got so many striped outfits--I love them!--that the Mister expressed worry that our baby might look like a broken television...) But it is just the beginning! I finally ordered some of the cloth diapers we'll need, which I feel very triumphant about, and we plan to make another run to Indianapolis for further baby equipment, including the sort of obligatory crib and carseat.

Christmas is right around the corner, and I know that will make these last ten weeks (or less?!) fly by. I want to savor them all, remember every drop of them. I love being pregnant, love seeing how my body is changing and what it's capable of. I don't want this to go too fast, but at the same time, the arrival of our son can't come fast enough.

Budapest

One would think that we've got enough on our plates, what with moving a truck of stuff out of one apartment in order to trip over it in another apartment, and with cleaning and fixing up yet another apartment so we can (finally!) get renters moved in. Oh, and there's the question of preparing for our trip to the US next week, which for me may turn into a seven-month stretch rather than a two-month vacation if I decide to just change my return ticket instead of buying new ones. Because it seems that I am going to be back at my university stomping grounds in order to teach for the fall semester. Which also means finding yet another apartment to live in (will we never tire of not living in one place?), and also implies the terrifying prospect of packing a suitcase that will suffice for seven months.

But no! That's not enough, evidently, because we're leaving for Budapest on Thursday. Thursday, as in the day after tomorrow. The trip--the Mister will be speaking at a conference and I'll be a plus one--is actually a compromise, because he was initially planning to be in Budapest and then Bucharest until next Wednesday night (we leave for Philadelphia on Thursday morning). I said I didn't that would be a good idea, except I said it in a slightly more forceful manner. But after we ruled out Bucharest, compared to returning the day before our flight to the US, returning four days before from a shorter trip seemed totally doable, and I was tempted by the glittering idea of a weekend escapade in a country and a city I've never visited. So I said I'd go along, and that's how I find myself about to go to Budapest.

Maybe Budapest will be a good break, though, because all of the other stuff is, to say the least, stressful. I'm nearly paralyzed by the magnitude of "to-do" and the spiral of "what-if" and the sadness of "don't-want-to-leave." The not wanting to leave Barcelona part is not just about spending Fall Semester in the great wide midwest; it's also about the Mister being a candidate for a (really really fantastic and prestigious) job in.... Brussels. Yes, the place that sapped our energies over several years with its uncannily gray skies, and the place that we just turned our backs on in a diesel-puff of exhaust smoke.

Which is why I'm counting on Budapest, one B-city that at least has no emotional connotations in my life, to be a clean slate of a weekend getaway.

On being a better hostess

We have had house guests for a few days, which is always fun. And it has been a bit of a letting-go process for me, because I have lately come to realize something about myself: I have a bit of a problem when it comes to visitors. I want everyone who comes to Barcelona to love it as much as I do, and furthermore, to have a sense of its history and understand something of Catalan culture. (I don't have high expectations or anything.)

This presents a difficulty because I used to experience a vague dissatisfaction when visitors would (most naturally) compare Barcelona to City X, their personal favorite or current residence. Or when I couldn't transmit a whole history lesson in one walking tour of the city. Or when a guest would rather skip something that I considered absolutely essential, or sleep until noon and miss seeing that museum with the amazing paintings/architecture/history/view.

The first step in solving the problem is (as ever) recognizing it, and although that took a while, it finally dawned on me that it's not up to me to control other people's experience of this city. Everyone has different rhythms, different travel styles, and totally different interests when it comes to sightseeing. It's not about me. No one else is going to have the same exact vision and experience of this place. My job is just to provide friends and family with a home away from home, a jumping-off point for city ventures (or not).

(All of this should be obvious, but I'm a little slow when it comes to these things, tending to believe what my control issues/type A proclivities tell me: i.e., that I am right and everyone should see things just as I do.)

So this time around, I've been as laid-back as possible about advice-giving and tourism suggestions, and not stressed about whether our visitors have seen this city in its best light, or discovered the "right" back streets. The Mister and I explained, as we always do, a bit about the Catalan language and culture, but only to the extent that our guests asked about it.

From there, it's up to them to make their own discoveries. And besides, as I tell them (and myself), they'll have to save something for the next visit!

Away and back again

So, remember that idea of mine where I was going to continue to write every day for the month of December, just like I (almost) did for the month of November?

Ha! So do I. Unfortunately, it remains in the realm of idea rather than fact, because I have rather spectacularly--although not on purpose--abandoned that plan.

First there was last weekend, which as weekends will, ended up being rather stuffed full of going-out-and-about activities. Then we spent the week in Brussels, and I discovered that four days (more like two and a half, once travel on Monday evening and Thursday morning is factored in) was way too little time to have lunch OR dinner OR coffee OR a beer with every person I haven't seen in three months, AND buy secret santa presents for the Mister's work Christmas party, AND clean the neglected apartment (the Mister is hardly ever there any more, and it shows...) AND pack my bags full of the winter clothes and books I would need in Brussels.

The advantage of having to buy the secret santa presents was that I got to roam the city and peruse most of my favorite shops, but the disadvantage was actually having to buy them. Every year they refuse to set a price guideline, and every year that leaves us in a pickle. Everything seems either too inexpensive or too expensive for the gift exchange.

In addition to the above, I did see a bit of snow, which was cheery and Christmasy, and I did enjoy the brisk temperatures and the Christmas festival and the Grand Place full of a beautiful light-and-sound display.

Things I neglected: the blog, and remembering to bring any Christmas decorations back down South. So when this afternoon the Mister and I finally were able to "put up the Christmas decorations," I found myself peering into an empty box much more quickly than I would have wished. We have two lovely wool stockings from the Mister's mother store, now hung by the [dining room buffet] with care, a few ornaments hanging off of doorknobs and houseplants, an advent candle, a little creche scene, and a poinsettia, but that's about it. We searched high and low for the lights we thought we had somewhere, but no luck.

Ah well. Listen to enough Messiah and Bing Crosby, and Christmas is conjured out of thin air.

Reverse

One of the best things about travel days is the strange sensation of having been in a place so drastically different just hours ago. This morning I was climbing medieval walls and enjoying an Anglican church service and driving a car on the opposite side of the road (not all at once, obvs.), and now? Well, now I'm sitting on the couch in the living room.

I'm very proud of myself for successfully maneuvering through the little skinny byways of the Yorkshire Dales without any major mishaps. The internal chant of "stay on the left" helped quite a bit, as did avoidance of driving after dark, because once dusk fell (at about 4 o' "it's further north than you think" clock) I lost all confidence as to whether I hadn't missed some crucial sign and was driving the wrong way down a one-way road. I did once turn into oncoming traffic, but that was quickly remedied, and everyone was moving so slowly that no damage was done.

There was a lot more to the trip than conquering the reverse driving experience, but I'm sleepy and I want to download the camera files and see if any of our pictures captured just how green the rainy fields were, just how lovely the mossy stone walls, just how inviting each dale. I promise that tomorrow I'll write about those things.

Back to BCN

Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed about my grandfather. The trip went remarkably well (despite having to turn around mid-ocean and go back to Amsterdam and switch planes because there was something wrong with the controls) and the whole 7-adults-in-a-minivan-for-9-hours thing was actually kind of fun. Like when we were little and we all piled in the back of the station wagon to sleep through the night in our jammies with our blankies ("stacked like a cord of wood," my uncle said as we looked through some photos from the 1980s). Now, though, we took turns driving and everyone challenged each other to best their high scores on one of the several ipods and iphones and laptops floating around the car.

The funeral was sad, but simple and lovely. Grandpa would have liked it. It was great to see my cousins--all the grandkids made it--and aunts and uncles so soon again after this summer, and to be there for Grandma, because this is a very tough time for her, facing loss and a new kind of life after more than 50 years of marriage. Step by step. She told me she is going to learn how to find my blog online so she can keep up with our goings-on. Hi Grandma!

We played cards and watched faded slides of my mom and aunts when they were kids and ate lots of food and then so soon we had to turn around and head back to Chicago, where we had to buy the Mister some sweaters and a scarf and gloves because he was going to the Yukon for a work trip afterwards (because of the funeral he hadn't been able to re-pack his bag between Strasbourg and the Canada trip). For my part, I stuffed my suitcase with canned pumpkin and chocolate chips and almond extract and cranberries.

I came back to a rainy and cool, November-y Barcelona, and discovered that I would need to break out the space heater. And maybe buy a couple more. (We never had the radiators installed in the apartment...this winter will be an experiment to see if we really need to do so.) Today the sun is out again, though. It doesn't stay away for long 'round these parts.

Grandpa

My grandfather was very sick, but it didn't seem possible that he would leave us so quickly. I was able to talk to him on Sunday just before they gave him morphine for the pain, before he entered a cloud of sleep and medicine, a conversation for which I am so profoundly grateful. He was tired and hurting, but still his matter-of-fact self, his laconic midwestern voice the same as ever. I told him we would talk again in a couple of days, but by Monday evening he was gone. I told him that I love him.

Tomorrow I fly to Chicago, where I'll meet my dad and brother, spend the night at my uncle's, and then drive to Iowa together for the funeral. I still can't believe that the last-minute ticket was so reasonably priced, and I'm astonished that I am even able to go to the funeral. It's a strange thing to be so happy about that even in the midst of sadness, looking forward to seeing family and being with them to celebrate grandpa's life.

On the docket

Today's focus will be packing bags for my Tuesday departure to the US (since we'll be at the beach for the weekend, returning Monday). I should say "bag" because I'm aiming to cram a month's worth of stuff into one carry-on suitcase. And since our activities range from camping and hiking to city dining and wine tasting, in temperatures ranging from Death Valley Pickle to San Francisco Fickle, I imagine the task will be a bit tricky. I will count on layers, and on laundromats, to make it work. I'll choose the most lightweight things I own. The clunkiest things (tennis shoes, for camping/hiking, and jeans and a sweatshirt) I plan to wear on the plane. So here's hoping for the best!

Almost a year ago was the disastrous pre-trip where I discovered that our paid-for tickets did not exist. So another task today will be thorough confirmations of all plane tickets.

There are still a million details to figure out for the Las Vegas/Grand Canyon/California driving tour, but I figure I can do a little bit of that while I'm in Boston, and that we can also just go with the flow and find places to sleep on the fly. Is that a bad idea? It being high season and all?

Last but not least, tonight we're going to see a Madeleine Peyroux concert at the beautiful Palau de la Música Catalana. Yippee! M's birthday gift from his parents were concert tickets, and we got to choose which concert (limited by the fact that it had to be, um, today, the only day M. is in town before our trip and without prior commitments). Lucky for us, this concert is happening today, and lucky for me, the birthday boy is sharing his present with yours truly.

Resume

How has it happened that several whole weeks have gone by since last I wrote anything here? It was kind of not my fault, because of the lack of internet in Barcelona, although it is kind of my fault because I can usually get a neighbor's signal if I sit on or near one of the balconies. Plus, we were in Brussels this past weekend for a wedding, and there was internet. But again! Not so much my fault! Because we had guests staying with us and you know how it is with having guests: you end up running around doing stuff and not so much bloggity blogging.

So, enough excuses. Since I've dropped off the face of the earth (no skype either, not since the Great Computer Failure of June 08), I should just briefly--but chronologically, as I am unfortunately linear in my thinking--summarize what we've been up to since I came to Barcelona with intent to live. (You see, strangely enough, after all of this time visiting Barcelona on summers and vacations and weekends, and even after we bought an apartment here, I've never truly thought of us "living" here. And now I do, because we are. It feels good.)

Hold on, first another (non-linear, parenthetical) note: I just typed the word "resume" instead of "summarize." Even as I pressed the delete button I was dumbly trying to process: why isn't resume right? why on earth did I think it was resume? what's the right word anyway? My fingers, typing faster than my brain, typed resume because in Catalan, you say "resumir" to mean "sum up," "go over," "summarize." Can it be that Catalan has so infiltrated my thinking that I am using reverse false cognates?

Anyhoo. The first week here was a madness of getting the apartment in shape for the Mister's birthday party and for guests who were to spend the following weekend with us. It was grimy from disuse and lack of time, on prior whirlwind weekends, to clean. I finally was able to convince the electrician to come and install all of our lights, which was a relief because it meant that our restored original lighting is now in place, instead of naked lightbulbs. The weather was sultry hot, humid, sunny. I didn't sleep properly for days, because of the heat, and the noise from the street through the open windows. But it was better than Brussels, where jackets are still necessary.

We had a fun family-and-friends birthday party; everybody had just left the house around midnight when our weekend guests arrived--the same Italian friends whose wedding we attended in Sardinia. We went to the beach for the first time this year, we ate lots of good food, we trudged around the city in the heat, we watched Spain win the European football championship. Our Italian friend (a big football fan himself) was a little puzzled, I think, as to why the Catalans were rather lackluster on the cheering front, until we pointed out the Franco-era flags waving in the stands and listened to frenzied radio commentary about the "raza superior": it's amazing how football in Europe can be so...political, so closely tied to ultra-nationalism.

Our friends left last Monday, and I finally had a rather calm few days to myself here. I got some work done, explored the neighborhood, did a little sales shopping. (In Europe--well, at least in Spain and Belgium--the sales are restricted to post-Christmas and late summer. Other times of the year, it's rare to find anything on sale, and so during these sale months everyone goes crazy, and it makes the news, sort of like Black Friday. I myself rather prefer NOT to shop during these times, as formerly orderly shops become bargain-basement jumbles of clothes, and formerly solicitous salespeople become surly and snappy. But I went to buy some items I had my eyes on earlier, and snagged them on sale on July 1.) I also finalized our rather complex set of plane tickets from Barcelona to Boston (me) and Brussels to Sioux Falls (him), then Sioux Falls (me) and Omaha (him; yeah, don't ask) to Las Vegas, then Las Vegas to Barcelona. It'll be his first trip to my midwestern birthplace, and I haven't been in years. We'll be in Iowa/South Dakota for a family reunion, and then we're taking two weeks to drive around California. I have never been (less surprisingly, he hasn't either) to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. So those are all on the list, and I have a feeling two weeks is going to start seeming awfully short.

I also got a haircut! I got a very short cut--a pageboy?--with long straight-across bangs. I've never had bangs like this and I'm still adjusting to them, but I think I like it. It looks kind of retro, kind of flapper-ish, and it went well with the beaded dress I wore to the wedding this weekend.

I had a bit of a misadventure when I flew to Brussels last Thursday. Somehow in setting the alarm I changed the time as well, so that when I thought I was waking up at 5:30 in the morning it was really 3:30 in the morning, and I had in reality only slept for two hours. Not until I was wheeling my little suitcase down the dark, deserted street did it occur to me to wonder why there were so few people and why it was so dark at 6 am. I showed up at the train station at 4:15 in the morning, and had to wait for it to open at 4:30. The first train to the airport was at 5:30, so I kind-of-slept for an hour, dragged myself to the airport and through check-in and security, and then kind-of-slept for another two and half hours because--Murphy's law!--the plane was delayed for two hours.

Upon arrival in Brussels, I had to rush home--shivering, because the skirt and tank top that had seemed so smart in boiling Barcelona did not quite cut it in chilly, rainy Brussels--change, and meet my Mister at a super swanky delicious restaurant called BonBon to celebrate our two years of weddedness. It was worth it though, because the meal was a memorable one and the travel stress melted away under the influence of a nice wine recommended by the sommelier and the handsome face across the table.

Unfortunately the glamor could last only for so long, because we had to clean the house in preparation for the guests who would be with us for the wedding, arriving later that night. The weekend was full of wedding flurry, inevitably. The bride and groom and many of the guests were a group of friends who had studied with the Mister at the Johns Hopkins International School in Bologna, a fun mix of Americans and Europeans of all stripes, and I got to meet some of them for the first time. The wedding itself was a civil ceremony that took place at the very grand town hall in the very grand Grand Place, and drinks afterwards were Belgian brews at a nearby brasserie. We danced and mingled until four o'clock in the morning, and the next day we were plied with the famous fries at Chez Antoine in Place Jourdain. I flew back to Barcelona late last night (the Mister had flown to Madrid for a conference) and well, here I am.

Here I am, that is, until a week from tomorrow, which is when the whole American adventure starts. I'm super excited to see family and celebrate and lolligag in cabins by the lake, but I'm really quite beside myself that we're finally going to take a driving trip around the west coast. Even if I end up feeling like foreigner in my own country.

Too sweet times two

It occurred to me after this weekend that I made the same mistake twice, once in Paris and once in Florence: I wasn't choosy enough about my street food.

The day we arrived in Paris, I was jonesing for a good crêpe. Dinner had been eaten, and I still hadn't had one; the situation was getting desperate. We were strolling the Champs-Elysées in the evening, and I decided to go for one of the little stands to the side of the avenue, even though I had my doubts when I saw that the crêpes were pre-made. Overcoming my doubts, I thought: it's Paris--all the crêpes are good, right? But sure enough, my lemon-sugar version was so terrible that I had to throw it away without finishing (which, if you know me, means that it had to have been really really bad): gummy re-heated pancake, too much sugar, not enough lemon to cut the sweetness. It was like eating pure, chewy, sugar.

By the time we had to leave, the next evening, I realized I still hadn't had a good crêpe. So as we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and get a taxi to the airport, I stopped at a place near Saint-Michel, dangerously at the heart of the touristy area near Notre-Dame. But there was a line (not always a good indicator, especially if they're tourists, but still a positive sign) and the guy was making crêpes to order. Plus, the chocolate was pure dark chocolate, a bar broken up and melted onto the pancake, so I knew my favorite, the banana-chocolate version, would likely be good. It was better than good, it was delicious, a perfect harmony of fruit, bitter dark chocolate, and warm crêpe.

But I did not learn from my mistake. In Florence, after having dropped my luggage at the hotel, I was supposed to go find the Mister, mid-presentation, at the Palazzio Vecchio. But first I had to eat lunch. I ordered a slice of pizza just so I wouldn't feel guilty about eating only ice cream for my meal, because what I really wanted was a good gelato. I again made the mistake of choosing the first place that I saw, on the corner of the piazza in front of the palace, despite my misgivings about the gelato's rather insipid look. It's Italy, right? All the gelato should be good.

The coconut and melon flavors that I chose weren't horrible enough to throw away, but they weren't that great either. My idea of a good gelato is pure, intense, condensed flavor. It should bowl you over. But these were just overly sweet ice creams with a hint of coconut, a hint of melon. The coconut too pillowy, the melon too grainy, neither the texture nor the flavor made it special.

Fast-forward a day and a half. I still hadn't eaten a good gelato (although, thanks to the generosity of the conference organizers, I had eaten a delectable meal at Rossini). We were heading home from dinner, and in the morning we would be catching the bus to the airport, and I didn't think 8 o'clock in the morning would be a socially acceptable time to eat ice cream. So it was then or never, but my hopes were dim, since it was nearly midnight. Yet, we saw a glimmer in the dark, the warm colors of an ice cream parlour across the street from the Ponte Santa Trinita, and a line of Italians waiting to order their cones. A good sign indeed.

I ordered a small dish of the pear gelato, and it was heaven. Like eating a perfectly ripe pear, an explosion of fruit in the mouth, the cool, dense texture of ice cream. I could leave the city a satisfied gelato-eater.

So I hope my lesson is learned, next time I want to eat a city's signature sweet without trusting my better judgment. Go where there's a line of locals, where it's made to order, where the flavors are home-made.