All the things she did for luck
While Stephanie and I were in Thailand last year preparing to go to India, my sister Katie was preparing to quit her job and travel across Europe for 3 months by herself. Though it would have been very cool if our paths had crossed—we arrived in France a few days before she flew out of London—in some ways I’m glad we didn’t because it made her journey wholly hers.
While traveling, she quickly realized the futility of keeping her blog up to date, which was smart, because instead she focused her attention on the experience itself—as well as capturing it with enough photos and keepsakes to fill several 3-inch binders. And yet, incredibly, she continued updating her blog with tales from her trip in the months since she’d returned home. There was a lull at the end of last year, but then in January the posts resumed with a vengeance, motivated, I think, by the approaching one-year anniversary of her trip.
Her accomplishment is a triumph in and of itself, but the stamina required to continue blogging about it for a year afterward boggles the mind. As a proud and doting brother, I wanted to celebrate Katie reaching the finish line of her blogging journey. One of the things in her posts that tickled me time and time again were all the things she did for luck, things I’d never heard of before, and probably wouldn’t have done myself. And yet there she was, dutifully following in the footsteps of countless others, performing these secret rites of European passage. She is very lucky indeed.
Happy New Year from Austin
Beth, Matthew, Katie, Dad, Mom, Justin, and Stephanie
To our friends and family all around the world: we wish you a very happy new year.
A Melt-in-the-Mouth Cookie Santa
To the casual outside observer, my mom has “a Santa problem”, which we playfully tease her about every Christmas (even though we all secretly love it). She morbidly taunts us that when she’s dead and gone, her Santa problem will become our problem—our inheritance won’t be counted in thousands of dollars, it will be thousands of Santas, muahahaha!
Well, it seems she’s not content to wait until she’s dead and gone. This year I got a very cool Santa Claus of my own, custom-made by Michelle Treichler, complete with a stack of Melt-in-the-Mouth Cookies and miniature reproductions of Woman’s Day Magazine (where the recipe first appeared).
Santa, just chillin’ on the mantle with a plate of Melt-in-the-Mouths
Chris and Katie
While Stephanie and I were making our way across India and East Africa last spring, Katie, my sister, was traveling by herself across Europe. Our paths almost crossed—we arrived in Nice on June 5th just before she flew home from London on the 8th.
During her trip, on the way from Barcelona to Rome, she spent two nights with Stephanie’s mom in France, near Cannes. Keep in mind, they’d never met before, but apparently they hit it off—we heard so many stories from them that it seemed like they’d spent a whole week together, not just a whole day.
A great shot of Chris and Katie after visiting La Verrerie de Biot
All that to say, Katie has just updated her blog with a photo-filled post about their action-packed day, touring Grasse, Valbonne, Biot, Antibes, and Cannes. Check it out.
The 2010 Photo Book
Towards the end of last year, in the middle of our travels, I faced a challenge: do I begin working on a photo book for 2010, or do I delay the project until the end of 2011 and produce two volumes at once? Or, do I just drop the idea of doing annual photo books altogether and make a single book specific to our travels?
Our photo books from 2007, 2008, and 2009
The alternatives only seemed to put off the inevitable, and I knew that the longer I waited, the harder it would be to remember the details. As satisfying as creating an “Our Big Adventure” book sounded (I admit I haven’t entirely ruled out the idea), over the course of our lives the trip will be just one of many things we’ve done. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of continuing the photo books as an annual tradition, splitting the adventure over two years—continuity be damned! So I decided to plow ahead, even as Bali swirled around me.
Bourgogne and Auvergne
From Loriol, we went on a road trip though Stephanie’s family tree. In Burgundy we spent two nights at her aunt’s pre-French Revolution farmhouse (it had been 20 years since Stephanie last visited). In Auvergne we visited the family of a cousin she’s never met (more precisely her first cousin once removed), we toured the farmhouse where her maternal grandmother was born—which is still in the family (occupied by her great aunt), and we saw the grave where the descendants of her great-great-grandmother are buried. Nearby we drove through the town and saw the house where her mother was born. In Provence we spent an afternoon with two of her cousins and their families.
The visits were mostly unplanned, in part due to the weather, which had turned unseasonably wet, thus preventing us from camping (comfortably). In the case of the cousin she’d never met, we literally walked up to the door of what we assumed was their house (based solely on description—we didn’t have an address) and knocked. We were very warmly welcomed. It was the type of trip we’d been dreaming about for several years, traveling deep into central France and exploring her roots, but one that we’d never had the time or the means to do. It gave Stephanie the chance to add pictures to the stories she’d heard growing up, while also rekindling some family bonds.
When the rain passed, we found ourselves in Provence, eager to spend a few nights camping before returning to Le Cannet for our final two weeks in France.
Loriol: Because we’re worth it
On July 4th we left Parma and drove west across Northern Italy, over the Alps (actually “through” them, thanks to the 12km Frejus tunnel), and returned to France to spend two weeks with Jean-Claude (Stephanie’s Dad) and Sabine in their new house in Loriol-sur-Drome, just south of Valence. It was also Stephanie’s first chance to meet her new demi-sœur (half-sister) Gaïa, 8 months old and full of smiles (when not sucking her thumb).
Sabine, Stephanie, Gaïa, and Jean-Claude
In addition to the usual (taking it easy and catching up on the internet), Jean-Claude and Sabine were eager to take us around and show us the area. Over the course of our time together, we visited a lavander distillery just before the harvest, tasted (and purchased) Clarette/Cremont in Die, toured an olive oil moulin (mill) in Nyons, had cheese fondue in Villard-de-Lans (a ski station in the wintertime), toured (and tasted) Chartreuse at the distillery in Voiron, watched the feu d’artifice (fireworks) from their terrace on Bastille Day, and finished it all off with a fête du village (village festival) in Saoù, honoring the local goat cheese, Picodon, a tasty chevre which gets progressively more gnarly the longer it’s aged.
Rooftop panorama of Loriol: clay tiles and satellite dishes
En France, encore, enfin
Like someone slowly unpacking after a long journey, I feel like I finally got to the bottom of my suitcase with that last post about Africa.
Meanwhile the world kept spinning. During our first two weeks in France, we stayed with Stephanie’s Mom at her studio apartment in Le Cannet, a village just north of Cannes. In that time we “bought” a car, ate cheese, shopped for clothes, caught up on internet, washed our gear, cooked Thai food, laid on the beach, celebrated a birthday, painted a bathroom, visited Mamie (Grandma) in Fayence, went grocery shopping, and I started learning how to drive stick.
In short we did a lot of normal, non-travel stuff. We settled a bit and ate a lot. We lived out of a closet instead of a backpack. I believe those two weeks are the longest we’ve slept in the same bed since our 28 days aboard the Cap Cleveland—last September!
France is one of our homes, and in that way, it represents an “end” of our trip, an end to what someone aptly described as our “hardcore travel mode”. True, but in looking at the landscape ahead, the next few weeks, months, even year or two, I only see beginnings.
But we’re not done with traveling just yet! France is definitely about family, but since we finally have time and transportation at our disposal, we also wanted to get out and see some things. Of course the one thing we don’t have a lot of (anymore) is money. So two weeks ago we bought a cheap tent and caught a ferry to Corsica.
Au revoir, Nice
Bonjour, Corse
