Queenie's 60th Jubilee



Family and amazing neighbors!

It’s hard to believe my mom turned sixty this month.  I used to think that was the age of retirement, constant complaining about ‘the youths’, and rocking chairs.  Instead I have a Baby Boomer mother who looks fantastic, is a rock star at her job, is more active than 90% of my 30-yr old friends, and laughs out loud whenever she has the excuse.  By example and through constant and fair parenting, she taught me to be mentally and physically tough, to work hard, and to love without fear.  She also infected me with her love of travel, which explains why she and Benson were here last year for the Queen’s 60^th (Diamond) Jubilee.  The Queen may have celebrated 60 years on the throne, but mom is our little Queenie and deserved some fanfare as well for her 60 years on earth. 

 

Like many families, ours has spread out over the years.  We do not have the luxury of easy family gatherings; the last time all of us were together was at mom and Benson’s wedding four years ago.   Aside from the fun of a family reunion, my grandparents turned 85 this year, and my granddad (Dziadzia) has been fighting lymphoma for years.  Our time together is becoming more and more precious!

That said, mom and my cousin Sarah started planning the Queenie’s Diamond Jubilee.  Everyone was coming, except Katherine who just couldn’t get away from Oxford that weekend and maybe Chris, whose funding to come back to the States for dental education had been canceled.  Mom tried to not be disappointed to have one or two missing but kept on smiling and planning.  Meanwhile, the party was taking on a life of its own.  Our party planner friend Melissa was taking care of the set-up, my friend and professional photographer Heather was coming to take a family photo, and the food was to be catered by the incredibly talented Chef Charles.   

As the party drew nearer, Dziadzia was feeling well enough from his radiation treatment to be able to travel.  Mom was thrilled.  Then Chris decided to come back to the States despite having to pay for his ticket and continuing education.  Mom was ecstatic.  

Chris flew out of England a week before me.  He went to Nashville to see his parents and attend his classes, then drive from there to Wisconsin (with his parents, brother, and 3-yr-old nephew) to go to his cousin Kristen’s wedding.   After all that, he flew to Charlotte, arriving the same day I did! 

I was getting in to Charlotte at 2:30 in the afternoon, but backtrack about 12 hours to me leaving the house, sitting in traffic for a couple hours to get to Heathrow, and then standing in line to get my bag checked.  I feel a SMACK across my backpack and turned around, exhausted at getting up at 5 AM, and ready to smack someone right back.  Except it’s Katherine standing behind me.  And she has a suitcase.  My foggy brain just couldn’t put two and two together.  She laughed when I asked where she was going.   “Surprise!  I bought my ticket last week!”  I cried right there in the US Air line.  So did Katherine.  My mom was going to absolutely freak.  Everyone was going to be together.

Calvin and Aunt Mary Ellen drove us back to mom's from the airport  and I gave hugs and kisses to everyone already there.  Mom was tending the bar and said “who wants a gin and tonic?” to which Katherine, sneaking around the corner, responded “I’ll take one.”  Mom looked at her.  Hard pause.  See the wheels turning and …. SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMM.  It was absolutely priceless. 

The couple days leading up to the party were a celebration in and of themselves.  Benson’s son’s family all came into town and stayed next door at the Magryta’s, Calvin and Colleen were staying two doors down at Charlie’s,  Katherine, Sarah, Dziadzia, Grandma, me and Chris were all upstairs at mom’s and Aunt Mary Ellen and Uncle John were a few minutes away in a peaceful hotel.  People wandered in and out of the house, played in the lake, chatted on the deck, and generally were merry. 

Speak softly and carry a big stick!

Queenie :)

The party itself was awesome.  We dodged thunderstorms to get a couple photos outside and had to change plans and eat in the porch but otherwise everything went really well.  Mom’s had asked for charms for a bracelet instead of other gifts and was amazed at peoples’ creativity!  Her bracelet is gorgeous and already full of memories. 

 

All four grandkids with Grandma and Dziadzia.

The whole family... together!!

Chef Charles working his magic.

Yummmy Farro Salad.

 

Colleen is so clever! 

All kids love bubbles!

 

Three generations.

Grandma and the bartender were thick as thieves when they found out they were from the same tiny town.

One last group shot before the rains came :)

 The end of the reunion was sad, but we are so fortunate to have had such great time together as a family.  Hopefully it won't take another four years to get everyone back together!

 

Beautiful Budapest

The Szechenyi baths were amazing!

We loved Budapest!  That said, the weather wasn’t great (thunderstorms everyday), the River Danube had flooded its banks, I was still recovering from a cold that wouldn’t end, and Katherine got a terrible case of mono and couldn’t come at the last minute.  So why did it leave such a great impression?   

Budapest just had this… feel about it.   It was relaxed and friendly but also energetic, vibrant, and a little edgy.  The food was unique but comfortable.  The local wine and beer were tasty and the coffee fantastic.  The service was amazing, and everything was inexpensive.  For $40 per night we had a three-room apartment downtown, allowing us avoid mass transit for almost the entire weekend.   The trip was timed well, too:  after many guests in rapid succession it was great to spend a couple relaxing days alone together.

I blame our busy summer (and totally not laziness) for us arriving in Hungary without any sort of map, guidebook, or plan.   The extent of our knowledge about Budapest was that it used to be three cities: Buda and Obuda to the west and Pest to the east, separated by the River Danube.   The Buda side holds a castle and behind it, miles of suburbs, while the Pest (prounounced Pesht) side has most of the hotels, shopping, sights, and restaurants.  The truly beautiful city sits on 80 hot springs, making it the (self proclaimed) spa capital of the world.  

Standing on the Buda side, taking a picture of the Parliament building on the Pest side across the Danube river.

The airport was a train and subway ride away from the hotel, and we made it there with only one small issue: my ear never popped on the descent into Budapest.  Congestion is the enemy of comfort in any case, but in the setting of air travel it can be really painful.  We detoured to a pharmacy where the salesperson used a Google translator tool to figure out exactly what I needed.  I traveled a lot before the Google age and let me tell you: taking the first pill after an awkward game of symptoms charades is really scary.   (Here’s to hoping I managed to communicate ‘allergic to chloramphenicol’! )  Anyway, technology is awesome. We had my medicine and were on our way to the apartment in a matter of minutes.

As I alluded to earlier, we were shocked by how spacious our apartment was.  It was only five minutes’ walk from the main subway hub/city center and two minutes from the Great Synagogue… and must’ve been a thousand square feet.   When he realized Katherine wasn’t joining us, the manager knocked the price down even more.  What?!   

It was a lazy first day.  We lounged for a bit, ate a delicious, cheap, long, late lunch at a place called Spinoza’s around the corner from the hotel, and then wandered around the city for a while.   Then the sky suddenly changed from blue to grey to black and minutes later we were scurrying around trying to find cover from an incredible thunderstorm.   There’s a lot of rain in England - cold drizzle mostly - but never any thunderstorms!  The rain came in sheets and at one point lighting struck close enough to make us (literally) jump.  We tried to hide in a coffee shop for a while but finally accepted our fate and walked back to the hotel, arriving completely soaked but still warm, which was a strange sensation after living in England for two years. 

Flooded Danube.  The river isn't supposed to come past those trees - there's a road and walkway under that water!

 By the time we had cleaned up for dinner, the sky had returned to its pretty blue.  We walked a couple blocks into the Jewish Quarter and sat at an outdoor café in the cutest little square where we sat for a couple hours over a few ($2) glasses of wine and some appetizers, enjoying the warmth of fleece blankets handed out by the waiters as the sun set.  The night was gorgeous, so instead of going straight back to the hotel we detoured through the city to see the Buda castle and the Parliament building lit so prettily.  

Buda Castle lit at night.

My stupid cough had me up most of the night, so the morning seemed to come way too fast. Luckily, an awesome breakfast and coffee (again around the corner at Spinozas) had me ready for the bike tour Chris found online. We showed up to the appointed spot and met our tiny, sweet guide Lulu with her awesome bike earrings. Lulu was not a typical guide…. I think she really just enjoyed riding her bike (she was seriously zippy) and loved to show off her city. The three of us chatted the whole time like old friends and ate ‘the best goulash in the city’ for lunch. We made it 3:45 of the four-hour tour before the storms returned. Lulu was in no mood to ride in the rain, so we instead stopped at a fancy desert place, bought some ridiculously amazing chocolate cake, and sat under the cover of the Buda castle until the rain let up.

 

Lulu the zippy bike guide, her friend, and Chris.

Drinking mineral water bottled straight from the spring.  It was quite like drinking a warm hard-boiled egg. 

Symbolic iron curtain.

Buda side.

Our last stop of the day was the House of Terror, a museum and memorial dedicated to remembering the victims who suffered under Stalinist and fascist regimes in Hungary.  The museum is housed in the former headquarters of the ATV , the Hungarian communist secret service similar to the Soviet Union's KGB.  It takes guts to air your worst sins to the public, and the museum made no attempt to attenuate the atrocities committed by both regimes.  This simple but profound quote by Atilla Jozsef was in the museum's pamphlet: "The past must be acknowledged".  I've never seen anything like this museum and am not doing it justice in the explanation, but there were multimedia displays including video interviews of survivors, the rooms used for torture were available for inspection, and the very last display was of photos and names of the perpetrators of the atrocities, some of whom are still alive today. 

Our last day in Budapest was split between touring the Great Synagogue (the largest in Europe) and lounging at Szechenyi, Budapest’s most famous bathhouse and spa.  The day started off somberly at the Synagogue, where we learned more about the Jewish culture of Budapest and just how drastically it had been altered by Nazi Germany. 

Inside the Great Synagogue.

Inside the Great Synagogue.

Mass graves of more than 2000 Budapest Jews who died in the Jewish ghetto in 1944.

Weeping willow memorial tree with names of Hungarian victims of the Holocaust. 

 

From there we hopped on the second-oldest underground train line in the world (the oldest being here in London) to get to the Szechenyi baths.  We didn’t really know what to expect from the city bath house but basically we paid our entrance fee, changed into bathing suits, and then walked a few feet into a really grand central courtyard.   Pictures explain this better than words:

 

Our first view of the baths.

There was a an outer ring of buildings and inner, open-air courtyard with three huge pools fed constantly by natural springs that kept the water quite warm and really clean.  The pool on the left was the temperature of warm bathwater and had a natural whirlpool and jaccuzi-like jets in the floor.  The middle pool was cool and for lap swimming, and the pool on the right was hot-tub hot.  Surrounding these pools was a deck to relax on and peripheral to the deck were buildings that housed a gym, some restaurants, a multitude of saunas and pools of different temperatures (again, fed naturally by the underground springs.)  We hadn’t seen almost any sun in England this year and had definitely not had a day warm enough to lay in bathing suits by the water, so were overjoyed at the prospect of getting a tan!  We set ourselves up on a couple chairs in a far corner and spent the whole afternoon lounging, reading, and swimming.  It was fabulous!  We sipped on the wine that we had ‘snuck’ in, not realizing that picnics were allowed and encouraged.  Next time we'd bring a cooler!

The whirlpool bath - the strong current flowing through the middle section carried us around and around.

Me chilling in one of the cooler inside baths. 

 

Different temperature baths throughout the complex. 

Hehe.

Our chairs set up in a nice quiet spot!

 So yes, all in all we loved Budapest and would encourage everyone to visit this beautiful city!

Ginny and Michael's loop around southern England :)

Chris, me, Ginny, and Michael in front of Bodiam Castle.

 

I love fun visitors.  Seriously, it’s great to explore new places and catch up with friends at the same time.  Our latest visitors were a good friend Ginny who I met in optometry school and her fun husband Michael.  They were brave enough to leave their adorable 2-year old daughter Mila with family in Nebraska to go on an adults-only European adventure.  These two knew how to party when we were in school, and the combo of vacation and no Mila allowed them to amass some great stories by the time they arrived to spend a weekend with us.  Ginny and Michael had already been to Amsterdam, Belgium, and Paris and although they had some rough travels (overnight flight delay, missed train) they were incredibly positive about their experiences.  After so many guests, Chris and I have pinned down what makes great travelers:  Firstly, it’s a good attitude and not a ‘why me?’ self-pity party if things don’t go according to plan.  Traveling never goes exactly according to plan.  Being able to find the good in things helps to make trips enjoyable.  The second thing the best travelers have in common is the ability to balance flexibility with speaking up when they have an opinion.   There’s such a balance with this but either end of the spectrum – when you get someone who says ‘whatever you want to do’ all the time or someone who must have exactly their way (usually at the expense of their spouse or us!) makes it hard for everyone to get along.  Fortunately most of our guests have fallen somewhere in that happy middle, but that’s especially true of Ginny and Michael.  The first day I picked them up from the train station and we went into Cambridge for the afternoon.  I had a list of things to show them but after only five minutes they both admitted to being burned out from a tourist standpoint and wanted more than anything to sit by the river and enjoy a couple beers.  So we did!  From there we went to the lake for our triathlon club’s Friday lake swim (where Chris swam but I ended up sitting with them on the grass, drinking beer instead) and then home for dinner.  Maybe we all needed a relaxing day!

The River Cam, Cambridge.

 

The next morning the five of us (Bailey came with) set off bright and early.  Our first stop was Windsor Castle, the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, somewhere we had never been.  Chris passed on the castle to walk around the cute surrounding town with Bailey, so Ginny, Michael, and I skipped the loooong line with our pre-booked tickets, got our free audio guides, and started wandering around the grounds.   I was quite impressed with Windsor, and as a bonus surprise, we saw the Queen!  She was getting ready to go to the Royal Ascot.  Walking through the impressive State Apartments, Ginny pointed out that much of the weaponry, art work, and artifacts on display were stolen by Great Britain throughout history. So true.   

St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle .

Windsor Castle.

From Windsor we drove a couple hours to Stonehenge to let Ginny and Michael wander around a bit on their own while Chris and I shared a beer and a sandwich on the surrounding fields.  It was such a gorgeous, relaxing day! 

Ginny and Michael at Stonehenge.

Chris and Bailey on a little walk near Stonehenge.

After an hour or so we got back in the car, heading south to the coast.  We arrived at the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs by early evening and spent another couple lazy hours wandering along the coast.  I absolutely loved everything about Seven Sisters.   We meant to go back to the sea town of Brighton for dinner but were exhausted by the evening and decided to instead get some (really delicious) mussels at a place just down the road from our hotel.   Good choice.  The food and drinks were great and I was able to get to bed early to try to get over a terrible cold. 

Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs.

Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs.

Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs.

Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs.

Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs.

Breakfast was included at our hotel , and It was obvious from the other breakfast attendees that the four of us lowered the average age of the guests by a full 30 years!  Hahahaha.  After breakfast we got the car packed up and headed about an hour down the road to the storybook ruins of Bodiam Castle.  Ginny, Michael, and I built up our leg muscles as we climbed up and down the castle walls while Chris and Bailey stalked ducks around the castle’s moat.  We had some lunch there and spent our last hour together in the car chatting about life and the future.   We were a little sad to drop Ginny and Michael off at the London tube but we knew they'd enjoy their last few days of vacation in such a great city.   Chris and I said goodbye and drove the last hour back to Brampton to get ready for the week.

Ginny and Michael on top of Bodiam Castle.

 

One last photo of Bodiam Castle.

All in all it was a great weekend and we hope Ginny and Michael had as much fun as we did!

Bella Roma!




Bret, me, and Chris in front of the Colosseum.

 

When Chris and I first moved to England we made a list of about twenty places we really wanted to visit in Europe, and Rome was in the top three.   Bret was keen as well, so we waited to go with him this past Memorial Day long weekend.   We had good weather for most of the trip (minus one afternoon that had us on our toes as thunderstorms swept through!) and between the excellent navigation skills of Chris and Bret, I just had to pay enough attention to not trip as I ate my gelato! 

We traveled on Friday after Chris was off work, so only arrived to Rome in time to split a couple (wood-fired, piled with crazy ingredients) pizzas and absolutely CRASH.  Saturday morning we had booked a guided tour of the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel because we heard getting in to the Vatican Museum was next to impossible.  Now having done it, I wonder if we should’ve just arrived 45 minutes before the museum opened and taken a chance, but that’s not important.  Our tour was… okay.  We seemed to spend a lot of time perusing items we weren’t all that interested in (the collection of Pope Mobiles, for instance, was worth a minute but not half an hour) but then not have enough time at some of the more fascinating rooms of art.

We half hoped to have our passports stamped as we crossed the border from Italy to the smallest nation in the world, but instead were just herded through metal detectors and to the ticket line for the Vatican Museum. We explored the massive museum for a few hours, admiring the Rafael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel of course, but also trying to not be overwhelmed by the millions of other works of art along the way. The most regrettable bit for me anyway was spending far too short a time in the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica. By this time, though, we had been walking through the Vatican for five hours, it was 1:30, and we were all a little desperate for lunch and a beer!

Chris and Bret walking through the Vatican Museum looking at some of the hand-drawn maps lining the walls.

Raphael's The School of Athens, one of the many frescoes in Raphael's Rooms of the Vatican Museum.

Raphael's The School of Athens, one of the many frescoes in Raphael's Rooms of the Vatican Museum.

Michelangelo's Pieta (~1500 AD).

 

Stunning tile floor.

Laocoön and His Sons marble statue in the Vatican Museum (~100 BC)

 

Laocoön and His Sons marble statue in the Vatican Museum (~100 BC)

Bret and me standing in the Piazza San Marco with St. Mark's Basilica in the background.

 

Saturday evening involved a free walking tour of the city.  For us, the best part was learning about Bernini’s works and his ingenuity in ‘hiding’ the Sant’Ignazio Church with its gorgeous ceiling painted by Andrea Pozzo.  Our guide also gave us a great dinner recommendation, suggested a café in a working class neighborhood where each of us ordered a pasta dish and an appetizer, and each thought the others’ food was great but loved our own the most.  My pasta with porcini mushrooms and broccoli raab side was delicious!  Poor Bret was forced to share bites of everything… LOL.  

Bernini designed these three buildings opposite the Sant'Ignazio church, which from the back side appear to be one solid structure, a very convincing optical illusion!



Bernini designed the Sant'Ignazio Church, one of our very favorites of the trip.

Bernini designed the Sant'Ignazio Church, one of our very favorites of the trip.

The church ceiling was filled with an amazing fresco by Andrea Pozzo.

I should mention our hotel.  It was outside Rome’s city walls but extremely comfortable and really inexpensive.  For €60/night the hotel staff even started our day with a cappuccino and croissant!  It took us about thirty minutes by train to get to the city center.  Through most of the trip Bret acted more like a seasoned traveler than the absolute travel virgin he was, but the conditions on the train shocked him.  “I started the day clean and already feel so dirty” he’d say about two minutes into the trip.  “Wait, is there a hand in my pocket?!”  Hahaha.   We tended to catch trams and trains during typical commute times and as the PACKED vehicles arrived we’d channel the comedian Brian Regan and remind each other to “push and shove, folks.  Push and shove.”  The tram doors would pop open and we were usually faced with a wall of people, held in place only by the pressure exerted on them from their neighbors.  Once one of us committed, the other two just sort of pushed into the wall of humanity enough for the doors to close.  We felt bad the first time but a few stops later, no one having exited, we realized we were almost in the middle of the tram and people were still pushing their way in at every stop!  Bret was in his own little stratosphere up there and if stinky air didn’t rise, he would’ve been in a better position than we were.  I swear, every time someone coughed or sneezed I wondered again how we weren’t all dead from communicable disease.  It really is a wonder that we aren’t sick more often.  Touch wood.  (That’s British for ‘knock on wood’.)   Bret was getting pretty comfortable navigating through the subway by the end of the weekend – a skill that will get him through just about any other city he may travel to in the future.  Doors, however, gave him trouble from start to finish of the trip.  Chris and I would purposely hang back just to see what would happen at each door Bret encountered.  Push or Pull?  Wrong handle? Unable to unlock or open?  It never failed to amuse. 

There is room on the train today!

 

Wait, what?! Hehehe, love this picture!

Moped gang honking in unison... awesome.

 

We walked SO MANY MILES over the course of the weekend and luckily all of us seemed to wear out at the same time, in need of a recharge via gelato or coffee.   Amongst the snacking we did learn a lot about Rome, for example that Romulus and Remus are fabled to have founded the city.  Another tidbit that will stick with me was that the Roman Empire grew for 500 years, was on top for 200 years, and then on the decline for about 300 years, conveniently for memory reasons from about 500 BC to 500 AD. 

The best gelato of the trip.

 

We marked our walking paths for the past three days...

Throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain.

As a city, Rome has a disproportionate amount of incredible buildings, sights, and art.  The Romans pretty much invented architecture… columns and concrete were both their idea!  It’s hard to say what we were most impressed with.  Rome is full of absolute gems but the Pantheon reigns king in my book.  Well, that and the incredible Trevi Fountain.  And Bernini’s Piazza de San Marco.  Oh dear.   

Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi on Piazza Navona. You'd think we were obsessed with Bernini.

Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi on Piazza Navona. You'd think we were obsessed with Bernini.

Chris fought long and hard to find us this farmer's market for lunch on Sunday and to his credit, the food was great!

We were fortunate to be inside the Pantheon while it was raining, allowing us to witness the tunnel of water as it came through the open ceiling and swirled around the floor into discrete drains. 

Bret and Chris in front of the Pantheon which has been in continuous use since, you know, before Jesus. Wow.

 

Vast, open interior of the Pantheon.

The oculus - a source of natural light in the huge concrete dome.

The oculus - a source of natural light in the huge concrete dome.

 

The Spanish Steps didn’t impress us as much, but the number of high street shops around them was mind boggling.  The whole weekend seemed to involve a lot of shopping, but let’s be clear:  I was the one holding bags and waiting while Bret and Chris tried things on.  In what world does that happen?  I swear Bret may originally have been ‘my’ friend, but somewhere in the past few years I’ve lost him to Chris… they get along so well, share the same style, can talk sports and stocks for hours, and seem to find joy in giving me a hard time. 

Sitting at the base of the Spanish Steps is the Fontana della Barcaccia by guess who? Bernini!

Sitting at the base of the Spanish Steps is the Fontana della Barcaccia by guess who? Bernini!

 

The best decision we made all trip was to spring €34 for the Roma Pass.  We not only made our money back (even just using one of the two free admissions included in the pass), but it allowed us to skip multiple-hour-long lines many times during the weekend.  Picture a line wrapping around the famous Coliseum.  Now picture us walking right to the front of it.  We felt a little like rock stars. 

Inside the Colosseum.

Looking down on the Roman Forum

The altar where Julius Caesar was cremated... or place he was buried depending on which guide you listened to.

 

We visited a couple lesser known sights as well, the most intriguing of which was Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappaccino.   The church contains an ossuary that displays the bones of thousands of Capucian friars, collected between the 1500 and 1800’s.    The bones are arranged in patterns and geometric shapes and are really quite striking!  I borrowed some pictures from the internet as we all three were rule-followers and didn’t take our own. 

 

Skull art.

Patterns from skulls, pelvises, clavicles, femurs, and vertebrae.

 All in all, I’d say our trip to Rome was an incredible success.  It was great getting to share that experience with such a great friend and excellent travel partner, too!