Barcelona with kids

We just came back from a week in Barcelona with, you guessed it, the kids. Ever since I saw photographs of Gaudi's buildings (like the Sagrada Familija, Parc Guell and the Casa Batllo above), Barcelona has been on my list of must-sees, which is sort of a good thing and sort of a bad thing if you are traveling with small children. As many of you know all too well, kids (especially 2-year-old boys) don't exactly like to wait in line or look at buildings, which is a problem if Mom has come to the city to do exactly that. I should have re-read my post about visiting Rome last year before we left and reminded myself that the key to successful big-city traveling with kids is to lower your expectations. You will not, I repeat, will not, get to take your Lonely Planet and make check marks next to every museum and architectural gem. You will, however, begin to see bus rides as a highlight of the day (especially in Barcelona with their terrific bus system) ...
... eat way too many sweet things to appease the feet of tired children (this shot is from La Pallaresa and those mugs are filled with melted chocolate below all that whip cream and you are encouraged to dip the deep-fried churros in said chocolate. My kind of place) ...
...and do many kid-centered things that you would other wise never have dreamed of doing. Like rent those goofy-looking family bikes and pedaling along the beachfront on a gorgeous New Year's Day (note that shortly after this picture was taken Julian fell in the cold ocean and cried the rest of the morning about having "owie sand" in his pants because I forgot to bring him a change of clothes):
You might also go to the zoo and see the dolphin show, which turns out to be fantastic, ...
... watch the kids run like caged animals finally released from their captors around pedestrian placas, ...... spend way too much time at playgrounds wondering if you really spent all that money to push swings 1000 miles from home, and do drive-by viewings of the buildings and monuments you wanted to see as your kids yell "Mama, that dog is peeing!!" and talk about dogs and pee for the rest of the afternoon.

And those are all wonderful and valid ways of experiencing a city, even if they are the antithesis of how you used to approach traveling. Plus, when you travel with your kids and your husband you get to spend your days with the most loving, interesting, funny and sweet people in the world. And having traveling companions like that is pretty darned great, whether you see the Miro museum or not.

Life outside of town

Living smack dab in the middle of Gothenburg, we sometimes forget that there is life beyond the city walls (if there were any left standing). So it's good that friends invite us out to their homes in Billdal, Näset, Torslanda, and other suburbs now and again. In December we visited Ava's Dutch classmate Laura and her family in Billdal and took a walk to the water where we skipped stones, climbed the rocks, poked jellyfish and wondered how those sheep got on that little island.

Bad baby

... or baby bad (shower gel for kids). Why did I never notice this was sort of funny? Oh, and it's organic baby bad.

Manchester

I was in Manchester, or rather in a posh suburb of Manchester, for work a couple weeks ago. My job was to create a visual record of a 3-day meeting of senior managers talking about their information management strategy. There were Brits, Americans and Swedes in the group, and you gotta feel for the Swedes, who wait patiently for a break in the conversation to add their .02$ ... and it never comes. Being in Britain reminded me I am not funny at all. Really, do they teach comedy in British schools or what because the Brits can make anything, even information management, hilarious. The pix above are of a couple of the posters I did for and at the meeting. Sometimes I can't believe I get paid to do what I do.

Plopp

Yes, it's a candy bar called Plopp. And yes, I've tried it and it's slightly better than the name implies.

The Sing-along Wedding

After surviving the winter bazaar at the kids' school Saturday morning (think tons of people, games, auctions, crying children, bake sale, bead explosions, etc.), Adrian and I went to Trevor and Malin's wedding in the evening. (Trevor and Malin are the owners and lead consultants at the small firm I work with called Lorensbergs). The ceremony was at Utby Church -- very oldy-wordly-Swedish and cozy on a dark December night. The ceremony was in both English and Swedish, and except for the time when the minister said Malin and Trevor were now of one fish when I'm pretty sure he meant one flesh, it was very traditional and tear-enducing.

The fun began when we went back to their house for dinner. I sat next to a zesty British woman named Leigh. Even after she told me for the fifth time: "Nevada, couples have to grow TOGETHER, not APART. Graham and I grew TOGETHER. K. and A. grew APART" (and boy do I wish I could write that with her West Midlands accent), I still loved her. Here we are before dessert:
Some time after the first course little sing-along booklets were passed around, a guitar player jumped up, and the singing started. A sing-along wedding! We sang Sailing by Rod Stewart, Love me Tender, a Swedish song called Främling that everyone seemed to know, and on and on. At one point Olle, another Lorensberg consultant (and psychologist) got up and sang this incredible Swedish a cappella song about 3 flowers representing faith, love and trust (I think). Watch for Olle on next season's Swedish Idol.

My pictures from the wedding suck, but I blame that on a) what is probably by now an antique digital camera and b) not being able to move from my seat between 5pm-10pm. So every picture I have looks like this (Malin and Trevor are, sadly, right behind the flickering candle in the middle of the frame), but you get a sense of the cozy atmosphere: Swedes really love singing, and especially group sing-alongs (allsång), so I shouldn't have been so surprised by the musical wedding. There are huge televised sing-alongs from Stockholm (Allsång på Skansen) and Gothenburg (Lotta på Liseberg) every summer. If you knew the songs and could sing I could vaguely imagine finding this fun, but since neither applies to me, not so much.

Advent

You can't grow up attending a Waldorf school and not love advent. The scent of beeswax and pine needles, apples turned into candle holders, visits from St. Nicholas, almond cookies and Christmas stories all made this time of year one of my favorites. But my mom gets props for the best part of advent: the advent ribbon. Every year, my mom hung up a thick red ribbon onto which were pinned 24 small presents, goodies like stickers, mini tea sets for my dollhouse, and chocolates. Working from the bottom I opened one present a day until Christmas morning, when the ribbon was tossed aside in favor of bigger, more exciting things happening under the Christmas tree.

Last year I started the advent ribbon tradition in our house for Ava, who sweetly and joyfully opened 1 present a day just as I remember doing. This year I decided to do a ribbon for Julian as well. For those of you with 2-year-old boys, warning bells might be going off in your heads right about now. Perhaps they were for me, too, but I decided to ignore them because I had too much glögg -- who knows.

In any event, I did a ribbon for both kids and this morning they ran over to their ribbons with happy faces. Ava opened her first present (some princess stickers) and all was good. Then Julian opened his present (a squeezable snake that sticks out its tongue). Then Julian wanted to open all the other presents. Then we said no, you open 1 a day. Then Julian grabbed at the presents and started screaming. Then we moved the entire ribbon. Then he tried climbing the bookshelf to get the ribbon while screaming "nej, nej, nej!!" (this is the extent of his Swedish, used only in times of crisis). Then Julian proceeded to have a temper tantrum for the next half hour and we had to force him into his clothes and snowsuit and out the door. So much for a peaceful beginning to advent. I think I need some glögg to get through 23 more mornings that include the advent ribbon.