Travels abroad Pt 3: Paris, Days 2 and 3

Somehow here we are halfway through September, and I never finished this travelogue, so here is what I started writing a couple months ago:

 If our first day in Paris was full, our second, our only whole day, was equally a barrage to the senses.  This day was a walking tour of architectural highlights culminating in our visit to the Louvre at 2 pm.  The morning began with breakfast at a different patisserie, one with a Japanese influence, before walking up to the Arc de Triomphe, passing by the Trocadero, the church of St. Pierre de Chaillot, and Balzac's home on the way.  Then we strolled down the Champs Elysee and enjoyed a rest in gardens along the way. We admired the Place Concorde and bemoaned the charges to use the restrooms.  We passed the Tuileries and admired more gardens, but did not stop for lunch there, although perhaps we should have. Instead, we headed into the "basement" of the Louvre to find restrooms, and our younger son couldn't resist the lure of the golden arches of McDonalds in their food court. My daughter and I had more coffee and pastries from the food court and resolved to get a better meal after our museum visit. 

We nearly didn't get tickets to the Louvre because I neglected to make reservations until we were at the airport. This was partly because the school year had been so busy and partly because I wasn't sure what our itinerary would look like until we landed.  We had to do a sort of back door reservation through Booking.com that I was nervous about because I had read about the museum turning away people because of overbooking, but luckily the afternoon was not as crowded as the morning apparently. We later heard that some museum workers then went on strike because of the crowds of tourists. 

We noticed on our circuit of the food court under the Louvre that there seemed to be an entrance and had we done more homework, we would have realized we could have entered from below - instead we went back outside and waited in line for our timed entry! Silly! 

The Louvre is magnificent, even with the crowds, and honestly, at 2 pm, they weren't awful. After comparing notes with friends, we were glad we went in the afternoon because apparently mornings are packed. The first floor was crowded, especially by Nike and then in the gallery where the Mona Lisa is located. In 1994, she was just in a hallway, and we thought it amusing to see the crowd bunched around her then when there were so many other spectacular masterpieces in the same hallway.  Now the gallery is packed with people holding aloft their phones to snap a photo (I admit I did the same). I didn't wait to get close but instead took the route that leads to the side. On the wall facing the Mona Lisa is an enormous painting of the Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese, which is worth studying, but it barely got a glance from the crowd. 

Had we been more seasoned visitors, I think we should have started with the third floor, home to more European masters, and ended with the Mona Lisa and Nike, when perhaps crowds would be smaller. The third floor is home to a tiny Vermeer and Rembrandts and other beautiful paintings in front of which only a few people were wandering slowly, gazing at works that caught their eye without jostling from other patrons.  And no lines for the WCs!  

After a few hours of admiring the masterpieces and the majesty of the building itself, we were weary and hungry.  Our late lunch/early dinner meal was at another cafe with outdoor dining, Cafe Josephine. This time I had French onion soup, the kids had croque messieurs, and my husband had a charcuterie board. The meal was especially delicious because we were all famished.  We walked back to the Ile de la Cite to try to visit Sainte Chapelle, but we arrived too late to get in the line for people without reservations. The chapel is now only a museum, so we could not sneak into a Mass line for this one.  

But more to come! Revivified by our meal, we headed to Montmartre by metro to see Sacre Coeur and take in a view of Paris from above. Montmartre has a more colorful and authentic feel with lots of ethnic restaurants and markets. The steps in front of the church were crowded with visitors listening to the buskers serenade - one did a rough version of John Denver's Rocky Mountain High, an interesting choice. The cathedral was beautiful, another impressive anthem to human creativity and heavenly inspiration.  A pilgrimage walk for the jubilee of Hope was marked with signs throughout the church, so we prayed and meditated our way through the cathedral, another opportunity to mark our trip as a pilgrimage (and an opportunity for an indulgence), and not just a tourist vacation.

Sacre Coeur may be one of my favorite spots of our Paris visit. It was a breathtaking hike up the hill, literally and figuratively, and the church itself was amazing. The Lady chapel in the back of the basilica was full of people reverently praying.  Although there was a crowd of visitors within the church and outside on the steps, these visitors seemed more engaged, less like they were there to check a list of sites to see.  I have to check my own tendency to do that, and the sanctuary of the Basilica provided a peaceful place to sit and pray for a moment for the people near our hearts, especially our son about to get married. 

After the prayerful time within the church, we made our way down the hill, with a stop to ride the carousel and another to get ice cream and Nutela crepes, the perfect late afternoon snack. Everything we ate was delicious and consumed with gusto since we were so hungry. Additionally, outside the Basilica we paused a moment and watched more buskers singing American songs. We opted to pass on paying the 8 euros to go up to the dome, partly because of the line and because the view just from the steps of the basilica is a sweeping panorama of the city. Though Montmartre felt a little less touristy than the center of the city, plenty of tourist tchotchkes shops were offering their wares. Here they were a little less expensive, so the girls bought some canvas bags with "I Love Paris" for their friends, and we picked up a magnet for our collection (although we no longer have a magnetic refrigerator...).

After our visit to Montmartre, which is in the northern edge of Paris, we began the long trek back to our arrondissement. We took a metro that let us out near Trocadero again, so we took some photos there of the Eiffel Tower as the sun was setting.  With energy waning, we stopped at a little trattoria near our apartment and picked up some pizzas and a bottle of wine to go and carried it back to the park behind the Eiffel Tower to watch the sun finish setting and the tower light up. Although it was a simple supper, we all starving again after all the walking (over 25000 steps). Watching the picnickers in the park was entertaining, also - families, couples, bridal parties, other groups of friends, and lots of immigrants selling keychains and light up towers and beer and wine.  It was a relaxing way to end the day; the kids later said it was one of their favorite memories from Paris. The crowd let out a collective ah of appreciation as the lights illuminated and twinkled from the Tower, and we lingered to admire them until they finally shimmered off several minutes later before returning to the apartment for well earned rest.  When the sun was down and the light show ended, the sellers of mementoes all bundled their wares into their canvas tarps and walked off together - presumably toward some central distributor? I wonder about this subculture of mostly immigrant men trying to make a bit of money pushing all the same overpriced plastic junk on tourists. It is a desperate sort of life, I imagine.

When we finally returned to our apartment, we were all too exhausted to stay up much later. While everyone cycled through the one bathroom, we visited a bit and planned for the next day before crashing for the night. The beds were comfortable, and even the son who slept on the futon couch seemed to sleep well. 

On Tuesday, we had a half day before our train to Lourdes, Our middle son left in the morning to take a train to Venice to meet up with friends. I would have loved for him to join us, but he's 25 and making his own plans. 

This was the day we would have visited the Musee D'Orsay or made a morning trip to Giverny or Versailles, but since I didn't plan out any of those destinations which require reservations, instead we visited some free spots in Paris. First was the Modern Art Museum at Trocadero, which had some beautiful pieces, most notably a mural of the history of electricity in Paris, "La Fee Electricite" by Raoul Dufy, and some busts by Picasso, but also some provocative, darker works that we didn't linger by. 

Then we made our way to the Petit Palais, which was a guest home for some royalty, but now houses a rather large collection of New Raphaelite works.  It's a hidden gem.  Although we didn't get to see the Impressionists at D'Orsay, we did see a Monet, a Renoir, and a couple Mary Cassatt works here. In addition the much reprinted William-Adolphe Bouguereau of the Virgin with Angels -  Mary holding Jesus with his arms out in a prefiguring of the Crucifixion, is also here.  It was quite impressive in person.  Perhaps the hidden benefit of not planning well was being able to visit this museum. 

Now, after this visit is when our biggest travel snafu occurred. We had plenty of time to get from the Palais to the luggage locker where our bags were waiting and then to le Gare Montparnasse, where we were to catch a regional train first to Bordeaux and then on to Lourdes. But somehow in between stopping for sandwiches, then stopping at a pharmacy for medicine for our daughter's face that had a rather large sore growing (probably impetigo, according to the pharmacist, who prescribed some antibiotic cream), and then barely missing a metro train to the big station and having to wait another 6 minutes, we arrived at Montparnasse with only minutes to get to our gate. 

We dashed through the station - a trek from the Metro level to the upper regional train level. Hurrah! Our train was still there, but, alas!, the gate was closed. We were too late by a only minute or 90 seconds, but they wouldn't let us board. Unfortunately, these were budget tickets and nontransferable. I went to the ticket office to see what we could do. Tickets for the five of us to Lourdes were going to cost close to $1000.  As the ticket clerk was looking at options, a beggar came up. She got up to get security. When she sat down, she typed a few more things, and then handed us a pass to get on another train for free, and this time a direct train. I don't know what happened in her heart, but we thanked and blessed her and then bought her some macarons while we were waiting. 

Since we had another 4 hours to wait for this later train, the girls and I set out to visit Saint Suplice and Shakespeare and Company, which we had skipped over after everyone was so tired from the Louvre visit. Perhaps we should have visited the Pantheon or some other landmark, rather than trekking to this bookstore famous for its connection with modernist writers, but I had felt sorry that we skipped passing by it the day before our tour of the city.  

Much to my chagrin, this is another Instagram spot. There was a huge line to go in that snaked through the door and then into the cafe next door.  We didn't have time to stand in line to shop, so we just snapped a photo also, like all these influencers ourselves, and walked back a slightly different way to pass through the Luxembourg Gardens again. 

My husband, determined not to miss another train, and son who didn't want to fast walk to a bookstore waited at the station for the afternoon, although they left to get hot sandwiches at a shop nearby. We ate in the waiting area what was probably our lowest meal of the trip, although that wasn't the fault of the shop. We also picked up some sad crepes that didn't measure up to the delicious ones in Montmartre. We didn't even have any good coffee. However, we did not miss the next train. It was so crowded we didn't have seats - perhaps the reason we got a free ride - so we were strap hangers for what seemed hours, until the train eventually emptied out along the way. It was a long trip. And once we finally arrived in Lourdes, we had a longer walk than anticipated to our hotel. It was dusk at this point. But at least our appartement hotel on the River Gare was accommodating and clean and had comfortable beds. In fact, I was a little sad we only stayed there one night. 

These photos are out of order but enjoy: 

 

 

Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries

 

Jardin des Champs-Elysees

They probably would've rather shopped at Louis Vuitton than go to the Louvre...

So much expression in this little guy

 

A lovely Botticelli on the first floor

 

This is the painting of the Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese behind the Mona Lisa. 

All dressed up and nowhere to go

 

I love paintings of Jesus and John the Baptist as fat babies. Did the cousins have fun together?

I always dressed like Mary and Elizabeth when caring for children. 

 

An exhibit of dresses by different haute couture designers inspired by paintings in the Louvre

 

The Money Changers and the clock outside Sainte Chapelle

 

From the Trocadero

 

This is the church of St. Pierre de Chaillot, a Byzantine-Romanesque church not far from the Trocadero.

   

Sacre Coeur

 

 

 

Day 3 starting a little tired...

Day 3 - The Modern Art Museum  La Fee Electricite

A Matisse sketch

Early Picasso

 

Model shoot on a cloudy day

The Petite Palais

Lots of Pre-Raphaelite works

 

In La Petite Palais

  

Just time for a picture -no shopping, sadly

  

Made it!

Travels abroad Pt. 2: Paris, Day 1

This is a flashback post - catching up on the summer before it ends!

Our journey to Europe began early on my birthday, May 24th.  When we initially started planning, I had thought we'd leave on the 25th to give me a day to pack after school ended on the 23rd. But when we decided to add the pilgrimage to Lourdes, and I began figuring the logistics, it really made sense to leave a day earlier to have time to see Paris - my birthday treat, although we didn't actually arrive until Sunday morning.  At the time of booking the flights back in the winter this seemed maybe a little reckless, but doable. I perhaps didn't calculate how crazy the last week of school is. And this year I had to not only finish grades, plan end of year activities, and prepare for the 8th grade commencement, but also to pack up my classroom to move out and to deal with house buying negotiations. My longest night of sleep those last few weeks of May was maybe 5 hours. Four hours of sleep became my goal the last 2 weeks. I think I lay down around 3 am the night before we left and then got up at 4 to head to the airport for our flight to Chicago.

But do you know how good it felt to sit down on that plane and know everything was done? So good! A great birthday present!  Grades in, stuff packed, room cleaned, celebrations complete, goodbyes said.  I was too tired and too excited to feel too sad at all the leave taking from school friends (that set in later). 

For the most part, considering all the connections, our travel went smoothly - the two youngest girls and I met up with my husband in Chicago, transitioned to the international travel zone, and had time for a stop in the lounge before boarding.  No delays, no baggage issues. International flights are so lovely and long and leisurely. The meals and snacks - free champagne! - are so much better than domestic flights. I watched a movie about old Irish ladies making a pilgrimage to Lourdes before falling asleep. 

The only flight issue was when I woke up in the middle of the night/flight feeling sick, got up to go to the bathroom, and then passed out in the aisle. I'm sure I terrified the passengers who were back there. The flight attendants helped me to a seat, where I passed out again. I just couldn't wake up. I remember hearing voices that sounded far away and trying to open my eyes or say something, but it was like I was detached from my body. Was it the mini bottle of champagne? Or was it the exhaustion of the weeks before? Or was it just dehydration? Whatever the cause, they found my husband, I recovered enough to walk back to my seat, sipped some apple juice, and slept on and off until we arrived. Between the fluids and the sleep, I recovered, and we were ready to start our exploration of Paris!

First stop: Luggage locker near Airbnb to drop off bags. Second stop: a patisserie for cafe au lait and sweets.  We were staying in the 16th Arrondissement near a boulevard with plenty of choices for delicious food and coffee.  Reinvigorated, we strolled to the Seine and walked along the river to the Eiffel tower where we took tons of photos but did not pay to go up, partly because of the cost and the line and because we had a schedule.  We meandered back to our neighborhood to check in to the Airbnb and meet up with our sons - one coming from Boston and one from Germany.  

With the family gathered and another coffee and sandwiches consumed, we headed by foot to the center of the city to arrive at Notre Dame in time for their 6 pm Mass.  Our route took us by the Eiffel Tower again, the Rodin Museum, the Hotel des Invalides, past the Bon Marche, where we peeked in because the girls were interested in shopping, which is why we also took a diversion through a street market where we nearly bought some things and would have been tempted more if our luggage weren't so full. 

We also strolled through the Luxembourg gardens and admired the families playing tennis, taking pony rides, and floating boats through the pool. A jazz concert was taking place under some trees. There was so much to see in this park - statues and fountains and little food truck spots for treats. We could have spent more time here, and if we were ever to visit again, I might look for accommodations near this park. Since our time was limited, even though I had ambitions to get as far at the Pantheon, our plan was to attend 6 pm Mass at Notre Dame, so we headed across the Seine to the Ile de Paris. 

Attending Mass is the key to entering the big cathedrals on every tourist's to see list.  We did not have to have reservations or wait in line, but walked right in the center doors. We were pretty far in the back, but small TVs mounted on columns throughout the sanctuary projected what was happening on the altar. Tourists continued to mill along the side aisles as Mass was offered, but I was so tired the tourists weren't a distraction. Rather, all my energy was focused between trying to recall my high school French to follow the Mass and trying to stay awake.

When we visited in college, I thought my husband might propose here...

When Mass ended we lingered for a short time to explore the rest of the cathedral. The drawback of attending late Mass was not having much time to wander, pray, and admire the renovations and the original amazing structure since it was about to close.  We took what time we could, navigating the crowds, before the cathedral closed and we were waved out. 

The last time I visited Paris was New Year's of 1994, when I visited my now husband who was studying abroad in Rome during our junior year of college. We were just dating then, but I remembered walking along the Seine after visiting Notre Dame - or maybe just before - thinking, Now! This would the perfect time to ask me to marry you! In my memory we were sort of waltzing along the promenade, which would have been either silly and annoying to passersby or sweetly romantic.  There were certainly not as many tourists on the sidewalk, and the idea of having a reservation to visit any of the highlights of Europe was unheard of. Perhaps the biggest difference in the last 30 years to these timeless cities is the huge increase in tourists. It is understandable that many cities have seen protests about the tourism. In fact the day after our visit to the Louvre, it closed because of a strike by workers overwhelmed by tourists.

But at this point, we were mostly concerned about food. Our first dinner was a delightful, casual affair at a sidewalk bistro in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, where some of the more famous cafes are, like Les Deux Magots and Cafe Flore. We didn't feel the need to pay premium prices to sit where someone famous once sat, although we did walk by.  Our dinner was lovely regardless, and we tried to chose foods that weren't on every menu at home, like escargot, although bistro burgers were what the boys wanted. 

The Louvre was the centerpiece of our only full day in Paris, Monday. We had to pay extra to get tickets through a third party because those were something I neglected to book in advance, and in fact, my biggest mistake in planning was not reserving Louvre and Musee D'Orsay tickets. In 1994, we did not get to visit the Musee D'Orsay because it was closed on January 1, and again on this trip, we did not get to visit the museum renowned for its collection of Impressionist works.  This time there were no openings available - every slot was booked for the 2 and half days we were in Paris.  In the end, it would have perhaps been trying to squeeze in too much in one visit, and instead we made a visit the Petit Palais, which was a wonderful free museum. 

But I'm getting ahead of the story - After dinner, we returned to our apartment by foot in order to see more of the city.  Everyone was exhausted, but my middle son and I went back by the Eiffel tower to see it illuminated at sunset, which was almost 10 pm.  We admired the glittering tower and those gathered at the park for a few minutes before returned to collapse in our little apartment for the evening.

Travels abroad and wedding updates - planning edition

To lift my spirits from the moving doldrums, I'll review our trip to Europe at the beginning of the summer for our son's wedding.

When our second son and his fiancée first mentioned the idea of a wedding in Rome, we initially thought they were joking. Surely, they didn't really want to have a little destination wedding instead of a big family wedding in Portland, Maine!  

But yes, they really did want that small wedding in the city where they met and their story began. An Italian wedding planner was hired by the mother of the bride (what is our relationship called? Something more than friends?) A date was picked that accommodated the teachers in the family, and the church, San Ignazio, was reserved. At the time, it was not on the tourist circuit, but the installation of a mirror to view the ceiling made it TikTok famous at some point this year.  

Our part in the planning was to choose a site for the rehearsal dinner and to book accommodations and flights for our family.  My travel planning expertise kicked in. The rehearsal dinner choice was simple - the restaurant where my husband frequented as a student, and where we celebrated this son's 21st first birthday when he was a student and we traveled to Rome to see him (post about that trip here), where we hosted a dinner with a priest friend, and which is still in business. My husband conveniently had a work trip scheduled in late winter, so he dropped by the restaurant, Miscellanea, reserved the date, and picked a menu. What he did not do was set a price. Nor did I remind him that this is an important part of the process. Mickey assured my husband he would take care of him, and our previous dinners were delicious and reasonable. We were supposed to receive an email with all of that spelled out, but ah, never did! Closer to the date in May, we sent our fourth son, who was currently studying in Rome, to stop by again to confirm the date and time, so we thought all was set. What we did not calculate was the abundance of wine and appetizers and pizza that would be served! To fast forward to the end of the story, the rehearsal dinner ended up costing about twice the amount we idealistically expected, but about the amount that we should have expected! 

Housing was a little more complicated. Thankfully, the mother of the bride nudged me to reserve early because the summer of 2025 was a Jubilee year, and Rome would be crowded (which it was). Thank goodness for that nudge! At first I thought I could find an Airbnb for our family, but when we added in my parents (who in the end did not come), and 2 sets of aunts and uncles, our numbers rose to 17.  Knowing that some in our party might cancel, I switched to looking for a hotel. This was not easy because there are so many choices in Rome, but I focused on the area near the church, so we could walk there. After looking at what seemed like hundreds of options, I settled on a little pensione that had different sized rooms that fit our needs perfectly, was located not too far from San Ignazio off Piazza Navona, and fit our budget - the Charming Navona. It was not a luxury stay, but it was clean, comfortable, quiet, and the rooms were just the right size. We needed rooms for three for our sons and daughters, a room for a family of 4 for the cousins coming from Germany, three rooms with queens, and one big enough for a porta-crib, and a room with twins for my mom and dad, because my dad has a sleep disorder and has to sleep in his own bed.  What luck! Charming Navona worked just right for us, and even had a small lounge area on each floor for gathering, although we usually gathered in the family suite on the top floor where the cousins were staying because it had a kitchenette and a small balcony (never mind that the balcony was accessed through the bathroom). It had a lovely view of Italian rooftop gardens.

Next item: airline tickets. For the adult kids, we gifted them a nice amount of cash for Christmas to buy their own airfare.  Since everyone had different schedules and options for traveling to other places in Europe - or not, that was the simplest way.  I booked the tickets for the son studying abroad, who had to stay an extra 2 weeks at the end of the semester, which gave him time to travel a little more in Europe, and for the 2 youngest girls, my husband and me. This was a little complicated because we had to figure out how much time we had for a European vacation and where we wanted to travel. Fortunately, I hadn't booked tickets yet when my husband found out about his new job and moved to South Bend.  I also had to wait to see when our middle daughter finished her track season as postseason competition extended to June. We figured she would not compete at NCAA nationals, but you never know...  

It also took us awhile to figure out if we would extend our stay and for how long and where we would travel if we did. That was the topic of a lot of fun conversations, but we finally settled on flying to Paris (a direct flight from Chicago, which eased the mind of our fearful flier, who is doing much better, btw), spending a couple days there, then making a short pilgrimage to Lourdes before heading to the Eternal City for the wedding weekend. We'd end our trip by spending a couple of days in Nuremberg with the cousins before flying back to Austin via Chicago.

These were all cities I had visited before, except Lourdes. It had been over 30 years since we had been to Paris, but only 3 since visiting Nuremberg. However, we wanted the girls to see how their cousins lived, and the older kids, except the oldest, had all visited the cousins when they were studying abroad, so the younger two could have that shared memory. Plus, there is something meaningful about visiting people in their homes that cements relationships. You learn more about people when you see where and how they live, which is one of the goals, I think, of travel abroad. I am a little sorry that the model of staying with a host family has become so much rarer for study abroad students. 

With the destinations selected, next came booking planes, trains, and hotels - no automobiles for us. Our 3rd and 4th sons were staying with us in Paris, so I found a cute Airbnb near the Eiffel Tower (Loft Effiel by LCC Agency) for six - it was perfect for us, close to a fabulous bakery and within walking distance of most Paris sites that you want to see during 2.5 day visit.  I added the name to remember for the future, although I don't anticipate a return to Paris any time soon. 

Then I booked train tickets to Lourdes (using a budget train, OUIGO, instead of the main trainline, RCNF, because those tix were pricey), and then an Airbnb in Lourdes for 5 (3rd son went to Venice to meet up with friends.) Le Chaleureux Lourdes Hyper Center I also recommend - it was a spacious apartment right on the Gave River that flows through the city, within walking distance of the domain, and with cute balcony to admire the view of the river and the Pyrenees mountains in the distance. I did not know that Lourdes was actually also a destination for flyfishing excursions, but the view of the mountains and river made me wish we had more time to explore the countryside.

Next, we booked plane tickets to Rome from Toulouse, the nearest regional airport, on Ryanair (cheaper than the train tix), and a hotel near the airport (Appart Hotel Odalys Toulouse) because our flight was super early in the morning. I have not much to say about Toulouse, other than that the train from Lourdes to Toulouse arrived late and the train station was far from the airport, so we had to take a tram and walk quite a ways. And then the hotel, which was nothing special but advertised a shuttle to the airport, was a little over a mile to the entrance of the airport, even though on the map it looked like only a half a mile. One of our travel mistakes was that the shuttle didn't run until 6 am, which was when our flight left. Since we had lugged our bags all over creation the night before, my husband refused to walk, so we called a cab - which was 60 Euro to take us all that one mile. It cost less than that to uber almost an hour from central Rome to the airport. Lesson learned - check distance and/or reserve an uber sooner for better prices. 

Finally, we booked cheap flights on EasyJet from Rome to Munich and then rented a car to get to Nuremberg, which was cheaper and faster than taking the train, since we were a party of four. Plus, my husband discovered on our last trip that it is fun to drive in Germany, and he was weary of public transportation!

So with the itinerary was set and reservations were made, we, eventually, packed our bags. Traveling to Europe for a wedding requires slightly different packing strategies, but we were able to figure out a way to fit all of the dress clothes and fancy shoes in a hanging bag that could still be used as a carry-on, except for on RyanAir and EasyJet, and made sure all of our carry-ons fit the size regulations of European airlines, and then scaled back, twice, what we thought we wanted to take - which ended up being plenty.  Shopping for wedding and rehearsal dresses took a little time as well - hence, no BackBayView updates for months!  

The next edition will have more updates about what we experienced and photos of the events.  This is the boring post with travel details for reference later. BUT I'm adding a few photos for interest!

 

Updates - Moving again

July 3rd.

Midsummer has come and gone. Many days have passed and many things have happened since the last time I wrote, and although I cannot chronicle them all, I find myself with a minute to look back and reminisce and to look forward as we embark on a new chapter.

I am also grieving the last chapter of our lives and anxious about the next and hope that writing for a minute might help clear my mind, as I can't seem to move out of the mental spiral I find myself in. 

The latest update is that we have packed up and left Texas and arrived in northern Indiana, where my husband has been living and working since the end of January. We stopped along the way to see both sets of grandparents and one set of cousins. The cousins have a big, beautiful, newly built house with a huge backyard and a pool that is making me question our decision to leave suburbia and return to urban life.  And another friend sent photos of their new farm in Pennsylvania. Then we spent a day at my parents' farm in southern Indiana.  Rural life was also looking attractive. 

So when we drove up to our new house that I had only seen online and in a Facetime call, my stomach dropped. My 19 year old, who was with me, said, "Oh Mom, I don't think this is your forever home." And I felt the same thing. My heart didn't leap up; it sank. We will have only a tiny backyard, which is actually a side yard since the house in on a corner, with a little patio, a small plot of grass, and a koi pond - bonus! The front and side yards are landscaped nicely, but in my mind the back yard was bigger, more of a sanctuary space. And in person, the house paint looks shabby, the front entrance needs an update, and the windows are ancient.

We looked at many houses, and my husband looked at this one in person. We put an offer in on one (not one of the two in the last post) and sacrificed the earnest money to make an offer on this one. The one we had an offer on was tiny and dark inside and needed a major renovation/addition to accommodate our family, but the price was great, it was in the neighborhood we liked, and it had a beautiful yard. The house we will sign for tomorrow was actually one I looked at on Zillow based on pictures from 10 years ago when it was sold last after it was renovated.  Dan Face-timed me when he walked through, and we both loved what we saw. It was so much better than what we had looked at before in terms of space and updates.  But I didn't look closely at windows and and bathroom fixtures, and for some reason, I thought the yard was oriented differently and was larger.

Then I also started fretting because the kitchen is in the back of the house and connects to a dining room and a small sitting room, but not to the living room. I like the detailing in the house - it's an older home with nice moldings and built-in bookshelves, and it has a sizeable basement and 4 bedrooms, plus a little office that can function as a guest room. There is much to like about it, but it is just not what I thought it was.

This is the peril of online shopping. Ask me why I didn't fly out to see it myself when it first came on the market? We had to decide quickly because there were two other offers on the house. And then I was so, so, so busy at the end of the school year, and I had just been out to visit to see the little house with the great yard that we had put an offer on two weeks before.  I had driven by this house, but didn't really pay attention to it, other than to note that it was the house I had seen online.  I trusted my husband's opinion, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work we would had to have done to transform the little house.

So there I am looking at buying a house I didn't really love. Was this just "cold feet" before a big purchase? My feet literally tingled with anxiety.  

I spent hours that first night here researching real estate deals gone bad. What happens when a buyer backs out at the last minute?  They lose the earnest money. They could be sued. But what happens when someone buys a house then decides it isn't right for the family?  They could lose thousands in the process of selling and buying a different place. Moving is expensive - the fees, the commissions, the insurance, packing costs, the moving company, new curtains and rugs, and the replenishing of all the groceries and cleaning supplies and stupid things like toilet bowl brushes and trash cans that you give and throw away and have to purchase again on the other end, etc. 

And then there is the emotional cost. Our family is mourning friendships, neighbors, our fun house and million dollar view, our parish and school, my students, the Texas rivers, Austin hikes, and even the things we didn't do yet- we never went to the Schlitterbahn! Why, I even spent a ridiculous amount of time moaning about a bag of old ND t-shirts I gave away to Goodwill at the last minute because they might have had sentimental value. Meanwhile I crammed into the car a ridiculous amount of junk with no value, including 5 old laptops, discarded by the kids when they updated, that we never sent to the e-waste place, because I wasn't sure if the kids had scrubbed the hard drives. 

Why was I mourning old t-shirts? Because I feared that in the bag was a little Notre Dame t-shirt that my husband had worn as a child and then our boys wore when they were little.  I'd been saving the bag to give my sister-in-law, whom we were going to see, for her littlest son. Silly thing to feel sad about, but it represented bigger losses -  the loss of childhood, the loss of connections to the past, and my lack of preparation for leaving. I packed in a rush and didn't give myself time to sort through old things, so in a moment of distress about how much stuff was sitting around, I told my daughter to take the bag along with multiple other bags of stuff that we didn't need to the donation center.

How did we have so much stuff? We just did this 4 years ago. Why didn't I get rid of more? I threw away huge loads of junk, gave away huge loads of junk, and still had loads of junk packed into boxes and shoved into the car. We had boxes of papers we hadn't opened since we left California - some of them hadn't been opened even before that move. They are full of papers from my husband's job and from our children's art and from my class notes. All stuff that is either now irrelevant, online, or just a memento that no one really wants to treasure forever - scribbles from pre-school years, pictures from fourth grade, papers from 9th... I held on to much more from our older kids than the younger ones, so there is an irregular distribution of mementoes.

I also held onto other old t-shirts with the idea of making t-shirt quilts, but here again I don't have an even number for each kid. I stopped keeping them because I realized it was a futile gesture that wasn't ever going to get finished. I haven't even made photo-books for the last 10 years. 

All this unnecessary stuff! All these unfinished projects! 

And now here we are living in a temporary 4 bedroom furnished apartment which is just fine without most of our stuff. (I do have those dead laptops still!)  We closed on the new house Tuesday despite my anxieties, but we are giving the owner a month rent back while he relocates (part of the reason he took our offer).  

Actually, after our walk-through, I felt better about the house. It is a good size for us - not too big when it is just my husband, our daughter, and I, but big enough to accommodate a sizable group when the kids come home or friends visit. We are going to renovate the bathrooms right away, paint a couple rooms, and get new windows and screens for the sun room this fall. Other new windows and updates like exterior paint and adding a front portico, can wait till next spring.  Our daughter is excited about picking out wallpaper, an area rug, and new furniture for her room. We're all excited about outfitting the game room in the basement - but that may take place over time, too. 

After a couple of days of getting used to adjusted expectations, I feel better about the house, but I'm not sure it's our forever house, and I'm giving up on the idea that such a thing exists as I observe our aging relatives moving out of their "forever homes" into smaller places. There's a part of me that wishes we had committed to renting for a year to get a feel for the area and what our next chapter will look like. That was sort of the idea with the little house - buy it to live in for a bit until we decided what we wanted in a future home.  But part of the problem is that what I want shifts all the time - one minute small, sustainable, and tidy is appealing, the next minute, wide open spaces are what I crave. 

I haven't forgotten (and neither has my husband) the anxiety I felt about our Texas house, which was such a shift from where we were before. Big, expensive, contemporary.  I lost a lot of sleep about making such a big commitment, but we were happy there. The kids loved it. The neighbors were great. After having a fraught relationship with the pool in Coronado, I ended up loving the Texas pool, which we swam in every day before we left. The neighbors came over to swim almost every day, too! The game room and bar and movie theater at our Texas house bothered me when we were moving, but by the time we left, they were part of the fun. And now guess what we are putting in our new basement? A projector and either a pool table or ping pong table or something. The 19 yr old has requested a peloton or treadmill. And under the stairs is a little bar space - snack bar, that is. Perfect for making popcorn and serving up soda or hot chocolate!

If moving all these times has taught me anything, it's that we can make anything into a home. We tend to pendulum swing from smaller, urban houses to bigger, suburban houses each time we move.  I just want the kids to want to come and see us and to feel comfortable staying as long as they want/can, although I know our lives have shifted.  The 19 yr old said she feels like she doesn't belong anywhere, but she'll always have a home with us, wherever we are.  The platitudes about home being wherever we are together ring true. Soon we'll be putting out a new welcome mat and turning on the lights to welcome all!

Life cycles

 I think for Lent I should have given up Zillow. 

We have decided .... nothing. I spend a lot of time scrolling through Zillow and Google Earth. 

Both houses mentioned in the past post haven't sold, and I still haven't been able to commit to them or any other. I'm starting to drive my husband bonkers. The bigger, more expensive house is probably off the list. My husband has shifted his preference to a different neighborhood, and that one needs more work than is in our budget. The Tudor is still on the market. It didn't sell right away as we thought it might. My husband really wanted to make an offer, but I was hesitant, even though I can see us living there.  It's the kind of house that suits our eclectic style. It has a wonderful 3 season porch where we'd likely spend most of our time. But the back yard is tiny - and dominated by a large evergreen - maybe a hemlock? It shades the back corner and probably makes the soil acidic. Additionally, we'd have to add a second full bath, probably in the basement, and reconfigure the dining room into an office/guest bed and the family room into the dining room.  And I can't decide if our living room furniture fits Tudor aesthetic. So get new, you say! But still I feel like this house is priced a little high for this neighborhood.

In the meantime, a couple other options in that same neighborhood have come on the market. Both need substantial work. One really isn't an option - too much work for too much money. The other one is now my husband's favorite. It has a bigger yard and is located just slightly further into the neighborhood away from the busy street you turn off of to enter the community.  

But this one also would be a total redo. Even more substantial than the first one, and this one is even smaller, although it has an attached garage that my husband has an idea to turn into a family room. I have a hard time envisioning the completed house. I can see how the tiny kitchen and dining room could be combined, and the back porch rehabbed, but I have a hard time imagining how to make the teeny bathrooms bigger and how to make the dark front entry brighter. In addition, at one time a row of ten evergreens were planted along the back fence. These are now towering skinny, scraggly trees that look like a hazard in a big storm. They should probably be replaced. The juniper bushes in the front are tree-sized and need to be removed.  If the garage is turned into a family room, a new garage would have to be built.  It's a huge project, almost like building from scratch, and I don't know if I'm up for that. I can't even pick a dress for my son's wedding; how could I make the decisions for a total house remodel? Considering how crazy the markets are right now, building materials may be unobtainable any way.

So should we go back to the original house we were attracted to? Maybe it is sitting there waiting for us. My initial hesitation about its small yard and small kitchen could be overcome because it is the best option for now. Or maybe we need to let go of the dream to live in a more urban area in an older home and just get the big house in the suburbs, like what we have now.  Fortunately, we have a back-up plan: my husband has found a place to rent for 6 months to a year.  

But enough about the house. I haven't written enough about the fact that we are grandparents! This is by far the highlight of the year.  Our little granddaughter is a smiley, round doll baby. She is so easy and good! Our son and daughter-in-law just took her on a long trek to see her great-grandparents, and apparently, she was a perfect traveler. She slept long stretches and smiled and cooed for her great-grandparents, who needed some sunshiney baby time because my father-in-law had just had surgery for a cancer and had some complications. We are praying for him to have a full recovery, although it sounds like he may need a second surgery to make sure they got everything. 

Meanwhile school has been going great, which makes it harder to tell everyone that I'm leaving soon. But after Easter the message will go out. In the meantime, I am trying to enjoy these moments, even as I obsess about houses and have a constantly growing bulletin of to-dos cycling in my brain.  After all these moves, I know we'll continue to find community and purpose wherever we land, but it's never easy to say goodbye.  Even if we were staying, things change. Other people come and go - here we have seen some startling, saddening changes among our friend group lately in between death and divorce.  

And so we start again.

Our Google Earth journey of addresses, estimated. Need more Pacific NW.