New Blog

Greetings,

If you follow this blog and want to read our new blog about living in Germany, please see the following:

At the Doorstep of the Black Forest

http://evansinstuttgart.blogspot.de/

Thanks for reading.

Bye

Goodbye

Greetings,



As nearly anyone who knows us or who reads this blog knows, we have left KAUST and Saudi Arabia for a new life in Stuttgart, Germany. A professional team arrived at our KAUST house on June 8, carefully and meticulously packed our belongings, weighed our boxes to ensure that we did not go overweight, and loaded 31 boxes onto a truck. Nearly five months later, our boxes finally arrived at our new apartment in the Plieningen village of Stuttgart. I am guessing that our boxes sat awhile, then sat longer throughout all of Ramadan and the subsequent Eid holiday, and then were ultimately rediscovered once people reemerged into their offices during daytime hours. The team assisting us in tracking, managing, and delivering the boxes - a Filipino gentleman in Jeddah and a German woman in Munich - pulled together and successfully got everything to us in excellent condition - on October 31. Happy Halloween!

We cleared ourselves satisfactorily from all KAUST departments - housing, banking, schools, technology, transportation, IDs ... - after about 6 weeks and approximately 20 signatures and received our ticket and taxi confirmation, as well as our exit visas a few days prior to our departure. We enjoyed laughs in our sparse house of few dishes or utensils with many friends before we all left for summer. The day we left we called our friends at the recreation center, and they came to claim virtually all items that we had been unable or unwilling to part with until that final morning. As we left KAUST for the last time, I think we all felt that it had been an amazing four years and that we would dearly miss so many friends! We were not sorry to fly away from the Jeddah airport for the final time, however.


We flew to Colorado to have a family and friend reunion and then we flew to Seattle where, once again, we began the onerous and important process of clearing out belongings from our attic, packing another 31 boxes for shipping, and shuttling myriad items to Goodwill and other recycling institutions throughout our end of the city. We had planned a huge garage sale on a Sunday afternoon; unfortunately we had lost sight of garage sale culture in Seattle where most people peruse others' secondhand items on Saturday mornings. We sold about two things, including my old road bike, and then we started donating toys, books, clothes, and furniture to other places where they could find new homes. Hayden and I helped the Large Packing Guy load our boxes on a truck, from which they would be handled and moved several times on their journey to a faraway destination. When those boxes arrived in Stuttgart ten weeks later, they clearly had suffered many throws and tosses from those responsible - they were generally smashed, some were partially split, and one box with our dining room table was missing all together. Nonetheless, few items were broken, remarkably, due in part to my friend Gwen's assistance in carefully packing up everything.

While in Seattle, we enjoyed walks and swims around Greenlake, visits with many friends - some who came to see us and some who were local - and we reconnected with our neighbors. A close friend and his children joined us for a three-day backpacking trip to Spectacle Lake, where we have wanted to take Hayden and Logan for a long time. Though it was arduous and challenging, we all made it safely there and back, despite the fact that I didn't pack quite enough food. Hmmm. Sorry, Britt! When it was time to leave Seattle, I think we all felt rather sad, pondering why were not simply staying there.



We flew to Michigan to visit David's family and several friends who visited, and we took Hayden to Interlochen Arts Camp for his third summer as a camper there. We returned to Colorado for final activities with friends and family, final shopping, and final preparations for our next journey.

David, Logan, and I arrived in Stuttgart, Germany, to begin a new chapter of our family's journey. We have been here for more than three months already, and though the transition has taken time and has been, at some moments, stressful, I think we have mostly made it and are very much enjoying the many cultural opportunities here. While KAUST weekends sometimes felt  dull and empty, weekends here are full with more festivals, museums, and activities than we can actually accomplish. So far we are thrilled we our new lives, which I will begin to describe in a new blog. Please check it out when/if you have time. New blog address will be posted here shortly. Thanks for reading! Goodbye.
Jennifer and the boys

Latest news - South Africa, packing, and goodbyes

Greetings,

Well, months have passed now since my last posting. Since I wrote last in February, we have had cycling races, in which all four of us raced - even me on my new Felt bike - and a kids' triathlon; we have had music recitals, performances, a Sunset Concert in which David performed and another one in which Hayden performed, and Jennifer's workshop in Berlin.

We traveled to South Africa for spring break, driving the Garden Route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town. In Port Elizabeth we saw the location and routes for David's South Africa Ironman race in 2011 and went to a vast elephant park, Addo Elephant Park, where we saw elephants, kudu, tortoises, zebras, warthog ... Breathtakingly, the rain stopped as we drove around searching for the many animals living in the park.

 In Kynsna we mountain biked, kayaked in a downpour, and visited the Township with a woman who lives there and runs a foster care program for children.



In Cape Town, we drove around the peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. The location of the blending of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans was both spiritual and humbling. It was awesome, in the true sense of the word, to stand at that geographical southern point of the entire continent. Later that evening, we ate dinner at a restaurant near the Water Front - Quay 4 - where Hayden sampled ostrich, kudu, and warthog. We wondered if he ate the kudu we had just visited earlier that day on the peninsula. Logan tried oxtail soup, with an actual ox's tail. If nothing else, the boys have learned to be daring eaters who are willing to try new foods - and who even expect to do so. As Hayden said, "I will probably never get to eat this anywhere else." (The ostrich was the favorite for each of us, I think.)



Since South Africa we have been gearing up for our big move. We have accepted jobs in Stuttgart, Germany, where we will be heading in August. We will be heading to the United States for the summer to see family and friends, to clear out our own house and send what we need to Germany (and to sell or give away things we kept for four years and don't even miss), and to do some hiking and backpacking, weather permitting. The boys will do an ultimate frisbee camp in Seattle, and Hayden will attend Interlochen Arts Camp for creating writing and guitar for the third summer.

We have pared down our belongings in Saudi Arabia, had a couple of garage sales, closed our bank account, turned in our health cards and ID cards, sold our motorbike ... So many things to do to pack up and move to a new continent. We will actually need winter clothes now, and we will be able to eat pork whenever desired or buy a nice bottle of wine for dinner. At times the steps needed to move on seem like hurdles that cannot be hurdled, but then another step gets done, and it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel is, in fact, growing closer.

We are grateful to be leaving at a point where we have been here long enough to have much to miss. We each recognize the professional and engaging colleagues we have enjoyed working with for four years; we work at KAUST with probably the tallest, the most athletically talented, and the most humorous group of teachers at any international school. I doubt if another international school offers as many tall teachers we have. We have musicians with their own bands and athletes who compete in competitive races of several types. We have laughed so much with many of our colleagues, particularly but not limited to those with whom we lived in the Marriott Jeddah for nine weeks and started The KAUST School. Recently at a faculty meeting, where more than half of the teachers are departing, we reminisced about the early days with rats in our houses and in the school, the ubiquitous fire alarms, the floods, the backing up sewage, and getting driver's licenses (for males only, of course). We all recognized how much we have accomplished and how meaningful and valuable our relationships have been and will continue to be.

With three weeks to go, we have much to accomplish, but we mostly want to have time with our friends and to make plans for meeting up again ... somewhere. What a ride it has been ...

Thanks for reading.
Jennifer

Tour of Middle East Airports

Greetings,

We recently went to London for a conference. We took the boys and were met in Heathrow by our friend, a former KAUST neighbor who, with his wife and three kids, has relocated back to the U.K. He collected our children and headed home so that Hayden and Logan would have friends to hang out with and activities to do which would be far more satisfying than residing in a hotel for three days. It was a successful but exhausting conference, and we enjoyed watching the activities of people strolling up and down the streets in Kensington. We appreciated the cool, bracing, and sometimes wet, weather for its vast difference from Saudi.

Towards the end of the conference, we visited our friends and collected the boys. As we prepared for our returns trip to Jeddah, we were grateful that we were traveling with only carry-ons, since our layover enroute was brief. We returned to Heathrow and, after enduring the most excruciating bag search of our lives, were finally free to head to the gate of our Qatar Airlines flight to Doha and then, we thought, the connecting flight to Jeddah. Our flight from London was about 20 minutes late in leaving, causing some concern since we were supposed to have only one hour layover in Doha. We landed in Doha, went to the gate, and soon discovered that all ten of us from London trying to make the Jeddah connection would be prohibited from accessing the flight, though it was still on the ground. Tempers flared and voices raised - the flight to Jeddah left without us. We were shuttled into another line with many other people who had missed flights. Eventually, we were booked on another series of flights the following day. We were escorted to a new line, processed for a temporary visa for Doha and requested to sit and wait for a shuttle to the hotel, where we were able to sleep about two hours before a too-early wake up call for breakfast and a return shuttle back to the airport where we again waited for a flight - to Abu Dhabi! We endured another three hour layover and, ultimately, got on our final flight to Jeddah, arriving fifteen hours later than planned and missing another school day!

Since we spent a good deal of time in each of these airports, I did observe some things. Flights from Doha, Qatar, head to every continent on the planet except for Antarctica. Who would have thought? You can fly from Doha to Melbourne or Hanoi, São Paulo or New York; you can fly to China, several locations in India, Bangkok, several destinations in the United States or Europe. In Abu Dhabi, we discovered that there are rolling carts available for people to push their bags around which are large enough for Logan to be pushed around by Hayden until the airport staff prohibited it. Oh, the things you can learn ... 

In the end we made it home safely and, I suppose, that is ultimately what matters most.

Thanks for reading. More news to come ... bike races, kids' triathlon, future plans!

Jennifer

Christmas traditions

Greetings,

After trying to write more often and keep up on the often mundane and occasionally interesting details of our lives, I suddenly realized once again that weeks had gone by, and I had not written a blog posting. Since I last wrote about receiving my glorious and fast Felt road bike, I have been trying to ride two - three times per week, often in the dark early morning hours when virtually no one is on the road except for fast-driving security officials arriving - perhaps late - for work.



We spent our fourth incredible, festive Christmas holiday in Seefeld, Austria, at Beck's Hoamatl. We have rented the same cozy apartment for four years and are welcomed each winter by the embraces of the owner and her adult daughter. They always provide us a large bowl of fruit and bring out all of the items that we have intentionally left in the past - mugs, puzzles, a game, and old magazines. We have been so blessed by this relationship and, despite our lack of German, we have developed a relationship with them that makes it feel like home every time we go. The snow and skiing were as fabulous as ever, better in some ways, and the food was scrumptious. We eat out at a few favorite restaurants but cook our favorite, often pork-oriented, meals at 'home' most nights. We always rent our downhill equipment from Modern Ski, located perfectly at the base of the ski hill in town. The owner and his staff welcome us each year and get us fitted for gear for the ten days. Each morning we collect our gear for the day and each afternoon we return it, exchanging the equipment for small tokens which will allow us to collect the exact same set of equipment every day without having to lug it all the way home each night. It's a perfect set-up. We rent our Nordic equipment at Norz, right on the start of the Nordic trails, again welcomed by the owner and a young guy named Remo who generously gets David and me the classic or skate gear we want every day.




 The boys took some downhill lessons, as usual, and they each competed in a ski race on the last day of lessons. We skied together some days and with some KAUST friends who were visiting Seefeld on some other days. At the end of our stay, Hayden and Logan humored us with two days of Nordic skiing; they showed their true competency and strength on skies when they were strong enough to ski to a nearby village for lunch - about 5 km away. We were so proud of their developing abilities and their positive attitudes to 'give Nordic a try' again after their jumps and thrills on downhill skies. When we were in Seattle, we used to go cross country skiing nearly every weekend in the winter at Kongsberger ski club, but the boys have gotten more into downhill skiing these past few years.

We played Ticket to Ride, enjoyed cozy fires, exercised each and every day with skiing and lots of walking, slept deeply, bought a Whoopi Cushion (which provided the boys lots of laughs, of course), and embraced the refreshing winter cold!

When the boys are in lessons and David and I have completed our cross country ski, we occasionally go to Sauna Welt for the afternoon. We soak and lounge in saunas, whirlpools, steam rooms, resting rooms, and pools. It's a luxury we enjoy usually once per trip. I miss Seefeld more this time than usual, perhaps because we are uncertain whether we will get to return again. Nonetheless, our four years there have provided traditions for our family far from home and, I suspect, will be the trip the boys remember longer than any other.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer

The Little Silver Bike a.k.a. Car-Free for Nearly Four Years

Greetings,

Old and new bikes - all well used

You may, or may not, remember that we were serious bike commuters, David and I, in our pre-children days. I biked to Vashon Island each day to work at The Harbor School, while David biked to Bainbridge Island to teach at Hyla Middle School. (Prior to that he bike commuted to The Overlake School in Redmond and later to Lakeside School.) As mentioned in an earlier blog post, I biked to Seattle University every day for grad school during the winter that we were blessed with 100 Days of Rain in a Row. I didn't dry out that year until mid-July. Once we had children, David continued as a bike commuter, but I ended up driving more due to parenting needs and fewer work hours. We bought a used Subaru Ouback, which I loved, just before Hayden was born, and we sold it just before we moved to Saudi Arabia.

David and Logan fixing LSB - December 2012

Since we have been here, we have been a car-free family for three and a half years now. We bike everywhere, though honestly nothing is farther away on our campus from our house than maybe 4-5 kilometers - in the summer months that feels like a much greater distance due to the heat and humidity. We are currently a family with ten bikes at KAUST, plus one collecting dust in our Seattle attic, one in Portland living with friends, another one in Seattle residing with friends, and one in Colorado waiting for Logan's next visit. Virtually all of these bikes were used when purchased, even David's time trialing bike for the South Africa and Hawaii Ironman races was purchased secondhand from a friend who had just competed in Hawaii the preceding year.

In fact of the ten bikes currently on location here, only three were purchased new. One bike was given to David when he was sponsored by Mark Nobilette as a triathlete in 1985. My old commuting bike was purchased from a Seattle police auction after an earlier bike had been stolen from our Ballard backyard. Logan typically ends up with Hayden's hand-me-downs, which suits him just fine. Hayden's bike, which is used every single day, was purchased new but will eventually probably be Logan's. David's mountain bike was purchased from the same friend who sold him the Ironman bike. I purchased a new mountain bike in Switzerland a few years ago but use it nearly every day. David's Cannondale commuting bike, already used when purchased in Boulder right after we were engaged in 1994, has more than 50,000 cycling miles. Privately, we have all sort of decided that the Cannondale may not leave with us when we go, neither will the police auction purchase, or, sadly, the Little Silver Bike that was given to us by friends for our kids to learn to ride bikes, just as theirs had.

Logan learning to ride in Seattle, 2009

The Little Silver Bike (LSB). This bike was the learning-to-ride bike for the two children of friends of ours - son now in college and daughter a junior in high school. (Coincidentally, this is the same friend who later sold David his time trial bike for South Africa and Hawaii!) The LSB was passed on to other friends, whose two children also learned to ride on that bike and are now each in high school. Eventually, it ended up with us, training wheels and all, and Hayden learned to ride on it. I remember when David took him to West Woodland without the training wheels. David steadied the bike, and Hayden kept asking, "Are you holding on? Are you holding on?" David kept saying he was, though Hayden was across the playground, riding well by then. Hayden moved to a bigger yellow bike, also purchased used (and now living with friends in Seattle), and Logan ultimately got the LSB. We brought it to Saudi Arabia, with training wheels, though Logan was riding it without the trainers shortly after it was unpacked. He now has Hayden's older bike, but both boys like to play on the LSB or use it when their regular bikes have flats that David cannot fix immediately before school. Hayden's gangly legs force his knees into the handle bars, but he seems as content as ever.

Building a fort with bike boxes.

I just bought a new road/race bike from a shop in the UK. After a long and convoluted wait in the Jeddah customs office, plus two car trips (for the bike) to KAUST and back to Jeddah for various customs confusions, my bike is now beautifully assembled by my very competent spouse. Many thanks to Mr. Mohammad from Saudi Post, who called from Riyadh and ultimately persuaded customs to release my bike to be delivered to me at KAUST rather than requiring me to go to Jeddah to collect it myself.


Therefore, three Evans' bikes will probably be donated to others here at KAUST. Sadly, the bikes that will be left behind all have sentimental value, but I am doubtful that we can take them all.

I must confess that we do also have an old rickety and loud motorbike that we bought when we were first here and all of the cycling was occasionally too much for five-year-old Logan. It still works, but we rarely use it any longer. When we need to go to Jeddah, the best deal around is the bus that heads to the hospital and malls each day. We take advantage of that when needed. And, of course, we take a taxi to the airport. Most families here have cars, and that suits their needs well. We just have enjoyed our time without one. Plus - bike boxes make such creative toys!

Hayden biking in Seattle on a bike that now lives with friends.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Mountain-biking in Saudi

Greetings,

Life on a compound can get a little tedious. Each weekend, we wonder, Do we play badminton or go swimming? Do we go to the beach or play tennis? Unless you are really into mall shopping in Jeddah - no, thank you - or searching for carpets and antiques in the souks, life can get rather dull at times. This last weekend, however, we participated in a mountain bike trip to Wadi Haqqaq, which was radically different than our usual relaxing weekend. We left in the early morning darkness, driving with about twelve others to a site where we could begin cycling. Because we have had a bit of rain lately - just a bit - there was actually a thin carpet of green grass stretching under the thorn trees, whose 1-2 inch thorns we carefully. We biked through deep sand that made the bikes come to a standstill, we rode up and down rocky hills, and we arrived at Wadi Haqqaq where the pools of water drew several of the group in for a cooling off - until we felt little nibbles on our toes. It was a nature extravaganza.

Hayden and Logan each biked about twenty hard miles. Because the weather is slightly cooler now and the extreme humidity of the summer has somewhat dissipated, we drank more normal quantities of water and snacked on delicious dates. The group was a diverse mix of nationalities, but most people were far stronger mountain bikers than myself. Nonetheless, the leaders kept us all together, and the follow-car was available with extra water, tools, snacks, and seats for anyone too tired to continue. We all made it the entire way to Mushroom Rock and back, with a slight detour to the swimming hole at the Wadi.

Incredibly, the area was remarkably clean. Often when people go into the desert for driving or camping, they return with stories of trash strewn everywhere. We generally found little trash, except around water pumping areas and wells.

The trip was definitely another highlight for our lives in the desert, and we hope to go on more such mountain biking excursions. Thanks for reading! Jennifer

Black Friday at Tamimi

Greetings,

Our local grocery store on campus is called Tamimi, though it does have some rather vague connection with Safeway (in the US) because we get Safeway products sometimes, and there is a large Safeway 'S' on the store front.

Though there are some complaints about Tamimi, on this Thanksgiving Day, we should express our gratitude; I am, in fact, grateful for Tamimi. When we first moved to campus, there was no grocery store. At all. For at least two full months, we all ate for free at the campus diner or at the various fast food restaurants in Discovery Square, which is a public square and hanging out part of the campus - it has the post office, bank, Burger King, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafe, a shwarma restaurant, Baskin & Robbins, the cinema, a small take-away pizza place, an Arabic food place (which seems to often be closed due to hygienic issues), and an Indian restaurant. Though it sounds like a lot of options, those of us here in the fall of 2009 quickly tired of these choices and of eating our evening meal in the public square with everyone else, every evening. It was fun at first, but, you know, we all started to crave our own cooking within our own homes and family times.

About three years ago, around November of 2009, Tamimi opened. We were thrilled. We no longer had to eat our meals with everyone all of the time, and we no longer had to take a bus to Jeddah to buy food and bring it back in large coolers. I did that on several occasions, and I vividly remember racing out of the mall with a friend who was doing the same thing. Our abayas were flapping around our legs as we ran towards the waiting bus, waving our arms for the driver to wait for us and pushing shopping carts of groceries and our cooler wildly in front of us. I am sure that observers thought we were mad. To this day, we laugh at these memories. Tamimi saved us from certain dementia.

We all soon discovered that Tamimi was temperamental. Sometimes it had goods we planned to buy, and, well, nearly as often, it did not. Sometimes it has Cheerios. Sometimes not. Sometimes weeks go by without Ritz Crackers. For months last year, we could not get any canned pumpkin - though it did seem to arrive just before American Thanksgiving. Often they get packages of frozen bagels, but then everyone buys them, the packages disappear, and there are no more bagels for six months, when they suddenly appear again. Many of us like to have frozen blueberries, but they are purchased within hours of delivery, hoarded into people's freezers, and never seen at Tamimi again. One time two years ago, there were plastic tubs of pasta sauces that many of us recognized from US grocery stores; we called each other and bought out the store's supply in a weekend. It's funny when we plan our meals because we have to have a back-up plan in case key ingredients are gone that week. Hayden has gotten into cooking recently and bought a French cookbook. Unfortunately, many recipes include pork products or various types of spirits - all of which are unavailable. Like the rest of us, he learns to adapt, adjust, and find something similar.

To Tamimi's credit, many more organic products are now available, they have a constant supply of basic food items - like pasta, baking products, olive oil, milk, juice, meat, cheese, vegetables and fruit - so we are certainly not suffering. It is humorous, however. Ooh, I gotta run. Rumor has it Tamimi just got blueberries ...

Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you, Tamimi, for turkeys, potatoes, pumpkin, and squash!

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Six Hundred Days

Greetings,

We used to live in Seattle, where David and I bike-commuted every day - before we had children - from Ballard to Downtown Seattle so that he could take the Bainbridge Ferry and I could take the Vashon Ferry to the schools we were working in at the time. Prior to that, I had been completing my Masters in Teaching at Seattle University (SU), to which I had also biked daily - including the year during which it rained 100 days in a row. I always arrived at SU soaked to the bone, but I was able to shower and warm up in the locker room before heading to class. Putting on my wet clothes to bike home was extremely unpleasant, but I inevitably warmed up quickly enough, making it safely, though water-logged once again, home to a hot shower. For a bit, we didn't even own a car.

Once we had children, we replaced our old Subaru and bought a much newer Outback. Loved the car but found that, as a mom, I was driving much more. Still, David continued biking and I bike commuted as was practical.

Move ahead several years. We are now in Saudi Arabia, living on the edge of the desert next to the Red Sea. Once again we do not own a car, and all four of us bike to school every day. We bike to the store, to friends' houses, to the cinema, to yoga and badminton, to the golf course, everywhere. Granted, our university compound is not that big. Honestly, I bike maybe 1.5 miles one-way to school each day and, unless we go to the golf course, which might be two miles from our house, that's generally our longest ride at any one time. Plus it never rains, so I always arrive warm and damp (or sweaty) from the heat.

Yesterday there were big rumors of torrential rains expected in Jeddah, which is just 70 km to the south of here. Everyone was really excited. The first year here we had huge rain, and everything flooded: the streets, many houses, the post office, the schools. School was canceled because of the rain and floods, but many people showed up anyway to help clean up. The entire community was untested for severe rains and faced the floods with perseverance and enthusiasm - except for the people whose houses actually caved in from rain. The roof of the then-secondary school didn't drain because the drainage pipes were all filled with rubble, so our assistant principal went to the roof to siphon the water off; students arrived to mop up and clean up; teachers moved books from dripping water in the library and rivulets in their classrooms; kids played and played in the flooded streets. The second year it rained again. Streets flooded and the buildings suffered some, but not as badly as the first year. Still, it was rather exciting. We were at some friends' house when the rain got heavy and started running down their stairs from the large front picture window on the stair landing. We immediately headed home by bike, of course. Eventually, I realized how foolish we were to try to 'ride' home in thigh-deep, so we walked our bikes on the slightly higher sidewalks, also mostly underwater. Again the community came together to enjoy the change and the thrill, to stand in awe at buses stuck in the flooded intersections, and to clean up. Last year it only briefly rained once for a few minutes, not even enough to have water running down the gutters.

When the rumors of massive thunder and rain showers came to naught last night and this morning, I must confess that I was deeply disappointed. Not, I hope, because I wanted more damage and destruction, but because the rain, particularly when it's a lot (and even more when school gets canceled for a day), changes the monotony of sameness. It's exciting and refreshing, powerful and exhilarating, reminding us that Mother Nature is all-powerful in the end. David tells me that we are going on or even beyond six hundred days without rain here, other than a few drops which quickly dissipated. I am not hoping for massive floods in Jeddah or on our campus nor do I wish for so much rain that destruction ensues, but I would be thrilled with a real solid rain that cleans the air, washes away the sand and dust, and cleanses our souls. Perhaps it's also time to test the rain-worthiness of our new school building, still untested!

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Vienna and Budapest

Budapest - Mom and Logan

Greetings,

Mom and Dad - Budapest

We recently were fortunate enough to celebrate the Eid holiday with a trip to Vienna, Austria, where we met up with my parents to celebrate not only family and time together but each of my parent's birthdays as well. We toured the city's palaces and museums, enjoying frequent stops in cafes to warm up from the cold. One morning, we awoke to a dusting of snow. Once again, we ate wonderful food, including pork and veal, as well as sacher torte and apfel struedel. We went to a former palace called Belvedere and visited an amazing art gallery of pieces collected by members of the Hapsburg family, including Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss." As I stood in awe of this original masterpiece, Logan sauntered away, muttering darkly, "It's just a bunch of scribbles." When I asked him about that, he showed me some squiggles, which from his perspective was about all he had seen. Once I pointed out the faces in the painting, he admitted to seeing the scene but remained unimpressed. This is why art museums have to be limited to an hour or so for the boys.

Budapest

I confess to being, once again, amazed and impressed by another European city's public transportation system. We traveled all over Vienna, even to and from the airport, without ever using a single car or taxi. The subway system was immaculate, safe, and - of course - on time. We used buses, trams, and even the train system when we also took a day trip to Budapest.

Trying to understand the Hungarian menu

In the gardens of the Schonnbrunn Palace

Budapest was definitely an older city, with a language so unusual and challenging that we could not make sense of any words. People were friendly and engaging, particularly once we left the train station, which seemed like it really needed an influx of investment. We wandered around the city, found an old shopping street, and ended up near the Danube where we saw historical buildings and learned intriguing history about Hungary. We happened upon a lovely cozy restaurant where we enjoyed lunch, Gerloczy Cafe. The maître d' arranged a table for the six of us, made sure we were settled, and sent over a waitress who helped us with the menu, brought us a lovely bottle of Hungarian wine, and taught us how to say 'thank you.'

St Stephen's Cathedral

In Vienna, we explored the Haus of Music, which taught us about many composers who were from or who had spent lots of time in Vienna, and we were truly inspired by the musical atmosphere of the city. Mostly, it was good to spend time with my parents, to laugh about our adventures, and to enjoy new foods and restaurants. Though Hayden and Logan certainly have favorite foods - tacos, pizza, pasta - they are willing to try a wide variety of foods and both have eclectic tastes, ordering pumpkin soup, goat cheese ravioli, and arugula salads. Truly, they are comfortable to try so many types of food!

What an amazing trip. We were so grateful to explore a new city in one of our favorite countries!

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

US Political Scene from Afar

Greetings,
Once again a long time has passed since I last posted anything. Work. Planning. Teaching. Grading. Reporting. Communicating. A myriad of online sites which demand our time as teachers - too many honestly (now that could be a posting in and of itself).

I registered online to vote in the US election in my state of Washington, but the ballot never arrived, either in the mail or in my email inbox, so - with sadness and shame - I admit that I was unable to vote in this most recent election. I am sorry too because there were measures on the ballot in Washington that I would have been thrilled to vote on. Luckily, unlike past years, many of them passed.

From Facebook comments, I have seen friends who are overjoyed with the results and friends who are dismayed. I sense both anger and pleasure. I read about people who have 'unfriended' people because of political postings and/or opinions communicated. I can appreciate that some people are not thrilled that the majority has given Obama a second chance, but I would remind all of some key points:

Be grateful that you can vote and that your voice is heard.
Be amazed that you can complain and disagree without having to hide or without fear of punishment.
Be pleased that we can do it all again in four years.
Realize that the election was clear and the decision did not have to be made by the military or the courts.
Know that you can write what you wish about the candidates and no one will come arrest you in the night.
You may not be happy with the results, but no one died, no one attacked, no one was killed. It was not tragic. It may only have been disappointing.
Be grateful that whether you agree with the President's policies or not, he cannot make decisions alone, he is not a dictator, and no matter who he (or she) is, he must collaborate with others in our country who have also been elected by our own people.
Admit that Obama's success or failure will be partially dependent on both parties working together (or not). Blame can never fall on only one individual or one party.
Be proud that young people voted more than ever before, as did many minority groups.
Be amused by the fact that all of the states that begin with 'New' voted for Obama and all of the states that begin with a direction (North, South, West) voted for Romney.
Don't be hateful and resentful. Our country will rise or fall based on the parties working together. We will not make it if they continue to stymie each other's efforts because of political manipulations.

Personally, I am grateful that Obama has been given four more years. I hope he does some great things in those years, fulfilling promises, compromising when needed (but not too often), and moving our country in the direction that most people seem to want it to go.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer

Four-Wheeling in the Desert

Greetings,

Thanks to the King's generosity and national pride, we have a four-day weekend in honor of Saudi National Day, which is today, Sunday, 23 September 2012. Since Thursday and Friday are our regular weekend, we ended up with Saturday and Sunday added on as well. It's glorious! Truly. Except for this one long weekend, we do not have any other long weekends throughout the year, so this is greatly enjoyed and appreciated.

One of our colleagues organized a desert four-wheeling trip, so we joined in. We all met at the Visitor's Center, got on a large bus, and headed towards Jeddah. As we approached the airport, we veered on the ring road to the east side of the city and ultimately headed onto the road in the direction of Mecca, though we were not going that far, of course. As non-Muslims, none of us would have been allowed to enter the city of Mecca anyway. The trip was organized by a hip Saudi man - a Saudi version of a friendly and engaging Harley dude - and so he directed the bus towards the desert site of the jeeps.

 Water was handed around, and we all piled into about 15 Jeeps. Sandy and breezy, hot and humid, we snaked out into the dunes. The drivers excelled at racing up and down the sand dunes, showing off the beautifully desolate landscape, stopping in several key spots for photos, and swinging by a Bedouin camp with goats and camels.

Hayden and Mazin, our driver

The drivers, all certified drivers for desert four-wheeling, do this on the weekends as their hobbies. They all had other jobs during the week, and other cars for those jobs as well. One driver is a bank analyst, for example, and drove a Nissan Maxima to his bank job.

Logan and William

We finished our trip after the sun had set and the darkness was coming on. Nearly everyone in our group was a teacher with his or her family, so we all knew each other and there were many kids. We sprawled on carpets on the sand, waiting for grilled chicken, flat bread, and cole slaw salad and drinking cold water and soda. It was a glorious day and an incredible way to spend one day of our long weekend!

Though, admittedly, it's not exactly an environmentally friendly way to enjoy the desert, the drivers all had a certain pride in their desert and in keeping the more remote areas cleaner than the garbage ubiquitously strewn across the landscapes near the highways.

Logan sliding down the sand

Thanks for reading, as always! Back to work tomorrow!

Cheers,
Jennifer