We survived a pretty cramped night train from Florence to Munich. The train was Harry Potter style with the different cabins. Of course in my imagination the characters had more room. The six of us (Liz and I, 2 Germans and 2 from who knows where) stared at each other from around our bags for many hours in between passport checks. (Liz: Awkward turtle everyone. Supremely awkward turtle. There are only so many places you can look, and it's dark outside, so there is NOTHING entrancing outside that window.)
Liz played solitaire on her phone furiously all night ("where are the f-ing 8s!?") while I managed to put all my limbs asleep but nothing else. We were able to catch up on sleep on the roomier train to Prague. Our trick: spread out all of our stuff, take off our shoes, start snoring and people choose to sit in a different cabin. (Liz: Christine also instructed me to hack and cough when people came in the room. Which actually didn't work. Not enough germaphobes in eastern Europe apparently. And can I just say, my immune system is not behaving. How can I have had this cold for a solid three months? I have not made white blood cell furlough days.)
We are now in Prague, which was a bit of an unexpected turn in our adventure, which is why the Prague translation pages are missing from our books. We managed to get by with English and Liz is currently researching stuff for our stay over the next few days. (Liz to C: "Kafka." Nothing. "Franz Kafka?" Zilch. "Metamorphosis?" .... "Dude turns into a cockroach." OOOOH!)
Whitney will be joining us from Germany. A plan that somehow got hatched last night during the train ride. (Liz: I was answering email at 2am because there is only so much solitaire you can play.) Very excited to see her!!
We had a great time in Florence. We climbed many stairs, saw lots of art and ate plenty of gelato! (Liz: And by gelato, she means Ben and Jerry's. There is a store right next to the duomo, and we totally went there instead of gelato and it was AMAZING.) We miss all of you a lot though, and we really, really miss TV. Since we had a little bit of internet at our last hostel we were able to watch some you tubes. The old spice commercial has us cracking up within seconds. And the inspirational speech (courtesy of Katelyn) has filled our movie void.
A few notes from Christine...
Dad: I know it is not quite April 1st in California, but Happy Birthday! In a completely unrelated note, here is this fun Beatles video.
Mom: Pretty soon it will be April Fools Day, be on alert!
Nana (C's Nana): Thanks for the message. I will let our Swiss Cousins know!
Diana: I can't wait to see you guys!
And from Elisabeth/Liz:
Pops: A very, very happy birthday to you! All my love. ( I'll call soon!)
Chag Sameach to anyone it applies to :) I hope the Seders went well, and someone read their bits of the Hagaddah gender-neutrally for me, and fought the good fight for the misunderstood and oft maligned so called "wicked" child. Maybe the JWW Social Justice Seder Piece even made an appearance!
Hi, Elisabeth.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be pleased to hear that GMB vigorously defended the "Wicked Child" at the first Seder at Aunt Lynn and Uncle Jon's. Your dad thoroughly documented both seders with his phone camera, so you'll be able to see a lot that transpired. Be careful in Prague - David Gill was almost arrested when we were there in 1993 for throwing away the wrong half of his subway ticket stub.
Best to Christine - we enjoy both your comments.
Lots of love,
GM&GPB
Wonderful to hear from you two! By the way,
ReplyDeleteour "Liberated Haggadah" includes the "5th child", who no longer sits at the table. "She is feeling sad and lonely. He is feeling angry and bitter. Say to this child : There is always a seat at this table. Please come back to us, we cherish you forever." Hmmmmm....
We saw Amy, Bruce, Rebecca and Sam last night for dinner, still recovering from their share of gelato, followed by all of that yummy Passover food at the Rifkinds. They are back in D.C. again, by now...and we go to KC this coming weekend. Eric is meeting us there, too!
love to you, Aunt Kim
New Blog! So excited!... I'm glad you guys are gonna meet up with Whitney! We were skyping the other day and realized that you are all in europe at the same time... it just made sense ;)
ReplyDeleteLiz, I don't know why you are defending the wicked son... i mean seriously, the simple one is the one that needs a lawyer... he prefers the term mental deficit... our newish version of the four sons song was the biggest train wreck our seder has seen! i think for a bit it was just my dad and i singing ;)
Christine, I missed you when my dad asked about Elijah... I was like, hmm what did Christine say that it was about?!?... lol... you'd think I'd have learned after being jewish for soo many years!
Ok so I totally needed all that help with the Kafka reference... I did get it at the part about the guy turning into the bug though! ... take that literary reference!!
I'm glad you guys attempted the Remus move on the train... though I guess it didn't work so well for him either, as students still filled into his cabin ;)
I passed law review! It was anticlimactic though... literally an email that said, congrats you passed... I dont even think it had an exclamation point in it :( ... but wtv, it's over! yay!
Oo and I made a call to Australia today from the Deans' conference room at school with the help of Kenn Starr's assistant... I felt very professional until I couldn't figure out how to work the star-fish-shaped phone that did not have a handset, it was only a speaker phone... new fangled technology!... I may have hung up on many random people that the phone decided to call before I figured out how to dial out and then how to dial australia in particular... it was an adventure ;)
That's all I've got... hope to hear from you guys soon!
Erica
In the seder I went to, we printed out a hagadah which instead of the 4 sons, it had the 4 children.
ReplyDeletewise one=guy
wicked one=girl
simple one=guy
one who doesn't know how to ask=girl
and yes, after the wicked one, I was like why is the wicked on a girl? we had to go through all of them individually to realize what they did before we could continue with the seder
enjoy the prague castle it's awesome! everyone spoke english there, it's like 5:1 of tourists:locals, you'll be fine!
I LOVE Prague! I hope you guys are having an amazing time. Your adventures are amusing as always.
ReplyDeleteLove and miss you!
-me
You may have missed Goggle today, but try this:
ReplyDeletehttp://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html
Pops is not the only one who finds Topeka funny...
love, Aunt Kim
It's 4/4... therefore...
ReplyDeleteHAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTINE!!!
-from Erica :)
that old spice commercial is FANTASTIC. ahem.
ReplyDeletei'm glad you had a chance to stop in prague! the kafka museum, if you went, is weird, isn't it? i mean, the place has two anatomically correct male statue-fountains which face each other while "peeing"!
love,
the buttface