16

We can now post Gishwhes Submissions online! So here they are. 

 

                

So. It was a crazy awesome week. Looking forward to next year when we can do even more!

15

Yesterday we drove from Thrushes to Cardiff, in the middle of outgoing Friday traffic from London. It took a good two maybe three hours more to get here than we thought it would.

We have a small apartment here in Cardiff. It has doors on springs, which can get annoying very fast. It's also quite small for five people, but it will be fine for the two-ish weeks we're here.

Last night we watched the Olympic opening ceremony. It was neat to watch live, but we didn't make it through all the county names. We got to letter M.

Today was the last day for Gishwhes, so we finished up the last items we could. There are a lot of un submitted but subscribed-to items that I hope our team members get in before tomorrow.

There's a park right across the street from us here, which I brought Tobin to today in order for him to let out some of his energy. During this time, the rest of our family went to a big grocery store by car and stocked up on at least a hundred pounds worth of food. I think we're set for awhile. Olympic rowing was on TV during dinner.

Well, off I go to my pull out sofa bed. It's tricky because it's in the middle of the living room/kitchen, so it's harder for me to sleep in. It also means I can't go to bed until I kick everyone out of the main area. But at least I don't have to share a room.

14

(There are more words beneath the pictures)

Sitting in the Geneva airport. It was a bit of a hectic mess getting here. Leaving the house was fine, but then we tried to go to a gas station before the airport. First the one we found didn't work, so we tried another one. Then we wanted to get to the airport, so we put in what we thought was the airport to the satnav. But upon arrival it was just another gas station. So we cancelled that and tried again, choosing a different address that looked like the airport. But alas it rerouted us to exactly the same gas station as before. At this point everyone was frazzled,  and extremely frustrated, Lise especially. There's not a lot Julias, Tobin, and I could do from the backseat, so we stayed out of it mostly.  Jeff took over and selected the airport by moving  a crosshairs on the map to where we remembered the airport building was. It worked, except that it was slightly off so we had to turn off the satnav after we saw signs for the airport. Finally we were at the quick drop off space, where Julias, Tobin, and I got out with our day packs and three of our four big bags to check. And here we are waiting sitting on the sleeping bag big bag and the floor. Just waiting for Lise and Jeff to come back after dropping off the rental car with a full tank of gas (the gas had been run down since we filled it up thanks to the friggin satnav).

So I think if we don't get a satnav in England, it won't be the end of the world. I have saved our entire route from Heathrow to Woking to Petersfield, so we can make it to our destination. Actually at this point I kinda hope we don't have one. (We're stopping in Woking for me to buy an etch-a-sketch from the toys -r-us there. Gishwhes. Also, did you know that Alec Guiness was buried in Petersfield? That will also be useful). Speaking of Gishwhes, it's not a magic thing that makes everything always better. It's Gishwhes week but we are still in stressful travel situations where the priorities are not making origami toilet paper or making videos or inventing forms. Unfortunately. Fortunately, I have the supplies to work on three Gishwhes items on the plane, including a roll or toilet paper that I kinda stole from the house in Bremgarden. So that's in my carry-on.

 

Now we're sitting on the plane, still at the gate. Haven't left yet. We found a whole bunch of good-quality gluten free chocolate in the airport, and we needed to use up our francs, so we bought eight bars and a toblerone for each of Julias and Tobin. We're set for chocolate. Now just figuring out the best way to make use of a plane in Gishwhes. Not everyone will have a plane.

There are a bunch of scouts or something from England in front of us. A big group of teenagers. The safety video didn't work so now they're doing it manually.

 

We got through heathrow after a couple hours. I managed to get some potential Gishwhes stuff on the plane. We stopped in Woking with our rental car. It was a giant mall, and just closing, but we made it on time. I got my etch-a-sketch (and a mini tiny one-it's so cute!) and I saw a 50's American style burger joint in the mall that was perfect for another Gishwhes item, except that we didn't have Jedi costumes so we couldn't do it.

Jeff and the boys got food from McDonalds (the only fast food store still open) while Lise and I walked to another anointing mall to get salads and crisps from Sainsbury's for dinner. Total for three salads and a big bag of potato chips was 6£. Not too bad at all, considering Julias' burger cost 3£.

Now it's 7:30pm, and we're on the road to Drake and Anna's with Lise navigating. We have no satnav. I navigated from Heathrow to Woking. It was weird getting used to the driver on the right, I kept feeling like I was meant to be driving, but the steering wheel wasn't there so I panicked.

I feel bad for not completing more Gishwhes items yet today, but it was a super busy stressful travel day and I did a bunch yesterday and I worked on some today. And I got an etch-a-sketch (17£) for the sole purpose of Gishwhes. So I think I'm ok.

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Just spent all last night organizing a Gishwhes item back home, phoning and emailing and texting till 1am. It's the next day now. Julias, Drake, and I went shopping to stock up on candy for two Gishwhes items. Also just normal shopping. We stopped at Alec Guinness' grave and snapped a picture. The gardener at the graveyard had a strong London accent. He helped us find the site.

 

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Another day has passed. Again another late night which is why I didn't post yesterday. I was working on a four foot replica of Winchester cathedral until about 1:40am. I was also remotely supervising the quartet at the dentist back home, which went pretty smoothly all things considered. I helped a family driving from heathrow to Portsmouth who were completely lost at 1am. I showed them a map, hope it helped. They were completely lost after following a diversion because of a closure and somehow ended up driving through skinny country lanes in the pitch black. I empathized with them wholeheartedly.

 

Today, after a delicious lunch of borscht, we went to Winchester cathedral, and I posed with my four-foot scale model. Then later we went to the fire station and the town square for three more Gishwhes items. Let's just say that I had paper cut out desserts on my face, we had two pineapples and two solid-colour overalls, and a recording of the song "The Love Cats". All essential ingredients for a successful Gishwhes outing. I am so looking forward to doing this next year.

Dinner was amazing salmon with lemon and potatoes and garlic and beans and tomatoes, most of which came from the garden. I think I've been forgetting to emphasize the amazingness of the food that is made here. It's amazing.

This evening I spent about five hours creating Che Guevara in chips and candy.

So that wasn't a lot of blogging for three days, but I was pretty occupied with all the crazy things for Gishwhes. I'm not allowed to post photos or videos of the items right now. But I can tell you they're all incredible. 

Cathedral:

 

  

13

Worked the entire day on Gishwhes. Had barbecue in the evening with host family, was really good. Went out in the evening to see fireworks because it's Swiss National Day. Fireworks all across the horizon, big official firework display as well. Brought penny whistle, played some stuff, inhaled a bug and had to stop. Tomorrow early rise for flight to London.

      

 

12

Yesterday we drove back from the Croisat's and experienced the most incredible, scary, big lightning storm I have ever seen. It started far away, and I saw some fork lightning which I thought was really cool. I couldn't even hear it at that point. But then it moved gradually closer until it was practically on top of us. We all sat on our covered deck to experience a bit of this. At one point a giant bolt covered the entire sky and lit everything up completely, followed in less than a second by the loudest thunder I had ever heard. I had to clap my hands over my ears, Lise too. It sounded sharp, not at all a rumble. I got a couple bolts on video. The rain was mostly pelting down really hard.

The storm went on for a long time, maybe an hour (Lise thinks two). We moved back inside after about 20 min, it got to be a bit too much.

Yesterday was also the beginning of Gishwhes, a global scavenger hunt myself, Julias, and Lise are participating in. So I was working on a Gishwhes item last night in the middle of a giant thunderstorm.

 

Today we cleaned up the apartment and left. We are currently on our way back to Bern for two nights to pick up the camping supplies we left there. The people who actually live there will be there this time, so we'll be in the basement suite.

We stopped at a grocery store, but it was closed because it's Sunday. I was hoping to get skittles for a Gishwhes item. The hunt lasts a week, which is good because we'll have a portion of the hunt at Drake and Anna's house, which gives us a lot more resources to complete items. Some items are much more easily done at home. I'm looking forward to doing this next year when I can go all out and use everything at home and in my town. For now, it's a photo scavenger hunt on the road, which comes with its own challenges.

 

We got to Bern. We spent the entire evening doing Gishwhes stuff. I researched where to buy etch-a-sketches in the UK on our driving route. Tobin practiced making faces. Jeff did some video stuff on the computer. We managed to find skittles at a rest stop on the way here (they were in a cardboard package like smarties normally are), so I tried various pens on them to see the result. You know, normal evening stuff.

We are now staying in the basement suite of the house because the actual residents are present. They're very nice, by the way. We had a bit of a chat with Horst the dad and the others later as well. The suite has a motel feel to it, because we're all sleeping in the same one room which also contains the kitchen corner and table. The one bathroom is a small room off of the main one. It's very cozy, and kinda nice when people are not grumpy but I can see how living here for a long time with five people would be a bit crazy. I would probably be out of the house a lot.

We had rice and canned ratatouille and apples and various other food bits for dinner. We're getting down to the last bits of our food. Leftovers from everywhere we bought stuff. So I think most of our next meals until we get on the plane to London will be bits and bobs of whatever we have to eat.

Tomorrow we'll go out to Bern and possibly another ropes course place like the accrobranche in France. Tomorrow is Switzerland's national holiday, so there will be decorations and crowds in Bern as well as fireworks and barbecues in the evening. We will probably join in the Posthaus' (family we're staying with here) barbecue for dinner. I'm hoping that we'll have a lot more time for Gishwhes tomorrow, because there are still so many items to complete. 

The only photos I have from this time is this carrot I put a face in when we were driving today:

  

It's an angry sad carrot. 

11

Today we drove to the other side of the valley to get to accrobranche. High ropes courses in trees. I went in the car with Mathilde and Nadia, and it was very fast driving down the mountain and around all the curves. I forgot how fast people who are used to driving in skinny roads drive… It took me awhile to get used to it the last time I was here. Every time the bus to school went around a corner I thought we would hit a car coming the opposite direction. But we survived.

The ropes courses had a lot of choices of level. The highest at two were black and super-black. The lowest was green, then blue, super-blue, and red. I started on red thinking it would be equivalent to the adult course in Victoria at Treego, and I was right. It was about the same. I wouldn't want to do anything higher than that I think. Black would kill my arms even more. And there was a Tarzan swing thing which I skipped because I didn't think I could make it with my jello arms.

After the red corse and some really cool long ziplines, I did the two blue courses with my family. It's interesting: I think my French has come back pretty much entirely after only being here for two days.

Accrobranche was really fun. After that we came back to the house and met up with Clem who had just gotten back from a group trip to Spain. We all went in the pool, we even got Jeff to join in. Dinner was tartiflette, which normally they only make in the winter to have after skiing, but so we could taste it they made it for us now. After dinner we all kinda migrated to the living room and hijacked a movie Clem was watching. And then to bed.

If there's a certain amount of detail lacking from this post, it's because I'm trying to get the very most out of my time here with the Croisats. We've been busy the entire day visiting and playing music and talking and doing activities, so the time for writing them down is shorter. Just know that I'm having an amazing time here and I absolutely know it's not the last time we'll have both families together. I hope the Croisats come visit us in Victoria next time. Bisous à tous!

 

      

10

Well, I didn't post yesterday. That's because…. I just didn't. I don't really have a reason. We didn't go anywhere specific, so maybe that can be a reason. Notable things from yesterday: Tobin, Julias, and I went outside to throw a nerf football thing, and I made tartiflette (a cheese potato dish) from scratch on my own without a recipe. I was very proud. It looked and tasted amazing.

 

 

Today was spent with the Croisats. Very happy to see them again! It's been two years and a lot has changed but also some things have not changed at all. People have gotten a lot taller. Some furniture has moved around. But it's still the same place and the same people.

What I was most excited about was allowing my Canadian family to meet my French family for the first time. It was a bit awkward and slow at the beginning, but as soon as everyone remembered how to speak French and be social it was great. We arrived at noon, just in time for lunch. We ate outside on the stone patio: pasta (with gluten free rice option) and tomato sauce. And bread and stuff. And dessert. It was really nice. This place is so familiar, I think I really missed it. I just keep noticing things that take me back two years ago…

After lunch we headed up to Chamrousse, a ski hill by winter and a hiking/mountain biking hill by summer. We got there just in time with our two cars to cast the last gondola up to the top. They shut it down as soon as we stepped off (it really was the very last ride). Then we started hiking down.

The views were amazing. There was a bit of cloud fog stuff at the top, but it cleared out farther down. Taiga (the dog) ran ahead a lot, Tobin as well. There are certain similarities.

We could see amazing views on all sides all the way down: from the majesty of the great peaks to the vibrant mean couloirs and patterns of the moss on the rocks. About halfway down we saw a group of ten dogs (mostly border collies like Taiga) and four people making their way down. They had stopped at the lake to let all the dogs play a bit. Aline made sure Taiga was on a leash every time we saw them, because she doesn't play well with other dogs, and I can't even imagine what ten of them against her would be like.

When we got to the big lake that we were maybe kinda going to swim in, we felt the fridge door water and said, how bout not. But we still stopped there to eat some macaroons and peaches and apricots. We were planning to put up a slack line too, but it was getting to be 7pm and we were all a bit cold so we decided to just keep going.

We weren't going to end up at the same place we parked the cars, so Mathilde and Nadia ad Taiga went ahead to get the the end of this trail and walk along the road to get one of the cars (Mathilde driving). The rest of us kept going at a normal pace. My family and I started singing any and every song we could think of just for fun and to keep Tobin occupied (everything from northwest passage to blue skies to cat came back to black fly to where the watermelon grows). It was much better than descending the last bit in silence, for sure. And I think Aline and Olivier liked it.

At the bottom, we sorted out cars. Mathilde drove Jeff and Olivier to drive the two cars back to us waiting. I went in the Croisat's car like on the way up, that way Aline and Olivier were in different cars to guide each one.

Once we got home everyone was pretty hungry, so dinner started to be made quickly. I got out Mathilde's violin (it's a really nice instrument) and started to play fiddle tunes. Pretty soon Julias joined in on Clem's cello (Clémentine is coming back from a student trip to Spain tomorrow), and then Tobin joined in on piano and we got out Mathilde's campfire violin and soon we had four people. We played a couple tunes, and did some jazz improv. Later Mathilde and I tried to remember a song that I had sung and she played on piano. We looked it up on YouTube (Robbie Williams- Feel) and got most of it alright.

Dinner was a different kind of fondue than you may think. It was fondue bourgonoise which means little pieces of raw meat dipped in hot oil to cook them. Same idea with the bread fondue except replace the bread with meat and the cheese with oil. It was really good. There was rice and salad as well. We all stayed up talking (and kinda forgot about the gluten free crumble for dessert) till midnight. The younger members (Nadia, Tobin) went to bed before that.

 

I think I'm going to really enjoy my visit here. Our two families seem to be missible. Everyone is communicating fine. My French seems to have almost completely returned to full abilities rather quickly. The only thing missing is vocab, but that has always been true.

It's going to be hard to say goodbye to these people and this place a second time…