Culture Club

The local grade school, led by a cadre of cultural arts ambassadors from the parent-teacher association, held a "Cultural Heritage Festival" at the school on Thursday night. The Festival consisted of a number of classrooms being transformed into "countries." Participants were given passports which were stamped with a flag sticker from each country as they entered the various rooms. Awesome idea and much fun.

 

Most of the "countries" featured some food and drink item samples free for the taking. Kudos to whichever parent figured out that the way to cultural education of 2nd graders was through their stomachs, as this created a palpable buzz among that crowd for several of the countries ("Dude, the food in Mexico is awesome!"). Hungary suffered by comparison (I did not overhear any of the kids saying, for example, "mmmmm, paprika!"), as did, predictably, Ireland, although the latter made up some serious ground with an actual keg of root beer. 

 

The Barbados/Puerto Rico room had a fun, island-party vibe to it, with a limbo contest going on during my brief stopover there. Ireland had a sweet display of musical instruments as well as Irish dancers. Bagpiper on the front steps of the school, Latin-American percussionists in the gym, etc. The whole thing was a whirlwind visual and audio-feast for our budding little international citizens.   

 

Owen, who is about to wrap up 5th grade, was somewhat less interested in food and music, and more interested in learning obscure facts about the various countries. The rooms that were adorned with cardboard displays listing various facts about each country were a hit with him in this regard, although I am suspicious that some of the "facts" may have been taken from less than reliable sources:

 

Dubious fact learned #1: Most people who live in the south of France know how to surf. Now I have watched my share of international surfing competitions on TV in my life (my share being 1 1/2) and I must say I don't recall any French names. Perhaps the French merely surf for fun during their 11 months of vacation per year and don't really pursue competitive surfing.

 

Dubious fact learned #2: The French love rugby as much as they love soccer. Hmmmm.... I'll say maybe on this one, although I must confess I have no idea where soccer ranks on the list of things loved by the French. Presumably somewhere higher than their love of fighting Germans and lower than their love of cheese, whining, Jerry Lewis and strikes by civil servants. 

 

All in all though, the Festival was a hit with Family (a/k/a Famille, Pamilya (yep, I now speak Tagalog as of last night!), 家庭, Clan) RedPlanet, and we all left culturally enriched, and perhaps a pound or two heavier!

Beasts of Unburden

Deanna and (especially) I are notorious vacation over packers. This is especially true when we hit the road in our supercool 10-year old Honda Odyssey. Why bring 4 pairs of shoes when you can bring 5 - we're driving, right? Sure the condo we are renting for vacation has a washer and dryer, but what if its broken - better bring the big suitcase. Swimsuits and winter coats - no problem, after all, who really knows what the weather will be.

 

Things only got worse after we bought a car rooftop pod - golf clubs, tennis rackets, balls, bats, baseball gloves, snorkeling equipment, a giant hammock with its surprisingly heavy "portable" collapsible frame - bring it on! Want to bring that surf board we bought on sale at Brookfield Zoo a few summers ago? Why of course we do boys, perhaps this is the year the Lake Michigan surf in Door County peaks above 6 inches! You'll have to sit with it across your laps though, the pod is filled up with sandcastle building equipment, you know, for the times when we are not busy surfing. There have been trips when I have had to actually unpack portions of the interior of the van during rest stops in order to extricate the kids from the third row seats; coolers, and bags spilling out of the side door onto the hot concrete. I have secretly toyed with the idea of buying a small trailer so we can haul even more stuff - why own a van with a trailer hitch if you aren't going to use it! Wouldn't it be awesome to bring all five bikes, I've thought to myself. If we brought them we wouldn't need to rent them, freeing s to actually then take two bike rides instead of one!

 

Things are no better when we fly. We borrow luggage scales and carefully weigh our suitcases, inevitably working our way down by removing luggage items until we are just under the allowed checked bag weights. We stuff oversized "carry" on bags into overhead racks. In fairness to Deanna, I am probably worse than her, as I, left to my own devices, have a penchant for changing clothes for different activities. In that respect I probably would have made a good Downton Abbey resident. The kids seem to have inherited our tendencies, spending their pre-vacation time cooking up elaborate schemes by which to smuggle as many toys and stuffed animals on the trip as they can get by us.

 

Anyway, that all changed last summer when the five of us, accompanied by several Sherpas, boarded a flight to the Pacific Northwest. On board was another family we knew from town, headed, like us, for a week-long trip. Except...not only were they traveling without Sherpas, each member of the family of four was traveling with a single backpack! And not the giant, I'm spending the next six months hiking Europe kind of backpack, but the normal kind of backpack. Confusion, astonishment, disbelief! "How?" we whispered to ourselves after, "were they able to do that?!?" They looked perfectly normal; smelled fine, good even; yet they were travelling with luggage that would barely contain the collection of travel books we were carting on the trip.

 

The sense of awe stuck with us, and during a recent long weekend trip, we aspired to do the same. Three nights in a hotel, five hour Amtrak trip, one backpack per family member, no other bags, no exceptions. And you know what, we pulled it off, despite temptation and the between season weather that was positively screaming for an array of clothing options. And it was, at least for me, freeing, exhilarating even! Showers, minimal sweating, clothing layers, no restaurants demanding much in the way of dressiness from us or the kids (not even the jeans my kids sadly seem to regard as "dress pants"), and we were all set. Turns out I can enjoy a trip even when I haven't brought my own sound machine, cappuccino-maker, monogrammed towels, flat-screen television, badminton set and canoe paddle! Interestingly, I noticed that most of those things were even available in St. Louis, where we visited, had I really decided I needed them.

 

Am I cured? Sadly, the answer is probably no. I'll be fighting the urge to over pack the next trip, and the next twenty after that. I am, however, hiking down the road to recovery, a backpack jauntily slung across my back and my arms swinging free!   

 

 

"Look Mom! No luggage!" Owen, with Hayden, Cooper and Deanna in the background, hits the road luggage-free.