Merry Christmas!

We wish everyone happy holidays!

The photo here is from the Galleries Lafayette in Paris; all decked out.

We celebrated today with some foie gras and a bottle of Hungarian Tokaji. Probably not the classic wine pairing, but pretty darned good!

Best wishes from Steph and Craig

Missing Pictures: Elche, Spain, October 22

We stopped in Elche on our way from Barcelona to Grenada because it was the only town on the way that the Green Guide labeled as remotely "interesting". We arrived in the late afternoon, just as the entire town was picking the kids up from school, causing massive traffic jams around our destination, the Huerto del Cura gardens.

The gardens are small but beautiful, and are locally famous for the Imperial Palm, a perfectly symmetrical date palm with 8 tops, which you can see in the first photo. You can also see that the effect is ruined a bit by the elaborate contraption of cables and metal braces that have been installed for preservation. Less obvious in the photo, but also distracting to us, were the thirty-odd teenagers who decided to use this space as their after-school hangout (they get in for free - while we have to pay €5!), and the security cameras.

After the gardens, we seared fora place to park for the night. This was complicated by some event in the town which was blocking streets and causing detours. Finally parking in the lot of the local community college, we decided to see what all the hubub was about. It turned out to be a street fair... and, as we observed more closely... a medieval street fair with old-fashioned food (luckily they let us use forks!), crafts and entertainment.

As the night drew on, we were attracted by music in a square. Intrigued, we joined a growing crowd and found a troupe of performers including belly dancers, storytellers, jugglers and, hidden in the dark to the side, a giant puppet with a jester hat. I turned to Craig and Steve and said "I hope they bring that thing out!"

In a few moments, they did, with great fanfare, and lots of handheld pyrotechnics, slowly parading the puppet through the streets towards the old town. We followed with the crowd, pausing with the spectacle to hear stories in Spanish (something about a farmer's daughter?) and watch the unicyclist juggle. The party ended at midnight with song, dance and a shower of small fireworks that you can see in the second photo.

Exhilarated, we worked our way back to the community college parking lot (where several other campers had followed our lead and parked nearby), and fell asleep.

-SK

We have internet!

We finally have our new computer (still waiting for the insurance check, of course), and have internet set up in our apartment. Very exciting! This means that you are more likely to hear from us via email, and, potentially even phone. We set up an account with a VOIP service called Skype, which lets us call from the computer and is much, much cheaper than any other option.

It will keep us occupied while we wait for the snow. We now have enough that about 75% of the mountain is open, but we still have to watch for rocks. It is beautiful and sunny and COLD (at least for us maritime climate wimps). Quite different than the weather that (most of) you are getting in the Pacific Northwest. We hope nobody has too much damage.

-SK

aux Brevieres

Still waiting...

We are still waiting for snow... Tignes is open, but it is pretty limited skiing on and around the glacier. They ski there during the summer, so the fact that they have snow there is not big deal. There is limited coverage to the high base area, which makes for a really unpleasant home run. (Imagine a narrow run, covered in rocks and people... Kinda reminds us of Crystal Mountain two years ago.)

Anyway, we bit the bullet and bought our ski passes. So we are definitely sticking it out!

We're also waiting for our new computer to arrive (hopefully next week!!). Then we'll catch up with photos (except the ones from Spain and Portugal, which were stolen), etc. We'll also have our very own internet soon!

However, we are no longer waiting for birth announcements from some of our friends... Congratulations to Beth and Scott on the birth of Davis, and congratulations Megan and Kevin on the arrival of Molly!

-SK

On our way "home"

Hi All-

We are making our way back "home" to Les Brevieres this week after spending a delightful time with our friends Tara and Steve in and around Paris. It is turining out to be a very mild fall here, which makes visiting Paris great, but the ski season is off to a horrible start.

There are only 12 cm of snow at the base of Tignes, the World Cup events have been cancelled, and looking at the weather reports, it seems like we should have stayed home! We're jealous of all you Seattlites who are already skiing this winter. (But sorry about the traffic and road conditions.)

Many of you have asked for our address in France, so here it is:
Balcons des Brevieres II
Apt. 19
73320 TIGNES
FRANCE

Also, we are in the process of replacing our computer and ipod, etc. that were stolen in Bilbao. You can imagine the headache trying to send the insurance company the invoices when we are on the road. Apple has been very helpful in sending us duplicate invoices electronically, so hopefully we will be over this ordeal soon.

And when we have our new computer, we'll be back to putting up pictures and all that good stuff. Meanwhile, it's little messages like these from random internet cafes.

Steph and Craig
a Grenoble, France