Worcester Mass. USA July 10, 2014

Worcester Mass

Life does not get much better

we met the Barnard family in Barcelona.  They usually reside in Worcester, Mass, USA.  Daron, Katherine, Lucy, and Malcolm.  Professor Daron was on a semester sabbatical, Doctor Katherine took a leave from practice, and the kids came along for the ride and attended Ben Franklin school with Corrinne.  the Barnards were in Barcelona for the fall semester, and had to leave just before Christmas.  we were all sad to see them go.  Corri and Lucy became good friends and, unbeknownst to parents, decided that corrinne would stop in to see Lucy on july 10, on her way back to California.  they assumed that corrinne could just travel on her own.  the two on them even wrote the date in their calendars.  without knowing that, CB and Katherine did schedule a visit on our way home.  we arrived on july 11.  we missed their prediction by one day.
We had a wonderful time in Worcester picking and eating blueberries from a local farm.  we went canoeing and swimming in one of the many lakes in their neighborhood.  They have 8 chickens which corri could not stay away from.  Daron and Katherine made several pies which did not last.  Katherine was up early to make jam out of the blueberries that we picked.  we were sent home with two jars but only one made it home.  there was a note in our bag that the other jar broke during an inspection.  i think a TSA inspector needed a present for his wife.  we spent the last day in Boston checking out the sites.  the kids were most interested in hearing about the boston tea party.  dressing up as Indians is always a crowd pleaser. they liked all the Ben Franklin references around town because they met at Ben Franklin International.  they decided that if Ben had not existed they would have never met ( a butterfly flapped it's wings in China), late afternoon was spent in a boston pub watching Messi and Argentina lose to Germany.  we were rooting for Argentina but the Germans played the best.

A huge, huge, thank-you to the Barnards for being such great hosts.   three days is a long time to share your home and we really appreciate it.

corri, lucy, and malcolm in the blueberry field

Daron and kevin hard at work

over 50 pound of blueberries.  bring on the pies

Daniel Boone and the three little Indians

interesting little tidbit

Yaa, we own this pub

Messi lost, but its all good

Corrinne's last night in Boston

London, England, july 8, 2014

London, England

And I thought the US dollar to Euro exchange rate was irritating at $1 : .73 euro.  The english pound is $1 : .55 pound.   frugal folk like myself should not touch down in England, but i guess if the plane takes you there you might as well enjoy it.  besides, we were meeting the San Diego Hobans, my brother Ed and family, in London.  how fun is that?
Ed's daughter Kami is part of a soccer team that was traveling to Sweden for a very large international tournament.  They stopped in London to get warmed up for the tournament by playing a few friendly matches against local London teams.  Kami's whole family made the tournament a summer vacation.  They visited Paris and Ireland before meeting up with Kami's team in London.  we joined their party at the changing of the guards in front of Buckingham palace.  Their team was nice enough to include us in their full day of activities, which concluded with one of their friendly matches and then their bus driver going out of his way to drop CB, Corri, and myself at a suburban tube station that took us back into London.  It was a very fun day, and it was great to to spend time with them in a foreign atmosphere.  This trip was a huge success for the SD Hobans and the whole soccer team.

Buckingham palace

the guards, they are a-changing, in with the new

out with the old

Kami Hoban, front center, with some of her team mates and a friendly Bobbi

Corrinne made friends with him also

with ED & Dillon at Buckingham palace

with Kami & Bradon

CB, Kim &Kims's Mom Dee

Kim & Dee, having a terrible time

the london eye

 Eye from above

big ben

on their way to visit harry p.

these two love posing for me

my new hair-piece was not working well

Kami & team playing their hearts out

with Bradon and Dillon opon the grassy knoll cheering on our favorite  US team. 

sometimes she doesn't

sometimes Corrinne likes hanging with me

retroactive, sardinia italy june 30, 2014

 Sardinia, Italy

Cindy Brooks living the life

OK, the three of us that pay attention to this blog know that CB, CM, and I,  landed in in LA more then a few days ago, and are currently struggling to re-enter life in southern california.  There were many reasons for returning, but right know i can not seem to remember any of them.  we are slowly moving back into the house on gundry and getting re-acquainted with neighborhood friends.
in the hubbub of returning i was unable to write about our last few weeks away. so here i go retroactive:

Sardinia, Italy June 30, 2014
we have made it to Sardinia, with ten bags weighing in at 258 pounds.  It was a slow process from taxi to bus to plane to car to hotel, but we made it in one piece. And we only have to do this four more times before we reach los angeles. joy, joy, joy.

Sardinia is a small mediterranean island with thousands of secluded,  clear blue, shallow water coves with tranquil little beaches.   The catch is that you have to get to the secluded cove in order to enjoy the secluded cove. Sometimes that takes some work and work is something that I have grown accustomed to doing without.  
Cindy has learned that if you work corrinne and I too hard at the beginning of a trip we tend to get cranky and make her life miserable.  So this time she tried a different technique.  this excursion started with getting to sardinia and parking ourselves in the same hotel for a few days of recuperation, and acclimation to a new environment.  So we spent two days in a seafront hotel swimming and watching the sun go up and down.  Not a bad lifestyle.  At breakfast the first morning corrinne came back to the table with her second piece of Italian breakfast cake.   Being a responsible parent I gave her the universal parental disapproval stare.  She looked at me and said,”what , it comes with the hotel.”  Cindy said it was ok, "but only because we're on vacation."  Go figure, we're on a vacation.

After taking a few days to get into vacation mode,    we took off to visit other parts of the island.  It's not long.  We could probably drive it in about four hours.  We  stopped and climbed up and down 600 steps to visit a cave that local fishermen had discovered.   hundreds  of years ago pirates used the caves around the island to hide both booties.

We traveled to the city of stinton to catch a boat to a small island called asinara.  We wanted to see the elusive white donkeys that inhabit asinara, the island is a national park so the white donkeys are protected.   unfortunately the weather was not to the captains liking so the he canceled the boat-ride over to asinara.  not sure what the real reason was for canceling because the see didn't look that rough to me (and i'm the king of the sea-sick club).  I think he was tired and just wanted to spend the day painting his boat, either that, or Italians are a bunch of fraidy-cats.  unfortunately the white donkeys went unseen.

on our drive from stinton we drove past a wheat farm that had several wind turbines whirling away, providing electricity to the island.  not only did this farm have wind turbines, it also had an open gate. how often do you get to get up close to one of these bad boys. it was very cool, and made a neat whirling noise

the base was this large

we moved on to another port-city, Palau.  Here, Cindy had scheduled a three hour kayak trip for beginners. well, this trip was fantastic, but defiantly not for beginners.  we paddled over 12 miles along the coast. we set out on our 3 hour tour, and returned 6 hours later.  on this trip I learned what Corrinne was made of.  we finally stopped for lunch, in a lovely little cove, and my arms were pretty tired.  at the time, i was a little irritated with the italian interpretation of "beginner."  after a few dips in the water and lunch i was feeling a little better.  when we set of again the paddling did not seem as hard and i realized that my kayak partner Corrinne had taken over.  she was working.  her little arms were paddling away.  she did most of the work getting us back. I just kept us going in the right direction.  the return trip was fab for me.  we are all now confirmed kayak lovers and look forward to the next opportunity.

we are sorry to leave this type of water, but off we go to london.

this was my favorite italian tile.  looks like a door.  walk on it from the other direction, looks like a wine glass.

vino