June 2nd 2007..Postcards from Turin, Paris and Madeira

So I guess we are pretty settled here in London. We are really getting a lot out of being together in a wonderful country and enjoying the travel..here are some of the highlights since Easter vacation.

Turin, Italy

In early May we visited our friends the Fuchs-Pivas.. Elise Fuchs is my age and grew up on Tanglewood Lane in Westport. We met in the summer of 1998 when we were both 8 months pregnant and had 3.5 year old daughters

...Zaza and Lauren and Esme and Rachel are the exact age (all September birthdays in the same year).

We have spent wonderful summers together ever since, and the girls would always ask when we could visit them in Italy, to which I always previously replied - Never..anyway, never say never..so far the best weekend trip bar none...beautiful, old city, the site of the 2004 Olympic games...amazing food, perfect coffee on every block, lots of site seeing (we saw the Shroud of Tourin, a fun Movie museum) and met some of the Piva's Italian friends..wonderful, warm hospitality..a memorable visit I hope to repeat before we move back to the US..thank you again Elise.

Paris - Trip Number 2
After complaing to a friend of Bob's who lived in Paris that our winter trip to Paris was a bit of a bust, he invited us to take another shot at the city of lights...much better this time. We stayed on the left bank, ate wonderful food, shopped 'till we dropped and really felt we saw Paris this time...thank you Carl for a great weekend of shopping and modern art!!

Lauren had her exams last week..Bob and I are very proud of the level of effort she put into studying..she finds out next week the results. If the girls don't get a passing grade they need to retake them. These exams not only determine their grade but their class ranking...Lolo is hoping she did well.
Rachel is working on her times tables - not a lot of fun but we are muddling through.

Madeira
After the exams we headed to the Island of Madeira to the Reids Palace hotel for a week of sun and swimming. Madeira is an island off of Morocco - it is a Portuguese island, so we had hoped Megan's language skills would come to good use..but no, she clammed up and claimed she didn't understand. Portuguese there is not the same as Brazilian..sounded more german if that makes sense than the brazilian she is used to hearing...the hotel was warm and inviting and the girls and I had a nice vacation in the sun. Megan is really ready to swim and rachel looks great in the pool after 5 months of swimming lessons at school. We worked on learning to dive...too funny. It is only a 3 hour flight from London and very popular spot with Brits.

We met some nice families from London, and hope to meet up again in Hyde park.

Megan had a urinary tract infection the week before vacation and was on amoxicillian, and I think her exposure to the sun caused her to have a rash all over her body..so red and prickly. It didn't bother her at all and it has since cleared up.

One great thing about living in London - the doctors make house calls. When Megan started with the UTI I called our GP (general practitioner - we all use the same one) and she was out. She forwarded us to the night service and a cute young doctor from County Cork Ireland showed up within and hour..he tested Megan's urine and within 2 hours had her perscription delivered to the door...pretty cool, by 11:30 on a Monday we had seen the doctor and had her on antibiotics, and had not left the house...in the old days, I still wouldn't have had a call back from Dr Hapke's office!!

Love it!!

Mini cooper is doing well..lots of fun to drive and I can even drive and use the hands free phone - relax mom, I don't usually.

Mimi and papa are coming in a week and we are so looking forward to having them stay. We are planning to see the place where Grand Papa's brother Paul was buried in England during WW2, during a Normandy practice drill.

Hope this blog helped to catch us up...thanks Emily for encouraging me to keep it up..I will love to look back on it and remember.

Please send me some photos...I would love to see CJ's and Kate's senior picture, Jack's latest picture, and any other fun ones you might want to share...emails and notes from home mean a lot!!

Remember..weekends are the best time to call..if you want me to call you, email me and I will!!

Love you all!
Amy