several posts in one - by k

just because i haven't posted in a while doesn't mean i'm not always thinking about things to post. sitting on the plane from london to san francisco in december, i wrote a post in my head about chasing the sunset. in my mind, it was a very poetic vision of trying to catch up to the day. we left london in the afternoon when the sun was already going away in that northern winter way. as we went north, we did lose the sun completely and night joined us, but as we headed back down south, there was constantly a fading sky in the distance, until we arrived in san francisco right at sunset, never quite reaching another day. we had to wait until the next morning.

barak already wrote a little bit about our trip, so i'll leave it at that. i'll just add the beginning of the list of the things i'm looking forward to having back in my life in san francisco, and the things i will miss when we leave barcelona behind.

i'm looking forward to: food in general (the diversity, take out, breakfast, trader joe's), being physically closer to family and friends, having a home that really feels like home, the openness of people in san francisco, the kookiness of people in san francisco.

i'm sad to leave: a life without a car. (it's a pain sometimes, but overall it is a lot less stressful.) all the people out and about always. (i love being able to join the throngs of people when i'm in the mood.) eating outside. taking quick trips to wonderful european cities. walking on tibidabo. the friends we have made here. working as a substitute teacher every now and again.

it's 2010 and it is a strange feeling having entered the transition zone again. we're still here, but there is an end in sight. i'm working every day on staying present in this life here, even as we start to deal with some of the details of going back. we've got lots of travel still planned, and i want to keep exploring barcelona, spending time with friends, and enjoying what is unique to this place.

blogodometer - by b

my dad used to get excited when the odometer in the car would tick over a certain, um, milestone. i never could get into that. but did get excited when the blog archive ticked over to 2010... we've been writing here for a while now. it's a fun thing to do.... i like writing here and i really like reading what kristin writes. i wish the kids would write more than they do.. but oh well..

Slownoma - by b

We rented a nice place up in Sonoma to try have our northern california time be less hectic than it was when we were here last (remember san franstresco?). it had a great big kitchen and a hottub... we hung out a bunch at the house... various people came to visit including my parents and kristin's mom... ariege and john (we also hung out at their place a few minutes away a bunch too).. marc/charlotte, karen/nick, lydia.. and of course kids.

it looked out over a lovely vineyard.

here's DD running to the hottub

i've been in a superfrenzied place for months.. with not much reading.. it was good to read in slownoma

sven very kindly loaned us his car to get up there

 local artist famouse in sebastopol

hugo

DD and frozen yogurt.

walking into town one day with john, stella, hugo, arel and dorian

in the house.. a kinda weird, kinda cool hide-the-tv-behind-the-photos-but-one-of-the-photos-is-actually-a-computer-with-a-screen-saver-with-photos-that-look-just-like-the-printed-photos setup and Arel

senta on new years. we crashed really early--me like at 8 pm. i think this pissed nick off who wanted to partay!

a walk 

with my parents

morning

m and a

a good point

outside ariege and johns

funty getting eggs in the AM

chicken

more pics if you want on flickr

Milau Viaduct - by b

Can't sleep in SF... so some blog catchup. Two days before coming to SF, I drove with my friend Jeff to Paris. He and Heidi and their kids have moved there from Barcelona and Jeff needed to get the car over. It was fun and a really beautiful drive---but very cold. We stopped to sleep a little earlier than we might have otherwise because we wanted to see Norman Foster's Milau Viaduct (world's tallest bridge for vehicles) in daylight... so we slept at a roadside motel just before it.

Here's a picture of the bridge in the motel office

Here it is from the car

Here it is from the perspective of some better photographers with better cameras

Here it is from the perspective of some better photographers with better cameras

Here it is from the perspective of some better photographers with better cameras

The pictures above are from a Flickr group for photos on the viaduct. You can check it out.

BTW.. here's Jeff doing the final scraping on the windshield before we left the motel parking lot for the bridge. He's quite a bit taller than me.. I couldn't reach the middle of the windshield

And a glass of champagne with Heidi in a very cute wine shop in their 'hood, the 17th

this was followed by a very tasty meal at an old school bistro called Chez Fred down the street from their place.

getting home was a bit of a challenge. I went to Airport number one at about 9 or 10 am (Charles de Gualle) but my flight (and the following one) were canceled due to snow ... so i cabbed over to Airport number two Orly and caught a 6:30 pm to BCN. next morning at 7 am we left our apartment for the airport to fly here to SF