The Weekender - Off on vacation

PARIS LA FETE from Gabriela Mudado on Vimeo.

Just read that it's very important for our brain to disconnect of everything and have some leisure time. Nothing new here, but always a good reminder. So I'll disconnect now for the next couple of weeks.

Have a good one!

Finally Monday!

I was suppose to publish this post yesterday, but I got caught with other things... So here it goes:

After a four-days weekend, today it definitely feels like Monday. I love taking a break from our routine but I love even more when we get it back. Have a great week!

P.S: This post is so insignificant that I should have had time to post it yesterday. This is just a "hello" sign.  I'll think of something more interesting to post later on.

The Disney World experience - Part II

The Goods:

• The kids faces and reactions;
• Under our children perspective, it was actually kind of fun;
• I've never been to a real safari, but the one in Animal Kingdom was very nice. And, according to the family who was right behind us in the van and who had gone on a real safari last year, it was very well done;
• The fireworks - I'm always mesmerized by them;

The Bads:

• Too many people - lines for everything;
• The food was absolutely disgusting;
• I don't understand adults going by themselves (I mean without any kids with them). There's no "magic" whatsoever to justify this trip. You live the so famous "magic" that Disney tries to sell through the eyes of the youngsters. Besides they were just taking space and making the lines longer. Really, who wants to ride "Peter Pan's Flight", "Snow White's scary Adventures" or event worst "It's a small world" if you are older than 10 years-old? It just doesn't make sense to me...
• The average weight of the people there. Unbelievable!
• The service was also a disappointment. I was maybe expecting too much.

I guess I have more negative points than positive ones. All in all, we had a good time.

The Disney World experience

We survived!
I'll post more about it later, with more time.
Have a great week!

A story for Tomorrow - an inspiring video

We're going away for a few days. We're certainly not going on such an inspiring and fantastic journey as the one presented on the video above. We're heading to Orlando - Disney World more specifically. 

I think that for the kids it's going to be fun. However, wish me luck, for this is not really my ideal vacation (we were more and less "forced" to it, since we have a wedding in Orlando). 

Like a very wise friend of mine told me once and I'm going to steal her expression: I suffer from "people phobia".

Strolling overseas - Bon voyage!

Voyage from Marco Aslan on Vimeo.

I'll be out for the rest of the week. Enjoying good food, wine and some quietness. Here's a short film, shooted and edited by my so talented brother Marco. Enjoy!

Books of the week - Three white books

Three white books: one for F, one for P and one for me

Remember my neighbor? So, my husband and I are going away for a few days. A short trip, just the two of us. The kids are happily staying with their grandparents who are happier than the kids to take care of them; and we are the happiest of all. Thus it's the perfect arrangement.

The other day I saw this box of three white books (I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the brand) and I thought it would be a good idea if each one of us uses the books to tell, mostly through drawings, our little adventures during those days that we weren't together. We decorated the covers of the books this morning and I entitled them our "Carnets de voyage". I don't think that we will fill them all during the next three days and I hope that we will have more occasions to use them.

I haven't left yet, but I'm already dying to read my kids' books (and crossing my fingers hoping that they'll play the game).

Tourism in Uruguay - Garzon

Although sometimes forgotten because of its size and the fact that is compressed in between two giants, Uruguay is a charming country with lots of good attributes. In the fifties, it was one of the richest countries in Latin America and was referred to as the "Switzerland" of the region. And even during its formation as a country, it had to fight hard for its existence for both Argentina and Brazil wanted that tiny piece of land. What was so important about it? The port of Montevideo - one of the best exits of the region to the sea. 

What is so important about it nowadays? Punta del Este, which is extending further east and now also includes Jose Ignacio, as one of the main attractions. Those are among the trendiest beaches of the Southern Cone, sometimes compared to what St. Tropez used to be a few years ago. The irony is that hundreds of years later Argentines and Brazilians are still trying to conquer the place. Tourists from those countries come by the thousands each year and what I think a little bit outrageous, is that they tend to think they own the place (especially Argentines). They want to pay with their currencies (ask in Brazil  or Argentina if they accept Uruguayan Pesos) and they don't even make the effort to speak the language. Argentines don't need to, agreed. But Brazilians tend to think that if they speak Portuguese slowly they are actually speaking Spanish. Anyway, since money makes the world turn around and Uruguay's income depends mostly on services and tourism, nobody really complains about that.  

I always say that there's no bluer sky than the Uruguayan one and as soon as we get off the plane, the air feels different. It's pure, fresh - it's the air of my childhood. We usually, as almost everybody else, only go to the basic places, that is, Montevideo (the capital) and Punta del Este. However, what I like the most is the countryside. The lack of mountains and heights in general (Uruguay is as flat as a French crepe), makes the horizon seem infinite. It's one of the only places where you can really have the sensation that land and sky are actually touching.

This year, we discovered Pueblo Garzon. A tiny, tiny, tiny village (approximately 200 inhabitants) located about 45 minutes by car from Punta del Este. Back in the early 20th century, the village gained some importance with the construction of a mill and a train station. At its peak, Garzon had 2000 residents and the train would serve Montevideo-Garzon as much as four times a day. Nonetheless, History is the same everywhere. The town went in decay when the mill was shut down, the trains stopped running, a highway was constructed 11km away from the village and people moved to bigger nearby cities. Garzon became a real ghost town. 

In 2004, Argentinians restaurateur Francis Mallman and winemaker Manuel Mas bought together a property there and transformed it into a boutique hotel, with a nice restaurant: El Garzon. That's the reason why we actually visited Garzon. Lunch there was a great experience, but above all, it was a very nice surprise to discover such a charming place. The food is good and the setting is a pleasure. We ate in the garden, at a big communal table which is built around the trunk of a huge and beautiful palm tree. While we were having lunch, the kids could run around and play in the big garden and they were even allowed to swim in the swimming pool. The hotel has five bedrooms and is a great retreat for someone looking for isolation, quiet time or some kind of disconnection with reality.

Although not far away from a big tourist pole, Garzon is in the middle of nowhere, lost in time and carries the feeling of a ghost city. In a way, Mallman gave back to the place some of its past shine. Recently other persons also bought some houses there and restored them (mainly artists). But by talking with a young woman who's from Montevideo and has a design store next to the hotel, the impression is that nobody really resists to spend more than a few months in Garzon (the hotel only opens for 6 months or so). The village is clean, many houses are painted in different colors the way typical Uruguayan towns used to be and the main square (Plaza Independencia) is impressively well maintained. And, of course, since the hotel was opened and the artists moved there, the whole town is on sale. So if you want to buy a house in nice quiet place, this is your chance.

Last but not least, Garzon is in the middle of the countryside. The views are beautiful. The silence is priceless.

From top left: Garzon - hotel and restaurant; the palm tree under which we had lunch; the swimming pool; view from our table

One of the specialties - the lamb cooked for 7 hours and a half 

Ojo de bife with chimichurri over potatoes 

Some snapshots of Garzon: first row is Plaza Independencia; in the middle of the second row you can see what used to be the train station; and at the bottom right hand side corner is a picture of a real Gaucho.

Photo credits: Me and Cedric Leberre

We're back!

Happy 2012!!

We left a rainy and unusually cold end of 2011 to enter a sunny, dry, warm although windy 2012 in the trendy beaches of Punta del Este. However, with four kids in the house, all under 4, there was no time for trendiness (nor blogging) in our stay. The days went by smoothly, paced by the rhythm of the children. There were loads of laughters, some tears but mostly joyful moments that will stay engraved forever in the minds and hearts of the little ones. 

Our school uniforms were replaced by swimming suits and our winter boots by bear happy feet. Our meals included lots of ice cream and "asados" (Uruguayan style barbecue). Our homework consisted of playing with sand, running in the garden after birds and swimming several times a day.

We are now back to our real life, in which we will slowly adjust again. But we brought with us some sand in our shoes and our ears (I saw some in P's ears while we were on the plane) to remind us of the not so far away vacation - I can't believe we were still having breakfast in the terrace yesterday morning. 

Here are some snapshots (out of more than 800 pictures!) of what we've been doing for the last four weeks.

One of our many picnics

Sea lions at the port

Nothing better than doing crafts when it's raining outside

Brothers

Cousins

Superheroes in our garden

Fighting against spiderman and superman

Some gardening

Uruguayan countryside

A real "Gaucho"

I miss already the sound of the waves and the warm weather. But it does feel good to be back home.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Strolling overseas

In case you haven't noticed, I'm completed Internet addicted. I don't know how people could live without it and I definitely can't imagine my life without it. I really do almost everything on the Internet. If I could cut my children's fingernails through the web I certainly would. I need to be "connected" 24/7. The last thing I do before turning off my light is checking my blackberry and guess what is the first thing I do in the morning? Wrong. I first turn on my light :) This can't be good, right?

So here's the deal. I'm going away for four weeks. Yes, four full long weeks, with limited access to the cyber world and full access to my children (even more than I have right now). We'll be together aaaallll the time. No school, no playdates, no birthday parties, nothing. Which makes it even more difficult to have access to the outside world, but I'm really glad for that. However, since we will still be strolling around - yes, I'm taking a stroller with me(*) - I'll try to come here whenever possible to continue sharing our adventures. This time we will be strolling in Brazil and Uruguay, searching for a warmer, sunnier, buried-under-sand-and-sea-salt Christmas.

Cheers!

(*) Since I feel really inspired today, let's open a parenthesis on the stroller subject. I'm the happy owner of 3 strollers. You read it right. Not one, not two but three nice strollers. And here's what I've been noticing since I became a mother. Mothers are a whole different species. When they tell you that maternity will transform you, it is a fact. Believe me, not only your body changes, but you become a whole new person you didn't even know existed inside you.

Let me give you an example related to my bragging on having three strollers. Mothers are very competitive, but the competition takes place on a whole different level. They don't care how many houses, or cars or fancy shoes the other mothers have. They actually want to know how many words the other children are saying (can you believe it?! Some parents actually count and write down how many words their 2 years-old know!), with how many months they started to walk, they stopped using the pacifier, the bottle and so on. I've never counted how many words my children knew when they started talking. So whenever I had an appointment with the pediatrician, (here's my little dark secret - because I'm a mother, therefore I'm competitive as well), I would search on the Internet (my best friend) how many words they were suppose to know at that age. I did that a couple of times with F. and with P. I just told the pediatrician that he was talking a lot (in three languages, what about that?).

Since we are on the subject, here's another anecdote (mothers love to tell you about their special stories). The other day, I was talking with another mom from F.'s class and she promptly asked me how had F's report been. I blanked. I had actually completely forgotten to look at the report (just to remind you, he's only 4, so I still consider school like a fun place where children go to play, color, socialize and learn new things outside home). No need to tell you she looked at me and then at F. with a lot of pity in her eyes. She's probably thinking that with that kind of mother, F is doomed for the rest of his life. On the other hand, I was quite surprised about me. Given that I've always been the kind of nerdy student, I thought I would be like the other mom. I stressed so much with my own studies, that I think there's nothing left for my kids's. Maybe I'll change again when they'll be older...

Anyway, this has nothing to do with my original post. But those are my two cents on the subject before leaving on vacation. I wish you all a very happy Holiday!

I took the picture from here, and this guy has actually strolled a lot. Inspiring.