Saturday, February 17, 2024

My First Premier League Game! Tottenham Hotspurs against Wolverhampton

I'll be honest. I had never heard of Wolverhampton (or "the Wolves") before today. I have never watched more than about 15 minutes of a Premier League game. But I enjoy it and would watch it if it was on. And I super loved watching the first season of Welcome to Rexham. 

Koby had been really into the Spurs lately, so I asked Matt to ask around at work and see how we can get tickets. They're sold out - like for years. I kept looking on stubhub, and tickets (when available, which isn't often) were like £400 each. Yeah. No. But...one of the guys who went skiing with Matt knew someone in the office who has season tickets in Tottenham and sometimes he sells them (at cost). Matt was able to snag two pairs for two different games. I can't make it to the next one, so it was today or never. I was a bit nervous, but I heard they have been limiting hooligan shenanigans, and I also heard daytime games are less scary, so off we went.

Koby and I left the house TWO HOURS before the match. We took the tube to Seven Sisters, in Tottenham, and we followed the crowd out of the station and into the 35 (!!!) minute walk to the new -  GORGEOUS - stadium. There is an overground train that goes there, and there were buses, but they were all full. No choice. 

It was like walking to a Michigan football game. You just follow the crowd. But here they were ALL (ok 98%) in dark coats. Nearly all male. And mostly between 20 and 80 - very few kids - but all ages of men. It wasn't rowdy. Just lots of people walking. A few of the bars on the way had signs in the window that said "home team fans only." Which was kinda funny.

We got to the stadium and there were literally thousands of people (men in dark coats) POUNDING beers. I just thought it was all fun and social until I read that you can't bring alcohol into the seated part of the stadium. They each had between 2-4 beers (and sometimes more) and just drank them. One by one. Koby got fish and chips. I used the toilet and got water. I felt a little unfun.

We found our seats, and the stadium was truly beautiful. Comfortable. Clean. Easy to navigate. No line for the ladies toilets, obviously. EVERY. SINGLE. SEAT was taken (mostly by a man in a dark coat). And there were no bad seats. We didn't have great seats, and we could see super well. When they started introducing the players and the game started, everyone sang along to everything. There were cheers. There were songs. Everyone knew the words. It was so interesting. The only thing I could understand was "oh when the saints" - otherwise, I have no idea what they were saying. 

Koby and I guessed how many people were in the stadium. I compared it to Michigan Stadium, which seats 111,000, and I guessed 60,000. It was 61,000 - I was impressed with myself. Koby guessed 57,000 after my anchor guess.

There were three goals in this game, and only 1 of them belonged to Tottenham, so the crowd was a bit disappointed. In fact, they BOOED THEIR OWN PLAYERS!!! They yelled at people who were hurt to "JUST GET UP!!!" and when they did get up, instead of clapping, as they do for injured players in the US, everyone BOOOOOED!!! They were angry - all of them - all of the men in the dark coats - with nearly every call that the refs made. Hands thrown up in unison. 

The people around us in the seats did not talk to us at all (would have been nice to have a translator, but no one seemed interested). It was mostly men there alone - they didn't really talk to anyone, but they sang all of the cheers and complained about the calls out loud. But on the train on the way there and on the overground on the way home, nice men talked to us about going to the game, and their first Premier League game. It was nice - what a culture of football here. It's such a thing, and today we got to experience it for ourselves. SUPER fun.

Outside the stadium

All of the men drinking their beers before the game started

We were in the south stand

I can't get my videos to load here. will try another time.

Skiing in France: Les Arcs

Wow are we lucky. Last year in April we met friends' friends whom we loved, and they said they have skied all over Europe and loved Les Arcs. We knew nothing about skiing in Europe, but their judgement seemed worthy of trust, so last May, I booked a package in Les Arcs 1950 (as recommended), including ski equipment, pass and ski school for the boys. EVERYWHERE on the website it said refundable, fully cancelable, etc., so I figured I might as well just book, and we could do more research and cancel if we needed. I super wanted to ski there - especially after I looked into it a bit, but I was just keeping our options open.

Come August, and Matt said he had bad news and he didn't want to ski in Europe. He wanted to go to the Middle East or really anywhere else. I super reluctantly tried to cancel, but when I tried to cancel online, it wouldn't let me. I called, and they said that YES, there was a refundable fare, but that wasn't what I booked. We had the non-cancellable fare. I booked too quickly and didn't pay attention. I felt pretty bad, since Matt didn't want to go, but I (not so secretly) really wanted to go, and I was kinda happy we were stuck with it. Luckily, Matt went skiing with colleagues in Switzerland a few weeks earlier, and he loved it and got excited about this trip in the end.

Last Saturday we flew to Lyon, France (from Luton - first time out of that airport), we got picked up and driven into the mountains. It was raining. It was dark. We could see nothing. 2.5 hours later, we saw lots of snow and we entered a car park. The village we were staying in had a car park underneath and a road next to it, but only skiing and walking in the village itself. At midnight we arrived to our room. Felt like northern Michigan. In the early 90s.

Up at 7, because we had to find our ski pass, find our ski rental and get to ski school by 8:50. Even though we had barely any information with our reservation, we found it all, scrounged whatever snacks we brought on the plane for breakfast, and Koby and Elie went off with their ski school (and somehow we got them placed in the correct levels). Sam wanted to try skiing (go Sam - they had a bad experience in New Hampshire two years ago and had vowed never to ski again), so Sam, Matt and I went to explore. Within a minute, Sam was done and wanted to go back. Matt and I had an amazing time finding our way around the mountain. We could ski back to get the boys, eat lunch at our place and go back out. There were a few trips to the indoor and outdoor pool. There was a LOT of Splendor and Lost Cities (our current two fav board games), there was a lot of ipad, and holy cow there was a lot of skiing. We skied all day for five days and Elie and I had a half day the last day (and Matt had a bit too). 

The mountain was so fun to navigate. We literally skied for that many days and there were still many parts of the mountain we didn't get to. It was especially fun when we didn't have a time commitment (like ski school pick up), and we could just go anywhere and end up anywhere and find our way back. Especially when Matt and I were together, so if we got stuck on a harder trail, it was ok. They don't really have green trails, they have blue, which are mostly slow and lovely, though they have some challenging parts. They have red, and they have black. We did no blacks. I loved the blues and reds. Elie did some reds the last few days (well!). Koby was a blue guy. Matt was great on blues and reds. Sam hated it all but tried the first two mornings. 

A few days we stopped at a restaurant or cafe on the mountain for lunch or hot chocolate. A small fortune, but such a fun experience. One was even an igloo. The walls were literally made of snow and ice with amazing carvings. The restaurants in the village were eh. We ate out twice - once for pizza and once we had fondue and the kids had burgers, nuggets etc. Otherwise, we visited the Carrefour and got food to prepare at home. 

Sam mostly watched tv and texted with friends and read about ten books. They found a friend from cheder in the village and went to visit them at Club Med in our area one day (there was a free shuttle - they went alone!). 

The boys passed their levels and really improved. I absolutely loooooooved the skiing. It was a bit crowded, but we survived. Friday we got a beautiful ride back to Lyon and flew back to London (Gatwick - pain to get back from!). 

It was a WONDERFUL week. (Ok, many of the photos and videos really look the same, but it's so hard to cut).



Sam skiing!

boys fencing. we got our skis from a locker just to my left, under our hotel room. We skied under that bridge and through the village to get to a lift and off we went.

a top of a trail

on a lift

top of another trail. amazing views

was super cloudy that first day - we didn't even realize what we were missing

the igloo bar

igloo for real!

ice sculptures in the igloo bar

day 2 w sam

sam!

I took the boys in the afternoon on day 2


sam coming back from the bakery. def got some stares. yes - no pants (trousers).

lunch day 3 at a cafe on the mountain

dinner out - matt and i had fondue. was good to try. no need again.

we had lots of dates on the mountain while the boys were in ski school

what a view!


elie and i went alone one afternoon, and we went on some harder trails




ski instructors put on a show jumping one night. we stood on the bridge in our hotel to watch

Monday, January 29, 2024

The Cotswolds

We just got back from a three-day weekend in the Cotswolds, and it was so beautiful and wonderful. The most amazing part is that I DROVE THE WHOLE TIME. I had worked very hard to get my license, you may remember, and this is my first time hiring a car. Getting out of London was scary as shit. The roads in the Cotswolds are so windy and narrow, usually the size of one car. BUT WE MADE IT!! And I even completed a 6 mini-roundabout roundabout (right on the first, straight on the second, and right on the third to get out. Essentially it was a right hand turn on a three way intersection - I didn't cry!). And it started with some rental car bad luck, as I somehow accidentally reserved a manual car. While I do know how to drive a manual, I have never done it with the stick on the other side AND my license is only for an automatic. I had the NICEST dudes ever at the Enterprise in St John's Wood, and they somehow found another (small...five people...and luggage...oy) automatic for me for a small fee. I told them they could have charged me an extra £200 - my air bnb was already paid for, and we were totally screwed if we didn't have a car. I was SO SO grateful they found a car and figured it out for me. (You may recall that in Lisbon last year I rented the car for the wrong month. I need someone to review my rental car bookings).

Matt flew in on an overnight flight on Friday morning, arriving home around 9:30. I had gotten home with the car around 9. We packed up and drove out, finally leaving after a quick stop for some weekend carbs (challah, bagels, pita and sandwiches) at Roni's, around 11. Googlemaps took me through London a bit before we left, and that was tricky, but we made it out, through Oxford and arrived at a beautiful hike with gorgeous views. We finished just as the sun was setting and drove through dusk to our air bnb. We had looked at one that was on a farm and one that we understood was in a village. We chose the one on the farm, but when we went to book, it was taken, so we grabbed the village one. When we got there, we realized there were about five houses in the village, and the backyard was essentially a farm. It was a GORGEOUS setting, a truly Cotswoldian (I made that up) house and decorated in such a fun way. We got settled, and went across the street for our dinner reservation at the Halfway pub at 6pm. It was a spectacular dinner, though Sam only ate toast and fries. The rest of us enjoyed!

Saturday morning we got moving and went to Broadway. We found all-day parking on the edge of town and did a GORGEOUS hike. With the extra walking to the parking, it was about 8 miles, and it started with a huge, steep uphill. Sam decided they were not coming at some point, and walked way back down (what a waste!), and the rest of us didn't know what to do (13 year olds are so fun sometimes). But they changed their mind, plugged in my air pods and got grooving for the rest of the hike. It was up up up, ultimately to the Broadway Tower. Then it was down through pastures, alongside sheep, horses, past a gorgeous old church, back up and down and all around, through a couple of small villages, and back to Broadway. I did slip TWICE in the mud (no one else did, and of course the first time I fell was when I was asking Koby to stop running, because I didn't want to deal with his muddy laundry!). We super enjoyed, and finally sat down for lunch around 2:30pm. Lunch was wonderful - it's so fun that Elie is trying and enjoying more complex foods - our kids suck at eating. He had a goat cheese, roasted pepper and rocket sandwich and greek salad. Sam had a pizza, Matt and I split two great sandwiches and Koby had a burger. We drove through two other super cute towns - Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water, grabbed some milk and headed back to our house. We had dinner at a pub five minutes drive from our house. I didn't love driving in the dark, though I did love that it was five minutes. There were a few huge parties there, and it was so so loud, and after a long day, we were all a bit over stimulated. Elie and I waited outside. Sam found the pub dog to pet and Koby was busy on the Worldle with Matt's phone. While everyone had said, "I am not eating," we finished everything in the end, and the loud party moved further back in the pub, which helped with the yelling in our ears. 

We had loved Bourton-on-the-Water so much that we found a hike that went near and through there for Sunday. We packed up and somehow got everything into our tiny car, and drove to Bourton-on-the-Water. We found some all-day parking at the Farmer's Market (literally IN the car park that the market was in...) and we were off on another amazing hike. This one was my favorite. It took us through the town in all sorts of beautiful ways and then into a big field. We ran into a man walking a border collie, and he suggested we follow him for a detour to go on an old train track above the river and then see an old mill. He was lovely, and he didn't kill us, so we were happy. The trail was cool, and we could see a huge Victoria-built tunnel made for the river below. We wove through some village roads, past the mill, through farms, with sheep grazing, up and down, and through the most beautiful villages, along rivers and to another mill. It was such a diverse path, and just truly gorgeous. We got lunch and hot chocolate at a cafe in town, walked around a bit and headed back to London. 

All in all, it was a BEAUTIFUL and super fun trip. The kids were troopers in the back of a little car (after being used to a minivan!) and hiking a total of 26 miles over the weekend. We would go back to the airbnb in a second, and we are looking for weekends to make it happen. The area is truly so so so beautiful - the architecture of nearly every building is so unique, British and gorgeous. 

In other news, since my last post, the kids all went back to school, and I started working a bit. I went back to an organization I worked for for seven years, until end of 2020 when I nearly lost my mind with kids learning at home, all on different schedules, ages 5-10, and trying to work at the dining table, because I no longer had an office at home. I also am working on another online course for Harvard office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning. AND this event that I'm organizing logistics for at the school is soon - 1,600 people at the Global Festival - so I've been way busier. And I have been trying to not play tennis or pickleball, doing lots of strengthening exercises and seeing an Osteo for needles and other treatments to try to get my tennis elbow to heal. It's definitely better.

We had good friends, Pam and Marc from Singapore (now New York) over for Shabbat dinner. Matt went on a ski weekend in Switzerland with colleagues (he loved it!). Sam's play rehearsals have picked up (show is March 8th). We had friends over. Matt went to Senegal, Ivory Coast and Nigeria and all else is routine!

Koby's shrine to football in his room

Me waking up at 12:30 for the Michigan National Championship game. GO BLUE!!!!

The new decoration on our post box on England's Lane

One of my two birthday presents for myself. The kids always get lego sets for their birthdays. I find them so satisfying to do. So I got myself one, AND I built it. By. My. Self. The other birthday present for me was the earrings in my ears in this pic. I love them.

Elie and Koby had no school two Fridays ago, so we went to the HMS Belfast, a war ship docked in London/Museum. Super fun.



Lots of guns


We went to see Frozen the musical. It was surprisingly great! That's Elie's friend with us.

First hike - Seven Springs etc.

Sam being 13 with their phone. Grrrrr


They were almost like hairy coos. They were so cute. This is about as smiley as Elie gets

Cute, no?

Koby in the backyard of our air bnb when we arrived. GORGEOUS

Walking down the street in Broadway on the big uphill hike that Sam hated.

And more uphill

Uphill with the sheep

Broadway Tower at the top

Gorgeous church at the bottom of a hill

And up again...

and over the fence...

AMAZING views. Is it even real?

The pub our second night had a basket of reading glasses next to the fire, with the dog sleeping right on the floor.

Bourton-on-the-Water hike

GORGEOUS

the architecture...!!!

An old mill - the second one we saw

Nearly dead.