a family affair
30 may 2001

were we surprised that the weather in a'dam turned GORGEOUS the day we left to go to the states? i won't even bother to answer that one. but we were off to see the family and to celebrate the joyous occasion of my cousin michael's bar mitzvah so our mood was light and airy. always striving to get an adventure out of any trip these days, we thought it would be novel to fly on icelandair, as they were offering a very good fare and we would be flying through reykjavik. {i can finally spell that word without having to look at the map each time}. our pathway took us to jfk in new york, where we would spend a few days before coming back to europe. to break up the trip, we would also take two days in reykjavik on the way back. flying to the east coast is a lot shorter than schlepping all the the way to colorado. it was a smooth trip but take my advice and don't ever order the vegetarian selection on icelandair. why do they have to do patties? can't they just throw some veggies over pasta? not once, but i had to endure that revolting meal on both legs of the trip. i wasn't prepared with my usual supply of pringles either. the festivities were taking place in south jersey so we hopped the new highspeed line to philly {my home town} and were chauffered back to jersey by my relatives who picked us up in our delirious state. a second wind gave us energy to catch up with my aunt and cousins, who adore gary, by the way.

over the next few days, we spent hours sitting around the kitchen table, drinking coffee, eating bagels and lox, everyone talking at once, and having a grand time with the newest member of the clan. we met my cousin brian for the first time. it's amazing how a 14 month old child can be the source of so much entertainment for us big kids. what a contagious smile that little darling has. he was quite mobile and was going through the "i am fascinated with anything that has a motor" stage, particularly drawn to the vacuum cleaner and being able to imitate the noise it makes. other impressive skills included feeding himself with a spoon and infecting all those around him with happiness. he wore tails to the bar mitzvah dinner/dance. he looked smashing but wasn't too thrilled about sitting still for pictures.

no trip to the states could ever be complete without power shopping at target. i've never seen gary so anxious to go shopping there but that's what a year in europe will do to a person. we have two options here in a'dam: very high end, upscale, who can afford this stuff? or cheap, crappy quality. so target was looking mighty good and we had a successful spree, hoping we left enough room in the luggage for the new threads. later, i hit gap and victoria's secret. the comforts of going home are not to be taken lightly. in that list i include philly soft pretzels, lilacs, air conditioning, which feels nice in small doses, basketball playoffs, and hearing people speak english without an accent. gary was in seventh heaven sprawled out on the enormous leather sofa in the "zone", no one bothering him except to bring him food every few hours. the beauty of jewish hospitality.

the bar mitzvah services were inspired, with michael doing an awesome job of reading from the torah in hebrew. he didn't miss a beat, bearing the maturity of what this occasion symbolizes and conducting quite a bit of the service alongside the two rabbis. the female cantor and another woman joined in voice to sing some of the prayers, letting them ring out from the heart in the beautifully designed modern temple. in celebration, there was a brunch after the service on saturday, but alas i had to miss it? why? i had to get an "updo" for the evening affair. gary was a good sport, however, taking it all in stride and hanging out with the relatives on my behalf. it goes without saying that the party was glamorous and grand. having an excuse to get really decked out is always fun and we felt like a million bucks. everyone looked fantastic; we ate, danced, ate, lit candles, ate, sang, ate, toasted, ate, hava nagilaed, and ate some more. gary and i were honored to be called up to the cake to light a candle for michael. then the dessert table made its own entrance. this is true, and an important part of any successful jewish affair. the classic viennese table, displaying the most magnificent desserts imaginable; my favorite being the chocolate moose cake with banana cream something or other. the mammoth strawberries with fresh cream were a close second. we slept well that night.

not much activity took place the following day, everyone mostly feeling wiped out and in "sit around the house" mode. there is always enough energy to go to the fridge to snarf down a leftover cannoli in these cases. i, being the restless one, took a very peaceful walk and later attempted to shoot baskets with mike and jeff. i was really getting the hang of it after a while, inspired i suppose, by the philadelphia 76ers being in the playoffs. the next day we did get off our butts and headed "down the shore" to atlantic city, my childhood summer home. it was different then, before casino gambling arrived but it still has a certain draw for me, something about standing on the boardwalk and smelling the salt air. most of the beach has been washed away but i'm glad to know you can still get the original "james salt water taffy". tacky and glitzy in its present state, it still holds a fountain of memories for me. no big winners that day, i'm sorry to report, just laughs, even better. and more good food. later, there was more good food and smiles as we rendezvoused with the other side of my family. my family's not that big but it's always a scramble to spend intimate time with everyone. i think we managed it pretty well this trip and have encouraged them to come see us in europe. my dad already has and i'm hoping the rest will take advantage of our being here. some have actually threatened to visit. {you know who you are}.

i used to be intimidated by big cities, especially new york. `i think living in amsterdam has cured me of that because i felt perfectly at home in the "big apple", even remarking to gary that i could possibly live there. as usual, we brought cold weather with us and i was highly disappointed. our friends who used to live in boulder were kind enough to host us in their cool apartment in the village. shortly after arriving by train, we lunched at union square cafe with the lovely jordan, who now mangages the emanuel ungaro store in soho. then onto moma, {museum of modern art} for a late afternoon view of all the major artists you would want to see in the contemporary genre. a very exciting evening loomed ahead as we made our way to times square to, you guessed it, the theatre. not just any show. the hottest ticket on broadway right now is "the producers" and we were holding four tickets!!! how did we get them? not sure but we must have ordered right before the reviews came out because it's now sold out for the next 3 years. someone offered us $500 a piece as we approached the theatre! we only considered selling for a hot second. the show was indeed wonderful in every way. hard to go wrong with nathan lane and matthew broderick leading the pack, and susan stroman directing and choreographing. what a treat!

the next morning we were in for another treat. cornell took us to his local 24 hour diner for a REAL AMERICAN BREAKFAST WITH A CHOICE OF 37 DIFFERENT OMELETTES, NOT TO MENTION EGGS PREPARED ANY WAY YOU LIKE THEM. ok, this may sound like something weird to get excited about but they can't even get scrambled right over here. sunny side up for me with homefries {not greasy} and ketchup! yummy and decent service too. one show would not be enough in our short trip to nyc and we had tickets for the matinee of another susan stroman production called "contact". first, we had a plan to visit my cousin david at his "dream come true" apartment on central park west. we hadn't seen each other in years but were able to re connect at mike's bar mitzvah the previous weekend. he's a lyricist who has worked successfully in nyc for a long time, winning a tony a few years ago for the show "city of angels". another person in the family crazy enough to be in theatre! on quite a different level, i might add. we managed to steal him away for a quick lunch and then we headed to lincoln center for the show. "contact" has a unique structure; it's 3 short stories told mostly through dance. and what dancers they are! it's easy to see why stroman has become so popular and she's truly a dancer's choreographer. we were all abuzz with the cultural opportunities at hand and so we next went to see the fricke collection, a small museum, at one time privately owned. i didn't expect to see so many dutch painters but there they were; names very familiar to me now. we topped off the day with some excellent thai food and made it an early night. we talked about going to a jazz club but it just never happened.

our last day in nyc and we made the rounds in chelsea, where cornell owns a gallery. he pointed us towards his favorites and we traipsed around doing the artsy fartsy thing, which was new to us and really enjoyable. so many great things to do in that city. we cabbed it uptown so we could check out jordan in her element at emanuel ungaro. she looked right at home. we didnt' run into any celebs but the clothes certainly were enough to look at. we said our goodbyes and then hoofed it over to the whitney museum continuing on our art track. it's also a great spot, housing some groovy pieces; georgia o'keefe, edward hopper, alexander calder to name a few heavy hitters. we had to rush through because who knew how long it would actually take to get to the airport. i wasn't happy about the four hour flight delay since we could have had another hour at the whitney. we were at least comped dinner. how nice that we had to hang out til 1am but that put us in reykjavik at a reasonable hour, 10am. it's only a five hour flight from nyc, four hour time difference.

iceland is something very special. it's one of those places that's totally unique unto itself. we rented a car with a self guided tour, which we saved for the following day. gary forced me to stay awake despite the ensuing jet lag. i'm glad he did; i wouldn't have wanted to miss anything and we only had two short days. we re grouped and headed out on foot to the center of town. reykjavik is very small and doesn't seem like a capital city, more like a town with lots of hip shops and restaurants, and the usual variety of churches. and houses roofed in rainbow colors. each house was a different hue, making them stand out individually. the rain and cold air kept us walking alot to stay warm. the sun was intermittent, still it remained cold and i remained layered. people were friendly and spoke english quite well. now there's a language i wouldn't want to have to learn.

the entire island of iceland was formed by volcanos. driving along the coast, we had a sparkling view of the mountains, some topped with snow in a pattern that looked distinctly like a pyramid. the mountains were varied in texture, some jagged, some rounded, all majestic in their stature. i love being able to see water on one side and mountains on the other. the landscape is green with a covering of dark moss, which we learned from our tour that we could lie down in comfortably but we didn't try because it was rather wet out there. if you can imagine what the moon might look like, you can imagine iceland. it's so untouched it's hard to believe you're driving through it. i later found out that astronauts have gone there to experience this moon like quality before floating up to space. the whole country is powered by natural hot springs and frequently in the distance, we could see steam rising out of the earth. there is a famous "spa" called the blue lagoon but we never actually found our way there. we did buy a few of their products which are sold everywhere.

the tour was excellent. thank you hertz. guided by a cd and no thanks to my navigating, we made a circular journey, passing nearby some ski "resorts" and into snowmobile country. we drove through one sleepy town with greenhouses everywhere and stopped at a small spring in the center of a circular brick pathway; in my mind this could easily have been a site fora ritual or two. shortly after, we came to a volcanic crater, called kerio, a round pit filled with luminescent bluish green water. the sights of this country are sensational and as we drove further into this remote land, the scenery began to change. first, there was green grass, then an array of birch and pine trees which melted into a more barren landscape which then morphed into mossy hills, always with looming mountains in the distance. the magic was enhanced by the misty rain and at that point we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker, a nice fellow from france, living in reykjavik. he was on his way to see the geysers, as we were, but first a pitstop. hidden behind a gate, set back off the road, was a waterfall, spread out over the rocks horizontally and giving us some great photo opportunities even in the grayish afternoon light. the three of us travelled on to the site of two big geysers and a few smaller ones. this was my first geyser experience. the really big one had already gone off but the other one spouted several times for our viewing pleasure. the sound of the water pushing its way up and erupting was anticipated and exciting. we walked around the ones just bubbling in the ground, attracted by their warmth but way too hot to actually touch. standing so close, i came away with peach fuzz on my face, which gary said looked really freaky but i loved the feel of the cloud enveloping me.

our tour continued on to another grandiose waterfall, called gulfoss, meaning gold water. apparently, when the sun shines on it, you can see a golden rainbow. the sun did not shine on it for us but its power certainly revealed itself, surrounded by a very rugged landscape. the sun did make an appearance later as we drove into another section of changeable scenery. we got out and walked around and onto the rocks, huge rifts separating one slab from another. this was just one of many sights that took our breath away that afternoon. this is a country that remains unspoiled and i would love to hike there although i'm not sure how i would fare in that climate. it's hard to fathom how far north it actually is; when i look at the world map, i can't believe we were really there! but we were and it's truly magical to be in such a place. being so far north and only a month away from the summer solstice, we experienced daylight until almost 1am. it's pretty freaky to come out of a restaurant at 11pm and see children playing as if it were early evening. i still haven't gotten used to it in amsterdam and it makes it difficult to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. of course on june 20, the sun never goes down in iceland and on the flip side, what must it be like in the dead of winter? it's just a totally different part of the world and how fortunate that it could be part of our world for a couple of days. did we really see and do all of this in just 10 days? indeed, and what a fantastic combination of things. i loved seeing my family, my friends, and a new country in the same extraordinary trip.

i'll be hanging out at home for the next few weeks working on my gyrotonics apprenticeship, while gary continues to flit about the world. he's been commuting weekly to bologna and next week makes an appearance in denver, then on to florida. when he comes back, i plan to join him in bologna for a few days. the search continues for the ideal apartment in rome. until then, i'm enjoying our ideal apartment in amsterdam.

happy summer everyone,

love, as always, deb