IRL: PTO ASAP??

Taking a quick break from vacation stories to post a bit about what's been going on with my quest for  a functional PTO at the boys' school

After months of trying to get things started, I was finally asked to join a work group of parents who are going to try to bring our completely defunct PTO back from the dead at school.  By way of history, when the school opened, coming up on three years ago, a PTO presidency was elected...and then nothing happened.  Apparently, they did organize one charity fundraising even last year in the spring, but I was here from January on and never heard anything about it.  Besides that, nada.  So with the new administration put in this year, I have been harping and harping on this topic to whomever would listen (and several people who really didn't want to listen) and was finally asked to help.  At our first meeting with the director of the school, we decided we needed a set of bylaws or operating procedures and we needed the input of the two principals we have currently.  Before our next meeting, the director sent us a draft "constitution" document based on that of a PTO at one of our sister schools and asked us to look it over and make suggestions for revisions or changes.

You know me: he said look it over, I heard "edit, edit, EDIT!"  And believe me, this document was a mess.  Clearly, parts of it were transliterated from Arabic to English with no one checking to make sure the translation made sense: my favorite sentence was "Channels of command should all be through the proper channels and through the Director."  Wait, what now?  Delete!  It was riddled with inconsistencies: for example, the governing committee of the PTO was variously referred to as the executive board, the executive committee, the parent board, and the governing team at different points throughout the document.  It contradicted itself frequently.  It made reference to people and positions that didn't exist at our school.  It was missing important sections like "Nominations and Elections" and "Duties of Elected Positions."  And worst of all, it directed the PTO to meet, wait for it, once a year.  ONCE A YEAR?!  Why even bother??

So I arrived at our next meeting with a sheet of questions and my edited copy of the draft that was riddled with green pen marks (I chose green so as not to freak anyone out with red!).  Thankfully, we were able to get all my/our questions answered satisfactorily and all the changes were agreed to, so after our break, I typed up the newly revised constitution and am eagerly awaiting our next meeting, at which I hope we set up a time for all the parents to meet together for new elections and an agenda for the coming year.  I could feel myself slipping into teacher/editor mode during the meeting and it must have showed; one of the principals emailed me afterwards to say he had "learnt something of your skills!"  Yes, I do in fact have skills I would love to put to good use at this struggling little school if I could just be given the chance to do so!  I hope we can keep the ball rolling and other parents get involved so we can make up for lost time and really enhance the kids' experiences at the school.  Fingers crossed!

  

Barcelona Day 3

For our last full day in Barcelona, we started with the Barcelona Zoo, which was fabulous.  My boys love a good zoo and miss our annual pass to the Cleveland Zoo, so I try to take them to at least one zoo/animal park every time we travel.  The Barcelona Zoo did not disappoint.  It had everything, including a dolphin show, gorillas, elephants, yet another lawless playground (this one had zip lines!), and all kinds of animals we hadn't seen before, which was a surprise.  The kids loved the zoo, especially the dolphins.  After the zoo, we went to eat paella at one of the most famous paella places and had "rich man's" paella--they took out all the shells and bones for us--which was delicious.  E especially loved his and J ate all the seafood out of mine, which I appreciated!  After lunch, we headed to the port for some people watching and a little shopping for Mommy (a Desigual outlet?  yes, please!).  We bribed the kids with trampoline bungee jumping if they behaved, which they did, and when all of that was done, we walked over to the beach, changed on the shore, and let the boys play in the freezing ocean waves.  It was sunset, a great way to end our Barcelona visit!

This woman we met on the way to the zoo.  She was making
huge bubbles, giving impromptu lectures on the wonders of physics,
and she let the boys try, much to their delight!

Waiting for the dolphins!

Ooh!  Aaaah!

Requisite picture with animal sculpture.

European Bison: who knew?

Post paella smiles!

E ate a LOT!

J was absolutely flying!

And E figured out how to do back flips!

Making our way down to the water. 

Barcelona Day 2

Before we left on vacation, I had planned out all our days on a little calendar grid, complete with opening times and the necessary metro stops.  In Barcelona, everything went (almost) according to plan, while in Paris we turned my little plans upside down and sideways the entire time.  Sigh.  But having the plan work out well for the first city meant I was fortified for the second city.  But one thing that was constant throughout both cities was our eating plan.  Every morning, the husband would go out to the nearest bakery and get us rolls or bread for our mid-day-ish sandwiches and something sweet for either breakfast or snack, then I would make sandwiches out of whatever pork product we had picked up the day before, either at a market or a store, which we would then eat later in the day, usually around 11am when the kids got hungry.  This meant we were never, ever starving (except for one time in Paris that I will tell you about later) and we never had to overspend on snacks or meals.  Such a good idea that worked out so well for us!

And for the second day in Barcelona, we began with what for me was one of the highlights of our entire trip: a kids' walking tour of the Gothic quarter.  I had originally been looking into walking tours of the city and found Runner Bean Tours, which offers several free tours of the city but also offers this amazing kids and family walking tour for a reasonable fee that is utterly engaging and worth every penny!  There were 10 kids on our tour, plus parents, from Israel, Germany, New York, and somewhere else in Europe that escapes me, ranging in age from 4 to 11 maybe, but the majority were 6 and 7 years old.  We started at a candy store that has been making the same candy for about 150 years in all kinds of flavors including pomegranate, pine, and lavender.  We had samples, which were delicious.  Then we headed out of on walking tour, which included a visit to the steps where Ferdinand and Isabella greeted Columbus, the Barcelona Cathedral to identify gargoyles, a museum for larger than life puppets, a puppet-making workshop/magic store, and a visit to another candy store where we got to watch them make candy from simple syrup all the way through to finished product, all by hand.  Our tour guide provided the kids with pencils, workbooks, and clipboards, along with bags to carry them in, and carried with her a huge portfolio filled with drawings to illustrate all her many interesting stories.  We learned the (apocryphal) story of the flag, saw Roman columns from the old city, visited the Jewish section of the city, learned a song about the Catalunian Christmas log that poops out your presents and Christmas dinner (I am not joking; this is a huge tradition there), and generally had a great time.  Three and a half hours of near constant walking and no complaints, plus new friends they made along the way = I highly, highly recommend this tour!

On the steps of the cathedral learning about the Christmas log.

It was a very interactive tour.

J wasn't too impressed with the story, too graphic for him!

But he rallied while we were singing!

More shots from our adventures.

On the Columbus steps with our own royalty!

See the huge puppets?

In the puppet workshop wearing a gorilla head!  (That's E inside)

And that's J, with a flair for the dramatic.

Watching them make the candy at the last stop.

Next we took first a funicular and then a cable car up to Montjuic Castle.  The kids loves the funicular and cable car, of course, but we skipped the castle itself in favor of climbing the cannons and running back down the mountain, where we encountered some of those wonderfully lawless and quite dangerous European playgrounds along the way.  Back at the bottom, we headed to the Joan Miro Museum, which would have been fine except that there was a modern art exhibit first that we should have skipped in favor of going straight to the main collection, because by the time we got there, the kids were quite tired after a long, active day, so the three of us ended up sitting on the steps outside enjoying a snack while the husband finished the museum.  For dinner that day, failing imagination, we ate again at the little restaurant across the street, because it was so yummy! And the hot chocolate was even thicker this time around!

Going up the funicular.

Coming down the mountain.

Eating an avocado straight out of the peel for a snack outside the museum!

Barcelona Day 1 (and our travel day)

Because I have a hard time reading the 24 hour clock, we left Doha at 1:50am instead of 1:50pm, so the boys fell right to sleep on our overnight Lufthansa flight from Doha to Frankfurt.  When we landed in Frankfurt 40 mins late, we (thought) we had 40 minutes to get to our connection to Paris, but first we had to go through passport control and security again and head to the opposite side of the airport.  On our way there, we made a bathroom stop and while the boys were gone, I decided to confirm our gate at a check-in desk.  The attendant there said, "Yes, that's still your gate...but the flight has been moved up 10 minutes, so it will leave in 20 minutes and they are about to close the gate.  You need to be there now!" I met the husband at the door, yelled at him to run to the gate and stop the plane, and the boys and I would run as fast as we could after him.  Which we all did.  And we made the plane!  Huzzah!

Unfortunately, we arrived in Paris in the middle of an Air France air traffic controllers' strike, so we were delayed.  We already had a long connection between arrival and our next flight to Barcelona, but we ended up being there a really long, long time.  And we almost missed our plane because of erroneous information from an Air France agent!  As it was, we spent two hours on the tarmac waiting for our plane to take off, during which time E crashed.  He was just too tired to go on by that point!  But it could have been worse: of the six flights between Paris and Barcelona Air France runs each day, four were canceled, so at least ours took off!  Huzzah number 2!

We set up camp here by a vending machine while waiting because the
Air France terminal was covered in glass and hotter than a green house.
And yes, I did take a nap on that nice marble floor right there!

After we made our way to our apartment by train and metro and met our Airbnb host, we headed to the nearest restaurant for what turned out to be delightful food, including churros con xocolata, Spanish tortilla, meatballs, and calamari--yes, we let the boys order whatever they wanted!

Waiting for the train to Barcelona.

Some of us were happier than others at this point!

The next day was all Gaudi, all the time.  We started with the Sagrada Familia, which the boys loved, mainly because of the excellent kids' audio guide narrated by Julie Andrews.  And, well, because the Sagrada Familia is pretty awesome, and the kids could see that right away.  They especially loved the stained glass, the organic fruit and vegetable shapes at the top of the towers, the spiral staircase with no center support, and the huge columns.

At the top of the Sagrada Familia (we had to fudge and say
E was 6 so they would allow us up here...shhhh!).

Spiral staircase anxiety...

...and delight.

Listening to Maria inside...

...and outside!

Look at the light!

So much light!

Look at the bugs in the vines on the doors, all out of Gaudi's imagination!

Next we passed by Casa Mila/La Pedrera and then headed into Casa Batllo, which was incredible.  Gaudi was ahead of his time in so many, many ways and just so amazingly creative, it's hard to take it all in.  I'm not even going to try and describe it!  They boys were entranced but tired when we finished so we changed plans (which meant we skipped Park Guell, my only regret about our visit) and headed to La Boqueria, an outdoor market, for dinner.  We had all sorts of things, fruit, smoothies, empanadas, ham, salami, and sausage, which we ate outside the market in a courtyard.  Then we headed down La Rambla for some people watching and some pigeon chasing before heading home for a much needed night's sleep.  Whew!

Dinner!

Happy and no longer hungry!

Fun on the street in Barcelona.

Yet another plaza; I love this about European cities.

When we asked them their favorite parts of Barcelona,
chasing the pigeons was near the top of the list!