"Be Careful!" at Carrefour

In my fourth-grade English class, I was teaching the phrases "Look Out!" and "Be Careful!" When the students saw the word "careful" they screamed out, "Carrefour, Carrefour!" They were delighted because they thought they knew the word on the paper. I told them (in Spanish), "No, Carrefour is a French word which means intersection. This word, careful, is an English word and means 'ten cuidado.'" They looked shocked and horrified as they challenged me, "Carrefour is a store." I told them, yes, Carrefour is a French-owned grocery/department store, but it's name means intersection and, no, careful and Carrefour are not the same thing.

semana santa

So, Spain is a Catholic country, which means we get "Holy Week" off. This is the week before Easter, except my school has interpreted "week" as Friday (the one before Good Friday) to Monday (the one after Easter Sunday), meaning I have 10 days that 11 days to do whatever I want.

While I was home I did a little research and figured out that I could use this time to go to the Balkans. I booked a flight to Barcelona (for Thursday night), then a Friday morning flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia and a return flight from Sofia, Bulgaria to Madrid for the 11th.

I'm planning on spending a few day in Croatia, then going to Mostar and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Belgrade, Serbia before getting to Sofia (where I'm sure I'll do a side trip outside the city).

And, the craziest/best news of all.............my mother is coming! I'm so excited because she's never been to countries where mosques are prevalent. She's only been to Western Europe before, and we're going to be in Eastern Europe!

I've been dying to get back to the Balkans since I went to Kosovo and Macedonia in 2005. It was an eye-opening experience for me and now I want her to have a similar experience. We're going to take trains and buses with locals and (from what I've seen in pictures) we're going to see a lot of beautiful things. So expect tons of pictures!

My mom is coming back to Europe!!!! Twice in one year....I must be a pretty cool kid to merit that.

First day back

I went to school today and gave everyone the gifts I had brought them. For Maria Jose and Jose Maria (principal and director of studies, a married couple), I brought a book of nursery rhymes with an accompanying CD. Maria Jose was so excited about it that she made me listen to some of the songs with her. Apparently "There is Thumpkin" has a Spanish equivalent.

I brought David a Japanese comic book about vampires. He had seen some in Spanish before, but this was his first comic in English and he's really excited about it. He can practice and read about vampires all at the same time! (He draws his own comics also). Ana really enjoyed the book of nursery rhymes and childhood songs that she will use to teach English.

For Lourdes I brought back a Disney CD I had (I knew she liked the songs), another CD of 100 songs for kids (she can use this in her music classes), and Playdoh. I had tried to explain Playdoh to her and David, but couldn't because it's not clay, which they have in Spain....it's in a whole other category. She and David loved it. Jose Maria, who came into the office later, said he's seen it in Spain...at Toy's R Us.

Everyone also really liked the books, seasonal activity book and vocabulary puzzle game that I brought with me. I'm glad I was able to pick out meaningful gifts that will come in handy and help the kids learn English.

The rest of my time at home

So, the doctor didn't see much irritation in my intestines. This means that I probably don't have celiac (this result correlates with the blood test), but I have to wait a few more days for the definitive results from the biopsy.

I was really loopy after the endoscopy and spent the day on the couch. I couldn't remember how I got my shirt back on or how I got home. Somehow I vaguely remembered asking the doctor why she was in Granada, Spain....we had been talking about Spain when I fell asleep in the endoscopy room.

By Friday Melanie had been doing worse. She was collapsing a lot more, including three times while trying to go to the bathroom. She also had an eye infection. Mom, dad and I took her to the vet and had her put to sleep. It was really sad, but she had been suffering too much, and too long. We stayed in the room while the procedure was done. It was somewhat comforting to see her so peaceful because she hadn't been that way in weeks (definitely not since before I came home).

Saturday we went to Ikea (I love that place!) to get a new chair cushion and then we picked up Joe from the airport. We had sushi for dinner, which should have been easy for me. Because I can't eat soy sauce or imitation crab, I was limited in my roll choice. That meant I basically had to pick some random pieces of fish to accompany the one roll I was able to eat. It was pretty frustrating, but the suchi was so delicious that it didn't matter too much. I also brought my own soy sauce, which was a smart move. Even though the sauce was crappy (I've yet to try the wheat-free tamari, but I've heard good things), it went really well with the sushi and I was glad to have it there. It was also nice to be out to dinner with my family.

Sunday was my last day at home. The four of us, along with my grandma, went for hotdogs in Westchester. I packed my lunch and ate while they were waiting for their food. Even though I can't eat anything there, I wanted to go for nostalgia. So many weekends of my childhood were spent at Walter's Hot Dogs.

That afternoon, mom and I went for a walk in town. We went to the grammar school where I took tons of pictures to show to people in Priego. Then we made dinner and went to the airport.

The flight was uneventful....probably because I took two Tylenol PM before push-back and was asleep before we got to a cruising altitude. This was a good thing because the women around me were traveling together and chattered about in their Mobile, Alabama twang. They were a group of sisters, a cousin and one woman's daughter going to Marbella for a week in the sun. The daughter (probably in her 30s) had never left the country before and had only flown once to Vegas. Her mom, seated next to me, thought she was going to throw-up after eating a banana for breakfast. She went running to the bathroom, but was fine.

When I got to Malaga, I was so excited by the warm weather. I began my journey back to Priego, only taking three buses because I returned through Granada (the more expensive and longer route). To go to Priego through Lucena (how I got to the airport to go home) I would have had to have waited three hours for the first bus and then I didn't know when the connecting bus was scheduled to leave (aka I could have been stuck in Lucena for a few hours too).

Endoscopy

So the allergist decided that I'm allergic enough to wheat, oats and rye (based on the blood results) to not require the skin testing. He also decided that, yes, an endoscopy would be worth it. The endoscopy/biopsy is necessary to diagnose celiac - I had the blood test which was negative. It's rare, but people have negative blood tests and still have celiac. Because my ANA was high (auto-immune indicator) it makes sense to have the endoscopy....if I have celiac, the ANA could become a problem later. So, we'll see.

Rachel-safe s'mores

Start with gluten-free pretzels on a plate.

Put marshmallows on top (1/2 a marshmallow on one pretzel works best).

Microwave

Spread dairy/wheat/nut free chocolate frosting (most frosting is nut and wheat free) on another pretzel.

Put the chocolate pretzel on top of the marshmallow pretzel.

Squish together and enjoy.

(I ate way too many of these....)

MORE answers.......

The rheumatologist called today. I tested negative for everything he looked at. This means that the elevated ANA (antinuclear antibody) level, which was eight times the normal level, is just a false positive.