Dear ECS: Ski Lebanon

Dear ECS, 

Well honey, as I write this you and mom are on the the other end of the African continent, in South Africa for a week with some dear friends.  The pictures and videos thus far from your trip have been great and it is wonderful for you and mom to have such a long vacation together.  There is a decided correlation between when you and your mom traveling and my ability to find time to write a new post.   In other words, more solo time for me around the house. 

I used your trip to sneak in my last ski trip of the year for the weekend, with a good friend from Ethiopia.  We were able to converge in a place where I would have never imagined skiing - Lebanon.  My conception of the country had been more based on the news and its delicious food.  

Traveling, both yours and mine and all loved ones, during this heightened/scary period of concern over the Corona virus is an added layer of stress.  But we took the necessary precautions, like masks, being vigilant about washing hands and sanitizers.  Nothing is foolproof, but the simple precautions are the most important. 

Back to Lebanon....

I half expected the skiing to be terrible, since the resort - called Mzaar in Faraya (http://mzaarskiresort.com/) - is roughly 30 kilometers from the Mediterranean.  What would the snow be like?  What about the terrain?  How does the warmth of the Med translate to skiing in such close proximity?  In our San Francisco years, we would drive 3 full hours to get from the city up to the snow.  And we felt lucky to be so close!  How could it be possible for there to be legit skiing a scant hour from the big city of Beirut and half that from the warm, tropical Med.  The sea you have swam in already in your young life. 

So about the skiing - it was a weekend that shows the range of weather that is possible in just two days.  When I was younger, days that were less than ideal on the mountain were frustrating, a missed opportunity for another perfect day in the mountains.  Now, the days that are less than ideal reinforce the specialness of the days when things do all come together.  Our trip was split between a perfect day and one of those less than ideal ones, due to some weather that came in pretty strong overnight.  

Day one

We woke up to pretty sunny skies and a bit of a np in the air.  I thought that was a good sign, but then being out on the snow showed that the mountain was in a bit of a refreeze cycle, which means it is cold enough over night to have the snow freeze up a bit and warm enough during the day for it to sit melting.  Melting is great for spring skiing, which I love, but it takes some time for the sun to do its thermal magic.  So the first couple of hours of skiing were about sussing out the terrain and also taking in the majestic views. 

And the views are crazy, from the top of the mountain you can see the city of Beirut and the Med, and not in some way that you have to squint and imagine to see the view.  Nope, the city looks like a glimmering city on the ocean and the the expansive of the sea takes a little while to get used to, given it is so grand.  

The terrain reminds me of a couple of high mountains, above tree skiing in Colorado.   Probably the closest comparison is Loveland, but with a more terrain.  I didn’t find too much steep stuff, but the big open bowls and the nice 35-40 degree steeps were super enjoyable.  Once the snow turned to corn, it was dream skiing with by buddy as we lapped the big open bowls.  The chairs are kind of adorable, old school and some might go back to the 60’s and 70’s, when the resort was started.   

We skied to the end of the day, getting in an amazing last run into a big open area lookers left of the last chair to the west of the resort.  The Med was in a bit of afternoon haze and we rode down happy and so surprised by a great ski day in an unexpected part of the world.  

Day two 

Our appetites whetted, we chilled at the hotel, ate some good Lebanese food and had a bit of wine.  Day two we woke to the overcast grey weather that foretold the incoming weather.  It started spitting snow intermittently at about 8 am, with the wind coming in pretty hard and consistently.  We got geared up and then realized that most of the mountain was closed for a) wind or b) low visibility, or both. The contrast to the previous day of great corn skiing and some suntanning was stark, things can happen fast in the mountains.  

We still rode for a half day in the spitting precipitation and for me, any day on skis is a great day.  Especially with a good buddy.  Can’t wait to bring you to this part of the world and ski here together with you and mom.  

Enjoy the rest of your trip honey.  Love you!

dad

Dear ECS: An unexpected Maltese moment

Dear ECS, 

Hey love bug - we have had a nice day today, sneaking in a daddy/daughter lunch date and doing some wandering and shopping in our neighborhood.  Oh yeah, and some ice cream.  Always some ice cream. 

We had this mellow weekend-like day today since we had some tough travel last night, flying back home from Malta on a flight that left that airport at about 11 pm and getting into our apartment in Cairo just before 4 am.  Whew, that is not easy and hence no school for you, or me, today.  Mom drew the short end of the straw in our family and went into work today, which took a Herculean effort. 

It is kind of crazy that right now the sun has set and the night is coming in and yesterday at this exact time, we were on top of a hotel on a rooftop overlooking the walled and idyllic city of Valletta, with the Maltese countryside and the Med all below us, sparkling.  

The amount of life and movement that can be fit into a day in these modern times remains so astounding. To think what the world and movement and travel will be like in a few decades, when you are an adult, is pretty tough to predict and anticipate.  Another example of the crazy travel in this Maltese vacation was where we slept for half the night in our apartment in Egypt, made the flight to Malta and then slept in our rental apartment in Malta.  Waking up, I realized we had somehow slept on two continents (Egypt/Africa and Malta/Europe) in one night.  And somehow even slept pretty well on both ends of the trip.  

We did these crazy travel logistics because it was a) a way to maximize our time (per usual, sorry honey), b) take advantage of the direct flights, and c) overall sneak in this trip to celebrate my birthday as a family.  Your mom had the worse of it, and I am very grateful that she was open to making it work despite the very obvious, and a bit painful, drawback of going to work on little sleep. 

I want to write a bit about what was a really meaningful moment during our trip.  It is a surprising moment, as it was not in the art museum, nor eating fresh seafood and pasta for days.  Nor watching my last sunset in met 30’s, or taking a little gondola ferry in the harbor.  Or dashing around and skipping in the discovery center within a sprawling complex built centuries ago.  Not the market and lunch at the little fishing village.  Nor on long trail runs along the sea wall, or even doing the family photo shoot throughout the city.  Not the fresh chocolate, and wine for your parents.  

We did all those things, but the moment that has stuck there most with me was doing a simple little errand so that we could make breakfast in our apartment and enjoy the great space and little balcony with Med views.  Interesting, the old city doesn’t have many grocery stores, rather these little markets tucked into narrow storefronts and stuffed to the gills.  

I thought the market errand would take a few minutes, because that is what I am used to and what I am conditioned to expect in the world of ubiquitous markets, here in Cairo and when we travel in Europe.  This would not be the case, as the market a few blocks from our apartment was pretty busy on a late morning Saturday.  Not the case at all.  The store was filled with about a dozen older Maltese women doing their weekend shopping.  The care they felt about their food, the fresh produce, and cheeses/charcuterie, the fresh bread and everything they needed for the weekend, was very obvious.  

So there I was, after telling your mom I would be gone for a few minutes with the minutes dragging on and on.  I thought about putting back our stuff and hatching a new plan.  Which would have been easy.  I had left my phone at the house, thinking this was going to be quick, so there was no way to pop in ear pods and put on a podcast.  Like what I am doing right now as I type.  Nope, I had none of my tried and true distraction methods for making minutes melt away 

For which I am so thankful, as I got over myself, at least for several minutes, and just stood in line and listened and watched.  Seeing what I could learn about this place and community.  I listen to the orders and the familiar banter between customers.  I tried to piece together what people would be eating, all of which looked pretty delicious with the olives, fresh cheeses, foul and several things that I still don’t know.  

And a secondary thing that happened was with respect to the language of this store.  The Maltese language is as Semitic language, just like Arabic (and Amharic too, going back to our Ethiopia years).  It has been Anglicized, so the script is like English or French and not the Arabic I have learned over the last 5 or so months.  But to sit back and listen, I realized that I knew so many of the words being used in this market.  It was stunning, as I felt far from home and it did not feel so much like Cairo.  Being in a new place, and yet having this language pop into my brain was a cool feeling.  This realization that the Arabic culture and language that I am learning in Cairo share a through line to Malta makes sense, given all the trade over centuries.  But having something make sense and then really feeling it are two very different experiences.  Plus, it made me proud of what I have learned in the language, and the culture, of Egypt.  In July of last year, I would never have been able to make the connection, so this moment would have passed me by.  Not today! 

So in closing honey, I urge you to find joy and interest where you are, whenever you can.  It is not easy, and that sense is extremely ephemeral.  A few days ago, I felt the stress of time and our plan getting sideways.  But given the right combo of culture and mental space, I had moment of clarity and enjoyment that far exceeded what I could have ever hoped or expected.  

These are the exact reason we travel: to be in a new place and have that place open in some unexpected way. 

love,

dad

Dear ECS: When will we go to the mountains again?

Dear ECS, 

Hi love bug - you are currently playing with a friend, enjoying one of your beloved playdates, as I write from a nearby cafe.  I think this afternoon you and your friend are both princesses and having a bit of high tea.  High tea is always a delight and fits this time of year particularly well.  I intruded a little and was gently admonished for interrupting your world and play.  Sorry honey. 

The last couple of days were the first with our whole family back in our routine of wake up - work/school - exercise/play - meals together and bedtime.  It is a good routine and one we have built over the last several months to feel as durable as anything can be in a house with an adorable and energetic four year old.  And a couple of parents who are always trying to do to too much and fit in so much.  

It has been quite cold since we got back from our holiday trip to France, and something about the culture and built environment in Cairo makes it feel much colder.  For instance, right this moment it is 60 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  You can’t know this, but where I grew up there was a solid five (at least) months when the temperature does not reach this illustrious high.  

Right now it is a robust 24 degrees back home.  The idea that 60 degrees is cold is anathema to my childhood, and frankly unrespectable, for the dyed in the wool Mainers.  And yet, there is a collective chill in the air that seems to bury pretty deep into everyone.  There are so many long trench coats, beanies, puffy jackets and shawls being used by everyone.  If I were to just sit in a cozy cafe and watch the world go by in our neighborhood, I would think it was about 20 degrees colder.  Thankfully, we all have beloved winter clothes and it is fun to wear those hats, scarfs, jackets, sweaters, dresses and boots. 

The combination of thinking about routines and some norms of my childhood also has me considering traditions, especially when combined with covering feasts and holidays in my Arabic class this week.  

Christmas is probably the holiday with the most traditions from my childhood, as it is a magical time to be in Maine.  And it is a magical time to be in Paris, where we spent Christmas this year.  Of course, in Maine years ago the holiday built over weeks and weeks and for the Korol family this year we arrived in Paris on Christmas Eve and scrambled to get ready for Santa (or Père Noel as you call him)  and to get out and see the City of Lights with peak lights for the holidays.  

What a sight and what a city to snuggle into for the holiday.  Frankly, we weren’t sure what to expect in a big European city for a holiday.  Mom and I, and Uncle Tote, spent a kind of weird New Years in Seville, Spain years ago in a city that is well known for being a great for good living.  And yet New Years in Andalusia is a holiday spent with family and it was surprisingly dead in the city for NYE.  Live and learn.  

Thankfully, that dynamic did not play out for Paris - which was alive and vibrant for Christmas.  Beyond enjoying the bounty of Père Noel, we got to eat amazing meals, watch the sunset over Paris from the Eiffel Tower, take several turns on a merry go round on Seine, walk with thousands under seemingly hundreds of thousands of lights on the Champs-Élysées and enjoy the cheeky window displays with another several hundred new friends at the Galeries Lafayette.  

Those are all traditions for Parisians - somethings they do year after year and that reinforces their cultural identity.  They are not our traditions.  But we got to take part in them this year, and next year we aim to take part in some other traditions wherever we may be in the world.  Right now it feels like our tradition is being flexible, and movement, and being global.  I know that isn’t the easiest thing to understand for a four year old.  Sometimes it hard to fully understand for a nearly forty year old.  For me, and for your mom, and hopefully for you, being culturally fluid and expansive is one our traditions.

Another tradition that seems to be taking for our family is skiing, I think it is impossible to state how much happiness I get from this development over the last few years.  The list of places you have skied is absurd - really truly.  Going back to my skiing experience in Maine and New England, the skiing we get to enjoy as a family is so much easier.  It is warmer, with good/great snow and way less driving.  All of those are needed, as we likely won’t be living in a place with skiing drivable from our house anytime soon.  This trip, we skied in Serre Chevalier, in France and along the French/Italian border, which was a place we had never been to and hadn’t heard much about beforehand.  A good ski buddy of mine has been going to Serre for several years and shared a bunch of great recommendations once we were on our way, which was a big help.  And we couldn’t be sure about the conditions given that it is kind of early season, plus the chance of being super crowded for the holidays. 

Given all those possible headaches, we were and are super lucky.  The conditions were good, you skied amazing and never wanted to leave the slopes, it wasn’t crowded at all and the area was charming.  For me, seeing you ever more confident on your skis and having such great family time skiing on top of the Alps were all huge highlights of our time in the mountains.  We live at about 30 meters above sea level along the Nile and the Sahara, and there we were at 1,300 meters and getting up to 2,500 meters for skiing as a family.  Let’s keep it going honey, I know you are game. 

I hope our tradition is going to the mountains this time of year and that it is an easy, and more importantly consistent, answer to your question when we were in the car back home from the airport a few days ago - "When will we go to the mountains again?" My answer to that question, now and forever, is not soon enough. 

love,

dad

Dear ECS: A Blissful Skipping Thanksgiving in Cyprus

Dear ECS, 

Greetings honey, you have just fallen asleep after we are back home from Thanksgiving in Cyprus.  We are quite confident that you have had a wonderful time in Cyprus as your preferred mode of movement has been skipping, a visually endearing perfect manifestation of your happiness expressed in movement.  It is a shorthand to know if you are happy, as skipping only comes out when you are feeling joy.  And in Cyprus you  skipped to the beach, to the restaurant, to the fort, to the gelato spot, to everywhere. 

Why did we go to Cyprus?  Great question, and the answer is pretty simple - because it is close, intriguing and new.  Perhaps even simpler, because it is there to explore and we don’t know what it is like.  Your mom and I have really loved these attributes in our travels, especially as you have blessed our family with your light and energy and joy.  

Going to places -- that we would in all probability never go to if we lived in the US-- is one of my favorite parts of life overseas.  Since now, or in the recent past, we are most of the way to Cyprus, or to the myriad of cool destinations in Egypt, to the Ethiopian highlands and rock churches, to the Seychelles, to the Kenyan coast and to the Cayman Islands, why not go see what they are like?  And we have.

Cyprus is a little bit like the Bahamas in that it receives several orders of magnitude more visitors than it has residents.  This leads to an economy that is heavily dependent on tourism, which can be challenging, but it also tends to lead to a good experience as a visitor.  The infrastructure and ethos are sort of set up for you to have a good time and for the place to be accessible, at least superficially.  

So what did we get up to in Cyprus, which we loved? Well it was Thanksgiving, and we have much to be thankful for this year with our move to a new country, the dozens of loved ones we saw as we jetted around the U.S. this summer, the weddings we have been to for our family and friends, our gorgeous new apartment, you thriving in French school, me doing well in Arabic and mommy continuing to love her job.  Yes, so much to be thankful for this year. 

In the tradition of the holiday, we had a few feasts of bounty and plenty.  In aligning with the specialty of Cyprus, these feasts were seafood for your parents, and tended towards pasta and ice cream for you.  So, everyone was very happy.  Almost next door to our rental apartment, there was this ridiculous seafood taverna, Psarolimano,  that we ate at a couple of times, which your mom dubbed “Cyprus Street and Co,” an homage to my favorite restaurant in the world located in Portland, Maine.  One I have been going to for decades, so high praise indeed.

Beyond the holiday-appropriate feasting on the bounty of local seafood, we had a lot of wonderful whole family time on the beach, eating ice cream and biking along the boardwalk.  One highlight was exploring Laranca Castle, a fort built to defend the port and coast more than 600 years ago.  As the city changed hands between various world powers over the intervening centuries, it has gone though cyclical periods of decay and renewal, being important for trade and then falling off as the trade winds shifted, only to rise again.  This cycle has taken place at least three times, and I was moved by both history repeating itself and the human bent towards improving and renewal, two traits I try to live, and to instill in your impressionable psyche.

Your mom and I also got to go on a number of epic trail runs along a large salt lake with flamingos and millenniums of history.  I loved these runs, for the brisk, clean air and expansive vistas.  Salt lakes always have the most amazing reflections, which must be tied to the salt content of the water somehow, and this visual trick was enhanced by the flamingos that call the salt lake home for the winter.  Hundreds of the majestic birds dotted the lake, gorging on the pink salt shrimp that give them their distinctive color.  Running on the trails and dirt roads around the lake reminded me of several places we have traveled and/or lived, such as Northern California and southern Australia.  I love that connection of places thousands of miles apart, that they can be visually or cultural similar despite vastly different human and geologic histories. 

And now we are back home, in our apartment and at our schools/jobs.  This is good too, not as special as exploring new places and finding them more charming and enjoyable than we ever would have hoped.  But special all the same and comfortable in a way the belies our relatively short time in this new city and country.

Much love to our loved ones around the world - a very happy Thanksgiving and on to a hopefully wonderful holiday season. 

love, 

dad

Dear ECS: Postcard from Cairo

Dear ECS, 

Hey honey, hope you are doing well today.  Well, I know you are doing well, but you know what I mean.  It has been a bit longer than I had hoped since I wrote about our respective langue learning, which continues to move forward with progress for you, and me.  

Some of why I have been a bit longer is due to travel to the US for you, mom and me.  We had the pleasure of being part of two separate weddings, you and mom in Utah for a family wedding and me in Maine for friends’ wedding. It is never fun to be apart from you and mom for as long as we were, but separation happens in our life and lifestyle and I have found it is best to just roll with it as opposed to fighting it.  Not worth fighting what you can’t change, after all.  

In addition to the big trips back home to the US, I also got to sneak down to the Red Sea for a weekend with some friends and their kids.  It is amazing that this epic, grand nature combo of beach/water is so close to our new city- less than 90 minutes from our apartment to the hotel.  Yes, we will be going back as a family soon and yes, we will be making that drive quite a few times in the coming years. 

So close and enjoyable that we all snuck down there for a few days this last weekend with friends visiting from Ethiopia.  Going with you and mom was just as good as my first time down there, with the bonus of playing with you in delight in the Sea and in the sand.  The juxtaposition of the ocean with snorkeling and open water swimming and the big cliffs was just as good the second time.  And then the day after we came back home, we went to the pyramids together for your first trip to those wonders of the ancient world, and any world on this earth.  Revered and famous for a reason.

What I thought I would tell you about in this letter is the ongoing, but close to the finish line, process of moving in to our space.  This is your fourth country, fourth home in your life.  By the time I had lived in four homes, I was 14 years old.  So this kind fog churn is something that you are used to and have had to get used to.  And I think you are probably better at it than your mom and I, it is your native environment whereas we have had to learn it as adults.  Similar to learning languages, now that I connect those two. 

We got our biggest shipment of stuff, the things we had in Ethiopia, about 10 days ago.  So we are just waiting on one last set of stuff from Maine.  But really, our keystone things are here and in our place.  We even have our art up on the walls as of a few days ago, which for me is the final step of the settling in process.  That said, living overseas means that you are never fully settled in, so it is more accurate to say it is the final stage of the initial settling.  

It has been about a six or seven month process from our Addis departure to our present in Cairo.  Which feels simultaneously fast and slow.  Fast for the massive changes in our life, for all the things and places and people that we have done and seen in this time.  It also seems slow because we have been here in this new city for long enough to have routine, to have built community and to have it feel like home.  This paradox gets to the challenge your parents have felt, living that duality can be tiring.  At least it is for me.

Which gets to a related truth I have learned via our life of movement, that the mental work and challenges can easily be harder on me than the physical work.  Putting stuff away is easy, creating durable, sustainable systems from scratch is hard.  Hanging art on our walls is easy, especially when the embassy makes it happen, is easy, figuring out what goes where, that is hard part. 

So what is next for the Cairo Korol’s?  More of the same, with more living and working and less moving and settling.  Life here continues to be exciting and fun and engaging.  You are super happy with your school, friends, activities and our house.  Mom and I feel the same about our lives here.  Being in the living part of the move, at the end of the many months of moving and movement, honestly can feel a little unsettling.  Like, what do we do now?  

What we do is live and love.  Onward! 

love,

dad

Dear ECS: So much language in Cairo

Dear ECS,

Hey honey, you are sleeping sweetly as I write this, and I am not sure what language you are dreaming.  It is probably English, but sometimes it seems like you are dreaming in French.  Maybe it is a mix of the two languages, with maybe a sprinkling of Arabic or Amharic thrown in just to get extra confusing.  Whatever the composition, I know you are making it work in your mind and in your communications.  And sleep well honey.

It has been a busy month+, per usual, for the korol family.  I was thinking earlier today how we haven’t gotten on an airplane for like 7 whole weeks.  And it will be another 2-3 weeks before we get on a plane, which has to be a record for our family over the last four years.  A climate-guilt inducing record, for sure, and also a positive reflection of how happy we are to be here in Cairo. 

So what have we been doing with ourselves?  Great question.  Thus far our meta-theme here in Cairo seems to have been language.  Just in the last couple of days there has been language learning for three languages across our household.  And you are leading the charge, increasing your knowledge, dexterity and fluidity in multiple languages on an ongoing basis.  Yes, I am very proud dad.

French: First off, your French school has re-started and you are back in that immersive environment every day.  I have a little, rudimentary familiarity with French that mostly comes from a summer in Geneve.  And you are WAY past me, speaking French with a flow and accent that I don’t think I could ever achieve at my advanced age.  It is a visceral and stark reminder and endorsement for learning languages at a young age.  When you are flowing in French, I am often astounded that we are related.  That we have had mostly had the same experiences. Cause your dad is not so good at languages. 

Every day you switch between French and English seamlessly.  I am continually astounded by how comfortable you are in the language of your school.   As an ancillary benefit, your mom’s French is getting better too, since she talks to you daily in French and models that it is important and worthy. 

Lastly on this front, I think about where you might go.  Where you will go.  You are so big, smart and dynamic.  But you are also just four.  To see what you can do, what you do do on a daily basis is to reframe what is possible.  It is helping me break my own mold in my own language study.

Arabic: Which leads directly to Arabic, and for this I am the main flag bearer in our family.  Your mom is also studying Arabic, and she is predictably doing amazing in pretty limited instruction.  I hope you have all of her language genes and also her gumption.  It helps so much learning a new language.

I am working and studying everyday to learn Arabic and really enjoying it.  The fun part for me is being out in our new city and picking up little pieces of life that I would have missed two months go, when I knew literally zero Arabic.  That said, I am also reaping some rewards from having learned a similar language a few years ago, Amharic.  Some vocab overlaps and the structure and ethos of the languages are similar enough to be helpful.  Which is great, as I need all the help I can get. 

English: The thing I too easily forget and don’t give you enough credit for is that you are also learning English.  You will be learning English for years, still.  Your mom is doing this great program for teaching reading, which is taking your loquacious verbal skills and applying it to reading and the more comprehensive language.  The mental gymnastics of learning two languages at the same time is frankly mind-boggling when I step back and think about it.  But not to you.  It just normal.  Just like it is normal to hundred of millions of kids, maybe a billion +.    

So, sleep tight honey.  Your mind needs that sleep, to recover, to build your abundant new neural pathways, to rest, to sleep.

love,

dad