Nap Time

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything." ~Irish Proverb

 

April 16, 2013 (Continued)

On the drive home, Mary asked me about what I had seen in Zug. I told them about mostly walking along the water front and both Mary and Dale said that was their favorite part of the town.

 

Driving over the pass, we saw a nun—with her habit on and everything—hiking through a ravine down below.

“She’s really hauling,” Mary said.

We also passed the bunny farm again and this time had a better view of the huge critters inside the pen. Just a few blocks from the house, we got stuck behind a street sweeper. A few angry horns behind us informed us it must be legal to pass a street sweeper. I shared with them that I got honked at for all sort of things in Zug.

Back at the house, Mary started lunch for the four of them. I went down to my room to work on a few things on my laptop while they ate. I had a scholarship app for school that was due by the end of the month and I figured now was as good a time as any to fill it out.

When I finished, I went upstairs to check in. Our plan was to go find a chocolate shop this afternoon, but other than that we didn’t have anything definitely set out.

Coming into the kitchen I didn’t hear or see anyone. Looking over to the family room, I could see Will and Cole playing on the floor. Mary was asleep on the couch.

Tip-toeing back downstairs, I opened up my laptop and continued blogging. I was still behind in transcribing my notes from Salzburg and my goal was to get caught up before I went home. That would have to wait though. Within a few minutes, my eyes started getting heavy. I decided to close my laptop for just a couple of seconds.

Very soon, I was out.

I woke up to the sound of footsteps up above. Checking my watch, I’d only been asleep for a few hours. I went upstairs and found Mary clearing off the kitchen table.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “I fell asleep.”

“That’s ok,” I said. “I did too.”

“Did you? Oh good! I felt so bad,” she said.

“It’s not a problem,” I said. “I love naps.”

“Me too,” she said. “Well we won’t have time to go to the chocolate factory today. Will and Cole have tutoring lesson here in a few minutes. But maybe I can start dinner and we can go for a hike again?”

“That sounds great,” I said.

I went back down to my room, opened my laptop and started working on some homework. I haven’t really had a lot to study, but I also haven’t had a lot of time to study so this seemed like a good little break. After about 30 minutes, Mary came down and said she was ready to go.

“Don’t tell Bryan about nap time,” she said. “He can’ think that I made his friend sleep all day in Switzerland.”

We went for another beautiful walk up through the mountains. There is a beautiful church less than a mile behind their house, with another incredible red faced clock tower. It has the same onion shapped steeple that I saw everywhere in Munich.  As we walked, we talked about siblings and kids and the challenges of being a teenager these days. We talked about the fun foods you can buy in Europe that are over-regulated in the US.

When we got back I continued working on homework until dinner was ready. Mary made gnocci, bread, and veggies for dinner and again, homemade food tasted awesome.

"Here, do you want some gnocci?" she asked me. "I've never made it before so I don't know if it's any good."

"Well with that endorsement, how can he say 'no'?" Dale joked. I did have some and it was awesome.

"The bread is squishy and sweet," Gabrielle pointed out.

"Gnocci and squishy bread," Mary said, "It doesn't get much better than that!"

Over dinner, Mary shared stories about working in the medical field. She had been a doctor back in the US and had great stories—both funny and moving—about working both trauma surgery and psych rotations.

After Will and Cole went to bed, Mary, Dale, Gabrielle, and I continued talking and laughing. Mary poured us some of her favorite dessert wine that tasted amazing, and we enjoyed it with some Lindt chocolate.

“This one is Dale’s favorite,” Mary explained, pulling out chocolate covered caramels. “This is Gabrielle’s favorite,” revealing a pure milk chocolate bar. “And this one is my favorite,” she said, bringing out the last bar that was filled with toffee. All three of them tasted fantastic.

I’d given them the box of Czech chocolates that I’d bought in the airport. After finishing the Lindt bars, we decided to crack it open.

“Oh my gosh!” Mary said, as she opened the box. “They’re beautiful!”

They were not in fact chocolates, but chocolate flavored wafers. Ivana had told me they were the most traditional gift to send to people from Prague.  They were beautiful. Light brown in color, they had intricate flowery designs etched into them.

“Now these would be great to use for communion,” Mary said.

“With a little bit of that dessert wine,” I added. We laughed again.

“We have to play a game,” Mary said. “Let me go find it. It’s an activity we had to do in parent teacher conferences today.” She ran back to her office and returned with a black and white photo. “OK, I knew what this was but Dale didn’t and none of the other parents did,” Mary said, showing the photo to me and Gabrielle. “What is it?”

The picture looked like a large canister of some sort with two parallel arms sticking off the side, one on top of the other.

“It almost looks like a shop vac,” I guessed.

“Nope,” Mary said.

“Is it used for cooking,” Gabrielle guessed.

“Nope,” Mary said.

We throughout a couple more ideas before giving up.

“It’s a washing machine!” she said. “An old washing machine. You washed clothes in there and then cranked them through those things to dry them.”

We stayed up a while longer just swapping stories before heading to bed.

“Tomorrow we’ll go on an adventure,” Mary said. “I promise!”

That sounded good to me, although I had to admit, after running all over Europe, it was nice to just sit around, unwind and share stories for a couple days.