Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The way home

Every day I make 8 trips to & from The Girl's school. Here's why - sending her to school (there & back 2x), picking her up for lunch (2x), dropping her off after lunch (2x), picking her up again after school at 4.30 (2x). A good thing we live less than 1 km from the school.

Even so, most of the trips are done by car. Morning is a mad rush so a leisurely stroll to school is out of the question, lunch time is only 1 and half hours so again there is not enough time. The only time it's possible to walk is when I pick her up at 4.30. When the weather is nice, like we have right now, I would walk to her school & then we'd walk home together. So it's a route I know like the back of my hand.

Last Sunday, I attended a gathering of English speakers & I found myself telling someone this set of directions to my place,
"Take the road after the church & past the school. At the junction, keep right cos if you go left, it would be a dead end where the cows are. The road would take you past the house where the old lady lives with the goats. Continue on until you see the olive trees on your right, ours is the first stone house after that."

This is what I would have said 5 years ago
"Take the uptown 6 train & get off at 86th Street. Walk 3 blocks downtown along Lexington. Turn right on 83rd. Enter the first building on your right & buzz apartment 6C."

PS. The picture above is one of our cute neighbours.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the way you describe how the two ways home contrast. Cute neighbour indeed! :)

bACk in GERMANY said...

Moo! So cute the cow!

I prefer your present description of your address though. Sounds like a nice walk where one can run into friendly people!

So you used to live on the Upper East Side? Still a pretty much desired address! Haha... maybe I'm self-projecting! :)

petite fleur said...

Anonymous - those are 2 very different worlds

Back in Germany - Contrary to what people think, rents on the Upper East Side weren't the most expensive in Manhattan. It's a little snooty at some parts but I love the location - close to Central Park, my office & the Museum Row. And I had a great little apartment as well. Sigh I miss NY