Milan, Italy

The beginning of November, I found myself in Milan, Italy! Just me and my friend Jenn (ok and HER 6 month old baby) but that is all. We flew there on Friday morning and didn't come back til Sunday night.....uh make that Monday night (there were a few delays in our return).

Here is the main train station in the middle of the city, "Centrale." Lovely! We were actually trying to find our way from the train to the metro when our elevator doors opened on the wrong floor and we saw the scene in the above picture. The doors closed and we headed down to the floor we needed but changed our mind and just wanted to see the city. So we walked out and saw the "giant apple thing" and the front of the train station and our adventure in Milan began. We calculated that our hotel was 3 1/2 miles from this point, so not having any complaining children in tow, we decided to walk it and see the city on foot. We stopped at every bakery along the way. It was quite a long walk especially since we didn't know exactly where we were going. We just tried to walk in the general direction of our hotel. I am sure it would have been much quicker if the SAT NAV on our phone worked a bit better. But it was no big deal, we ate focaccia bread with whole green olives on it, crescents filled with custard, crescent sandwiches, and all kinds of other pastries. It made the trip so much more enjoyable.



Here is Jenn and the most well-behaved, portable baby ever, Ezra. (Hey, I didn't care there was a baby along, as long as it wasn't MY baby....) 

As we were walking, we ran into a film crew. Yes, they were filming Ghostbusters! We couldn't believe it. However, we watched and realized it was some kind of Italian ghost busting team and not the original or even new movie that has come out in the states. It was still cool to watch. I dig their outfits. Quite good, I must say!

Another picture of the men keeping the city safe from ghosts!

Another stop on our long walk to the hotel, gelato! Amazing! Didn't get nearly enough on this trip. Could have eaten loads more.

This is the Duomo. It is a spectacular looking building. Love the gothic look. Gorgeous inside too. Very high arched ceiling.

Sat in a café for a few hours one evening across from the Duomo just having pastries and chatting for a few hours. So relaxing and lovely!

I discovered caffe d'orzo or cappuccino d'orzo (whichever way you like it). Its a hot barley drink that I love! We sipped that in the café for hours looking at the Duomo and chatting. I had one every day.

The shopping was out of this world. In fact, it was in a world I am absolutely not a part of and know nothing about. The most expensive, high-end shops that you have ever seen in the most luxurious indoor/outdoor shopping mall ever. This is the Galleria where Prada and Louis Vuitton and other stores I would never imagine myself going into let alone actually buying something in, including a Ferrari shop. Apparently, many people who come here often run into or have sightings of celebrities shopping here.

Another picture of the Galleria

Police in the Galleria

Yes, that is Louis Vuitton in the Galleria.

And yes, I had the best pizza and lasagna ever! I can't explain why but it was so good. Maybe because I was eating it in Italy....

The Serenity of Wales

Over half term, we ventured over to Wales. It was such a lovely break. I (that is ME, Joyce) picked us the most perfect, little cottage ever! Everyone loved it and was so happy there. No one wanted to leave when our time was up. In our travels in the last few years, I have learned that the place we stay, is just as or even more important than where we go and what we see. Most of the time, I spend more time finding us a place to stay than planning what we will do. We just figure that part out when we get there. Anyway, this cottage was a converted barn and  was very secluded in a small village in mid-Wales. After exiting the long drive covered in a canopy of green you immediately see the most lush green hill dotted with sheep with a quaint little farm house in the distance. The hill was topped by trees of all different autumn colours. The scene was breath-taking! I love going up to Wales every October to get my fix of autumn colours.



Our cottage had two features our family adored. First, was this coal burning stove in the kitchen. It was so lovely to sit and read by the warmth of the stove while we waited for Daddy to make our meals...(he is so good to us!)

The kitchen was so cool. Not one I would want to have permanently but so fun and unique for a holiday. Because the cottage was a converted barn it had all these little extra cubby holes or different features that made it so interesting. The ceilings were very low and covered with the cross beams from the original building! I love that look.   

The other feature of the cottage that our family absolutely loved was this open fire place in the lounge with a large screen T.V. We spent our evenings cuddled up with a roaring fire, sipping hot chocolate and watching old Grace Kelly movies. Could it be more perfect?

This was the lovely garden out back.

Here are all the girls one morning all sitting around the coal burning stove waiting for Charles to serve them their breakfast.   .

This is our cottage.

Charles took more photos of the leaves while we were out hiking but I do not have them. We took some really lovely drives looking through the Brecon Beacons National Park. We also took a little hike by a river as well and tried to find a Roman camp though, we never found it. But it was a good excuse to keep the girls walking...

Volunteering in the Jungle

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of going to Calais, France to volunteer in the Jungle Refugee camp. I was one of five women who traveled down from St. Albans to Calais. We left at 3:30am to arrive at 5:30am and meet our group. The night before we packed my car completely full with donated clothes for men and teenage boys including new socks and underwear as well as winter gear etc. My car was so full, there was not even as much as an air pocket of space left. (My car is a 7 seater.) My friend and I climbed in the two front seats (the other three women drove in a different car)and while driving bags of clothes kept falling down on us, but we made it to the tunnel where we met up with our group and transferred the donations to a van. We went through the Eurotunnel and made our way to the Calais warehouse where we unloaded several vans of food and clothes. It was quite an impressive haul. We spent several hours unloading the vans and moving pallets of food into the warehouse. People are always rushing around all over the warehouse. On the far left side is the kitchens where they provide one meal per day for as many refugees as they can. The camp now has 10,000 refugees including 1,000 unaccompanied children. That is a lot of people to feed. As you move away from the kitchens, there are shelves, pallets and stacks of all food waiting to be used as well as long tables for assembling food parcels etc. They had a lot more food this time than they had last time. I was glad to see it since they also have several thousand more refugees this time than they did back in June. Moving toward the middle of the warehouse is the area where all the clothes are sorted and then further along is where shelter building materials are stored including tents and tarpaulin etc. It is a big production. Everyone who works there are volunteers. There are no official NGOs in this camp either. The organizations providing aid were started by volunteers and are kept running completely by volunteers.  It is quite amazing.



Our group also brought down knitted squares from Utah as well as from our stake. Others brought knitted squares from all over England, France and Germany. We had three huge bin bags full of squares that we brought. All the squares were brought to the Dunkirk camp where they were used to make blankets. Two of the women from our group went to the Dunkirk camp Women's centre to help the refugee women and children put together the squares to make blankets. There were very positive comments about how it went. One woman was so pleased to see an Iraqi Kurdish woman leave the Women's centre with a blanket she had put together over her arm and a big proud smile on her face.

Here is my friend Jenn back at the warehouse in Calais packing shelves with tinned fish.

Men from Gravesend and Northampton unloading pallets of food in the warehouse.

A volunteer from Northampton helping a young girl put together squares in Dunkirk.

An action shot of me and my friend Raj taking a cart of pre-assembled hygiene kits into the warehouse. Raj patiently taught me how to make shutters last time I came. He is an incredibly skilled man but extremely patient. I very much appreciated his patience when I was getting the hang of the nail guns and drills.  

Volunteers from Northampton taking in finished blankets made of knitted squares they had pre-assembled.

Unloading the vans. I wish people in the States and elsewhere who feel helpless and want to do something to help would get on the British grocery store websites and order groceries for the camp. It could all be done from the comfort of their home and computer. This is what was done by many synagogues, mosques, churches and universities all over the UK. They simply got on Tesco.com and ordered stacks of flour and sugar etc. and had it delivered to our group in Kent. They then loaded all the food into our vans and we took it to Calais. It was amazing how much food we were able to take over. It felt so good unloading it all knowing there is 10,000 people to feed but sobering knowing how fast it all would go.  

After unloading all the vans at the warehouse, we joined our teams to set off to do our work for the day. I was part of the "shelter repair" team. We drove to the Jungle where we quickly realized the enormity of the camp. We drove through winding, narrow dirt roads lined with tents and shacks and while walking wondered how we would ever find our way back to the car. Fortunately, we were paired up with a South African volunteer named Callum who had been helping build shelters for about two months. He knew his way around so we just followed him everywhere. Above is part of my team taking a rest after hours of work.

On our way out of the camp, I took a few photos with my phone.

We worked behind a restaurant that looked similar to this one where we put together a make-shift shelter that used the rear all of the restaurant for one of its walls. The other end was held up by two other shelters making a rectangle which was covered with tarps for a shelter. It was going to house about 9 people in half of it to start but I am sure it will fill up with even more than that in no time. Before covering the walls and ceiling with tarps however, we had to get wood. We disassembled several old pallets with very brittle wood to make strips going across the ceiling and walls to hold up the tarps.  The French CRS (police) do not allow any wood to be brought into the camp so the residents have to be creative and use anything they can find. We nailed the brittle wood across from the back of the restaurant to the two shelters behind for the ceiling and then laid the tarps across. My friend Jenn had the awful task of being on the roof to nail the tarps and wood in place. I kept thinking she would fall through if she put any weight on this wood. Fortunately, she was able to sit on the roof of the restaurant which was sturdy and stretch across to nail the tarps in place. While we worked, the people we were building the shelter for, kept bringing us tea to thank us. We were in the Afghani section of the camp. They were so grateful for our help and supplies. They were so patient with our work too and did not try to butt in or take over.  They patiently let the women do things and were happy to help where they could. I never felt threatened or in any kind of danger. I only felt the utmost respect from them. After we finished the walls and ceiling we laid more pallets down as a floor for them to sleep on to get them off the dirt. It didn't look comfortable. It was a pretty hot day so I had to leave the shelter to get some air. However, I couldn't help but think how cold the shelter would be in a matter of a few weeks with winter coming.  Also in the back of my mind, I kept thinking what a shame this all was, it seemed our work was almost in vain since in a few short weeks, (31 October) the French government has announced their intention to dismantle and demolish the entire camp. They want to disburse all residents to asylum centres all over France. This plan has been criticized for not really dealing with the problem but instead creating little jungle camps all over France. Besides, the last time the northern portion of the camp was demolished, hundreds of unaccompanied children simply vanished most likely to human traffickers.

Here is Jenn on the roof of the shelter.

Another photo from the car on the way out.

 

This is a shot of "main street"

It was a sobering day. At one point when we first arrived at the camp, we got out of our cars with piles of tarpaulin (tarps) to take to specific jobs we had been assigned. All of a sudden, we were bombarded by about 10 men pleading for a tarp to fix a leaky roof or build a shelter. We almost started giving the tarps away but were quickly told to stop since we would cause a riot or stampede. People were so desperate. We had to turn them all away. That was difficult.

Dunkirk Refugee Camp

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to volunteer in the Dunkirk refugee camp in France. It was a great experience. (Unfortunately, my pictures have all uploaded out of order but I am too lazy to put them in order.) I got up at 2:30am to drive over and pick up our team of six from St. Albans and left at 3:30am to make our way down to the Eurotunnel where we got on a mini bus with a bunch of other volunteers in a convoy of cars and vans headed to Calais.  Above: This is a picture of some friends and I in the Women's centre in the camp. We were doing a sewing project with the women of the camp that had just been approved the previous week. Old Singer sewing machines with crank handles were brought in and loads of fabric and sewing equipment was donated. We were the first group to try out this new project. We didn't get into the Women's center until the afternoon. There was one seamstress volunteer making dresses for several little girls who were all lined up waiting patiently for their turn to be sized for their new dress with the fabric they had chosen. I loved watching as each girl's dress was finally done and she tried it on with a big smile on her face. Other girls would then take out her hair and try and fix it to match her pretty dress, often running around finding ribbon for her hair to match. There was another woman helping to make quilts. We walked in and were asked if we would help an Iraqi woman make a dress/tunic. We looked at each other quite worried but agreed to give it our best shot. The woman did not help us, she simply wanted us to do it for her. So with our very limited sewing skills, we got to work. It was hilarious trying to make the dress several sizes larger than the pattern. We were running on very little sleep and had just finished doing several big labour intensive projects in the morning, so our brains were not functioning at full capacity.  



When we first arrived at the camp in the morning, we worked on the little school - consisting of two classrooms with a little play area in the middle. We painted, mended fences and swing sets, made shutters for the windows and leveled the ground and spread out wood chips and sand. It was a lot of work.

Here we are again still trying to measure this dress so we could cut it out. It was way beyond any sewing abilities I have. The Iraqi woman was looking nervous after we were still trying to figure out the measurements an hour later... We did end up with a dress-like garment in the end. I am not sure it was what the woman was envisioning. It needed to have some serious tailoring done but we were proud to get the main pieces sewn together. In the book we were using, the dress was labeled a level 4 out of 5 for difficulty. It had a bodice. I didn't even know what a bodice was before this experience.

This is the whole group. They were from places all over England. Not only did we get to talk to the refugees but I made many new friends from the other volunteers.

This is an 87 year old woman from our group (she is from my ward) who was showing the children how to knit. She was fantastic! They loved her.

Here is a panoramic picture of the camp. Dunkirk is actually a step up when it comes to camps. They are allowed to build these little wooden huts, though they are not big enough for a grown adult to lay down outstretched, they are at least off the ground and a shelter from the wind. The camp in Calais called the Jungle is not allowed these shelters so that camp is much worse off. The people live in make-shift tents with dirt floors or donated tents that sit in the mud.  

When we first arrived in Calais, we stopped at the warehouse for the Jungle refugee camp. We unloaded three vans of donated food. The volunteers there were in tears because they had gotten so low on food. A convoy bringing food the past weekend had been turned back because of issues at the border. It is Ramadan right now and most people are fasting all day and then have had very little or nothing to break their fast. I brought two boxes of dates into the warehouse kitchen. You would have thought I was carrying gold, people were jumping up and down, shouting "we have dates!"

Here is a friend of mine and I cutting wood for repairing the fence by the little school. She was much better at sawing than me. All those years at the gym and I am still a wimp....

Here are some of the volunteers with some Iraqi ladies in the women's centre. I spoke to the Iraqi woman on the in the hijab on the right side in Arabic. She told me she was from Mosul. She said her husband was in Britain and she and her two children have been stuck in the camp for the past 8 months. (Yes, I was albe to speak Arabic in the camp a little bit but not as much as I would have like. Not that many Arabic speakers in Dunkirk. Apparently, there are a lot more in the Jungle. I will go there next time.) The woman in the blue hijab came in and whipped up a gorgeous long dress out of some blue velvet she found. She even put some lace around the neck. She whipped that out in less than half the time it took us just to measure and cut out our dress pieces. I think the Iraqi woman we were sewing for had regrets about her choice of seamstresses.....

Here is a photo of one of the finished classrooms. Notice the lovely shutters and how nicely they are put together. I made those!!! I told Charles we will now be putting shutters up on all our windows because I know how to make them!  If you would like to hire me to make shutters for your house, just leave a comment at the end of this post. I accept all major credit cards....Aren't they beautiful?

We repaired this old swing set by the school that only had one swing. I have several pictures of a bunch of happy little Iraqi girls playing on it afterwards with their dolls. This is one of the volunteers trying it out.

When we were painting the school, loads of refugee children came running over wanting to help. The volunteers let them have a try. However, they started painting everything in sight, including the flower boxes which we were just going to leave unpainted but never mind, they are white now.

Here is a view of the main path down the middle of the camp. You could definitely feel a sadness about the camp. We ate our lunch in the camp from a meal truck along with all the refugees. There was a stack of plates and forks by two large tubs of water out in the open air. You take a plate go to the old broken down meal truck where a guy dishes you out a huge helping of rice and lentils (with bits of potato and grape leaves in it), eat it at one of the picnic tables, wash your plate and put it back on  the stack. It filled me up.



This is the finished play area between the two classrooms, in the foreground that you can't see, we laid sand. Isn't it lovely! The fence in the background is the one we repaired.

Here is the 87 year old woman in action teaching knitting to some of the children. She was fabulous. Her and I stopped at Burger King while waiting for our train back to England and shared French fries and ice cream for dinner. I don't think she ever eats that way but it couldn't not have been a better dinner.  



More pictures of the children helping with the painting.

Ok one more shutter shot....have you ever seen more lovely shutters in all your life?