I want my mom (to be able to make her flight to France)!

We are watching the volcano drama unfold closely. It appears our family friends Kathy and Alex made it out on one of the last planes to leave France on Thursday, just before they put the air space restrictions into place. Quelle chance! Now I am hoping for the winds of change to arrive in time for my mom's flight on Saturday night. She is calm about it and hopes the flight will still happen (although she acknowledges that it might not), so I am trying to be, too.

But it's hard -- because I *really* REALLY want her to be able to come. We have been talking about her trip here for so long, plotting, planning, dreaming, and exchanging countless emails. I have our hotels in the Loire booked (one former abbey, one former petite chateau), I know which days we will go to market, I know just which walks and restaurants and shops I want to take her to, and John has a great rental van booked well in advance.  The kids are SO excited to see her, too. I know it will not be the end of the world if she is not able to come...but oh, I hope she can.

And I'm not the only one sending all of my energy to the skies, hoping for a shift of the winds. We have several friends on both sides of the Atlantic who have already been caught in the travel nightmare. One friend from Lethbridge came to Oxford to give a paper... and now is worried she won't make it home for her son's first birthday. Another friend from Burgundy took her kids to Calgary for les vacances scolaire and now won't be heading back for at least nine more days. Other Lethbridge friends flew to England for her father's birthday... and haven't been able to get through to the airline for days to even ask about when or how they might be able to reschedule. All of these people are missing school, work, family, milestones and more. And these are just the people I know... there are hundreds of thousands of others with stories like this around the world. Kind of mind-boggling, isn't it?

When I read about how this volcano has, in the past, spent more than a year spewing its ash and steam, it also made me wonder what would happen if Europe remains a no-fly zone for a longer term. How would we get home if the volcano is still active in June and the prevailing winds are still, well, prevailing? Would we try to catch a ship back to North America? Drive to Portugal and leave from there? Since our big return is still two months off, I haven't spent a *lot* of time dwelling on this (in fact, I have been madly using my internet travel agent skills to search for the friend trying to get home in time for her son's birthday -- this morning I found a train to Rome and flight to Toronto for her next week if she can wait that long)... but the thought has started to cross my mind.

I have spent a bit more time thinking about how reliant we are on air travel for more than moving tourists and business people. One article I read mentioned that injured U.S. soldiers are being sent straight to Andrews AFB in the U.S., instead of being taken to a base in Germany. That one change involves so many people and places... and there are thousands of similar changes that must be made in the midst of this natural crisis. And what about the mail? What about the fruit, the food, the clothes, the cargo that are regularly shipped from one part of the world to another?

The only silver lining in this ash cloud that I have seen is that it's a natural phenomenon, not man made. There is no one to be angry at. It just *is*. So all you can do (at least all I am trying to do) is shrug your mental shoulders on all of the uncertainty, in that French way. And all you can say is on verra (we'll see).

Well, you can also wish wildly, pray passionately, hope whole-heartedly (and when needed, check out this handy New York Times site of open and closed airports). It might not be as French of a response... but it certainly can't hurt either.

Burgundy -- the wine

I just read this very interesting article on Slate about the great battle between Burgundy and Bordeaux wines. Here's the lede and a few other paragraphs:

I'm a Burgundy Man: Choosing sides in the great wine-world fight between Burgundy and Bordeaux.

By Mike Steinberger 
Posted Monday, April 12, 2010, at 3:53 PM ET

Hundreds of buyers and journalists were in Bordeaux the week before last tasting barrel samples of the 2009 vintage. The Bordelais are second to none when it comes to hyping their own wines, and long before the expectorating masses came to town, they had already declared 2009 to be a possible vintage of the century. Of course, they made the same lofty claim about 2005, and 2003, and 2000 before that; on the present trajectory, Bordeaux will have had 40 vintages of the century by the time the year 2100 arrives. But as ever, the buzz from Bordeaux prompted feverish speculation about the ratings that critics, namely Robert Parker, were likely to dole out and how much gouging the chateaux, who are also very adept at charging for their wines, would do. Indeed, as of last week, I literally had not seen a single Internet discussion regarding the 2009 vintage that hadn't morphed into a thread about scores and prices. And each of these conversations left me with the exact same thought: Thank God for Burgundy.

...Burgundy has always been a world apart from Bordeaux. While the Bordelais classified their wines by price, the Burgundians did it on the basis of terroir—on what they believed to be the intrinsic quality of each vineyard, as revealed over the centuries. Burgundy's grand cru and premier cru designations, which were formally introduced in the 1930s, are aesthetic judgments, not commercial benchmarks. 

...These differences seem more pronounced of late. While Bordeaux is increasingly corporate, its proprietors further removed than ever from the winemaking process, the overwhelming majority of Burgundy estates are still mom-and-pop operations, and the region's agrarian way of life has become even more entrenched. In Burgundy, the winery owners almost always do the winemaking themselves, and these days, the amount of time that a vintner spends in the fields is seen as a measure of his or her commitment to quality. The idea that great wines are made in the vineyard is now Burgundy's mantra, and its best producers work their vines with a fastidiousness that would put their fathers and grandfathers to shame. With Burgundy, you are not drinking a luxury label owned by a guy in a Brioni suit, but rather a wine made by a farmer dressed in boots, and for me, this authenticity is also part of Burgundy's attraction relative to Bordeaux.

...I suspect, though, that Burgundy's growing allure is also a statement about what people value in their glass. Wine writer Matt Kramer recently wrote a piece in which he recalled waxing lyrical about Burgundy to French critic Michel Bettane, who replied, "Ah, Matt, you want to dream your wines." I think that's true for most of us: The wines we feel most passionate about are those that offer not only compelling aromas and flavors, but a little romance and soul, too. It is hard to discern these qualities in most Bordeaux nowadays; however good the wines may taste, they have become so bound up in prices, scores, and luxury marketing that the romance and soul have been drained out of them. For me, and I think for an increasing number of wine drinkers, what appeals about Burgundy is not only the excellence of the wines, but the charm and character of the place itself.

John and I have been thoroughly enjoying Burgundy wines since the night of our arrival. Although we haven't yet had a chance to do much in the world of formal tastings and degustations, we both have enjoyed the incredible choice, reasonable price, and delicious taste of wines grown, quite literally, in our own backyard.

We have learned that 2005 was truly a terrific year (for wine as well as for us -- that was the year Katie and Livie were born). The 2006 whites are also so very, very good. And we'll get a chance to learn a bit more about all of this on May 8 and 9, when we head to Claire Naudin's, of Domaine Naudin Ferrand in Magny-les-Villers. The local winemaker, a friend of Franck and Laura's (and mother of a classmate of Jack's), will be holding the annual winemaker's "open house" in the next village just one kilometer away. Apparently this is a family-friendly event that is not to be missed.

We can't wait to check it out. Like the author of the Slate article says: there is just something quite special about Burgundy -- its people, its countryside, and its wine.