Ciao, Ragazzi -- Ciao, Lugano

And we're outta here. Older, wiser, humbler, broke.

You can find us at our new coordinates:

R&R Schuchardt
66 Monroe Hwy
Brooks, ME 04921

temporary phone number is 207-722-3712
e-mail Read at read@cleave.com
e-mail Rachel at rschuchardt@gmail.com

Best,

The Schuchardts

Snow Fun

Snow day sledding.



This is how cold it was this past Christmas, and how much fun the kids had on an empty campus that was full of snow. Today, by contrast, is the first full real day of spring, so this is feeling nostalgic already.


The snow covering a persimmon tree created gorgeousness and gorgeosity.

Going. Cautiously. Nowhere.

And we're back. Thanks for your patience while we went through technical upgrades and huge life decisions and repeated medical emergencies. Here's the news: we're moving back to the USA, after careful consideration of the entire set of choices, futures, and possibilities that staying versus returning would grant us. Turns out that I was wrong on the homeschooling front, and while in Japan I did a lot of meditating on the future of the children, and realized what Rachel had apparently recognized years ago -- if we don't raise them to counter the culture, then nobody else will. And until Ticino changes its cantonal laws, home schooling is not an option under the current bureaucracy. So we're resuming what is essentially a slow and generational revolution. Seeing this sign in Lugano made the lightbulb pop: not only did it make us ask - Where did we think we were going? - but it also made us think about our experience of the overall direction that European culture itself seems to be headed in: death by boredom, loss of nerve, and disappearance of the lust for life. The charmed life of an American expatriate Europhile may seem romantic if you're reading this back in puddletown, but the reality is not half so romantic as our cropped photographs make it seem, and the long-term sustainability of the whole enterprise is about zero. And of course, this is its own puddletown in just as many ways as the one you're in. So we're coming back across the pond, jumping into an even smaller puddle, and planning on making a splash. More soon on all that.

We look forward to rejoining you, our distant friends, this coming July.

Is This Thing On?

Tap tap. Tap tap. Okay, it's working. Sorry we were silent for like, six weeks! Didn't realize how many of you had made this your personal umbilicus to all things Schuchardt Family. We'll post something soon. Meanwhile, if you actually know us and love us, you're always welcome to give us a call on the technology called the 'telephone', quaint and antiquated as that sounds. Our number is still +41-91-980-3660. (Sorry to put in the British country code earlier -- that was not a test, just me being an absentminded professor)

We're transmigrating the old data to the new computer (thank you, Franklin College gods of computing!), and we'll have more to post forthwith. Medical drama, speaking engagements, winter fun, train travel, skiing mishaps, and Big News all to come...

Going to Gandria on a Gondola

Getting on the boat - it wasn't really a gondola, I got carried away by the possibility of poetry, and I'm sorry.


Water, like fire, offers a non-repeatable pattern that mesmerizes us. This is probably why television news always lead with a house fire if they've go the footage -- everything else is visually predictable to our retina.



As we pulled closer to this quaint medieval town hugging the lake shore in the mist...


We saw someone's very nice summer home -- but going shopping must be hell.


Can you imagine, fishing for dinner out your front window? Kayaking to work? We, of course, could imagine it -- but no one we met actually does these things, apparently.


Aquaduct? Highway system? Tourist trap? It's so hard to tell these days. (Pretty, though!)


Getting close to landing at the dock...


Swiss Family Schuchardt on dry land at last...


It was a beautiful, calm, cold, melancholy day, the town felt deserted in the middle of winter, and it ended with our eating appetizers at an overpriced restaurant (the only one open) just to warm up, and then missing the last boat and having to pay 100 francs to get home by taxi -- so we suddenly discovered the hidden cost of living amidst medieval charm on the lakeside, alrighty. But still and all, we'll go again when the weather's nicer.

Buon Natale -- Merry Swissmas

For those of you disappointed at not receiving one of the Schuchardt family's famously weird picture cards this year, please forgive us. No budget, no awareness of where to get these done around here, and certain props missing to make the ideal picture. Still, here's a picture of all us in snow-covered Sorengo in December, wishing you and yours a happy and joyful Christmas, and hoping to see you sooner rather than later.


The paradox of a white Christmas in Lugano: snow-covered palm trees.

Chesterton and Dad Go To Milan

On the last trip to Milan, Mercer and I never got our tickets punched, so we still had two unused tickets to Milan. So this week I took Chesterton for some last-minute Christmas shopping while Rachel hung out with Nanny and Poppa and the boys. The snow was gone, the city was pretty, and the fun we had!


We took the 10:21 train this time -- forget that 5 Am wake-up call!


Chesterton in training. Getting excited...


Funny billboard: The Marlboro man misses the train! No smoking on trains in Switzerland as of December 11, 2005.


Chesterton felt sorry for the horse... so he offered his bell pepper.


We realized we couldn't read the signs, so we just did what they told us to do.


On the train at last... going tanti kilometres per hour!


Everything a boy needs for adventure: tickets, passports, hot chocolate, (tonic water for Dad), and a page full of tic-tac-toe victories. We also played hangman. The napkin reminded us of the poor guy on the horse again, who missed the train, but we just shrugged it off: we didn't have to quit smoking, because we never started. After all, we were the kind of guys who ate bell peppers in public.



Chesterton Brown Schuchardt, world traveller, in the Milano train station, track #6.


Duomo wari gato, Mr. Roboto? The big - dum, da-dum, dum - Duomo, was kind of um, dumb: it was hidden behind scaffolding. Getting gorgeous for the next tourist season, I guess: "Boy Dad, that's a modern-looking church!" " You know those Italians, son, Milan is the fashion capital of the world, so even God has to dress up real nice-like."


We got thirsty, but couldn't get the can open. Still, cool Austin-Mini with the Red Bull treatment. In truth, you can see these puppies in every major city in the world, and my stepfather once got to see the private jet hangar of the president of this company, one of Europe's wealthiest guys. His secret? He never sleeps! Also, FYI, the Red Bull logo is in my dissertation, along with the Lamborghini bull, the Merrill Lynch bull, the Chicago Bulls, and lots of the other bullish icons of the Wall Street universe. The golden calves pulling their weight, A is for Ox, Alpha and Omega, all that symbolic Metaphysical stuff, still pretty much in operation down here on planet earth, oh Lord help us...


Oh Italy, how do I love thee? Let me count the cappucinos...


We found a Games Workshop in Milan. Even in uber-macho Italy, I guess young men need a consumer venue in which to enact their masculinity. I am red bull, hear me roar! "I am Chesterton, I'm tons of fun!" We checked out the cool new Lord of the Rings stuff, but resisted all urges. It was getting near lunch time...


Check the method -- prosciutto, olivo, mozzarello, yumm-o!!! Easily the best pizza we had all day...


Gulp... Now the circle is complete: here we are in a real Italian restaurant, which is in Italy (a real country!), and they have a framed print of the program for West Side Story! Must not have gotten the memo about Romeo and Juliet! It's like living in the Neuschwanstein castle in Germany and deciding to visit EuroDisneyland to see Snow White's castle! Hyperreality time warp! Umberto Eco, get me out of here, there's no intelligent life in this cramped entertainment prison!


Movo, the only hobby shop that matters. Chesterton acquires the Formula 1 Ferrari race car, Christmas presents for other boys also found.


Does this picture look familiar? The Aviation Collect Shop, the only hobby shop that doesn't matter, because it's always closed. Never again.


Better to be a live mouse than a dead zebra! White with black stripes? Or black with white stripes? You decide -- but remember, either way you answer, you're going to offend somebody.


The glass-blower dude. AWESOME!!! Afterwards, Chesterton said, "I still want to be an architect, but maybe I could also do that too."


Were we having fun? Big Time! This actually was in an architect's office, and afterwards Chesterton thought big clocks were cooler than blowing glass.


Having more fun than reasonable in the subway station architecture.


Tinker, Taylor, Baker, Guy: Where Mercer gets his name from: from mercer, an English word for "a dealer in fine linens." You see it in the States only on your fancy socks, if they happen to have a sticker that says, "Made with mercerized cotton." As you can see in the photo, it's a fancy clothes store.


Well worn out and now back on the train heading for Lugano. A day well spent.