Crazy Signs

Ahhh.... we're back from our long-anticipated week at Club Med Beldi in Antalya, Turkey. Yes, Turkey and yes, Club Med. Our transformation to European Yuppies is complete. See, we had decided some time ago – really, after last summer's Italian adventure during which we realized that without child care, trekking through endless churches, baptisteries, and cobbled squares wasn't a vacation, it was just a trip – that this summer we would finally splurge on an all-inclusive, warm, beachy vacation. Between Jeff starting his new job, the move, the endless shopping and furnishing, the entertaining, we all needed one.

Italy, Schmitaly - watch Rome fall for a second time, moohahaha....

I spent April and May poring over the various family vacation websites – Thomson and Mark Warner here in the UK, the not-at-all-poop-suggestive babyfriendlyboltholes.com, etc. My SIL had always raved about Club Med –they go to the Dominican Republic every year, so I called to see if they had anything available with child care for the under-3 set. As it was late May, the only one with any space left was Turkey. Watching helplessly as Josie "painted" the new coffee table with strawberry milk before decoupaging it with Disney Princess stickers, I ponied up our Amex number toute de suite.

We knew it would be "hot," but having spent most of the summer in England I think our bodies all forgot what really HOOOOTTTT is. We stepped off the plane in Antalya in our long pants and fleeces and were nearly knocked out by the fiery, humid air – and that was at 9:30 p.m.! We woke up the next morning in our spartan, but serviceable, suite, walked outside, and WHAM. Yup, still hot. Still sweaty-in-your-shorts, every-hair-frizzing, Mr.-Heat-Miser HOT. Our dreams of sprinting around the tennis courts like Connor and Evert? Poof. The schedule of aerobic and "body conditioning" classes? Disintegrated. Bathing suits on, pretty much never came off the whole week.

Our vision of the truly relaxing vacation did, surprisingly (given how many of my visions/delusions are completely off-track) come to pass. Josie sprinted off to Petit Club Med "camp" every morning around 9:30. Jeff and I would swim, read until our tailbones ached, and swim some more. We took a remedial sailing lesson (mostly in French) and then added a morning sail to our repertoire. Aha, but that brings me to... the French issue. We told everyone we were going to "Turkey" for vacation, but where we landed was a tiny, purely French oasis on the Mediterranean. This, apparently, is standard for Club Med in Europe. 95% of the guests are French. 98% of the general announcements and conversations are French. And the ambiance and daily (and nightly!) entertainment? Oh, strictly French! It all comes down to a little something called "Crazy Signs."

What, you ask, are "Crazy Signs?" Likely you are picturing something like this:

Seen somewhere in Canada - don't mess with our badass meese!

And while that sign is indeed crazy, and not beyond the farcical French sense of humor – many of those Canooks are French after all – it is a mere shadow of the freak show that is Club Med Crazy Signs. It took us a few days to catch on, but as Jeff and I lounged in the shady chairs we had woken up at 5:30 a.m. to mark with various scents and personal items, we began to notice a strange occurence every day around 11:30.

Gawky 12-16 year old boys and the cooler, 12-16 year old girls gathered at the edges of the pool and on the pool's island. The smooth-jazz music that had provided such nice background to Mikail Blomkvist's endless consumption of coffee and sandwiches suddenly turned into booming French house music. And the hunky six-pack kids' sports counselor (they were all called G.O.s, while we guests were called G.M.s, boy was Jeff crushed not to have found himself in some Lost-type wish-fulfillment fantasy, somehow magically managing the Yankees from a Turkish fishing village) appeared with a LOUD microphone yakking some kind of Frenchy rap jibberjabber, inciting the teens to synchronized arm-waving and terrible-relegated-to-off-camera-Soul Train dancing. But why even try to describe this debauchery when I can show you? Check it out.

Everyone seemed to know the crazy signs, and accompanying nonsensical rap – something about let's go, let's go! I am tired, and so I will sleep, sha-ma sha-ma! [My favorite is the little kid just to the left of Monsieur Six-Pack – gazing up at him, thinking, "Eef I can do ze Crazy Signs, I too weel haf beeg muscles and win all zee chicks."] It was like a classic 50s musical – or that Oprah where the Black-Eyed Peas got 5,000 people to do the same dance. We sat, mouths agape. We had lived peacefully among these stoic, immaculately groomed and always-appropriate people for 18 months – and yet, clearly we really didn't know them. The drycleaning lady, the Cranky Potato Pancake Man, the Snippy Top-Floor neighbor, doing Crazy Signs? Ce n'est pas possible! OK, Mr. Dried Fruit Man, I can totally see doing Crazy Signs. But he's a special kind of mensch.

There's only one answer we could think of – it must be incredibly difficult to live 350-odd days a year as a French person, dressing just so, tolerating the strikes and Sunday closures, conjugating all those verbs, holding your face as though you'd just smelled something really foul (of course we are not referring to the completely laid-back French we hold as dear friends - and you know who you are). The yearly antidote? Crazy Signs! I can see some medicin writing it up now: "Fifteen minutes/day of semi-nude, quasi-epileptic wriggling, two weeks per annum."

Not even by going on a terrible, sick-making "sunset cruise" could we escape the insanity. As we clung, green and trembling, to the boat's rails, whispering quiet thanks that the familiar chairs and umbrellas were coming into sight, the skipper and accompanying GOs summoned us to the upper deck for a Very Special Throwdown. The network has issued the following warning: the footage you are about to see is extremely disturbing, and probably should not be viewed by anyone over the age of three.

How classic is that dad working the camera? I dare you to picture Martin Scorsese getting that level of freak on behind the lens. All this joking about the wacky Frenchies aside, I have to say it was really nice to be among our "other peeps" again. I realized how much I had missed being able to tune out inane conversations thanks to utter lack of comprehension. And honestly, we ended up chatting (with great effort) with more French families than the 2-3 British families there. I felt quite nostalgic making French small talk, eating Pains au Chocolat, and yes, even feeling like a schlub aside the impeccably-dressed French mothers. It didn't help that I was reading We'll always have Paris (and Provence) by Patricia Wells, and remembering with fondness our move to the City of Lights.

We even got caught up in the craziness – I was recruited, along with some other (French, of course) parents to do Crazy Signs onstage (oh, the humanity!) as part of the "Movie Marathon" show one afternoon, dressed in a red fright wig and sparkly toga (what the French think constitutes a "Saturday Night Fever" ensemble), and Josie, of course, appeared in the Petit Club show. Not sure why our daughter is the only one not wearing actual clothing, but she had a blast.

A star is born

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation and one I would highly recommend. The beach, as you'll see in the photos posted, was beautiful – not only much cooler and breezier than the pool, but incredibly peaceful with rolling mountains rising behind it. The food was incredible - each evening's meal was more creatively executed than the last, with huge, fresh fishes filleted and grilled before your eyes, piles of salads in every combination of fresh vegetables imaginable, yogurts, baklava... I think the intense sweating was the only thing that prevented us from gaining twenty pounds. I never worried for a second about Josie in the care of fun and completely attentive Petit Club workers. I read three books! Josie threw rocks (see right) And Jeff and I got some much-needed alone time. Everyone had fun - now that's a vacation! CRA-ZY!

I haven't even had time to blog about our wonderful visit with the Roger Rothman family, during which we saw the sights of Bath, the Cotswolds, and a nice chunk of the beautiful English countryside that surrounds our humble abode on Pulteney Street. I'll post the pics with descriptive captions, anyway.

Tomorrow Josie and I are joining my Parisian pal C and her children for one last hurrah at the beach in Devon. Sadly, the forecast is 50-60 degrees and cloudy/rainy. Still, I'm thrilled to see her and the British coast. It's our last "Bank Holiday" weekend of the summer, before school starts next week. Our summer started out a bit slow, in a new country with no friends, but now I feel as though it's really flown.

Makes me want to savor that last bit of summertime - crank some Bananarama, watch Kelly and Dylan fall in sweet, illicit love, sip a gin and tonic. I'm sure C will be up for at least 2 out of 3!

Sha-ma, sha-ma mes copains!