The Olsons' European Adventure

Part 48: A brilliant vacation

2009-03-09T08:18:00.000Z

We still don’t know when we are coming home, but at one point along the spectrum of unpredictable events, I was told we would be moving home in Q2-2009. With this in mind, Amanda and I decided to make the most of Q1 and try to end our experience with a final blowout vacation: the Mediterranean cruise.

We planned it for March to be sure (as if that is possible) to still be in Europe for the trip. I know my Father-in-Law will disagree, but we believed we earned another vacation for enduring two and a half years in a foreign country. I think his official response was “Wow, that’s different! You guys are going on another vacation.” Whatever… We did it anyway.

The planning for this trip actually got started after I casually pitched the idea to Jason and Terri (two friends from Illinois) on Skype. They are big travelers (been to more places than us) and are tons of fun to hang out with. Little did I know that our conversation would hit jackpot. Not only did they immediately jump on board, by the following Monday they had already researched all the options and found the winning cruise. We were set – no work, good company, and a great vacation planned - just 48hrs after pitching the idea.

The core vacation basically consisted of an 11 day cruise starting and ending in Barcelona. We decided to extend it a bit by arriving two days early and J/T extended even further by coming to our house (in Holland) 5 days prior to the cruise start. To give an idea of J/T’s first few days in Europe, by the time we reached Barcelona, they had been in four countries in 4 days. Ahh, travelling Europe Americano style.

The cruise itself was a completely new concept for Amanda and me. I had been on one about 20 years earlier, but to be honest, not many of the details are still with me. Jason and Terri are cruise experts and they guided us through the process.

Days 1-3: Holland, Germany, and Belgium, oh my!
Jason and Terri arrived on schedule and fulfilled their expected schedule with perfection. They carried Rick Steve’s to each spot and didn’t let sleep deprivation get in the way. Amsterdam was first, with special stops at Anne Frank, Dam Square, Canal Tour, and the Red Light District. They made it home at around 7pm and still had enough energy for Amanda’s homemade pasta. Up early the next day, they borrowed our car and headed toward Germany. They followed our advice and hit the Cologne Cathedral in the morning and Burg Eltz in the afternoon. Again with our car on Friday, they rounded out the schedule with a jolly trip to Brugge for a great Flemish meal and Belgium waffles and even made it back in time for a fine dine at Noony’s in Voorburg.

We purposely scheduled our Saturday flight to Barcelona in the evening in order to give everyone enough time to mentally and physically relax and prepare for the 2-week trip. It turned out to be a good idea because we all had a few last minute “must-do’s” to finish up that morning. The most complicated of which was optimizing our baggage weight to the airline’s prescribed limitations – remember RyanAir to Stockholm? I wasn’t about to get caught in that fiscal gauntlet again. Before we did anything though, we headed out to the morning market to pick up some breakfast and lunch. As expected, J/T were huge fans of the appleflaps and stroopwafels.

Day 4: Getting to Barcelona – the trek begins
At 3pm we headed off to the bus stop to make our public transport trek to Schiphol. I suspect it was a little nerve racking for J/T to (1) take public transport to the airport, and (2) rely on us to get them there. Nonetheless, we managed fine and got there in record time. For me, it was a unique experience to get to the airport in enough time to not be worried about making the flight (remember Berlin?).

The flight went off as expected; all cattle were herded into the plane and packed like sardines into the seats. We did arrive on time, with all baggage, and Jacob behaved marvelously (as always --- mostly).

The last time we ran off to Barcelona with the Giddings, we opted to take the public transport system to the hotel. It was one of those “penny-wise, pound-foolish” moments. As it turned out we saved 10 Euros on the cab fare, but wasted 2hrs navigating the subways with four bags. I don’t know what it is about the subways in Barcelona, but I personally think they are the worst… Most people disagree with me, but there are more ups / downs in that system than anywhere else in Europe.

Needless to say, we happily spent 20 Euros / per family to cab it over to the hotel.

The hotel location turned out to be perfect. It is located just off the square in front of the big Barcelona Cathedral and minutes from Las Ramblas. Terri did a great job with that recommendation. Upon arrival around 9pm, we freshened up in the hotel and then headed out for dinner – perfect timing for the Spanish. I guess we chalked this one up as a cultural learning experience, but no restaurant even thinks about starting dinner until after 8:30.

We opted for Tapas (gotta do it in Barcelona) and Jason found a good spot just a couple blocks from the hotel. It was very busy, very loud, and very good. It looked like the waiting line was long, but the slug of people turned out to be smokers banned from the restaurant from new Spanish legislation (I love that law). After ordering, we knew it was going to be a good trip because everyone shared samplers off of their main selection. We ended dinner at 11pm and headed home for the night. By the way, Jacob lasted the entire evening without any problems. He is truly remarkable – I don’t know how we got so lucky, but he is the most flexible baby of all time.
Day 5: The calm before the vacation
We met the next morning and did all the stuff you’re supposed to do in Barcelona: Las Ramblas, the harbor, and Gaudi. We started with Las Ramblas and followed the Rick Steve’s walk exactly.

We saw the birds (Jacob especially liked this area), the flowers (more for Amanda), and ended at the Columbus monument. The weather was beautiful (Amanda and I have had great luck in Barcelona both times) and it was a great people-watching walk.

At the harbor, Amanda and Terri found a common attraction to flea market shopping where they both picked up some cool jewelry that neither will likely wear… I also banked a few points by discretely picking up a trinket that complimented Amanda’s formal night dress (it was given before the formal dinner and, by the way, matched her dress perfectly).

We ate on the harbor at a joint that cost way too much money. But, the view was nice and the food was good. We topped it off with crepes and ice cream for dessert (while we didn’t know it at the time, desserts would become a common theme / event on our cruise).

After lunch we found our way to the Gaudi Cathedral to see what had been completed in the last 1.5 years. Hmmm, not much more. It was still nice to walk through the cathedral to reacquaint ourselves with the unique genius of Gaudi’s creation and to gawk at its perfunctory color. It shocks me that they are still building this to his detailed specifications… Amazing!

After the church we headed over to Gaudi’s park: a new one for Amanda and I. It was highly recommended by a work colleague as “better than the cathedral”. He was wrong. The park was okay and there were some nice features, but like most overbilled events, it disappointed me. We did have a great view of the city – a perfect photo op.We grabbed a cab back to the hotel around 6pm and relaxed for a couple of hours prior to dinner at Amanda and I’s favorite from the last trip, Origins. This place was great because it specializes in Catalonian cuisine and gives a story around each dish: where it is from, how it was invented, who started it, etc. We made our reservation at 8:30pm and had a great meal. Jacob lasted through the entire night without any problems and the meal perfectly capped a great day.

Day 6: Almost there, almost there…
Monday started with the expectation that we would be loading on the boat by 10am.

Unfortunately, the boat didn’t open up until 3pm. This basically gave us an extra day in Barcelona that we didn’t expect to have. Under normal circumstances, this would be a good thing --- however, for Barcelona, all tourism basically shuts down on Monday.

So, to kill time prior to loading, we decided to make our way to Olympic park. If you recall, Barcelona hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics and like any city with that responsibility, they spent a ton of money building an Olympic park. What sets Barcelona aside from most is they dedicated an entire hill inside the town to the park. So, while it does seem a little abandoned now, it is still cool to wander through and see all the old venues. We also took a few minutes to check out an old fortress overlooking today’s city. And to our surprise, while at the top of the hill, we also got our first glimpse of our Cruise Liner, the Brilliance of the Seas.

It took us longer to visit the fortress and Olympic park than we expected so we had to rush a bit to get lunch and back to the hotel in time to catch our cab at 2:45pm. Our lunch stop still turned out to be a cool “pay by the toothpick” tapas joint where you walk through the buffet line and pick as many appetizers as you want, collect the toothpicks during the meal, and pay 2 Euros per toothpick at the end. It was good. After lunch we walked back to the hotel, snapping pictures along the way, and just enjoyed our final hours in Barcelona. Ironically enough, I like Barcelona more now, after our second trip than I did after the first. It must be like coffee and beer; it just grows on you. The weather was beautiful, it is a great walking city, and the food is delicious.

Day 6 continued (Day 1 of cruise): The boat – first impressions.
Before Terri shared her research with us, Amanda and I knew absolutely nothing about cruises. We talked to a few folks about it, but until you have actually cruised, you don’t really know. So, for us, this was a completely new experience.

When the taxi first pulled up to the port, I was in awe of size of the ship. I swiped a few ship stats from the web to put it into perspective. It includes: Length 962ft (293m), width 106ft (32m), and draft 27ft (8m). It can hold 90,000tons, 2500 people, and run 25 knots (29mph). There are over 10 restaurants on board, one services 24hrs / day, and room service is also always available. Tons of sporting events are available to everyone including volleyball, basketball, ping-pong, wall-climbing, shuffleboard, checkers / chess, miniature golf, virtual golf, and billiards. There are also two heated pools (indoor and outdoor) and one non-heated outdoor water park, a fitness facility, sauna, and running track. This ship is decked out.

The staterooms are bigger than we expected and offered plenty of space for 2 adults and 1 kiddo. Shoving 4 adults into one room would have been tough, but this was very manageable.
It is amazing how nice the ship still looks. Imagine a new group of 2500 people coming into your house every 11 days with no days in between for down time. Our house would be a disaster, but this ship looked very clean and very new on the first day we arrived. They even made time to wash every window in the ship --- now that is impressive. It literally shined like it was new.

But that’s not the best part. Royal Caribbean spends twice as much time on creating the right atmosphere as they did in building the boat. When you arrive everyone has a smile and is ready, willing, and working to make your life easy. They take your pictures all day long, change your room over twice a day, and schedule a wide range of events where everyone can find things to do. I felt genuinely welcome on their ship. I really think RC has their act together. They create a wonderfully organized week with an emphasis on elegance and casual comfort. I don’t know if everyone feels this way about their first cruise, but our first 6hrs were great.

Day 2: Full day at sea
Days at sea are relaxing. You wake up late (as late as Jacob will allow), you evenly spread your time between eating, napping, reading, gambling, and playing games. It is a good way to spend a couple of weeks.

We were just getting used to the boat so our judgment wasn’t quite fine tuned yet. As such, we spent way too much of our time “filling-up” in the restaurants. Seriously, it is impressive the amount of food they make available to you. You get three full-square meals and each one has multiple courses. I think we had desert 5 times the first day.

For the times in between eating, we spent our time swimming in the morning with Jacob and napping in the afternoon with Jacob. I entered a Texas Hold-em tournament and won (first ever). Jason, Terri, and I entered a volleyball tourney and brought home the silver medal (ok – there were only two teams). We watched a live “broadway” musical in the Pacifica theatre in the evening. It was a great day.

Day 3: Palermo
Sicily was our first excursion and highly anticipated because of the opportunity to get some Italian food. It was also a test to see if we needed to book excursions through Royal Caribbean or if we could do it on our own.

We left the boat around 7:30am (as soon as the gangway dropped) and started walking through the town. At first we brushed off the first impressions because it was too early in the day – probably fair. But then, after 2-3 hrs of walking around, we were totally fed up with the town and wanted to leave.

The town is filthy. Not only is there dog crap everywhere, graffiti on every site worth seeing, and gobs of traffic on narrow streets with single person-wide sidewalks, but the crime presence is suffocating. On every big street we thought we would be hit by a car and on every small street we thought we would be mugged by the mafia.

At one point, while wandering, we ran across an open-air market. Cool right? Well yes and no. There were some cool fruit and veggie stands, but they stood right next to the butchers carving up the morning’s kill. At one point we saw a guy filleting beef intestines and organs next to a guy with skinned goat’s heads on display. Gross.

There were a lot of verbal disagreements and so we got out pretty quickly. After leaving though, we ended up walking through an area that looked reminiscent of Afghanistan or war-torn Iraq. I think Terri summed it up by saying, “we need to leave now”.

The day wasn’t a complete bust as the Palermo Cathedral was really good. It was well-decorated on the outside and, according to a tour guide that we eavesdropped on, had a few good stories too. Also, after chatting with a few locals we picked up a couple of decent lunch recommendations, chose one, and had a good meal.

In the end though, the magnet we purchased was of a mafia gangster. It was the most fitting representation of Sicily that we found in our first excursion. We also decided that we wouldn’t waste anymore days without organized tours and booked excursions for Rhodes, Cyprus, and Malta that night.

Day 4: At sea again
After Palermo, I was beginning to wander if we should ever get off the boat. After all, our first excursion was a complete bust and when you stay on the boat you get tons of food and opportunities to win medals and money.

Our second full sea day was great. We hit the swimming pool in the morning, the blackjack tournament in the afternoon, and the show at night. I won the ping-pong tournament that day, Jason won the hot shots basketball competition, and between the two families we pulled down 6 medals.

Day 5: Athens
Outside of Egypt, this stop was the most anticipated of all. When I checked with colleagues at work, they indicated Athens was a good city to visit, but not even close to Rome. And, that one day would probably be enough to get a sense of everything. I won’t tell any of my Greek friends that.Before the cruise we booked a tour called Taste of Athens. It was a simple excursion which focused on the Acropolis and shopping. We left the boat around 8am and had a decent, not great, tour guide for the trip. Like most, she gave us the cliff notes version of Greek history on the bus. Traffic was pretty heavy so getting to the Acropolis took around an hour. But, once we got there it was pretty empty since it is still off-peak season.

The Acropolis is a pretty impressive site. It is the 2nd tallest peak in the city and holds the most well-known and best preserved ancient Greek archeological sites. You have to climb about 200 stairs to get to the top, but when you get there you find a forum of ancient buildings that included a Temple to Athena and an Ionian temple of Apteros Nike. The structures were built during the 5th century BC, the so-called Perikles Golden age. As far as sites go it was very reminiscent of the Roman Forum / Coliseum area and in really good shape. There is still a lot of reconstruction going on in the area and we actually got to see the workers reinstall a newly restored original block at the entrance. It was a good stop and we got a lot of good pictures. We didn’t have a ton of time here, but enough to see and do.

On the way to the shopping area, we made a stop at the track and field stadium used during the 2004 Olympics in Athens. It is also the site that hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896.

We reached the Placa shopping area around 11am. This area consists of narrow streets with lots of little shops. We browsed for some souvenirs and a lunch stop. We hit the jackpot at lunch. We were coerced into one of the restaurants with outdoor seating (mainly because Terri and Amanda paused a bit too long in front of it). The Greeks tend to be a little pushy but with good humor. The food was superb. We loaded up on gyros and tzatziki (Amanda’s favorite). We roamed through more stores on the way back to the buses and were on the boat by the 4:00 departure time.

We laid Jacob down for a late nap and met Jason and Terri back in the dining room for dinner at 6pm. Three courses later we headed to the theater for another show. I think the shows were the highlight for Jacob. Every day we heard about how the show was closed, but at night when the door opened, Jacob informed everyone that the “shows open”. Athens was a great stop. It really is amazing to see buildings from 2,500 years ago still standing in the middle of a modern city.

Day 6: Rhodes
When you sail into Rhodes it takes your breath away. This is one of those movie set looking places whose charm and history just bubbles over.

This was day 2 of our 4 excursions in a row, and we were ready for it. For the history buffs out there, Rhodes is the famous location for the Colossus. This is the giant statue that looked over the boats coming into the harbor and was considered as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. When we arrived, we thought were going to find the foot of the Colossus for pictures (as indicated by all available online research), but quickly learned that the rendition was completely made up. The actual Colossus fell in 200AD(?) and was later bought and sold as scrap metal by an enterprising merchant 500 years later.

The tour guide for this one was great. He was a dry kind of guy that knew a lot and told the stories with a clever wit. By looking at him you would think he would put you to sleep, but then unexpectedly captured and held your attention.

Our first stop was an old monastery overlooking the capital below. It was made famous by holding a painting of the Virgin Mary that one of the disciples supposedly painted. However, after Rhodes fell to the Ottomans in 1523, the Knights of St. John took the relic and moved it around the world. It moved through Malta, Russia, and was lost for a couple of hundred years before turning up in Montenegro 15 years ago. While the Knights refuse to return the original, they did donate a copy to the site.

Today the site is largely just a tourist attraction with a great view. It is cool to see the site and get the pictures, but that was about it for me.

The next stop was going into the old downtown of Rhodes. This is where the fun really began.

Our guide took us through the streets and gave us the history of the town. There are still great buildings standing and 3 impressive moats surrounding the city. The best story he told was about how 300 Knights actually held 120,000 Persians outside the walls, convinced the Persians to retreat after several very costly failed attempts, but then fell when they were betrayed by someone on the inside.

When they fell, the Knights left the city and moved to Malta. This was very unfortunate for Rhodes because with their move so went the acclaim and a lot of future tourism money. Still though, the people of Rhodes are very proud (and should be) of their history.

We walked through the city for about 90 minutes and learned a bit more history about the place before going on our own for lunch and shopping. This town is normally completely deserted at this time of year until the tourist season jumps up into full gear, except when cruise ships come in. When the cruise ships dock and 2500 people descend on the city with bull’s-eyes on their backs, the shops open and start picking people off. For us it was great. While we didn’t particularly like the stuff to buy, it was still good to get the first class treatment.

There is a downside to it not being peak season. When a 15 minute rain storm moved through and washed most of the tourists back to the boat, the shops immediately started closing. We had to rush to get our trinkets and had only 20% of the original selection. And, when we sat down for lunch, we found the restaurant completely unprepared to serve; it was like they opened only for the afternoon.

It was still a good stop and aside from the 15 minute shower, we had great weather. We ended the excursion by walking around on our own and taking a few great pictures. That night we followed our normal routine of eat, game, eat, show, eat, game, sleep… Ahhh, you gotta love cruises.

Day 7: Cyprus
Cyprus is getting really deep into the Mediterranean. It is closer to Israel, Syria, and the West Bank than it is to Italy and closer to Africa than it is Athens. The deeper you get, the more dangerous it feels. And, while our chief concerns still center on Egypt, our feet were getting close to the fire with this excursion.

It turned out to be worthless worrying. Cyprus was tame.

As excursions go, this was a relatively short one. It was planned to start at 9:15am and end at 2:30pm. So, that left only five hours to see, do, and learn the country. Hardly enough time, but ok, that’s what we had. Our excursion took us to an archeological dig in Kourion, a 2500 year old temple to Apollo, and the small village of Omodos.

This was the third excursion in as many days and our schedule had kept us awake until nearly midnight every night. Needless to say, we were tired. As such, Amanda and I missed most of the historical backdrop to the tour by snoozing on the bus ride to Kourion. Lucky for us, Jacob stayed awake, so maybe he can fill in the details.

We arrived with military precision and started pushing our way toward the sites. It was a good stop as they had a fully functional original Greek amphitheatre, live excavation sites, and a great view of the sea. While we were there, a modeling shoot was going on. We have no idea who she was, but Amanda stole some poses from her that you’ll see in later pictures.

What is most interesting about places in this region of the world is the scale of “stuff” they find. There are literally thousands of active sites and even more that they know about, but haven’t started uncovering yet. Cyprus actually leaves the sites covered because they don’t have the money to (1) dig them up or (2) preserve them post-dig.

After Kourion, we headed to the Temple of Apollo. This was a lot more of the same, except it was over 4 thousand years old. Dude – that’s crazy. We learned a bit more (not worth mentioning) and had some good times for pictures. The highlight from this stop was the photo shoot pics from Amanda and Jacob. They were made for the camera.

Our last stop was at Odomos. This place houses the Church of the Holy Cross which contains two relics donated by Saint Helen (see Rome blog): a piece of the cross and a piece of rope that bound Christ’s hands. Neither was on display. We spent a little more time walking through the town for souvenir shopping, but didn’t find anything worth buying (that is a really bad sign too – everyone wanted to buy something to say we had been there). We did manage to buy their local bread (recommended by our guide) --- it was fresh baked and had a sugary top that was very tasty. That basically ended our excursion and we headed back toward the cruise ship.

The success of these excursions largely rises and falls with the tour guide. Unfortunately, in this case, we had an opinionated, nationalistic, loud-talking lunatic. Ok – that may be going a little too far, but if you listened to her exclusively, you would think that (1) all Turks were worthless barbarians, (2) the Brits polluted all the natural resources with their offensive military bases, and (3) the Russians were capitalistic pigs looking to put all Cyprusites into poverty. Give me a break – someone needed to tell the lady to stick to the facts and leave her opinions at the door. I think the British lady sitting behind me did just that.

I know there is a schism between most Greeks and Turks. It is there. You may as well accept it and move on. For me though, I know people on every continent and in hundreds of cities. The difference between a friend and foe has nothing to do with their race, religion, color or nationality and everything to do with the quality of their character. In general, if we could forgive the past and look toward the future, we would all be much happier.

Day 8: Egypt
Two weeks ago a bomb went off in an Egyptian bazaar in Cairo. Two days after that an angry local stabbed an American tourist in the face. Now, we are not ones to back away from an adventure because of rumors or the potential, hypothetical, or “could-be” events, but I admit my nerves were on edge the morning of our Egypt excursion.

For most, probably all, this was the main reason for booking this trip because the pyramids remain as mysterious today as they did 1000 years ago. We booked the day trip called “Classic Cairo”. This was a highly ambitious tour that started at 7:30am and ended at 9pm. It required ~6hrs in a bus and too little time at each stop, but you got to see 12 pyramids (including the three big ones), the Sphinx, a papyrus exhibit, and the fabled Cairo museum.

As luck would have it, our tour started by learning our guide was a PhD in Antiquities and passionate about her country’s history. She was the polar opposite replacement to our Cyprus tour guide and a very welcome teacher for the day.

As the busses promptly started toward our destination, Tina (the guide) started with the history lesson. Like most good guides, she totally reeled us in and had us hanging on every word. I believe I learned more in those first two hours than countless hours prior on the Discovery Channel and world history classes. I don’t want to (nor can I) retell the stories with the same detail and vigor that she did, but I want to give you a flavor for the types of things we learned.

Tidbits – about pyramids, royals, and other antiquities
(1) Pyramids were built to house only royalty. They started out as stacked blocks, but then transformed into what we see today. They used to be covered with limestone to smooth the edges, but that was taken during later building projects.

(2) Most pyramids were robbed shortly after being built. King Tutankhamen’s grave was only left untouched because the grave above caved in and blocked the entrance. By all accounts, King Tut is a very, very minor king. He is only the most famous today because his tomb was left intact.

(3) Non-royals are buried in square tombs.

(4) All pyramids are on the west side of the Nile. The west side was for death and the east for life. Everyone lived on the east side. This is because the sun rose from the east and set in the west.

(5) Pyramids were later replaced by underground tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. This was an attempt to hide the treasures - it didn’t really work. Queen’s pyramids are built right next to the King’s pyramids. They are notably smaller. I don’t know how they choose which of the queens to bury. Afterall, King Remises II had 176 children; I doubt it was from the same queen.

We arrived at the pyramids around 11am and the tour guide said we had 45 minutes to mill around. Forty-five minutes? You have got to be kidding me. It takes me longer to wake up in the morning, let alone sufficiently tour the 3 great pyramids. Nevertheless we were off and made the best of it.

45 minutes remaining.

Upon exiting the bus we were slammed with a great wave of capitalist proprietors. They hit us with everything: camel rides, papyrus bookmarks, authentic Arab headdresses, etc. Everything that could be sold, was sold. They played a few tricks too. They say, “no pay, no pay, is gift”, but then tell you, you took the service and must pay. They also offer to put on the headdresses for “no charge” and then say, “You opened the package and you must pay”. Thank goodness our guide warned us prior to arrival. We did notice quite a few suckers, though.

41 minutes remaining.

We avoided all of the marketers and headed (ran) to the north side of the biggest pyramid for pictures because we noticed a lot of people actually climbing on the pyramid. We made it there in 10 minutes and probably snapped 200 pictures between the two of us. A bit of an overkill, but when the time is short and memory is long, you snap, snap, snap.

31 minutes remaining.

We made it there and did climb the pyramid. It was surreal. I mean you know going in that the pyramids are huge, but when you actually see them, stand by them, and climb them they get even bigger. Each block on the pyramid is at least 3 feet tall, 5 feet wide and who knows how deep. When you get up 2-3 layers and look down, it is a little haunting. After all, there weren’t any guard rails and one slip could lead to a quick end.

25 minutes remaining.

While on the pyramid, one of the Arab kids (16-18 years old) asked to take Jacob’s picture. We obliged. He also asked to hold Jacob. We declined. Without asking, he and his girlfriend each managed to sneak in and kiss Jacob on the cheek. Weird. I guess a blond haired, blue-eyed, cutie-pie like him is unusual in this area of the world.

20 minutes remaining.

We then sprinted toward the second pyramid (the one with the limestone still on the cap), dodged a few more salesmen, a corridor heavily soiled with camel poop, and snapped more pictures. It was a mad dash. From the bottom, the second pyramid looks just like its bigger cousin, but is distinguished by the remaining limestone cap at the top. When the pyramids were first completed each was completely covered with limestone; we can only imagine what it looked like, but I bet it was cool.

12 minutes remaining.

We headed to the end of the 2nd pyramid trying to remember if there was a 3rd. There was; it was just shielded by the 2nd as we navigated between the first two. We rattled off another 50 pictures with every imaginable angle and zoom and posed for few final family shots.

8 minutes remaining.

We were still at least 5 minutes from the bus (brisk walk) and didn’t really know a good way to get there. I took Jacob and started hustling. Amanda and Terri followed me while posing a time or two more for Jason. Jason eventually split from A/T and found an alternate route back to the bus. Tick, tick, tick.

3 minutes remaining.

I made it to where the bus was supposed to be, but it isn’t there.

2 minutes remaining.

Amanda, Terri, and Jason all converge and inform me I am standing right by the bus. Safe.

1 minute to spare.

We loaded into the bus and quickly drove over to the post card shot station where everyone stops to get the perfect picture of the 3 pyramids. Amanda stayed behind to change JT’s diaper and J/T and I moved out. Jason and Terri pushed through another aggressive salesman while I posed for the security squad; I think they have done this before.

After we left the site we drove another 3 minutes down to the Sphinx for another 30 minute stop.

Honestly, for me, this was too much time. I would have rather stayed longer at the pyramids and done a “drive by” of the Sphinx. Nonetheless, we stopped, got our pictures (Amanda stole inspirations from the security team), and bugged out on time.

It was too short, but still a really cool stop. I think it hit me on the way home how unique of an experience this was and how lucky we are to be able to afford this lifestyle. At one point, I turned to Amanda and said “you know, life is pretty good right now… I hope it stays this way”.

We then drove off for souvenir shopping at a “guide recommended” locale. It was ok, but the stuff sold by street vendors was a lot cheaper. I suspect they organize it this way to keep people better on schedule during the mad dash through the pyramids. At that same stop we also hit a papyrus institute which was a paper making seminar and papyrus shop. This was really cool. Our teacher was fun and we found a great souvenir for the wall back home.

Tidbits – Other

(1) Egyptians believed that when they faced judgment their heart would be weighed against an ostrich feather. If the heart was heavier (heavy with sin), they would go to the “underworld”. If the heart was lighter they would go to heaven.

(2) Pigeon (flying rats as Terri likes to call them) are an Egyptian delicacy and they have pigeon houses erected all over the country for breeding. Yes, it is true. Egypt actually wants more pigeons in their country.

(3) Unfinished buildings – there is a tax rule in Egypt that says you don’t have to pay property taxes until the building is finished. Therefore, everyone leaves the buildings unfinished indefinitely. Throughout all of Egypt you will see buildings with rebar still sticking out of the top.

Tidbits – about Arabic culture
(1) Traditional Muslims require woman to wear the headdresses. When a woman is married (i.e. taken), they are required to wear only black when in public. You see less veils in the big cities.

(2) Unless work or school moves them away, most Egyptians live at home until they get married. It isn’t uncommon to live there until 30-35 years old.

Tidbits – about papyrus

(1) Paper process consists of pealing the papyrus, cutting into strips, soaking to remove the sugar, beating (with a hammer), rolling (with a pin), weaving (like a basket), and pressing. The result is a flexible piece of paper that will last thousands of years.

(2) Papyrus was chosen because of the triangular stem (symbolic reasons) and the flowery top.

Our final stop was the Cairo museum. This was one that Jason and I were really excited about because it had the artifacts from King Tut’s tomb. When we arrived, however, we were scared. We entered through heavily secured gates and multiple guards were standing behind movable, bullet-proof riot control stations as secondary stops. We also saw several “heated arguments” on the ride over. We couldn’t tell if this was their way of communicating or if they were fighting, but one involved a man slamming a woman’s head into the hood of his car. I doubt that one was a casual conversation. We made it into the museum without incident and started the tour. This is clearly our guide’s element because you could see her face light up when she started talking. She gave us a quick rundown of the museum and hit the highlights with good stories and details. Jacob was sleeping so it made it much easier to navigate the crowds.

What surprised us the most was the layout and quality of the museum. I normally judge a museum by the quality of artifacts. Example: Compare the Louvre to Luxembourg City and the artifact quality will be obvious. You know immediately why the Louvre is the Louvre. This is where it got weird for us. When you judge the quality of the artifacts in Cairo, it is awesome - probably second to none on Egyptian history. But, the museum itself was disgraceful. The organization was non-existent, there was no air conditioning, only 10% of the pieces had descriptions, only one item had security sensors, there weren’t any audio tour guides, and the gift shop was very small and disappointing. The museum was literally falling apart.

I asked the guide about this and she agreed, but defended it by saying it was over 100 years old and a new one is being erected by the pyramids. I also asked if she thought that more countries would return the artifacts when the new building is complete and she said “probably”.

In each country we visited on this trip, there were side-line disparaging remarks made by each of the tour guides. In this trip, she mentioned several times how countries should return what is rightfully Egypt’s. In one sense, I agree. Why shouldn’t Egypt get the prized possessions back from previous battles lost? On the other hand, why should the Louvre or British and Berlin museums give back the exhibits when (1) the artifacts won’t get as much traffic and (2) they won’t be as well-looked after? If Egypt wants to seriously contend with the major museum circuit (which they could and should), they need to shape up their infrastructure.

We left the museum around 6pm and started our trek home. We were happy to have had the opportunity to see, but also glad to be getting back. So 2.5hrs and countless songs/games (for Jacob) later, we arrived to the cruise ship in time (18 minutes prior to the ship leaving) for sailing.

Day 9: A day at sea…
Since we just completed 4 excursions in 4 days and we were completely wiped out, so for Tuesday, we decided to take it easy. So we spread the time fairly evenly between eating, sleeping, sports activities, and gambling.

Amanda, Jacob, and I hit the pool in the morning. Jason and I won the 3-on-3 Basketball tournament. Jason got second in the Texas Hold-em tournament. We all went to the evening show to watch the Graffiti Classics group (watch for them next year – Oprah just sponsored them) and then played Euchre until 11:30pm. Then Jason and I capped it off with a little more Texas Hold-em in a cash game.

Do days get better than this?

Day 10: Malta
We experienced the full gamut of highs and lows with excursions on this cruise. And, with only 4hrs at this port, we didn’t have high expectations for Malta. We were completely, totally, shockingly surprised. Malta is a paradise.

We actually didn’t dock until 2pm for this one, so the entire morning was spent on the ship. We met for breakfast at 9am and then headed off to the Hot Shots Basketball Tourney where Jason schooled the ship and took the gold medal and I stunk it up and finished 4th (I blame my poor shooting on my bad ankles). We then played our luck at bingo and lost $44 per family in 30 minutes flat (nice). Afterwards, we headed up for an outdoor grill on deck 11, lost Terri, and watched Malta roll in. Everyone was on the deck (including Terri) to watch the Captain dock the boat and take pictures; the blue sky against Malta’s magnificent coast was marvelous.

I must admit that before we started the excursion I was nervous about the pick. It seemed a bit lame now after seeing Valletta from the boat and rereading the description. This one was dubbed as a “handicrafts village shopping” tour, so we expected the shopping to be good. But, we weren’t going to get any time in Valleta --- disappointing.

Our tour guide was a nice enough chap, but he didn’t really fit the bill as a tour guide. Something seemed missing. I don’t know if it was the long pauses between comments or the highlights on non-important sites like the new hospital, psychiatric unit, and recreation centers that turned me off. I later learned that he was only doing this part time to supplement his income after semi-retiring from a 36 year banking career. Still though, it didn’t matter. The excursion was good enough on its own.

The first stop was for handmade jewelry and a glass blowing factory. These shops were clustered together like an outlet mall, but were actually renovated out of old British Airforce (RAF) barracks. The glass blowing factory sounded cool, but the jewelry shop seemed boring. Afterall, when on vacation in Europe you are constantly bombarded by people selling cheap, normal, crappy jewelry. We were dead wrong.

This jewelry surpassed all expectations. For some reason when looking at this work, it just screamed stunning. One of the jewelers was working a few pieces when we got there and showed us the intricacy with which it was built and several sales people were very helpful (as expected) in finding the right pieces. Amanda (after some encouragement) found a couple of pieces and made the purchase. And Terri, without encouragement, did the same. Since we only had 25 minutes to see, learn, and buy, the purchase did feel a bit like a pressure buy, but looking back, we think we made the right call.

From there we went next door to the glass blowing factory. Amanda and I haven’t ever seen this done and we were impressed. All activities centered around a red hot kiln in the middle of the room and 5 or 6 men each performed specific tasks to create the glass works. While one was heating up the glass, another was blowing the glass, a third was setting the design, and the final workers were shaping and cutting the glass. It was like a symphony; each action was carefully, or routinely, organized to make it work. I snapped about 20 pictures to try to capture the event and none of them did it justice.

The shop was also nice and the designs were unique; although, to be honest, we probably couldn’t look past the impressive manufacturing to give an objective opinion. Nonetheless, we picked up a couple of trinkets and loaded up in the bus.

Our next stop was Mdina (pronounced M-Dina, not Medina) for a walking tour of the city. Our tour guide didn’t really teach us anything about the city, but it was okay because just gazing at the buildings was enough. This was an incredible city. A few things jumped out right away: (1) Surgical cleanliness – seriously, aside from the wrappers Jacob dropped on the ground, we didn’t see a single piece of trash in the city (yes – we did pick them up), (2) Architecture – It was mostly baroque, but the limestone used made the entire city gleam with an off-white radiance, and (3) City Plan – absolutely crazy planning – it was like this city was made to be invaded. The streets wound around in a maze an each one housed 1 or 2 more hidden alleyways.

We walked around for about 45 minutes, toured a church, viewed the coast from a perch inside the city wall, and then headed back to the bus. The guide couldn’t remember (or find) the number to the bus driver, so we sat around for an extra 20 minutes waiting. That is a lot of wasted time on a 3hr excursion, but we made the most out of it by playing with Jacob in the park.

Our final stop was Mosta where we were supposed to stop at the 3rd largest freestanding dome in the world. However, since several passengers couldn’t keep to the schedule and we lost the bus driver for 20 minutes, we had to skip the stop. That was really too bad because the building was beautiful and we had already been to the top two – San Pietro in The Vatican and St. Paul’s in London.

It didn’t matter though because the shopping and the walking tour made the excursion extremely worthwhile. Plus, Amanda and I agreed to return in 18 years with Jason and Terri to celebrate our 25 anniversary (J/T were married on 7-April one year minus one day before us). We relaxed the rest of the night away with another 3 course meal (my case 5 course), the nightly show, and Euchre with J/T. Another really, really great day.

Day 11: The final day at sea.
Royal Caribbean knows how to do it. They take you into their home for 11 days, treat you like kings, and then leave you fat and happy to go home. Perfection. The schedule is very organized as well. We started slowly with the days at sea, then hit the excursions hard for four days, and finished again with a day at sea.

Today we rolled through our normal routine of eating, gaming, eating, gaming, sleeping, eating, gaming while eating, show, gaming, and sleep. Our cruise director said it right, “Don’t worry about closing your suitcases tonight; just sit on them. The extra 11 pounds will come in handy for packing”. It is true. We probably gained 50lbs as a team during this vacation.

Today started with a nice swim in the Solarium before lunch. I won one ping-pong tournament and took silver in the other. I also placed 4th in my last Texas Hold-em tournament (not in the money) and attended an “unleash the author inside of you” lecture. Amanda and Jason competed in a Sudoku competition and got smoked, Terri hit the gym (she is a machine) and played video poker. Both Jason and I did a bit more rock climbing; Jason broke a nail (poor baby). And, we all played Euchre before and after the show; Jason and I destroyed Amanda and Terri --- seriously, Amanda was about to cry and Terri was filling the room with more profanity than I have ever heard – it was great. That might have been a slight exaggeration.

Somewhere during the day Amanda found time to pack the bags and we set them out just before bedtime for the crew to take care of. Cruises are so nice.

Day 12: Coming home.
Disembarking is complex. Imagine trying to take 2500 people and two week’s worth of luggage off of a boat through one door by 9am. Then imagine bringing the boat back to cruise quality (room cleaning, window cleaning, food and water inventory replenishment, etc.) in time for the next 2500 people with two week’s worth of luggage to load at 3pm. It is amazing and they do it really, really well. Not once did we feel rushed or pushed or nervous about time. They made us feel completely at ease the entire time.

It was still a long day. We woke at 5:30am and were at breakfast by 6:15 (couldn’t miss our last meal). Then we disembarked at 7:15am, had our luggage by 7:30am, and were at J/T’s hotel by 7:55am. How fast is that? We spent the rest of the morning walking around, relaxing, and talking. We grabbed lunch at McDonalds around 11am and then spent the final 1hr playing Euchre at McDonalds.

We said our goodbyes around 12:45 and headed to the airport. These were tough goodbyes to say. Over the three weeks we (me, Amanda, and Jacob) all bonded with Jason and Terri. We feel like we gained a great set of friends in a short two week span. Before we left Jacob preferred to hold Jason and Terri’s hands when “out and about”. And, since we parted ways, Jacob has asked “where Jasn and TerTer go” about 50 times. This is the first vacation when I really wasn’t ready for it to end. In fact, when we were walking the gangway all of us said we would have enjoyed another week on the boat. We will never forget this vacation.

Part 47: Viking's Paradise

2009-02-15T19:46:00.017Z

While Amanda and Jacob are in the US and I am stuck in Holland all by myself, I try to find "semi-productive" things to do so I don't go stir crazy. Over the past two years, I haven't been great at finding things to do, but this time I hit the jackpot.

I found the flight on RyanAir... Europe's cheapest airliner; if you follow their rules. I thought I could, so I bought the 75 euro ticket and planned my weekend to Stockholm, Sweden.

My Dad's side of the family is strongly Swedish as my great-great grandparents followed their Viking roots and immigrated to Minnesota. In fact, the Swedish ancestry is so strong that my Dad was nicknamed "Swede" when he started working in the coal mines. So, going to Sweden was something more than another European destination. It was kind of a homecoming.

I took a half day on Friday so I could make it to Eindhoven in time for the 3:30 flight; no problems there. I even packed my own bags well enough that I didn't have any checked luggage; Amanda would have been proud. The general plan for the weekend was to arrive Friday afternoon early enough for dinner, spend all day Saturday seeing as much as humanly possible, and then heading back on Sunday. For the most part, it worked to plan.

One of the problems with flying RyanAir are all the incidental charges. For example, when I arrived in "Stockholm", I was actually in an airport approximately 90 minutes from Stockholm - nice. It required a 30 euro bus ticket to get into town. Charge #1 (keep track there will be plenty by the time I finish).

I arrived at the bus station around 7pm and had no problem finding my hotel. It was in a great area and a good quality choice. It was immediately obvious that Swedish living is different from the rest of Europe and that the "IKEA" style was not just one person's idea. Mr. IKEA may have made billions off of the style by introducing it to the world, but he certainly didn't invent it. This modern style was started in the 70's when people started reducing the "extra" and getting back to basic living comforts. My hotel's shower was a perfect example of the style in action; a replica from the Jetson's set.

After settling in, I made my way to the shopping district to find a place to eat. Rick Steve's (as always) helped and led me to the Kungshallen food court. It was a fun place - kind of a "higher-end" version of an American food court. I settled for a cool Sushi stop and chowed on the Godzilla platter: a mix of tempura, sushi, and California rolls. My seat was perfect as I could look over the balcony and "people-watch" while eating...

The day had started really early, around 5am, so after dinner, I headed back to the hotel to hit the sack. It was a good end to the day.

The next morning, I awoke at 6am and got ready for the day. Oddly enough, nothing in Stockholm opens prior to 10am (earliest) and 11am (most) and in the winter everything closes early (5pm). So, getting the most out of this trip was going to take some planning. I decided to eat breakfast as soon as it opened (7:45am -- late huh?) and then get out on the town around 8am.

I left early so I could (1) get the lay of the land and (2) complete the recommended Rick Steve's walk prior to everything opening up. So, I wandered over to the Gamla Stan area and started the day. The cool, crisp walk was good for opening the lungs and waking me up. By the time I got there, I was really, really cold and starting to seriously reconsider Stockholm as a winter weekend destination.

Stockholm's layout defies all normal expectations as it is built on an archipelago; this city literally sits on 4-5 separate islands. Each area is connected by bridges, and water taxis are a typical way of life. Stockholm can also be defined as "modern done well". Years ago Stockholm fully embraced the green movement and updated the entire infrastructure to compensate. Doing so meant the city couldn't maintain the original, old architecture -- they had to update.

A lot of other cities have attempted to do the same but failed miserably in the process; take London's Gerkin as an example. Stockholm, on the other hand, excelled. This city found the perfect blend of modern updating without losing the old world charm - a truly remarkable and seamless transition.

The morning walk was fairly simple, but still gave me a sense for the old city. It started at the Royal palace by the King Gustav III's statue (the guy that transformed Stockholm into a European power) and then moved by the obelisk. The obelisk was erected after a successful military campaign against Russia.

Then I walked around a church to see the city's smallest statue; old women knit hats for the statue and others rub his head for good luck. I then walked down through a narrow alley and right through antique central to the Nobel Museum. The Nobel building is where the prizes are distributed every year and on a square that is lined with Sweden's best architecture. The square, ironically enough, was the site where 80 Swedes were murdered during a Danish uprising; not quite the peace that the Nobel process advocates today.

The walk winded around through the Prastgatan Lane where I saw my first Rune Stone. It was placed as a cornerstone to a nondescript building. The Gamla Stan is ripe with shopping, and cool shopping too. Not just the tacky souvenir shops, but real authentic stuff like sandal shops, viking shops, unique clothing shops... Amanda would have loved this street.

After the walk, I planned to go to the Nobel Museum, unfortunately it didn't open until 11am (a miss-read on my part). So, instead of waiting, I headed over to the Vasa museum site which opened at 10am. It was a long walk, but another good look at the city. On the way there, I made a smorgasbord reservation at the Grand Hotel. It was Valentine's Day, but I still managed to talk my way into an early slot. I did have to promise to eat quickly and be finished within 1.5 hours... No problem.

I made it to the Vasa in record time. Not sure what drove me most, the time constraints or the desire to find the next warm building.

The Vasa turned out to be the best sight in Stockholm (for me). This museum holds the warship Vasa which sank 15 minutes into its maiden voyage and stayed at the bottom of the sea for 300 years. It was built too quickly and with all the specifications the King demanded. Unfortunately, the 2nd cannon deck proved too top heavy and the ship tipped over when the first light breeze hit her sails.

The ship is magnificently preserved. It is in the exact same condition it was in the mid-1600's, perfectly salvaged through a serious of unique and clever engineering. While we weren't able to climb in the ship, the museum has a series of ramps that circle the ship at various levels so you can get a good view of virtually every piece.

There are a lot of side exhibits that describe the details of the sinking and the recovery. One computer program actually let you rebuild the ship to see if you could keep it from sinking. My first try sank (very quickly), but my second sailed. But, the King still fired me because the warship was too slow.

I didn't expect much out of this museum, but it was great. I fully recommend this spot for everyone. It is great for kids and adults alike.

My next stop was right next door at the Nordic museum. Rick Steve's gave this sight three stars so my hopes were high. Unfortunately, Rick was dead wrong about this place. It was an absolute sleeper. It was totally unspectacular in every way, except for the audio guide devices (those were way cool) and the Sapmi exhibit.

The Sapmi exhibit taught me about the indigenous people of Lapland, the Sami. It spoke mainly about their plight to maintain their way of life. It was interesting to learn about their legal battles with Sweden over education, land use, and hunting. A classic example of one society trying to impose their way of life on another. The Sami won.

Outside of that one exhibit, the rest was terrible. I don't know what Rick was smoking when he hit this exhibit. He missed it by a long shot.

After the Nordic Museum, I headed over to Skansen. Skansen is an outdoor folk village; reported to be the best in Europe. It is. While it was very cold and very empty while I was there, it was very clear how cool this place would have been in the summer time.

The buildings are really well done and the site is superb. It is a mix of folk village / zoo. There is a great exhibit with all native Scandinavian animals: reindeer, bears, wolves, etc. Jacob would have had a great time --- maybe we will have to come back in the summer.

As a quick stop before leaving, I went to the Aquarium. It is privately owned, so it costs extra, but with my "Stockholm card" I got in for "free". It was a pretty good exhibit complete with anacondas, spider monkeys, and sharks. It was small, but pretty well done.

Instead of walking back around the lake to Gamla Stan, I took the boat taxi and shaved 45 minutes off the commute. It was cool to ride a boat around Stockholm's islands, but wasn't an earth-shattering experience. After making landfall, I headed straight over to the Royal Armory and Nobel museum.

The Royal armory was a three star event by Rick Steve's and basically lived up to expectations. They had a ton of really unique, cool, and well-preserved medieval stuff. I didn't spend much time there, but enjoyed looking at the collection.

Afterwards, I headed over to the Nobel Museum. This museum is weird... Seriously, I didn't get it. There were some cool exhibits, but it was so randomly organized, I couldn't get a handle on what I was supposed to be learning. It seemed to spend a lot of time on Darwin's theories and the importance of freedom of speech. There were a couple of really cool spots. Like the theatre that kept showing inspirational speech's (MLK, etc) and the corner that talked about Alfred Nobel (that one was a blast - get it?), but in general, it was too poorly organized to get much out of it. The best part of that museum was the book store. I found three great books there... one about Einstein, one book of Nobel answers, and Words of Peace.

I left the Nobel Museum around 4:30pm and hoofed it over to one last souvenir shop for a couple of last minute gifts for Amanda and Jacob and then headed back to the hotel to drop my bags off before dinner. It was then that I realized just how wore out I was --- whew --- 6am to 4pm with no breaks.

I left the hotel around 5:40pm and walked over to the Grand Hotel for dinner. It was recommended by Rick Steve's and it was superb. Really, really, really superb. Smorgasbords are a Swedish specialty and I took full advantage of it. This was another experience that I should probably keep to myself, but oh well, here it goes.

The meal started with lobster bisque (have you ever had that? You haven't lived until you have). Then I moved to the herring... Oh the herring. In Holland they will pull the Herring out of the ocean, gut it, and then put it down the hatch. Now, I haven't done that yet (heavy stress on yet), but I did inch closer by eating about 2 plates of raw herring served every way possible. I felt like Bubba talking about shrimp when I walked through the list of choices: pickled herring, spicy herring, marinated herring, herring with shrimp, herring with lime, herring with cucumber cream sauce, etc. It went on and on and on... It was good...

Okay, two plates and one bowl so far... And still going strong.

Then I moved over to the smoked salmon. Not just smoked salmon, but salmon served 5 different ways (kind of like the herring). Ummm, plate number three.

After the salmon, I mosied over to the hot food and loaded up on shrimp omelets, potato cakes, and Swedish meatballs. By that point in the meal, I was starting to get full --- not completely full yet, but getting there. Don't worry, I left just enough room for dessert. Lemon tart, raspberry tort, tiramisu, and cake.

I washed the meal down with about 1 liter of ice cold water and waddled out only able to inhale half a breath of air --- I guess my stomach was squeezing in a bit.

Okay -- I know it is ridiculous, but dude --- it was good. I only had a small breakfast, no lunch, no snacks, so splurging on a meal like this didn't seem too bad. However, I really knew I had gone overboard when I couldn't sleep on my belly that night. :)

I did make it home and settled in for the night thinking about how much I had seen and how tired my feet were.

The next morning I slept in and took it easy getting ready. I really only had a couple items on the agenda: breakfast (didn't need much from the night before), bus ride to the airport, flight to Eindhoven, and drive home.

Unfortunately, RyanAir gave me a bit more excitement for the evening. As I mentioned earlier, my 75 euro ticket got a bit more expensive. At check-in, Ryan asked me if they could weigh my "carry-on" bag. I said it wasn't necessary because it was a carry-on and they informed me that if it was too heavy and it fell, it could kill someone. So, I weighed it. It was too heavy by 10 lbs (i.e. at 30 lbs). They said I had to check it --- which, I replied "fine, every passenger gets one checked bag right?" Umm, no -- actually checking bags costs extra. How much? Sir, it will be 35 euros.

What can a guy say? I mean the 75 euro ticket + 10 euro "Non-EU" fee + 35 euro (plus 3-hr) transit fee + 35 euro baggage fee. I guess you get what you pay for.

In the end, you have to take these "bumps" just as "extra taxes". It was a good trip, a little lonely, but still great fun to see a new city.

Part 46: Two Year Anniversary

2009-02-06T08:30:00.007Z

Today marks our 2nd year in Holland. We can't believe it.

It just seems like yesterday that we were putting Jacob in the bassinet on the first KLM flight, drinking chocolatemelk met slagroom at Leidschenhage, eating dinner on a cardboard box while sitting on two IKEA chairs, and sleeping on a blow up mattress... Those were the days.

This time in Holland has contributed to both the best and the worst times of our lives. We have watched our son grow up, our mindsets open, and travelled the world. We endured countless lonely nights away from each other and missed too many events with friends and family. We have grown stronger together as a family and we now know better the value of those closest to us.

We still don't know exactly when we will be home, but we want you to know that we miss all of you terribly. Thanks for supporting our adventure through calls, skypes, visits, and care packages. We can't wait to be back home with everyone.

Then...

And now...

Part 45: New Year's Eve Celebration - Dutch Style

2009-01-01T15:16:00.009Z

As you know, we decided to stay in Holland for the 2008 Holiday season. While it was difficult to be away from friends and family, it was also cool to participate in local traditions.

And let me tell you... They have quite some traditions on New Year's Eve. I noticed something was up when walking home from work I noticed 3 separate massive piles of wood. There was a police officer nearby and he said that at midnight all of the local municipalities light up the piles to welcome in the new year. Cool.

I got home around 5pm and we immediately headed over to the Kupper's house for the evening. They invited us over for dinner and games to welcome in the year. We had a good time, ate a lot of food, played Scene-it, and chatted the evening down. A traditional meal for New Year's Eve is "Gourmet", without a silent "t". Since the Kupper's had just returned from the US the day before, we didn't get to eat it on the day, but they invited us over for dinner again 2 weeks later for the experience (i.e. picture is not from New Year's Eve).

Everything on New Year's really centers around fireworks. It is the central event of the day. This year everyone was a little worried that the fireworks show would be overshadowed by a heavy evening fog. Lucky for us the fog lifted prior to the show(s).

The primary difference between Holland and the US with fireworks is everyone buys their own. Now, I know people buy their own in the US too. But, it's different. In Holland, "everyone" buys their own. Literally, every other house purchased a set of works. They weren't the small sparkler sets either. They were the big bomb busters that light up the sky.

Before we got over there Rachel mentioned that it would be like a war zone. Yeah right was our combined response. Okay. She was right, we were wrong. It gets so big that the communities block off all trash cans and mail boxes to prevent kids from blowing them up.

It was incredible. The sky lit up like the 4th of July in DC, the air quickly filled with the pungent scent of sulfur, and people up and down the street scrambled as each improperly mounted "boom-fire" tipped over. It was really cool. I don't think Amanda or I have ever seen anything like that before.

After the fireworks, we made our way home and then stayed awake (with Jacob) until about 3am when most people stopped shooting off fireworks.

Part 44: Christmas in Holland

2008-12-24T08:48:00.000Z

For Christmas last year we decided to do a whirlwind tour of the US. It was one of those events that went something like: AMS to Houston, Houston to Dallas, Dallas to STL, STL to Peoria, Peoria to STL, STL to Houston, Houston to AMS... Something like 20,000 miles in 14 days. Too much.

Those trips (and we have done 4 of them so far) are nice because you get to see everyone, but very, very, tiring. Since Jacob is getting older and we don't know how much longer we are going to be here, we opted for something a bit more low-key --- home.

So, after getting back to town on 24-Dec from our mini-vacation, we then went straight to the grocery store for Christmas day / weekend feasts. Those are the best trips to the store. The ones where you have almost zero agenda on what to purchase and just mill around the store (through each aisle) until you find enough food to get you through. Normally, you end up coming home with 3 days of snacks and no real food. Fortunately, Amanda brings a practical personality to the trip.

We did, beforehand, pull together a list of things we used to eat as kids at Christmas. All of the favorites like monkeybread, pigs in a blanket, artificial crab meat, etc. Unfortunately, Holland doesn't carry everything needed, so we improvised.

We originally had an ambitious plan for Christmas Eve. It involved: (1) getting home, (2) buying groceries, (3) building a Gingerbread house, (4) baking cookies, (5) Voorburg candle service, (6) party at a friends house, and (7) Christmas Eve service at church. We did get most done, but not quite everything. As I write this 2 days after Christmas, the Gingerbread house still isn't built. Oh well, maybe next year.

By staying in Holland this year, we hoped to experience it like a native. One item that we didn't know about was the candle service in downtown Voorburg. We didn't see any advertising for it, but it is quite an event. Little did we know.

When we arrived, droves of people milled around looking at the candles in the windows of every home and store front. It was impressive. The town turned off all artificial lights so the only light showing was that coming from the candles in the windows. Some people put out village scenes, but most just lined their window sills with tea lights. It was a sight.

What surprised us most was the number of people in attendence. The streets were packed. In fact, at our friend's party afterwards, she mentioned that they actually bus people into town for the celebration.

It was one of those things that we never would have known about if we hadn't stayed here for Christmas. After the party and the candle service, we made our way to the church service where Pastor Blackman pulled together a great message.

That left the rest of the evening for Amanda and I to put Jacob to bed and get down the gifts. It was great fun discussing the Christmas strategies and melding our family traditions into our own. This was, afterall, really the first Christmas that Amanda and I have spent together without extended family. In the past, we always found ourselves in either Dallas or St. Louis to visit family.

This picture was acutally taken at the end of the day, but it just seemed like the right one to start the blog.

This was also the first Christmas when Jacob started to get into Santa Claus (or Ho Ho). While he didn't show giddy reactions to the the bated anticipation, you could tell he was really into the festivities.

The day was fairly equally spread between opening presents, playing with presents, and eating. When we woke up we started with the stockings and then moved to the bigger gifts. For Jacob, it was open a gift, play with it for 20 minutes and then open another. This started at 8am and ended at 8:30pm (for Jacob) --- but then again, he had about 3 times the number of gifts that we had.

The top gifts for Jacob this year were ane eisle / chalkboard, golf set, Matchbox cars / travel playset, multiple dress-up costumes (fireman and cowboy), cooking stuff (where the pizza was the biggest hit), and lots of clothes and books. It was a good year for him. He wanted to thank everyone for making the extra effort to ship (and pack) the gifts to Holland. From his perspective, it was well worth it.

Amanda did a great job with Christmas treats. Jacob and I woke up to the smell of gingerbread cookies, took our first break at 9;30 for cinnamon rolls, and our second break for breakfast tacos.

She says she enjoyed her gifts, too. I had worked all year to pull together the perfect gifts. It ended up holding the unintended theme of cooking and parties. She ended up with several Italian pots (one vase and one serving dish), a pasta maker (with ravioli attachment), cook books, clothes, a nativity set, and several DVD's.

My Christmas was very unique. Over the past couple of months I dropped many, not so subtle hints that I wanted a couple of gifts I could play with on Christmas day. Right? Who wants a pile of clothes and ties? You have to have something that you can immediately use. She didn't dissappoint. I ended up with a couple of Wii games (the Star Wars game is superb), several books, a couple of great board games (WWI - Diplomacy, and Railroad building in Japan), and a couple of gift cards for further online purchases.

The big surprise for me was Amanda's gift to me. She said she had this idea for several years, but never found the right year to give me the gift. I got a telescope. Which, in general, is super cool. But, in this case is even better.

To avoid massive shipping costs she bought it from an outfit in Germany. And, she says that they didn't have dimensions online. I think she probably overlooked the details; granted, she rarely overlooks details -- trust me on that one. Anyway, she did a lot of research and opted to get a "tier 2" scope; better than a beginner's scope, but not nearly the most advanced. She expected it to be about 2 feet long and 6 inches in diamter...

It was twice that size - literally. When I opened it, it looked like she purchased the Hubble Telescope from NASA. She was shocked and a little embarressed, but I was super excited. We debated sending it back for something a little more realistic, but decided to stick with what we got. Unfortunately, a second box hasn't yet arrived. So, we will have to wait a bit before we test it out. Won't it be fun to have a "star party"? I can't wait!

The rest of the pictures are just miscellaneous shots of Jacob playing with his gifts. He clearly had a great Christmas and continues to cycle between his gifts: like one play station to the next. Here he is with his new flashlight, wearing two new sweaters on top of his jammies and drawing on his new eisle.

This is Mommy showing off her new jacket while trying to coax Jacob to try on the new dress-up outfits. I think Mommy lost that battle and will have to fight the fires by herself.

Here is Jacob opening his new golf set. When playing with it, Mommy said "maybe you could be a caddy someday for one of the big golfers." What is going on with that? We had to have a quick talk about setting appropriate expectations. He won't be the caddy... he will be the golfer.

Jacob is a huge fan of Matchbox cars and Legos. Our first day we built a zoo for all his new animals and serviced several of his Matchbox cars.

We found a little time right before lunch to decorate cookies that Mommy had made. Jacob thought the cookies were good, but he clearly preferred the icing. We couldn't quite teach him to stop licking the icing off the knife. I know --- terrible lesson.

Isn't this a nice picture. Maybe we will submit it to Better Homes and Gardens. We tried to get a family picture without the flash, but Jacob couldn't sit still enough for the photo. We ended up with about 10 pictures where Amanda and I are focused and Jacob was a blurry ball of energy.

We had a very merry Christmas and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Part 43: A very cold, old "Cold World"

2008-12-19T12:55:00.002Z

The best times to travel, for us, are around other prescheduled days off from work. This allows us to take longer trips without tapping into the vacation pool as much. Our original idea was to take a trip to the North Pole... I know crazy, but we found some cool vacation ideas in Rovaniemi, Finland where you could spread your time between visiting Santa's "real" home, playing with his elves, Reindeer and Husky rides, and other snow games. It would have been a great vacation, but it got outrageously expensive. This would have been the first trip where our 2-year-old would have to pay - ouch! So, the 1500 USD / person tickets were way too much.

So after booking the hotel, we ditched the idea and got our refund. We then looked to the "list of places we want to visit before moving home" and merged it with what was financially appropriate. We decided on Berlin and Prague.

These two cities had been highly recommended by numerous people, "Berlin is a great city" and "Prague's archetecture is unbelievable". Plus, when looking at the costs, travelling in and out of these cities was easy and very, very cheap.

We ended up booking a one-way flight to Berlin, a train ride from Berlin to Prague, and then another one-way from Prague back to Amsterdam. The one-way travel options in Europe are great; thanks to all of the discount airlines like Transavia, Ryan, Sky, etc. They offer point-to-point service that is priced appropriately. Unlike the majors that charge you more for a one-way than they do for a round trip. The total cost per person was 185 Euros (100 + 50 + 35). Yeah - the Prague flight was actually 7 euros + 28 euros in tax...

The agenda was leave on Friday at 6:30am (to Berlin), stay for 2 days, then train to Prague (5hrs) on Sunday, stay for 2 days, and then fly home on Christmas Eve morning. It was ambitious (as usual), but everyone I talked to indicated 2 days per city was sufficient.

We arrived in Berlin, basically on schedule, found our hotel via a cab driver with budding tour guide ambitions, and then started out on the town. Amanda and I like to see a town by walking it. We typically take the first day, or few hours, and map out our personal walking tour. These days, with Rick Steves, those tours are much more insightful and information-packed.

When you walk a city you see stuff that wouldn't get highlighted in the tour guides - i.e. odd art exhibits (like the ball shown above --- we have no idea what it is supposed to mean).

Since we woke Jacob up very early and cooped him up in an airplane / airport for most of the morning, we decided to find something for him where he could expell some energy - Berlin's Legoland.

The biggest, most famous Legoland is in Copenhagen (it's on our list). It is built up like a themepark, complete with rides like Six Flags. This one is much smaller. But, still a lot of fun. There are tons of "sand-pits" filled with lego parts, a big ball park w/ slides (Jacob's favorite), a mini-Berlin (pretty cool since we hadn't seen the city yet), and a mock-up lego factory.

We spent a couple of hours there, and the entire time I kept thinking "we just arrived to Berlin and we are wasting precious time playing with legos indoors?" But, as expected by Amanda, doing so eventually led Jacob to a long nap and contentment in the stroller. Plus, we scored some souvenir blocks that were a big hit the rest of the trip.

Legoland, by the way is stationed in Potsdammer Platz, a newly rennovated area that has a lot of high-end shopping. Previously, however, Potsdammer was one of the busiest squares in Europe. After the war, it was split in two by the Berlin Wall.

After we left Legoland, we headed north along Tiergarden Park (Berlin's Central Park) to check out the Holocaust monument, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag building.

This trip, while we didn't know it before, was to be largely jewish-focused. In Germany, and the Czech Republic, a lot of Jewish memorials and museums have been erected to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust. The first was call the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe".

As you know, over 50million people died during WWII and 6 million were Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Germany didn't build a momument too quickly, but finally in 2005, finished this memorial.

This one is pretty cool. From the outside it looks like a New Orleans cemetary with all graves above ground. The graves look about the same size (length and width), but seem to vary a little in height. It looks like ~3000 graves evenly spread out over a flat field. But, when you walk into the "symbolic" cemetary, you realize that the ground is not level. In fact the monument is built on a slope/valley. And, each of the stones are much different in height, so to give the appearence of a flat field.

It was unique and, like all monuments, a good opportunity to mentally wander through that chapter in history.

After the Jewish Memorial, we kept walking north until we found the Brandenburg Gate (bottom left picture in collage). This is the last remaining old fortification from the 18th century Berlin. At one point in the early 1800's Napolean stole the horse and Chariot from the top and took it to the Louvre; the German's later took it back when Napolean lost to the Prussians in 1813. It was also made famous in 1933 when a "torch parade" walked through the gate to honor Hilter's election victory. After WWII it became yet another site along the Berlin wall. You can see the two "actors" carrying American and Soviet flags --- this is a very common show for Berlin. Anything to make a buck.

Just one block north of the gate is the German Parliament building called the Reichstag. This building has a tattered history. It was symbol of democracy built during Kaiser Wilhem's reign (the German guy who orchestrated WWI), burned by "someone" in 1933 (most now believe it was Hitler who used it to grab more power from the Communists), the last stand for the last 1500 nazis at the end of WWII, and abandoned for ~40 years during the cold war. The current government uses this building like the US uses the capital building (top row of pictures).

There are so many monuments in Europe for WWII. The bottom-middle picture is a monument for the murdered politicians that opposed Hitler.

That basically ended the first day. It was getting late and we were all very tired. So, we walked home along the Unter den Linden, found a quick place to eat, and settled in for the night.

The next morning we decided to make it a "museum-day". There were several to choose from, but we opted for the Jewish Museum and the German History Museum. The Jewish Museum was south of us and the German museum was north; so, we had a heavy day of walking in front of us.

While visiting the "best" Jewish museum in Europe (according to Rick), we had a chance to visit a Chanuka market. It was really small, didn't offer anything different from a Christmas Market, but was still cool to say we've been to one.

The Jewish museum was really good. It chronicled the long history of the Jewish people starting somewhere in "pre-Jesus" time period. It was interesting to learn about the many plots throughout history to exterminate this ethnic group. The Jewish people have a lot of enemies.

The most moving part, for me, was the memory void. It is a room filled with thousands of faces cut out of iron. Aside from the clanking sounds that echoes when people walk in the room, it is very quiet. The faces are left to symbolize the senseless death of the Jewish people throughout history. It is called the memory void because there are specific times in history where the Jewish population has been so far reduced that the memories (i.e. history) have been lost. This was also evident in the quality of exhibits in the museum. While it was still really good; for this to be the best Jewish museum in Europe is kind of sad. I just don't think there is enough "stuff" leftover. Most of it has been burned, destroyed, and lost forever. A very sad story.

While walking between the two museums, we had a chance to see most of the Berlin sights. I think Berlin can be best described as a place looking to forget its past, by building a new future. Berlin, literally, is a massive construction site. Since it was decided to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin in the 1999 (by just a few votes), massive construction projects have been underway. A few of my work colleagues indicated that 10 years ago you could still see WWII bullet holes in the buildings. Since 1999, Germany has invested heavily into the city to "cover-up" the past and create and environment worthy of the capital. Today, the city looks great. It is clean, new, and fun.

We finally made it to the German Museum around 4pm and had to rush through to see everything by the 6pm closing time. I must say, this is an exquisite museum. It is richly adorned with great artifacts from all time periods. To me, it is an example of how relavent Germany has been in developing the history of the world (both for good and bad). They have collected a ton of unique and impressive exhibits.

Unfortunately, the museum didn't allow flash photography, so only a handful of pictures survived the blurry abyss of a shaky photographer's hand.

The pictures below show (1) Charlemagne - the guy that brought Chistianity to Germany and defined Aachen as the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, (2) the Fat Pigeon - still the symbol of Germany's Government - like our eagle, and (3) Napolean's cap and sword - taken from him after a defeat --- a very different display than in the Invalids (in Paris).

Today, we tend to think about castles as just the final result. These four pictures show the evolution of a castle over time (left to right, top to bottom). It starts as a small homestead and gradually grows into a massive fortification.

I especially liked these exhibits. The left side pictures show games sold to children during WWI and WWII (i.e. Uboat and Trench warfare kits). The center and right pictures show "old-school" video games. The middle picture is probably the first pinball machine and the right pictures is a cannon game (looked like the old baseball game where the marbled would "get-hit" into a single, double, triple, etc slot).

One of the things that I love about museums are the great pictures on display. They are always the best that captured the moment. The left-most picture below shows a time-action shot of the torch parade and the right shows the burning of the Reichstag building.

The left picture here shows a propaganda poster showing how Britain and the USSR are collaborating to win the war. The second picture shows the booster engine from a V2 rocket.

Some of the best pieces are old newspapers. I have never been good at saving the "right" newspapers (nor, do I have a wife that would allow that kind of clutter). So, I guess I will have to be happy with those that do. This one shows the jubilation at the end of the war.

We were literally the last ones to leave the museum. Just before exiting, I turned and counted the number of guards waiting for our departure; there were 14. And, each of them despised our deplorable act of being last. Oh well --- their problem, not mine.

Berlin is very far north (like 500 miles north of Maine), so the days of winter are very short. Especially so, on Winter Solstice, which was one day away. Needless to say the sun was down by the time we exited. But, lucky for us, the German Christmas Market's of Berline are in full swing the week prior, so we had plenty to do.

These markets were nice. Not so different from others we had seen, but definitly bigger. These markets had ice rinks, big candle things (whirly giggers - Amanda's term), and lots of food. So, we spent some time in market, Jacob and I took a "Choo-Choo-Ride", and we found a nice steak place for dinner.

Again, we were exhausted... So, after dinner, we headed home to get some sleep. Getting to the hotel couldn't have come any earlier.

The next morning we decided to take it easy and check out a few sites close to the hotel. Our hotel name was Hotel Mercure at Checkpoint Charlie. So, after our breakfast we headed out to the most iconic symbol of the Cold War; Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall.

Just two blocks from our hotel, there was an outdoor exhibit that chronicled the events following WW II. It basically boiled down to a power struggle between the majors (USSR and USA) where the USSR adopted Communism and the USA maintained a well-grounded belief in Democracy and Capitalism.

The world agreed to not make the same mistakes they had following WWI; that is, to so punitively punish the agressor (i.e. Germany) that they have no hope. So, following WWII, they decided instead to engage and rebuild the country. Some say that the best way to avoid a war or collapse is to ensure a strong economy and middle class. Doing so will create a standard of living such that the people will not yearn for something better.

For Germany, this platform meant it would be split in half; East Germany and West Germany. West would follow US ideals and East would follow Communism. Berlin was the center stage for this movement and it too was split in half. Berlin, however was divided into four segments: USSR, USA, UK, and France. The USA, UK, and French sectors allied together to form West Berlin.

At the beginning the differences were not so apparent and people were allowed to freely move between the different sectors. But, as the Cold War heightened and the differences grew, the segregation increased. Over time, the line between the two evolved into a barbed wire (on the ground), to a flemsy fence, and then to a wall. The wall was actually built over 3-4 phases too. The wall that everyone remembers is just the final installment of the program.

The wall became a physical example of the tensions rising between the nations. As the tensions increased, the wall got bigger.

The map below shows Germany. If you look hard enough you can see the dark line that surrounds the city. One interesting aspect is that West Berlin was, at one point, actaully and island in the middle of East Germany. So, when tensions got high enough and people were not allowed to cross between the two countries, people in West Berlin were completely dependent on air drops from the US, UK, and France. There are a lot of heroic stories about those air drops.

The pictures below show a few of the cool pictures on display. The top-left photo shows then-president Truman shaking hands with Churchill and Stalin just after WWII, the top-right photo shows a picture of Kennedy right after his legendary speach in Berlin, and the bottom photo shows the famous quote coming from that speach.

When the cold war hit the peak during the Cuban Missle Crisis (13-days), both the US and USSR moved munitions to Checkpoint Charlie. This is where the US and USSR faced off for days (maybe longer) without firing a shot. It was a very tense time and this location was the center of focus.

Today there is a pole with a double-sided sign with pictures of a US and USSR soldier. This is to forever remind people of the standoff between the nations. The other two pictures below are of only remaining section of the Berlin wall. Where once it stood as a permanent divider between two warring ideologies, now it stands as a symbol of democracy's victory over communism.

In 1989 the wall fell. Hoards of people rushed to the streets and started picking away at the Berlin wall. It was a moment in history that most of us remember. But, until this weekend, I had no idea of the true meaning behind the event. Today, there is only one section of wall remaining, but the entire wall is still marked by a cobblestone line in the ground.

Walking that line and reading the history left a great impression on all of us.

After the wall, we had to rush back to the hotel and grab a cab to the train station to catch our connection to Prague. We felt really good about Berlin. We only had 2 days, but it was enough to catch the highlights and learn about the city / country / cold war. Berlin is an excellent place to visit. And, Christmas time is a good time.

The train ride to Prague left at 12:30pm and arrived at 5:30pm. So, it was a long ride. Fortunately, we were all pretty tired so we slept for the first 2.5 hrs of the ride (at least Jacob and I did), I think Amanda stayed awake for most of it.

After we woke up we started studying the Rick Steves guide to Prague to develop a game plan for our time. From our studies, one thing became abundantly clear to us. Prague was not as safe as the rest of Europe. The guide book made it very clear that the Czech Republic is a young entrepreneurial nation that is still learning how to most effectively govern itself.

There were several examples in the book about taxi cabs, counting your change, and pickpocketers that scared Amanda and I a little bit. Oh well, another challenge, right? Plus, we figured he was exagerating a little bit.

When we first arrived we decided to take a cab to the hotel. We found the cab stand in a very, very dark corner of the station. It seemed like a shadowy murder scene from CSI and had both of us scared. Nevertheless, we found a cabby that spoke decent English and took our chances. We followed his route fairly closely with one of our maps and felt good about the trip; no problem.

In the book Rick says no cab ride should cost more than 200 Koruna. When we arrived at our destination, the driver informed us the bill was 600 Koruna. Rick said we should just give him 200 Koruna and then walk away to the hotel. We tried, but the cab driver grabbed one of the bags and held it hostage. He wasn't going for less than 600. Finally, after about 10 minutes of arguing, we ponied up the 600 and left. The cab driver saluted us and told us to F-off.

It wasn't the greatest start to the trip. Lucky for us our hotel was going to turn things around quickly. We booked everything through http://www.venere.com/ (a great website for European hotels). But, during the booking I must have forgotten to say that we had a baby with us; so, when she saw Jacob she offered to put us in a room that was a little bigger for no extra charge. Easy decision for us.

When we got to the room (or, should I say rooms), we were astounded by the size. We ended up with the Junior Apartment Suite. It was four rooms: a living room, a foyer, a bathroom and a bedroom. The bathroom had a shower that could have held 10 people (with a great shower head --- an upgrade that is often missing in hotels) and was bigger than one of the rooms we rented in Paris. The foyer was the size of an average EU hotel room with a full-lenght mirror coat rack and cocktail table. The living room was decked out with a flat screen TV, big coffee table, couch and love seat, and desk. The bedroom (get this) had a kingsize bed --- we didn't think Europeans knew about beds that big --- and, another flat screen TV. Literally, this hotel room was 8 times the size of a normal EU hotel room. Awesome!

The location was great, too. We were only 200 meters (fully integrated, huh?) from the main square and a 10 minute walk from everything of interest. Aside from the hotel that Phil booked for us in Florence, this was by far the best place we have stayed in Europe.

Since we got in so late and were pretty hungry, we decided to take a stroll to the Christmas market. Much to our surprise, this market was very different from the German markets. They still had the same "crafty" stuff that isn't terribly unique, but they also had a completely different menu.

Most Christmas markets are defined by the loacation and the food. In Germany, most Christmas markets have sausages, crepes, and maybe a potato cake stand (if your lucky). Prague had all of that and much, much more. When we first walked up to the market we could smell the open pit fire and could see four hams rottisserie roasting over the fire. It was superb. When we turned the corner we found a potato cake stand. And then we found something completely new - TRDLO. I have know idea how to pronounce the word, but it was tasty. It was basically bread dough rolled into long strips and wrapped around a rolling pin. Then they rolled the dough through cinnamon and sugar and placed it over the open fire and spun it until it was golden brown. Needless to say, we weren't hungry for long.

Prague is very proud of its intellectual and artistic heritage. Since they have never had the resources to be a world power, they have always differentiated themselves through the arts. Therefore, every night at the market they brought in musical groups to perform. The first night we were there a lady played an "organ-like-instrument" which rang bells. It was superb.

The decorations at this market were differential. They set up an enormous tree and lit it with thousands of lights; it was the first thing we saw when we walked to the market and it really set everyone into the Christmas spirit.

After we had sampled all the food and taken in a few concerts, we decided to head back to our luxury apartment to hig the sack early.

The next morning we headed out early to get the lay of the land and see the city's main attraction: the Castle Quarter. While walking across town to the venue, we got to see the main square in daylight. It is truly a sight to see.

Prague is notably different than the other European cities because it wasn't impacted at all by WWI or WWII, so all of the buildings and sights remain in tact just as they were hundreds of years ago. In fact, the archetecture is the most striking feature of city. It is as if every building has its own character and personality.

There are a couple additional notable sight in the main square. The first is the Jan Hus monument (top left). He led a "pre-protestant-reformation" about 100 years before Martin Luther. He was, and still is, revered by many across the world as the first to begin breaking the corrupted Catholic grip on the continent. There is still a group call Hussites that follow his teachings very closely.

There is also a very unique clock mounted in the square. If you can figure out how to tell time by the clock, then you're better than I. Every hour people gather below the clock to see it ring.

The Chrismas market looks completely different in the daylight. You can see the TRDLO in a few of the pictures. We never figured out what the significance of the devil creature (bottom-right) was, but lots of the kids were wearing horns. Go figure.

We had to walk across town and up a big hill to the Castle Quarter. The distance wasn't too far, but the hill was a killer. To make matters worse, Jacob has gotten into a habit of wanting to be carried rather than sitting in the stroller or walking. So, on top of carrying ourselves up the mountain, we also carried Jacob. It was a drain.

Like all difficulties though, the reward was completely fulfilling. The view from the top was great and showed us a top level view of the city. We found the rooflines most striking.

After finding the summit, we walked through the gates (played a couple of games on the guards --- they don't smile for anything) and made our way to the cathedral.

The cathedral was nice, but it was like a miniature Cologne cathedral. The style (inside and outside) looked just like Cologne, but Cologne is about 5 times bigger. For those that haven't seen Cologne, this church would have been very impressive. For us, it was nice, but didn't quite measure up.

The inside of the church was good, and like most impressive cathedrals, was completely adorned with breathtaking stainglassed windows. The window in the top-left grid was especially impressive. Rick Steve provided a panel-by-panel review of the story. It is amazing how big a message can be told in one picture.

The Hapsburgs are buried in the cathedral. The Hapsburgs ammassed massive fortunes and yielded unparalleled power during the 1500 - 1600's.

After the cathedral we headed back toward town and to check out the statue for Good King Wenceslas. The good king Vaclav is credited with Christianizing the region in the 10th century. He also brought additional power to the region by gaining a vote in the Holy Roman Empire --- I wonder if he knew Charlemagne personally.

The two guys memorialized in the second picture are martyrs that set themselves afire as a demonstration against communism. They were philosophy students that loved freedom so much that living without it, inside of that communist regime, was simply unbearable.

That pretty much summed up our day. It doesn't seem like much now, but Prague is just one of those cities that you have to wander aimlessly about. We had a couple of great meals and a couple of good long walks. It was a good relaxing day.

The next morning we headed to the second venue: the Jewish Quarter. This area has a high concentration of Jewish residents and, as expected, has faced immeasureable attacks over the years.

The area is defined by 5 or 6 different synagogues that each house a museum. The museums were basic, but good. They highlighted some of the key tenets to the faith, typical traditions, and what it was like to live in a Jewish home. It was interesting and we each learned a lot, but just like in Berlin, it was sad to see how little they have to show for the thousands of years of service.

The most impressive sight was a Jewish cemetary. Over the years the Jews were only allowed to be buried in one spot. So, after quickly running out of room, they started burying people on top of each other. Over time this created a hill some 15 feet above grade. The Jewish faith doesn't alow for people to be reburied, so this is how they chose to leave it. The pictures do a pretty good job of showing how the tombstones have shifted over hundreds of years of settling. It was an impressive cemetary.

I don't know the significance, but as part of the faith they also place messages on little pieces of paper and stick them into small crevices in the stone. They also stack pebbles on the tombs - not sure why.

On the last day we made our way back to the Charles bridge for some pcitures without rain. The Charles bridge is probably the attraction most people want to see. It was built by Charles IV (Karlo Quatro) in the 14th century. It was the only bridge in the area until the 18th century and today serves as "one of the most enjoyable 500 meter strolls in Europe". It is adorned on both sides by many statues, each of which has a story.

It is currently under reconstruction which is expected to last for another 6 years. The bridge is beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable. Aside from a near pickpocketing miss and rather cloudy weather, it was perfect.

Just below the bridge lies the "Little Quarter". It is famous for the small cobblestone roads, unique shops, and atmosphere. Inside the quarter there is another wall, similar in principle to the Berlin wall and, in my opinion, equally unique.

It was originally called the Lenin Wall and is now called the Lennon Wall. In 1980, the year that John Lennon was killed, grafitti instantly popped up on the wall by protestors. Each day, the Communist regime would paint over the wall and then each night, the grafitti would reappear. This continued for 9 years until the communist regime fell in 1989. Today, it is call the Lennon Wall to commemorate the man who preaches Peace and Love through his song Imagine.

After leaving the wall, Amanda found her way to one of the small shops and picked up her souvenir - a garnet ring. Garnet is a gemstone unique to the Czech Republic and she found a good deal.
That basically ended the afternoon and since Jacob was really tired, we decided to give him a proper nap in the hotel (as opposed to the stroller). We still had the evening left though and were running out of things to do and see. So, we consulted Rick Steve's and the front desk and decided to go to a Hockey game. Pretty cool right? I mean seeing a hockey game in the former Soviet Block, how cool is that? It was easy to get to the game and it was a lot of fun. There was a huge riot police presence in the area and that was a little creepy. But, other than that, it was a totally unique experience.

That was our last night and ended our time in Prague. Our flight on Christmas Eve left at 6:50am, so a 4am wake-up call came early. But, the upside is we didn't get into any scuffles with the cab driver after a prenegotiated fee. :)

Prague is definitely a city we would recommend to visit. We think it would be best in the spring or summer as it is more about enjoying the atmosphere than it is about seeing specific sights - i.e. avoid rainy seasons. On the other hand, the Christmas market and small crowds were huge plusses, so a Christmas visit is also good timing.

Part 42: Pre-Christmas events in Holland

2008-12-14T12:57:00.009Z

There were several "Christmas Events" in Holland. It started 2 weeks prior with a party at the American Woman's Club of the Hague. Our friends Rachel and Ben hosted another great party. We all decorated cookies and ate lunch. Liam, Ben and Rachel's son, was especially talented at the decorations.

Afterwards, Amanda, Jacob, and I headed off to The Hague for some shopping. While only a few kids (6) showed up, it was still a great starter for the holiday season.

The next step was just 1 week prior to Christmas and it involved what Amanda and I believe was the start of a very successful career: Jacob's Christmas Concert. He is clearly a budding talent. To be honest though, there were about 15 other sets of parents that thought the same about their child.

I took the morning off from work and joined Amanda for the concert. It was pretty cute. The kids pulled off an excellent rendition of Jingle Bells (complete with bells to rattle) and all wore nifty green santa hats (I don't know who chose the color).

The most interesting part of this day was watching the parents. The room was packed with about 1/3 kids and 2/3 parents. Every parent had a camera in one hand and a camcorder in other. Each one wore a grin three miles wide and were trying to make eye contact with their kiddo for a quick wave.

There were a couple kids that couldn't handle the stress and melted down in mid-performance. The remaining, including Jacob --- one of the youngest in attendence, pulled through to make a great performance.

During December, Jacob would come home with various Christmas related crafts. The one shown below is especially nice. Our little angel.

Part 41: Great Misadventures on the Rhine

2008-11-22T12:51:00.000Z

We are blessed with a number of people in our circle that have visited us while we have been over here. Quite honestly, I think this is one of the things that keeps our attitudes high; the ability to look forward to another guest arriving.

So far (including this blog), my Mom has come twice, her Mom has come three times, her Dad has come 2 times, and my Dad and Step-Mom have come once. In addition to that, my Sister, Amanda's Sister and my Aunt Sherry have all come over too. From the friends side, we have had a lot of visitors too: Phil, Brett and Beth, Brandon and Kristi, Jason and Terri (with a second trip planned in March), and PJ...

It seems like every 1-2 months someone new comes over to visit. So, this trip was another made by Amanda's Mom and Dad.

Originally, we thought we could fly off for a destination weekend, but the logistics and cost planning just weren't working out in our favor. Instead, we decided to take it easy and drive over to Germany for a three day trip to the Rhine. It was definitely off-season, but with any luck we could see all the major sites and catch a cruise on the river.

The trip started off brilliantly. Gary and Judy arrived on Friday morning and nearly kicked the jet lag the first night. The next morning we completed the most critical part of the trip for Gary; we made it to the morning market for appleflaps and cheese. As expected, they didn't disappoint.

Our general plan was to leave on Saturday afternoon and try to catch the Burg Eltz (Rick Steve's #1 rated castle in Europe - Amanda has been 3 times) and then drive over to the Rhine for two nights in a hotel. Amanda did all of the research on this trip and opted for Bacharach, a small town directly on the Rhine River in the middle of castle country.

As you probably know, Rhine River cruises are "all the rage" in Europe. When I mentioned this to my colleagues they all agreed, but added "if your older than 70". I guess the mystique of the cruise is largely lost on Europeans. Still, that single 10 mile stretch of river has approximately 15 castles on its banks. Pretty impressive. Where else in the world can you go to see so many historical sites packed into one area.

Since it was supremely "off-season" we didn't know what would be open, but expected it to be fairly slim. That turned out to be a relatively accurate assumption.

So, after lunch on Saturday, we left basically on-time. And, aside from the turnabout 10 minutes into the trip to get Passports, it started off without a hitch. The first pictures below where taken at the Burg Eltz. As mentioned before, this is a great castle nestled in a valley just south of Cologne.

We arrived just at dusk so the pictures were a little dark and the doors were closed due to off-season (which we knew in advance), but still a good site to see from the hilltop above.

Unfortunately, the pictures don't do the site justice. But, then again, that's how it normally works. This was Gary and Judy's first look at a German castle, and they were very impressed. This was also my first time seeing the castle and, after hearing the stories from Amanda's previous visits, was happy to finally have seen it.

It was getting dark and colder by the minute. In fact, in some areas snowflakes were starting to fall... Yes - an ominous start to the next paragraph.

This is where the story gets a little "offtrack" (pun intended). Since we detoured off the main roads to see the Burg, we had to traverse several smaller roads to get us to Bacharach. It basically amounted to climbing one small mountain (really a big hill) and then down the hill to the town by the Rhine.

From my perspective the roads and weather were fine; some Monday morning quarterbacks have since suggested differently. Even though the snow was blowing pretty hard in parts, the roads were still very clear.

Nevertheless, as we crested a hill and headed downward, the brakes stopped working. You know how it goes, right. You gently pump the brakes to control the skid while slowing the car a little. And, you do so as long as you can until you either regain control or start spinning the car. In my case, the later occurred.

It felt like we spun the car around 3-4 times, but it was actually only 180 degrees and slid into the ditch. After taking out 2-3 reflector signposts, we came to a stop against a wall of snow covered dirt. Neither Judy nor I could open our doors since we were pinned against the wall. At that point, I rolled the window down and climbed out the window "Dukes of Hazard" style to inspect the damage. From what I could see there wasn't much except for a dented rear fender (minor) and a broken hubcap. All in all, it wasn't too bad.

After the wreck, 2-3 "English-speaking" Germans stopped and checked in on us. One of them, shockingly, drove a pick-up truck and had a tow-rope in the back. He immediately tied us up and pulled us out. Amazing. Literally, 25 minutes after the accident we were out of the ditch and on our way again. Sort of.

The road, at that point, was so slick that we couldn't drive back up the hill. So, our only option was to spin the car around and drive down the icy gauntlet. Gary and a few other Germans helped out by manually pushing the car around (really slick, not really strong) and we started off. I must say that I was a little gun-shy of driving, so the way down was very, very slow.

Nevertheless, we made it down the hill, which by the way was the only patch of ice on the road, and made it to our destination. Whew.

It did again reinforce the genuine generosity of people of all nationalities. It doesn't matter the flag you carry, if a person is in need, others will help. Our German angels made an awful event very okay. The worst injury was my seriously wounded pride.

We made it to the hotel and found a nearly deserted town. There was only one restaurant open and we were the only people staying in our hotel --- weird. I mean the town was completely abandoned.

After a traditional German meal, we headed back to the hotel for an early night. Well, early for most, but I was about 800 pages into Atlas Shrugged, so I stayed up a while to read.

The next morning we met for breakfast (included in our dirt cheap rates) and developed a game plan. Everything we read indicated a Rhine Cruise was highly unlikely, but we decided that finding out for sure was our top priority. The most likely departure point was 5 miles upstream in a town call St. Goar, so we headed that way.

On arrival we learned that there was a Rhine Cruise, only one per day, but there was a cruise. We were ecstatic. Since the cruise didn't leave until 11:30 and we had a couple of hours to kill, we decided to do some shopping around the town.

The first shop we stopped at was a nice "general purpose" souvenir shop owned by a German couple. Interestingly enough, they were the people that helped us get out the ditch the night before. It was one of those small world moments. They told us that that particular stretch of road is the worst in the area and people often wreck their cars there.

Since they saved the day for us, we decided it was our duty to purchase all of our gifts in that shop. We left about 100 Euros poorer, but felt good about spending every cent.

After leaving their shop we wandered onto another "World's (insert word here) Stein Shop in Germany". It was an impressive shop. Maybe not as good as the sign advertised, but still very impressive. They had thousands of steins of every shape, size, and style for sale. You could find a stein with the local futbol team, with a piece of the Berlin wall or with the coat of arms of a 4th century tribe --- literally, anything you can think of, could be found there.

The problem with the shop is each stein cost about 100 Euros. So, instead of buying, we snagged a few illegal pictures for the blog.

There wasn't much open, so we spent more time walking around than we otherwise would have. Still it was enough to get a sense of the town and the activities during the busy Spring, Summer, and Fall...

At 11:30, we boarded the boat for the 3hr cruise. We were lucky to have a relatively nice day: cold, clear, and no rain. The boat probably held 500 people, but there were only 15 passengers on board. Needless to say, we had plenty of room to move about.

I don't really know where to go with the story of this cruise. We saw a lot of castles, most of which are shown below and each of them have their own story. The Rhine is riddled with Medieval stories of conquest and power and laden with despair and sadness. The river, in this section, follows a tortuous path where many shipwrecks have occurred.

Today it is still the most highly travelled river in Germany (maybe in Europe). In fact, I personally move a lot of Propylene Oxide via barge to customers in Dormagen.

The landscape around the Rhine is beautiful. Hills bank each side (a.k.a. great opportunities for misadventures) and vineyards lace most of the hills. Since it had snowed over the past couple of days, the white blanket added a nice touch to the pictures.

There are very few bridges crossing the Rhine, but both highways and rail tracks parallel each side of the river. And, multiple tunnels interrupted the transportation lines.

We had just purchased a new camera (Nikon D80) because the price dropped over 500 USD and while the quality probably won't show up on the blog, the difference is quite noticeable. As such, with the new telephoto capabilities, I tried to capture a few impromptu moments. You can see that Jacob is also a big fan of Rick Steves.

After the cruise, we took the train back to St. Goar (where we had left our car) and then drove back to Bacharach. The snow really added a neat touch to that small town. Especially, to the church on the hill.

The bottom-right picture was taken from the boat with the telephoto lens --- cool huh?

The following morning we headed back home early since we didn't know what the weather would be doing. And, my driving had become extremely conservative (and slow) over the weekend.

Our final stop on the Rhine was the Marksburg Castle. This castle is open to the public for tours and is one of the few that never fell during battle. As a result, the castle is in remarkable condition and still looks as it did 500 years ago.

There was a battalion of cannons still standing in defense.

Much of the castle is carved directly out the rock foundation. The top-left picture shows the castle entrance where the knight would ride their horses up to the stable. The top-right shows the blacksmith shop: still equipped with authentic equipment.

The bottom-outside pictures show the toilet -- what you can't see is that it empties directly into the garden two stories below. And the bottom-center picture shows how the knights would pass their time while others were passing gas.

This is a collection of random takeaways from the castle. The left pictures show the winery - a fermentation process and a grape press. The two glasses carry an interesting story. In medieval times, it was customary to eat without utensils and personal hygiene wasn't a top priority. So, to keep too many glasses from slipping through slimy hands, the glass makers started to make glasses with multiple "hold-points" - either by twisting the glass or by adding nubs to the glassware.

These pictures show an assortment of battle wear and torture devises. The "near" top-left picture is of a chastity belt... Did they really have those?

After leaving the castle, we decided to make a quick stop at Cologne so Gary could see the church (everyone else had already been there) and to grab some food at an authentic German Christmas market. Amanda and Judy bought some kaas spatzel and Gary and I tore into grilled pork sandwiches, roasted mushrooms, and crepes. It was a good break for the drive home.

We made it home around 7pm Monday evening without any more problems. I am sure everyone learned a lot and took countless memories away from the trip. However, I have no doubt that the top story, told around the campfire, will be how I put everyone's life in danger with a careless accident. Oh well, add it to the list. For me it is just one more goof to live down.

Part 40: Sinterklaas

2008-11-15T18:33:00.025Z

Christmas is very different for the Dutch. Instead of the massive celebration with gifts and the arrival of Santa Clause on the 25th of December, they celebrate the arrival of Sinterklaas.

Sinterklaas is a character that looks just like Santa Claus, however, there are several notable differences.

First, celebrating Sinterklaas' arrival is not a private event. It is a very public event. Kids all over the town dress up as Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and gather at the town center to await the arrival of Sinterklaas. Community bands band together and celebrate with parades, singing, and candy.

Second, Sinterklaas is from Spain. In mid-November Sinterklaas sails a boat from Spain to Holland. He rides his horse off the boat and to meet all the kids and receive their letters.

Third, Sinterklaas doesn't have elvish helpers. He has Zwarte Piet. Zwarte Piet is a caucasian person who has shoveled coal into the boat furnaces to get Sinterklaas to Holland. By the time they arrive in Holland, Pete is completely covered head to toe in soot. Hence, the name Black Pete. There are other versions of this story, but this is the most politically correct one we've heard. Amanda already thinks elves are weird; Zwart Piet, on the other hand, is totally over the top (or freakish, as Amanda says).

Fourth, Sinterklaas doesn't come on 25-Dec. He first arrives to Holland in Mid-November and then returns on 5-Dec with gifts for the kids. Traditionally, he places the gifts in a wooden shoe by the fireplace.

Celebrating Sinterklaas was very cool. Granted Zwarte Piet is highly freakish, but after you accept that and just start enjoying the day, it is intensely fun to watch the kids go crazy. We had a great time.

Part 39: A Dutch Halloween

2008-11-11T18:33:00.006Z

In Holland, and Europe for that matter, they don't celebrate Halloween. I know, I know... How dare they? But, when you really think about the pretense for Halloween, most Europeans are saying "how dare they".

However, since every kid has to have a reason to dress up and ask for candy, the Dutch have declared Sint Maarten's Day as a national holiday.

Sint Maarten was born in "modern-day Hungary", joined the Roman army, rose through the ranks, and was knighted by the Roman Emperor. Aside from being a good soldier, he also found a calling to help the poor, the homeless, and under-priveledged children. He soon dropped the army to become a monk. As a monk he traveled Europe and started a half dozen monestaries.

I don't know why, but today, Holland has adopted Sint Maaren as the patron of all things "almost halloween". On every November 11, kids will walk the neighborhoods, with pails ready for candy, and sing to the neighbors for a treat.

In our neighboorhood the local band also got together and paraded right in front of our house. As you can imagine it was a cool night because the kids were super excited to get into the candy.

We weren't ready for this one though. When the kids started coming by the house and singing, we had to scramble to the cabinets for something. We ended up finding a few boxes of theatre candy, some lifesavers, and a few packages of Oreos. Most parents seemed ok with the hodge-podge of offerings, but then other parents immediately took the candy away when they left. Oh well, we tried.

It was a cool "improptu" evening.

Part 38: Rembrandt, Flanders, and Trenches

2008-11-09T18:03:00.001Z

When the daylight hours shrink and winter rains set in, the gloomy Dutch reputation bears full light. During these days, it is important to maintain a full agenda so to force oneself out of the house. If not, it is likely that one will get very lonely and depressed…

So, let the planning begin. Last weekend, we didn’t really have anything on the agenda. We kept talking about doing something, but then, we didn’t do anything to get ready. Nonetheless, with tour book in hand, we made our weekly vigil to the outdoor market tp purchase appleflaps, stroopwafels and the Sunday meal. While munching on the snacks we decided that a Saturday road trip was not in the cards, but instead, we should stay around and tour Den Haag.

So after a yummy lunch of leftover corn chowder, we headed out to find the Mauritshuis, Den Haag’s premier museum. We made it there in perfect timing to the garage closest to the building… and, by the way, felt pretty good about navigating Den Haag successfully for the first time in 2 years (for some reason, we always seem to make a wrong turn).

The Mauritshuis is located inside the Binnenhoff building. This is the old parliament building for the Hague and where the Queen rides her golden coach once a year. It is a really nice setting with lots of trees, ponds and cool architecture.

The museum was really first class. It is set in an older building that feels like a home more so than a museum. The floors are wooden and the mood is soft. It is well lighted and people move through at a comfortable pace. The art is spectacular. From this visit I really got a good sense of why the Dutch Masters are considered masters. During the 17th century, Holland was a Mecca for new art. It was to Europe what the Renaissance was to Italy. Literally, this small country generated and attracted some of the best artists in the world. The most notable was Rembrandt, but there were many others too --- Vermeer, van der Huygen, etc.

We left the museum and found our way back home. This is one of those trips that makes you feel good --- like you avoided watching college football and sitting on the couch all day. Plus, we were able to keep the Dutch Depression at arm’s length one more day.

On Sunday, we were a bit more ambitious. We decided to take a driving trip into Belgium. Ever since January (when DJ visited) I have wanted to come back to the town called Ypres. When DJ and I visited earlier in the year, the museum we wanted to see was closed. So, on Sunday, Amanda, Jacob, and I decided to make a go at it again.

The drive wasn’t too bad --- approximately 2hrs 15min --- and it wasn’t raining. By northwest European standards that was a success in its own right. The town of Ypres is pretty cool, a little different, but still pretty cool. We made it there around noon and quickly found a restaurant for lunch. In case you haven’t tried it, Flemish food is some of the best in the world. It is very rich, creamy, and unique. The Belgium chefs really know how to pull together a meal. And, this meal was no exception.

After the nice Belgium meal, we headed over to the Museum called Flanders Fields. Flanders is the ethnic name for the people that live in the Ypres area. It is also the location of a critial battlefield during WWI. The Ypres Saliant was critical because it was an allied "pennisula" surrounded on three sides by German attackers. The Belgium, British, and French soldiers held this area throughout the entire war. In a speech after the war, Winston Churchill said "there is no other place on earth where British soldiers have paid a greater sacrifice for the freedom of the world". I wonder if he would maintain that thought after WWII; I doubt it.

This museum is really well done. At the beginning everyone is given a card with a barcode and name. Throughout the museum you scan your card and get an update on how you were holding up during the war. The museum is a little strange because it is chaotically organized. It is loosely organized in chronological order, but you had to criss-cross back and forth across the museum to stay on track.

The museum is largely organized around the the Ypres battles, but also provides a good context to the broader implications. Mostly though, the museum attempts to evoke the daily human experience during the war. It includes scenes where German and Allied soldiers put the weapons down during Christmas, met during the evening, and shared gifts with one another. It also includes a sound room where audio clips (and a few video clips) from battles played.

In general, I think the museum did a good job tugging the emotional strings. When we left, Amanda and I turned to each other and both said "that was good". I don't think anyone can be too often reminded of the hellish nature of war.

After the museum we drove to a place call Hill 62. The is a hill on the outskirts of town where the war trenches are actually preserved.

We didn't have enough cash left over to pay full entrance to the site, so Jacob and I left Amanda at the car. Before going to the trenches the guides let us borrow rubber boots to slosh around in the mud. It was definitely a little over priced, but when you step back and consider the significance of the location and the raw carnage that overtook the hill, it was well worth it. Jacob and I had a great time wandering through the trenches.

After the trenches, we started our journey back home. After a day like this, you feel really good about forcing yourself to take the time to learn a little more about the history that has shaped our world.

Here are a few other pictures from the Hill 62 museum.

A bunch of old equipment that has been excavated from this site.

German and Allied headstones from two soldiers that lost their lives during the war.

A dummy used to trick the enemy during the war. They would use this mannequin to draw the enemy fire and give up their position. This one survived; it did better than 9 million other people during the war.

Part 37: An American holiday in a very Dutch place

2008-10-31T21:35:00.006Z

Halloween is largely an excuse for American commercialism to run rampant. It just gives kids reason to eat too much candy and parents to spend too much money on costumes kids don't want to wear...

Oh yeah --- and, it is a ton of fun. Who doesn't like Halloween? Sugar rushes, pranks, goofy costumes with great scares, and great pumpkin carving contests.

Too bad most of Holland hasn't recognized the value that this holiday brings to their country. Fortunately for us, the American Woman's Club of The Hague always puts on a Halloween party for Americans abroad. This year was particularly fun because of the mummy games that we played at the party and the fact we have gotten to be so much better friends with the families at the club.

There is one neighborhood in Holland that jumped on the Halloween bandwagon in first class style. I don't know why, but this area in Kijkduin goes all out for Halloween. So, we met a few of Amanda's friends and went trick-or-treating. It was really really cold, so Jacob's kilt didn't do much for him.

Nevertheless, like the trooper he always is, he went out and had a great time. But, then again, when driven by food, Jacob will do just about anything. The good thing for him in Holland is the candy isn't wrapped or "razor-blade" tested. So, he could hit the house and eat immediately --- he loved it.

All the kids had a great time and most slipped into their PJs before leaving for home. Jacob and Liam enjoyed one bedtime story by Ben.

Part 36: Twooo, tooo, tooo....

2008-10-06T18:53:00.004Z

On Monday Jacob turned two. I know it is a cliche, but we can't believe it. It is amazing that this little guy has already been around for 2 years; it seems like just yesterday.

He is really turning into a little boy; ok, he already has.... He is running all over the place, mimicking everything we do, and repeating everything we say. On Wednesday this week he even started school --- so wierd. Mom was more worried about it than Jacob (probably very normal) and he did just fine. He looked extremely cute with his new outfit and backpack. He looked even cuter when he came home with a couple of library books. Totally cool.

For the day of his birthday, we decided on a just a family dinner with his favorite food minus the french fries (meatloaf, green beans, and kraft macaroni and cheese), a special cake (rice krispie treats), and lots of presents...

It was a really fun night.

The first party was the family party, the second party was the friends party. Amanda had been planning this party ever since last year. I can't begin to tell you how many magazines were bought and research was done in preparation.

She went all out. The theme was "round", with an emphasis on balloons. Amanda purchased an assortment of round candies, made a table-runner of construction paper balloons, etc. She even made the party invitations out of balloons --- i.e. you had to blow up the balloon to see the invitation.

To start the party we bought Jacob 24 helium balloons... He really liked this. He would run around the room with the balloons trailing behind, then let them go and say "Uh-Oh". Then Mom or Dad would round them up, pull them back down, and hand them off to Jacob. Then the process repeated itself --- this kept on for 30 minutes.

Ben, Rachel, and Liam arrived around 11am and we played outside with the bubble maker, had lunch (round sandwiches and cupcakes), and finished by decorating cookies.

We ended the day with some healthy fitness activitites on the Wii Fit. Ben especially liked the yoga moves, but the rest of us thought he was a little scary...

Happy Birthday Jacob! Hope you had a good year. We love you.

Part 35: A whole new world...

2008-09-25T18:34:00.024Z

So, it finally happened. Our cherished friends from Houston braved the long flight, the Atlantic Ocean, and separation from their 1 year old for a 10-day trip of a lifetime. It may seem silly, but we have been planning this trip ever since we told them we were moving in our kitchen in September 2006.

The four of us are great friends. I don't know how it happened, but Amanda and I feel as though we found our kindred spirits just two doors down from our house in Humble, Texas. Our relationship with them is a true blessing and one of our big drivers to get back home.

The trip was basically planned with the following precepts: (1) get a feeling of what it is like to live in Holland, (2) take full advantage of free lodging by maximizing day trips, and (3) do Paris and Normandy.

We started the trip much like we have other times by picking them up at the airport and then heading to Amsterdam. It was a little different this time because I had to work until noon and planned to meet Amanda, Jacob, Brandon, and Kristi at the airport. This was also another one of those times where I had returned to Holland about 1.5 weeks prior to Amanda and Jacob. But, we were lucky enough to book Amanda and Jacob on the same flight as Brandon and Kristi. So, everyone arrived at Schiphol around noon.

As expected (by most), I was late and didn't get there until after everyone had arrived. So, they were very ready to get the vacation started. We dropped the bags off at the lockers, bought our train tickets, and headed out.

Amanda and Jacob are seasoned international travelers (i.e. they know how to sleep on the plane). Brandon and Kristi are not. So, B/K didn't sleep more than 2hrs (and that would be two for Brandon and zero for Kristi) --- they were wiped out. In fact, I think Brandon was dozing a bit on the train (with his eyes open).

Kristi: "It's 11:15 in Europe right now, and we are flying over the North Sea, about to touch down in Amsterdam!" Our bodies think that it is 4:15am, and Brandon and I feel like it! Brandon got about an hour of sleep, and I did not get one wink! Hopefully we will not be too tired to enjoy all that Amsterdam has to offer."

One of the really cool things that Brandon and Kristi both planned for this trip was to diary the events we experienced. Both brought a book and kept it handy. We would find them buried away in the book trying to capture the events. I have pulled details from their diaries and inserted their comments throughout. Their comments are in "quotations".

Regardless of how good you are at international travel, there is no way you can enjoy the food on the airplane. Therefore, the first order of business was to get to Amsterdam and walk over to the Pancake Bakery. At that point, I think any food would have tasted good, but Brandon and Kristi raved about it. I think both indicated they could just stay there and eat pancakes for the entire trip.

The weather was superb. Really -- it couldn't have been better. It was cool enough for a light jacket, but still really sunny. While walking the circle (i.e. train station, by the bikes, to the Pancake Bakery, to Anne Frank's house, then around to Dam Square, through a souvenir shop to sit in the shoe, and then back to the train station with a small detour through the red light district) we hit most of the popular sights (except for the museum district). The weather made the walk great, but everyone was wiped out by the time it was finished. Brandon did get a burst of energy as we wandered through the RLD; no pun intended.

Kristi: "We then took a tour through the Red Light District which very interesting to say the least! One "employee" felt the need to "evaluate Dustin's equipment" as we walked through!"

One of the most striking aspects of Amsterdam are the tree-lined canals. And, while Amanda and I have been there a number of times, it seemed especially beautiful that day. I don't know if it was the company, the weather, or finally seeing Amanda and Jacob after a 1.5 week withdrawal... Probably just a mix of everything. It was a perfect day.

It is cool to visit and travel with people who haven't been to Europe before because they see it with a completely different perspective than you do. Maybe we used to look at it that way, but after 2 years, we have grown immune to the novelty. They still saw it and were amazed with the cheese, numerology, and outdoor toilets.

We left Amsterdam around 6pm and started our trek home. We trained it back to Schiphol, got the bags, and then split up. Amanda, Kristi, and Jacob took the bags and the car home while Brandon and I took the train. There wasn't nearly enough room in the car for everyone and all the bags.

It was a fun night for Brandon and I as we dropped off at Laan Van NOI station and walked through new Voorburg. He got to see the town the same way I see it every day after work. Everyone got settled in around 7:30, Jacob went to bed at 8:30, and the rest of us started to unpack, shower, and chill out.

Everyone was really tired, but they made it and broke jet lag the first day.

I really like to show off our house to folks that visit for the first time. In the States we took our house for granted; we forgot how cool it is to invite folks into your house for a visit. In the States, everyone knows what our house looks like, but in Holland, no one does. Plus, since the architecture is so unique here, our house tour is an event. It was nice to finally show them where we have been living and give them a fresh perspective of our digs.

Everyone settled in and hit the sack around 11pm... It was a much deserved break to the day.

There was no special agenda for the next day except for: (1) market by 10am, (2) bike ride to Clingendael Park for picnic lunch by noon, (3) return home by 3pm, (4) Axis and Allies game to start at 4pm, and (5) fondue night by 7pm... It was a very relaxed schedule for the day.

We have stated it before, but the market is one of the most unique experiences of our time in Holland and probably the single thing we will miss most. It is an event that we plan most visits around and the highlight memory for most when they go back home.

It always starts with a short walk from our house, is filled with a few snacks along the way, and ends with an arm full of groceries for the trip home. As you can see from the pictures, Saturday proved to be just as beautiful as Friday; two in a row in Holland is a charmed oddity.

We have yet to find people that haven't fallen in love with the market. Brandon and Kristi were shocked with what they saw. This was a case of the image in your head not matching reality. For 2 years now we have been telling them about "the market", but I guess we never really explained it very well. They thought it was an indoor "flea market" event; it isn't. Our market is more like an outdoor farmer's market where they sell everything from cheese and butter to deodorant and hairspray.

Kristi: "We all slept well, but not long enough, and walked to the market in Voorburg that is open every Saturday. The market was incredible! I have never seen so much fresh bread, fruits, and veggies! There are no words to describe the apple flaps that were introduced to us this morning."

Nonetheless, they loved it. We found the trimmings for our picnic lunch and fondue dinner and Brandon found the stroopwafel he had been dreaming about.

The walk to and from the market is very nice. It roams through a few authentic Dutch neighborhoods, a nice big park, and the "rich" street. It is a very pleasant stroll.

After making it back home we put away the groceries and packed our lunch. We were prepared. We brought sandwich stuff, chips, drinks, desserts, the Ipod speakers, the blanket, and the American football. I borrowed a couple of bikes from some friends and had them ready to go. We adjusted the seats for everyone, gave Kristi a quick "bike-riding" refresher, and headed out.

Holland is all about bikes. Their ubiquity strikes most as odd, but after living here for a while you learn that a bike will likely get you there faster than a car or bus. So, after you see everyone else riding bikes here it becomes a special treat to ride one too.

Our bike ride took us by a classic-style windmill, the Queen's palace, and through The Hague's biggest and nicest park. As you can see from the picture, Jacob has become quite accustomed to riding bikes and tends to kick back and take it easy.

We found a nice spot by one of the lakes, spread out the blanket, and had a great lunch. It was the first time Amanda and I had picnicked in Holland and so, a new experience for everyone.

After lunch we played around with Jacob and threw the football. I had been looking forward to throwing an actual football around in Holland for a long time. It was wonderful.

We left the park around 3pm (still on schedule) and found our way back home. I remember Kristi making a comment about how unique the buildings were; she was right. In all the travelling we have done, Amanda and I think Holland has the most unique residential architecture in Europe.

Jacob fell asleep in the bike, but still made it home for a good nap. After getting home, Amanda and Kristi went out for a quick shopping trip and Brandon and I played a round of Axis and Allies.

We ended the day with our fondue specialty. The first course was cheese with bread, apples, and cauliflower. The second course was a "coq au vin" equivalent with beef, chicken, shrimp, fish, potatoes, mushrooms, and broccoli. This meal is stolen from the Melting Pot and turned into a favorite at our house.

Kristi: "We had fondue tonight around 9:00pm, and it was delicious! Dustin and Brandon stayed up playing Axis and Allies, and I went to bed!"

The day ended with very full bellies, bulging waistlines, and exhaustion. The four of us spent the remaining minutes of the evening chatting, playing guitar hero, and flipping through a wide selection of authentic Dutch television programming.

The next morning was a blur. Keep in mind Amanda has been out of the country for approximately 5 weeks and, in the meantime, her duties at the Women's Club have been piling up. So, before embarking on our first day trip to Brugge, we had to make a quick trip to the clubhouse. While Amanda took care of business, I drove Brandon and Kristi to the beach for quick peek at the North Sea.

Then we went to Brugge. Is there a nicer place in Europe? In the world? All I know is that we love Brugge. It personifies the greatest aspects of Europe through the lazy canals, timeless city-center, and chocolate.

We made the drive to Brugge in approximately 2hrs, but we did have one glitch. The brakes were making a horrendous screeching sound everytime we used them. It made me a little nervous and made Amanda, Brandon (although you couldn't tell by looking at him), and Kristi really nervous.

It was a classic case of owner-neglect. I knew the brakes needed work, but neglected to get the pads changed prior to wearing them down to the rivets. Dang --- this is going to cost me more money now.

But, who cares? We made it safe and sound and we were in Brugge. The best little village in Europe. We walked through all the typical stops - chocolate shops, lace shops, the temple of the holy blood, and got a general feel for the town. We stopped at a cafe in the city center and enjoyed a fantastic Flemish meal: simple and succulent.

Kristi: "We then went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, where I was able to pray over Christ's blood. Now that is something that you cannot do everyday!"

I think this was the first time that Amanda and I used Rick Steve's for the tour. As expected, he pointed us toward a very cool little chocolatier called Dumon's. The chocolate was great, but what set it apart from the rest was the building. The outside was unique and the inside was small and crammed full of chocolate. The owner was really helpful and said that Rick Steve's was one of the nicest and most intelligent visitors of the store. They said, "He is as advertised - down to earth and earnestly interested in the people".

You can't visit Brugge without stopping at the Church that houses Michelangelo's virgin and baby statue or grabbing a waffle. Good stuff.

This time we also walked over to the Begijnhof. Amanda and I have never wandered that deeply into the city, but were glad we took the time. This is a convent that houses women of "The Order of Beguines" which are basically single or widowed women that take a vow of service and piety. They are similar to nuns, but do not take the vow and are not subject to the same lifestyle restrictions.

It was a beautiful day so we were able to get a few great pictures.

After grabbing some snacks for the ride back home, we jumped back in the car and headed back. It was a good day.

Kristi: "We stopped to get a Belgian waffle covered in warm chocolate....Yum-o!!""What a suprisingly incredible experience in Brugges"

We got back home around 6pm: early enough for dinner and early enough to get a good night's rest. That was important since Germany was on the agenda for the next day.

Part of the value of day trips is saving money on hotels and transportation, right? True, but only if you have a safely functioning car. We didn't.

After grinding our way home from Brugge, we opted to rent a car for the trip to Germany. It is a little further than Brugge and unencumbered by irritating speed limits. So, to best take advantage of the autobahn, we picked up a Eurocar at the local dealer in Den Haag.

We left with lofty expectations of trying to see the Cathedral in Cologne, the Burg Eltz south of Cologne, and a Charlemagne exhibit in Aachen. Sound familiar? Too much planned for one day? Oh yeah -- It was my idea.

We arrived in Cologne just before lunch and found a spot recommended by Rick Steve's. It was good and served the best schnitzel I have ever had. Brandon had his German beer, Dustin his Pepsi, and Jacob his milk. And, that succession made for a great round of pictures.

We parked in an area near the shopping district in Cologne - about a 10 minute walk from the garage to the cathedral. If the tour guide is properly doing their job, then they can distract the newbies from seeing the cathedral until they walk upon it. By doing so, the tour guide creates an impact difficult to describe...

Most people can't imagine the sheer size of this place. So, as they turn the corner by the Louis Vuiton store, the biggest church in the world will tower over them (maybe not the biggest, but it's got to be close). Most of the time, it brings a steady stream of giddy comments and laughter followed by silence.

This time was no different. We turned the corner and almost immediately Kristi said "Oh my... Brandon look at that".

After lunch we went inside to tour the inner-details. We saw the Chapel of the Virgin, the shrine of the magi, and the Gero-Crucifix. We sat quietly in the pews and just basked in the awe of the church.

After touring the site, Kristi was itching to shop and Brandon didn't want to shop... So, Brandon and I climbed the 650 steps to the top of the cathedral while Amanda, Kristi, and Jacob shopped. It was a really tough climb, but we made it to the top. We happened by the church bells as they rang and got a good view of the "busiest rail bridge in Europe".

While Brandon and I worked our tails off, Amanda and Kristi hit the souvenir shops and dreamed about buying expensive bags. Fortunately for Brandon and I, they were only dreams.

After Cologne, we debated about our next destination. As a loser of that debate (3 to 1) we decided to drop the Burg Eltz and Aachen for the friendly confines of Voorburg. I didn't mind too much as I expected to return to the Burg some other day. Plus, we had had two days of heavy driving and everyone was pretty worn out.

We made it home around 7pm, ate some leftovers, and settled in for the night watching football and playing Guitar Hero.

The next day was a "break" day where we planned to do very little. When planning the trip we consciously broke the week into heavy and light touring days in an attempt to maintain some resemblence to a relaxing vacation.

So Tuesday was a light day, and a very rainy day. So, we decided to take a morning trip to the Delft pottery factory (4 miles from our house) and find a nice cafe on the square for lunch. Amanda had done the Delft museum tour before, but always while I was working. So, I was totally game for the trip.

The factory tour was pretty fun. It is the only surviving production facility in Delft and a full scale shop. They have a mixing area, foundry, glazing station, and multiple painting areas.

The traditional Delftware is very easy to identify. It is white porceline with light blue inscriptions. This is the most popular piece and what you most often see in the souvenir shops around Holland. There are, however, other styles which get less fanfare: Polychrome, Black and white, and 24 carot gold. All are cool, but the blue (in my opinion) is the best.

After the Delft factory we headed over to a little restaurant in the City Center. It was recommended by one of the Delft factory workers and turned out to be pretty good. After lunch we split up for about an hour. Amanda and Kristi went shopping (surprising, huh?) and Dustin and Brandon went to the Nieuwe Kerk. I didn't know it at the time, but that church is the Netherland's version of Westminster Abbey. The entire Royal family has been buried there since William of Orange liberated the country back in the 1500's.

We made it back home around 3pm and just spent the rest of the day chllin' and packing. Afterall, the highlight of the trip was the next day: Paris, France.

The plan was pretty good. Up at 5:30am, drive to the Rotterdam Central at 6:15, and catch the earliest train to Paris at 7:25am. This worked great, gave us time to sleep on the train, and got us to Paris before noon. It all went without a hitch. Made it to the station on time and even had time to eat a few pastries and drink some coffee.

This was Brandon and Kristi's first big train ride (aside from Schiphol to Amsterdam) and so it was especially fun to watch them get excited about it. I mean, Brandon could barely contain himself --- if you know Brandon, you know what I mean.

We had three days in Paris (and surroundings). Day 1 was together and dedicated to normal Paris sites: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and Saint Chappelle, etc. Day 2 we split up. Amanda and Kristi stayed in Paris and shopped, while Brandon and I headed to Normandy. Day 3 we planned a few things during the day, but had to catch the train back to Rotterdam at 7pm.

It was a perfect trip... Relaxing for the girls and all about WWII for the boys.

Kristi found a great hotel on Rue Cler street - an iconic spot for high-end shopping and class. The pick didn't dissappoint either. Our rooms were on the street side where each window was dressed with massive flower baskets and traditional iron railings.

We found a Rick Steve's recommended restaurant. And, aside from Jacob melting down during the meal, it was a pleasant stop.

When you go to Paris there are a few things that are definitely on the list. Must do's that depend on the weather and must do's that don't. If you plan your schedule too rigidly, then you may miss a must-do at the perfect time. Our original planning had the Eiffel Tower planned for Friday, but Wednesday brought sunshine, so we hit the tower first.

Brandon and Kristi went to the top of the tower while we stayed down below. When they were up at the top, I ran over to the car rental place and picked up the car for our trip to Normandy and Amanda & Jacob stayed below the tower and memorized the the flags for all EU member countries. It was impressive.

B&K returned from the top about 15 minutes after I returned from the rental spot. They had a good time and got a bird's eye view of the city.

After the Eiffel Tower, we dropped into the subway and headed over to the Notre Dame / Saint Chappelle area. You know, Amanda and I have been to Paris several times, but every time we came Saint Chappelle was shut down for one reason or another. After the first time, we just brushed it off and figured we see it the next time. But, then after missing it the 2nd and 3rd times, we wondered if we would ever get there.

Finally, we made it. From the pictures below you really can't get a good appreciation of the stained glass, but it is beautiful, really really beautiful. There were hundreds of people staring at the ceiling and it reminded me a bit of the Sistene Chapel in Rome. We were lucky enough to arrive while the sun was shining. And, as the light passed through the glass it cast an amazing red hue across the room. The chapel was built by Saint Louis IX to house multiple relics from his crusades to the west bank and some of them are still on display. The panels are really ornate and they exclusively represent excerpts from the Bible.

I must admit the admission is a little pricey - approximately 13 Eur/person. And, you only stay for 20 minutes. So, if you do the cost / benefit analysis, it probably doesn't make sense. Nevertheless, you only live once.

After Saint Chappelle, we headed over to Notre Dame to set our eyes upon the most "over-hyped" church in Europe. At least, the most "over-hyped" church in Europe after you have seen the Cologne Cathedral. On the way there, we wandered past one of Paris' first subway stations, turned random Rick Steve's tourist stop.

It isn't like Notre Dame isn't cool. It is. It is a really nice church with lots of cool features. Victor Hugo's famous novel convinced the city to repair the delapidated church. Which, in hindsight, appears to be a great economic decision as millions of people flock to Paris everyday to see the church.

Nevertheless we made it there, got the picture and then strolled through the Isle of St. Louis for some ice cream before dinner (Amanda and Brandon's style --- ice cream before dinner). We had a first that night too. We ate at a Rick Steve's recommended joint that didn't taste good. I know it is surprising. It shocked us.

After dinner we planned to stroll back over the Seine to the Latin District to take in the atmosphere and grab a crepe. Unfortunately, it was getting late and we were all really tired. Instead we just grabbed a train back to the hotel. But, we did still manage to find the energy to grab a Nutella crepe outside the hotel.

Brandon and Kristi's night didn't end there... Boom, chicka, bow, wow... They pushed on even further and grabbed a night cruise on the river.

The next day is kind of a blur. For Day 2 we decided to split up; Amanda and Kristi to do some shopping and Dustin and Brandon to hit the beaches for a WWII extravaganza.

Day 2 for Amanda and Kristi:

Unlike the boys, we were planning on an easy day walking the streets of Paris. First, we met for breakfast at a cafe down the street from our hotel. For 6 euros, you got an egg, slice of ham, bread, croissants, and coffee or hot chocolate. It was delicious. After that, we headed to the Arc de Triomph to get a view of the Champs Elysees. Since we had Jacob in a stroller, we were able to ride the elevator to the top rather than taking the stairs. What a relief! It was a sunny (but windy) day so we had a great view of the city. After the Arc, it was off to one of the most famous shopping streets in the world.

Mainly we just walked the street and didn't go into many stores. I mean, who are we kidding? Those stores are too rich for my blood. We did go into the Gap and Disney stores. We figured those were a little more on our level. Jacob ended up with a Mickey Paris sippy cup.

After making it down one side, we crossed over to the other and headed back up the street. We wanted to stop for lunch at this tea house, but when we walked in, it looked a bit too fancy for people with a toddler. So, instead we bought some traditional French cookies and left in search of a different lunch stop. We ate outside at one of the many outdoor cafes.

Shortly after lunch, it started raining. Conveniently, the Louis Vuitton store was right there, so we ducked in to avoid the rain. I was a little sticker shocked since I don't normally browse the high-end brands. I'm just too practical, I guess. I'll stick with the knock-offs.

After the Champs Elysees, we thought we would go to some famous department store listed in the tour book, but it was raining and cold and farther away than we originally thought. So we headed back towards our hotel instead. Kristi still wanted to get some wine for some gifts, and Jacob was having a hard time settling down in his stroller. So, I went back to our room while Kristi did some shopping on her own. We met back up about hour later (after Jacob had fallen asleep) and enjoyed some more shopping at some local stores in the neighborhood.

We found a cafe for dinner and had a pleasant evening chatting. We both ordered ceasar salads. When they came out, they didn't look like any ceasar salad I had ever seen, but it was delicious nonetheless. We had a much earlier night than the boys, but it was good for Jacob to get to bed at a decent time. Plus, Kristi was able to make some phone calls home to check on Griffin.

It was probably the most relaxing day I've ever had in Paris (which is a good thing!).

Day 2 for Dustin and Brandon:
For Brandon and I, this was the trip. This was the day that we had talked about for the last 1.5 years. We were probably, actually most definitely, way too energetic about the day. In fact, to achieve everything we had to leave at 5am (not wake up, but meet in the lobby and leave).

The first time I went to Normand, with my Dad and Kay, we left late, started in the wrong direction, and got to Normandy about 3 hrs late. We couldn't make the same mistake this time. And, we didn't.

We met our first challenge at the parking garage, when the working attendant wasn't at his post. After honking and ringing the bell for 10 minutes, I finally got out of the car and attempted to push up the gate. I was successful. I pushed up on the gate and opened our escape route beautifully. Unfortunately, just as I lifted the gate, the attendant walked up. He shouted several obsenities at me (in French) and then tried to fix the gate. As he tried to fix the gate the arm actually fell off. He was really, really pissed. I can't think of a better way to start the day than by pissing off the French. Can you?

Our plan started by trying to find Pegasus Bridge. This is the bridge that the British commandeered during D-Day. It was a critical take as it prevented the Germans from reinforcing the beaches with additional support from the north. We found the bridge around 7:15am and walked / read the site. It was cool.

The best part about this stop was the cafe. There was a woman sweeping the floor when we arrived, but we didn't pay too much attention. After walking the site, we went inside and grabbed breakfast. We noticed pretty quickly that there were a lot of pictures of the woman hanging in the building. Crazy pictures too - with the Queen, several US presidents, and a lot of military officials.

As it turns out, she was actually in the house (at 6 years old) during the invasion. Her family was required to provide provisions to the Germans during their stay and they were rescued by the British after they glided in on 6-June 1944. She told us she remembers a lot of gun fire that morning and how happy her family was after liberation.

That is a conversation that we will remember forever.

After the Bridge, we headed to the beach and drove along the coast by each of the beaches -Gold, Sword, Juno. We stopped along the way at the Arromanches. Arromanches was the invention of Sir Winston Churchill and the single most important accomplishment during D-day (+ xx days). Arromanches was an artificial harbor built within days of the landing that provided the Allies with a functioning harbor for moving additional machinary into France post D-Day. Without the harbor, the Allies would not have been able to support the troops with enough reinforcements to withstand the German counter-attacks.

The site is pretty cool because there are still bunkers and barriers left over. We didn't tour the museum, but we did hit the sourvinir shop pretty hard. It was a superb stop.

The next stop was Omaha beach. As everyone knows this is one of the two beaches that America invaded and also the beach that sustained the most resistance. Over 1500 Americans lost their lives that day (read Bedford Boys for a tear jerker).

Today, it is a cemetary and museum. Recent fame came back to this site with Saving Private Ryan's opening and closing scenes.

This place means a lot of different things to different people. But, for me, it is a memory of a time that no matter how hard we try to forget, we cannot. It is an example of selfless gifts of few to many. It is bravery, courage, youth, chance, hope, dreams, and patriotism. It is an example of the best in people.

We spent about 3 hrs at Omaha in the new museum, cemetary, and beach. We walked the beach trying to find metal that still washes ashore. We didn't find any, but good friends of ours did. Amazing right? Metal from 1944 is still washing ashore.

We left the beaches at 1pm and headed for Pont du Hoc. Pont du Hoc is the area where the Germans set up their guns that fired on Utah and Omaha beaches. However, the area is about 100 ft above sea level and on a pennisula surrounded by steep, sheer cliffs. A batallion of Army Rangers tried to scale the cliffs on D-day to take out the guns. It was a perilous endeavor that left 70% of them dead.

We stayed there for about 15 minutes. And, in that time we got soaked and really cold. Still we saw the bunkers, got the pictures, and can now say "we've been there".

After leaving Pont du Hoc, we headed back toward Caen and stopped at Bayeux. This stop was completely "non-WWII" related but highly recommended by Rick Steve's. We stopped at Bayeux for lunch (McDonalds) and to see the 1000 year old tapestry detailing William the Conquerer's rise to power in 1066. William the Conqueror was England's first king and given credit for positioning England to be a world power.

The tapestry is 1000 years old and displayed in a "no-flash" zone so we weren't able to get any pictures. It was cool though. The audio guide told the story, scene by scene, and taught us a bunch about the events leading to "the English Empire".

After Bayeux, we headed to Caen to the biggest and possibly the best WWII museum in Europe. We only had 2 hrs before it closed, but it was enough to breeze through and see the highlights.

The best thing about museums like this are the pictures. I love taking pictures of the famous pictures in museums. This place had a ton of great stuff that we hadn't ever seen before. It spoke a little about the events leading to the war and then in detail of the events during the war.

Some of the best exhibits included (1) an enigma - famous code machine used by the Germans, (2) a letter from Albert Einstein to FDR about a potential weapon of mass destruction, (3) actual copies of Mein Kampf, and (4) dummies dropped during D-Day to distract German forces.

It is a great museum and I wish we would have had more time.

We had one more item on the agenda: Mont Sant Michel. This is a monestary built on a rock off the Normandy coast just south of the beaches. When the tide is in, it is an island. When the tide is out you can walk to it.

The pictures turned out terribly. They just don't capture the beauty of the place. When we finally made it there we were totally excited. It was an incredible place, but more importantly, a symbol of accomplishing our day's goals.

It was a 60 minute drive and in the opposite direction of Paris. So, at 6pm it wasn't the smartest decision to make the trip. Nevertheless, we did it. We made it there aroun 7pm and found a great little place for dinner. It was a stellar way to end the evening.

After dinner we headed back to Paris. And, after 3hrs, countless old stories and bad jokes, and more caffiene than should be humanly consumed, we arrived back at our parking garage. The gate had been fixed and the guard was no where in sight.

We arrived back in Paris at 1am. In this one day, we were out for 19hrs, we drove over 400 miles, toured Pegasus Bridge and met a famous WWII survivor, visited 4 of the 5 famous beaches, Arromanches, the Omaha museum and cemetary, the Bayeux tapestry, the Caen museum, and Mont Sant Michel. Can you do much more than that?

It was a great day. One of the best for me since arriving in Europe.

The next day we were a little tired, so we only met at 9am for breakfast (at a place Rick Steve's, Amanda, and Kristi all recommended). From there we headed immediately to the Louvre. It was a whirlwind tour, but we saw the big stuff --- Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory.

After the Louvre, we found a quick spot for lunch and then headed off to the Invalids. Brandon, Jacob, and I hit the museum and tomb while Amanda and Kristi shopped (theme here?).

We finished off around 4pm. Just enough time to pick up our bags and head out to the train station. We got to the station around 5:30 (way too early) and grabbed some food from McDonalds for dinner. We were all really worn out and ready for a break.

Paris in 2.5 days. It was a lot. Too much probably, but three days that we will remember for ever.

We arrived in Rotterdam around 11pm and home by midnight. We made it.

That was essentially the end of our vacation. The next morning we all slept in and tried to recouperate. We walked over to the market and reminisced about the week, everything seen, experienced, and enjoyed. It was fun.

That night Amanda had to attend a "high-dollar" celebrity charity event so Brandon, Kristi, Jacob, and I were on our own. We walked to the local Italian place and grabbed some takeout.

The next morning I took Brandon and Kristi to the airport.

The end... Or, the beginning... You choose.

Part 34: The good ole US of A

2008-09-01T19:01:00.002Z

August marked our semi-annual pilgramage back to the US. Like most visits it was stretched between work and pleasure for me and purely pleasure for Amanda and Jacob. Also like most trips, I planned way too much stuff into too small of a time window. Oh well --- that's pretty normal for us, right?

In a nutshell our trip was (for Dustin) Amsterdam to Houston, Houston to Pittsburg, Pittsburg to St. Louis, St. Louis to Houston, Houston to Dallas, Dallas to Houston, and Houston to Amsterdam. All of that within 17 days. Amanda and Jacob's travelling was about the same, but without Pittsburg and spread over another 10 days.

Needless to say, it was too much in too little time. But, like every other trip, we tried to maximize our time with everyone given the tight schedule.

Our trip started with the flight to Houston. And, as we have come to expect from JT, it was very uneventful. He is truly an incredible traveller. We arrived in Houston on Friday and set out for an aggressive weekend of to-do's. It starts, like always, with a trip to Spring Creek BBQ with the Resendez's and Weber's. This time was a little different as Jacob couldn't even keep his head up during the meal. It was, afterall, 3am for him.

After dinner, the girls and kiddos went one way and the guys headed to the tennis courts for a healthy round of tennis ball. It was great, even though Brandon and Mike pounded Clint and I with a beating never before experienced on the court. Personally, I think Brandon and Mike are juicing.

The next morning we headed over to Brett and Laura's house for a leisurely day of games, catching up, and relaxing. It is always fun to visit them because they always have the latest and greatest gadgets offered by Best Buy. We had to leave a little early because Jacob needed a nap and I had an appointment with the batting cages with Brandon and Mike.

Sunday centered around Church and a cool get together with our "Lyondell" friends (or, now call the Lyondell - Shell friend circle) who seem forever connected to downtown living. We picked up Phil Ling at Matt and Jenn's new house for lunch, got the tour, and then headed out. They have a beautiful place that seemed to be built for hosting parties.

During lunch, we also made a slight detour over to the Galleria to exchange my Brooks Brother's birthday presents for sizes that actually fit. The stop was successful as we traded out the shirts and also signed Phil up to the BB fan club. Once you go BB you'll never go back.

The Kuhl party was great; lots of food, friends we haven't seen in ages, and an unexpected birthday cake for Amanda. It was superb. Scott was there too; he is our friend who has been battling cancer for the last year. It was the first time we had seen them in a while because our visits always conflicted with his treatment schedule or one of us in the group was sick. I can tell you that we truly miss this group of people. It is nice to know that good friends stay good friends regardless of the time gap. We appreciate still being accepted in their circle.

On Monday I worked from home and Tuesday headed to the office. Nothing exciting there. On Wednesday, the three of us headed to the airport for the second leg of our journey. Amanda and Jacob headed to St. Louis, and I headed to Pittsburg. For me, Pittsburg was the primary reason for the trip back home and required a lot of extra work in preparation.

In St. Louis everyone was eagerly awaiting their arrival. Dad and Kay flew into St. Louis for the weekend and Erin, Erik, and Jarrod all drove up from Cape Girardeau. We stayed with Ericka at her place in Foley so that Jacob and Emma would have a lot of time to play together. Frank met Amanda and Jacob at the airport and brought them to Scott and Ericka's place.

Dad and Kay arrived the next morning and the games began. It was great! These pictures did a good job capturing the fun that everyone had. It was only a few days together, but boy did everyone have fun. Dad looked like a kid again playing with the grandkids.

On Friday, I caught a really early flight from Pittsburg to St. Louis. Erik picked me up at the airport and we did some shopping prior to meeting everyone back at Ericka's house. We had a great time. A lot has happened over the last 4-5 years, but it is nice to know that Erik and I can still put that to the side and hang out like old days. It was also cool to see Erik hanging out with Jacob.

We made it back to Ericka's for the afternoon and started planning our Friday night on the town. Dad offered to take everyone out for dinner. With a mixed family like ours, it was nice that he agreed to take Erik out as well. It was especially good for Amanda and I because the steaks in the US just taste better than Europe. As you can see, Emma and Jacob were treated like Cowboy VIPs and left the restaurant with a toy.

After dinner on Friday the guys (Dustin, Erik, and Scott) all went to Shop&Save to pick up food for Saturday. See, we had been planning Saturday for quite a while. We decided the best way for us to see everyone was to have a BBQ. It was great and tons of people showed up.

In total, I think 25 people showed up. Mom, Frank, Sherry, Jeff, Megan, Sarah, Sam, Ericka, Scott, Emma, Aunt Sherry, Uncle Tim, Matt, Amber, Gunther, Dillon, Blake, Alissa, Jarrod, Erin, Erik, Daniel, etc. It was one great party.

We spent the afternoon playing games all afternoon. Jacob and Emma played in the back playhouse with Grandma. We also found time to patch together a wiffle ball game at dusk. Scott handled the burgers and hotdogs, and Ericka worked together all of the other sides. I think everyone had a great time.

Sunday morning Dad and Kay had to leave early (i.e. like 4am early). Jacob was a little sick that morning (and up anyway) so we told Dad and Kay goodbye early in the morning. We then went back to sleep for a couple of hours and then woke up, packed up and headed out to Mom's house.

Our flight to Houston left around 5pm, so we didn't have much time to spend with Mom on Sunday. But, we did our best. Made it to their house around 10:30am and Mom and Frank had breakfast ready for us. I swear we eat more at their house than anywhere else. Frank is like a bottomless pit.

After breakfast / lunch --- can't tell because they run together --- we exchanged gifts for birthdays, etc. It was good and clearly Emma liked her gift. It is always a little sad to end a trip like this one. If there is one place that we see less as a result of living in Europe, it is St. Louis. For us it had been nearly 9 months since we had seen everyone, so it was a bittersweet departure.

The majority of the next week in Houston was spent shopping and working (shopping for Amanda and working for me). Really nothing too exciting happened this week. Oh yeah, except for Hurricane Ike. On Wednesday the reports started to get pretty dicey. We knew it was headed in our direction, but it was becoming very clear at that point that it was headed right for us.

The Houston office basically evacuated on Wednesday, no one was left and the building was officially closed down. Unfortunately for me I didn't get the mass email since I officially work in Europe. Amanda, Jacob, and I fortunately were able to change our airline ticket from Friday afternoon to Friday morning. That turned out to be pretty important since the airport shutdown at noon that day.

Lucky for us we escaped to Dallas without any delay or problem. We, once again, left our friends, family, and house behind in Houston. We did keep in contact with them and no one had any problems (other than losing power). Everyone / thing pulled through ok.

Dallas is always fun because Amanda's family is so full of kids. Amy and Dave have the three girls, now Andrew and Meredith have one girl, and we have Jacob. This environment is quickly turnning into the memories that I remember from my youth.

As the only boy, Jacob is a big hit. All of the girls love him; especially Abigail and Amelia. I don't know if it is because they don't get to see him as often or just the novelty of him being a boy, but he is definitely a big hit.

Andrew and Meredith became new parents earlier this year (April) and I hadn't had a chance to meet Addison until now. It was nice to be back and get to spend a little time with them. For me, this weekend was plugged full just like the previous weekend in St. Louis. We had a lot of family time planned around lunches and dinners. We also spent quite a bit of time sharing gifts with each other.

For us, we were innundated with birthday gifts for birthdays that were past, present, and in the near future. For them, we gave them all of the "stocking stuffer" gifts we had collected from our travels. We dropped the bomb on the family that we "probably won't be coming home for Christmas". I don't think people liked it much, but they understood and accepted it.

For Amanda and Jacob they got to stay a bit longer. We had planned their departure consistent with Brandon and Kristi's voyage over. It is always easier to travel in groups with a kiddo.

Amanda and Jacob had a grand time for the next week. Since it was summertime and it was "hot, hot, hot" (according to Jacob), they focused their activities around water. Jacob really isn't used to this kind of climate yet (but, he will have to be when we return to Houston) or this kind of activity. So, while he was a bit wary of the water sports, he quickly warmed up to them and had a lot of fun.

Lucky for them, they were there during the Plano Hot-Air Balloon festival. It looked really cool from the pictures and I know they had a good time.

After an extra 10 days in Dallas, Amanda and Jacob headed back to Holland via Houston. I was glad to get them back home, but also happy that they had fun. Now, let the fun begin with Brandon and Kristi...

Part 33: We love Grandma...

2008-08-08T20:03:00.001+01:00

Mom made the trip with us to visit Jarrod in Scotland. That was the highlight of the trip for her, right? Wrong. If the truth were to be told, Mom came for one reason - Grandbaby Jacob. It was really quite a sight to watch Mom and Jacob play together every single day. He loved it.

When he woke up from a nap, he would immediately walk over to Grandma, grab her hand and pull her to his toys. Most of the time, she would sit with him in the middle of the floor and just do whatever he wanted. They just played and played and played. It was a joy to watch.

One of the cool things for Mom was getting to "live" in Holland for a couple of weeks. She and Amanda just went around and did the things Amand and Jacob do everyday. I think Mom really liked it: especially going to the musical playgroup -- one of Jacob's favorites.

We also did a few typical Dutch things, like ice cream and a trip to Maduradam. It was really nice to have Mom around.

This was the third time Amanda had gone to Maduradam, but the first time for me. I must say that place is incredible. It is probably the coolest miniature park in the world, and in my opinion, the best stop for visitors to The Hague. Seriously, insanely, uniquely cool. I plan to pull together a movie with lots of different scenes from the park, but am currently sidelined by incompatibility of Ipod MP4's --- I am beginning to really hate IPOD.

I hadn't realized it until we started planning Mom's trip, but my Mom and I haven't been together on my birthday for years. I suppose it is one of those things that you don't think about very often. So, for this year, we did it right; cake, party, gifts. It was a really fun time.

The best part of the day though was the gift that Mom pulled together for me. To start, when I last visited my sister, I noticed she had q quilt hanging in her room. It was a quilt with a square for each state's name and picture of the state's bird. I asked her where she got it and she said Grandpa Brown. ??? Grandpa Brown died in 1978 and I had no idea what she was talking about.

However, as the story goes... When Grandpa was in the hospital and weakening from cancer, the only thing he could do was needlepoint work. So, Grandpa kept toiling away, one square at a time. When someone asked who he was quilting for, he said "My first Granddaughter". Now, up to that point Grandpa had three grandkids, Dan, me, and Matt.

Two days after Grandpa died, Mom learned she was pregnant with my sister Ericka. Needless to say, she got the quilt. When it comes to family stuff I am really sentimental. I love looking at old pictures and hearing the old stories. So, for me, Ericka's quilt was priceless.

So this is where my story begins.

A couple of years ago Mom was cleaning out some old boxes and ran across a box of old quilt squares. She investigated it a bit further and learned that these were the unfinished squares from my Grandpa. Apparently, Grandpa finished Ericka's quilt, but then kept going. When he died, my Grandma picked up the task and finished the needle point on all squares, but died before she could be sew the patches together.

From there, the best we can tell is that they were boxed up and stored away for 25 years. That is, until earlier this year, when Mom found them in a random box.

At that point Mom knew she had a great gift. She started to try to build the quilt on her own, but didn't have the time to pull it together prior to her visit to Europe. She went to a few specialty shops and asked how much it would cost and it was high. Plus, every shop she visited indicated that the whole thing would have to be ripped apart and started over. Mom was totally against destroying any of the work her parents did. She knew it wasn't "top-quality" work, but recognized the real value was that Grandma and Grandpa worked on the quilt.

Meanwhile, she kept talking to her patients about her plans and the troubles she was having with the specialty shops. She happened to tell one patient, a seamstress, who fell in love with the story. Mom told her she didn't think she was going to finish before the trip and her patient offered to finish the gift.

She finished the quilt in the same spirit Mom intended. She didn't rip a single stich, nor clean up the mistakes. It was put together exactly how Grandma and Grandpa left it. Superb!

When Mom gave me the gift she said a couple of things that really sunk in. She said, "Grandpa started it, Grandma continued it, and Mom finished it". This was one of the finest gifts I have ever recieved.

It was so nice to have Mom visit. She and Amanda get along great and had a fun time together. Jacob found a new friend and an everready playmate. And, I got to remember what it was like to have my Mom around full time. We all remembered that We Love Grandma...

Part 31: Fun in the Sun!

2008-07-15T18:38:00.005+01:00

So, we finally planned a vacation that was purely meant for relaxation. We headed to Mallorca (an island off of the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea) to lie on a beach for 4 days with no plans for sightseeing. Well, other than to possibly do some pearl shopping.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon and immediately headed to the beach. The Med is a beautiful deep blue-green color that is spectacular! So, for that afternoon and each morning thereafter, we walked across the street from our hotel to the beach and set up camp. Jacob seemed to really enjoy playing in the sand, collecting seashells, and floating in his tube.

After lunch each day, we all headed back to the hotel room for our siesta. The Spanish really know what they’re doing! Originally, I thought we’d read or chat on the balcony while Jacob was napping, but we all ended up taking a little snooze each day. It doesn’t get much better than that! Usually we headed to the pool after nap time for a couple of hours before dinner. One day we played a round of mini golf which mostly consisted of Dustin and I putting and Jacob chasing the balls around and bringing them back to us. We even took a horse and buggy ride after dinner on our last night there.

Jacob eating some yummy dessert at dinner.

We stayed in Playa de Palma which is really just a typical beach town with the typical beach shops. I, however, wanted to check out the pearls I’ve always heard about. So, one afternoon we headed to Palma (the big city where we flew into) to do some shopping. When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a huge cathedral set on top of a hill overlooking the city. So, the sightseers came out in us and we had to go take a look.

After the cathedral, the real fun began! We perused some shops and learned that Mallorca pearls are actually man-made in factories out of natural sea materials. They’re not naturally occurring at all. This didn’t stop me from picking out a pair of earrings and a necklace. We agreed it would be my birthday present, so Dustin is making me wait until September to wear them. :(

We each got ice cream cones shortly before we had to leave for the airport. Jacob was so tired by then that he nearly fell asleep eating his.

Well, that was our trip. We all made it home with no sunburns, so I call it a success! Although, when we arrived back in Holland, it was cold and rainy and made me long for the beach.

Part 30: The Berridges Visit

2008-07-06T15:09:00.002+01:00

My good friend from high school and her husband came over for a whirlwind tour of Europe, leaving their two boys at home with grandparents. For the first half of the week, Jacob and I played tour guide taking them on several day trips. The second half of the week they spent in Paris. They did such a good job on their blog, why duplicate the work? :)

Check out their blog at http://www.theberridges.blogspot.com/.

Part 29: The Hills Are Alive

2008-04-29T15:13:00.004Z

Day 1: The Departure

We hadn’t ever been on a real European road trip; not really… We have been on a few 1-2 day road trips, but to do an EU road trip right, you have to see 4-5 countries over a week (Dustin Olson’s opinion).

Our itinerary included (1) Germany’s Black Forest, (2) Switzerland, (3) Liechtenstein, (4) Neuschwanstein (the Cinderella Castle), (5) Salzburg, (6) Berchtesgaden, and (7) the Romantic Road. It was a little ambitious…

In Europe, the company holidays are spaced oddly. It is true that Europeans have more vacation; in fact, in my company every EU employee (I am not included in that group) regardless of service level starts with 38 days. For company holidays, however, they have roughly the same number as the US. Around 10 days. The difference is they put 8 of the tens days between January 1 and May 12. The remaining two days are at Christmas.

So, for a family like ours, we try to maximize our traveling in April and May to take advantage of the free days off.

This week was the big week, kind of like Thanksgiving in the states. We got Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday off for company holidays. So, for one day of vacation, you can take Wednesday through Monday off. Plus, our friend that is currently serving in the Peace Corps in Ghana was visiting, so we wanted to make sure he saw as much as possible, too.

The plan was to leave on Tuesday immediately after work - around 5pm. The problem this time was we had to make a “cat transfer”. It is a long story that should get its own posting, but the bottom line is our cat was getting a new owner. We planned to meet that night at 5:30 and leave by 6pm.

Everything went pretty well so after making the transfer, crying a few tears, and packing up we left around 6:30pm. Our first day was pretty aggressive; we planned to drive all the way to Baden-Baden Germany. Friends at work advised me that the trip would take at least 7hrs, but Google maps advised only 5.5hrs.

I think we would have made the trip in 5hrs if it wasn’t for the traffic leaving Holland. I guess everyone else had the same idea that we did - get out of town for the long holiday. Since we hit so much traffic, we decided to take an extended dinner at McDonald’s to let the traffic die down.
We reached Baden-Baden around 12:30 (still really good time). Finding our hotel was a little tricky and probably would not have happened if we had not had a GPS system. I think we woke up the hotel owner. Although you wouldn’t know it by his attitude, he was still extremely friendly and helpful.

So we unpacked the car, drove the car to the garage, and settled in for the night. Objective 1 was complete – the longest single-day drive of our trip was over.

Day 2: Black forest and Open air museum

We completely relied on Rick Steve’s to reserve rooms at every stop. He didn’t disappoint. Every hotel was dirt cheap and provided a free breakfast. These are luxuries that you usually live without in Europe.

The late night prevented us from waking up too early. We met for breakfast around 9am and the walked the city for 2 or 3 hours. The town was beautiful. It was like a sleepy and kind of modern town nestled in the woods. It felt a lot like a town you would see in Colorado, but cleaner.

We left Baden-Baden around 11:30 and headed down the Black Forest high road. We did get a little lost leaving town, but we eventually made it. We had plenty of plans for the black forest and it started with a stop at Gutach’s open air museum. This place is set up like an authentic 14th century village with original building constructions and people dressed in traditional Germanic garb. We even saw an older lady making yarn with a loom and a ball of wool. For me, it looked a lot like the show Little House on the Prairie. There was a grain mill and lumber yard driven by water wheels and lots of stables for livestock. It was an “ok” place. It probably would have been better on a warm and sunny day, but the weather turned cold and rainy. It just wasn’t fun to walk between the buildings when you were getting soaked.

The highlight of the stop was the food. We ate at a little German “fast-food” joint. They served bratwurst, sauerkraut, and potato noodles. It was really tasty and really cheap: a combination that I love.

We left this area a little early since the weather was so bad and headed back to our scenic drive. Along the way, however, we stopped unexpectedly at “The Original Black Forest CooCoo Clock” shop. After all, one of the trips specific goals was to buy a coocoo clock.

This place didn’t disappoint. There were hundreds of clocks: all shapes, sizes, skills, and prices. All of them coocooed, but some had extra features that played music and danced. Coocoo clocks are hand carved from wood with clock parts placed inside. However, the true beauty of a coocoo clock is it doesn’t require electricity. It runs completely off of the potential energy stored in a couple of weights and the clever mechanical engineering of the gearing inside.
At this store we got to meet the store owners that had run the shop for over 50 years. His wife was kind enough to take us to the shop on the 3rd floor to meet the clock maker. He was especially fond of Jacob and very willing to teach us about the clocks. It was a great experience that none of us will forget.

Leaving the store we really believed that we found “THE” coocoo clock shop and lucky we had the opportunity to purchase our clock. Then we left and headed down the road. About 5 minutes into our drive we found about 15 more shops all with very unique names: “The Worlds Greatest CooCoo Clock Shop”, “The Original CooCoo Clock Shop”, etc. So, the enthusiasm for our shop dropped a little bit when we realized it was one of many, but we still think we did well to find our clock maker. And, in the end, we never found one that we liked better.

The air in the black forest is supposed to be the cleanest in the world. Doctor’s all over recommend walks in this area to cleanse the body of nasty toxins. I suppose it was, but since it was pouring down rain, we didn’t do a lot of hiking.

We left “Coocoo clock land” and headed for Triberg to see their famous waterfall. Unfortunately Jacob fell asleep on the way, so Amanda agreed to stay in the car and watch him while Ern and I checked it out.

I guess it was a tourist trap. I mean they charged 3 euros to see the waterfall and while it was cool, it wasn’t the best we had ever seen. Nonetheless, we got a few good pics and a decent video out of the deal.

It took longer to drive through the Black Forest than we expected, but we made it through to Freiburg by dinner. The hotel at Freiburg was interesting. When I booked the room I had to give them 2-four digit codes so we could retrieve the keys after hours. Crazy, right? So, when we arrived, I typed the codes into a box hanging on the side of the building and the keys dropped out. Very efficient.

Freiburg is famous for the pedestrian walking areas in the city center. Throughout the town there is a small stone ditch with water flowing in it. The legend says that if you fall into the ditch, then you will marry someone from Freiburg. For this trip, no one fell in, so I guess we are safe for now.

We found our restaurant, ate a good meal, and called it a night. Aside from the rain, it was a good start to the trip.

Day 3: Liechtenstein, Routte

Today was all about getting to Austria through the Alps. We didn’t really have a plan for the day which turned out to be good because it was May Day and all of Europe was on vacation. May Day celebrates the last soldier leaving the country after World War II.
We left Freiburg around 9am and headed south toward Zurich. Quite honestly, we over-estimated the time it was going to take to get to Routte, so we made a little lunch detour through Europe’s second smallest country, Liechtenstein.

This was a completely unnecessary stop. It was out of the way and no one really recommends stopping there. But, as a hungry group of “check off the country boxes” we decided to stop, just to say we were there.

It actually turned out to be a pretty cool place. It is nestled in the foothills of the Alps among a really beautiful setting. Lucky for us, Liechtenstein didn’t shutdown like the other cities we passed through. So, there were plenty of restaurants and souvenir shops open - exactly what we needed - proof we had been there.

We ate a good, simple lunch on the terrace and relaxed for about 2.5 hrs. It was a good break from the car for Jacob. We left around 3pm and headed for our stop at Routte.

Today was our first exposure to the beauty of the Alps. It struck us like a scene from a movie. The hills rolled with a color of green that can’t be found in the biggest box of crayons. The mountains jumped into the sky like jagged knives with vanilla ice cream dripping on the top. A brilliantly blue sky replaced the rain from the day before and the road trip was getting really good.

Along the way we drove through several small towns that were celebrating May Day. We didn’t realize what it was at first, but there was a group of people using a crain to hoist a debarked pine tree up in the middle of town. We later read in the Steves book that this tree is greased and sausages are hung from the top. Then kids from town will try to climb to the top to grab the sausages. I don’t make the rules, I just report them. In any case, we saw several other trees set up in the same way.

We finally made it to Routte at around 4pm. It was the first Rick Steves’ disappointment. The town was dirty, small, and full of thugs. We couldn’t find anything to do so we jumped back into the car and headed to a nearby castle called Ehrenburg. Ehrenburg was a castle built in the 1400’s as a boundary castle and used to protect the Bavarians. It was a good place to visit because it required a healthy walk to reach the summit. Jacob, once again, had the easy ride in the back pack carrier. We did get some really good pictures.

We ended the night at a restaurant called the Goldener Hirsh. It was our first exposure to Garlic Cream soup and Ivennersnizel (pan-fried german pork). The night ended a little later than we wanted especially considering the next day had to begin at 6am.

Day 4: Castles

We needed to start the day early because we heard the lines can be exceptionally long for the most famous castle in the world (at least in Amanda’s eyes it is). Today we were heading to Neuschwanstein, better known as the castle that Cinderella’s castle at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is modeled after.

The castle opens at 9am, so we arrived about 8:45 and got in line. At that point, we only had to wait about 25 minutes. Later in the day, the line was at least 3 hours long. Score one for Rick Steves for showing up early! As it turns out, you actually get tickets for 2 castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein.

Hohenschwangau was the residence of crazy King Ludwig. He spent his childhood and most of his adult life here. It’s up on a little hill overlooking a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. The inside wasn’t quite as impressive. From there, Ludwig could watch the construction on his fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein which he dedicated to the composer Wagner.

After touring the first castle, we had time to grab some lunch before our tour started at the next one. Once again, we had traditional German fare – various types of sausage and sauerkraut. At this point, I think Amanda was getting a little sick of all the sausage.

On the way up to the castle (about a 40 minute walk uphill) we detoured over to Mary’s Bridge. We were told that this is where to go to get the best view of the castle. The bridge is over a gorge and overlooks the castle. It really is an amazing view! The pictures don’t do this castle justice. It is just like a fairy tale. Part of what makes this castle so special is the setting of it. It sits on a mountain peak in the middle of the Alps. Ludwig had good taste. We didn’t have time to linger on the bridge because we would lose our tour slot if we were late and would have to go buy more tickets.

So, we ran back from the bridge to the castle for our tour. The interior of this castle was as beautiful as the exterior. There was lots of hand carved wood furniture. The canopy to the bed was particularly impressive and took 4 years to carve. Many of the rooms were painted with scenes from Wagner’s operas. Amanda decided that after seeing this castle, she didn’t need to see any more.

Less than ten minutes away from the castles is a luge park where you pay 10 euros for 6 rides down a metal luge track. We decided we were going to start training for the Olympics and try our hand at the sport. We each took 2 rides, and I’m pretty sure that I was the most daring. I tried not to use the break at all my second time down. I have no idea how fast we actually went, but it feels pretty fast when you’re going down.

It definitely gave us more respect for the real athletes who do this on ice. While we were taking turns riding the luge, Jacob had a blast at the playground. He got to swing, ride on a merry-go-round, and drive a 4-wheeler. After burning off some energy in preparation for the drive, we got back into the car and headed toward Salzburg. On the way, we were blessed with a spectacular show of a double rainbow. We pulled over to try and get some pictures, but of course, they don’t compare to the real sight.

Driving into Salzburg, it seemed like any other city, but as soon as we crossed the river into the old town, it was a different world. We were soon stuck and unable to figure out how to drive to our hotel. The streets were all entirely too narrow and seemed to be marked for pedestrians only. We found a parking spot just on the outskirts of the old town and just walked to the hotel. Unfortunately, when we arrived they didn’t have any record of our reservation. They did have rooms available for that night, but we would have to change hotels the next day. Nevertheless, we settled in and headed out to dinner. We chose a 1000 year old restaurant where Charlemagne apparently frequented (Stiftskeller St. Peters). It turned out to be a little fancier than we expected, so other than feeling underdressed and a little self-conscience about having an 18-month old with us, we had a wonderful dinner – really yummy. We finally ventured away from sausage!

Day 5: SOM

Salzburg is all about the Sound of Music. For the minority of you that are not part of the cult following of the show it may not have been as great, but for those who fanatically follow, it was a dream.

The tour started at 9am, so not so early, but since I had to arrange another hotel for the 2nd night, the morning was a little short. It was a little challenging to find a second hotel because Salzburg was hosting a marathon on Sunday and everything was booked. Lucky for us we did find a couple of rooms nearby and I had us moved in before the SOM bus arrived.

Our SOM tour guide was also really good. He was an upbeat Austrian who had spent several years living in the states. He had a good grasp of history and knew the Sound of Music details really well. He started with a general history of 14th century Austria and ended with a good summary of the pre-WWII climate. It was a good addition to our WWII studies as he gave a compelling tale of how it felt to be an Austrian while Nazi Germany encroached.

He quickly diverted the conversation to more SOM specific topics. Our first stop was at the Mirabell gardens. This is where Maria was first teaching the kids how to sing. They run around several areas, including the ivy covered archway in Salzburg singing “Doe, a Deer” and other favorites. It still looked just like the movie.

We then drove a bit to the famous lake to see the mansion. Or actually we saw the back of the mansion. They actually used two houses in the filming: one for the front and another for the back. The lake is the real lake where Maria and the kids were singing in the canoe when Captain Van Trapp comes back from business. They all get too excited and fall out. It still looked like the movie.

We drove off again to where the famous gazebo now sits. It has been moved since the movie and now sits locked up. Apparently, one over eager couple were reenacting the dance in the gazebo and fell through the glass. Ever since that accident they have kept the gazebo closed. Still though, the gazebo looked just like the movie.

After those three main attractions, we drove passed a couple more smaller ones like the lane were the kids were hanging from the tree, the hill where Maria is singing in the opening scene, and the convent from a distance.

The final spot for the tour was to see the wedding chapel, but it wasn’t in Salzburg. It was about a 30 minute drive away. Along the way, he took us through a bunch of old back roads. It was an amazing ride and we saw some of the best European landscapes.

We also stopped at a luge track as part of the tour. This time we only had enough time for one ride. They say that when you luge, everyone follows the same routine - the first ride is too slow, the second ride is really fast, and the third ride leaves scars. Since we hit the first two runs yesterday and they followed suit, one could only guess what would happen on this ride. For this ride, the routine followed suit, both Ernest and I flipped our luge cart and burned some skin off our elbows. It was great! If you ever get a chance to luge, take it. It is great fun.

Aside from a few “scars” we made it to the chapel without incident, ran in to take a quick picture and headed down to grab some dessert. Our guide recommended a great place and we had spice cake, apple streusel, and chocolate cream cake. Austrian desserts are very good. That essentially ended the tour around 1:30.

Since it was late and since I didn’t have breakfast, we were starving. So as soon as we made it back to the city center, we found a lunch spot and ate. As always, the Rick Steves recommendation was great. After lunch we had a chance to walk around Salzburg and really see the town. This is where the charm really emerged. Salzburg has hundreds of really cool and unique shops which sold a wide variety of souvenirs. It has one of the better city centers that we have been to. For today’s walking tour, we focused more on the shopping than the history. It wasn’t easy for me. Ernest and Amanda did indulge me with a couple of sites; Mozart’s birthplace and his residence. All in all, it was a good relaxing afternoon in Salzburg. We were tired though, so we went back to the hotel and spend about 2 hrs just chilling out before dinner.

Then we met at 6pm and ate a great little Italian place. It was a good switch from the sausage and sauerkraut we had been eating.

During the afternoon, we made a reservation to hear a string ensemble Mozart concert in the castle overlooking the city. Mozart was born and raised in Salzburg, so he actually performed for the King in that same castle when he was 7 years old (and a few times after that as well).

The big trick for this concert was Jacob. The class of people in the room was pretty high and for us to bring in our little guy surely raised the neck hairs of a few people. The last thing they want is for a baby to chime up during a song. To their surprise (not ours) however, Jacob did great. He just sat back and listened. The funny piece was that when, they stopped playing Jacob would sit up straight, start smiling, and clap vigorously. He was really cute and earned the attention of several in the crowd and a couple of the musicians.

That nightcap was a perfect end to the day.

Day 6: Eagle’s Nest, Rothenburg

It just didn’t seem like it was time to start heading home. But, the week was nearly done and we were still 8hrs from home. We had to start making our way toward home today; otherwise, the last day would be unbearable.

Nonetheless, we still had a very ambitious schedule for the day - actually an overly ambitious schedule. Since we were so close to Salzburg we had to see the salt mines, the birthplace of Nazi Germany (i.e Eagles Nest), and Dachau, one of the first Nazi concentration camps near Munich. We started the day with the salt mines.

The salt mines were cool. We arrived around 9am so we could join the first tour. The tour was advertised (and highly recommended) by our SOM tour guide. He said everyone wants to go to the Eagle’s nest, but in the end, it is a little disappointing – the salt mines are more hand’s on.

To start we had to don coveralls – all of us, even Jacob. And, as always, he attracted a lot of attention by the others in the group because he was just so cute. In a nutshell, this tour was built to show how Salzburg became wealthy and famous. Salt was a commodity in high demand in the 13-14th centuries. Salzburg was a key supply point and exported the salt all over the world – it was highly valuable on the silk roads.
We started the tour by taking a train ride to the center of the mountain - one of those situations where if the lights went out it would be pitch black and we never would have found our way out. Jacob was a little nervous at first, but he quickly calmed down.

After the 5 minute ride we walked through several exhibits that taught us how the salt was mined - pretty cool stuff. The highlights were a slide that took us from one level to another and a row boat ride over a salt lake. The slide was really neat, and a little dangerous. All four of us slid down together – it was really steep and it seemed scarier then it actually was. The boat ride was nice – the salt concentration was the same as the Dead Sea. After the ride they let us taste the water – whoa – too salty for me. But, Jacob did seem to like it.

After the salt mines we headed up toward the Eagle’s Nest. I tell you - the Nazi’s knew how to pick the nice spots. This was quite literally, one of the most beautiful places we have seen in Europe. The mountains were perfect and the views were spectacular.

The Eagle’s Nest was a retreat built for Adolf Hitler’s birthday. It was also the expected final standing point for the Nazi elite if the war turned against them. The war did turn, but the Eagle’s nest was never used as the final defense. It was actually captured by the 101st airborne division as shown in Band of Brothers.

The Eagle’s nest was ravaged after the war in an attempt to completely eradicate all memories of the Nazi infection. The only thing left from the original town is the marble fireplace that Mussolini gave him as a gift. A museum was also built that describes the tactics employed by Hitler to manipulate the masses. He was a genius. Granted, I don’t like the guy, but you have to respect his skills and ambitions.

The Eagle’s nest took a lot more time than we expected. We pretty quickly realized that Dachau was not going to happen. In fact, we would be lucky if we made it to Rothenburg that night – it was still at least 4 hrs away.

Since we had to amend our schedule we decided to jump start the trip by getting a quick meal at Mickey D’s. The funny part about that stop was Ernest --- as you know he has been in Ghana for almost two years. He makes around 6 USD per day and hadn’t had anything “western” to eat for the entire two years. So, at this stop, he really dug in and made up for lost time. He ate one Big Mac, one 6-piece McNuggets, an Apple Pie, a large box of curly fries, and an ice cream cone… Ernest still only weighs 135, but I think he probably gained 5 pound with that meal alone.

After McDonalds, we got on the road and started toward Rothenburg. While the long drives did get a little old, they were actually some of the best parts of this trip. On this part, we drove through the foothills of the Alps and saw some great fields of flowers. Holland may have the tulip field tourism locked up, but Germany was covered with beautiful fields of yellow wildflowers.

We arrived in Rothenburg around 6pm and checked into our hotel. This one turned out to be the best one of the trip and a great way to end. It was right downtown, the rooms were artfully rustic, and we had a great view of one of the historic watchtowers.
We arrived just in time to grab a quick bite and still get the Night Watchman’s Tour. This tour was recommended by Rick Steves’. He was a perfunctory character with a niche talent. He did tell a couple of cool stories about the town. First, Rothenburg is famous today because it has maintained a medieval atmosphere. It maintained that charisma only because it was sacked during the 1300’s by a bunch of Crusaders and immediately plummeted into a depression that lasted for 500 years. After 500 years, the world realized that there was still an authentic medieval town in Germany and it quickly became a touristy hit.

The second story was around the end of WWII. In March or April of 1945, an American company learned of a German company that was held up in the town. The German company would not surrender and America was about to bomb the town until the company surrendered. The bombing was scheduled to start early the next morning, but the assistant secretary of defense stopped the raid because he grew up in a home with a painting of Rothenburg in the living room. He said his mom told him it was one of the most beautiful places she had every visited. The bombing never took place, the Germans surrendered the city (because the war was virtually over), and Rothenburg survived.

The tour ended the last night of our vacation.

Day 7: Going Home

This hotel also had a great breakfast (probably the best of the trip). We took a couple of hours to check out the town, but quite honestly we were tired and ready to get back home. We hit the highway, drove approximately 100 mph on the German autobahn and made our way home.

We stopped for lunch at KFC in Cologne and walked around the cathedral for 30 minutes or so. It was nice to see it again, but after 4-5 times it does begin to tire out. It was still a great stop for Ernest; you just can’t put into words the way the cathedral makes you feel the first time you see it. Absolutely gorgeous.
The trip ended 1685 miles later at 7pm in Voorburg. It was a great trip and a lot of fun. We did drive a lot, but the intervals were small and the scenery was surreal

Part 28: Gotta love Bayer

2008-04-15T21:45:00.007Z

Lucky for us, Dustin had a trip back to the States for work. We planned to be in Houston for a week, and then Jacob and I would head to Dallas for a week and Dustin would head back to Holland. We started our Houston portion at a carnival day at a nearby day care/preschool with the Hafers. They had a petting zoo and games and prizes and food. It was a pretty day and nice to be outside - a change from the weather we'd been having in Holland. Jacob decided he liked fishing for rubber duckies and splashing in the water the best. Audrey took a ride on a pony.

Since this trip was going to be shorter and we wouldn't be able to make it to St. Louis, Dustin's mom and stepdad drove down to Houston. Jacob, of course, loved being the center of attention and Dustin and I enjoyed a night at the movies while Grandma and Gramdpa L babysat.

This was the first time that Griffin and Jacob "played" together. Griffin was crawling by this time and Jacob had fun showing him how things worked. It'll only get more fun to watch them together as they get older!

We had to eat at Saltgrass once while we were back in Texas. We just can't get decent steaks in Holland.

While Deb and Frank were in town, we decided to take Jacob to the zoo. He seemed to enjoy it. He probably liked running around more than the animals, but oh well. The worst part about this day was that we received a phone call from our vet in Holland. Dave was boarded there and apparantly was very sick. He told us he would keep us updated on his condition. This was the beginning of the end for our time with Dave (he's doing well now, but has a new home).

I love the picture of Jacob chatting on the phone with Uncle Jarrod. Too cute!

The Houston zoo has a great children's section with slides and tunnels and other fun stuff. The slide was Jacob's favorite. Slides still are his favorite.

The next day, Deb, Frank and I took Jacob to the Houston Children's Museum. I had been there once before with my nieces when they came to visit. It's areally neat place with tons of activities for children of all ages. Jacob enjoyed some grocery shopping and building with Grandpa.

I think Daddy is trying to start him a little young on the baseball.

Jacob and I made it to Dallas just in time to help celebrate Amelia's 3rd birthday with some delicious ice-cream cake! My favorite!

Jacob had fun hanging out with the girls! He's bound to show up as a princess in a future picture.

We timed our trip perfectly! Addison was born 2 days before we arrived in Dallas, so we were able to visit with Andrew, Meredith and Addison. Jacob liked tickling Addison's toes and testing out all of her toys to make sure they worked properly.

More fun in the park. We played while Madeline was at piano lessons.

It was a great trip home! A little short, but we're not complaining!

Part 27: The Schultz Girlz hit Europe

2008-04-01T19:02:00.005Z

So, my mom really wanted to come at a time when she would get to see the tulips that Holland is known for (she visited in September last year). My sister also wanted to come over at least once, ideally twice – once without the kids and one time with them. We started planning their trip for sometime in April or May. The problem was that our schedule was quickly filling up and my brother and sister-in-law were expecting their first baby mid to late April. So, the beginning of April ended up being our only choice. Our first year here, the ideal time for tulips was the end of April through the first part of May. This year’s winter, however, was really mild and they were anticipating an early bloom. We knew it would be pushing it, but we didn’t really have another option. They booked their tickets. As luck would have it, we had snow the week before they arrived, and it didn’t look good for the tulips.

They arrived on Sunday morning and got pictures of the tulips outside of Schiphol airport just in case those were the only ones they saw on their trip.

My mom and sister were only staying for a week, and Amy informed me she wanted to see as much as possible. So, Sunday we spent planning the rest of the week and recovering from jet lag. We also had to keep in mind Flat Stanley. For a school project, my niece had to send Flat Stanley to someone and ask them to take pictures of Flat Stanley in front of famous or interesting sights and then write back telling her where Stanley visited along with the pictures. I didn’t want to disappoint her, so we made sure to bring Stanley along on all of our day trips.

Monday, we headed to Zaanse Schans, a traditional Dutch village where you can see working windmills and how wooden shoes and cheese are made. The highlight might have been the cheese tasting! Amy was amazed to see all the students riding bikes home from school while we were there.

The next day we headed to Cologne, Germany to see the cathedral (yet again). We made it there shortly before the guided tour began so we grabbed a quick lunch at a deli. And, for dessert, we had to try the Berliner! Basically, it’s a jelly filled donut coated in sugar and you get 2 for a euro. Can’t really go wrong with that! After the tour, we walked around the town a bit and did some souvenir shopping. Then, we stopped for dinner to get some traditional German cuisine: beer and bratwurst. You can’t visit Germany without have some sausage, right? After dinner, we headed back to Holland.

On day 3, we woke up bright and early so we could catch the Aalsmeer flower auction in action. Aalsmeer is on the way to Amsterdam, so after the auction, we planned to head to Amsterdam for the rest of the day. The auction is quite interesting. This is the largest flower auction in the world and for about 3 hours each morning, flower traders are bidding on every kind of flower conceivable. The unique thing about this auction is that the price bids down, so the first trader to hit their button pays the highest price. All the flowers are moved around on carts, and it’s amazing they get to where they are supposed to go. We couldn’t figure out their system, but they seemed to know what they’re doing.

By mid-morning we were on our way to Amsterdam to see the sights. We made it to Dam square, Anne Frank’s house, the flower market, the Van Gogh Museum, and of course, lots of bicycles and canals.

Thursday was our day in Brussels, Belgium. I hadn’t been there yet, so this was new to all of us. Brussels is divided into 2 sections – the old town and the new town. We spent our time walking through the old town. When we arrived, we headed directly to the main square to find somewhere for lunch. We ended up going to this café and sitting on the second floor with a great view of the square. The food was yummy, too! After lunch, we did our tour of the chocolate shops, a must when in Belgium. After picking out some chocolates for gifts, as well as some for the drive home, we happened upon a waffle stand. Another must when in Belgium!

After our waffle detour, we continued on our walking tour of the old town. This took us to an interesting statue/fountain that is a must see – Mannekin Pis. It’s a little boy peeing, and the story is that it represents the carefree way of life of those living in Brussels. I’m not sure I quite understand that, but it makes for a good picture. Especially one with Flat Stanley for my niece!

We then walked to one of the huge cathedrals in Brussels that somewhat resembles Notre Dame in Paris. There were pretty daffodils blooming out front, and I tried to get a picture of Jacob amidst the flowers. That, as you can see, didn’t quite work out. As soon as I sat him down and walked away, he started screaming his head off. I still got some pictures, though. On the way out of Brussels, we drove under some train tracks and on the other side this amazing church popped into view. I’m not sure we ever figured out which cathedral this was, but it was beautiful!

Day 5. This was our last chance to head to the Keukenhof (tulip arboretum) in hopes to see thousands of blooming tulips. Our chances weren’t looking so good since it had been pretty cold all week, but we had to try. We did see some beautiful flowers, including some tulips, but unfortunately, the bulb fields were not in full bloom. At peak time, they look like a patchwork quilt of vibrant colors. At this point, only the yellow ones were blooming. Oh well. Maybe next April/May, my mom can make an attempt to see tulips again.

After the flowers, we headed to Zandvoort to see what Rick Steves calls the seashell Shangri-la. I’m not sure that’s how I would describe it after seeing it, but oh well. Part of the problem was that it was freezing cold and we decided to go to the beach, which of course is extremely windy. Plus, we didn’t see that many shells. Maybe we just weren’t there at the right time or season. We picked up a few pretty shells for my sister’s girls and headed to Haarlem (about 15 minutes away). I had always heard that Haarlem is a great town, but I had never had the opportunity to go until now. It was already late in the day, so we didn’t expect much to be open. We were right. We parked close to the main square and walked to St. Bavo. I think that it’s the biggest church in Holland. For sure, it houses the largest organ in Holland numbering over 5,000 pipes. The church was closed, but the outside is impressive.

Saturday, Day 6. This was my mom and sister’s last full day as they were leaving Sunday. We, of course, had to walk to the market for some “warme appelflappen”. Too bad it was rainy and cold, but hey, they got to experience Holland at its best! We ended the week with some fondue that night.

It was a full and fun week, but Jacob and I needed a break. We had about 5 days to rest until heading to the States for a couple of weeks (Dustin had to make a trip back for work). With any luck, we’ll get to see our soon-to-be new niece!

Part 26b: Birth of the Renaissance

2008-03-20T20:25:00.023Z

Rome was great, but our vacation was only half over. The next portion of our trip was going through Florence. None of us, including Phil, had been to Florence so our expectations were not precooked.

After booking our flights from Rotterdam to Rome and Florence to Amsterdam, we decided to bridge the middle leg with a train. It was an interesting trip to the train station because, in total, we were carrying about 200lbs of luggage and Jacob in the stroller. We originally planned to take the bus to the station, but got cold feet when we saw the bus line.

Nevertheless, after 2 trips across the street and multiple failed attempts to hail a cab, we did finally catch the bus to the train station. That turned out to be the best option, with exception to Amanda getting felt up by a 70 year old smelly guy. She said she was creeped out, but I think she liked it.

The train was definitely the best option even though it was oversold and we were forced into a 1st class ticket. Jacob was able to seal a 20% discount by winking and calling Phil, brother Ling: i.e. family discount.

The ride through Tuscany was beautiful. The hills roll, the sky was very blue, and the ride was smooth. Everyone took a nap, including Jacob who had a seat to himself. How many 17 month olds do you know that get their own 1st class ticket on a train ride through the Tuscany Hills in Italy?

When we arrived in Florence we did grab a cab (probably learned our lesson from Rome) and found our way to the apartment.

We weaved through the narrow streets and found our apartment. Phil was in charge of booking this one; he did an incredible job. He found a 14th century apartment that still had original frescos on the walls. Seriously, there were literally original wall paintings still scattered throughout the apartment, the stone floor was uneven, and Phil’s bedroom was in a turret… It doesn’t get any cooler than that.

After getting settled in and paying the bill, we headed out to get the lay of the land. Our apartment was on the opposite side of the river, so only a 10 minute walk to the city center.

We weren’t even 2 minutes from our apartment when we discovered a Florentine specialty – gelato! It’s not so much that their gelato is any different; it’s just that they have an artistic flare when it comes to the window displays.

One of the key stopping points in the city is the “golden bridge”. The bridge dates back to Roman times and is over a river that leads to Pisa. It was originally lined with lots of tanners and butchers: a virtual center of stink and nasty chemicals. In fact, it led to countless conflicts between Pisa and Florence; Pisa was always irritated to be on the downstream side of the pollution.
Over the years, the Florentines also grew tired of the smell and replaced all of the cow shops with gold shops – a much appreciated gesture by Pisa.

After the golden transition, a flood hit Florence really hard. It basically devastated the town. Days after the flood, however, the net worth of Pisa increased dramatically as they panned for gold downstream of Florence. Florentine’s demanded they return the lost gold, but Pisa refused and said it was retribution for past sins.

After the bridge, we made it to the town center. It was one of the most impressive centers we have seen because it had about 15 original sculptures under a roofed plaza. It is also where Michelangelo’s David stood prior to moving to its own museum. It was moved because a crazy man took a nearby building hostage and then started throwing stuff out the window. Unfortunately, one of the benches he threw out the window hit David and knocked part of his arm off.
Below is a copy of David that now stands where the real one once stood.

Here is the original bronze statue “Perseus and the Medusa”.

The other thing we noticed about the piazza was it was much colder than we expected. We didn’t bring heavy coats, Jacob’s stroller boot, or any blankets and we were getting really cold. Therefore, I was sent on a mission to fix those problems.

The other big site in Florence is the “Duomo”. We have been to a lot of churches, but this one was really different. When we walked up to the church we were awestruck by two things, the size and the color. The size wasn’t much different than other big churches and much smaller than Cologne and Saint Peter’s, but it was deceiving at first because the surrounding buildings blocked our view until we were right there. The color was also very different. It was sided in red, white and green marble. Phil summed it up just right by saying “this is the birth of the Renaissance”.

The church is also unique because a separate baptistery and tower were built disconnected from main church. The key items on the baptistery are the big copper doors. They were actually designed by Ghiberti, Michelangelo’s mentor. To get the job he won an area-wide artistic competition.
The irony of the competition is another famous artist lost - Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi was so irritated by losing that he temporarily left Florence. After a while, however, he was persuaded to return and design the dome of the Cathedral. He is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral.

After leaving the Cathedral we wandered into a shopping district. Actually, it was more like the leather district. Phil and Amanda had been hounding me all day about how much money she intended to spend on something leather. As it turned out, however, I found the first purchase myself and outspent her in 15 minutes. It really wasn’t my fault. The jacket was practically tailor-made for me, and I was lured by the savvy sales guy. I bought the jacket for 135 Euros - but, I did get him down from 220 - still got it.

It was nearly dinner and we were hungry so we put our faith in “the Rick” and found a little Italian cafeteria and gelatoria.

We made our way back home by 9pm, put Jacob down for bed, and spent an hour chatting. It was a good end to the day.

Day 8: Tours, tours, tours…
We planned Florence just like Rome - lots of tours. They weren’t cheap (again), but for the most part, they were worth it. For the second day we scheduled two tours; the first was a city-wide walk and the second was dedicated to David.

The downside to the first tour was it started at 8am – way too early. Our tour guide was a lady that came to Rome at 22 to complete a Masters program in Renaissance art. After a semester she fell in love with an Italian and never went home. Fifteen years and 2 kids later she is still living in Florence.

As a tour guide, she was below average. Her style was weird --- she would ask really rhetorical questions and then wait for someone to try and answer. Someone always would, they would be wrong, and she would explain part of the story. I left every area of city feeling like didn’t learn quite enough. It was really too bad because she didn’t do the city a service.

During the walk we passed a street vendor shop where the same two brothers had been working for the past 35 years. Even more impressive than that, however, is their family had owned the shop for 140 years. But, the most impressive part is the restaurant was only 4 feet wide by 6 feet long and they served about 120 sandwiches an hour.

We also walked by a clothing store that had original frescos on the wall. We learned that all frescos found are protected by Florence law and must be preserved.

Florence also has some unique architectural characteristics. Many of its buildings have overhangs supported by beams. It just gives a different look to the city.

She walked us by both the Duomo and the golden bridge to share the stories I already mentioned.

The one very interesting piece about the Duomo that you wouldn’t expect was the inside. Like I mentioned before, the outside was breathtaking --- the inside, however, was totally boring. There wasn’t anything inside the church worth looking at - it was totally bare. No one would expect it. The only thing of some interest was the ecclesiastical clock on the wall.

After the tour, we walked back to the two brothers restaurant and had some sandwiches. Afterwards, we headed off to the other major church in Florence - Santa Croce.

This church is the polar opposite of the Duomo. It is smaller and very plain on the outside, but packed with really cool stuff on the inside. This place is famous grave central. The following tombs are in this one church: Medici family – Florence royalty, Michelangelo – artistic genius, Galileo – most famous astronomer, Marconi – invented the radio, Machiavelli – famous writer of “the Prince”, Rossini – gifted musician, and Dante – famous poet.

The church was decorated by lots of artists including Ghiberti (Michelangelo’s Mentor) and Vasari (Michelangelo’s Mentee).

One story we learned on the walk was about Michelangelo and Ghiberti. At the age of 6 Michelangelo went to Ghiberti’s shop and asked to be tutored. Ghiberti said he didn’t have time and Michelangelo didn’t have the money to pay anyway. Michelangelo responded by saying, I don’t plan on paying you, I plan on you paying me. Ghiberti laughed at him, but still gave him a shot. He told Michelangelo to sketch / reproduce one item in the gallery. Instead of drawing one picture though, Michelangelo sketched the entire gallery. Ghiberti was astounded by his pupil and immediately took him under his instruction.

After Santa Croce we had another tour to partake. To be honest, I wasn’t really into this one --- after all it was just one statue, how good could it be? This tour was produced by the same company, but this time the guide was awesome. She was spunky, motivating, and full of information. If you zoned out for a moment you would miss a ton of information – she talked really, really fast.

As you enter the museum, you first see a lot of unfinished work. I actually really liked this stuff because when you looked at it you could see both the raw rock and the “to-be” finished piece. This was the first time that I actually really saw how the statue is made. I know it sounds weird, but it just left me with a different feeling. I know that the artist carves statues from rock. And, I know they did it with hammers and chisels. But, I never got a sense for how difficult it must have been.

That was cool, but the next part was even better…

When we went to the Louvre, we saw the Mona Lisa. You know, the most famous painting of all time by Leonardo da Vinci. Granted, it was cool, but it was disappointing. It was probably because it had been talked up too much for too long. Nonetheless, it didn’t meet expectations.

David was different. I will never adequately describe the statue, but it surpassed expectations in every way.

This statue evoked an emotion and stirred each of us. It was the expression in his eyes, in his face, and in his posture. The muscle tone was perfectly shaped and his expression was pensive. It was just awesome. Everyone should find their way to Florence to see David.

It had been a long day, so after David we found a restaurant (not recommended by Rick and not quite as good) and headed home. It was another great day.

Day 9: One more tour…
We didn’t have to wake up as early on Day 9 because there weren’t any tours scheduled for the morning. I must admit that after 5 organized tours we were getting a little tired of learning. Today, we decided, was going to be more dedicated to relaxation.

As in many cities in Europe, there are yummy looking fruit and vegetable stands dotting the narrow streets. We passed several while walking through Florence, but this one looked particularly tasty!

According to Rick, there were still a few good sites left to see; his top recommendation was the famous Florentine science museum. This museum is cool for lots of reasons, but the top reason is Galileo’s finger is on public display.

According to the stories, after Galileo proved that the earth was not the center of the universe, he was put under house arrest in Florence. Admittedly, the house arrest was mostly purported by the Church, but it was carried out by the politzie in Florence. So, as an eternal “FU” to Florence and the Papacy, they kept Galileo’s middle finger…

As a whole, the museum was really disappointing because two thirds of the exhibits were shutdown and not due to reopen until the 2nd half of 2009. I suspect it will be great next year.

After the museum we took a leisurely stroll up the mountain to look down on the city. The view was great, but the “leisurely” stroll turned into 300 steps of pain. But, then again, we’ve been there and done that. The problem now is that Jacob is really starting to get heavy.

There was also a small copy of David up here.

We finished our stroll right before our last tour started at the Uffizi. The Uffizi is the big museum in town. The tour was a total bust for two reasons: (1) our tour guide didn’t have a commanding grasp of the English language, and (2) Jacob wasn’t happy in the stroller. Needless to say, Amanda and I spent our time missing parts of the tour. We did get to see some paintings by Raphael.

We passed by an interesting shop full of wooden trinkets and Pinocchio paraphernalia. We learned that the author of Pinocchio was born in Florence.

We ended the day with another one of Rick’s recommendations. He personally suggested we eat at a place by the river. We did and it was one of the best meals of the trip.

Another great way to end the day --- with food.

Day 10: And so it ends…
Our travel day home was on Easter Sunday. It was raining and very difficult to find a cab. In fact, so bad that we blew 15 USD on phone minutes just to find out there weren’t any taxis available. So, as I am the good friend and solid husband, I hiked my tail back into downtown to hail a cab.

I found a cab and we ended up making it to the airport in plenty of time, caught our flight and made it back to Amsterdam around 6:30pm. Phil’s dinner plans fell through so the 4 of us spent one final dinner together – Burger King at Schiphol. It wasn’t a Rick Steve’s recommendation, but it was still nice to spend a few final hours with Phil.

Rome vs. Florence: When we first arrived in Florence, our initial thought was “there isn’t a better place in Italy than this. Rome can’t hold a candle to Florence”. But, as we settled into Florence we realized the key distinction. First, both are great cities to visit and if given the opportunity, you should take it. Rome is a big city with an enormous heritage. The city smells bad, has too much graffiti, and too many cars --- not much different than any other big city. On the other hand, it is the birthplace of civilization and has an amazing checklist of must-sees. Florence is smaller, more quaint, and has an inspiring personality. It is where the Renaissance dawned and holds 25% of the world’s “greatest” art. It, however, doesn’t hold the “pre-renaissance” history nearly as sacred as Rome; for Florence, the world began in 1500 AD. For Rome, the world began in 800 BC.

If you are looking for an educational trip with unequaled venues, Rome is your spot. If you are looking for romance, art, and true Italian personality, book Florence.

Part 26a: E tu Brute

2008-03-14T04:00:00.033Z

Day 1: Friday, March 14 2008 10am - Getting Started
We checked in at Valeria Apartment at noon - our first attempt at staying in an apartment instead of a hotel. The apartment was advertised as only 200 meters from San Pietro (Saint Peter’s Basilica - the Vatican). It was 200 m from the building, but about 2000 meters from the entrance. After settling in at the hotel, we headed out to get the lay of the land.
We hit quite a few neat sites and ended up at the Palazzo Venezio.

The monument is a tribute to Italy’s fallen soldier - kind of like their Arlington. The biggest equestrian statue in the world and an eternal flame adorn the doorstep: a dedication to King Victor Emmanuel II and veterans of all wars.

Like most monuments, there were too many steps to get to the top. But, the hard work was rewarded with a great view of old Rome.

There was also a museum at the top dedicated to the Franco Prussian War, but we ended up playing with Jacob more than studying the exhibits.

After the long walk, the 4am wake up call started to sink in. We walked back to the apartment and took a nap.

After getting some rest, we went back out and found a nice little Italian restaurant by the Piazzo Navona. It wasn’t very good and Jacob was not cooperating very well, but it was still a good end to a long day.

Day 2: The Underground
We were very excited about Saturday because our good friend Phil was arriving around 10am from Nawlins (i.e. New Orleans). Phil was our resident expert on Rome. He visited Rome last year and fell in love with the city. So, he knew exactly where to go, where to eat, and what the schedule should be: our vacation architect.

We first walked toward Piazza Navona to look at art and have some lunch. But, before arriving we had to pay homage to the most famous Roman Caesar - Julius. After all, it was March 15 --- Ides of March. For those who don’t remember the significance, March 15 was the date when Julius Caesar was murdered.

Phil probably made the most brilliant decision of the trip by bringing Rick Steves’ guide books. Rick Steves is an American author who specializes in travel advice. He is incredible. It literally made a good vacation extraordinary.

The first Steves’ recommendation that we used was a small pizza place just two blocks from the Pantheon --- it was incredible.

After lunch we had to rush to the first of three planned tours in Rome. It was called the “Underground Tour”. This tour takes you to multiple tier II churches around the Tiber River. It was a great way to see the less imperial side of Rome where the common people lived.

Before starting the tour, however, we had a good patch of grass and some free time to play with the bubble gun we bought for Jacob at the Navona. By the way, Jacob successfully negotiated his first deal - 10 euros down to 6 euros.

When you travel with a 1 ½ year old, you never know what kind of mood they will be in. And, when planning a big vacation like this one with lots of tours, museums, and quiet churches it can be very frustrating to miss out on pieces of it.

Jacob, in general, is probably one of the most seasoned, well-traveled, and flexible babies of all time. But, today, he was not interested in the tour. Needless to say, he didn’t want to quit playing with his bubble gun and start learning about Baroque architecture.

After a little while, he quieted down and took a nap, but the first 3 hrs were a little bit challenging.

The tour was still cool. We visited an archeological dig which was still under construction and learned what that was like. Didn’t seem that cool to me, but there was a pile of bones on a shelf that they hadn’t identified yet.

The tier two churches were also interesting --- the popes in the 800-1600AD timeframe really threw money at the churches. Most of these were baroque (lots of gold and very plain on the outside). One that was especially cool had the body of Saint Cecelia buried there. Her story was pretty interesting. Someone tried to kill her in the steam room, but she survived. Then they tried to behead her from heresy, but she survived (weird huh). According to Roman law at the time, if you fail to cut off the victim’s head in three tries, they are allowed to go. So for her, she lived for three days after the attempted beheading. Then, they lost her body for 200 - 300 hundred years. When the tomb was found and opened, an eye witness account said her body was still in perfectly preserved condition --- for 15 seconds. Then after 15 seconds, the body turned to ash. After all of this, the church decided to declare her a saint.

The area around the Tiber River perpetually flooded (one of the reasons that much of the old buildings and history were lost). By the river there is an old archway that used to shelter people while they were doing business (i.e. cattle market). The archway is adorned with pictures of Romulus and Remos - the original brothers that founded the area. However, during a power struggle Romulus killed Remos (get it – Rome, not Remo). But, after killing Remos, he scratched all references to his brother off of the monument - amazing really. So many people throughout history tried so hard to eliminate others from history, yet we are still talking about them.

After leaving the cattle market, we crossed the river through Tiberina Island and walked around a few other neighborhoods. One interesting side note from that area is that during an excavation in 1800 or 1900’s, they actually found a “now famous” marble statue. Once again – amazing how history is lost.

Toward the end of the tour, our guide and I had a chat about Italian history. It was something that I never knew or understood. This was one of those eye-opening experiences. Keep in mind, this is one of those 30 minute conversations that is summarized in a few bullets.

Brief History of Italy:
- Run by city states / feudal society from the fall of empire until 1870.
- In 1870, Italy unites under Emmanuel I and becomes a country. King Emmanuel I is crowned king of Italy.
- Vatican refuses to acknowledge the country (basically because they would lose power in Italy) and enters into a self-imposed house arrest for 59 years. Some popes didn’t even leave the Vatican during their entire reign.
- In 1929, Mussolini brokers a deal with the Vatican and creates the official Vatican borders.
- 1941-5, Mussolini allies with Hitler during WWII. They lost – Mussolini is hung (and accidentally decapitated).
- 1945 – Italy abandons dictators, brings back democracy. First state-wide democracy in Italy since the Roman Empire (44 BC).

Random Facts:
- Rome had >1,400,000 men in city at its peak (women and children were not included in the census in those days). After the fall, the population dropped to <30,000>

- Roman aqueducts brought over 900,000 cubic meters of water into the city at the peak of the empire. Rome today only uses 700,000 cubic meters.

- Coliseum was built in 10 years (100 – 200 AD); no one in Italy believes it could be built that fast now. The tour ended up lasting about 4 hours. By the 3rd Jacob was asleep and finally enjoying the tour. By the end, we were whooped (especially Phil who was still recovering from Jetlag). Nevertheless, we managed to hang around the area and dine at another Rick Steves’ recommendation (de Julia).

It was a great day.

Day 3: Free day
If you think that you would be more likely to get to church on time, if the pastor was more inspiring, then you may want to reconsider. For us, on this Sunday, it was still difficult to get to church on time. And our Palm Sunday service was presided over by the Pope.

It was a surreal.

We only stayed at the Vatican for a few minutes before leaving to check out the Pantheon. By the way --- Rick Steves came through again. If you go to his website you can download free audio guides for your IPOD. It was great. We enjoyed a free 20 minute tour of the Pantheon courtesy of Rick Steves.

The Pantheon is a pretty amazing place. It is the central icon to Roman engineering and architecture. The building is impressive. It is circular with measurements recorded as exactly 142ft diameter and 142ft height. It is currently a Christian building, but was originally dedicated to multiple mythological figures. There are multiple “high-profile” figures buried in the building: King Emmanuel III (former King of Italy) and Raphael (top artist during the Renaissance --- reportedly died of an STD at the age of 33 --- he was apparently a ladies man).
After the Pantheon, we grabbed a picnic lunch at a grocery store on the piazza (Rick Steves’ recommendation). As you can see, I loved it.

Sunday really turned into a walking day. We didn’t have an overly articulate schedule, so we just wandered around checking out various churches. One church that was especially odd was the “S. Maria Dell’Orazione E Morte”. Apparently, this church never opens to the public and is dedicated to the dead ---- no one knows what goes on in there, but there is a hole in wall so people can still tithe --- weird.

After the church of the dead we found our way to the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain is one of those highly acclaimed sites --- “you have to see the fountain when you go to Rome”. From the descriptions, one would think it is at the center of Rome. However, when you see it, it is a big fountain tucked into a really small area between a bunch of buildings --- it really looks out of place. They say if you through a coin into the fountain you will come back to Rome --- we all tossed in the coins --- I guess we should start planning the next trip.

The Spanish Steps were the next big site. Ok, well, they say it is a big site. From my perspective it was highly over hyped. The street leading to the Spanish steps was reminiscent of the Champs Elysees: very busy and lined with high-end shops. The marathon was also routed toward the steps, so it made it exceptionally busy.

I guess the beauty of the steps was lost on us because all we saw was an exercise routine. When Jacob was smaller, climbing steps wasn’t that bad. Now that he is pushing 25lbs, climbing 50-75 steps while carrying him in his stroller is a major workout.

They say the steps are really nice in the spring (we were a little too early) because it is adorned with thousands of flowers. Still though, once we reached the summit, the view was pretty spectacular. Every major site in the city was visible.

At the top of the steps is Borghese Park. It is one of the few parks in Rome. We don’t know exactly why, but Rome seriously lacks green space. I suppose it is because everything that could be green is dug up and turned into an archeological site. There are two main areas in the park: a kids’ area with games, go carts, and a carousel and the Galleria Borghese.

The Galleria Borghese is the one used in Ocean’s 12 (where they stored the egg in the end and had Julia Robert’s pretend to be Julia Roberts in an attempt to steal the egg).

After the Borghese Park, we were wiped out. However, we still had to find another Rick Steve’s dinner recommendation. This one was on the north side of the Vatican, so we took the metro and settled in. Not surprisingly, it was good.

Unfortunately, after dinner we ended up picking the wrong route back to the apartment and walked around the “dark side” of the Vatican wall - not many streetlights or sidewalks. The upside, though, was Amanda had time to explain four seasons of Felicity to Phil. I think he is a new fan.

Day 4: The Vatican
We booked guided tours every other day in an attempt to minimize the impact on Jacob. So, Monday was the Vatican. We picked Monday because we felt it would be the least busy during Holy Week. I think we chose correctly, but the line at the Vatican was still 2-hours long.

For this tour the guide used the “microphone and headset” system. This was much better than the first tour because it gave us the flexibility to temporarily leave the group (and take care of Jacob) while still listening to the guide. We also picked up a few extra headsets (while the owners weren’t looking) so Jacob could have a new toy. Jacob is typically a fan of electrical toys that he doesn’t think he is allowed to have. It worked like a gem.

Our guide was worth his “wait” in gold - the two hour wait flew by because we got a history lesson on the papacy, the Reformation, and the Vatican grounds. If we didn’t have the guide, we all would have been really irritated by the long line.

San Pietro is the biggest church in the world. From the outside it definitely looks big, but nothing like the inside. The history of this church really originates in the New Testament of the Bible. There Jesus said that he would build his church on Peter. Most people believed it to be an allegorical statement, but the church took it literally.

After Jesus was crucified, Peter traveled to Rome to preach the gospel. After arriving in Rome, he was tried and crucified like most of the other disciples. Peter was buried on Vatican hill just 50 meters from where he was killed. His grave remained in that same spot for several hundred years. In fact, he remained so long that the landscape topography also changed. After one of the more significant floods, a wall was built directly behind his grave to prevent further erosion.

In 313AD, Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and allowed formal gatherings to commence. From that point forward the church began to flourish. In 324AD, the San Pietro chapel was started. And, the center of the chapel was built directly on top of Saint Peter’s grave. So, the biblical prophecy was both literally and figuratively fulfilled.

There are three key landmarks in the Vatican courtyard. The circumference is lined with hundreds of Roman columns with statues of famous martyrs on top. In the center there is a huge obelisk with a cross on top. And, in the front there are two enormous statues of St. Paul and St. Peter. St. Peter is carrying the keys and St. Paul is carrying the sword.

The steps of the church are made from marble stolen from the Coliseum. The front of the church has a huge door with multiple panels depicting the life of Christ and he and his disciples’ crucifixions.

There are several other works of art on the portico, each with their own significance. Jacob especially liked the marble scene on the floor.
As we entered the church the guide asked us to find words to describe our initial reaction. The group came up with tall, gaudy, over the top, impressive, awesome, crowded, and not spiritual.

One of the biggest attractions in the building is Michelangelo’s Pieta. Michelangelo was contracted for many pieces with the Vatican: statues for Pope xxx’s tomb, the Pieta, and the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo is regarded as the world’s greatest sculpture.

Jacob lasted about 20 minutes into the Church. It helped with the tour, but he didn’t finish his snack and Amanda’s arms were on fire by the end of it.

The church is decorated with numerous chapels and lots of tombs. Most of the tombs are for popes and some of those tombs hold glass coffins with the popes exposed.

Rome is notorious for their collection of relics. There have been several patrons throughout the years that have brokered deals to trade for relics. There are four stations surrounding the center of the church which hold the relics: the spear that pierced Jesus’ side, the veil that Veronica gave to Jesus to wipe the blood and dirt from his face (fell from heaven), some pieces of the cross, and St. Andrew’s remains.

San Pietro Basilica is a really neat place. The overwhelming size of the place sneaks up on you, and there is a story in every corner. It doesn’t really feel like a church --- much more like a museum. If you read the history, you also know that it has a rather “sorted” past. Nonetheless, for a Christian this building has a very moving influence.

The basilica was only half of the tour and it ended at lunch time. Our guide led us to the best pizza place in town – he was right. This stuff was great.

After lunch we hit the Vatican museum. The guide again gave us a brief history lesson about the various popes, art exhibits, etc. All very good. The big takeaway about the Vatican --- they were uber wealthy, corrupt, and hired the best artists for religious art.

The museum is stocked full of high-end art: plenty of Raphael, Michelangelo, and DaVinci. One story that they told was about the value of the art. In the US a 6in X 8in painting was sold for $45MM (artist name I can’t remember). The Vatican has a similar painting by the same artist. The difference, however, is this painting was 15 foot by 20 foot. Can you imagine how much that one is worth?

Unfortunately, in the 1500’s (at the beginning of the Reformation) Rome was sacked by the Germans and Spaniards. The stories from that invasion were worse than any other in history; they killed thousands of people, burned multiple churches, and destroyed lots of art and relics.

The museum today is still revered as one of the best in the world, but it would be 10 times better if the Reformation would have been less violent. There was still a lot to see in the museum.
After the museum the tour takes you through the Sistine Chapel - Michelangelo’s Fresco Masterpiece. It was packed, dark, and noisy. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but that didn’t stop me. The painting was amazing, but even more so is how they are done. A fresco is a painting on a wall. When you look at it you think that they just painted on the wall. In reality, however, the painters only paint on wet plaster. In other words, they don’t have a prepared wall before they paint; they prepare the wall as they paint.

Most artists would sketch the picture before painting and then they would use the sketch to create a “pattern” on the wet plaster. Michelangelo, however, didn’t use any patterns and didn’t make any sketches --- the just prepared the wall with wet plaster and then started painting. This is why people consider him a genius.

The scale of the project surprised us the most. When you consider the size of a normal painting (4 ft by 6 ft) and then realize that this painting was ~100ft by 40ft. It leaves you breathless. Quite honestly, it is difficult to see if the quality is really good in person, but the books, experts, and historians confirm that for us.
After the Sistine Chapel the tour was over. It was yet another excellent tour --- educational, inspiring, and interesting. Although, I think Jacob enjoyed flirting with the girls a bit more.

After the tour ended and Jacob finished his game, Phil and I went to the crypt. This is where they keep all of the notable popes. Most notable in this crypt were Pope John Paul and St. Peter. Pope John Paul’s area was like a shrine with lots of pilgrims praying and tourists snapping pictures. St. Peter’s tomb was more somber and holy. It seemed surreal to be standing so close to Jesus’ #1 disciple.

We finally left the Vatican around 6pm to scope out another Rick Steve’s joint. It was good again and provided us the best Bruschetta ever. On the way back to the apartment we hit another homerun with the Old Bridge Gelatoria. We ate a lot of gelato in Rome, but this ended up being our favorite spot.

Day 5: The day of relics
Wednesday was a “no tour” day and completely planned for a Christian pilgrimage through Rome. Through the years Rome has collected numerous Christian relics; most of them are associated with Jesus and his Disciples’ lives. To detail each of the places would take thousands of words, so for this review I am only going to list brief descriptions.

We started on the east side of town at Basilica of the Holy Cross, San Giovanni in Laterano, and Sanctuario della Scalla Santa.

Holy Cross:
- Pieces of the cross
- Nail that pierced Jesus’ foot on the cross
- Thorns from the crown
- Titular of Holy Cross: tablet stating charges brought against Jesus
- Finger from St. Thomas
- Copy of the Holy Shroud
- Dirt collected by St. Helen (Constantine’s mother) from Calvary
- Tomb of Nennolina

San Giovanni:
- Head of St. Peter
- Head of St. Paul

Sanctuario della Scalla Santa:
Step of Pontius Pilot – the steps that Jesus walked up that led to Pontius Pilot’s villa.

Between the sites we stopped off at a playground. Jacob had a great time until he busted his lip. This was a pretty good one that bled for quite a while – poor guy.

It was around noon when we finished, Jacob was sleeping, and we were hungry. Rick recommended a nice little place by the Coliseum (where Engineering students from the University of Rome hang out). We didn’t tell the waitress that we came via “the blue book” and so she yelled at us afterwards, reduced our bill by 20%, and gave us free dessert. The power of Rick Steves. Rick also recommended we teach Simona a new English word, so Amanda taught her “skeezy”. She immediately added it to her vocabulary “da gawbage is skeezy”.

We walked through a nice scenic overlook to the Coliseum before heading to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Chains and Santa Maria Maggiore.

St. Peter in Chains:
- Chains that bound St. Peter while in custody in Rome
- Michelangelo’s Moses

Santa Maria Maggiore:
- Wood remaining from Jesus’ manger
- Tomb of Bernini
- Hundreds of mosaics

It was a clumsy day for Jacob. At the Santa Maria basilica, he fell from a step and busted his head on the marble; in case you were wondering --- I was watching him this time too.

We continued on our pilgrimage to Santa Prochetti where we saw the flagellation post. This is the post where Jesus was bound during the scourging before the crucifixion.
At the end of the day, we were wiped out --- we didn’t follow a Rick recommendation and instead found the nearest McDonalds, ate great McMenu meals, found our way back to the Old Bridge Gelatoria, walked home and crashed. We probably walked 40 miles that day, but it was another fantastic a great day.

Day 6: Old Rome
The following day we woke early and grabbed a bus to the old Rome area (forum, Coliseum, Palatine Hill). We got suckered into a picture with some Roman Gladiators – the real ones --- yeah right. The worst part of this is that they expected payment after they took pictures of us with our camera. A real sham.

We met with our group at the base of Palatine Hill and learned that our guide was a PhD from University of Michigan in Classical Archeology. He was a cool guy who really knew his stuff and shared a lot without any arrogance. He had a good sarcastic humor and could go with the flow of the questions really well.

To start the tour he provided a great background to Roman history. I tried to capture the highlights in an outline below. Keep in mind this is the first 2000 years boiled down to 30 minutes and then the 30 minutes was reduced to 8 bullet points.

Brief History of Roman Empire:
- 753 BC – Romulus / Remos raised by wolf on Palatine Hill. Romulus kills Remos to consolidate power. Rome is founded and named after Romulus.

- 750 to 550 BC – Rome runs as a Republic and begins to expand (i.e. Democracy – USA is a republic). Very successful form of government for this time - good at creating efficiency and alignment. Gives the people a voice in the government, senate grows in strength, the “city-states” unite and start driving toward common goals.

- 550 to 55 BC – Rome expansion is in full gear. Great armies are pushing in all directions from Rome. As the empire grows, the political strength begins to shift from the government to the military leaders. The people are behind the Generals, not the Senators. The size of Rome cannot be managed by a democracy any longer.

- 55 to 44 BC - Military leaders begin to quarrel and vie for more power; civil wars begin. Julius Caesar wins final battle and converts the Roman “Republic” into a Roman “Empire”. Thereby, destroying the democracy and installing himself as the dictator for life.

- 44 BC – Julius Caesar is murdered (political plot). Marcus Antony (former general of Caesar) gives a great speech at the forum, unites the people against those that killed Ceasar, and virtually ensures that the dictatorial government will stand. Augustus (Caesar’s nephew) is named Dictator (or Caesar).

- 44 BC to 350 AD – Rome continues to grow, pushed its boarders to control the entire Mediterranean coast, England (Britannia), Europe (to the Rhine and Danube), Middle East (to Iran – or Persia), Northern Africa to the deserts. Basically, the Roman Empire conquered as far as they believed there was value.

- 350 AD to 550 AD – Corruption enters. Enemies at borders start pecking away at the empire. Lose key battles to the Visigoths, Saxons, and Persians.
- 550 AD – Rome implodes and Europe plunges into the Dark ages.

The tour was basically broken into three areas: Palatine Hill, The Roman Forum, and the Coliseum.

Palatine Hill:

Palatine Hill was reminiscent of Pompeii except Pompeii was preserved much better. This area is considered the birthplace of Rome (i.e. where Romulus and Remos first settled). Over the years it grew to become the imperial palace for most of the Roman emperors.

It was adorned with aqueducts, fountains, and lots of rooms. The rooms were amazingly tall. If you could place your mind back to the height of the empire and view the ruins as if they were still in their full beauty, it would take your breath away.

We were lucky because we got to see one of the newly uncovered areas of the hill. It was the personal residence of Caesar Augustus. The line to the exhibit was uncannily short so we got to see the residence. There is really something amazing about seeing buildings and art that is over 2000 years old.

The views were great and the stories were limitless. I have never known so much about the Roman Empire.

Forum:

The Forum is located at the base of Palatine Hill. This is where all of the Roman elite shopped, debated, and hung out. It was the Beverly Hills / Washington DC of the Roman Empire.

Every time a new Caesar came to power or a military leader won a key victory they would erect a new archway, building, or statue. Most of those memorials were built in the Forum.

The roads in the Forum were uncovered in their original form. They are large basalt stones. Over the past 1500 years, however, they have separated a bit and are very difficult to walk on - especially with a stroller.

The popular story of the Roman Empire really starts with Julius Caesar. As everyone knows, Julius Caesar was murdered by his friends and other members of the Senate. What people don’t know is how he was martyred. After this death and at his funeral Caesar’s top general Mark Anthony gave a great political speech in the Forum. He basically condemned the actions of those that killed him and played to the crowd’s hearts by deifying everything that Caesar had brought to the people.

Out of anger the people rushed the stage and carried Caesar’s body to the center of the Forum. At that point, they burned his body. This was significant because no time before were burials allowed inside the city walls. By burning Caesar in the Forum center, they demonstrated their disgust for the Republic. This essentially provided the platform for the democratic system to be expelled and a monarchy established. It was the beginning or Rome’s imperial age.

What is interesting about the forum is how impressive it still looks even after 2000 years of age and pillaging. All of the buildings used to be covered in marble, but all of that has been stripped and used for other uses – the Vatican’s needs and burned to make lime.

Since the Roman Empire didn’t accept Christianity until ~300AD, there are hundreds of monuments and temples dedicated to Roman gods. After the empire legalized Christianity under Constantine’s rule, he went through the city and “Christianized” it as much as possible. He chipped out all references to Pagan gods and replaced them with biblical references.

Coliseum:

The final aspect of the tour was the Coliseum. It looked a lot like the movies and pictures, but it was definitely more interesting in person.

There was a gladiator training center next door. These guys were like modern day sports heroes. The crowds loved them, would go to the practices, and root for their favorites at the main events. The owners didn’t want to lose their investments so most events didn’t commission the gladiator to fight to his death.

A few interesting tidbits:

- The coliseum would hold 70,000 people.
- Most events were not fought to the death.
- Had all kinds of events: synchronized hippopotamuses, rape of the sabine, gladiatorial, jungle hunts, circus-like events, water combats, etc.
- The structure has stood for 2000 years. How many modern coliseums would stand that long?
- Half of the building collapsed during an earthquake. The half that stood had its foundation in bedrock; the half that fell was set on topsoil.
- The coliseum was built after Nero’s reign to appease the general population after years of neglect.
- It was built directly on top of the lake that Nero built for himself; it was built as a sign to the people that times were changing. It was also an amazing engineering feat to drain the lake and fill it with concrete.
- Romans were the first to use concrete, and the Coliseum could not have been built without it.
- Through the years there were many repairs made. Most of the time they minimized the cost and made it look good on the outside and rough on the backside.
- Only took 10 years to build.
- It has two layers of basements.
- It was built with a retractable dome; ok, they could move a canvas tent over the top.

When we think about ancient architecture, we tend to think that everything was “Michelangelo quality”. The truth is, however, there were more bad then there were good. The picture below illustrates that point. You can see how the lettering at the top is very straight and uniform and the text at the bottom is starting to drift. Also notice the AE in the center. It looks like that was chipped out and replaced --- probably because the sculptor misspelled a word.

This was probably the best tour. The guide was really good, we learned a ton, and Jacob was happy throughout the entire tour.

After we left the tour, we headed back toward the Piazza Navona to buy our Rome souvenirs. We had been scoping out a few things all week long and finally settled on two paintings and a plate.

On the way back we walked past the prison that held both Peter and Paul, so we stopped in to see – it was a pretty miserable place, especially considering they lowered them into the cell from the floor above. There is an alter in the cell now.

We reached the Piazza Navona and bought our souvenirs. Quite honestly, at that point we were on the verge of going home. It was only 4pm and way too early for dinner, but it would be kind of a waste of a day to go home already. We ended up just hanging out in the Piazza. There was a Turkish band set up on the piazza that Jacob really liked. It was really fun to watch him dance and get into the performance. Before long, a pretty big crowd had gathered around. Jacob was in the center dancing and having fun. I think most of the people were watching Jacob instead of the band and am sure the band made more money thanks to Jacob.

For our final dinner we decided on Phil’s favorite gnocci restaurant from his last trip. The only problem was it was still too early for dinner and it was a long walk. We decided to walk because that would kill some time and just stop along the way as our hearts desired. This is where Rome is pretty cool. The first stop we made was at a “nothing special” type church just east of the Navona.

When we went inside we found the tombs of the disciples Phillip and Jacob. Amazing. It was reminiscent of the time we found the disciple Andrew in Amalfi.

We finally arrived at Giovanni’s. Granted, it was a deviation from the Rick Steves’ recommendation and it didn’t have gnocci that night, but it was still really good. We decided to take a cab home because it felt like we walked 20 miles that day.

It was essentially the end of the first part of our trip.

Brugge Video

2008-02-11T22:08:00.000Z

For Christmas we got a video editing software from a really good friend. We haven't really taken full advantage of it yet, but here is our first try.

Jacob Driving - Test Version

2008-01-14T20:43:00.000Z

Christmas 2007: Nascar Beginnings

2008-01-05T22:58:00.000Z