Hat Stanley

You may recall that in November our Flat Stanley decided to stay in Pisa Italy.   This was a very sad event for Kyra and me.

As we do enjoy traveling with Flat Stanley we made another one.  His name was Flat Stanley 2.  It was not a very creative name and only made us miss the original more.  A friend of mine (thank you Jim) suggested that Flat Stanley 2 needed a personality, so that we could bond with him rather than just missing the original.

Kyra and Hat Stanley at the Louvre

So when Kyra and I got ready to leave for Paris, I decided to make Flat Stanley 2 a hat.  I had initially thought that I would make him a beret, as we were going to Paris.  But I changed my mind when Kyra wore her snow hat for two days straight, every waking hour, inside the house.  I figured if FS2 was going to travel with Kyra and she was wearing her snow hat, he should have one too.

So FS2 now renamed "Hat Stanley" toured Paris wearing his snow hat.  Each trip he will get a new hat to wear, so keep your eyes on this blog to see what I manage to create to keep his head covered.

Christmas Caves

 On Sunday, before we went to Snow World, we stopped in Valkenburg in the Netherlands for their Christmas Caves.  Almost every town in Europe (at least in our area) has a Christmas market.  These are primarily located in the town squares.

In Valkenburg, the market is located in caves below the downtown.  The caves are decorated for Christmas with trees, lights, Santas, and manger scenes.  This was Flat Stanley 2's first time out, as you can see he is not as photogenic as Stanley 1.

Given the enclosed nature of the market, there is controlled access to the market.  Even so, we found it to be crowded and that we were constantly struggling to make our way through the caves.

On the plus side, it was far warmer than an outside market and there wasn't any wind.

I enjoyed the unique atmosphere of the Christmas Cave.  I was disappointed that the merchandise for sale was not very special. I had hoped to see hand-crafted goods, but the majority of the goods were things you could buy in a store.

Kyra found some of those bracelets that are popular among school kids these days.  Apparently the animal shapes are numerous and easy to find, but she found fruit shaped bracelets which she called "rare."  She was willing to pay a euro for the purchase.

Allen spent more - 10 euro.  He found a non-sport watch that he wanted.  It was a pretty good deal, as the seller removed the extra links so it fit him and threw in an extra watch battery.  Allen was pleased with his purchase.

I told the kids that we couldn't leave the caves until I took a photo of them.  Can you tell which kid was the least thrilled by the experience?

Flat Stanley Left Us

on the bus to Pisa

 We returned from our vacation almost two weeks ago, and I still miss him.  Flat Stanley had been with us since Kyra's second grade year.  He went to Afghanistan with Kyle.  He traveled with Kyra's Grandma and Grandpa Reeves.  He has been to several states, England, Canada, Mexico,  Luxembourg, Afghanistan, the Netherlands, Panama, France, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

He got to Pisa, Italy and decided to stay.  As much as I miss him, I can't blame him.  The weather there was lovely -the air temperate, the sky blue, the sun was shining.

Maybe he was just tired of traveling and wanted to settle down.  Perhaps he was tired on being folded and slotted into a backpack only to be squashed by our water bottles.  Whatever his reasons he joined us on our excursion to Pisa but did not travel back with us.  I hope the other tourists are kind to him.  

Kyra and I have resolved that another Stanley is in order.  I have already found similar looking template.  He will look as much as possible like our original Flat Stanley but it won't quite be the same.  Our thoughts are that a Flat Stanley 2 is better than no Flat Stanley.  Flat Stanley 2 will have our email address and mailing label on him.

In your travels if you see a Flat Stanley with "Kyra" written in second grade cursive on the back - he's ours and he's welcome home anytime.

Amsterdam

On Saturday, Kyra, Flat Stanley (of course!) and I traveled to Amsterdam.   We left SHAPE at 7am in the morning and arrived downtown shortly after 11am.

Planning out our touring plan was a bit of a challenge.  Museums close at 6pm.   Our tour of the Anne Frank house was scheduled for 3:30 right smack in the middle of the day.  The attractions of the city are spread out so one can't easily get from one place to the next.  I had little interest in visiting the red light district and certainly wasn't going to with a 12 year old.  Kyra wasn't interested in art museums.

Our compromise turned out to be touring the city via canal boat that we could get on and off throughout the day.

The canal boat took us past this windmill.  I took a photo because, well isn't it required to take pictures of windmills when in the Netherlands?

From the canal boat we saw many of the canal houses.  We learned about the hooks at the top of the homes.  When one has narrow staircases, the only way to get furniture in or out is through the windows.  The hook was and is used to hoist large items.  You may or may not be able to tell from the photo that the facades of the homes lean out a bit.  This is intentional.  We also saw homes that obviously leaned sideways, this was not intentional.

As we walked around the city we learned about bikes.  They are everywhere.  They are parked and locked all over and the citizens do ride them everywhere.  The most important thing a tourist can learn is - don't walk in the bike path!  Kyra and I quickly learned to be more cautious when crossing a bike path than when crossing the street.

As you can probably tell from the lighting in the photos, the weather was constantly changing throughout the day.  It was cloudy, rainy, sunny, windy, and hailing at various intervals.  Flat Stanley posed by a canal in the brief amount of sunlight we enjoyed.

You can see the canal, bikes and some houseboats in this photo.  The steeple in the background houses the church bells that Anne Frank could hear in the annex.

Tomorrow I'll share more about Anne Frank's house and our memorable visit there.

Travel

The opportunity to travel was one of the reasons Kyle and I were excited about coming to Belgium.  Within a couple of hours we can be in several different countries, just like many of you in the US can be in several different states within a couple of hours.

What makes travel even easier for us is that SHAPE has a couple of organizations that do all the organizing for you.  There is SHAPE Trips and Tours which runs trips on Saturdays and longer ones during school vacations and there is SHAPE Travel Group which runs week day trips.

Trips and Tours offers Saturday day trips  to England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg.  Typically these trips leave early in the morning and involve a bus ride of 2-4 hours, some structured tour time and some free time to do as one wishes.  During school breaks they organize longer trips - for the Christmas break they are offering a trip to Egypt and during spring break they are offering a trip to a resort near Barcelona.

SHAPE Travel Group is more of a wives' group.  Yes men are allowed but it is typically the women who are free to travel in the middle of the week.  When I went to Versailles I went with this group.  Their upcoming trips are to a spa in Belgium and for shopping in England and in Germany.

It is easy to travel when someone else does most of the work - picking the place, the activity and arranging transportation and driving.  We just pay the money and get on the bus.

While we dreamed of frequent travel, we aren't getting out as much as we'd like for the same reasons many of you don't bop around your neighboring states - you and your kids are busy.  Even so, we are trying to push ourselves to find the time and make the effort - after all Flat Stanley is begging to have his picture taken in front of more landmarks.

Flat Stanley visits Versailles

Yesterday, Flat Stanley toured Versailles.  He had to get up early and take a four hour bus ride (part of it through morning rush hour traffic in Paris).

Upon arriving he was struck by how big Versailles is compared to the other palaces, chateaux and castles he has seen.  It is huge.  There were many tour buses and tons of people.

The first thing Stanley did was tour the main rooms of Versailles.  He saw the king's and queen's apartments and some of the other public rooms.  This was the craziest part of the day - there were many large tour groups.  Some of these groups came from cultures that do not think it rude to push and shove.  Stanley was glad he could retreat to the safety of a tote bag.

He got his picture taken in the hall of mirrors, but it is kind of hard to see.

After leaving the main rooms of Versailles, the crowds thinned out a bit and it was easier to move around.  Stanley went downstairs and toured the apartments of the Dauphin and Dauphine.  These were very elegant but no where near as opulent as the upstairs rooms.

Next it was out into the gardens which were lovely.  It was pleasant to walk along the manicured bushes, pretty flowers, fountains and sculptures.

It was a small hike to get to the Trianons and Marie Antoinette's hamlet, but it was worth it.  Stanley could understand why the royals liked having these retreats.

Marie Antoinette's hamlet was very charming.  It was a small farming village with small lakes and streams running through it. Part of it was a working farm.  Stanley saw cows, goats, a horse, and several chickens.  He saw a vineyard, vegetable gardens and herb gardens.  There was even a pumpkin patch.

Flat Stanley enjoyed the winding paths of the hamlet, they were a change of pace from the straight paths of the formal gardens.  When he was as far from the main palace as he could be it was time to head back.

Luckily for Stanley, the weather was clear for most of the day but that last half hour it poured!  He was grateful for the shelter of a Helly Hansen rain jacket. He was also grateful for a long nap on the bus ride home.

Flat Stanley

When Kyra was in second grade, Flat Stanley came into our lives. Flat Stanley has become a popular teaching tool amongst elementary school teachers.  Stanley's story is read, the kids create a Stanley and then mail him off to relatives.  Children map out where Stanley has been and report on his adventures.

If you don't know Stanley's story, the short version is that one night when he was sleeping a bulletin board fell on him and flattened him.  This was an unfortunate event but had some advantages, one of which was cheap travel - just postage stamps.

Kyra's Flat Stanley first traveled to visit her Grandma and Grandpa Reeves in Arkansas.  Flat Stanley rode a horse while there.  He also played golf and ate pancakes.

Since then Flat Stanley has traveled to Panama, Mexico, Afghanistan and London.  As he is flat he is very easy to pack and whip out for a quick photo.  He can be accessorized like a paper doll.  You see in this photo he is wearing his camouflage pants - he got those when he went to Afghanistan.

He has not yet been on any outings in Belgium but we did remember to take him to Luxembourg.  The first photo is of Kyra and Stanley in the Bock casemates.

Here is another one of Stanley in front of a pretty house in Luxembourg.

Hopefully we'll remember to bring Stanley along on other European adventures and you can read about his travels here.  We don't have too many relatives still of elementary school age, but Stanley would welcome any visitors of the flat or three-dimensional variety.