Fun with Street Signs

 When Kyra and I visited Florence, I spotted a few street signs that were not typical.

They had something extra.  It was fun to see what a creative person added to them.

I thought you might enjoy them too.

"I Need A Day Trip to Paris"

When asked where she wanted to go this summer, Kyra listed Italy, Copenhagen and "I need a day trip to Paris."  Don't we all?

This statement could only come from the mouth of a wonderfully spoiled child (and she is).  But in context it is not so awful as it may seem.

Context -
Paris by train is less than two hours away.  For my northern Virginia friends, think of it as going to Richmond and back in the same day.

Kids here will in one breath tell you they don't travel much and in the next breath list off 3-5 countries they have visited this year.  "My family doesn't travel much."  "Well, where did you go for Christmas?"  "Oh, we went skiing in Germany and took a day trip to Paris."

When Kyra and I went to Paris in December, the Eiffel Tower looked like this.  One day we could sort of make out the top of the tower through the fog, but mostly it looked only partially built.

Had this been a once in a life time trip (which for many people it is) the Eiffel Tower enveloped in fog would have been most disappointing. Kyra ever the pragmatist, looked at it and said "well, we'll just have to come back."

So go back we did.  Yesterday started off rainy and gray.  So we started with indoor activities - the Louvre (Kyra is free) and lunch.  While the Louvre doesn't lack for popularity (particularly when it is raining) I knew once in, we'd be out of the crowds.  Why?  Because I wanted to visit the History of the Louvre exhibition.  So unpopular that the signs for this exhibit are only in French.

After lunch at Angelinas (separate blog post, maybe tomorrow) we began our walk to the Eiffel Tower.

As you can see, the day was lovely.  I have not done anything to enhance the photo.  The sky was a beautiful blue.  The clouds were white and fluffy and we enjoyed a nice breeze.

Kyra and I enjoyed a trip to the top of the tower and Kyra got her much hoped for photos of her with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Now to see if we can indulge her other travel wishes....

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.

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.

Our European Vacation

Disclaimer - It is my intent to share information, my thoughts and in general let you know about my life here in Belgium.  I wish to share not brag.

Over the next few days, I'll be blogging about our recent family vacation.  In many ways it was similar to vacations we have taken in the US, except this time what is close to us is Europe.  So - if this is coming off as bragging, I kindly request that you don't read this blog for a few days.  In case you think life is glamorous here, I'll remind you I do not have a garbage disposal, the toilet lid falls down on me every time I sit, it is cloudy most days and because my washing machine is small, I'll be doing laundry continuously for three days to recover from this vacation.

And now on with the show..

All Saints' Day is observed in most of Europe as a holiday.  In the kids' case, as a week break from school.  So with a week off of school, our choice was to travel.

Allen's cross country season finished with the European championships held in Heidelburg Germany on Saturday, October 30th.  He traveled there on the team bus and Kyle, Kyra and I followed in the car Friday evening.

Allen competed Saturday afternoon (separate blog).  We then started our drive to Barcelona which was our cruise port.

We did a week long Mediterranean cruise which stopped in Naples, Rome (sort of), Pisa (sort of) and two small towns in France.

The picture is of our cruise ship taken through a window of a fortification in southern France.

We docked again on Sunday morning and then drove for over 13 hours to get home in time for the kids to return to school on Monday.

We had a great time and made some wonderful memories.  The most remarkable things weren't so much what we saw but what we did together.

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.