Maia and Jaramie singing at the pond. Practicing for vlogging videos from Europe to come!

Papa's Travel Tidbits Part III

Hi all,

 

The cathedral in Florence, Italy (Italians call a cathedral, a duomo [or dome] ) is one of the prettiest, most amazing buildings in the world.  It was started in the year 1296 and then the architect (Arnolfo di Cambio) died and no one could figure out how to build the huge dome necessary to finish it!  Then in 1436 (!) Filippo Brunelleschi finally figured it out and finished it.  He knew that a dome so large would be too heavy to stay up so he built two domes (one inside the other) that help each other stay up.  As an added plus, you can walk up a stairway in between the two dome to the top!

It was, until modern times, the largest dome in the world and is still the largest brick dome!

The building next to the Duomo (the Bapistry) has fantastic huge bronze doors that honor all the animals used to construct the Duomo. Remember it took 140 years !!

The Florentines are very proud of the Duomo and the plaza around it it now a car free zone (like it was in 1436?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cathedral in the center of Paris, France is called Notre Dame Cathedral (Our Lady Cathedral) and it's not as pretty but very impressive.  It was started in 1163 AD and mostly finished by 1345 ! (it is 660 years old!  Think about that if you climb to the top of the tower (over 400 steps!)   After the French Revolution it was used as an armory and for food storage and then was scheduled to be torn down, but then Victor Hugo wrote "the Hunchback of Notre Dame" and people decided to save it!

 

 

 

 

 

Both churches are built in the gothic style (roof is held up by laterally supported walls) but are very different none the less and something you won't forget.

 

Love,

 

Papa

Papa's Travel Tidbits Part II

Fellow travellers,

--There are 4 copies of the "Statue of Liberty" in Paris.  The biggest is 1/4 scale and was used by the artist to figure out the best way to build it and then take it apart and transport the pieces to America.  Keep your eyes open. (hint: one is in Luxembourg Garden (Jardin du Luxembourg) and one is on the banks of the river Seine.

 

--The Paris subway (Le Metro) is interesting.  The trains haverubber wheels !  And when a train enters a station an automatic gate closes at the entrance to keep people from running on to the platform.

--The Swiss Alps were (and still are being) formed because Africa is moving north (about an inch a year) and pushing Italy into Switzerland; forcing it up.

   At the moment (the last 50,000 years), the "pushing up" is balanced by the eroding away due to weather, so not much is changing.

 

--    Italy has about 5000 miles of coastline.   The USA has about 12,000 miles and Switzerland has none.

 

--   Median age in Italy is 44 years while in the USA it's 37 years.  (Median age means half are younger and half are older.)  Italy has 61 million people, Switzerland 7.5 million and USA 313 million.

      We are now the third most populous nation (after China and India)

 

 Old Italian man in wine bar

See you soon,

Papa

Papa's Travel Tidbits Part I

Hi all,

Today's topic is Jetlag-- Here are your choices:

You get on a plane at 9:30 pm. Get served supper, watch a movie, play video games, try (and fail) to sleep a bit,
 get served a snack then land and it is 11:30 am in Europe!  BUT your body thinks it's 4:30 am!  So a few hours later you are very tired and it is only early afternoon but you "take a little nap" and you wake up at 10:00 pm and can't get back to sleep so you're tired the next day...

  and so on for days and days.  Your body doesn't want breakfast at two in the morning or to go to bed at four in the afternoon!

-OR-

You use the "jetlag diet."  Basically it involves 2 things. 

1. no caffeine (coffee, tea, chocolate, aspirin) for three days before the flight. Then a caffeine "hit" (coffee, tea, hot chocolate) at exactly 6:00 pm the day of the flight.

 

2. Then at that moment you set your watch to Europe time (+6 hours) and think and act as if that is the time. Even though you'll be at the airport or on a plane, try to do what you would do if the time was what your watch says.  TRY to sleep on the flight.
Drinks lots of water. No alcohol or caffeine for a day.  When your watch says it's morning... wake up!  Do a puzzle, talk, eat, generally be awake.

 

It's part science (the caffeine trick pushes your body clock ahead six hours) and a large part 'mind over matter.'

The first day in Europe is hard but the time will pass quickly.  Eat meals at the normal time (by your watch.)  DO NOT NAP!   DO NOT SLEEP before 7 or 8 PM.  Donna and I will help by walking you around, showing you interesting sights and getting you ice cream.  You can help by jumping in the lake, having supper next to the lake, etc.

 

The next morning when you wake up at 7 or 8 am... your body will think it is... MORNING.

You will feel like having breakfast. You can have coffee, hot chocolate, etc.

You will enjoy the Alps! (You'll be a little tired because you didn't sleep much on the flight over but DO NOT NAP and by the following day you will swear you've been in Europe your whole life. 

 

It really works.  Take it from someone who did the wrong things on his first few trips and took the better part of a week to feel normal. 

It worked for Chloe and Chris and it will work for you.  Chloe didn't nap that first day so it can be done.

It's worth the effort.

Jetlag coming back doesn't matter much because all that seems to happen is, you wake up very early for a few days. (Which is good!)  Plus you'll have plenty of time to adjust back home in Westford.

 

Happy in Firenze

Love,

Papa