Pictures of home...

10 more days and more tidbits of wisdom...

I can't believe we only have 10 more days until our trip. This week we've spent time getting a new bank account and credit card, in order to try to avoid high fee charges to our accounts while we are away. We have only so much cash to spend, and I'd rather buy more croissants than pay an American bank! 

We have decided to spend a night in Annecy, France, so we have one more night to book. 

Anyone have any suggestions for a place to stop between there and Paris? We're open to suggestions! 

...just a few more things to finish...
Honestly, I am finding it hard to concentrate on school, promotion and progress reports when our trip's countdown is ticking off the seconds right along with my heartbeats.

Here is another priceless tidbit of wisdom from Papa:

Serendipity -  Noun: The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

 

-Torri Del Benaco is one of our very favorite places to visit and we have returned there many times. We stumbled on it in a seemingly hopeless search for a place to stay late one afternoon as we went from town to town along Lake Garda with Kouri and Chloe in the back seat.  Everyplace had been full but the Hotel Gardesena had a room.  It was the wedding suite (it cost $2.00 more than a regular room) with 2 balconies overlooking the town and the lake! It is fantastic.

 

-Talamone is another favorite we return to over and over.  

We ended up staying there because we got sooo HOT touring hill towns.  We stopped , looked at the map and noticed a town on the water so we drove over to it to try to cool off and as we approached it, we couldn't believe our eyes... perfect little harbor town (castle and all.) The hotel there is fun. It's a round building, so the rooms are pie shaped!

 

-We didn't visit Venice on our first trip because we listened to a couple we met (they were on a motorcycle like us) and they told us to skip it.  "Smelly and way overrated," they said.  Two trips later we thought we'd see for ourselves. Now we go there every chance we get.

 

Keep an open mind and your eyes open.  A lot of great things didn't make it into the guide books. Most of the memorable people on our trips we just bumped into (some literally.)  They do things a little differently in other countries; sometimes better, sometimes worse... but check it out.  It will help you understand the U.S.A. a little better.

Oh, and have fun.

 

Love,

Papa

24 more days...another kind of Advent

The other day I was doing something ordinary, like commuting to work, and all of a sudden my tummy did a flip flop. It made me pause, just like years ago, when little babies would swim around in there and would completely make me lose my concentration.  But this time, I just stopped and wondered... "What was that?"  Indigestion? Bladder? Hunger?
....Then it hit me... Happiness! Excitement..... Joy.....

The flip-flop was just like when I was a little girl. I would be walking home from school up steep Wollaston Avenue, scarf wrapped around my mouth, making my puffs of breath condense into water, then quickly into ice drops. I held my books in my arms (this was before gargantuan back packs hit the scene for even fragile first graders.)  So, I'd be trudging along in my red boots with the one hooked-button and my tummy would do the same flip-flop. Only then I knew what it meant... Christmas!! Presents... wonder and Santa.... That truly must be one of the purest joys in the world.

Well, it's been many years since my tummy bounced when I thought of Christmas (except maybe in panic... How many days left!! Oh no!!) But the other day, it happened. Sad that it took me a few minutes to locate the emotion in my history archives, but it was there. Even though it's been awhile, I figured it out nonetheless... We are going to Europe!....24 more days...

I can't believe I am so lucky. Looking forward to this European Adventure is just as good as the actual trip itself! (well... almost) We've read guides and watched Rick Steves videos, shopped for clothes and travel paraphernalia, booked rentals and hotel rooms, studied up on our Italian phrases, signed up for a Parisian baking class and virtually visited the Eiffel Tower. And now there's only 24 more days....

Travel is still magical, even with the internet, and Skype and virtual panoramas. You can't get smells from patisseries and bits of language wafting over from a young Italian family....  from an internet site....

So... 24 more days...
I think it's better than Santa.
...I can't wait...

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