FTJ welcomes your comments

Just a quick note to say I would love to know what your thoughts are as you read current and archived posts - comments have now been enabled. Every time I see the map of who's reading the blog, I wonder how you found it, what you're looking for, what you think - please introduce yourself!

Thanks,
LG

The Belgians are Coming!

So excited - we will be reversing things on Thursday as our Belgian friends S&I and daughters H&E arrive in little old Harrisonburg, Virginia! We've got them staying at a sweet little place, a local favorite that is a bit off the beaten track. Since they will be getting over their jet lag while here (the 2-7 of July), we have some general ideas for short and full-day trips and will play things by ear. Really looking forward to the 4th, because in the morning we have the farmer's market, and then there are fun things happening all day including the parade and of course fireworks to top it all off.

We have put together a bag of fun stuff for them, including new beach towels (they didn't want to bring them), coloring books that I made from free printables online, snacks to have at the hotel, and some brochures about the area.

Hoping that the fertilizer smell out at East Rockingham dissipates before we take them there for a swim because it was FOUL today (or should I say fowl? I think it's chicken poo).

Will let you know what they thought of our little town. I have a feeling their visit will FLY.

LG

Summer 2009 Plans

So...I deleted the home renovation blog. I just didn't feel compelled to write about footers, framing, choosing windows, negotiating the price of carpeting...kind of funny, because I assumed when I started that sub-blog that I would of course keep up with it because I like to write. WRONG. I like to write about traveling!

A year ago today we were still adjusting to the time in Antwerpen on our Antwerpen II excursion. This summer, our home renovation project has zeroed out the travel budget, though we have friends from Antwerpen coming here instead, which is almost as fun. I love seeing my home town through others' eyes (and it's pretty here in the summer). And we will be seeing the grandparents later this summer as well, so we won't be completely Valley-bound all summer.

Yesterday I needed a cheap lunch on the run, but my aversion to franchise fast food led me to a local option that you have to have lived here for a while to know about. Readers of the blog will recognize that sentiment...I love being a local at home, and when I travel I like to find the markets, restaurants and events that have a local feel. So anyway, 'burgers know about the Red Front Hot Dog Stand, which Red Front Supermarket insists upon calling the West End Cafe...c'mon people, it's a hot dog stand. You go to Red Front on Chicago Avenue, grab a buck fifty, plop it on the counter, and you get a hot dog and a drink. That's it! You can have chili on the dog, and all the standard condiments are there, but if you're looking for selection, keep driving. If you want a really good hot dog, a nice cold drink, and a little neighborly conversation though, you've found your spot. I ate my hot dog and chatted with an 82-year-old gentleman who was seated comfortably on a pile of bags of mlch, enjoying his hot dog. He said he grew up on a farm on the east side of the county ("What did you farm?" "Everything"), was a WW2 veteran ("got in just before the war ended") and feels lucky to be alive after a brain aneurysm sent him into a 2-week coma not long ago. My own grandfather, WW2 veteran, aortal aneurysm, grew up farming "everything"...not that this other man reminded me in appearance or personality of my grandfather, but...

let's just say this kind of interaction is well-nigh impossible at the Chik-Fil-A drive thru...and, for that matter, at the sober, pharmacy-like eatery tucked in the back of Kate's Natural Products (though I enjoyed my celeberry smoothie the other day, don't get me wrong).

Wanna eat a quick lunch like a Harrisonburg local? Scratch together six quarters and head for the hot dog stand.

LG

LA-LA-LAND!

So I went to L.A. last week - I have some stories to tell, but this is just a teaser. Once I have all my grading done (it's spring break) my reward to myself is to write to you about my few days in L.A.

If you're yearning for news of Antwerp though, I just happened to find a new blog from a JMU student who JUST found out she was accepted to the semester in Antwerp program for fall of this year. I've signed up to follow her blog (she called it Antwerpp) and am looking forward to following the whole semester abroad experience from a student's point of view.

Wish we were going back there this summer, but it's just impossible with the remodeling we're doing to the house. Another time.

LG

Jean is my hero!

Click on the title of this blog to get to an exciting travel blog from my hero, Jean. Jean and I were nuns together in Nunsense years ago, and she went from accountant to actress to director and theatre board member. After her husband passed away suddenly several years ago, did Jean sit around at home saying oh me oh my? NO. She went back to school and got her college degree and is heading to Rwanda to help set up a school being built there. She will live in Rwanda for all of 2009, and is posting to her blog at http://secondwindnewpaths.blogspot.com/ if you would like to follow her story. Of course, donations to the Rwanda School Project are more than welcome as well.

Jean is such a great example of living life to the fullest. I can't wait to read what it's like to adjust to life in her new home. And I have to say, on this snow day with ice on the way, it's not a bad time to head for warmer climes!

LG

New Blog from Me

You might have noticed that my posts have been few and far between on FTJ recently. That's because 2009's travel budget will be reduced, if not eliminated, by a different kind of adventure: we're adding onto the house! So I started a blog (natch) to document that process.

I'm calling it 37 Pieces, after a piece of advice my aunt K shared. I had told her about all of the wonderful things we would gain after the dust clears, and she said "just remember that when they have your house in 37 pieces and there's nowhere to take a shower."

Hope you'll visit and follow along...I have NO idea what the next 6-9 months (more?) will bring, but it will definitely be an experience. We're just picking a contractor now, so you'll be in on the ground floor, so to speak.

:)
LG, aka LH

Trips and Visitors on the Horizon

OK...lots on the horizon, though different than the usual Family Travel Journal fare.

late January brings a trip to the Maryland Theatre Festival for work, and a stay in Bethesda not far from my old stomping grounds (used to work at 7200 Wisconsin, a large office building there). I'll give you a hotel review after I get back. I'll be interested to see what the immediate aftermath of Obama's inauguration is like, and was really surprised to see that there are still rooms available for the inauguration...perhaps we've all heard so much about people renting private homes on Craigslist that people have just stopped looking at hotels, but there seem to be rooms out there. We'll be at home on Tuesday at a local celebration...can't imagine what it will be like up in DC but for the sake of the spectators and the honorees, I do hope for a sudden warm spell!

March takes me to Los Angeles for my freelance work in voice over. Thanks to Expedia for a fantastic deal, too: roundtrip airfare + 3 nights at a budget-level but still nice hotel for $640! I usually look at the map and do the booking online but there were so many hotels, and I was trying to find a good deal in a specific neighborhood, so I called the 800 number and was certainly not disappointed. I don't have tons of appointments during the days there, so I may try to get up to the Getty Museum if time allows. Attending the taping of a tv show would be fun too, but I don't want to get too adjusted to LA time if I can help it.

This summer, we may be the visitEEs, rather than the visitORs. S & Ie, H & E (the boat trip friends) are considering taking their first trip to the US and will include a stop in the Shenandoah Valley to see us and the mountains, the cows and the disgusting commercial strip area along 33...wish I could just put blinders on for that part, but oh well.

So there will be a bit of traveling after all...despite the economy, so far so good and we'll be able to get out of town here and there.

JieJie and MeiMei had a great Christmas by the way - their favorite gifts were these stuffed animals called Webkins, that have online avatars. The girls have to do extra chores to earn internet time though...we're just not ready for unfettered access to the internet yet!

LG

Happy Holidays All!

Happy Holidays to You!

Happy Traveling in 2009~

John, Louise, JieJie and MeiMei Globetrekker

Catching up yet again

Ok - while the girls try to settle down and fall asleep after a joyous round of tree decorating (no ornaments broken, no tantrums from them or us), I'll tell you about MeiMei's 5th birthday...before she turns 6!

As you might recall, we went to Belgium last summer for about 3 weeks, with a side trip to Germany's Rhine valley area. We got back to Antwerpen, used the rental car to go to Plopsaland, and then were invited by Belgian friends S & Ie to go on a sailboat ride. It happened to be MeiMei's 5th birthday, and at first they said "maybe you want to do something more traditional and you don't want to come to the boat?" Our quick reply was "Oh, we DEFINITELY want to come to the boat!"

We still had the rental car (keeping it thru the weekend was the same price as returning it on Friday...we're SO glad we kept it!) so we turned on the Obi Wan Kenobi GPS unit and made our way to the port town of Vlissingen (which would be Flushing in English, like the town in Queens, NY) in The Netherlands, just across the border & a very short drive. We found the port area easily, called our friends, and they walked to meet us so we could walk with them to their folks' sailboat. Ie's parents were very welcoming...after all, we were complete strangers, bringing two little kids aboard their boat, so who knew what would happen? But soon we were having sandwiches, wine, and delicious fresh cherries from the market in Antwerpen. When I asked Ie if I could bring anything from town, she had asked for more bread for sandwiches--it was still warm from the oven when I picked it up at Spar over by the Meir--and when I saw those cherries they were too good to resist!

JieJie and MeiMei played with H & E, our friends' two little girls, we had pastries from Bastin instead of cake, tried to have candles to blow out but the wind beat MeiMei to the punch, so we just laughed and ate the yummy pastries, including eclairs shaped like swans. Ie's dad suggested we go ahead and sail. E had apparently been afraid to sail, but they thought maybe if she saw our girls enjoying themselves, she could get over her fear. Soon we were out of the port (through a VERY narrow passage!) and out onto the Schelde Estuary, where the River Schelde empties into the North Sea. It was choppy, but manageable. Every time we hit a big wave, our girls just thought they were back on a thrill ride at Plopsaland, no big deal. E soon settled in and we were so happy she wasn't scared.

It took maybe a 1/2 hour to get across the estuary to the little port town of Breskens on the other side. We went to a little eatery there and had a drink and snack, and the girls played on the playground a bit. Then we went back to Vlissingen, over noticeably rougher water--the girls were strapped to the boat!), said thank you and goodbye to Ie's parents, and drove with S & Ie to the town of Middleburg to have some dinner. You should, in your abundant spare time, search for Middleburg on Google Maps and switch to satellite view. You can really see the shape of an old, old town, with a center containing fortress-like buildings, streets arranged in rings around the center, and just outside of that, a zig-zag of moats and canals still in use today. We found a nice outdoor place to eat where the girls could run around in a cobblestone courtyard while we waited for the food to arrive. Dinner was lovely, and then we walked around Middleburg a bit. If you've ever been to Delft and enjoyed just walking around, you would definitely love Middleburg! It is spotlessly clean, too...I joked to John that they seem to have vacuumed the outside walls of their houses!

To get back to Antwerpen, S drove us the secret way on roads that cross the border with little fanfare. He told John that smugglers used to drive those roads. It took a few u-turns to figure out how to cross some of the canals in the HUGE Port of Antwerpen before we found ourselves back in town, but we did it, and what a neat way to go.

So THAT, finally, is the story of MeiMei's 5th birthday. John and I joke about how, gee, it's just so much like our own 5th birthdays...NOT...

If I don't post again til 2009, I wish you and yours a happy, happy holiday season and good fortune in the new year. We have no immediate plans for amazing, blog-worthy trips...most recently we spent a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my home town, (Edina, MN) for Thanksgiving. Happy 70th birthday, dad!

A Young Blogger Describes China

I am so excited to share a link with you to a ten-year-old's blog from China. I am still in touch with the Panda Pals, a group of parents who all formed a "cyber waiting room" in 2001 when we sent our paperwork to China. We kept each other company, hoped together, stressed out together, shared rumors from all our various adoption agencies, went through September 11th together, and remain close to this day on our Panda Pal yahoo group list. Several families just went to Disney World together for what's becoming an annual get-together!

Anyway, one Panda Pal is in China right now. Her daughter, 10 years old, is doing what I hope JieJie and MeiMei will do someday: writing a journal from China. We're not a scrapbooking family, but who knows, we may be a blogging family! Enjoy http://www.movingmountains-kids.blogspot.com/

MeiMei just wrote her first long string of letters and words on the old computer they were handed down. She wrote mommy daddy jiejie meimei abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and a whole bunch of other stuff. JieJie doesn't write, she's more the illustrator, and when I looked at what she had done on Reader Rabbit today, she had a row of sort of gingerbread snowmen, all smiling, all in a row holding hands.

More of the Antwerp saga soon, I promise...it's been busy around here!

LG

We Saw Barack Obama!

Wow, what an exciting day. I dropped the girls off at school, went home, my sister in law called, and we decided that she would park in our driveway and we would walk over to JMU together to see if we could get her in to see Obama. John and I had decided that we would see the speech with MeiMei at a downtown restaurant while JieJie had her dance class, so I knew I wouldn't be going to the speech, but I really wanted to see what it would be like where everyone was waiting.

The JMU Convocation Center seats 7600 people. It's hard to eyeball a crowd and figure how many people there were, but around noon when we got there, the line was down the sidewalk toward the University Recreation building...or I should say LINES because they were allowing people to line up at several entrances. We decided to wait on the astroturf field between UREC and the Convo Center, found the end of the line and sat down. By this time the line already went around the perimeter of the soccer fields and they were zigzagging the line up and down the field. We were in the third row from the fence...and this was 3+ hours before the doors were to open!

We sat with a very mellow several thousand people on the astroturf, and waited and talked for a couple of hours. Then it was time for me to walk over and get the girls from school, proceeding to have our usual Tuesday afternoon routine. Suddenly it hit me...WHAT WAS I DOING??? A presidential candidate is visiting our city and I'm just going to give up??? So I walked to their school, pulled them out of class, told them to leave their prohibited backpacks behind and called a taxi. We were dropped off just a short ways from the soccer field, found Aunt K and the line began to move. When we were at the opposite (far) corner of the field, we started to notice that some police were doing security checks at a small stage that we hadn't even noticed earlier. Some spectators were walking across the field toward the small stage, away from the Convo Center. This is when things happened really fast. We found out that the Convo was packed to capacity and that the thousands of people standing outside were out of luck. Suddenly we heard an oddly familiar voice say "Is this microphone working?" or something like that. OBAMA! We realized he was going to speak at the little corner stage right here on the soccer field...what luck! I grabbed the camera and the girls, put MeiMei on my shoulders, begged a strong-looking man to put JieJie on his shoulders so she could also see, and then Barack Obama jumped up on the stage. I could not believe my eyes, and to my complete surprise...I screamed. I couldn't believe he was really standing 30 feet away, and that the girls were seeing him. People cheered and cheered as Obama looked west to the snow-dusted Blue Ridge Mountains and said "wow...this...this is really nice...I have never been to this part of Virginia before, and this is really beautiful." It is...I was amazed that he had the presence of mind to notice, and took the time to remark on it. He gave a short speech, interrupted by choruses of cheers, of O-BA-MA and YES WE CAN and all that good campaign stuff. He shook some hands and that was it. Still, WOW. It was really cool!

JieJie was a trouper about no access to a bathroom for over an hour, so I hid her with my winter coat so she could relieve herself behind some shrubs...we ran into one of my students who said he had held two friends' places in line but they got in and he didn't (just so wrong)...My sister in law just called and said we were definitely in the wrong line because people who lined up at a different door at 1:30 got in, but her friend who was on the soccer field at 9:30am didn't...but these things happen, and still WE SAW HIM.

Then we went to TDU (Taylor Down Under) where they were showing the speech, as well as Gov Tim Kaine and soon-to-be Senator Mark Warner's speeches, on university closed-circuit tv. TDU has a coffee bar...it was nice to have hot cocoa while we listened. JieJie drew a picture of Obama, complete with sticky-outy ears :) She continues to be observant!

The election is one week away...we are optimistic...we've already hired a sitter so we can go out and celebrate! LG

A Trip Across Town...To See Obama

I will resume the Antwerp recap shortly, but first I must share tomorrow's exciting itinerary. I am going to the James Madison University Convocation Center (aka the basketball arena, cap. 7600) to see the next President of the United States, Senator Barack Obama! My college students have been so excited about this election, actually asking me to delay the start of class to help one another register to vote, and all they could talk about this morning was how or whether they would be able to see Obama tomorrow afternoon.

Everyone kind of wants to know Why Is He Coming Here??? Well, from what I understand, Harrisonburg is apparently the swing area of the swing district (Shenandoah Valley) of this swing state, and boy have we gotten attention this time around! We have an Obama office just a couple of blocks away, and for the first time in my life, I've now worked on a political campaign, making calls several hours a week to talk with voters about their thoughts. It has been really interesting to talk with so many people I might otherwise never meet, even when we don't agree. This area has changed so much in the last 20 years, and you just can't make assumptions anymore about the likelihood that a person of a certain age from a particular zip code is or is not going to support McCain or Obama. I also learned that it doesn't bother me that much to be hung up on. Comes with the territory, I guess.

Anyway, on Sunday, I took JieJie the Princess and MeiMei the Tiger to a costume party at a neighbor's, and then walked over to another neighbor's to deliver pumpkins for the pumpkin carving party planned for last night. On the way, I bumped into our friend Joe, who was canvassing in the neighborhood. He introduced me to his canvassing partner, Former Secretary of the US Navy, John Dalton!!!! I mean you have to understand, things like this don't happen in Harrisonburg. Usually we get ignored, or there's some candidate who stops into the photogenic L&S Diner for a quick meet and greet, and we see it on our (sorry) lame local news channel that night. But this time our looking-suddenly-less-lame local tv station is broadcasting Obama's speech for those unlucky enough not to get in to see him.

I'm so torn about whether to get the girls out of school early and wait out in the cold to be a part of history or not. If I don't get them from school early, I'll be picking them up right when the doors open, and will almost certainly not get in. John mentioned something about picking up the girls and bringing them to me...if the weather's ok, that could work.

Regardless, though, I am definitely going to go over to the Convo tomorrow just to see the whole scene...the media...the lines of students and community members...the protester...

Anyway, if I get any good photos, I'll try to post them (regular readers are now saying Yeah, Right). Wish me luck on getting in, preferably with the girls in tow, for what promises to be a historic day in our little burg!

LG

Plopsaland II

Click on the title of this entry and you'll be redirected to the home page for the best darn amusement park for kids and grownups alike that we have ever been to, PLOPSALAND in DePanne, Belgium. We drove there in our lovely rental car, though you can get there by train too. DeLijn has special fares from Antwerpen to DePanne combined with reduced price admission to the park. We got a discount by ordering tickets on the web that we printed out and brought with us.

Plopsaland is located in Adinkerke, one town inland from the coast town of DePanne. If you go just west, over the border into France, you'll be in Dunkerque / Dunkirk, France, where the famous battle took place in WW2, and you can actually see Dunkerque from the top of the space needle ride in Plopsaland.

The park gets its name from an adorable dwarf-gnome tv character named Plop. You can see Plop and all his friends in a very Euro-techno music video if you're curious about Plop. In the YouTube sidebar, you'll see several of the other kids' show stars that you'll find all over Belgian tv, like Bumba the clown, MegaMindy the superhero, Piet Piraat (yeah, you guessed it, Pete the Pirate), K3, Samson en Gert (a guy and his puppet dog), Big and Betsy (Big means Pig) on the farm, and so on and so on. All of these "brands" are owned/managed by a kids' entertainment conglomerate in Belgium called Studio 100. Think Disney but not so knowing and worldly and sassy and glib and crass dumb and sitcom-y and all the other insulting things that Disney thinks our kids think are cool. Belgian kids' shows are AWESOME! Innocent fun, silliness, fairy tale / folk tale cornball senses of humor (Plop's little "ears" on his hat go up in the air when he is surprised, and I laugh every time). You can get Bumba burgers and K3 cookies and Plop cereal and MegaMindy juice drinks at the grocery store...every other girl in Antwerp seems to have a K3 book bag or a MegaMindy jacket...you get the picture. Franchise-o-rama...but somehow it's more fun when it's someone else's franchise-o-rama.

When you go through Plopsaland, there are themed areas for each of these characters. We let the girls drive antique tractors on tracks in the Big & Betsy area (there are real goats and chickens you have to watch out for too, wandering freely in the "field"!), we saw the K3 museum, we rode the awesome "Bos van Plop (Plop's forest)" boat ride through sweet dioramas of mischievous gnomes playing their way through the four seasons of the year...MeiMei was big enough to ride the round-and-round swings in the Bumba area, the roller coaster in the Piet Piraat area, a MegaMindy jetski ride that was AWESOME (that word again), bumper cars, the girls' first flume ride in the prince/princess area, and we wrapped it all up with a cooling run through a plaza that has a maze of water fountains squirting at odd intervals. Half of the parents just stripped their kids, boys and girls alike, down to their undies and let them get soaking wet, and nobody cared.

Another thing we really like about the park is that while you certainly can buy anything you'd like with a Studio 100 character's picture on it (we got the girls matching K3 nightgowns) it's not so in your face. The shops and carts are easily avoided, which eliminates much of the tedious negotiating that happens at so many theme parks. While the girls played on a huge play structure with John watching them, I just slipped over to the merchandise pavilion and got the nightgowns, no big deal. I really wanted to get the Plop hat with the string you pull to make the ears pop up, but didn't.

Food-wise, it's more like the American style "aha, we have you now!" with REALLY expensive meals and especially expensive kids' meals with a special cup or trinket enclosed. Add in the exchange rate and we were pretty limited. We ate hot dogs and fries that day and had an ice cream treat in the afternoon, but that was about it til we got home. I saw many Belgian and French families who had packed picnic lunches, and would probably do so myself if we ever go there again.

Regular readers will recall that the girls and I stayed in DePanne at Strandpark and went to Plopsaland from there over spring break in 2007, but John stayed behind in Antwerp and missed all the Plopsaland fun. It was SO unbelievably wonderful to see him seeing Plopsaland for the first time--he loved it as much as we did, and kept saying "yeah, this is great! What a great place." He also commented that the jerk-to-normal-person ratio seemed better than it might be in the US but I think that really depends on the park. We saw some pretty jerky behavior at Busch Gardens over the summer, though, come to think of it.

Feels good to get caught up...next entry: MeiMei celebrates her fifth birthday on a yacht!!! Is this really my life? Cause this is not in my wildest dreams what I ever pictured...it's better. And I want you to know that I am truly, eternally grateful for these trips, these memories, my family, our friends...sigh.

LG

Trier, Germany

After leaving the lovely town of Koblenz and the quaint Hotel Brenner, we got back in the rental car, turned on the GPS / Alec Guinness, and headed for Trier. The thing about the GPS is, it lulls you into this kind of ditzy mindset where you're going "I don't need to look at a paper map beforehand!" but you DO. Because if we HAD looked at one we would not have been surprised by the message that came up on the GPS screen...

DESTINATION IS IN AN UNREACHABLE LOCATION.

Much of Trier (you may know it as Trieste) is cobblestone pedestrian streets, preserving the ancient (Roman-era) character of the town. We came into town from the expressway on the wrong side of the pedestrian area from the Warsberger Hof hostel where we had reservations. After trying in vain to find a way from point A to point B, it was obvious what we needed to do. Ditch the car. So we did, at a convenient underground parking garage by the Basilica.

We walked and walked from the garage to the Warsberger Hof, going around the very longest possible way and wearing out the girls' little legs just getting to the hostel. On the way, we passed a carnival run by a Catholic church in town, and that about did it for any sightseeing plans that Mom and Dad had. We were thinking maybe rent bikes and do a bit of the Moselbahn bike route along the river, picnic lunch, etc...but as soon as we got to the hostel it was "food!" "Carnival!" so that became the agenda. When you travel with little ones, it's often--ok usually--no use to fight for your own way...we couldn't very well counter with "vineyard!" "Museum!"...

Warsberger Hof, by the way, is just fine for a budget hostel, and certainly comfortable enough. Breakfast was good. BUT. And this is a very big thing--for the first time, the bathroom was down the hall. JieJie at this point was still a frequent visitor to the convenience, so we braced ourselves for midnight trips to the bathroom. AND there were no curtains on the windows. See why we realized we should've based ourselves at Hotel Brenner and simply fanned out for day trips? Ah well, live and learn.

We did a lot of walking around the historic city center, took the cute little tourist tram and saw the main sights of Trier like the Porta Nigra (black gate) which dates back to the Roman era, as well as some old churches and quaint old neighborhoods. Can you tell though that we were getting to that point in a Europe tour at which all cathedrals begin to meld together into one giant old Gothic Romanesque Neo-Whatever...it's not what we are supposed to do, we tourists...I think we're supposed to dutifully attend to the uniqueness of each site, but after a while the phenomenon sometimes called "museum fatigue" sets in, and so it was for us in Trier. Plus, knowing that we couldn't investigate further made me and John reluctant to indulge our curiosity.

We ate at a Russian place on the square (it was ok...actually Rick Steves recommended the restaurant at Warsberger Hof!) and tried to get the girls to fall asleep...it was a tantrumy day as I recall, and we were all eager to get back to Antwerpen, which we did early the next morning. The parking garage wasn't even open yet when we went down to get the car, but my arms are long and thin enough that I was able to reach through the bars in the door and open it from the inside so we could get in the car and go. We went back by way of Luxembourg and had lunch at a wonderful little restaurant/cafe in Flanders before getting back into town mid-afternoon. It felt so good to be "home"! We decided to keep the rental car through the weekend, which turned out to be a GREAT idea.

I'm so sorry I wasn't able to entrance you with stories of Trier...perhaps another trip. It looked like there was plenty to see there, but you have to gauge all of the variables, and our two little variables would probably have gone ballistic if we'd suggested one more tour!

But stay tuned because the end of the Antwerp trip was the best of all!

LG

Yeah, Yeah, I know.

Ok, so it's lame to post an apology for not posting. But I just wanted to let you know that I haven't quit! JieJie and MeiMei started school last week, John is back to work, I'm back to work, and updating the blog is on the to-do list. Still need to tell you about:

*lessons learned on the Antwerp trip (good ones, no worries)
*long weekend in Williamsburg (aka Why Plopsaland Beats Busch Gardens)
*Upcoming Thanksgiving in the Twin Cities & Happy 70th DAD!!

Thanks for checking in from time to time--oh, and if you were thinking of us during the Olympics, yes we watched some of it (though we don't get NBC so it was limited to what we could see at friends' and on other channels). Quotes:

JieJie: "I don't know who to root for. I was born in China, but I live in America. I guess I'll root for both."

MeiMei (while watching boxing and talking to Gramps on the phone): "We're watching the 'lympics! This sport is called beating."

JieJie (during same "Beating" match): "They're really trying not to hurt each other, right?"

OK - until next time (not too long, I promise),
LG

Young Germans Looking Back

When we dined in Koblenz, somehow WW2 came up in conversation with our young waiter, who was born in Poland but had grown up in Koblenz. His perspective on the war, the Holocaust, etc., was matter-of-fact. He shrugged and said that what happened was terrible, and of course he personally had not done anything, so didn't feel defensive. That it was a sad chapter altogether.

For me, growing up reading The Diary of Anne Frank, The Hiding Place, and watching movies like Europa, Europa and watching the History Channel's endless rehashing of WW2 (in which both my grandfathers fought, one a sailor in the Pacific theatre, the other landing with the Army in Le Havre shortly after D-Day), I find it interesting to see how today's green, modern, forward-looking Europeans regard their relatively recent past. To Americans, enchanted by cathedrals and palaces, it's easy to look at Europe and see only the past. Perhaps it has to do with our connection to Europe, the fact that Europe is "the past" for many European-Americans. (I'm thinking of Donald Rumsfeld's snotty "Old Europe" comment). The more time we spend in Europe, though, the more I'm struck by the future-focused outlook in general conversation and in daily life. Still, how does Germany in particular deal with the 30's and 40's?

Our conversation with the waiter seems typical. On several narrated tours, synagogues were pointed out, and mention was made of Kristallnacht and persecution of Germany's Jewish population. During our stop in Bacharach, we came upon what looked like the ruins of a cathedral on a promontory. Some of the windows had very recently been replaced with blood-red glass, and lights were in place to illuminate the windows at night. Puzzling...until I found the plaque explaining that on this site, Christians "re-enacted" a ceremony in which Jews sacrificed innocent Christians. Of course, this "ceremony" was a complete fabrication, one in a long line of what are called blood libel accusations against Jewish people. The plaque further explains that this ceremony perpetuated the kinds of myths about Jews that contributed to the Christian population's complicity in persecution of the Jews. I really wasn't expecting to see this type of thing during our Rhine cruise (again with the castles, fortresses, palaces, and storybook towns in my American head). It really was a modern art installation intended to remind visitors to Bacharach that history, even in such picturesque surroundings, is not always happy romance.

Back in Koblenz, when we left the Hotel Brenner, I noticed a plaque in the sidewalk (I really need to get on a computer where I can upload pictures, sorry!). The plaque said that former residents of this address, the very place where we had just stayed, were taken away during the war and died in Sobibor camp. I did the math and realized that these poor people, who had spent their lives in Koblenz, were in their late 60's when their house was taken away, and then their lives were taken away. Again, here was a reminder that interrupts daily life in this small German town to remind people what happened here, not to forget the past.

So our waiter was a pretty good example of the general feeling I got during our visit to Germany. Yes, this was the site of shameful atrocities. Yes, we are looking forward and building a new Germany. No, we will not forget.

LG

Koblenz and the Hotel Brenner

On Wednesday, June 25, we checked out of the Meininger City Hostel in Cologne / Koln, and set the GPS for Koblenz and the Hotel Brenner, our lodgings for the night. The forecast was for a rainy day (Cologne photo taken that morning) but nothing too dastardly.

We made it to Koblenz quickly and found the hotel, no problem. What a GREAT little hotel!!! Very welcoming and friendly when we arrived, the staff invited the girls to play in the garden while the manager parked our car for us. I went with them to the sweet garden with its goldfish pond, swings and slides, and breakfast tables (too bad the breakfast was too expensive...at 10 euros per person + terrible exchange rate, not an option!). They were happy for the chance to play for a bit.

They were even happier to see our room, which was ready for us even though we arrived early. In retrospect, we really should have stayed in Koblenz at Hotel Brenner for all three nights of our Germany sidetrip, and fanned out from there to Koln and Trier. This hotel was so comfortable, and the room was one of the nicest I've EVER stayed in as far as layout, amenities, etc. A large bedroom area contained a "princess bed" as the girls called it, with a pretty canopy over the top, and there were two rollaway beds for the girls. They put up a BIG stink about being denied the princess bed, but to borrow from American Express..."Adulthood: Membership Has Its Privileges". If you're nodding your head, you need to read The Three-Martini Playdate - that woman is right up my alley.

Our lovely room also had a spacious bathroom AND a sitting room with a view of the garden / courtyard. We put our luggage in the room, sat for a moment, and then asked the front desk attendant about taking a train to the little town of Bacharach in order to catch a K-D boat for a cruise downriver back to Koblenz. They directed us toward the train station, just 10 minutes' walk away. As we walked out, it began to sprinkle. By the time we got to a little sandwich shop across from the train station, it was raining steadily. We had some panini-type sandwiches at this ice cream / panini place before heading across the street to buy our tickets to Bacharach, which cost only about 16 euro for the whole family. The train was a double decker train and we had an observation-type car all to ourselves! What a great train ride, right along the Rhine and through picturesque villages along the way.

We spent about 2 hours strolling around Bacharach and climbing part of the way up to Burg Eltz, which is now a youth hostel. I'm sure the view and the fortress itself are worth the full climb, but with our girls being so little (6 and almost-5), we just knew better, so we went as far as we thought they could go before turning back. We almost lost MeiMei along the way, too...part of the dirt/rock path was eroded away, and no sooner had John warned her to be careful--she tends to be accident prone--than she became fascinated with something above and almost walked right off the path...she would've slid about 20 feet down a steep, stumpy, rocky tree-studded hillside. John scolded her emphatically (okay he yelled), she dissolved into tears, and we made our way another few steps to see a view of the Rhine, hold our girls and get their minds off the tears.

Before making our way to the K-D boat dock (the rain had let up and our time in Bacharach was overcast but dry) we walked to one of the old city gates and showed the girls how these cities used to have walls all around them and you'd have to have permission to come in. They found that interesting, and we showed them where the big heavy doors of the gate would have been (the gate/tower is in great shape!).

At the K-D dock, we bought our family ticket for 50 euros, and got the girls an ice cream treat. We chatted with a couple from California who were touring the area.

Our boat arrived, we boarded, and snagged a window seat in the first-floor dining room / cabin--yay! Comfortable bench seats along the windows made a perfect spot for the girls to watch the fortresses, castles, buoys and boats go by (they have a thing for buoys that almost surpasses their interest in castles). We all ordered something to drink and some nuts to snack on, and settled in for a GREAT trip down the Rhine. The current on that river is really something, too. I can't recall any river I've ever been on with such a strong current. I resolved to hold tightly to the girls if we went to the top deck.

It rained off and on, but when the sun finally came out, we did venture up to the top deck and all I can say is, if you ever have a chance to take a Rhine boat trip, DO IT. With K-D, you also have the option of borrowing a bike from the boat, getting off at a particular town, and biking your way to the next landing to catch a later boat. What a great idea! That's my kind of biking too, along the river where it's FLAT.

About 5:30 we got back to Koblenz and found a lovely restaurant for dinner, right next to the public theatre and overlooking a public square. Our waiter described Koblenz as "a nice place to live, slower pace but with all the things you need right here." Ah, the Harrisonburg of Germany, I thought! Dinner was delicious and really quite affordable, which we found to be the case in general, when compared to Antwerp. Entrees here were 12-13 euro, rather than 19-23 euro. The girls liked the waiter so much, they drew flowers to give him, and he was charmed.

We saw all kinds of soccer fans, some dressed in red-gold-black for Germany, others in red and white for Turkey, heading out to watch the big semi-final European Cup game. We went back to the hotel to settle the girls in and watch the game on our hotel room tv. Germany won, and when we threw the window open we heard horns honking, impromptu firecracker celebrations, and lots of shouting and cheering.

Breakfast the next morning was coffee and pastries a few blocks away, and we were off to Trier.

Heading Uit

Belgian beer, Belgian chocolate, Belgian waffles...we have to leave while we can still button our pants. I'll catch you up with the day trips I've yet to write about after we get home. This trip was different, though, and there was less time for writing. Wall-to-wall sightseeing, visiting, and just relaxing were the goal this time, hence the radio silence. It's been a great trip, all too short.

Bye Antwerpen, hope it's not too long til we see you again!
LG

Cologne (Koln) by car

Tuesday morning we got up fairly early to hit the road for Cologne in our rented dark blue Kia cee'd DIESEL compact family sedan, yowza! Our friends S & I even lent us their GPS device, which has a voice not unlike Alec Guinness (I kept waiting for him to tell John to use the force while we drove the Autobahn).

It took about 2 hours to get there, and we found the Meininger City Hostel easily with the help of Obi Wan Kenobi. The rooms only have two twin beds apiece, so we had two rooms next to one another, each with a small tv and with a shower/toilet in the room. Big windows overlooked courtyards and a construction site (who cares? we weren't there to see out the hotel window). The manager recommended a good place to park, so John moved the car while I settled the girls into our rooms.

John got back and we headed down to the Dom (Germany's oldest cathedral) on foot. Partway there John had second thoughts about the parking place, so the girls and I played at the fountained courtyard of the very modern Sparkasse bank building while he went back and moved the car. A little German-speaking girl wanted to play, so the three of them ran around the trees and fountains for a while. She wanted to know how old the girls were, and when I told her that MeiMei was indeed "funf" she was confused because MeiMei is just a hair over a meter tall (see Plopsaland entry yet to come). I loved the conversation because it went something like "funf?" "Ja, funf." "Ich bin funf!" "Ja, she is funf too." Try saying "funf" out loud and you'll have a moment of mirth.

We got to the pedestrian area leading to the Dom, which (according to Rick Steves) has been a pedestrian shopping district since at least medieval times, maybe even earlier. The girls stopped to watch street performers playing harmonicas, accordions, doing one-man-band puppet shows, the whole bit. We had a cold drink and found the nearest WC in the Roman-Germanic museum just past the Dom. Both of the adults in our party were salivating over the thought of what wonders awaited in this museum, but knew not to push it with the little ones, who were tired from travel and walking, and in no mood for ancient relics. It went on the list "for next time." That's the deal when you want to travel with kids as young as ours.

The girls enjoyed walking around the inside of the cathedral and trying to spot interesting things in the stained glass. They always want to light a candle in cathedrals, and are very solemn when they do it, too! It has become a thing we always let them do when we visit a cathedral--and there are so many to see in Europe, it's probably good to have a ritual. We tried attending an actual service once though (see Easter 2007) and...well, it's not a good idea at this juncture, shall we say.

John and I were both bummed to learn that the next night there would be a performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in that very cathedral, which itself was one of the few buildings to survive WW2. 95% of Cologne was decimated, since it is such a key transportation hub along the Rhine for both rail and shipping. Can you imagine hearing such a stirring work, in such a perfect location? It was like last year when we visited Aachen - they were going to do the St. Matthew Passion by Bach in the famous cathedral there. One of these trips, the stars will align and we'll get to see and hear a great composition in a great venue.

We went back to the hostel by taxi (knowing better than to say the word "walk" out loud) and found a place across the street for dinner, just a basic pasta/pizza place that was cheap and good. The girls fell asleep pretty easily that night, and John followed soon after, but I was hot (no a/c) and there were loud students on our hallway. Finally at 12:30 I called the front desk and they came up to tell them to please be quiet, ending with an ominous "alles klaar?" I heard the voice that had been doing all the obnoxious laughing and storytelling say "Ja" and the noise stopped.

Breakfast at Meininger was good for the price (about $5). Yogurt, muesli, bread, cheese, meat, fruit, juice and coffee. I had bread with a shmear of braunschweiger, yum.

And we were off to Koblenz...but that's another entry.

Belgian Springsteen Fans

A while ago I had mused about what a Belgian Springsteen fan would be like. You know that footage of polite audiences watching Jim Morrison on staid 60's tv shows? The contrast is comical. It wasn't THAT calm, but compared to audiences I've been a part of at Giants Stadium (beer throwing, spontaneous brawls, too much drama out in the audience), the audience on the 23rd of June at the Sportpaleis Antwerpen was well behaved AND enthusiastic. The people in the scrum at the front of the standing-room-only floor section (pictured) had dutifully written requests on random pieces of cardboard, and Bruce happily took their requests and even played some of them. At the end, he played "Glory Days" and brought the house down. Great concert - glad I saw The Boss before he gets any older...