Crystal Ball, Anyone?

Just checked the exchange rate as we look forward to our departure in mid-June...not lookin' good.

100 x 100

In China, you'll often hear people speaking of symbolic numbers. We knew a Chinese student whose phone number had too many 4's in it. The word for 4 in Chinese sounds like the word for death. This student's mother said she should get her phone number changed...too much "si"...too much death.

The Olympics are starting on 8.8.08, and 8 is an auspicious number, usually. 8.8 is also Father's day in China because 8 is pronounced "ba" and the word for Father is ba-ba (but the character is a different "ba"). Some people say that the fact that the earthquake happened on 5.12 (5+1+2=8) is a bad omen for the Olympics.

In the adoption community, there's an activity people often do while they are waiting, which is to make a "100 good wishes quilt" by trading quilt squares across the country with their "DTC group" (DTC stands for Dossier-To-China, the day they sent their application to the China Center for Adoption Affairs).

So what I am hoping, when I hear from people who still want to send donations toward my little 100 pound mini-shipment of relief, is that they might take the amount they have and build it up to their own 50 or 100 pounds of help, and that through the internet we can find people to hand-carry these donations to China, a little at a time, in checked luggage. There's a whole egroup dedicated to Carry On Only adoption travel...think of all the 100 pound allotments there are! If each person traveling to China carry-on-only could bring a suitcase of formula, medicine, blankets, a tent, anything, that would add up.

Why not set a goal of 100 people x 100 pounds each over the next 100 days and see what a difference we can make?

I'll let you know if it catches on.

LG
our next trip begins in a little over 3 weeks!

Progress

Thanks to Mead Johnson Corporation for a promise to donate baby vitamins.

Thanks to CVS for saying "no" by giving us $100 store credit as a consolation donation.

Thanks to B at church for saying she couldn't attend the dinner next week, and then pressing a $20 bill into my hands.

Still waiting to hear back from the pharmacist at the hospital, and from a source of powdered kaolectrolyte (like Pedialyte)...I want to buy in bulk, not pay $5.95 for four packets!

LG

100 Pounds of Help

People are helping already. Here's where we stand thus far:

June 10: deadline for collecting 100 pounds of medicine for orphaned children in the earthquake-affected area.

Our church is doing two very important things:

1. giving a monetary donation from the social ministry fund
2. donating the proceeds from next Wednesday night's community meal
   

We have invited our area's Chinese community as well as the families who have adopted internationally to attend the dinner, hoping to increase the donated amount.

I was turned down by a local pediatric clinic because they no longer get samples of antibiotics, BUT (and this is the key...I don' t mind "no" if it's "no, but...") one doctor who has solicited donations for relief work in Honduras advised me that we can buy antibiotics at cost from the pharmacy at our area hospital if we get approval from the pharmacy manager. I will go see her tomorrow.

I also asked Costco for a store card to use for buying over-the-counter children's meds...awaiting response. CVS has a highly bureaucratic process that is not suitable for a short-term emergency appeal. National chain stores are NOT very nimble at a time like this! In contrast, Kate's Natural Foods may donate baby multivitamin drops, and I'll go to Sue's Supernutrition tomorrow as well. Both are small, locally-owned health food stores, so I may have better luck. MeiMei's orphanage had access to liquid baby vitamins to add to rice porridge, and we can attest to the difference it made in her health.

And the big unknown...I put messages up at several adoption-related e-groups I belong to. Who knows? I may have more than 100 pounds' worth of donations coming in the mail over the next week, though I doubt it if people run into the same problem I've encountered today.

Priority order for the 100 pounds:
1. prescription antibiotics
2. over the counter children's meds
3. filler like cotton balls, latex gloves, gauze/band-aids

Any money left over after we fill the luggage will be donated to Half the Sky Foundation through Global Giving.

Cross your fingers - I'll keep you posted on the progress of this mini relief effort. It is such a blessing to be able to do something other than sigh at the television! If you feel moved to action, I again encourage you to send funds to Half the Sky through Global Giving. Tell a friend you're giving...maybe you'll inspire them too.

LG

Giving to China

It suddenly dawned on me today that I know people heading for China in the next several weeks! Half The Sky Foundation published a list today of medicines that are sorely needed in orphanages in the Chengdu area, especially children's antibiotics and antidiarrheal/rehydration medicines like Pedialyte.

I called my friend P to see if he would be willing to hand-carry items to Chengdu, and he said he can take up to 50 pounds. He is also asking the students who are heading to China with him if they would be willing to take items as well. To think we could be of help, any help at all...I'll be calling doctors' offices tomorrow to see whether they can give any samples, and I will also be making the rounds of places like Costco to see whether they might donate powdered Pedialyte, baby vitamins, anything.

Did you know there have been thousands of aftershocks from this earthquake, some very severe? Apparently the Chengdu orphanage is making plans to evacuate because their building was fine but as things continue to shake, they just don't want to take any chances. They will be moving into tents. Tents. Can you imagine trying to care for dozens of babies and toddlers in a tent city? The people who make it their life's work to care for these children deserve any help we can give.

If you have any connections to sources of children's antibiotics (powdered is best--it can be reconstituted overseas) can you please post a comment and let me know? We've got until mid-June to get this box together, and maybe if the students are willing to make room in their luggage, we can help. They are simply out of these medicines in Chengdu at this point.

Thanks--I'll let you know how the medicine collection goes. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit www.halfthesky.org to keep up with what's going on in China and to support their efforts. They are on the ground in China, ensuring that the money will be used where it is truly needed.

LG

Watching the Euro

We continue to watch news from China and encourage readers to donate to Half the Sky Foundation's Earthquake Relief Fund.--LG

We're in that end-of-the-public-school-year busy time right now, with dance recitals, farewell picnics, and pool openings right around the corner. Much to do before we head to the airport in mid-June. Still, the planning phase is over. We know where we'll be on which days and we have even reserved our rental car for our little excursion to the Rhine Valley. We'll be picking up our little VW Golf (or similar model) at Europcar on Plantin en Morituslei in Antwerp, which is just a bit further past the girls' school.

What we are doing in the next month or so is watching the dollar-to-euro exchange rate. The worst it's been so far is $1.60/EUR 1.00. Right now it's 1.55/1. When we were in Antwerp in 2007, it was about 1.33/1 for most of that time. One of the choices we had when booking hostels and rental cars and looking at train tickets was whether to pre-pay or hold off. My friend P, who is a financial analyst in Manhattan, said hold off, since the Fed isn't going to lower interest rates any further so things should stabilize. Today's International Herald Tribune reported a slight spike in the euro because of oil prices.

Dare I hope that we could be looking at 1.50/1 a month from now? Please???

LG

Word from Liangping SWI

The Liangping parents' list just got an email directly from the orphanage. It sounds as though some kind of retaining wall or exterior wall in a courtyard collapsed, but the buildings themselves have only minor cracks in the walls. They are all thankful that the people are ok. A bit of good news in the midst of so much bad.

LG

More Liangping Photos

In case other Liangping parents or extended family are interested, there are more photos here
of the school in Liangping, and also of some of the children from Liangping. LG

Earthquakes Hit Close to Home

We are glued to the news about the earthquakes in China. JieJie is from Fuling, Chongqing, and MeiMei is from Liangping, Chongqing. Via e-lists of parents who have adopted from these two cities' orphanages, I was able to find out that both places suffered damage, Liangping worse than Fuling.

The Fuling Social Welfare Institute (Fuling SWI) is currently raising funds to finish building its new facility, and hasn't moved into the new building yet. Director Yang said that she is distressed by cracks in the walls of the new building, and that construction may now be delayed, who knows by how much. Still, the current facility is undamaged as far as anyone can tell, which is lucky, and there were no reports of injuries to the staff or residents there.

In Liangping, things aren't so sunny. We have learned that the Liangping SWI itself is intact, and there were no reports of injuries to the staff or residents (which include children and elderly people as well). Still, there have been fatalities, including children, in Liangping County, which is a very rural county of about 800,000 people. The picture above is of the primary school in Liangping, where four children lost their lives.

If you would like to donate funds to be used specifically for earthquake relief at other orphanages more seriously affected by this disaster, I recommend Half the Sky Foundation, run by an amazing fellow adoptive mom named Jenny Bowen and many dedicated volunteers. Those of us in the China adoption community are used to the word "orphan" being somewhat of a euphemism, a legalism for a child who was abandoned and whose parents cannot be or do not wish to be located (but are presumed alive). The sad fact is that there will be more orphans as a result of this earthquake, and the orphanages in the hardest-hit areas will need resources in the coming days and weeks in order to save lives.

JieJie and MeiMei know that there has been an earthquake and that buildings have fallen down, but we have tried to shield them from too much information while they are so little. We hope and pray that their birth families, wherever they are, came through this ok.

Hostels...check!

Just a little over a month til we depart for Antwerp, our favorite home away from home!

We have confirmed reservations at hostels in Cologne (Koln), Koblenz, and Trier. And we have learned not to wait til May to book a hostel for June. Let this be a lesson to you. This was a little more nip-and-tuck than I would have liked.

BTW, two sites were muy helpful in this quest: Booking.com showed rooms available at our Koblenz choice even when orbitz, hotwire, and expedia all said "no rooms available." And how did I search all of those different sites simultaneously? TripAdvisor.com was a fantastic resource.

Where are we staying, you ask? You'll be able to read reviews and see photos after we've been & gone. This is the Internet, after all.

We have also decided, after researching both rail and car rental options, that a car rental makes the most sense logistically and financially. I love train travel because we can really be with the girls and experience things with them in a way that cars don't allow (and because they have bathrooms on board!). JieJie says "I love trains because they come around with the snack cart!" but the difference in price was pretty staggering. We're going to rent through europcar.com, which was the same outfit we used last year to rent a car at the Costa del Sol.

Gosh...I think we're all set to go! Now we just need to pin down when/how we can see our friends in The Netherlands and that'll be it.

Here at Home: Natural Chimneys

We are so fortunate to live in an area which, for many city-dwellers, is a vacation destination. When we came back from Europe last May, we were stunned by how, well, ugly Harrisonburg is. If you stand in the parking lot behind our church and look northwest at the downtown, it's just such a mishmosh of scattershot attempts at historic preservation, agri-business utilitarian structures, and 60's/70's urban renewal crap, too many parking lots, and the huge satellite dishes on top of the TV3 building. Yuck. We have to remind ourselves that European cities are beautiful but unspoiled natural areas are almost unheard of. What we have here in Virginia are (comparably) un-inspiring cities but breathtaking scenic beauty once you hit the road.

Last Sunday we took JieJie and MeiMei to a popular spot in this area: Natural Chimneys, a lovely spot not far from Bridgewater, not to be confused with Natural Bridge in the Lexington area. Natural Chimneys gets its name from some chimney-shaped rock formations, which are surrounded by a beautiful open green area on three sides. In June and August, they hold JOUSTING championships here. Definitely something to put on the to-do list, though it may have to be next year, because this June we'll be on our big European Adventure and in August I'm too averse to getting eaten alive by mosquitoes to venture too far afield.

We know a lot of families who like to introduce kids to camping at Natural Chimneys, and I can see why. It's hardly the sort of place where your little one can accidentally get eaten by a bear or trip off a cliff. It's not all that wooded, so you can keep track of kids. There's a pool, playground, and 2.5 miles of trails for walking or learning to ride your bike. The girls were happy just running around, picking wildflowers and birdwatching. We were only gone for the afternoon, but it felt like a getaway. And it was beautiful. I'm hopeful that over time, the efforts of groups like Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance will help the city get rid of or camouflage what's ugly about this town, and build a city with its own kind of beauty. For now, when I can't stand the urban mishmosh any longer, I lift mine eyes unto the hills.

Hostel: Warsberger Hof in Trier

If you would like to read Warsberger Hof's website in English, try Google Translate.

I wanted to mention this privately owned and operated hostel (jugendgasthaus) in Trier, Germany. When I contacted the Trier hostel belonging to the Jugendherbergen / HI Hostels associations, they were booked solid, but suggested I contact Warsberger Hof.

I'll be sure to let you know how the place is after we've stayed there, but wanted to praise the proprietors of both places. The HI Hostel manager is to be commended for following his "sorry, no" with "but..." and the Warsberger Hof has been prompt in correspondence.

They're giving me a good feeling about the place already.

LG

OK, got it.

Here's the itinerary:

Antwerpen to Cologne (Koln), Germany's oldest city
Cologne to Koblenz, where the Rhine and Mosel Rivers come together
Koblenz to Trier, site of Roman ruins
Trier to Antwerpen

After many disappointments with hostels already being booked when we hoped to travel, it suddenly occurred to me--what about Etap and Ibis hotels??? Faithful readers will recall our stays at these modular bare-bones places on our trip to Strasbourg/Paris. I looked up Accor Hotels (the same chain that owns all the high-end Sofitel and Novotel establishments) and sure enough, they have great places to stay, centrally located, at just a notch above hostel prices.

So no, it ain't the Hotel Melba (see the Bastogne post) and we won't have the ISH experience (see London) BUT we can set the itinerary first, then book places to stay. With the dwindling availability of hostel rooms, we were starting to go at it backwards, based on hostel availability. That's just dumb, because it means you could be setting yourself up for a logistical nightmare in terms of distance from train stations ("just a little further, honey...can you carry your own Dora backpack up the mountain, you big five-year-old? It's just like the end of The Sound of Music! Val-der-i...val-der-ah...come on, sing honey!") so this is much better.

Thanks to mom for the Rail Map of Europe you gave us like 12 years ago (happy birthday by the way MOM!). It helped a lot to see where the major routes are as we plotted our course. Thanks also to Google for the great maps and translate functions. I'm able to email the hostel and hotel operators in English AND clumsily translated German! What a great world we live in.

Now that we've got the thumbtacks in the map, it's time to play everyone's favorite game, "Train, Boat, or Bus?" Hurrah!

LG

Too many choices!

OK, so we STILL haven't pinned down the Rhine excursion, though we have our dates in mind now. We'll leave the morning after we get to see Bruce Springsteen at the Sportpaleis (which is going to be amazing btw because it was supposed to be in a huge soccer stadium, but was moved to the MUCH smaller Sportpaleis Arena where we saw K3 in "De 3 Biggetjes" last year--we should be able to see really well!).

And it's absolutely dumb of us to procrastinate because the longer we wait, the fewer hostel options we'll have. Thank you for reading this, because it actually helps motivate me to know that People Are Waiting To Hear Something.

We will be going over several weekdays and coming back by Friday evening. Traveling on weekends by train is more expensive and also more crowded (I remember going to the seaside at DePanne and sitting between cars with the girls on my lap, on my feet, on my head...). You can usually find discounts if you are willing to travel between 10am and 3pm on weekdays. I think we have elected not to rent a car, but I should make sure John is in agreement because at one point he was interested in driving.

My business associate in Brussels, T, said the train from Koblenz, Germany to Antwerpen via Luxembourg is beautiful, so that's a possibility that would allow us to stop in Trier and see the Roman-era structures. We could do it as a daytime layover and stay further along the way. So now we're back to the Great Circle Route (as applied to this trip) which is a clockwise circle from Antwerp-Koln-down the Rhine-up the Moselle-through Luxembourg and back home.

Well, back to the Jugendherbergen website...I think we're just going to have to make a decision and live with it. We know that we like to see fewer places in greater depth, rather than rushing around for quick photo-ops in a zillion places, so at least that helps as a guiding principle.

Watch This Space...some more...

LG

Exam Week

Pardon the silence...it's exam week in a university town, which is like April 15 in a city full of accountants...

Heard from the manager of a hostel in Bacharach, Germany. They have a family room available during the dates we're considering for the Rhine tour. As soon as final grades are turned in, we're going to finalize that part of the itinerary and I should have a fun-filled update for you.

But first, the essays and multiple choice items are calling my name...enough procrastinating.

LG

The Boss in Belgium

So it appears we former New Jerseyans (Point Pleasant and Chatham, respectively) may be flying all the way to Antwerp to see Bruce Springsteen in concert!

What in the world is a Belgian Springsteen fan like? I am certainly not surprised at the interest, since American "roots" music of many kinds is popular there...gospel choirs regularly sing for sellout crowds...but somehow I just have this image of a bunch of transplanted New Jerseyans yelling in raspy voices for an encore of Born to Run. I'll let you know how rowdy the Flemish fans are. At least we know they won't be really really drunk, since that's considered completely bad form in Antwerp. I hope that holds true for concert venues as well.

Knowledge of Springsteen's oeuvre, of course, highlights the age difference between me and my husband. He was in his 20's when Brooooooce was hanging out at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. The first song of his I ever loved was "Hungry Heart" when I was a kid in Minneapolis. I still turn it up when it comes on the radio. I was in my teens when Born in the USA came out, and I still know every word of that album. My friends and I practically marinated in it the summer after it came out. That and U2's The Joshua Tree.

Years later, John and I enjoyed albums like Tunnel of Love and I once got him a boxed set of early stuff for his birthday. These days, our whole house agrees on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions and the girls love "Buffalo Gals" and "Old Dan Tucker". So here's to ya, Bruce--we'll see you soon at the Sportpaleis, old man!

LG

Our Shrinking Dollars

Last year, we watched our dollars get smaller and smaller as the semester in Antwerp wore on. When we were first settling into the apartment, we paid $1.29 for one euro. By the time we left the Costa del Sol in May, a euro set us back $1.34. Little did we know, we should've held onto a bundle of euros for this summer.

One euro now costs $1.60, a new record.

Readers who followed our trip last summer to find out what it's like to travel with kids AND college students in one big happy bus will be able to find out, this summer, how to get the biggest bang for the travel buck.

At least we know where to get free chocolate and cheap eats in Antwerp!

LG

The art of a family trip itinerary

So we leave for Belgium/Netherlands/Germany in about two months...exciting! Here's the latest:

• JieJie and MeiMei will get to spend a day at their old school, and their teachers are very excited to have them back. In fact, Ms. K emailed me that the teachers have already told JJ & MM's former classmates that they are coming, and the teachers are fighting over whose class they should visit first! We also learned that JJ's favorite classmate, S, is still a student there. S is the beautiful little girl with the big brown eyes and long eyelashes who would wait ouside the classroom each morning to see JJ, then take her hand and go with her into the classroom.
• We have three weeks there, and are planning to spend weeks 1 and 3 in Belgium/Netherlands visiting friends and hanging out. Week 2, we'll tour western Germany's Rhineland area. Like a blurry image starting to come slowly into focus, a possible itinerary is taking shape. We could take an express train from Antwerp via lovely Luxembourg to Trier, Germany (an old Roman outpost along the Moselle River). There is a hostel in Trier with family rooms, so we could stay there. We could then go by bus, train, or boat along the Moselle to Cochem (another hostel there) and finally to Koblenz, where the Moselle and Rhine rivers come together. There are beautiful rolling hills, vineyards and castles to see along the way, and who doesn't like a boat ride? From Koblenz, we could take a boat or train or bus to Koln (Cologne) and see the beautiful baroque cathedral there before taking another express train back to Antwerp. So that's one possibility. The reason for going counter-clockwise rather than clockwise is that if we do any bicycling along the Moselle cycling route (Moselbahn), we'd be going downhill!
• Here's a tantalizing possibility: if we time it right, we could take a family boat trip along the Rhine. It's a six-hour roundtrip departing from Koln that I found at www.k-d.com, which was recommended in Lonely Planet's Europe on a Shoestring. For a family ticket price of 50 euros (that's for all four of us!) you get a lovely cruise on a boat that is a kid's dream. Clowns, acrobats, a moon bounce, playground, play room, and puppet shows keep kids busy all day on the top deck of this boat, while mom and dad get to have a few minutes here and there to just sit back and enjoy the scenery. I know, I know, the kids should just appreciate the boat ride and the majesty of the Rhine...whatever. That's such a grown-up way of looking at things. Our girls are going to be 5 and 6, and they like to be active and play. And it's their summer vacation, for pete's sake! If we can combine what they like with what we like, we'll ALL have a great day. This is the thing with family travel. Adults and kids have different agendas. It's a bit of an art to find those things that genuinely appeal to each person. I try to find as many of those as possible to sprinkle into the itinerary, so that when we are asking them to adapt to an adult environment, we can point to those "everybody wins" days as something to look forward to. Funny, we don't have a problem going completely to the kid side (a la Plopsaland)!
• Found a great youth hostel site for Germany: www.jugendherberge.de/en takes you to an interactive map showing where all the hostels are. During that middle week, I'm planning to book exclusively at hostels, for two reasons. First, they are so much more affordable! We are over there on our own dime this time, with no university budget to cover our food and lodging on side trips. We should be able to get all four of us into a comfortable room, including breakfast, for under $75/night after the exchange rate is factored in. Second, the girls don't need a fancy, fussy luxury hotel and we don't need the headache of trying to keep them quiet, keep them from playing with the phones, tv, etc. etc....family rooms at hostels are Ikea-casual with bunk beds and in-suite bathrooms, and many of the hostels feature playgrounds, hiking trails, family/children's activities, and other amenities. It's more like a family campground atmosphere, from what I understand, and it seems very common/popular for German families to stay in hostels as well. When JieJie and MeiMei are in college in 12/13 years (time will fly!), John and I will have the rest of our lives to stay in some fussy, lace-curtained little inn...and I bet we'll wish we were with a five and six year old in a funky room with bunks instead. This is the time, right now! The girls are old enough to see the world, yet young enough to enjoy seeing it with mom and dad, who are still the be-all, end-all as far as they're concerned. Excuse me while I grab a tissue.
  

OK - that's about it for now. Mostly, I'm trying to resist the temptation to keep checking airfare.com to see whether we would've been better off waiting to book plane tickets. So far, so good...the one time I allowed myself to check, it had gone up about $25. Thank heavens we're on Lufthansa and not American! These flight cancellations are nuts. I really feel for the people whose travel plans were shot to pieces these last few days.

Just think...some of them were traveling with kids. "Just another six hours in the airport, honey, and I'm sure they'll find us a plane to Grandma's house." Not a pretty thought.

The Future of Audio Guides

As a major audiophile, and someone who loves audio tours when I visit museums and famous landmarks, I am really excited about the future of audio guides. Soon, it will seem like the Dark Ages when tourists and museum visitors had to find a special kiosk in order to check out (and often pay a pretty penny for) more in-depth information about an exhibit or architectural landmark.

The internet, mp3 players, and mp3-compatible phones with web access are changing everything. At this moment, let's say you want to go to Barcelona, and you have a phone or PDA with internet access. Or better yet, let's say you're already in Barcelona, standing in front of a famous palace or cathedral, and you want to learn more about it. All you have to do is connect to the web, choose one of the many tours available for Barcelona, for example the one produced by the Brussels-based company iaudioguide, download the tracks to your PDA, and then voila! Listen to the mp3's about the different attractions as you stand there in front of them. (BTW, I learned about iaudioguide from my friend A, who just produced their New York City guide. It has 26 tracks covering over a dozen different NYC destinations).

Demand for convenience and customization is changing market conditions for companies like Let's Go and Lonely Planet, too. Travel guide publishers (the printed kind, not audio) have realized that perhaps the 1200-page guide to the entirety of Western Europe is more than most people need, especially backpackers for whom every ounce counts. These publishers are starting to sell stand-alone chapters ready for download to a PDA or other text-friendly device.

An added advantage to both of these developments is that the user can be a bit more discreet about being a tourist. Nothing screams "Look at Me! I'm not from around here!" like brandishing a travel guidebook, map, or wand-like audio guide device with headphones. Listen to your phone, or read the screen of your PDA, though, and you'll probably fit right in!

LG

The Research Trail to the Rhine

Just a heads-up, also a request for you to share your own stories if you've ever traveled to these areas of Germany:

*Rhine Valley
*Moselle Valley
*Trier
*Koblenz
*Cochem
*Bacharach

We are thinking that in the middle of our three weeks in Belgium this summer that we will take a side trip to western Germany and explore some or all of the above areas. Right now I've got some research to do, including:

*is it easier/less expensive to get there from Antwerp by rented car or train?
*what are the hostel options?
*what's the best home base?
*do we want to take a Rhine or Moselle River cruise/ferry trip? If so, from/to where?
*do we want to rent bikes and do the Moselle River bike trails? to/from where?
*do we want to go to several "dots" or make it a more direct round-trip? We're thinking 4-5 days total, and hostels with family suites seem to be the way to go. Very inexpensive, very easygoing.

I'll post info as I find it--so far I've found a hostel in Koblenz that is actually in an old fortress overlooking the Rhine/Moselle confluence!!

LG