We are winding down a 5 day weekend in Denmark with a friend of Piper's father. It has been a charming, wonderful time. We all want to move here.
Stefan clearly has alot in common with Piper's father. He handed over the keys to his beach house (a tiny, 200 year old cottage with a thatched roof) after inventorying the kitchen with us. He left us a minimal supply of vegetables, a large loaf of meat substance and several cases of beer. Clearly a man who knows what's most important.
I'll include a longer update after we're home and I can download photos. Also, when I don't have to struggle through the Danish keyboard layout trying to figure out how to type simple words.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
An ever so brief update
Apologies to those who I've been ignoring for the past week (it's a long list). Things got out of hand with work, evening cub scout camp and a long list of weekend activities.
They culminated this morning with a trip to the US Consulate in Frankfurt (280 mi round trip) to pick up a new passport.
On a sidenote, my work tempo resulted in an interesting finding. It's been 5 days since I've logged into facebook and I haven't experienced any withdrawal symptoms.
Visiting the US Consulate was on par with a trip to the dentist. On the "annoyance" scale, this puts it far below a trip to the DMV but slightly above a service call from my German telephone provider.
We're off for the rest of the week. I'll be using up the last of my vacation helping the kids bid adieu to summer. School starts next week.
Piper has photos to post but I don't think I'll have time to upload them until next week.
I am considering disabling the comments capability for the blog. What say you?
They culminated this morning with a trip to the US Consulate in Frankfurt (280 mi round trip) to pick up a new passport.
On a sidenote, my work tempo resulted in an interesting finding. It's been 5 days since I've logged into facebook and I haven't experienced any withdrawal symptoms.
Visiting the US Consulate was on par with a trip to the dentist. On the "annoyance" scale, this puts it far below a trip to the DMV but slightly above a service call from my German telephone provider.
We're off for the rest of the week. I'll be using up the last of my vacation helping the kids bid adieu to summer. School starts next week.
Piper has photos to post but I don't think I'll have time to upload them until next week.
I am considering disabling the comments capability for the blog. What say you?
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Paris
Matcy (hereby referred to as La Matcie) bravely took her youngest daughter and youngest grandchildren for a jaunt to Paris. It was a great three days out on the town.
Highlights and quotes:
--"Mommy, we could never be Paris people. Paris people don't go to bed this early." This spoken by a seven-year-old after she was out for a 23:00 snack with La Matcie. She was so wired by the excitement of the city that there was no getting her contained in a hotel room while the cafes were still crowded.
--"Look! A famous thing." said at every monument.
We bought two-day tickets on the double-decker, open-topped bus and used it as our taxi to get around. It takes a while to get places, but how else are you going to learn that there are 2.5 million rivets in the Eiffel Tower?
Touring around Notre Dame and Ile de la cite took the whole of day one. It is amazing how long it can take one to get through souvenir shops with children who have 10 euros each that they must spend RIGHT NOW. Out to Place du Trocadero that night to see the Eiffel Tower shimmer.
Day 2 was the gardens of Tuileries. So beautiful. We were going to head up to Sacre Coeur, but MM fell off of a high wall, landing on her head and necessitating a taxi ride back to the hotel to monitor for signs of bad things. She had rallied enough by nightfall to join TG and I on a climb up to the Arc de Triumph.
Wednesday morning we finally made it to Montmarte. Sacre Coeur is my favorite church of the large architectural marvels of the city. Perhaps because it feels more like a church of a living faith instead of an amazing, beautiful museum of what people used to believe.
Chatted with great people on the train. On the way up, an engineering student from China and a business student from the Basque country (referred to Spain as "they." I didn't ask him what he thought about the ETA). Rode back with a Hungarian student financing his studies as a folk dance instructor.
Click on the photo for a slide show.
Highlights and quotes:
--"Mommy, we could never be Paris people. Paris people don't go to bed this early." This spoken by a seven-year-old after she was out for a 23:00 snack with La Matcie. She was so wired by the excitement of the city that there was no getting her contained in a hotel room while the cafes were still crowded.
--"Look! A famous thing." said at every monument.
We bought two-day tickets on the double-decker, open-topped bus and used it as our taxi to get around. It takes a while to get places, but how else are you going to learn that there are 2.5 million rivets in the Eiffel Tower?
Touring around Notre Dame and Ile de la cite took the whole of day one. It is amazing how long it can take one to get through souvenir shops with children who have 10 euros each that they must spend RIGHT NOW. Out to Place du Trocadero that night to see the Eiffel Tower shimmer.
Day 2 was the gardens of Tuileries. So beautiful. We were going to head up to Sacre Coeur, but MM fell off of a high wall, landing on her head and necessitating a taxi ride back to the hotel to monitor for signs of bad things. She had rallied enough by nightfall to join TG and I on a climb up to the Arc de Triumph.
Wednesday morning we finally made it to Montmarte. Sacre Coeur is my favorite church of the large architectural marvels of the city. Perhaps because it feels more like a church of a living faith instead of an amazing, beautiful museum of what people used to believe.
Chatted with great people on the train. On the way up, an engineering student from China and a business student from the Basque country (referred to Spain as "they." I didn't ask him what he thought about the ETA). Rode back with a Hungarian student financing his studies as a folk dance instructor.
Click on the photo for a slide show.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)