Summer Vacation-Intro

We just returned from a three week vacation. We drove through France, Spain and Portugal with stops in the Loire Valley, Dune de Pyla along the Atlantic Coast near Bordeaux, the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain, Santiago de Compostela, Porto, Lisbon, the Algarve (here we rented an apartment and stayed a week), Valencia and Barcelona. I plan to write about our stops in more detail within the next two weeks before the kids return to school.

Although we saw a lot of Western Europe and we had a great time, this vacation was not very relaxing. I've always thought the typical European vacation of renting an apartment or house for two or three weeks and just staying put sounded boring, but now I'm thinking this may be the way to spend the holidays, especially with children. Bob and I love road trips, and before the kids were born, we would drive to Montana to visit Larissa or to Upstate New York to visit Polly when she lived there, and we would make stops along the way and see as much as we could. Even when we lived in Europe before, we were able to tour around and see more since Alex was in a backpack carrier or stroller and Philip was small enough for Bob to carry on his shoulders. But those days are gone forever.

Now, they walk but not quickly or for very long distances. They also have very strong opinions about what they want to see or do. They like museums and I like zoos, so there is quite a bit we enjoy doing together. But Bob and I like just walking around and looking at architecture and trying to find a good restaurant. The boys hate this unless we buy them toys or ice cream, and their idea of fine dining is McDonald's. And they despise driving. "Are we there yet?" and "How much longer now?" are asked at about two-minute intervals.

I think our next vacation will be European-style.

Alex's Birthday and Übernachtungs

Last week we celebrated Alex's birthday. His birthday is actually on August 15, but since we'll be in Portugal, we decided to celebrate now. He had a party at the kindergarten during the week, and on Saturday, we went to Tucherland, an indoor playground. He didn't want a big party--just Philip and his friend, Callum, who's from Boston but was in Erlangen visiting his grandparents. Tucherland has a climbing wall about 20 or 30 feet tall with an automatic rope system, unlike the wall at Dick's, which has a human on belay and supervising your climb. Dick's has a height limit, whereas at Tucherland anything goes. Tucherland also has trampolines, unsupervised. The attitude here in Deutschland seems to be if one hurts himself than it's his or his parents' fault, not the establishment's.

Alex's kindergarten graduation was one week before his birthday celebration, but it was nothing like the graduations in Chicago. They started the day with a field trip to a cave, Binghöhle, in the Fränkische Schweiz. To get there, they had to take two buses and one train. Then they returned to spend the night at the kindergarten. They also had a bonfire that night in the kindergarten's garden. This rite of passage proves to the kids that they can travel and sleep without their parents. Philip's class also had an übernachtung (sleep over) at his school, but their field trip was to the local ice cream shop.

PS The weather has been cold and rainy most of the summer, unlike the southern European countries, which were having a serious heat wave. It feels more like fall to me. We did have a couple of hot days in June and then again in July. On Sunday, July 15, the temperature topped 40 degrees C, or about 104 F. Since very few homes have air-conditioning, everybody was at the outdoor swimming pools, which are not heated.