The voyage home

I forgot to elaborate on my description of our drive home. We had a couple of interesting obstacles.

The first was in Italy. A couple of hours out of Venice, before we'd gotten to Milan, all traffic on the freeway came to a dead stop. We weren't moving at all. That's unusual, so we figured that something was wrong. Sure enough, after a few minutes, a police car and a fire engine came past us on the side of the freeway. All of us were out of our cars and walking around, and at least one guy took the opportunity to relieve himself at the side of the road. (Europeans tend to be less uptight about things like than Americans, and Italians tend to be less uptight than other Europeans.) We finally got moving after 45 minutes, and as we drove past the trouble spot, we could see that it had been a car fire that bascially left just the charred shell of a car. It must have been pretty spectacular at the time. We didn't see any signs that anyone had been hurt, but we're not sure.

The next hangup came as we were approaching the Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland. That's a very long tunnel through the Alps that links the German and Italian parts of Switzerland. When it was built, it was the longest road tunnel in the world. Without that tunnel, you either have to go a couple of hours out of the way, or you have to take one of those scary Swiss mountain passes that's full of hairpin turns and is only open in the summer. I've heard of waits as long as three hours, but it only took us an hour to get through.

So that's how a five-hour drive stretched into something a bit longer.

Last stop: Venice

All good things must come to an end. You can't have unlimited food and free housekeeping forever, right? Everyone was pretty tired when we got back to Venice, but we decided to stay there for an extra day because we knew we'd probably never get back there again. It was bit touristy for my liking, but it was good to walk around and see how things worked. And, to reiterate what I said before, if you take a bus or a taxi, that means you're getting on a boat.

Lindsey got herself a mask that she loved.



Here's a parking lot in Venice:



With the ocean levels rising, Venice is flooding more and more often. This happens predictably according to the tides, so there are raised sidewalks to get people over the floods when necessary.





Here's the famous Rialto Bridge, which crosses the Grand Canal in the heart of Venice:



Here's a shot from the bridge. (I don't know why Lindsey looks like her dog just died. I think she was just tired.)



I wept openly that evening as I saw our cruise ship, the Spendour of the Seas, leaving Venice without me on board.



Here's a shot of St. Mark's Square, which is where the action is in Venice. Our hotel was just north of the Square. At night, different musical ensembles were playing at the different cafes, so we just wandered from one to the next to listen to the music. They were all very good musicians. It was pretty cool.

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And, of course, no European city can be considered truly great without this landmark:

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One parting shot:

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So that's the trip. We don't know what's coming next. We know that we need to hit London, and we also need to hit Disneyland Paris again (ugh), but beyond that, we're not sure when we're doing anything. Time to start planning the next trip. In the meantime, I'm headed to Minnesota on Monday, so I won't have much to say for a while.

Greece, part 2

Our last stop was another island, this one containing the town of Corfu. It was also Tanner's birthday. We took a tour of the island that included, as usual, tons of gorgeous scenery, including a stop at a beach.

After our bus got back to the ship, Tanner and I stayed in town for a while to have a real Greek dinner to celebrate his birthday. I had kumquat chicken and Tanner and seafood penne. Pretty darn good.

Here are some pictures. Those of you who know Tanner will recognize, in the second picture, the unique pose that means that Tanner is enjoying himself.

Greece, part 1

The first of our two days in Greece found us on the island of Santorini. I'm not sure who decided that it would be a good idea to build a town at the top of a steep cliff that drops off into the ocean, but that's what they did. It was very scenic. We didn't take any organized tours or anything. The kids stayed on the boat while Stace and I went into town.

After a while, Stace and I split up so that she could shop and I couldn't. See the switchbacks on the left side of the first picture? There are three ways to get down the cliff: take a cable car, ride a donkey, or walk. When we split up, Stace left me with firm instructions that I was not to walk down the cliff. So, you can probably guess how I got down the cliff. We were far enough into the cruise that the Wood family finances were looking a bit grim, so I made the necessary sacrifice of saving us four euros by walking. She has yet to verbally thank me for my sacrifice, but I can see the gratitude in her eyes.

And now, an intermission

Before we get to pictures from Greece, let's throw in some pictures of life on the cruise ship. (The first picture, though, is just a random picture of the Swiss sunset from our terrace a few weeks ago. If I don't throw it in now, I'll forget about it. This is one of the things I'll miss the most when we leave.)

Ephesus

It's not really clear to me what divides Asia from Europe, but whatever it is, we were in the part of Turkey that's in Asia. (Always good to check off another entry on the list of things to do before I die. Now I just need to hit Africa, Australia, and Antarctica to visit all of the continents.)

Our tour that day consisted of two parts: a visit to the so-called House of the Virgin Mary and the ruins of Ephesus. (There was a third part in which Stace almost bought an $800 Turkish rug, but let's ignore that. Quote from Stace: "I looked interested, and suddenly I was alone in a room with four of them trying to sell me a rug!") In the end, Mary's house was kind of underwhelming. I think Mary was unhappy with us because it rained like crazy while we were there. Also, there's no concrete evidence that Mary ever lived there. Legend has it that John took her there sometime after the death of Jesus, but it's more a matter of faith than of science. One thing that was interesting is that the site has a Catholic version of Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. People scribble their wishes on tissues or scraps of paper and leave them tucked in the wall.

Then it was on to Ephesus. In some ways, Ephesus was even more cool than Pompeii, but it doesn't get the same publicity. I guess Ephesus doesn't have the same PR firm. Maybe it's the lack of a backstory involving a volcano, or maybe it's that Ephesus is a little more out of the way than Pompeii.

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Anyway, it was very interesting. I'll just throw in a few pictures.

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Dubrovnik

After we left Venice, our first stop was in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It was interesting to be at the scene of a war that took place while I was in law school rather than taking place way back in history that I can't remember, like World War II. Our tour guide lived in Dubrovnik during the war. She was about eleven when it was going on, and she had stories about knowing which kind of bomb was falling on the city based on how it sounded. The kids would run out and play in between the rounds of shelling.

We first took a cable car above the city, which gave us a nice view. You can see some of that, along with a damaged fort that still hasn't been repaired from the war.

We then went back down to the old town. That part of Dubrovnik is mostly just for tourists now, but it was interesting. Lindsey found a few new friends. She also spent some time filling in for the tour guide.

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All told, we found Dubrovnik to be a very nice place. I've mentioned before how hard it is for me to imagine Germany and France at war, even though World War II took place seventy years ago. It's equally hard to imagine a war right in the middle of Europe just fifteen years ago, but that's what was going on when Yugoslavia dissolved.

And we're back

Well, we somehow survived the cruise. I had to remind Tanner to take his dishes over to the sink tonight after dinner. Obviously, he'd gotten used to having someone else do it.

The trip home was eventful, including a car fire in Italy (not our car) and the stalled traffic at the dreaded Gotthard Tunnel in southern Switzerland.

More to come . . . .

Last one

On Saturday, we're heading to Venice for an eastern Mediterranean cruise. We'll hit Dubrovnik, Croatia; Ephesus, Turkey (think Ephesians from the New Testament); and two spots in Greece (but not Athens). Turkey and Greece each deserve a trip of their own, but this is likely the only chance we'll have to hit them before we go back to Minnesota. (Horrifying side note: It is really, really cold in the winter in Minnesota. Do you realize that it can hit 20 below zero? Who actually lives in a place like that?)

I've made two things clear to the kids: 1) Tanner does not get to go on a European cruise every year for his birthday for the rest of his life. Yes, I realize that he's been on a European cruise for his birthday for two years in a row now, but it ends here. As a parent, you gotta draw the line somewhere, right? 2) This is likely the last cruise we're taking until Stace and I, as grandparents, take Tanner and Lindsey and their kids on one big family cruise shortly before we die (but while we're still in excellent health).

I have mixed feelings about another cruise. It's not the best way to get to know a country. I can say that I've visited Rome, but I haven't really experienced Rome after running around the city in a van for eight hours before racing back to the ship. By contrast, I feel like I've experienced places like Oslo, Helsinki, and Paris after spending several days there just roaming around on foot and on public transportation.

However, it's nice to have every meal taken care of for a week, and it's a nice break not having to figure out how get to each of those cities, where to stay, where to eat, and all of that. We're going to spend some extra time in Venice after we get back from the cruise, and it's taken me more time to figure out one day in Venice than the other seven days on our cruise. (I do have to add that Venice is particularly tricky. There are lots of twisty, windy little streets. It seems like bascially one big tourist trap, so hotels are very expensive. Also, as much as I love figuring out public transportation in European cities, Venice adds one more complication: the public transportation there is by boat.)

There's also the fact that the kids loved our cruise last year. Of all the fun things we've done in Europe, including Disneyland Paris and the huge water park in Prague, the thing they still talk about the most is the cruise. I'm a little worried that this cruise won't live up to their memories of the last one, but I think it'll be okay.

One nice thing is that Venice is much closer than Barcelona. It should only take us about five hours to get there, as opposed to the nine or ten hours we spent getting to Barcelona last year.

Lindsey's protest

Every day, Lindsey comes home from school with a book that she's supposed to read to us. We sign the paper and then return the book the next day. Today's book was a little tricky for her with some words that were beyond her reading ability. In her book bag, which goes to school with her every day, I found a note intended for her teacher. Tanner served as her scribe. Here's the text of the note:

"A book called The Sausage Spy is very hard. Only Anna could read it. It has lots of hard words. From: Lindsey."

I'm becoming more convinced all the time that we're raising an anarchist in the making. She's going to be one of those nutty protestors you see on the news trashing the cities where they hold the World Bank and G8 meetings.

Should I get combat pay?

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. State Department is considering issuing a travel alert advising Americans to stay vigilant as they travel through Europe due to increased terrorism threats. The warnings aren't tied to any specific place or time. Fortunately for us, we live in about the safest place in the world: Switzerland has almost no risk of terrorism. There aren't earthquakes, hurricanes, or tornadoes. Crime is almost nonexistent.

In other news, the U.S. dollar is the lowest it's been against the Swiss franc since I got here. But you still all need to come visit. It's worth it.