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.

A whirlwind day

I've decided that I'd rather spend fifteen hours on airplanes flying across the ocean than get up, have a short flight to London, have a few hours of meetings, and then fly back home the same day. The whole day felt like it was about airports: take the train to the Zurich airport, fly out of the Zurich airport, fly into Heathrow, take the train from Heathrow to London, take the train from London to Heathrow, fly into Zurich, then take the train from the Zurich airport. Yikes!

The waiting room

After two years in Switzerland, there aren't a lot of cultural quirks left to discuss, but I was reminded of one today when I was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office. Try this out next time you walk into a waiting room in the States.

When there are one or more people sitting there waiting for the doctor, and a new person comes into the waiting room, the new person always addresses the group with the Swiss equivalent of "Hi, everyone." Everyone sitting there then responds with "hello" or "good morning" or something along those lines. Since no one is ever thrilled to be sitting in a waiting room at the doctor's office, I guess it makes us all feel like we're in it together or something.

He's back

I forgot to mention that Tanner returned safely from Italy last Friday. He had a great time traipsing around the city of Cortona for a week, eating Italian food and experiencing Italian culture.

In seventh grade, they go to Paris. Tanner and I pretty much covered that trip over the holidays, so he won't miss much by being gone next year.