Excursions

The school year finally ended, Yahoo!, and we are just about to kick off our summer vacation with a week-long trip to Croatia, Yahoo!--Part Two! We leave tomorrow, July 4th, actually. But before we depart, I want to connect the dots between spring break and summer break with the few weekend excursions we recently made. You may remember Suzy talking about the one-on-one trips we resolved to do with each of the triplets. They each drew one of our names out of a hat, and then chose where he or she wanted to go--remember, Suzy went to Prague with Scout? Well, since then, and since spring break, Suzy also went to London with Charlie, and I went to Stockholm with Kiefer. Suzy and I even got away for a weekend--to Leipzig--yeah, I know, hardly the romantic destination, and nothing I planned to blog about, but between Bach,

Goethe,

and people all decked out for either the big Depeche Mode concert or the much much bigger Goth festival, I can't not tell you about it. In fact, let's start there: Leipzig.

So, yeah, right off the train (--oh, and by the way, the train station is immense--I think the biggest in Europe, actually), Suzy and I were swarmed by black-clad, mohawk-sporting, mostly all older concert-goers, which started the question that pretty much characterized the whole weekend: Why? Waiting for a tram to go to our hotel, we wondered whether or not we would be able to get on, it was so crowded. But, as it turns out, Suzy and I were apparently headed the wrong way. Our tram had hardly anyone on it, and when we got off, we were the last ones to do so. We stayed at a nice hotel--but way on the outskirts of the city, and apparently also the site of some giant police-training convention or something. SWAT teams, in full gear, were coming and going the whole time. That's right, Mr. Romantic, some people call me (--yes, I was responsible for booking this trip). Anyway, we ate at the hotel (--it was either that, or in the foodcourt of some time-forgotten mall we had to hike around to get to public transportation), and then eventually tacked back to the center of town.

There, we found people of two sorts, either Leipzig Football Club fans (by far the minority, though the team was vying for some kind of championship that weekend) or people dressed in Goth--and, I mean, dressed up, whole families--three, maybe even four generations deep. Seriously, picture Goth babies, and certainly a lot of Goth grandparents. And these were some elaborate, super-expensive costumes.

(This was the only guy we took a picture of--but with colored contacts, horns, and devil's hooves, he and many others Goths were all too happy to pose.) Apparently, Goethe wrote Faust here, or at least mentions the Auerbachs Kellar in it (the third picture above), but its Goth culture comes long before that. Believe it or not, Auerbachs Kellar was considered at one point by some person or publication one of the top five restaurants in the whole world, and it is decorated front to back, top to bottom with scenes from the legend of Faust. But here's the thing: those scenes, I have recently learned, actually antedate Goethe, maybe even partly inspired him--and the restaurant made sure we knew it. Right, Goethe was the one jumping on the bandwagon--or on the beer barrel, as it were. And I believe it--that was a good frick'n lunch, one of my favorite meals in Europe.

No, without question, the claim to fame Leipzig makes, and rightly so, is to Bach. Suzy and I went to the Bach museum, and even heard a much heralded boys' choir sing in the church where Jean Sebastian used to do his thing. And then, on the day of our departure, just to add another quirky contrast to our trip, we checked out what apparently is the largest monument in Europe, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.

I'll let you look up that one on your own, but can we all now say it together: Why? Whatever else, it was a fascinating end to a fascinating weekend.

(That last one I give you for the sake of scale--and that's inside the monument. Notice also that none of the family-oriented sculptures feature a smile--not even the nursing twins.) Not sure we'll ever go back to Leipzig, not sure how unusual our impression was--probably especially unusual, but it was a chance to be away with each other--and however far away we go, we always cherish it--that is, we always seem to know how to answer the question why, Suzy and I.

And that is pretty much what Suzy said about her time with Charlie in London. But I'll let her tell you, herself. Suzy, take it away: London, London, London. Charlie loves London and I loved being in London with Charlie (and I love London too). We had an easy flight over, took the train into the city, hopped on the tube and within minutes of being outside, we saw a super drunk man fall and bash his head right on the curb. Charlie, who faints very easily, was so empathetic and brave instead. These two women reached him first and totally took care of the guy, good samaritans. I told Charlie we could go, that he was in good hands, and as we turned the corner there was a police man. We both thought, perfect, let's go tell him what just happened. I explained the situation to the officer, and before I could even finish, he held up his hand and said he was off duty. I said, "But he's just around the corner," and he told me I could call an ambulance. Initially, we were put off, but after talking it over, we thought about the truth of his job, in this giant bustling city: his work would be never-ending if he didn't put an end to it, himself... Anyway, we found our hotel and promptly turned around because Charlie was hungry at 23:00 (I love military/European times), and since this was our special trip, I allowed a McDonald's french fry run:)

We had to pass the street where the man fell and thankfully the EMTs and ambulance were with him! We proceeded to eat some french fries as we headed to Big Ben, which was under construction the last time we visited more than a year ago. What an eventful first night!

The next morning, we found a pancake joint and headed there for breakfast. Charlie started off his morning with a stack of pancakes covered in kinder buenos (basically Twix bars) and Oreos. He even admitted later that that was too much to start his day.

Our mission for the day had 3 parts. First, we went to buy a Man City jersey before the FA Cup Finals, a Manchester Derby, City vs. United, which was playing just down the street at Wimbley(--I told Charlie we couldn't quite afford the 1000 euro tickets!). Second, we went to see Wicked, the musical about Elphaba, the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz. After that, the plan was to watch the Derby in some pub. Pretty much, Charlie and I just walked and talked and saw the beautiful and crazy sights, and I loved every minute of it.

After much wandering around and learning that London is not allowed to sell knockoff jerseys like we found in Barcelona, we found a Puma store and got the jersey we were looking for. Charlie was so cute and really wanted to surprise his siblings with jerseys, too. I coudln't resist. Alright, I am super cheap and knew they didn't need one, but after a quick call to Joey, we walked out of the store with a Haaland, De Bruyne, and Foden jersey.

Unfortunately, we learned the night before that our plan of a matinee showing of Wicked was actually at the exact same time as the game. The police had changed the Cup final to avoid the London hooliganism that is more likely to happen after a night game. So, although we enjoyed the musical, we checked the score during intermission and the end of the show. Man city won, woo hoo!

We were both toast after our day of wandering the streets. We grabbed some pizza and headed in early to watch some highlights of the game and to enjoy some hotel tv time... Our final day in London started off just right. We found a bagel joint (we miss bagels) and as we were walking away from breakfast, a homeless man said something to Charlie. He said, "You forgot your bag." Sure enough, Charlie turned around and his bag was still sitting at the outside table we had just left. We told the man many many thank you's (as all 3 jerseys were in that bag) and I said, "I don't have any pounds on me [--we were just using the credit card], but can I buy you something to eat of something?" He just looked at his stuff, looked at us, and said "I've got water and a little food, I'm good. Just have a great day!" What a beautiful way to start the day and a good conversation about the natural goodness of people on this planet... The rest of the day mainly consisted of the changing of the gaurds at Buckingham Palace (--kind of cool to be there with the new king), and, lastly, going up in the London Eye, something neither of us had ever done before. We both enjoyed a different view of the city, but the best part was just the conversations with Charlie. I feel like I could have wandered with him for another week, and we'd just keep talking. Love that kid!

And Kiefer is pretty okay, too.

He and I (--Daddy back at the keyboard again) took on Stockholm the next weekend. Kiefer was our navigator, and after getting us to the airport and to our hotel, he guided us, early the next morning, to the one thing I booked ahead of time: the Vasa Museum, which houses the most well-preserved "Viking" ship in the world.

Oh, and what a ponderous thing it is! The museum has three floors, each one wrapped around the ship in its center. At first, I wasn't sure what to make of it. It is unlike any other museum I have ever been in. But it did not take us long to figure out how cool the whole thing was.

We read every word we could find about it, and were consistently in awe.

Now, it should be noted that the reason this ship is so well preserved is because it hardly made it out of the bay before it sunk. That's right, it's maiden voyage was more downward than outward, toppled by an angry gust of wind and all too much grandiosity. It's kind of a joke of fate, I guess, like Shelley's "Ozymandias", but well worth seeing--if even only for a laugh... From there we hit the Vrak, a little virtual-reality museum included in the price of the Vasa that shows how undersea salvage and science happens.

Kiefer shot this video in one of the rooms:

Pretty cool, but what I liked most about it was that as we walked to it, we saw the highlight of our weekend beckoning to us, just as I hoped it might: Gröna Lund. What is Gröna Lund, you ask? An amusement park, and one ride in particular, The Monster, was calling Kiefer. "We just gotta do that, Dad," he said. But it was lunchtime when we arrived, so we ate a simple lunch at a restaurant nearby, and then spent the next three hours trying to keep it down. The Monster was thrilling, and Kiefer rocked it

--with his eyes closed the whole time, and me screaming. Bumper cars,

some carnival games, cotton candy,

another coaster that almost cost me my back, but finally we found the one that was calling us most. It had something to do with witches, and to steal a line from Charlie's adventure in London, Kiefer and I were "defying gravity."

Before we even got off the ride, Kiefer turned to me and said, "Let's do it again." Yes, indeed. We ran to get back in line, where we just talked about every drop and turn of it. We couldn't get enough of it.

After that, Kiefer navigated us into the center of Gamla Stan, perhaps the most popular of Stockholm's many islands. Even by only the glimpse we had of it, it was something else, and, all on its own, made Stockholm, unlike Leipzig, a place I am certain I want to revisit.

But Kiefer and I were tuckered out by this time, and we decided to take a load off in a cafe. Wouldn't you know it, the cafe at hand was none other than the one in the Nobel Prize Museum.

I couldn't resist. Kiefer was understandably a bit museum-ed out, but he rallied his strength for the old man, and we both liked it a ton. Here is Kiefer typing at Gabriel Garcia Marquez'z typewriter.

In one room, they had these randomly sequenced 5-10 minute films featuring one Nobel Prize winner after another. My favorite was of a man named Nansen, Fridtjof Nansen. Ever heard of him? Me neither, but watching this film about why he received the Nobel Prize in the aftermath of World War I, a thought occurred to me, and I shared it with Kiefer. I said, "This guy reminds me of you, Kiefer." To which Kiefer promptly responded, "Dad, I've never even met a refugee." Ha, that really put a sock in mine. (But I still have my thought, and not merely because Kiefer is such a charitable travel companion...)

Anyway, we finally got back to our place, ate dinner, and watched the Champion's League Final in our room. It was another great weekend... And now we are off to Croatia, as I said before--off together, the whole family, which is exactly how I feel we always are, even when are apart. It's like Desmund Tutu wrote in chalk on a wall in the Nobel Prize Museum, "A person is a person through other persons."

And that quotation I'll finish with, thinking of all of you reaading this. Thanks for helping us be. Much love, Mr. Romantic.