We made it to our apartment! The location is ideal — it’s in a very safe neighborhood, incredibly close to the kid’s school, just down the road from a nice supermarket (just about as close as the Carnival was when we lived in Fort Worth — a block and a half maybe?), and very near a taxi stand with servees (shared taxis) running to the city center for 3 shekels a ride (about 75 cents). What wasn’t so ideal was…
So, we have been here for a little less than a week. We still haven’t gotten to our final location, but we will be by tomorrow night! I have however noticed a few things in the interim. My children are completely unconcerned about everyone else speaking a different language than us. Maybe this is normal for children, but most adults I know get freaked out and are constantly asking what others are saying. There seems to be a ingrained part…
Today I’m going to talk about my lunch. I know, boring. But actually it was not so boring. I ate kebabs with lamb. Live lamb. I’ll be living the rest of my life on the lamb. Actually, it wasn’t live – it was dead and delicious. The restaurant was peculiar. It had many things and was decorated with many things. I saw a chess board and also a mannequin head. We walked to the restaurant in the Old City. None…
At the airplane, it was so fun. We went into the airplane and we got to sleep overnight. So after we slept, they served breakfast. It was 2 in the morning. That’s really early. So this guy, I don’t know what his name was, but this is funny. So he held up my mom’s name. So we got to go to one of those convertible things, that isn’t an escalator. Instead of the stairs it is just going straight so…
Normal family travels (even or maybe especially to Target) include a lot of short calls saying, “Where are you?” We got to Amsterdam and quickly realized that none of our phone solutions worked unless BOTH of us were connected to wifi and the connections kept dropping. We had a couple of misadventures and even got directed to the “meeting point” once. Dan’s fix is to have a meeting point wherever we go. My plan is to not split up until…
We made it to Atlanta and have a few hours in the international terminal before the red-eye to Amsterdam. Much swankier than I expected, though Will & I skipped the fine dining and opted for the airport version of this Atlanta landmark… Will ordered the naked dogs with extra bacon (I don’t think he knows that bacon may be in short supply soon), while I had to go with chili dogs. Not exactly the downtown experience, but pretty tasty all…
We have begun our adventure! Will has a great window seat with a view of the engine turbine. He is actually impressed. We have wrapped up Maggie’s broken arm…mostly so people notice it and steer clear. She wiggles out of it all the time so I don’t know that it is doing a lot of stabilization. Mom and dad came to see us off (and drive home our car). They had the presence of mind to take a picture. Dan…
Just a couple more nights in Mississippi, and we’ll be off for our grand adventure. As my Dean of Students told me today, “Congratulations, but really I should tell that to your wife; aren’t you just along for the ride?” Yep, that’s my official role on this trip – along for the ride. 🙂 Today, I brought all my students to the lab that we’re going to use this semester. I’m teaching my classes via webcam and with a telepresence…
Initially, after reading all the suggestion blogs and in talking to friends, we had intended on packing 1-2 weeks before we left. However, in reality, we don’t own enough clothes to do that. So we set aside the things that we intended on packing and have them stacked on top of the suitcases and in the corners. Did I mention that it is really hard to pack for winter in August? We did accomplish: Buying new suitcases – Our old…
After attending orientation, I had a couple of hours to kill while I waited until time to go to the airport. Hmmm…I’m in DC a couple of blocks from the White House. What should I do for the afternoon? Taking a picture of the White House is serious business! The security must have been heightened due to Delta’s snafu with the computers. On either side of the photo there were Secret Service members in bulletproof vests yelling at anyone that stepped…