Allons-y!

We could use a vacation.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Paris, where we'll stay for six days.  Far, far outside of town, fairly close to Disneyland, because that's how we roll.  We haven't got a very clear itinerary: we'll spend at least one day with Mickey, and otherwise we'll sort of take our cues from the kids.  As long as I can wander around the Jardin du Luxembourg and eat many, many loaves of bread, I'll be very happy.

After Paris, we'll travel north, to Bruges, where we'll spend a few days with Dennis's parents, who will later follow us back to Zürich.  Three times, when I've mentioned this leg of our trip trip (to my sweet, quiet neighbor; to my perhaps-not-so-proper German teacher; and to a classmate), my partner in conversation has the same knee-jerk reaction: "Fuckin' Bruge!"  Everyone's seen the same movie.

But we're not going because of the movie. We're going for the excellent company. Oh, and for the chocolate!


When we first started planning this trip, we'd planned on taking the trains. However, when started booking, we were surprised to find that a train ticket for just one of us cost as much as a car rental.  And so we'll unearth our car seats from our storage room and use them for the first time since we came here. Alex may be every bit as excited about the car ride as he is about Disneyland, although he may not be as enthusiastic when he discovers how small European cars can be.

Because of the extra flexibility that car is giving us, we'll return home via Luxembourg, where we found a little fairytale-themed children's park.

We've done our best to prepare, although life can be busy. It only occurred to us at 10:30 tonight that maybe we should write down directions to our hotel. I've decided that letting the kids watch as many Disney cartoons as possible can fall in the realm of "preparation," however,  and that has made everything much easier.

And today Dennis took Alex out to get some of those few last-minute things that you always need before a trip (sunblock, hand sanitizer, a pair of sandals for Alex) only to find that stores close, here, on Good Friday.  And so the two of them went all the way to our trusty Hauptbahnhof, where he had the was also able to get euros for our trip.  And Alex, when he saw the pile of bills that Dennis took from the ATM, shouted "Wow! Why do you have so much money, Dad?!" Luckily, we live in one of the safer cities in the world.

I hope I'll be able to keep up with you all while we're gone, but I'm not quite sure what sort of internet access this trip will bring.  At the very least, we'll see you on the other side!