Travel Tuesday - A Travel Tips Carnival!

I was going to begin posting about my trip with Kate to London and Paris, but that will have to wait one more week since Antique Mommy is hosting a blog carnival which, interestingly, she’s calling Travel Tips Tuesday. And this is one carnival that a trip-lover like me could not pass up.

So, where do I begin? Well, that’s my tip.

When beginning to plan a trip, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. There are several great websites that will give you all sorts of insider information for planning your trip. And insider information makes all the difference between having a good trip and having a GREAT trip.

Some of my favorite trip-planning websites are TripAdvisor, Frommers, Fodors, and Rick Steves. Spend some time on these websites, learning some background about the place you’ll be going, and, especially, taking advantage of their forums.

I’d say that out of those, Tripadvisor is my absolute favorite. I have spent many happy hours on their forum boards, gleaning lots of insider information from people who really know "what’s what" about your travel destination. People are usually more than happy to answer your questions about your destination, as long as you’ve done a little homework first and you try to refrain from asking the most obvious of questions.

For instance, this summer, when I was planning a trip for 16 people to Switzerland and was the go-to gal in charge of the whole thing, I spent lots of time on Tripadvisor. It was there that I learned how to navigate the Swiss Rail system which can be veeeerry confusing. I even learned about getting group rates for train travel and saved our group a LOT of money. I also found out that in Interlaken you can watch paragliders come in for a landing in the park in the middle of town—lots of fun on a sunny afternoon.



But I didn’t just stop with Tripadvisor. I moved on to Rick Steves, even buying his book, because he provides some pretty interesting walking tours that you can do on your own—best part is . . . they’re free! We would not have known how to find Lindenhof Park, the beautiful park in the middle of Zurich that is so stereotypically European that old men even play chess with huge chess pieces there.



Nor would we have found the ruins of Roman baths down along a small alleyway in the center of Zurich without Rick’s help.



Travel website forums come in really handy when you’re deciding on a hotel. Say you’ve done some research and you’ve found three hotels you’re interested in. They are all in the same location, they all cost about the same, and they are all similar in terms of their amenities. How do you know which hotel to choose? Travel websites like TripAdvisor, allow members to post reviews and photos of these hotels, and, believe me, these reviews have helped me out more than once.

Last spring I was trying to decide which hotel in Paris to choose, and, thanks to the good information I got from these reviews, I ended up in a beautiful small hotel in a quiet neighborhood that was just right for my daughter and me. I also learned that this hotel would be about a fifteen minute walk from the Eiffel Tower and that there weren’t a lot of restaurants on the street where we’d be staying. By reading forums and hotel reviews before I left home, I wasn’t surprised by any of this when I got there.

So before you pack your bags, do your homework. Your trip will go from good to GREAT!

Our Switzerland Adventure - Part III

O.K., I’m getting a little tired of writing about my own trip, so I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading about it. I just wanted to post a few final thoughts. (If you have any more questions about our experience, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.)

Yesterday I mentioned that watching the faces of the children was a highlight for me. I absolutely loved watching my own three daughters get to know missionary children as they loved them and served them. It was wonderful to see dear Maggie, only 10 years old, come alongside a 6-year-old boy from Australia and be his buddy for the week.

And Abby, who is naturally more reserved than my other two, stretched herself from her comfort zone a little bit and held babies on her lap and played games with some of the older children.

Kate, who is naturally outgoing, made friends with all the 8- and 9-year-old boys. They loved her rough and tumble way with them and had a blast hanging out with her.

It was so good for my kids to connect with children who are growing up in places so unlike suburban America. It was good for them to hear stories of these children, like those whose family keeps a huge duffle bag packed at all times just in case they have to flee from their home. They have used that bag a few times.

Or to meet children like M and A who are making the most of their time on the mission field by learning five, yes FIVE, languages (English, Chinese, German, French, and Arabic if you really must know!) . A, the sister, is only 8; M, the brother, only 10. These are remarkable children in their learning, sure, but also remarkable in the love and kindness they showed to the other kids around them.

And then my girls had the opportunity to get to know others who live in Europe but sometimes don’t see their dad for a month or two at a time because he is embedded in a village, trying to learn a new language. They got to hear stories, firsthand, of the sacrifices the children of missionaries make; sometimes we only think of the sacrifices of the parents, but we found that the children make sacrifices, too.

One kind of “new” experience for us was meeting people who had never been to America before. Two little boys, who live most of the time in France, told my girls that they thought all Americans were fat (all they know of America is that McDonalds comes from here and in France the only people who go to McDonalds are fat people). We were happy to dispell that idea.

As we planned for this trip, we talked as a family about what it’s like for these missionaries to live where they live and to do what they do. We didn’t know much about their work before we left; in fact, the most we knew was that many of the people who would attend the conference lived in undisclosed locations. Which, to me, sounded a lot like being called to Eastern Outer Mongolia. How could they do that? I wondered.

But now, after meeting these wonderful people and getting to know their children, I realize that I have learned something, too. These missionaries live where they live and do what they do, making tremendous sacrifices, because they are completely dedicated to the Gospel. They couldn’t NOT do it. God’s call on their lives is so firm, His hand on them so sure, that they have to do what they do, even if it puts them in harm’s way.

A few years back our church planted a new church in downtown Chicago. As the pastors were talking with the congregation about moving into the city, they responded to the many questions they had received about their safety. Some asked, “Aren’t you afraid for the safety of your family if you move into the city?”

I will never forget one pastor’s response. He said, “I am less safe, out here in the suburbs, if I am out of God’s will than I will be in the city, doing His will.” And these missionaries, who sometimes live in difficult circumstances, know that with all their heart. They live it. Every day.

I pray that I will have the strength and the courage to live with the same conviction.


[Note: You may have noticed that I did not include pictures of any of the children we worked with. This was intentional as the mission agency and the parents do not want the children to be recognized. Trust me—they were, each and every one, as cute as can be!]

Our Switzerland Adventure - Part II

When this whole Switzerland trip started, our thinking went something like this: “Well, somebody has to do this missions trip. It just happens to be in Switzerland. It might as well be us.”

Truth be told, my motives for going on this trip were not entirely altruistic. We’re talking Switzerland here, not Eastern Outer Mongolia, and if you have a heart to serve missionaries (as we do) is it so bad to do it in a place that’s . . . well, shall we say . . . cushy?

I think not.

I’m the girl, after all, who proudly sports on her denim jacket a pin that says, “I love not camping.”

To me, heading to Eastern Outer Mongolia would be a bit like camping. Or worse. And God knows I would not serve Him to my fullest ability if I were worried about having enough lighter fluid or toilet paper.

Now, if God called me to EOM, and I knew in my heart that He was calling me there, I’d be there in a heartbeat. Who am I to ignore God’s call? But so far, He’s been merciful and has allowed me to serve Him right where I am. And in Switzerland.

So we followed God’s call to Switzerland, and our time of service was filled with blessing upon blessing.

Our “job” on this trip was to plan activities for missionary children for a week. Basically, we needed to keep the kids busy—meaningfully busy—for 10 hours a day while their parents were in a conference. For months before we left we met together as a group and planned our activities which would include a traditional VBS program in the morning and excursions in the afternoons.



(I said "meaningful" right?)

We had planned to end each day with an hour of “Olympic Games” in honor of the Beijing Olympics which were being held while we were there. Unfortunately, the Great Swiss Olympic Games never happened because the weather was so bad all week, and also because there was no level playing field on which to hold these games. We were, after all, in the mountains. Where they ski. Downhill. There was not a flat surface anywhere to be found. What were we thinking?

We arrived a day or two before the children started arriving, which was good because it allowed us to get over jet lag pretty easily and to check out the area. We had planned various excursions for the afternoons, and the two extra days allowed us to get a lay of the land.

We checked out the local tourist office to get as much information as possible. Some in our group walked to the local pool to check it out. A couple of people “practiced” hiking up the mountain to see if it would be too tough for some of the kids. Others “practiced” taking the Gondola to the top.

The missionaries, kids in tow, arrived on Sunday night, and the place started buzzing and bustling with activity. Before we knew it, our kids were meeting the missionary kids and playing with them on the playground. By bedtime Sunday night the kids were acquainted with each other, and we were all eager to get started on Monday morning.

Every morning we ran a traditional Vacation Bible School, complete with singing and Bible stories and games and crafts. Boy, did we have crafts! See??



I learned so much about God’s family just by watching how He put our group together. See, I did not get the crafty gene, and my biggest fear, as I agreed to lead this trip, was that I would have to do something craft-wise with these kids. But God knows my many weaknesses and He brought Sandi to do the work that He knew I couldn’t do.

Sandi is craft goddess extraordinaire. She amazingly put together the VBS crafts, bought all the supplies we needed, and then put together a full roster of “afternoon” crafts just in case the weather didn’t cooperate or some kids didn’t want to go on excursions. Boy, did we ever need those afternoon crafts! Not only did the weather not cooperate, we did have a handful of kids who just wanted to hang out with Sandi and do crafts all afternoon.

I pretty much stayed away.

Even though the weather didn’t cooperate fully, we did manage to take the kids out every day but one (on Friday it just rained and rained and rained all day so that’s when Sandi’s crafts really came in handy). One day we did a scavenger hunt through the town that my daughter, Kate, put together with another girl on the trip. The kids had a blast running around town finding little landmarks and getting the reserved Swiss people to give them high fives.

On two of the days, some in our group (the ones who drew the short straw, I’d say) “got” to take the kids to the local pool. Even though it was a heated pool, it was still outdoors and proved to be quite chilly. Still, the kids enjoyed the adventure.

And on the other day, Sandi and I got to take a group of kids to a local bakery for some marzipan molding and cookie decorating. The tourist office in town arranged this for us, and it was really a special outing for me who loves to cook and bake. At one point I looked at Sandi and said, “We are standing in the basement of a real Swiss bakery! Pinch me!”



After the bakery tour we met up with some more of our kids and headed up the mountain in a gondola for the most spectacular view of the valley.



Even though we had some pretty fun activities planned for the kids, I’d say these weren’t even the highlight. For me, the highlights of the week were watching the faces of the missionary kids as they connected with our kids. So many smiles. So much laughter. So many hugs. It was beautiful to watch children who had never met before, and who will probably never see each other again on this side of Heaven, connect in such a real way.

We already miss those sweet kids—well, maybe not the one who peed on me because he was crying so hard, but, yeah, probably him too—and look forward to one day seeing them again. Saying goodbye at the end of the week was hard.

And that’s just one of many lessons my kids had put before them last week. Saying goodbye is just part of the missionary experience, but we have a strong and sure hope that one day there will be no more goodbyes.

Only hellos. And hugs. And smiles.

A Few Switzerland Photos

I thought I'd add a few photos to keep you going throughout the weekend. These were all taken in the village of Adelboden, Switzerland.



A gate near the village church.



Above the gate it says, "Gott allein die Ehre" which means "God only the honor." I love that.

The church and clock tower.

The most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. We were walking back from town, toward our hotel, and came around a corner to this spectacular view.

A view of the village from the top of the mountain. We took the kids on a gondola ride and took this picture from the top.

Switzerland has the cutest fire hydrants I've ever seen!

Our Switzerland Adventure - Part I

Trying to write about one of our greatest family adventures ever is like trying to describe Michael Phelps’ extraordinary feats in one sentence. It just can’t be done. So I am going to try to explicate it bit by bit so that it begins to make sense to you and to me.

Today I’m going to write about travel.

When this whole missions trip thing started, my husband and I looked at each other and said, “Sure, we can be the leaders.” Which, in Wild-speak means, “Sure, Shelly has time to do that.”

So, by default, I became the leader of our band of 16 people—7 adults and 9 kids, mostly teenagers and two 10-year-olds. None of us knew each other very well before we started and some of us hadn’t travelled much. Since I was the leader, and since my family has dubbed me “Julie the cruise director” on countless family vacations, I got to arrange travel for 16—something I had never done before.

The responsibility of getting 16 people to Europe and back weighed pretty heavily on me both before and during our trip. I was nervous, frankly. I felt sure that something just had to go wrong with a group that big.

Just trying to get there proved me right.

Our adventure began at O’Hare airport where we all met up, along with some type of high school Oompah band from Germany. (How do I know it was an Oompah band? The tubas kind of gave it away.) So our group, along with about 50 German high schoolers, boarded an Air France plane to Paris.

Our connection was going to be tight, I knew that, but after a 45 minute delay in perfectly beautiful weather in Chicago—go figure—I had a feeling we weren’t going to make it. When we landed in Paris we found that our plane to Zurich had just left and that we would have to wait seven hours for the next flight.

We were off to a not-so-great start. But, hey, we had sandwich vouchers!

Of course, some in our group had never been to Paris and were just happy to set foot there, even if it was in the Charles De Gaulle airport.

“Honey, I always told you I’d take you to Paris,” one man in our group quipped to his wife while we sat, bleary-eyed and jet lagged in the waiting area of the airport. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what she had in mind.

We finally arrived in Zurich, only to find that three of us had lost our luggage. Well, “WE” didn’t exactly lose our luggage, Air France did, but we were without it, and it was lost. We were told we’d get it back the next day, so we left Zurich with high hopes of clean underwear on Saturday.

Now, the village where we were going to serve was a tiny village of about 4,000 people, high up in the Alps. To get to this village from Zurich we had to take a train to Bern, change trains in about three minutes (no kidding!) and get on another train to a small town called Frutigen. At Frutigen we were to board a bus for a 30 minute ride to our village. We had timed everything just right so that we could catch the very last bus at 11:30 p.m., putting us in our village at midnight.

But have I mentioned the luggage? Each of us had one checked bag, plus we had brought five extra bags full of craft supplies, games, balls, etc. All of the essentials for taking care of a group of kids for a week.

Thank goodness three of our bags were lost! That only put us at two extra bags, so it’s all good. Right? Wrong.

Getting 18 huge bags, plus our carry-on bags, onto a train after about 26 hours of travel was . . . how shall I put it . . . comical at the least. We schlepped and hauled and grunted our way to the upstairs section of the first empty train car we found. Luggage was everywhere, piled onto seats and underneath shelves and scattered all around us.

But we were sitting on a train. Finally. On our way to our village.

Until the train conductor came.

“You are sitting in first class. You must move to second class,” he said to me after I showed him our group ticket.

“Really? Where’s second class?” I asked.

“Back there, through the dining car.” His thick Swiss-German accent reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Really. And you want us to drag all of this luggage through the dining car, disrupt all of your other passengers who are probably sleeping right about now, and MOVE TO SECOND CLASS?”

“No, your luggage can stay here. You all have to move,” he said without batting an eye, and then he moved on to the next car.

Hmmm. Major dilemma. The adults in the group all stared at one another, trying to decide what to do. Should we leave our bags and head back to the proper car or should we protect what belongings we had left? Should we drag everything we had with us through the dining car for the remaining 30 minute train ride? What kind of message would we be sending to our kids if we didn’t obey the train conductor?

We decided that the best thing to do was to continue trying to decide. So we discussed and debated and tried to decide the best thing to do until, 30 minutes later, we arrived in Bern and had to change trains. Problem solved.

Of course, a new problem immediately presented itself. How do we haul 18 bags off of one train and onto another in three minutes? Very carefully. And quickly.

With lots of teamwork and a little bit of shouting we made it. Sure, we caused a typical American scene in the middle of the night, but at that point we didn’t care. We were on the correct train heading toward the correct city. If all went well, we’d make that last bus of the night.

We arrived in Frutigen on time, and I ran ahead to alert the bus driver that a group of 16 would be coming off the train and to ask him to please hold the bus. As I was doing that, the rest of the group began the schlepping process. Off the train, down the stairs, under the tracks and up a ramp to the waiting bus.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Mark, one of the dads in the group who was the last one on the train, had turned his back to make sure all of the bags got off the train, and while he was doing that the doors of the train closed! Everyone was yelling and screaming. A riot was about to ensue. But someone found the emergency “Door Open” button which released the door, allowing Mark to jump out just before the train took off again.

Disaster averted. Again.

Busses in Switzerland are so cool because they carry with them a trailer on the back which, in the summer, can carry luggage, but during the rest of the year can carry your SKIS! How awesome is that?! A ski trolley right on the back of the bus.

Our bags were thrown into the trailer, and we all got settled in for the 30-minutes-that-seemed-like-two-hours ride to our village. By the time we pulled into the bus station it was midnight. We were exhausted after 30 hours of travel, but so very happy to have made it to our final destination.

And like a pool of water in a desert, there were our missionary friends waiting for us at the lonely bus stop. About seven people had walked down from the hotel to greet us in the middle of the night. All I could do was sit there and cry. I had completed half of my task—I had gotten everyone there—and like a small blessing, an acknowledgement of how hard we had all worked to get there, our friends were there to greet us.

Our one last travel task was to walk about a half a mile to our hotel. We looked ridiculous rolling all that noisy luggage down the street, but it was the middle of the night and we didn’t care very much.

We dropped into our beds and slept very well that night.

The Hills are Alive

For weeks around here we've been listening to yodeling music, eating fondue, and researching the best in Swiss chocolates. We've also been developing curriculum, gathering craft supplies, and making travel arrangements for sixteen.

Why?

Because today we're heading to Switzerland!

The three of you (Mom and my sisters) who read my blog already know this, but just in case someone out of the ordinary should pop by while we're gone, I thought I'd leave a little explanation.

We are going to Switzerland not only to see what I've heard is the most beautiful place on earth, but also to help out some folks by doing what's called a short term missions project. Short term because we'll only be gone about 11 days, but it's still considered missions.

I know what you're thinking because all of our friends have already given us the business. "Oh sure, 'missions trip' to Switzerland. Tough gig!"

Well, the way we look at it, someone's got to go, and it might as well be us. All five of us.

Several months ago our church announced the short term missions trips for this summer. When they announced that the Switzerland trip would be families and still needed someone to lead the trip, my husband and I looked at each other and said, "We can do that. Piece of cake." (What were we thinking?)

What will we do in Switzerland, you ask? We will be leading a week-long program for children of missionaries, all of whom live in undisclosed locations. They are taking a break from their very difficult work to get away, to have a conference together, and to spend some time relaxing, hopefully. Our role will be to care for their children from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. every day. We have a VBS program planned for the morning time, and in the afternoon we'll take some of the kids on "excursions" or provide activities for them at the conference site.

It's probably not your typical "missions" trip, but we are still serving and, hopefully, providing some respite to some very important people. And we're hoping to teach our children that service, in whatever form it takes, is a necessary and vital part of our Christian life.

I'm sure I'll have lots of great stories to tell, but it probably won't be for a couple of weeks since my kids start school the day after we return. How's that for timing?!