Family, History, holidays, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

Leading Me Astray and Egging Me On

15 Comments

Daughter has done it again. She has cast out her net of excitement and wild ideas and caught me.

The other day she sent a photo via text. It was identical to the header photo, which is a shot of Hallstatt, Austria. “Mom!! Isn’t this place beautiful? Wouldn’t this be nice over Christmas!! We fly to Munich and then take the train. I’ll pay for my own airline ticket. Just think of the Christmas markets!”  She says this at a very rapid pace.

I said a trip like that takes a lot of planning. She replies, “Ok.  Let’s go the Christmas of 2020!! We will have lots of time to plan and save our money. Oh, Mom! Think of the Christmas markets!”  I feel myself sliding down the slippery slope to consider this seriously.  Daughter knows that if I am in favor of something like this, it will happen. Husband always says he wants his two beauties to be happy, and Daughter knows if I agree to something, her father will go along with it.

Husband chimes in “I think that is a historically interesting place.  The Celts settled there, and there are ancient salt mines.” He then goes to the basement to get a book about the region.

I think, well, it isn’t that far from the area of Germany where Husband’s family hales from. Maybe we could visit Stuttgart and Wurttemberg as long as we were there. Husband has always wanted to do that.  I tell her I will contact our travel agent and get her working on it.

This is how we ended up in Europe three years ago. Daughter gets an idea, and then we just run with it. There are very few people who can propel me on adventures like my daughter can.

How do people convince you to do things you wouldn’t normally do?  Who in your family was (or is) good at getting you into trouble?

15 thoughts on “Leading Me Astray and Egging Me On”

  1. Rise and Go Astray, Baboons,

    My nieces keep me wandering off into Netflix and Podcasts that I would not have explored if they had not provided a nudge. Netflix: “The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes” Podcast: Malcolm Gladwell’s “Revisionist History”. Both are interesting and entertaining.

    As far as travel goes, I am the person who gets others in trouble. “Let’s go to Oslo.” That did not go well. But Bergen and Stuvunger were great.

    The Memorial Service yesterday was comforting and lovely. The thing was that her granddaughter visited two days before she died and gave her a manicure, which they said she enjoyed. Then her granddaughter took a picture of their hands together. It was the best memorial to this great lady.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    2. The things we liked in Oslo were the museums: The Kontiki, the Viking ships, and the Volksmuseum which differentiated each province, were all so well done. Those museums are all located very near each other so it only took one bus to get out to that area for the day.

      Another highlight of Oslo was finding Bonanza reruns on TV. Dubbed in Norwegian. We got a big kick out of that after returning in the evening to elevate our sore feet.

      But then there were the negatives.

      When we travel most places we learn to take public transportation if Rick Steves says it is safe to do so. His material indicated that for Oslo. However, Oslo in April, 2014 was under construction! It was really frustrating because it seemed that anywhere, other than the aforementioned museums, we wanted to go in Oslo was blocked by rubble–roads, sidewalks, streetcar lines. There was even a museum on the harbor that was entirely closed because of the rubble in front of the building itself. We could not get close to the sculpture garden near the capital either. When we could get somewhere on foot, the street signs we knocked down so we did not know where we were.

      We learned how to take the streetcars which were clean, but those routes were impaired by the construction. Several times we had to step out of the car onto more rubble. Then there was the scary guy on one route. We were riding along when a young man boarded the streetcar. He sat down and turned on a speaker loudly playing rap. The driver stopped the streetcar and asked him to turn it off or leave. He turned up the volume and lost it with the driver. Then he turned it down. The driver started the route again and he turned on the speaker even louder. The next stop we all got off because this guy was so volatile and scary, but then we were stuck in the middle of somewhere and had to find a way back to the Air B and B unit and we did not get to see what we had wanted to see.

      The Air B and B we rented was in a sketchy neighborhood. Furthermore, we were on the 8th floor of the building — with a broken elevator, so we had to walk up and down with our luggage. The owner kept telling us it would be fixed tomorrow. Tomorrow never arrived, of course. The unit was also pretty dirty. We finally left for Bergen early and asked for a refund for several days due to the problems. He did not want to give it to me. I finally told him that if he gave me a refund I would not post a negative review and I got my refund.

      But Oslo was not fun for us, overall. And I just loved the Volksmuseum so much. I learned that each province has its own lace design, a unique embroidered costume, and drumroll….lefse recipe.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. Hmm? I wonder what Lefse variant I have? It was a recipe one of our church members got from a Jewish woman married to a Norwegian American Minnesotan who was in her husband’s architecture school in California.

        Like

        Reply

  3. It’s good to have an instigator. Most of us need a nudge sometimes. For us, if we don’t pick a date and get SOMETHING on the calendar, it won’t happen. Just life gets in the way.

    In this case, it was our daughter too saying she wanted a vacation. We’ve had a couple false starts because work gets in the way, but we’ve got it on the calendar now.

    I heard a well known lighting designer say the reasons for choosing to light a show are “Art, Fun or Money. Pick two. And sometimes for the publicity.”
    For me it’s more “Schedules, Do I enjoy working with this group, money” pretty much in that order.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  4. You had me at the header photo, Renee. I haven’t been to Hallstatt, but the photo reminds me of Montreux in Switzerland where I have been, albeit a long time ago. Just a gentle nudge: There’s something to be said for spontaneity. Life wasn’t meant to be planned in exquisite detail. At least I don’t think so.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. For us, getting to France happened because we finally had a reason to go – the celebration of my mom’s brother and his crew in the village where his plane went down. That and a deadline/time frame…

    For smaller things, like heading up a committee, I can be nudged with food, music, or books…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Daughter has a new coworker who grew up in Baden-Wurttemberg who insists that if we go we must stay with her family if we go to Hallstatt. She was interested in what German Christmas cookies I make, and when I said I made Zimsterne, she started shrieking (daughter had them both on speaker) and insisted we must have a Christmas cookie exchange.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.