Euro Road trip family edition Part Three: four days in perfect Paris.

Days 7-10: We arrived in Paris via two loops around the Arc de Triomphe on day seven of our 14 day road trip. Loop one for fun, loop two to make our exit. (catch up on days 1-3.5 here and days 3.5-6 here) It wasn’t a far drive (only like 3-ish hours) from Bayeux, the […]

Euro road trip family edition. Part Two: Normandy, France. A region beyond the infamous beaches.

On Day Four (catch up on days 1-3.5 here) of our great Western Europe road trip we departed Belgium, and drove in to northern France. We drove through bright sunshine, over rolling green hills, with steeples from tiny villages decorating the landscape, a chateau or two, and union workers striking on the highway. We were […]

A family European Road trip in four parts. Part One: Amsterdam, Brugges and all stops in between.

Day One: travel day. Now, before anyone goes off and starts thinking this was some sort of fairy tale adventure, I want to assure you that we have two children who like to keep us firmly grounded. Max did his part by vomiting in the car, a whole 40 minutes down the road. After that, […]

Happy New Year!

We took our Christmas tree down on January 12 this year. Normally that would have felt like an eternity beyond Christmas and the New Year, but in Poland I’ve been told its not uncommon for Christmas trees to be left up until February and sure enough, our neighbors still turn their outside holiday lights on […]

six good reasons to not travel with your kids

The laws of physics apply to all of us, but they especially apply to 13 month olds. Objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force… mommy, for example. Or gravity, which seems to have stronger pull on this age group, making them more prone to tipping over and/or falling off […]

Your ready-made southern Baltic road trip itinerary: Copenhagen and Hamburg in four days or bust (the journey is half the fun)

When you come to visit Szczecin, Poland, I have your side-trip itineraries ready to go. Do you want to see a bit of the lower Baltic, hit four countries in as many days and explore two major cities? You’re going to want to add this one to your travel to-do list. Its a whirlwind, but […]

Oh Hey! We live here! in Szczecin, Poland

Szczecin, Poland. Pronounced Stche-cheen…or, Sh-che-chin…or, St-chech-een. The problem with Polish, for a native English speaker, is the consonants. There can be so many of them in a row, your poor tongue doesn’t know where to turn next and intuitive spelling goes right out the window. I can handle reverse syntax and rolling Rs, but the […]

The Cultural Fog

I have sooooOoOoooOOOO much I want to share with you guys about these past few months. I’m in serious overload, almost to the point that I don’t know where to start. There isn’t a day that passes without some scenario that makes me think I GOTTA TELL THE KIDS AT HOME! We’ve had some big […]

Anything is possible.

I’ve been such a homebody this week. For good reason. This is the week I’ve looked forward to for approx the last 18 months. The week we have finally settled in to our new home. 18 months ago I had no idea where in the world, literally, that would be. Poland definitely never crossed my […]

weekend family foray in Berlin

We now live an easy two-hour train ride from Berlin. We visited for 48 hours, as a warm up adventure abroad. Well, it was going to be 48 hours, but then we took the train home (Polish hotel home, let me be clear) two stops in the wrong direction, navigated three local trains back to […]