Homeward Bound

Sunday May 27.  This is it.  We coaxed our lame luggage into the the terminal and checked that bad for the last time.  The original issue was that part of the plastic exterior was rubbing while the kids would pull it at their closer to the ground angle.  So, we ended up trading off pulling.  Eventually the plastic ground down and that was no longer and issue.  However, when we pulled it at a more upright angle it would get this weird ever increasing wobble where it would almost flip over.  As you can see from the below image, the wheels do not quite orient themselves for optimal rolling.  Kinda like walking a stubborn dog.  Having packs on us and rollers for the kids really did work out the best.

The kids loved the little condiments pack that comes with the meals.  They got a kick out of drinking their own tiny one ounce milks that some strange folks poured into their coffees, and the little sleeve was an efficient sugar delivery system.

I had some very interesting conversations with a Bosian (Merciad) next to me with 9 hours of hang time.  He was in the war when Yugoslavia broke up and was taken captive by the Serbians  He remained in prison until he was sent to America by the Red Cross when the war ended and became a citizen.  He ended up in Denver where there are not many Bosnians and was forced to learn English to survive.  He installs hardwoods for a living and really loves Denver and America.

We were goofing around with our iPads and he was showing me some of his games.  He was very intentional about telling me that he has no shooting games.  He has seen real war and he wants nothing to do with it.  He said that he will sign up in a second if America is attacked, but we seem so eager to go to war for so many other reasons.  He was telling me about the compulsory military service required for one year at age 18 in Bosnia.  He says you go in a boy and come out a man.  He thinks that would help America's boys grow up and give our people some practical skills to defend against things like the Virginia Tech shootings.   He also thinks our politicians should understand war and the military first hand as it should change the way they approach entering into war.

It was an interesting set of discussions to have on the eve of our Memorial Day.

Reflecting for a moment while traveling home now from the longest vacation I have had since entering the full time work world.  In the past, with foreign travel stints of around two weeks, I was always ready for my own bed near the end of the trip.  This time is different, I think I could just keep going.  The kids have been great, much better then expected.  The few difficulties that did arise happened when we ran long on hiking and short on food, which we the parents invited.  I think the kids really had a fun time.  I had a few core prayers for this trip the first of which was for our safety and the next priority was that this experience would draw us closer as a family.  God was willing to grant those requests.

 One night Patti and I schemed about how I should look into working for a year based out of London.  That would give us all kinds of opportunities to jump off into other countries and give the kids a less touristy impression of living in another country and amongst other cultures.  The UK is not as different from the US as other countries are but it offers many opportunities to interact with people of other cultures and cheap access to Europe and beyond.

The blogging tools on the iPad make the task much pretty easy.  I will probably keep up with it but the topics will change from travel other then a few more parting posts maybe.  You will see more mountain biking, theological reflection, general kid stuff and other random thoughts.

Farewell and thank you for traveling with us we hope you enjoyed the ride.

God bless you and Ciao, Adijo, Dovidenja, Auf Weiderersehen, Ahoj, Goodbye - John, Patti, Tara and Riley.

---> Random thoughts <>

Correction -  Milka chocolate is not Swiss, but German.  We are going to stockpile this on our way out of the country.  We were thinking Heathrow would be a nice place to shop, but Cadbury is king there.  We hit the grocery in the metro and are bringing in 1.2 kilos of the good stuff, thats right, 1200 grams of Milka Alpine Milk Chocolate.  Picked up 300g in Heathrow.  We now have represented the finest chocolate in the world.

Nutella apparently goes with everything.

English language music in non-English speaking countries.  It's everywhere and mostly 80's pop.  Why is that?  Friday on the bus, the song Maniac from the smash hit movie Flashdance, or was it Tommy Boy, was rocking the driver.

English as a second language speakers are taught to always say 'of course'.  To the question 'do you speak English?' the answer is 'yes, of course'.  To the question 'is the cheapest way to the airport from central Prague taking the green line to bus 119 and can we do that all on a single 90 minute ticket?' , 'yes of course.'.  How can they be so certain about so many things? ;-)

Our first hotel stop in Prague, the 5 star where we did not belong, had a pool.  It turned out to be this dinky lap pool attached to a fitness center that my kids invaded with Marco Polo and other stuff kids do.  This was much to the chagrin of the serious folks in there who quietly exited the pool.  We did confine the shenanigans to only one lane.

I much prefer inhaling body odor over second hand smoke.

Since I only really wore about a quarter of the wardrobe that I brought, I got into the comfortable habit of wearing clothes 2 or 3 times.  I figured if I smelled only half as bad as a quarter of the people I was still not in the worst offenders category.

The iPad's have been a great asset on the trip.  From the clock, which was a scarce item, and white noise apps to the free phone calling app as well as the blogging and Picassa apps.  We have been using a VPN to as to keep our data secure, hopefully that did the trick.

Sometimes Patti would apply the car brakes so hard that the accelerometer in the iPad that I was typing on would flip the screen upside down.  That was always a signal to me that navigation was required.

In the past I would try to be as inconspicuous a traveller as possible, trying not to appear quite as touristy. This time I realized that there was no getting around it.  I embraced it completely and for whatever reason I must have blended in more because I had all kinds of other tourists coming to me apparenty asking me for information in some tongue I did not understand.  Maybe it was that they saw me with my kids and thought I must be some kind of professional, daring to take on a challenge like that.