Woman in the Middle

I thought I would take a little break from vacation photos to tell you about the wild weather we had yesterday. Well, wild isn’t the right word. Maybe epic? Or mind-blowing? I think I like mind-blowing…..

Eldest Daughter had an appointment at her college campus in the big city next door. Being the wonderful mother that I am I acted as chauffeur to the appointment. We hopped on the freeway and got a couple of miles down the road when I saw something up ahead. Was it smoke? Was it a dust storm coming off our dry river bed? Nope, it was an incredible rain storm combined with wind so hard it blew a bunch of tumble weeds off a piece of property that was at least 20 feet lower than the freeway. What a mess! Traffic slowed to about 10 miles an hour. I finally decide that it would be better to get off the freeway in this freak storm and hit the surface streets. I went ahead and kept going to the appointment because, after all, freak storms of this nature usually only last 10 or 15 minutes before moving on.

Oh how wrong I was! I crept along the surface streets, sometimes not even being able to see the world around me the rain was so heavy. We finally got to the school and parked and then just sat there. While I have no problem with getting a little wet, this was a deluge. If we got out of the car and walked to the appointment we would have been dripping wet, as if someone had dunked us in a pool. I didn’t think the woman Eldest was meeting with would have appreciated us dripping all over her office. On top of that, the wild wind was ripping branches  off of trees and I wasn’t relishing the idea of being killed by a falling tree branch.

Eldest finally just called the woman here appointment was with and talked to her on the phone, although that had its issues because the rain on the car roof was so loud it was hard to hear the person on the other end at times. In just the 15 minutes or so we sat there the college streets filled with water in an amazing fashion. We started for home, again creeping along with everyone else….There were palm fronds and branches everywhere. When we finally crossed the not so dry river again   the rain had finally stopped. As we got closer and closer to home it got drier and drier….and it became obvious that the freak rain storm had parked over a pretty small area and it rained hardly a drip at my house. If we hadn’t tried to go to that appointment I would have had a hard time imagining that all that rain occurred just a few miles away!

If it weren’t for this cruise, I doubt I would have ever made it to the country of Estonia, and what a shame that would have been! Little did I know that Tallinn, the town where our ship stopped, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site! I am excited to be able to share some photos of lovely Tallinn with you!

Our guide for the walking tour of old town Tallinn was one of the Weasley brothers… just kidding. Actually Martin was a chemistry teacher on summer break.

The black, white and blue Estonian flag proudly flies above a government building.

We walked towards the top of the town and got to see this amazing view of the red-tiled roofs of Tallinn.

Now THAT is a cobblestone street that Hubby is modeling for you below. Note the size of those rocks! I was scared to death that I was going to break an ankle on them. Little did I know that I would have to deal with this ankle breaking type of paving again later on in the trip….

Oh, European towns are so picturesque….

Here is the town square in the oldest section of Tallinn. You may note in this photo that there were a lot of tourists. When a big ship or two comes into port there are an awful lot of people who want to get off and see things……

In the town square we saw this sign pointing to Europe’s oldest continuously operating apothecary, or pharmacy. In case you can’t read the sign, it opened in 1422, seventy years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue!

While the cruise line advertised this stop as “Berlin,” that city was actually quite far away, as in hours by train. Hubby and I decided since we had never been to Germany before, any place would be new and different to us. After a long plane flight, a long train ride was not appealing so we decided to just explore the area where the ship docked and we were very glad we did.

Warnemunde was a small, picturesque seaside town with lovely old buildings and cobblestone streets. My photos don’t do it justice, I see now!

Below is the lovely old lighthouse which was built in 1897-98

No trip to Europe is complete without churches! This is the first of many on our trip.

As you can see fromt he photo below, our cruise ship was docked very near town, making it easy just to get off the ship and take a stroll.

That afternoon we took a tour to the nearby city of Rostock. It was also very picturesque, although in a different, more “big city” kind of way. Here is the main town square where a farmer’s market was happening. This area was once part of East Germany. During that time the cobble stones were covered in asphalt. But they were still there, and, after reunification, they were uncovered once again.

Inside the local church was this elaborate pulpit. Every church we saw had an elaborate pulpit.

I think it would be very intimidating to try to give a sermon from such a magnificent edifice!

Our tour concluded with a boat ride back to Warnemunde. We were on a lot of boats on this vacation. The ride included a glass of the local beer. Lucky hubby got two glasses since I don’t like beer!

I have finally downloaded our photos and can begin to take you on a little arm-chair tour of northern Europe. I hope you enjoy the trip and just think, your feet won’t hurt like mine did!

Our cruise began in Copenhagen, Denmark. We arrived a day and a half early so we could see at least a bit of Copenhagen before getting on the ship. Our friends had been to Copenhagen before so we let them decided what to see. Well, except if an excessive amount of stairs were involved then I usually said no thank you!

Denmark is known for its open-faced sandwiches so I had one of those our first night in Copenhagen. Here is my delicious dinner.

You might be wondering what exactly I have here. It is actually potatoes, red onion, bacon, and mayonnaise piled on top of a good, dark Danish bread. It was delicious!

The following day we took a canal cruise. There are two canal cruises you can take. One is at the very top of the canal in the Nyhavn area, so it is the first thing you see. It was quite expensive. But we had been told to look to the right a little further down the canal  for the Netto boat tour, which was exactly the same. What a bargain! It was only about $8 a person while the other tour was over $20 a person.  Here are some of the things we saw on our tour.

This is the famous Little Mermaid statue. Every picture you see of it makes it look like it is way out in the water, doesn’t it? Well, as you can see here, it sits very close to shore. Sorry to burst your tourist bubble like that!

We saw beautiful rows of house like these along the canals.

There are picturesque bridges over the canals. They are very low and we had to sit down so we didn’t bump our noggin when the boat went under the bridge. As you can see one of my fellow tourists was also taking a photo of the bridge!

After the boat tour we walked over to the castle to see the Danish crown jewels. My Friend Barb knowns how much I like gold and precious gems! Surprisingly, they let you take photos of the collection on display. Look what they have:

That night we went back to the picturesque Nyhavn area to have dinner. We ate outside, as was everyone else, because buildings in Europe don’t tend to have a lot of air conditioning  in the summer. It is hard to justify something that is needed for just a few weeks a year!

After dinner, we couldn’t resist having some ice cream from the little ice cream place we saw earlier.  It is hard to see, but they added whipped cream and marshmallow cream to the top of my cone. I had never seen that done before. The marshmallow cream had to go (not a huge fan) but the unsweetened whipped cream was so thick and a little bite of it with a bite of ice cream was heavenly!

I am 5’6 1/2″, Eldest Daughter is 5’7″,and Youngest Daughter is 5′ 8″. Youngest was determined to be the tallest female in the family and she succeeded! But that last inch she has on her sister is a significant measurement. While Eldest can usually find pants long enough for her, Youngest almost always has to get longs in pants or she looks like the poster child for high water hem lines.

For you tall ladies out there, you know what a pain that is. It is even more of a pain if you are looking for something other than jeans. They are nigh on impossible to find unless you order them online.  As you can imagine, Youngest is at that time in her life when occasions present themselves without much notice in which office style pants are desirable. But these occasions are rare enough that she (and/or her mother) doesn’t want to waste a lot of money on pants that may rarely if ever be worn again. Sigh…

Just such an occasion has presented itself this week. She has been selected to go to a brewery in Colorado for three days to participate in a quality control review for the world-wide company she is interning for (think beer, lots of beer).   Her normal work clothes are fine for day time but she had been advised to bring a “nice pair of slacks” in case she and her coworkers go out to dinner one night. The problem is that a “nice pair of slacks,” the kind her good old mom wears to work every day, probably do not  exist  in longs in this town or the next one over. I suggested she wear a skirt, but that was not desirable due to the heavily male nature of the brewing industry. Double sigh….

So off we went to the nearest store that carries clothes: Kmart. I know, you are thinking that is a disastrous shopping trip in the making. But, I have to say, Kmart has been very very good to me over the years. Shockingly, they have about the best selection of jeans, khakis, etc…in iongs as we have found at any store in our area. Yes, you long-legged women out there in search of inexpensive pants, go visit Kmart!

The selection was a little slim, I admit, It always is when you are looking for longs. But I grabbed up a pair of nice jeans type pants(Riders by Lee) that had a tiny grey herringbone weave in an average length. As far as the length goes, hope springs eternal. As far as the pants go, I thought they had a good office slacks vibe. youngest found a cute grey cardigan style sweater that would turn any tank or spaghetti strapped style top in her wardrobe into instant office wear and we headed to the dressing room.

What can i say, angels sang! The grey pants fit perfectly and weren’t too short! The grey sweater went with them and, with top and shoes from daughter’s closet, she is good to go to Colorado. Yay!

I really wish I could say that Kmart or Lee paid me in cash and merchandise to write this post. But, alas, no. This is just another true episode in my life, written just because I wanted to, not because someone asked me to!

I haven’t had the energy to move the million-zillion photos from our cruise to the computer so I can share a few with you. But I have been thinking about our recent cruise experience, and travel to Europe, and wanted to share a few thoughts and suggestions, in case it might help you with your future travel experiences.

1. Two cameras are better than one. Hubby and I wrestled over the camera the whole time we were gone. What were seeing was just so spectacular we both wanted to record what we saw. The problem is we wanted to take pictures of different things. What I thought was amazing was not necessarily what he thought was amazing. Sigh. We will be taking two cameras next time.

2. Cruise ships do laundry. I realize that wearing the same few things over and over again is not as enjoyable as having a load of things to choose from. But lugging loads of luggage around is even less fun. On Norwegian Cruise ships they have at least one offer during the cruise which allows you to stuff as much clothing as possible in the provided laundry bag to get washed for $24.95. I wish I had known this. I could have cut back significantly on the amount of clothing we took. You just have to be able to be without that bag of clothes for 24 hours.

3. I survived washing clothes in the sink. Washing out a few things in the sink was not horrible. My underwear and tops dried overnight. Again, washing in the sink is much nicer than a slog through unfamiliar airports, though customs, through security, with way too much stuff. Please let my unpleasant experiences be a lesson to you!

4. Shoes are your friend, if you find the right ones. There was not a price that was too high if I could have purchased a pair of shoes that would have allowed me to tour the many cities we saw without foot pain.  Hubby says that his feet never hurt. I love that man but when I heard that, I had to resist slapping him. I surveyed the women around me and all agreed that their feet hurt and their husbands said their male feet did not. Yet another reason why life is unfair.

5. Take Yahtzee. After dinner, when the entertainment was not to our liking and we were beat from the day’s sight-seeing, it was fun to sit down and play a game of Yahtzee. All you need it 5 dice, some small pencils, and a few sheets from the Yahtzee score pad in a small Ziploc bag. It takes up very little room but is a nice thing to have along in case you get a little bored.

6. Toilet seat covers are an American thing. Be forewarned and take any action you feel necessary to keep you comfortable in the bathrooms abroad.

Hello everybody! It feels like I have been gone so long from the world of blogging, even though it was only two weeks. The vacation was magnificent, but exhausting. More will be coming about that later. But I do have to tell you one very important piece of travel advice I have for women:  Do not wear an underwire bra, unless having strangers in airports all over the world frisk you from head to toe is what you want on your vacation….

On the way out of the country I wore a different style bra, one that does not have underwire apparently. On the way home I wore one that has underwire. Imagine my surprise when little old me caused the metal detector to go off  in the Copenhagen Airport. I wasn’t even wearing pants with pockets! I was pulled aside and a good-sized Danish woman proceeded to give me what I like to think of a free full body massage. She had nice firm hands!

It was all I could do not to giggle, a reaction I felt was inappropriate as the Danish woman checked to see if I was carrying explosives or weapons. As I have mentioned previously, the whole family has become fans of “Big Bang Theory” and there  is an episode when a trip to Las Vegas gets derailed because one of the woman characters in the show cold cocks a security official in the airport who got too frisky with her hands. That was what was running though my mind as I experienced my own “frisky” moment.

When I told Hubby this later he thanked me for refraining from both giggling and cold cocking. I will wear only sports bras in planes from now on. No more underwire and the free massages that go with it!

August 13th is International Left Hander’s Day! While I am not a lefty myself, my Hubby is and my Nanny was, so I definitely think I need to celebrate!

My grandmother, who we called Nanny, was born back in the day (1910) when they forced you to write with your right hand, even if you showed inclinations to be a leftie. However, she ate left-handed so my Mom always made sure we sat her in the right spot so she didn’t bump elbows with the rest of the family.

My Hubby was born in a more progressive era so he has that arm-curled-around -the-paper way of writing that most left handers adopt. I thought for sure, with a grandmother and a husband who were lefties, that I would give birth to a leftie. Hubby certainly was hoping so. But Eldest Daughter was definitely a rightie. When we had Youngest Daughter and she was old enough to sit in a high chair and pick up Cheerios, she started using her right hand as well. Hubby, in a last desperate bid for a leftie, would push her Cheerios over to the left side of the tray. Youngest would just reach over with her right hand and pick up the Cheerios from there. It made me laugh, being the extreme rightie that I am!

Whether you are a leftie or just know someone who is, I wish you a Happy Left Hander’s Day!

Hubby can remember things that happened to him when he was two. I, on the other hand, have a scattershot group of about 10 or 12 memories that happened to me before I was 6 and that is about it. Sorry, I won’t be writing a memoir about my childhood! Well, I could, but it would only fill one page!

One of those scattershot memories is very vivid, You tend to remember those moments, even when you are very young, when you think you are going to die! My family was on vacation and we were walking down the street in some southwestern city. My Mom had purchased me a roll of some off brand hard candy, like Lifesavers but without the hole. This little point is very important to this story!

I was sucking away at the piece of candy when, just as we reached a street corner,  it slipped down my throat and lodged over the opening to my windpipe. (Now I can see where those holes in the middle of Lifesavers come in handy.) So there I was choking on my candy and my parents were a bit distracted by being in a strange city, but they soon noticed my distress. My Dad was a tall man, six feet, and strong as well. As I quietly choked to death, he bent down, grabbed both of my ankles, and in one fluid motion picked me up by those ankles, turned me upside down, and shook me. The candy dropped right out and onto the side-walk, he set me down, the light changed, and we crossed the street.

As we started across, my hand firmly held by my Mom, I looked back to see my arch nemesis glistening on the sidewalk.

Do you have a childhood memory you will never forget?

I recently began following the blog “I Dream of White Rooms.” The subtitle of the blog is “Adventures of a not so perfect mom living in Hillbilly Heaven.” How could I resist that?

On July 25th this blogger had a post about making DIY air fresheners. They involved two simple ingredients: baking soda and essential oil (smell of your choice.) The directions can be found here: http://idreamofwhiterooms.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/diy-aromatherapy-air-freshener/

I really think this little DIY project is brilliant! You see, Hubby is a chemist by trade and he tests air for a living. One year, for a science fair project, we decided to take advantage of the fact that he had a lab at his disposal and Eldest Daughter did an air testing project. She was trying to see if the air in new portable classroom buildings had more chemicals in it than air in older portable classroom buildings.  That part of the experiment was inconclusive. However what really struck Hubby and I was the stuff in the air of the portable classroom where the teacher had lots of those plug-in type air fresheners. Wow!

I can’t blame the teacher for wanting to try to cover up the smell of puberty stricken 6th graders just coming in from PE. But the amount of junk in the air was pretty surprising. I am not saying it was lethal or anything, but why breath all that in when you don’t have to? That is why I though that a little baking soda and essential oil might be a nice, less chemical ridden alternative.