Posts from — December 2008

I have not forgotten that this was started as a craft blog – not a travel blog. It’s just so hard to be crafty in a tiny little van.  It’s not that craft has been far from my mind – driving for thousands of kilometres around Europe has given me plenty of time to mentally plan projects for when I return.  And there is the knitted cardigan for Zoe which is not only finished but is being worn every day (I’m having trouble photographing it because it’s been so cold it would be cruel to make her stand outside without her jacket on).

I did however have a bit of a crafty highlight late last week when we dropped in to visit Hilco fabrics in Germany.  Finally I got to to touch the beautiful fabrics I’ve been ogling on the internet – and it was every bit as good as I had hoped.  I was so restrained I walked away with just these two pieces:

This one is velvet and so much prettier in real life (it’s one of those days in Germany when it’s practically dark at 4pm).

This one is stretch:

And I bought my very first Ottobre magazine.

I also found someone to chat to about importing some of Hilco’s fabrics for my shop.  Oh…did I mention I’m opening an online shop?  Hmmm – I think not.  But I am!  I am so excited about it – just wish I could think up a decent name.

Better go – we take our van back in 2 more sleeps now and there’s a lot of mess here for such a tiny van!

Ahhh…back in the van….back on the road. Always mixed emotions about that!

On our way out of Italy we stopped at this famous site.  Zoe once called it the ‘Learning Tower of Pizza’ and the name has kind of stuck.  It was a freezing day when we went there, and to be honest we were feeling a bit of tourism fatigue after pounding the pavements of Rome for 11 days.  So we arrived, took some photos, walked around the tower and got straight back into our van.  Actually we would have gone up it, but the kids need to be 8 years old, so we penciled it onto the list of places to come to again.

We then drove up and stayed a night at Como, just under the Swiss border, ready for our assault on Zurich.  Just one hour into our journey the next day and we had crossed the border, consumed several Toblerone bars and stopped and played in the snow. Low and behold Switzerland was there and then unanimously declared (by both children) ‘the best country in Europe’ – pushing both England (where they speak English) and Germany (where they drive fast) off the top spot.

Here are the kids (all three of them) mid snowball fight:

We stayed 3 nights in Zurich and the beauty of the place was quite simply gob smacking.  Of course it helped that during our second night the city was covered in 3 inches of snow (and quite frankly even the rubbish trucks look beautiful in the snow), but I bet this city looks stunning any time of year.

Now we are back in Germany and we are on the count down – just four more sleeps until we drop the van back at the hire depot.  Hamish told me he would give it a good hug and say goodbye when we leave it – which is quite amazing considering the kid has lived in the tiny little thing for the better part of the last 4 months.  Mind you that was before he jammed his fingers in the door   Ouch – the poor little man.  He’s ok now though, and I think he’s forgiven the van too.

I know – you don’t recognise her because she’s not wearing the blue fleece jacket she arrived with from Melbourne.  Did you know that wearing fleece in Italy is a crime punishable by horrid stares on the street and poor service at restaurants?  Earlier in Europe we were actually a family of criminals as each member of the family had a fleece jacket – but then you can get away with that kind of thing in some places.  Italy is another story though.  Luckily by Rome we had each managed to shed our fleece…except me…who was feeling very a) cold and b) fleecy.  That was until my loving husband took me shopping and I came out with this beautiful jacket.  I asked him to take this photo just after I bought it (I wore it out of the shop) but he got a bit dazzled by the Pantheon behind me and you have to use your imagination a little about the jacket.  Still, you can see it’s not fleece.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it…but our Aussie dollar SUCKS and having to double the price of everything we buy makes being in Europe REALLY expensive.  I know I droned on about a $10 bottle of water in Berlin, but today a guy asked me for 12 Euro for 3 lemonades today.  That’s $25 worth of lemonade!!!

The good news is – we’ve worked out a way of making back some of our money. We’re going to use our secret weapon – Zoe.  It was ‘jolie’ in Paris, ‘que guapa’ in Spain, and ‘que bella’ in Italy.  It seems whatever the language (providing it’s not English because of course red heads are a dime a dozen in England) our little red head turns heads . But in Italy she creates traffic jams on the streets as the old ladies/men/nuns/young people/police crane their heads to get a better view.  And yes they take photos!  Some of them ask, but we catch others doing it on the sly. So – just like the guys dressed as Romans who stand outside the Colosseum posing for a fee – we figure we just need a couple of Euros per photo for each snap of Zoe that’s taken and we’ll make back our lemonade money back in no time.

Here a few recent photos of our beauty who is no doubt in family photos albums around the world by now.

Hamish is reading 100 facts about Gladiators, Zoe has a book of Greek and Roman mythical beasts. They were both very annoyed when we told them it was time to move on.

My little man is currently fascinated with natural disasters and loves to discuss their various forms.  I’ll be driving through the city streets of Europe, trying to avoid all manner of hazards on the road, and he will call out ‘Mum, what is your favourite natural disaster out of floods and tsunamis?’.   I say it’s floods.  He says ‘why?’. I clench my teeth and swerve to avoid a pedestrian. He says ‘muuuum’….

Of course whilst being fascinated in natural disasters Hamish is also quite scared of them, and we have been told which countries we can and cannot visit depending on which natural disasters occur there.  Sadly China and Japan are now off our list of possible holiday destinations (due to risk of earthquake, mudslide and tsunami of course), but the good news is the United States is back on, as long as we stay on the East Coast.  Phew.

Anyway, due to the little man’s intense interest in natural disasters, I thought he would be fascinated to see how the Venice we visited last week which looked like this:

now looks like this:

In actual fact he was more interested in the game of gladiators he was playing with his 4 year old sister (apparently it’s not a flood…and hence a natural disaster if nobody dies (insert shaking my head in bewilderment icon here)).

Lucky for us we visited the sinking city of Venice last week, and spent this week avoiding another natural disaster down in Pompei.  I told Hamish that Mount Vesuvius was extinct, but did you know it is considered the most dangerous volcano in the world due to the 3 million people who live within the effective range of the volcano and the fact that it’s well overdue for an erruption? So strange why anyone would want to live sandwiched between the ancient ruins of the Romans and the still active volcano that destroyed them.

Our first day visiting Pompei was not quite as wet as for the poor guys in Venice…but it wasn’t far off – here’s Miss Zoe looking suitably drenched:

So we packed up the van and headed further south until we found a beach and some warm (if rather windy) weather.

We then visited Pompei again on the way back up north, and as you can see the weather was much kinder to us by then. Here are Hamish and Zoe posing as gladiators in the arena:

We then jumped in the van and headed to Rome – where it proceeded to rain some more. Lucky for us we’re now out of the van and into a lovely dry apartment just a few hundred metres away from the Colosseum. We will be here for 10 more days so there should be time for more updates before we leave. For now though – it’s arrivederci from me!