In Canada

Our flight to Canada with a 6 month old - actually it went really well. You could tell people weren't too impressed when they walked by the baby while boarding but in the end things turned out really well. Lily cried a bit while trying to fall asleep at her nap intervals but on the whole she was smiling and laughing at everyone and way too excited to be very sleepy! To get her to fall asleep I would put her in the 'moby' wrap and bounce her but once she was pressing her face against the cloth to look at all the people and once I covered her head with a dark blanket she was out in under 5 minutes.

When Lily passed her night sleep time I was afraid things would be more tearful but she just kept napping and smiling. As people were leaving the plane they kept saying to us what a lovely and happy baby we have and how they didn't even hear her cry.

Of course, after the flight we were still not finished. There was a huge (and hot) line of people to go through passport control and we were grateful that people let us pass through quickly with the baby. Then another hour line for immigration where ladies talking in chinese to Lily were the most hilarious thing she had ever heard. Then customs to clear ourselves and our container and then we were out the door. Once in the truck Lily fell sleep for the night, 6 hours past her bedtime and lucky her she had no jetlag at all. The sad part in all of this was that the airline broke the shade cover for Lily's stroller.

On the official start of summer in Canada then we hosted a BBQ and had lots of relatives come down to see us and meet Lily for the first time. Lily's cousin Harvey was there, smaller than Lily but twice her age!

Lily wore her very fancy new hat - we stopped in the expensive baby store in Stratford and bought it for shade since it will be weeks before the stroller will be repaired. Way too much money and now I will avoid the expensive baby store! But such a great hat! Not a pink explosion!

Amsterdam

Our last city in Europe - Amsterdam! Lots of canals and bicycles, we stayed in another Airbnb apartment which wasn't very big so when Lily had her naps in the apartment she was sleeping in her travel tent in the front entrance hallway.

We met up with my friend Donna and her boyfriend and had a lovely city visit. We visited the Rijks museum and also Michael and I went to visit the museum of modern art and design which we really liked.

We also did a walking tour of the city which included pushing Lily through the red light district. Later on we didn't notice it but Lily was photographed in front of some empty red light district window boxes. On the tour they said for children a little older they would say the ladies were modeling swimsuits.

It was a lovely city to visit and we had slightly chilly but rather nice weather. Then it was time to take a taxi with our giant bags of luggage to the airport and fly to Canada!

Alkmaar Cheese Market

It was  a Friday morning so the cheese market was on (for tourist display mostly I suppose). Men would weigh their cheese.

And then run out into the market square and there would be buyers.

Cheese was brought in by truck and also by boat.

There were tons of tourists all around. We stopped to have some french fries and everyone made comments about Lily in her very cool sunglasses.

Zuiderzeemuseum

Before we went to Amsterdam we visited the Zuiderzeemuseum, an open air museum with a focus on fishing life. What I learned - you didn't want to be a fisherman! One bad story was about a father with two sons who was fishing on a ice piece when it became detached and they went floating around in the giant bay for two weeks, sometimes drifting close enough to see people on land but never being seen. They eventually made it to shore and two of them died. Houses were tiny, cramped and apparently you could wake up covered in frost. Brrr.

A neat part of the museum was where they had part of the village reconstructed as after a flood, with mud and boards and furniture strewn around.

Of course, there was more than tiny fishing homes, they also had a large section in 'town', as well as a windmill and lots of little canals.

We also finally learned what those 'wings' are on the boats, they act as a keel but can be drawn up when the boat is in the shallow water.

Netherlands with Fokke and Tineke

We drove all the way north to Friesland to visit relatives of my father, Fokke and Tineke. While visiting we got a demonstration of the CNC machine. We shall see how it goes, our goal is to try and build our own hobby machine.

It was the end of the tulip season, there were fields and fields of the flowers and I learned they were being grown for the bulbs. We visited a farm where there were many many different types of tulips growing and we were lucky that many were still in bloom.

After the tulips we went to visit the city of Sloten - an old town with the official designation of city which had grown up on an important trade route. The town had big quays along the river, a windmill and an organization of buildings that had grown up without direction. There was the city hall, the church and then all the warehouses and workshops all in order along the water.

Finally, we went to a large garden center which had a big orchid garden with rivers and bridges and turtles and parrots.

They even had a few small monkeys and one really wanted to check out my camera and my necklace. I see what appeals to babies also appeals to monkeys.

Finally we were on the road again, one last time to Amsterdam!

 

Rohr and Wageningen

On our way out of Europe we stopped to visit relatives in Rohr France where we enjoyed Alsace wine and the pizza from the region (tarte flambee).

There was cooking and game playing and lots of relaxing in the beautiful weather. Meanwhile in Davos it was raining...

We continued on to Wageningen in the Netherlands. Lily did an excellent job traveling but this longest leg was a bit too much for her and she got a bit whiny at the end. However, we visited up with old friends from SIAF and climbed the mountain of the town for a beautiful look over the river.

 

Goodbye Switzerland

Goodbye Switzerland!

The car is sold. The boxes are on the move and so are we.

We finished our trip with Frank in Geneva, had a walk around the city and visited the museum. There they had a ladder on display that was one of the original ladders used when the city was attacked in 1602. This is the famous attack where someone poured soup on the attackers and where we get the festival L'Escalade with the chocolate pot and the youngest and oldest holding hands to smash the pot and release the marzipan vegetables.

We had a last look over the city, the water jet, the mountains.

Then we had our rental car (and our massive amount of luggage) and we were on our way to France!