Niagara, NYC, Cologne & Brussels with Kids

From Cologne to Home

2007-03-29T03:55:00.000-07:00

Up at 6:00 am, we shower and pack for the trip home. A little last minute shopping and some breakfast at the airport and we are on our Continental flight. Similar to the trip in the other direction we are experiencing good service and a small plane. From Newark airport we will fly to Boston and then home to Phoenix. It was a busy trip but a good trip. We could have surely spent more time in Brussels and Cologne but we knew that when we booked our trip. We have all commented that one of the nicest feeling on the trip home is while going through immigration. The person checking the passports will always say “Welcome Home”. And as usual, we had a great time during our travels, but it is good to be back home.

Cologne - Last full day

2007-03-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

For our last day in Cologne we spent the day doing the information gathering for writing a children’s walking tour of the Dom cathedral. I do not know if it will be a successful attempt, but it was only intended to be a learning experience. We spent the whole morning there taking pictures, asking questions and gathering information. Ideally we would do this as an iterative process where we would then do the research on the areas we found interesting and then return to fill in the details. I am expecting that this first walking tour will be somewhat rough when compared to the detail we should be able to supply for the walking tours of Beijing attractions. We climbed the 507 steps of the Dom tower, saw a ladder going even higher, and restoration workers hanging from the Dom's scaffolding. We then descended back down to see the crypt, the treasury and cathedral we stopped a contemporary German restaurant, a couple of shops and a Glockenspiel on our way to our main destination for the day: Circus training at Zaxs Zirkus Wibbelstetz. We were able to do some spring jumping, tight rope walking, and Kirsty taught us all to juggle as well. What a cool experience! Afterwards we saw a very nice sunset and went to the younger and more trendy University section for a dinner of potato pizza (yumm. potato crepes with pizza toppings, really very good, despite what you might imagine. We then progressed to a bar for drinks passing an empty Indian Hooka bar on the way. While we drank and our daughter slept at the bar Kirsty interviewed us about traveling as an American family for German radio. I think that she may need to do some clever editing to get an interesting broadcast. It was quite late, 12:20am or so when we parted ways with Kirsty to return to our hotel and our early morning plane flight. We will really miss her and hope to see her again some day. She is always welcome where we are.

The Dom

St. Peter's was the largest of the many bells in the clock tower. The smallest of which was just a bit larger than the liberty bell.

Cool job, but nobody in the family wanted a job application.

At a more modern German restaurant

cologne in cologne. Its made locally of course.

A glockenspiel with music and animated figures

This building is still pockmarked with the remnants of allied bombing.

Zaks circus school

Learning to juggle

Learning to walk on the tight rope. Notice the circus trailer in the background. A whole caravan of these were parked outside.

This is perhaps the only restaurant in the world making potato pizza. It was very good.

Cologne - Side trip to Bonn

2007-03-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

We walked through the town center to meet Kirsty and take a day trip by train to the place of Beethoven’s birth and home of the Beethoven Museum: Bonn. Before the tour of the home we got to attend and interact with a new media experience of the Beethoven opera "Fielellio". The characters of the opera were represented as 3-D graphical images which could be manipulated by computer controls placed in the room. While the controls occupied the children’s attention adults were able to enjoy the opera without many of the typical distractions and limitations. We took the tour of the museum in Deutch, which Kirsty translated for us. We then took a nice stroll along the Rhine, passing the Kennedy Bridge. While we all are familiar with Kennedy's famous "Eich bein Ein Berliner" speech, it was Kirsty who had to inform me how Kenney was highly credited with the reconciliation between eastern and western Germany. It was today that I put many pieces of our trip together (Europe's long and rich history, modification of people's names as they departed Ellis Island, and the Indian wars up in Canada) to come to a realization on how short changed we are in our teaching of American History in our public schools. In short, we do not teach American History. We teach only the history of the colonization of the United States by Europeans. The greatest span of our history belonging to native Americans who's history is (or was while I was in high school) largely ignored. . We saw some Magnolia trees in bloom as well as several of the former embassy buildings. We then took the tram to a small town on the Rhine for a nice lunch on the river. These cigarette machines were everywhere. This one was particularly interesting to me as it was stuck in the middle of someone’s front lawn! There were more smokers in Germany than many places we have been. But I think that even in Germany smoking has begun to pass its heyday. Of course at lunch we get to have more German beer. What is not to like about Germany!! We then took the tram back to our hotel in Cologne passing several large industrial areas along the way.

Arrival in Cologne from Brussels

2007-03-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

We took the Thalys train back into Cologne from Brussels. Along the route we saw more stereotypical German countryside. We took a taxi from the train station to our hotel where we had an excellent lunch at our hotel restaurant. We then contacted our friend Kirsty who took us on a tour of the local chocolate museum. We had a hot chocolate at the museum cafe and took a walk along the Rhine River to the shopping area near the Dom cathedral. In this area we were fortunate enough to see some street performances from some local artists as well as getting a quick look at the Dom again. We then had dinner at the Fuhr Brewhaus which served some very traditional German dishes as well as the Fruh beer.

Brussels - Last full day

2007-03-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

One our final full day in Brussels we went to the small town of Waterloo where the famous battle with Napoleon took place. A huge mound of dirt has been placed there in memorial with the blood soaked soil. The panorama exhibit was very good. The climb up was fairly steep. You get a great view of the battlefield from on top of the monument. Here is the proof that when you put someone on a pedestal, it is hard to measure up. We stopped at the African museum on the way back to the Goffarts' where we had a perfect lunch of the best proccuito, cheeses, wine and beer. Also there was something called prepared American which they assured us was quite common. After lunch we went in search of Leffe beer glasses and found this statue. We don't know who he is but suspect that he is someone important to the history of Brussels. With the clothing and posture we decided that he was most likely the patron saint of adult bookstores. We also saw these racks full of rental bike. For a small fee you get the use of a bicycle with a lock and basket. The machine to rent the bicycles looked very convenient. Diner again was wonderful with pork and a blended vegetable sauce with celery root. And of course beer. Except this beer had a plastic twist cap.

Side trip tp Brugge

2007-03-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

Today we made a side trip to the town of Brugge. It is an old and beautiful if somewhat heavily traveled by tourists. We had our first experience with the SNCF trains today. They were fast and efficient like the Thalys trains. The train station at Brugge was under construction so our first impression of Brugge was not overwhelming. The bicycle racks outside the train station were very impressive however. I have never seen such a sea of bicycles. It was really cool to see that they were having a Jethro Tull concert in Brugge and really uncool to see that we would miss it. The streets of Brugge were very nice, clean and scenic. However the town squares were the most attractive. We realized that we were in Brugge, but these mussels were from Brussels and we liked them. Our daughter was very brave to order some Mussels. The next item on the agenda was to climb the clock tower in the square. There were over 300 steps to the top but fortunately there were several stops along the way such as this little museum. Part way up the view was the best for looking at the town square. At the top the view was the best for looking at the city. You could also see the mechanism of the clock work as the bells rang every 15 minutes. From the top you could see historic and modern windmill throughout the town in operation. You could also see the canal wind its way though town carrying boats full of tourists from all over Europe. We then took one of the canal rides ourselves. It was similar to what we would imagine that a boat ride in Venice would be like but the boats were very fast. There other thing about Belgium is that they love their dogs. We saw dogs on the street being walked all the time, dogs on the train and even dogs in our tour boat. Being dog owners ourselves we thought that this was a very good idea. The ride along the canal was very nice with many old and beautiful homes. On the trip back to Brussels we may have accidentally ended up in first class. This was OK with us. I noticed that the second to last stop on the Subways was named for the famous Belgium cyclist Eddy Merck. Since I am a cyclist it is very easy for me to love this country. The metro soon brought us back were we went out to an excellent steak fondue dinner. And even better, Belgium beer. So far Chimay and Leffe are the favorites that I have tried.

Brussels - 1st full day

2007-03-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

Today we took a short hop into the city center.

The subways in Brussels were very good and easy to use. The trains themselves were very boxy. Square in fact. Today we were taking the short hop into the city center.

This street reminded us of many we had seen in Paris. Very nice and very uniform.

First was the cathedral where the king of Bulguim was married. Kings, Queens, Princes, princesses and the pope all attended. While many important people attended our own wedding, for some reason it did not receive the same press coverage. We count our blessings.

Madam Goffart showed us all over Brussels center. Beautiful shopping areas, buatiful old twisting street that went on and on. This is not just a contrived tourist area but an integral
part of Brussels itself. One shop had a chocolate fountain. The town square was very bueatiful like a italian piazza yet more relaxed. We then went to the Sir Hess brasseri on the square which had wonderful atmousphere and Belgium Leffe beer and hot chocolate. Life is good.

One shop had a chocolate fountain.

NYC to Brussels

2007-03-24T04:33:00.000-07:00

Our apartment in New York was very nicely located and a great size for us. We were sorry to say goodbye to New York but is was time to visit Brussels!

The bus service in NYC was very good but not as organized to use as the subway. We used both NY airport transportation and olympic transportation to get to and from the airports and the port authority. The price was good and it was convienient and timely to use.

This was our first time flying on COntinental. We found their service to be the best of any US carrier that we had flown on. The only downside is that the plane we flew on for NYC to Cologne was of the size we are used to for domestic flights so lacked so of the entertainment features that we had come to expect for the kids. Everyone was tired and the children slept for most of the trip so it wasn't an issue at all. We arrived in Cologne at 8:00 in the morning an took a taxi to Koln HBF train station for our 12:45 train to Brussels.

We had 3 hours to wait so found a luggage storage locker and visited the central am dom briefly as it was right next to the station. We are doing a dry run of our tour writing abilities with the Dom so will be visiting again soon and in greater detail.

The HBF train station in Cologne had displays of tourist attractions from the USA and the clock tower from Prague. Also displayed were Indepence Hall and the Alamo.

I had fogotten that I had reserved a dining car on the train so we got a small lunch while we were waiting. The Thalys train service was fast and efficent and we arrived on time in Brussels.

A short cab ride soon had us at the goffart residence where we were luck enough to be invited to stay with a local Brussels family.

NYC - Day 6

2007-03-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

Day 6 was spent skating at Rockefeller center. Our daughter was on skates for the first time in a long time. After a slower start her roller blading experience kicked in and she was pretty much hanging with her older brother.

Our son thought that the $17.50 each to ice skate was well worth it. Mom, Dad, and Gramma watched from the comfort of the Starbucks and supplied hot chocolate to the skaters.

Gramps was was a little unsure of how he would do skating. He had no problems and even aided the instigator in tossing coins into the fountain.

Hey, it's the Zamboni. It's almost like the Olympics. I did say almost.

NYC and NYC transportation get very high marks for easy of use. Unfortunately, the one place they could use help is in "help". These information booths were everywhere. Day or night, 24 hours a day they were closed to be there to not help you. That's really not so bad. What was so bad is that they all display signs directing you to another information booth (which is also closed).

NYC - Day 5

2007-03-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Day 5 started off great with cold but clear skys. A perfect day for a trip up the Empire State Building.

You could see most of Manhattan from the top. Including our apartment in New Jersey. In this picture you may even locate the statue of liberty.

We meet up with Gramps outside the Rockefeller center after a tour of NBC studios and a rehearsal for Saturday Night Live.

Afterwards we all went to an improvisational comedy club. Both of our children volunteered to get on stage. Here our son is seen posing one of the comedians.

Our daughter also got to direct the action as the comics portrayed our family life!

What a great day in NYC. And to top it off, it St. Pat's Day with the empire state building itself doing a little "wear'in uh ta green".

NYC - Day 4

2007-03-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Today we got to experience weather the NYC way. It was raining ice cubes all day. There was a nice biting wind to boot so we keep mostly indoors. We used the day to tour the UN. This is the UN security counsel chambers.

This is the SOCECON chambers

Our daughter aided two tour guides in reading the words on a mural called "The Golden Rule".

We also got to see the general assembly chambers.

We passed though and had a crepe lunch at the grand central station.

Our children are starting to look like they belong in NY after 4 short days. Actually we have found New Yorkers to be some of the friendliest and most helpful people we have encountered. After traveling all over the world it's one of those items I'm proud to put in the positive box for my own country. Yeah NYC!

Our apartment is the white house on the corner. NYC is great but the weather tells us that this is just a great place to visit. It is currently 81 degrees at home in Arizona.

Ah, Dinner. Green chili enchiladas, wine and desert. Well.. mostly wine and desert.

NYC - Day 3

2007-03-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

The weather was predicted to be 100% chance of rain today so we went to Central Park first thing while it was not raining. We ended up entering the park at Strawberry Fields and saw the John Lennon memorial there.

It was good for the kids to have some outside run around and be kids time.

They also got to ride on the Central Park carousel which was really very fast for a carousel.

The weather began to spit so we headed to a NY deli and had a few slices of thin crust pizza. From there we went to the museum of natural history where the whole forth floor was devoted to dinosaurs. Our young paleontologist was in Dino heaven.

NYC - 2nd Day

2007-03-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

I don't care who you are. Going to ground zero is a moving experience. But a different experience than I expected. There is a sense of loss here to be sure. There is also a sense of rebuilding and renewal. It is only a scab over a wound at this point. It does not make the wound go away, it only makes it less obvious.

The bell of hope was cast in the same foundry as the liberty bell and given by England on the 1st anniversary of 9/11.

I remember see projections of 20 to 30,000 dead from the collapse of the WTC on 9/11. When the numbers turned out to be closer to 3000 I felt relief. When you are here and you can see them as people instead of numbers, 3000 is a lot of people.

We went to Times Square in the afternoon and then caught Curtains starting David Hyde Pierce. Very good.

NYC - 1st full day

2007-03-14T01:34:00.000-07:00

Part of the fun is trying to stand in a empty subway car without holding on. The subways we rode on today are all silver and graffiti free. Last time I was in New York was 30 years ago with our church group. The subways were filled with Graffiti and Guardian Angles with the red Barret's.

We took the Miss Liberty on the circle line to the Statue of Liberty, a US national park.

I am not really sure how I feel about all the security precautions. You have them at airports and places like the Statue of Liberty. I want to be safe. I want my family to be safe. Yet the price seems so high.

None of us had been to Ellis Island before. It was worth the trip. It was very interesting to see the immigration stats into the US. A lot from Europe during the World Wars and then only a trickle. Then in the 1960s we started seeing a flow of immigrants from Asia and the Americas.

We searched all over the wall of immigrants from Pops and Suzanna's names.

We were able to find both of them (thanks Lisa). But in different locations.

In times square a group was staging a very small peace rally, reading all the names of the dead. They said that the reading would continue for 6 days.

We stopped at the Toys-R-US flagship store in times square. It has an indoor ferris wheel and a really big dinosaur, and a life size Barbie play house. Though he was looking, Dad didn't see any for the life size Barbies. ;-)

Finally back home to our apartment for a relaxing evening.

Niagara to NYC

2007-03-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

We flew on JetBlue for the first time. Just a short hop from Buffalo to Niagara. Service was good the plane was nice and new. We were impressed and pleased with the extra legroom. The only downside? They smashed Laurel's suitcase so that it no longer works.

Even on a short flight they provided in flight movies.

We had been quotes $200 by cab to get from JFK to the Port Authority. We ended up taking a New York Airport Service bus for $30.

This is the view of Manhattan from our porch. Pretty cool huh?

Our first order of business was to get groceries for the week. Just a couple block walk found us at our neighborhood grocers. The neighborhood we are in seems predominantly Latin American and/or Spanish. The store had a nice selection of wines from Chili and Spain.

Niagara Falls

2007-03-11T22:21:00.000-07:00

We had a good breakfast at our B&B then it was off to see the falls and what not.

A quick check to make sure that our travel monkey and zebra were up for the trip and we were off!

Our first destination was the falls followed by the sky tower and the Imax movie about the falls.

Then a long walk to the bird aviary for the surprise non-falls highlight of the day,

We had lunch at the rain forest cafe where we ate a VOLCAAANNOOOO!!! and got fat, then visited the Guiness World Records and Ripley's Believe it or not so that Laurel could share some of her childhood highlights with our children.

We then walked along the lit up falls at night as we made our way back to our B&B.

Buffalo Wings and Things

2007-03-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturday March 10th we left our sunny home in Payson Arizona for our latest travel adventure.
One may question why we would leave the warm climate of Arizona to go to Buffalo NY in mid March. We didn't.

We are so "go with the flow", "take life as it comes", "don't worry about it", that it didn't really occur to us that the weather could become a major player. At least it didn't occur to us until our plane was rerouted to Detroit because of poor landing conditions in Buffalo. 20 minutes later we were back in the air. 45 minutes later we were given permission to try a landing or two. A couple of landing attempts and a couple of prayers later we were safely on the ground. I must say that despite a really busy travel time leaving Phoenix, long lines, and bad weather, Southwest has, mile for mile, been one of the best airlines for service (no frills service mind you), friendly staff, and good quick processes.

Anyway, one rental car later, and a quick hop across the Canadian border found us safely in Niagara for Pizza and beer at the local neighborhood pizza joint. A great place to experience local Canadian culture with a beer and a hockey game on the TV.

Also on was a guy with a REALLY big collar and really bright cloths. Then it off to our B&B were we safely snuggled in for the night.