JoJo in Spainland

Last week we traveled to España to celebrate the R-Dog's birthday, and to partake in a wooloo-sponsored art project (as part of the European art show Manifesta 8).  We spent most of our vacation in the Mediterranean city of Valencia, which proved to be a great place for some Alex-oriented fun.  It reminded me of San Diego in that it's a lovely modern city by the sea, with lots of family-friendly activities. Some highlights of our time there include:

A day at the Valencia Aquarium:

Sharks!

Watching a Dolphin Show

Alex was most impressed by this stunt. 

Baby Beluga!
(Actually, I think it was full grown, but all beluga whales
are babies in our world these days)

Playing at the giant Gulliver's Travels slide:

I thought Alex was too little for this one . . .

But I was wrong.  He loved it.

Wandering through the endless city parks:

Pinecone hat

Doing "tricks" in the plaza after watching some
big boys with their skateboards 

Cutie on a bridge

The Animatronic Dinosaur Museum (in the rain):

They had some very unusual dinos

This one was Alex's hands-down favorite.
It hatched every few minutes to reveal . . .

A baby dinosaur, of course!

A visit to the Valencia Cathedral:

The Holy Grail (allegedly)

For the wooloo art show, we rented a car and road-tripped our way to Murcia. We spent Russ' actual birthday here, with Sixten and the wooloo gang. Here is the photographic evidence from that portion of our trip:

Russ and our rental car
in an unknown Spanish town

El Toro

Alex mastered his arm-crossing technique
during our lunch stop in Elche

Birthday wishes do come true:
Churros y Chocolate for breakfast

Alex liked them too

There was a man selling inflated cartoon characters in front
of the Cathedral in Murcia, so . . .
we now have an inflatable Mickey Mouse.

Sixten, Russ, and Mickey

All-in-all, it was a wonderful trip. As you have seen, we kept Alex entertained with all sorts of toddler excitement, which we greatly enjoyed as well.  And we kept our bellies happy too: We ate tapas, paella, tapas, bocadillos, and more tapas. We drank horchata, cerveza, sangria, and more horchata (Valencia is apparently the birthplace of both horchata and paella.  Both were delicious).  Spain is such a beautiful, relaxed country. The perfect place to celebrate Russell's birthday.

Tivoli Gardens

Our zoo pass has not been the only thing keeping Alex and I busy during the week these past months.  We also bought a season pass to Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, and one of the cutest places I've ever visited.  I've been taking Alex nearly every week for quite some time now, and I'm very sad that yesterday was the last day of the season. :-(

At least we took full advantage while it was open.  I kept our camera very busy on our many adventures at Tivoli, so if you like pictures you are in for a treat.

Please to enjoy:

The front entrance

Rasmus Klump - The Tivoli Mascot

Happy Family

Peacock Theater

Pirate Ship
I'm thinking Walt Disney must have spent a little time in CPH, no?

Fun with a xylophone

Alex is too small for most of the rides at Tivoli, but that didn't stop him from enjoying looking at them.  We explained to him that there were people riding on the one pictured below, and any time he saw it he would exclaim "People!  Spinning round and round!"

Marveling at the spinning people.

Many our our early trips to Tivoli involved a roughly 15 minute period of watching the carousel.  I didn't take Alex on though because I wanted to wait for a visit when Russ was with us so he could take our picture.  So I have a lot of these sad photos of Alex looking forlorn as the merry-go-round takes another spin without him.

Finally, Dad joined us and Alex got to ride on the camel!

Parenting mistake #381:  I thought it would be fun to share an ice cream cone with Alex (by the way, they put jam and whip cream on ice cream cones here!?!).  Um, not so fun actually.  He had a giant tantrum over needing to hold the ice cream cone himself (Exhibit A.  Please note the blurred feet due to frantic kicking).  And as you can see in the photo below (Exhibit B), he ultimately won out in the end (parenting mistake #382).

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

A funny story from our first visit to Tivoli:  I went to take the below photo of the main entrance and as I snapped my shot I noticed that other people had jumped in front of me to take the same photo.  Hmmm.  It's a nice picture, but why so popular?  

On closer inspection (and with confirmation from our Danish friends), it turns out that Prince Joachim of Denmark and his wife were walking right toward me!:

My guess is that they were on their way to one of the two Michelin starred restaurants at Tivoli. (Side note: Copenhagen is apparently the current culinary capitol of the world with 13 Michelin starred restaurants, more than any other city in Europe.  Sadly, Alex and fancy restaurants do not mix.  Sigh.).

Another exciting time at Tivoli involved Alex and I stumbling upon a mother duck and her adorable swarm (school? pack?) of baby ducks:

This duck was actually nesting in a plant.
I mean seriously, how cute is that?

And a few more happy moments captured in pictures:

Oh Tivoli.  You magical land of fairy gardens and carnival rides and sweet treats.  What a summer we've shared, and how we shall miss you!

JoJo in Deutschland

Wow, September is really flying by!  My apologies for so few posts this month.  I will blame it on a mean cold that took over Alexander's (and therefore also my) life for a week or so.  Naps were few and far between, so there was little time for blogging.  And then we were busy with our trip to Germany, which I shall tell you about now.

We of course went to visit darling Brinja, who you may recall from a.) Your life (as many of you know this sweet gal), or B.) Previous blog post fame. We left last Thursday and traveled by train from Copenhagen to Brinja's hometown of Elmshorn, just outside of Hamburg.  Alex has been very interested in trains lately, so he was thrilled to ride on one.  This particular route is especially cool as the train actually boards a ferry to cross the Baltic Sea.  All passengers are required to exit the train and head to the upper decks of the ferry for the 45 minute crossing.

We went outside on the top deck of the ferry to see the ocean and it was SO WINDY!  Then we headed to the cafeteria for a snack:

The whole trip took just under 6 hours.  Alex held up quite well for the duration.  He loved the ferry ride and he very much enjoyed spotting cows and windmills out the window of the train (and he insisted on having seen goats too, but I can't confirm that).

So we arrived a little after 3 PM and Brinja was there to scoop us from the train station and take us to her (and our) friends Irina and Christian's house.  We actually stayed with Irina and Chris for this trip, as their house was a little more accommodating of our high-maintenance, traveling-with-toddler, selves.  They have a little baby (Frederick), and all the baby gear one could hope for in a home away from home (Thank you Irina and Christian--you guys are the best!).

Once we were situated, we figured Alex could use a little outdoor time, so Brinja walked us to a beautiful nearby park.  Unfortunately, Alex fell asleep as soon as we arrived and he snoozed through a whole hour of us grown-ups on the merry-go-round, rope swing, and three-person swing:

That evening Irina baked us a smorgasbord of pizza, and we had a lovely dinner together.

On Friday morning we woke up VERY early (5 AM, thank you Alexander).  Once the sun joined us we took a morning stroll to Irina's local bakery.  The woman at the shop was so sweet, and so apologetic for not understanding our failed attempts at German, that she ended up giving us free pastries and rolls.  It was  a good omen for all the kindness and generosity that continued to be bestowed upon us throughout our stay in Germany.

Later that morning Irina and baby Frederick escorted us to town for a little shopping and coffee while Brinja was at work.  Brinja met us at lunch time and took us back to work with her.  She is a English teacher, so she made a fun lesson out of our visit and brought us to school with her for the last class of the day.  Her students had prepared questions for us like "What do you find to be the biggest differences between the US and Europe?" and "Is it true that California boys are all surfer dudes?"

We actually had a great time chatting with Brinja's class.  They got to practice English, and we got to learn a little about what young Germany thinks of the US.  I was very amused to learn from Brinja afterward that one student (who had studied abroad in Scotland) was annoyed by our American accents and therefore did not want to participate in the dialogue with us that day.

Brinja, Alex, and I walking outside Brinja's school

Friday evening we were invited to Brinja and Irina's friends Jochen and Katrine's house for a dinner of authentic German spätzle.  This is a traditional noodle dish from Jochen's home in Southern Germany. 

Russ, trying his hand at the spatzle-maker

Brinja and Jochen

Jochen and Katrine have a little son, Mattis, who is just a month older than Alex.  The two boys had a great time playing together that night:

On Saturday Brinja took us to Hamburg for some shopping and site seeing.  We had fun being dorky tourists:

Russ, sneaking onto the "Men's only" street in the Reeperbahn,
Hamburg's red light district

We just had to get these awesome glasses  ;-)

Saturday night we had another fabulous meal with all our German friends, this time a delicious pork roast prepared by Irina. 


Then on Sunday we ended up going to Hamburg again to show Alex the train museum. This museum was a trip.  There were mini-replicas of cities and towns from all over the world, and a system of trains that traveled through the whole of it.  Very detailed. Most surprising to me was how popular this place was.  It was wall-to-wall crowded.  I never knew there were so many miniature train enthusiasts!

After the museum we walked around the city's canals and new harbor, taking in the sites and trying not to freeze cuz it was very cold!  

  

Sunday night Brinja treated us to a meal of schnitzel and other yummy German goodies from a local restaurant.  We wrapped up the trip with a tearful farewell.   It has been a huge highlight of this European adventure that we've been able to see Brinja twice in just two months.  I wish we could go on seeing her so often . . .


So that was it.  Monday morning we were off to the train station, and back home again in time for Alexander's afternoon nap.  


Many thanks to Brinja and all her wonderful friends for such an fun visit!  


PS--Thanks also for the SesamStrasse Grobi snacks.  They were deelish!