2023 Little Family Adventure - On the way home & Epilogue
On the way home & Epilogue
It is interesting to be heading back home. Having my own bed, water when I want it, bathrooms available when I want them, and being able to drive my Miata again sounds great! However, now facing reality with church and temple callings along with dealing with moles in the back yard doesn't sound that appealing .
It is sad to say goodbye to the Grand-kids and Ryan & Monica. They have been fun traveling companions.
We got up early and caught the 5:15 bus to the airport, which actually left 5 minutes early. (Lucky we weren't late) Got to the airport and no one was around the British Airways area. Eventually we got checked in. (and they checked our bags for free). We bought a chocolate croissant and a fresh squeezed Orange Juice and we are on our way.
We flew over Iceland and Greenland. It was pretty cool looking out the window on the ice covered mountains.
Traveling through 20 countries in two months with your son and his kids – does it get any better than that? (Well, for the 20th country I counted Slavakia, which we took a train through and did not stop. We did see a lot of Slavakia and quite a few towns the train stopped at. Ryan and his family continued after we left, to Ireland. So they have a solid 20 countries and 21 with Slavakia. PS. I am not counting London, England, since we are only in the airport .)
This is the first time we have been to Eastern Europe. I think we would have gone to Prague on our own, but not likely to go to other countries. It is really due to tagging along with Ryan. He was AMAZING, booking all those trains and AIRBNBs. Then getting us to them. He did a great job getting everything all planned out. It was really him who did all the work.
It was fun to travel with his family. We got to know the kids a little better. It was great to travel with my family. It was also nice to also join Becky and her family in Paris and Prague. We really miss canceling our trip with them just before the COVID. It was nice that they could join us for those two cities. It is nice to see Ryan and how he is being a responsible father and how kind he is to his family. As we get older, one of our greatest desires is to have a positive influence on our grand-kids. It is such a challenge raising kids in today’s world.
It is fun to see the similarities and differences between people from other countries and ours. There are more similarities than differences. Little boys like to collect sticks and skip rocks in water, all over the world. Nowadays, everyone likes to play on their Smart Phones. There are kind people everywhere, and there are people who are not kind everywhere. Luckily, there are much more kind people. Foods, architecture, and language are different, but people are just people. It seems like in each country there are some stereo-typing of personalities, but there are always exceptions.
It is interesting looking at the history of the countries of Eastern Europe. Many of the countries are quite new and still defining themselves. Which seems odd, since a lot of their buildings are older than Columbus . World War II changed a lot of the country's history. But it is still changing. Many have only been a country since 1990’s but their history goes way back.
We feel this is a trip of a lifetime and appreciate Ryan for inviting us.
