Falk Travel Tracks: Mission Accomplished?

When Brett and I were in the thinking stages of teaching abroad our thoughts kept going back to how enriching this experience would be for our children; they'd be exposed to different languages, cultures, traditions, countries, people. They'd see the larger world, and hopefully, become more internationally aware. A few days ago, I asked the boys what they've learned/taken away from all the places we've been to. Here is what they had to say:

Of the Netherlands:

You have to change into PE clothes at our school here. Dutch is one of the hardest languages to learn.

Of Belgium:

They are famous for their chocolate.

Of Frankfurt:

We got some hot chocolate there and stayed in a nice hotel.

Of London:

We went to the Harry Potter Experience and the London Eye and mom was too scared to go on it.

Of Lisbon:

We stayed in a nice house and finally found a cereal that we found in America.

Of Morocco:

We went on a camel trek and it was really fun because the kids made their own fire. They serve fish with heads on them.

Of Disney Paris:

Thunder Mountain was really cool because you go through caves and it's like an old wild west town. I got really sick and threw up 16 times.

Of Rome:

They had marinara pizza. We went to the Coliseum and we didn't have to wait in the big line because we had a tour from this really nice man named Bruno.

Of Paris:

We took the Thalys train and we had a lot of fun.

Of Switzerland (in the summer):

We kept on having to do the same ski run over and over again. We went summer skiing and Henry fell off the Poma lift.

Of Luca:

We went with Anna, Genny, Oliver, Brennan, Poggy and Grandma, Sarah and Jason, Chris and Karen and Elle and Jim and we all had dinner together and we never, ever, thought it was a horrible place.We had a big family gathering and it was a lot of fun because we had our own swimming pool and we went in there everyday.

Of Ireland:

We travelled through different places in Southern Ireland. We went to Dublin and three other places I think.

Of Majorca:

We went with Papa and Grandma Bonnie and we went to the beach everyday. The beach was only a 2 minute walk from us. On our last day, me and Peter found a real actual live starfish. It felt like a bean bag. We had a ping pong table and I played it almost everyday.

Of Cologne

We went into this humongous cathedral. We went to some Christmas Markets, there was a big fluffy yellow chair in our hotel room. We also went to an awesome Lego store.

Of Paris (the Christmas):

We saw a bunch of really good ice-skaters. We went to the tip top of the Eiffel Tower. And Nelson Mandela's name was on the Eiffel Tower.

Of Istanbul:

We went to this famous mosque called the Blue Mosque. We went to a bunch of different mosques

Of Chamonix:

We went skiing with Chris and Karen. We skied down a bunch of chutes and epic runs which was awesome.

Perhaps not as culturally rich as I wanted, or perhaps they just don't have the cognitive language yet. Or maybe this is just what they will always remember. Which is OK, because every now and then, we get a diamond in the rough:

On Henry talking to my cousin Sarah about Babe Ruth: "Was Babe Ruth like van Gogh, when everyone hated him when he was alive and loved him when he was dead?" (The gh pronounced the Dutch way.)

On Peter trying to put to words his emotions of leaving and what he likes about his school in the Netherlands (not in his exact words, but when expressed in the following way, he agreed): My school here has so many people from different places. I like this.

Cheers,

Noel

Pictures from Chamonix: