Touring Europa IX

One more from Italy - a trip to the coastal cliff villages of Cinque Terre was of course mandatory. You can take the train or the boat, which if much more fun and romantic, so it wasn't really a choice. Not for Karl anyways, because he loves boat rides more than any other forms of transportation.



There was a lotta smooching on that trip. Hey, the pathway along the rocks between Manarola and Riomaggiore is called Via dell amore and also passes what must be one of the greatest train stations in the world. You start to understand the whole world heritage site hype touring those villages with their old buildings clinging to the cliffs, the steep roads and the ancient piers full of sunbathers. We had some crushed ice with fruit in a bar called 'The Pirates' Bar". Afterwards Karl slept through the whole Via dell amore thing. Hey, he's a boy after all so there's a limit to romantic panoramic smoochy business. When we reached Portovenere, the town on the other side of Cinque Terre, Karl was all ready to get into some serious competitive sports. He tried his hand at chess and luckily found a local buddy about double his age who also embraced the freestyle form, that requires the moving of as many parts from one corner of the board to the other with the highest pitch of giggling possible. Karl won. Of course.

First Day At School

Last weekend we travelled up North for a couple of different occasions. One of them was my niece Thoras first day at school. Even though we left Munich way too late to actually make it to the school event, we still managed to arrive in time to get some potato salad and meet all of Karls cousins at my sisters house in Heidelberg.

In Germany on your first day of school you get a large cornet of cardboard filled with sweets and little presents. It's only later that children realize that this is how society tricks them into liking the idea of going to school. Here is Thora happily posing with her 'Schultüte'.

Meanwhile her little brother Tomas sold Karl some cheese in his store.

Touring Europa VIII

Those were indeed quite mellow days in Levanto. Naps followed by snacks (milk a close second to those grapes picked directly from the vine), new toys to play with (a new plastic item in bright colors to be bought in one of those beach stores crammed with plastic items in bright colors is a must of course). Only the heavy drone of the firefighting planes strafing the beach to pick up more water gave the serene pastoral an eery edge of Pearl Harbor for a few days. Natives looked nervously over the ridges of the coastal mountains when there were two planes plus a skycrane helicopter diving into the bay for a couple of days. News from ravaging fires in Greece had been on TV. Supposedly those Italian firefighter pilots are the best though. Karl though those big yellow skyboats landing in the nearby waves were a trip though. Getting into the water himself seemed much scarier, so he practiced his clinging skills to perfection. Although that cute Dutch girl Lola once lent him her kiddie life saver and he tried that whole swimming thing for a bit. Decided to postpone any independent movement in liquids until next sumer though.

Touring Europa VII

I just noticed I better post some more summer vacation photos, before it's starting to snow. As you can guess from the last posts with Karl wearing his bright blue windbreaker and the very yellow rainjacket, it's getting a bit cool around here. So next stop after Genoa was Levanto, a sleepy beach-town, which was actually voted "citta slow" in 2003 (Italians are very proud of not keeping up with the pace of the modern world, hence their invention of the slowfood trend).



We stayed at a former farm turned hotel. They still grow some olives and vegetables for the local cooperative. So Karl got his first hands-on country-life experiences. First day he got to go to the garden with the owners' 3-year old son Giulian. We harvested some corn that he got to clean, cook and eat
in our little apartment. After that the garden remained the main point of attraction for the rest of the trip. Eating tomatoes and grapes from the vine, picking apples and cucumbers and cutting bamboo. Giulian also had the same tricycle we have at home. There was some mighty fast running, when Karl found out that you can pick up some real speed, when you push yourself down a steep slope on that thing.

Playground Love

Hm. They were either practicing to become influential politicians...



...or superfamous popstars. Who knows?



And this is a shot from the training phase.



P.S.: I can't link the headline, but it would of course be this.

Mens Sana In Corpore Sano

The Frankfurt Book Fair is coming up, so it's good to keep up to date on all contemporary literature out there...



...and then to steal a buggy. And a digger. Best. Combination. Ever.

Unexpected Pleasures

We had a great weekend. I mean, we didn't do that much, but that was certainly part of the appeal. And what we thought would be a rather boring trip out to the wholesale art supply store turned out to be extremely exciting for Karl. And here is why.

Touring Europa VI

The major Karl-appropriate feature of Genoa was of course the Acquario di Genova, Europe's largest aquarium and the core building of Renzo Piano's Porto Antico complex along the shoreline of Genoa's old port, which is otherwise lined by phantastic baroque buildings and a great grimy elevated highway adding a distinct touch of seedy urbanism to all that romantic cityscape kitsch.



One of the greatest aspects of touring anything with Karl these days is his hooliganish enthusiasm for the smaller wonders of life. Every new fish-tank was greeted with a loud "boooaaaaahhh! Fissshhhhh!" The big turtle might have left the biggest impression (boooaaaaahhh! Big!), the dolphins the biggest sense of excitement (boooaaaaahhh! Dolll - finnns!) and the sawfish the biggest puzzlement (b - oooaaaaahhh?!)



The jellyfish put him into an outright trance though.

Beach Bums

It looks like today will be the last day of summer! NOOO!!! I mean, you never know and you can't trust the forecast, but we're trying to squeeze every last bit out of it and spend as much time as possible in the great outdoors.



Here's Karl hanging on the Isar river beach with buddy Theo. His newborn brother Johan was also there, but he's still too tiny to be photographed. Okay, he's not THAT tiny.



There's also a lot of construction sites everywhere in town, so stopping to inspect the local work force on our ways to anywhere is unavoidable.

Touring Europa V

Escape was made. To Genoa, ancient port town, birthplace of Christopher Columbus, altogether great mix of antique splendor and modern seediness. It was equally hot, but since we ended up in the quite nicely designed Locanda di Palazzo Cicala who gave us one of their palatial suites with about 30 feet high ceilings, a kitchen and a coke dealer's bathroom worthy of Tony Montana, the heat had quite a different effect those three days. It wasn't stifling, it was rather pleasant. We didn't spend too much time hanging out at our temporary pad though, since there was much to explore. Europe's largest aquarium (post coming up). And the classic digger crew of one guy operating machinery and four guys smoking cigarettes.

The Bear Was There

We had a lovely afternoon at the zoo so that Karl could continue to practice his hypnotic skills. Here you can see him working on an otter.



The bear made the most impressive appearance today. It was acknowledged by our son that bears are very big animals indeed.



In Italy Andrian started to teach Karl the names of a couple of Disney and other animated characters. The formerly correctly identified deer is now called Bambi. Ernie, Bert and Spiderman were nowhere to be seen though.



Baby goats and lambs can be scary animals and last time Karl was totally chicken in the petting zoo, but this time he worked up the courage to actually touch them (okay, to say he was petting them would be a little exaggerated). Maybe he was inspired by his friend Bruno, a. k. a. the Brooklyn Goat Inspector?

Touring Europa IV

Hushed voices or not (even the innkeeper whispered), Karl used his expert skills as a world class noisemaker to make sure, the day was started fresh and possibly with a bang or two. And just as a reminder, in case anybody forgot or didn't know the German word for it, he announced each and every breakfast item loudly and proudly (the pictured baked good for example is a CROIX - SONNNNGGGG !)



At one point the hotel's proprietor Jeanette provided a bottle of soap bubbles for entertainment, which filled the terrace with wild giggles for a while (softening even the sternest culture traveler). Most of the day it was way too hot to do anything though, so got to stay in our "charming" hotel room and play the great game of cabin fever a few times. We tried to convince Karl that we're Sid and Nancy and Karl and that we're just hangin' out in our East Village studio apartment waiting to go and play CBGB's later that night, so we have to practice our three chords on the Fisher Price xylophone. Karl was neither into the punk vibe nor the heat, which he ever so subtly demonstrated by reading the Guide Michelin. To cool down we spent most mMornings and later afternoons at a mountain creek that formed some pools in the shade of another medieval village. Karl got his pebble throwing kicks and loved to wade in knee deep, cold water.



And since his mother is an avid reader of aforementioned guide we got to go to some mighty fine hidden gems of local cuisine, where we could could feed the fish monkey who's been growing quite big on our backs in landlocked Munich.

Touring Europa III

Apricale not only seemed like a village inhabited by crazy cat ladies, it also had a very high number of furry inhabitants to prove it. Karl was taken by the amount of cats in this little town and in the few moments when there was no cat to be seen he repeatedly asked us to go out and find one. Whenever he actually met them though he backed out of the plan of getting to know them any closer.

Meet and Greet

Of course I didn't bring a camera today, the very day Karl got to meet and greet his first celebrity, so now I have no proof and nothing to show. Anyway - picked up Karl from daycare and took him to the Thomas Schütte show at Haus der Kunst, which probably has been first long-term memory. At least he's been repeatedly talking about the huge sculpture of a man without pants, the big wooden melon slices of the "Melonely" installation and the customary glass of Apfelschorle afterwards at the Gold Bar. There were hardly any other visitors, but Jürgen Habermas and his wife, so since we met and corresponded a few times I went up and introduced Karl. Mr. Habermas is not exactly an extrovert, but Karl got a smile out of him. We exchanged pleasantries, but when Karl kept on staring, the honorable philosopher excused himself with a friendly nod and went his way.

Touring Europa II

It took us a few hours to reach the sea. Karl was quite thrilled. Seems everytime he gets to the ocean it's a groundhog day experience, since he doesn't seem to remember the times he spent on the French and Spanish Atlantic. The Mediterranean's more fun anyway, because you don't have that baby-swallowing surf, but rather tame wavelets perfect for testing the salty waters.



After lunch in a nice beach cafe (noodles! ice cream!) we continued to our first destination Apricale. That is a picturesque medieval village perched atop a mountain. Which is great for wandering the dusky alleys. If you're not lugging around a 30 pound wiggling toddler. We kinda got the hint that this ain't babytown, when we sat down for breakfast in our little hotel. It wasn't so much that breakfast was served on an unsecured terrace overlooking a cliff, but the hushed voices of the emptynesters lodging there.

Afternoons were spent on the bustling local town square though, where Karl made friends (and enemies) amongst the local kids, who generously (or involuntarily) provided the type of heavy baby machinery his parents were too exhausted to haul up the steep slippery stairs.