The Privilege of Travel

Lately I've been reflecting on how significant travel is in our lives.  I love it.  I think it provides an amazing opportunity, regardless of where you're going.  When BK and I venture off to somewhere new, I would say we try hard to live in the quote above.

I do think travel is a privilege.  In an article I read last year, an author stated that at some point travel would be the ultimate luxury, but only because it requires the most precious commodity- time.  I agree.  Even when we're traveling, we have to work hard to be present with where we are and what we're experiencing.

I'm not sure how the value of travel was instilled so deeply in me, but looking back it seems that my parents made it a priority early on.  Maybe it was the numerous plane trips back and forth from Houston when I was a baby that prepped me.  Probably also the many road trips taken with my mom, sister and grandparents in their minivan.  When in high school, also endless mission trips, church trips, school trips and random family trips.  In college my parents also took us on a number of significant trips (England and Hawaii to name a few). My mom likes to say, "It might have been on a shoestring budget, but I made sure that the girls and I always went somewhere," and I appreciate that. My sisters and I still probably take this for granted, as we are always flabbergasted when people have not traveled.  For example, CMH's (middle sister) husband, who just recently took his first flight, at close to the age of 40- something that seems completely out of the question for us.

I don't think I realized the value of all this travel until I met BK, and only partially because he seemed to gawk at how much some of these things must have cost.  I don't say that to brag, but more to point out what a priority it was to my parents to make sure that we experienced new and different things.  As an adult now, I realize that they also had to make sacrifices to ensure that we had these experiences. Traveling with them, we were never allowed to just stay comfortable, but were pushed to experience new things and really appreciate where we were and that we got to be here. We traveled to Japan in 2008, which I think launched us into wanting to travel more to places that were a little off the beaten path.

If you get the chance to travel- to experience new things, do it.  It's amazing.  Live outside yourself and learn new things.  It's a great experience that you shouldn't pass up.

Celebrating the Little Things in a Serious Way

I'm learning to celebrate the little things these days.  And yes, you guessed it, I'm talking about the pups.  I find it quite frustrating that we can't move these behavior changes along a little quicker.  You would think that as a social worker, and someone who has advocated that people can't change their life overnight- that it takes time, I would be a little more understanding, but it's really irritating to me!

Last night I had a great victory.  I sat outside of our apartment (in the stairwell) for 30 minutes without the dogs making a peep.  Don't get me wrong, it was from 10:23 to 10:53, so very late in the day, but still- I was able to exit the apartment without a complete conniption fit happening.  So for now, if BK and I want to go have an after-dinner drink, it might actually be an option.

How I wish they'd spend their time...

Today was good too.  We had another appointment with the dog trainer and worked on walking the dogs. She actually thought they were good walkers.  She had me let go of the leashes and let them run along the sidewalk without being restrained.  They do a lot better with other dogs if they just have the chance to sniff and then move along.  Our dogs aren't aggressive, so once they sniff they move along and are always looking back to make sure we're still there.

The other thing today was that Tanner is stressed and making himself sick.  I'm not sure if this is because we went to Belgium and left him at the holiday home or because BK is now back in the US, but he has all kinds of digestive issues.  That's as far as I'll go into it, but I'm getting really tired of picking up after him and constantly running to the door to go outside.  I had a vet appointment scheduled, but after seeing him jump around, be excited about walking, take treats and be an all around good dog, the trainer was pretty certain that he is not sick- just acting out on his stress.

I say I need to celebrate the small things because I need to remember how far they've come since we moved into this apartment a little over three weeks ago.  They no longer bark every single time the building door opens, they no longer follow my every move in the apartment, they don't bark when they hear our neighbor's dog bark, and to top it off the weather has been nice the past couple of days.  Our neighbors are also more understanding and appreciate that we are working hard to get them acclimated. Looking on the bright side here!

We're at the end of our day in Basel.  Here's to more small successes tomorrow- it's a new day for all of us.

Laundry, Laundry, Everywhere

Actually that's not quite true.  BK and I have taken to wearing things more than just once and making them last.  Not the essentials, obviously those are one-wear only items, but jeans, sweaters, button downs and other items, those are to be worn numerous times.  It also helps that the highs over here are still somewhere between 40 and 60 degrees, so the sweating that occurs in Texas doesn't happen here.

All that said, in our new building, BK and I only get laundry days two days every two weeks. For example, we had Friday and Saturday, May 3 and 4, then not again until Friday and Saturday May 17 and 18.  Well, too bad for us, we were out of town those days. So that means that we don't have laundry days until Friday and Saturday, May 31 and June 1.  With the traveling we're planning to do this is not going to work for us, so we decided to purchase our own washer/dryer "kombi" to put in our apartment.

Here it is!  The washer/dryer combo...yes, that's a washer and dryer in one machine. Don't get me wrong, it takes forever to do a load of laundry.  There is an express load that only takes 35 minutes to wash and dry, but most normal size loads cannot be done in that time.  I would say it generally takes an hour or two to do a load of laundry, but that is downplayed by the fact that I can do laundry any time I want, or need, now.  It also drains into our bathtub, but that is really not a big issue.

Prior to this purchase, I literally cannot tell you how many times I got in trouble over laundry.  It all started because I put the wrong kind of coin in the machine.  You can only put 20 cent coins in our machine outside of the laundry room.  Oops- I put various types of coins and broke the machine.  The owner had it fixed and BK and I were still able to do laundry on our first two days.

Since then, anything and everything that has gone wrong in the laundry room gets blamed on me.  Random laundry bag in the laundry room?  We get a knock on the door asking about that.  Clothes left hanging in the drying room?  Another knock on the door inquiring as to if they are mine.  One time apparently the lint trap was not cleaned out and the owner came up to our apartment and had me come down and clean it!  I wasn't even the last one to do laundry.  Another tenant had done laundry after me, but I was the only one that the owner had seen that day!  Laundry can be a bit exhausting at times when you have to deal with all of this, especially when the owner does not speak ANY English- only German.

So now we have our washer/dryer kombi, which I am very excited about.  It's crazy how much you miss the privilege of being able to wash clothes whenever you want.  Enjoy it if you have it!

Belgium: The Land of Beer

In Belgium there is beer as far as the eye can see!  This is great for BK, but I'm not so keen on the beer.  I reached my max around Friday night.  Tasting is good, drinking is not so good.  Ick- it just makes me bloated and kind of gross...and I really don't like the taste either.  This may be too much information, but it is what it is.  I think it's more the taste, as I really have no problem with champagne (bubbles).

In Belgium we did something that we don't normally do- we took a couple of different tours to show us around Brussels and the surrounding area.  I was really hoping that these "tours" weren't a bunch of people loading onto a tour bus heading to who knows where.  I was pleasantly surprised...most of them only had around eight people and were a great way to see the city and surrounding areas.

Panoramic of Brussels main square

Beer Tour:
Friday afternoon we aptly started with a beer tour.  We started the tour at the oldest bar in Brussels, which also had all of the Trappist beers available to drink.  We picked either blonde, amber, or dark for our first beer, then got more info about the Trappist breweries and Belgium beers in general.  Here are the two that BK and I picked:

After this bar we went to Cantillon Brewery, one of the oldest in Brussels, where we had Lambic, which is beer without the bubbles.  It's quite sour, but I guess something you should try?  We also tried some of their other beers as well, which we didn't think were all that great either.  For the end of the tour we visited a bar and tried some other Belgium beers.  Keep in mind that throughout the tour, we were also walking through the city and getting a bit of the local culture and history as well.  It was fun, but not the best one we had.  Beer lovers may have different thoughts, but that is my take.

Discovering Flanders
I actually have no clue why this tour had this name, but we thought it sounded interesting, so we booked it.  The tour was run by Global Enterprises, which also ran the chocolate tour we did Sunday. On Saturday we went to Ostend, Bruges and Ghent- three cities outside of Brussels.  We rode the train to Ostend, which is on the coast.  It reminds me a lot of Long Island, and specifically the South Fork with it's cold and windy beaches.  We toured around, then stopped to have some fresh shrimp from the fish market along with a beer that complimented the shrimp.

Beer and shrimp by the harbor in Ostend

After Ostend, we hopped the train again and headed to Bruges.  This is a town that many people suggested we visit.  It is much smaller than Brussels and has quite a lot of charm. Our tour guide suggested that if you come back to Belgium one could easily spend a few days here exploring.  We did the boat tour, checked out the wall of beers, had some traditional Belgian food and of course, more beer.

Boat tour in Bruges

From Bruges, we caught the train to Ghent, which is a university town about 35 minutes from Brussels.  We actually liked Ghent better than Bruges- it was a little more active and bustling than the other two.  We toured the cathedral, looked through the oldest part of the city and checked out the river.  As a group we decided to head back to Brussels and have one final beer together.  I actually opted for a mojito- I couldn't take any more beer. The one drink quickly turned into more and we ended up hanging out with our new tour friends for drinks and dinner until around midnight.  Fun!

At Delirium Bar

Chocolate Tour

We did the beer tour for BK and the chocolate tour was for me.  Before coming to Brussels I told BK this was the one thing that I wanted to do, and it was well worth it.  We did a tour, tasting and demonstration with the same tour company from the day before. As a group we explored the city more then headed to an apartment to make our own chocolate creations.  In addition to creating our own we learned about how pralines are made and sampled some of the homemade ones.  Following the demonstration we visited some of the city's premier chocolate shops to sample some new and different varieties of chocolate and learn about how the various chocolatiers approach their creations.  The most unique thing we tasted was a champagne truffle with vanilla powder on the outside.

BK's chocolate creations

Brussels was lots of fun and packed with activities.  I would definitely recommend spending a couple days there if you get the chance.  We spent Sunday afternoon relaxing and enjoying other parts of city we had not yet seen.  Lucky for us Monday was yet another Swiss holiday, so we had a day to relax and recover from the trip.  We're off to Romania next, but not until June.  I'm sure there will be many more Swiss adventures to report on until then!

A Holiday Home for the Boys

I realize that all of my posts right now are about Tanner and Toby, but for the time being, my life literally revolves around these jokers. Forgive me. We'll all get settled and move past this phase ...hopefully sooner than later.

Last weekend BK and I ventured off for a long weekend to Belgium (more about this later). Just like in the States, we were faced with the task of finding somewhere for Tanner and Toby to go while we're on vacation. In Texas it was typically a friend who stayed at the house, either of my parents, or occasionally a TCU student who watched them.

Now that we're in Switzerland we don't have those nice familiar choices anymore. This was a serious concern for BK and I, as right now the boys pretty much won't let us out of their sight to ensure that we don't leave them again. Much to my dismay, BK even got to the point where he didn't want to plan any more travel until we had the dogs figured out. How were we going to leave them for a weekend, or longer, when they wouldn't even let us leave the apartment without howling at the top of their lungs?

Thankfully, our dog trainer found a place for us outside of Basel. She even called the place and explained to them what we were working on from a behavior standpoint...and they still agreed to take the boys.

On the way to the dog holiday home

BK headed to Belgium last Sunday, which threw Tanner into a tailspin; so much so that he stopped eating, would just sit and shiver, and was making himself throw up. I took him to the vet, who gave him something to calm his stomach, and he seemed better after that. Thursday the trainer picked up myself and the boys to take us out to the "dog holiday home." In Switzerland dogs cannot be loose in the car, so the boys had to ride in "the box" (crate) in the back of the car. They did not appreciate this and Tanner pretty much cried the entire 20 minutes it took to get there- an awesome start.

You're probably wondering how it went...

It was GREAT! The owner even said that they were "lovely" dogs. I've heard a lot of words used to describe the boys. Lovely is not one of them. This place is pretty much a big farm where the dogs essentially run the place. T&T had their own 6'x4' room to eat and sleep in, but spent the majority of their time with the pack of dogs that was there. They apparently got along great with the other dogs and were only on a hunger strike for the first day. We even made it back to Basel on public transportation.

I found this the other day and thought it was funny- reminds me of our reunions.

I celebrated this success by booking four additional stays for them while I was there to pick them up. Woo hoo! Let the travel planning begin!

My Pockets are Full of Cheese

And apples, and sausage, and I would put pate in there if I could...

BK and I have had to go back to the basics with our little four-legged friends.  We moved into our permanent apartment, which was such a relief, but it seems to have really impacted the boys.  A couple days after we moved in, we went out with some friends one night, then the next morning were informed by the upstairs neighbor that they barked the ENTIRE time we were gone.  I do feel this is somewhat of an exaggeration (they're never barking when we come back), but ultimately it was a disturbance to our neighbors, which is not good.  I've read many times before that noise is the cardinal sin in Switzerland...I now believe it to be true.

Trying hard not to piss off everyone in the building, we wrote an apology note, translated it into German and placed it in everyone's mailbox to let them know that we had just moved in, were sorry for the disturbance and were working on it as soon as possible.

So, back to the cheese in my pockets.  Like I said, we're back to the basics, meaning that we reward them for everything good they do, meaning that I often have these things in my pockets as to ALWAYS have them with me.  Sometimes I wonder what that smell is...well, it's usually that I have cheese in my pocket and have forgotten about it.

Ignore noises outside? Treat.  Stay on their bed while I go into the other room? Treat. Don't bark while I'm on the phone?  Treat. You get the picture. These treats are not just dog treats (in fact, not dog treats at all), but mild Swiss cheese, little sausages and apples, all of which are cut into tiny pieces by yours truly.  I didn't open the pate until today, and only did because Tanner was being stubborn and refusing all the other treats.  He rebelled a little bit after BK had to go out of town this week, but we're back on track now.

We didn't get this idea ourselves.  We hired a trainer to come to our apartment last Saturday to help with the boys.  She assures us that no matter how old, the dogs can learn what we want them to do. I certainly hope so.  We've made progress, but have a long way to go.  BK and I will be getting retrained for the next couple of weeks.  I have dreams of our family coming over to discover that we have completely different dogs- i.e. so well behaved!  We'll see.  One day at a time and teeny tiny baby steps moving forward.