Tuesday, July 15, 2008

10 Memorable Vacation Moments

From Ten on Tuesday, in no order other than what jumps to mind first:

1) Visiting Washington, D.C. with my family when I was 13 or so. Seeing the Washington and Lincoln Monuments were cool and I was totally in awe of the Supreme Court building but the Vietnam Memorial sticks out in my mind and heart. The impact of seeing all those names on that long, long black wall was huge to my pacifist, teenage self, especially since my dad (a Navy Vet) knew several of those names personally.

2) Family vacation to Alaska, 1992 or 93 (I was 16). Denali National park was amazingly beautiful, but I embarrassed my parents by having an hysterical crying fit when we visited a wolf farm (aka pen where real wolves are kept on three feet long chains their entire sad live). I could really relate to the longing for freedom in their eyes.

3) Going with my grandparents to visit the Grand Canyon when I was 9. Crossing into Mexico for a tourist's lunch and getting s-i-c-k.

4) Swimming with the sting rays off of Grand Cayman. Driving around the island and seeing the horrible shacks the poor people were living in, in comparison to the gorgeous spreads of the English bankers.

5) Paris, my twenty-third birthday. Running through the streets with the Korean girl I met at my hostel, trying to get back before curfew at 11pm and having strange Frenchmen trying to "help" us find our way.

6) Prague. EVERYTHING was beautiful, but one of the best places I visited was the Strahov Monastery and their library. The St. Nicholas church was pretty damn amazing too.

7) Renting a car and driving around Crete with my sister. Coming around a corner on a one lane dirt road with a cliff on one side leading straight up and one on the other side leading straight down to the ocean, only to find the entire road blocked by sheep. Pretending we were Irish because Americans weren't too popular there at the time (this was during NATOs intervention in the Kosovo War).

8) Spain, 2000. Most memorable was standing in the Seville Cathedral in front of the Tomb of Christopher Columbus with a girl I met on the bus from Mexico and discussing the history of our two nations and the impact Columbus had on our people.

9) Berlin and the Love Parade!

10) Touring every cathedral in Cologne with my mom while pregnant with Saskia. After a full day of walking all over the city we were relaxing in our hotel room and I was pigging out on candied fruit. All that sugar got Saskia jumpy and I felt her move for the very first time.

7 comments:

Alicia said...

Wow, you've been to so many different places, Chrissi. I haven't even managed to get to Europe yet.

I had no idea they had wolf farms. How absolutely horrible.

Homeslice said...

i'm seriously jealous of all your traveling. let's run away together, darling.

Destiny said...

I LOVED Prague as well. So much of Eastern Europe is so beautiful. Traveling is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Unknown said...

Wow! You have quite the traveling repertoire! Spain sounds wonderful.

Anonymous said...

I am so horribly jealous of your traveling right now. France, Greece and Spain are on the top of my list of "Places I Desperately Want to Go To".

BTW I think it's hilarious that you went to the Love Parade. Not to mention that you've swam with stingrays. You are SO awesome.

Christina said...

I'm not that cool. I forgot to mention that when a stingray swam straight at me looking for food (they were so tame) that I freaked out and jumped out of the water because I thought it was going to bite me. And there are lots of places I still want to go, I didn't travel nearly as much as I should have when I lived in Germany!

Jess said...

Amazing, you have been to so many of the places on my "list of places I need to go before I die"! I'm uber jealous :P