Joy without Joy in Europe

Aloha all,

we are so enthralled by our road trip that we feel we could keep driving around the US mainland forever without running out of new places to visit. But this month we mix it up a little bit with a detour to Europe. First we spent a few days in Stuttgart to celebrate Sandra’s sister’s birthday with her and her mom. My favorite trip took us to Schorndorf, where we stumbled over the birthplace of Gottlieb Daimler, which offers a little exhibit about him and Mercedes Benz. The main highlight was an exposition with spectacular flower arrangements and beautiful gardens; and a roof top bar:

Sandra with her mom and sister at a roof top bar in Schorndorf

Our timing was also very lucky so that we were able to attend the diamond wedding anniversary of Sandra's aunt and uncle. Happily married for 60 years, now that's a fun challenge we gladly accept!

Wedding picture of Aunt Rose & Uncle Jörg with Sandra's parents

My brother’s family has long moved from Sweden to Switzerland, but they still spend their summers up north. So we flew to Sweden to visit them in their charming summer cottage. It might not have flush toilets, but it has its own little disc golf course, which in our family is way more important. Our first day was my nephew’s birthday. We went to an escape room which he won in an impromptu scavenger hunt and we were actually able to break out of the room with four minutes to spare. 

Successful Escape Room with Hannes on his birthday

 Since Hannes is now the star disc golfer in the family, we played three rounds of disc golf on his birthday, instead of the usual two. And he celebrated his birthday in style with a hole-in-one on the last basket. 

We are not the only disc golfing family in Scandinavia. It’s a fairly popular activity and we stopped at a disc golf super store that sells more discs than I every imagined existed. For us it was the equivalent to the proverbial “kid in a candy store”. I wish I could tell you how many discs we bought, but by brother has sworn me to secrecy.

Three happy kids in the Disc Golf Super Store

Sweden has a lot of lakes and those lakes have a big advantage over the ocean around Maui: Calm enough water that even beginner Stand Up Paddlers can feel like they know what they are doing. We were actually inspired to buy two SUP boards on Maui, I’m only afraid that $600 later, we’ll find out that our progress in SUP skills will be wiped out by the tiniest waves.

I love Sweden....in the summer!

Even the destination for our 5 day trip together was determined by the quality of the disc golf courses. That might be the reason why we made it to Finnland for the very first time. The best disc golf course in Scandinavia just happens to be on the remote island of “Lappo” in the Aland Islands, so that’s where we went. These islands are geographically and culturally half way between Sweden and Finnland. We visited a historical site, a fort that the Russians built and lost to England. As always with European history, I was quickly confused, but I like the end result of the complicated history: Aland is now a demilitarized, semi autonomous, Swedish part of Finnland and the buffet on the ferry to the islands is spectacular. 

Aland Islands

In order to get to the disc golf course on Lappo, we had to drive across the main island of Aland and then take another ferry. Lucky for us, they have another disc golf course and a brewery along the way, making the long journey very pleasant. From Lappo we took two day trips to other islands by bike. To one of them, there is a free on-demand ferry service. Even for just a family on bicycles, on a push of a button, the ferry comes over and takes you to the next island.

Carfree and carefree days on Lappo

For the next day trip, we rented an ATV because 20km is a little long to push my niece, who is still struggling with her knee after yet another surgery. What a great excuse to cruise around the islands on an ATV. I felt a little guilty disturbing the peace and quite of these remote islands with this loud machine, but boy was it fun! And what were we supposed to do? Leave Ronja behind?

ATVing in Aland

The running joke when we play disc golf is that my brother suggests that we play ‘just for fun’ without keeping track of the score. But my nieces and nephew are just as competitive as my brother and I. We all play at pretty much the same level, so I don’t think we’d be able to play without comparing scores, even if we tried. But we played well over a dozen rounds, including specialties like an overhead, lefty, blindfolded round, a round from the lady’s tees, an early morning round and one that we didn’t start until 10pm (I love the long Scandinavian days in summer), so by the end of the week, I think everybody won something and everybody screwed up a putt that was easier to make than to miss.

The best 7 disc golfers in the family:
Hannes, Petra, Sandra, Chris, Ronja, Linnea & Jan

Next, we went to my home town of Breisach. Besides the obvious pleasure to see my parents, we also did some sightseeing together. In Freiburg we went up the newly renovated church tower, saw and heard the enormous church bells at noon, enjoyed the view and visited the botanical garden for the first time. About time I see the botanical garden of my birth place after visiting gardens all around the world.

With my parents in the church tower in Freiburg

My parents are very good tour guides and tailor each trip to the interests of the guests. Coming from America last year, they took us to the home for Bartholdi, who built the Statue of Liberty, but I had no idea that there is another American connection so close to my hometown: Selestad is a picturesque little town in Alsace and they have a historical library with the very first document mentioning the name “America” for the newly discovered continent. Amerigo Vespucci was not the first European in America, but opposite to the vikings he kept pretty good records and published them. And opposite to Christopher Columbus, he knew where he was. I would somewhat enjoy America being named after my namesake (“United States of Christophica” sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?). But given the fact that Columbus never set foot on the actual continent and still thought that he had been close to India until he died (as I just learned), makes the name America a pretty reasonable choice.

Spiral Staircase in Selestad, Alsace

The same little library provided another treat for us: The best virtual reality experience I have seen anywhere so far. We visited ten of the most interesting libraries of the world, all while sitting in this small historic library in a little town in Alsace. Both the content of the presentations and the technology of the VR experience were spectacular.

"La Bibliothèque, La Nuit" - Virtual reality library tour

Next we got to spend 5 days in my parent’s favorite little hotel in the Jura region of France. The restaurant at this hotel is my favorite restaurant in the world. I might wait with my next post until I figure out a way to include some smells and flavors in this blog.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra