France Day 8: Tree Climbing vs. Playgrounds
[Written 25 AUGUST 2014. I hope.]
While visiting a website for Things to do with kids in Lyon, I saw that there was an ‘adventure garden‘ right by the church on the hill, where people can climb in trees, over rope bridges, etc.
Sadly, my right heel was still busted, so I figured I had no business climbing in trees. Instead, Finnur and I split the kids between us for the afternoon. He took the big kids to the adventure garden around lunchtime, while I had Emma and we visited a couple of playgrounds post-nap.
The big kids LOVED the adventure garden so much that they claimed it was the best thing they did on the entire trip!
Once the tired climbers returned around dinner-time, I attempted to go shopping, but finding a place to eat dinner, and then eating it took up so much time that there was no shopping. Boohoo. (Previously I’d squeaked out 45 minutes at one of the H&M stores, while Finnur shopped for groceries, and that was it for clothes shopping until the day we flew back to Iceland!) (21 images total and 1 video)
Short clips from the adventure garden.
France Day 7: Cinema and Miniature Museum and Dinner in Old Lyon
[Written 25 AUGUST 2014. In the daytime!]
This Wednesday began relatively quietly, but after Emma’s nap we piled everybody into the car and drove to the old part of Lyon to visit the Cinema and Miniature Museum, which was highly ranked on TripAdvisor. After our visit, we walked around a tiny bit while I consulted the TripAdvisor app on my phone for where to eat because there was a ton of restaurants, and hard to tell which had good food vs. being tourist traps. (65 images total!)
Emma playing!
France Day 6: Finnur’s 40th Birthday!
[Written 24 AUGUST 2014. School starts tomorrow!]
Finnur turned 40 years old and our collective gift to him was not going anywhere for a whole day, except I took the kids on a playground/bakery/grocery store walk before lunch. (15 images total)
Finnur the birthday boy with his mini-cake from the awesome local bakery.
France Day 5: Old Brasserie and the Lyon Aquarium
[Written 24 AUGUST 2014. It’s a good memory exercise!]
Although the day before was ‘active’, this Monday was also an ‘active’ day (two ‘active’ days in a row are generally a no-no).
I can only blame myself because I’d told Anna we’d visit the Lyon aquarium on some previous day, and then backtracking when the timing didn’t work out, promising we’d do it, say, on Monday.
First though we had to get lunch, and (the royal) we decided to try the famous Brasserie Georges, which is the oldest brasserie in the city, and one of the largest in Europe (according to wikipedia). (23 images total)
Can’t forget the biggest news of the day, which was Bjarki losing his first upper front tooth (both the lower ones are gone)!
France Day 4: Lyon Zoo and a Hilltop Church with Friends
[Written 23 AUGUST 2014. It’s quiet here.]
Our friends, Holla and Óli, were in the area with their kids and Óli’s mom at the same time we were. (By ‘the area’ I mean they were a one hour drive away from us, in Chambéry.) They wanted to check out Lyon though, so we planned to go visit the Lyon zoo, and then maybe the hilltop church.
It was a super-sunny day, and pretty warm too, so we weren’t the most energetic people ever, but the day mostly went fine. (31 images total)
Three kids and a piano. So quiet!
France Day 3: Thunderstorm
[Written 21 AUGUST 2014. In ten minutes (3 pm) I need to go pick Emma up from daycare, where she’s been solo since 10 am. My baaaaaaaaby!!!!]
The mobile internet thing kept not working, so we decided to try the cell phone store One. More. Time. Failing that, there was another cell phone store nearby that was our backup. (19 images total)
We ventured out before lunch, to the same shopping street as before, and ate lunch at yet another restaurant. Yes, I admit it, eating out is one of my favorite things to do when abroad, especially when in countries with good food! Yes, eating out was a wee bit stressful with Emma needing constant care and attention, but still… new food!!
Emma getting a piece of steak from her dad.
France Day 2: Homebound Splashing and a Fancy Restaurant
[Written 18 AUGUST 2014. No Bárðarbunga eruption yet.]
Since our first full day in France wasn’t quite as relaxing we needed it to be, our second day was as relaxing as we could make it.
We basically stayed at home for most of this lovely Friday, filling up the splashing pool in the garden for some water-play, and napping while Emma napped and the big kids computerized themselves.
Around 6 pm we decided we really needed to do something about our non-functioning mobile internet, so we went back to street with the cell phone store. As luck would have it, the store was very close to a restaurant our house-owners had recommended in the guide they left us, so that was our designated dinner-place.
It was only when we arrived at the restaurant in question that it dawned on us that it was a faaaancy restaurant! So, just to be sure, I was sent inside to ask if we could a) bring kids, and b) be casually dressed, and if so, then c) could we eat there, please? The receptionist was quite positive, so we booked a table for 7 pm, and spent the time until then at the cell phone store (still no luck getting the MiFi to work). (23 images total)
Emma has the rather disturbing habit of drinking any and all water she comes into contact with, no matter the source or location.
France Day 1: Food and the Quest for MiFi
[Written 15 AUGUST 2014. It’s dark outside before midnight!]
We have a travel rule which states “after a strenuous day there shall be a quiet day”. Since traveling is strenuous, the first full day in Lyon, France was mostly quiet. Well, we tried anyway.
We desperately needed to buy groceries, so that was the first order of business. We started out by visiting the local ‘organic’ store, just to see what it looked like, and sure enough it was very organic-y, as in mostly expensive dried goods, some dairy, and fruits – which meant we needed to visit a second store to actually buy what we needed.
The organic store was close to the local shopping street though, so we parked there to begin our attempts at getting mobile internet (MiFi) so that the phone GPS maps would work. First we had to eat lunch, and I floored the kids by knowing a bit of a totally foreign language (to them). Yay for trudging through French for four years in junior college!
After buying an internet card for the MiFi gadget, we headed to the big local food store. It was called Monoprix, and we were totally saved by one very helpful attendant who gave us tokens to free the shopping carts, because we had zero coins on us.
Once we got back to the house, Emma napped and the big kids got computer time.
After a bit of hanging out later that afternoon we foolishly left the house without any maps or guidance or working internet (our mobile internet gadget didn’t work! boohoo!) but somehow made our way to a fancy shopping district downtown-ish where we had dinner. We walked around for a bit afterwards, mostly by the river Rhone.
(It would turn out a couple of days later that a) our mobile internet gadget needed a firmware update to work with the French cards, and b) our rental car had GPS navigation built in all along. Yeah.) (21 images total)
At the place where we had lunch, and the server spoke no English. Emma’s asking for some pepper in her hand.
To France!
[Written 14 AUGUST 2014. In French.]
In April, we booked direct tickets to Lyon for two weeks. Because we’re crazy like that.
Initially we figured we’d stay close to our friends who were also going to be in the area, but in the end we opted for staying in Lyon, renting a house through airbnb.com, an hour away from them. Instead, we planned to meet our friends in Italy, again renting a place through airbnb for all of us. (9 images total)
Cute kids at the Keflavik airport. We ordered pizza and let them eat it in front of the tv. That was a big hit!
Family Outings
[Written 14 AUGUST 2014. In a galaxy far, far away…]
Passing time was the order of the week between our US visitors leaving, and Finnur’s summer holiday booting up again.
Since Emma naps in the afternoons, I mostly needed to figure out stuff to do in the mornings. (The afternoons were mostly Emma (and I) snoring while the big kids played on the computers.) (13 images total)
Wednesday 16 July 2014 – Laugardalur Family Park
At the family park in Laugardalur. I bought an annual pass, so the whole family can go whenever, and use all the equipment as much as we want. Of course, Emma’s favorite equipment of the day was this uninflated trampoline. Puddles are endlessly fun!