Life in general, and especially travel, can be overwhelming, stressful, and exhausting. There is a temptation to get caught up in the minutia of daily activities, the worry about missing out on something special, or just generally feeling like something might go wrong. It isn’t easy, but we all need to lighten up a little bit and let ourselves be childlike in our adventures. If we could all view our lives, our travels, the things that we do and the places that we go with the unabashed wonder of a child who has been let loose on a playground, we would all enjoy them better. How many times have you stood in a line, whether to get on a plane, get into an attraction, or waiting for a popular restaurant and found the people around you angry, pushy, and basically rude? Do they truly believe that if they try and make everyone around them as miserable as they are that somehow their experience will be better? There are times when we see people that are this intense that we want to just mess with them a little. Tell them that they are in the wrong line, that they don’t have the proper reservation, anything to mess with their minds a little. Perhaps that wouldn’t be nice, but this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is Cheeky and maybe a little mischief would wake these people up and let them realize that life is to be enjoyed, not just rushed through. One of the things that we enjoy are seeing whimsical signs or different things that remind us to keep the child inside of us alive as we travel. Here are some photos of signs or other things that remind us to smile and enjoy life. How do you keep your inner-child alive?
Troll Statue Outside of a Store in Reykjavik, IcelandFamily Fun Restaurant in Cochabamba, BoliviaDona on a Merry-Go-Round in San FranciscoUFO Crossing Sign in Roswell, New MexicoWhimsical Creations in the Chocolate Museum in Cologne, Germany
The following are a series of signs outside of restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Definitely SillyPerhaps a Little HokeyTruth in Advertising
Especially when traveling to larger cities, there tend to be an abundance of restaurants to choose from. Although we might select a nicer restaurant for a single night or a special occasion, we typically find more casual restaurants to grab a meal or quick bite. We go with casual restaurants for a variety of reasons. First of all, it is likely that we have been walking quite a bit and are usually dressed relaxed as we visit the various sights, so we don’t want to feel underdressed. We also find that some finer restaurants can be a little pretentious and we are all about simple food with great flavors that represent the region as opposed to a gourmet presentation. As we walk the streets of a city, we tend to look for a place that is warm and inviting, where the owners are typically visible, and where locals seem to be frequenting.
Prague, Czech RepublicStrasbourg, FranceCafé in Rome, Italy
That isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with going to a fine dining restaurant, they certainly have a lot to offer as well, but we just tend to lean towards the more casual locations. We do, however, tend to go to an actual sit-down restaurant versus just grabbing something from a street vendor. We will get something from a street cart if we are in a rush and it looks like they have a clean cart and fresh looking food, but our preference is to be able to sit at a table, sip on a glass of wine or beer, and people watch. Sitting at a small café in a plaza or square and relaxing over some nibbles while watching all of the other tourists scurry around can be quite the interesting experience.
Bistro in Paris, FranceCourtyard Restaurant in Granada, SpainPeople Watching in Quito, Ecuador
We have been back in the States for over six months now and we think about our extended time in Germany all the time. It was just about a year ago when we moved to Frankfurt and struggled to find an apartment. There are so many things that we wish we would have known before moving to a foreign country. Even if you travel constantly, there is something unique about living in a place that is completely different than your typical surroundings, especially if you move to a place with a language that you don’t know.
Main River in FrankfurtView from the Bridge in Frankfurt
The first couple of weeks after we arrived in Frankfurt were like a vacation, it didn’t seem real. We were in a hotel, getting to know where things were located, and doing normal tourist things. Then the hunt for the apartment began and we quickly realized that we were in for an experience. In the United States, there are advertisements, magazines, real estate agents, and apps that will all help you find a place to live or buy. Renting a flat in Germany was a little different. They had just gone through the process of having landlords rent on their own to having them rent through agencies, but there wasn’t an easy way to see what was available. What information there was out there was in German, which is a language that we knew only a little of, so we were spending a lot of time using translation apps.
Town SquareView of the City
As our allotted time to stay in a hotel was coming to an end, we started to get stressed as we didn’t seem to be able to locate a place to stay. We were at a local pub that we had found on our first day in Frankfurt and happened to ask the bartender if he had any advice. Although he didn’t know the process, he said his wife would know exactly what we needed. A few minutes later and we had a couple of websites to use and within a week we had found an apartment that was exactly what we were looking for. It was centrally located, near old town, the food district, and shopping. We might have paid a little bit more than we had originally anticipated, but in the end, it was worth every penny.
Our Living RoomThe Kitchen
This was only the first of the challenges that we would face during our transition to living in Germany. We thought that living in a large city would mean that most people spoke English, but that wasn’t necessarily the case, especially as you went into the smaller neighborhoods and frequented the local businesses. We assumed that going into a grocery store, we would be able to easily recognize what products we needed or find things that we normally used. We couldn’t figure out the products based on the pictures on the labels and with our limited German, the titles didn’t translate well for us. We quickly found that we needed to go to several different stores to buy all the things that we needed. We went to the butcher for our meat, the bakery for our bread, the pharmacist for our aspirin and vitamins, the DM (home and bath store) for our toiletries, and then a typical grocery store for canned goods and other products.
Out of the Front Balcony (We had one front and back)Sunrise Reflecting on a Skyscraper
Just figuring out how to operate the oven, coffee maker, laundry machine, and other daily routines were not as easy as we expected. We had over a thousand television channels and yet the only things that were in English were news, so we ended up using our Netflix subscription and watching it on our laptop. It took us a while to figure out that we could connect the laptop to the television, but eventually we were able to watch it there. It certainly wasn’t all a struggle, there were other things that we found easy to understand and convenient. Transportation was fairly easy to figure out from the street cars, underground railway, railway, and airplane travel, there were so many options. We also enjoyed walking the city, it was easy and as long as you paid attention to traffic signals, easy to navigate. There were an abundance of restaurants, but most of them had limited menus, so you quickly learned which places to go when you were in the mood for certain foods. Most of all, we truly enjoyed the friendships that we made and the impact that they made on our lives. We wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world and hope to go back for a longer stay at some point, although this time, wherever we go, we will be better informed.
