This beautiful globe is in the gym at Mathews Elementary, where Hank and Nadine go to school in Austin, Texas. The globe was inspired by, designed and put together by our friend Emily Low, and each of the pieces of the globe was made by the students at Mathews Elementary with the help of our art teacher, Sara Belknap.
Kurt: Copenhagen
Copenhagen (June 11-17, 2013)
My favorite activity was swimming at the Islands Brygge area in Copenhagen harbor. When we jumped into the cold water there, we realized that it was salt water. Very nice. We will see if the new walking path on Lady Bird Lake in Austin has a swimming area like this.
The first things I noticed in downtown Copenhagen were the widespread use of bicycles; the impressive number of tall, attractive blond people; and the incredibly high number of young people who smoke cigarettes.
At some point in history, the people of Copenhagen included two bike lanes on each side of many of their bigger roads. Imagine big bike lanes running for 5 miles or more each way from downtown Austin along Lamar and Burnet Lane with thousands of bike commuters each day. The bike lanes have their own set of traffic lights that some smart engineer has timed so that on bikes you ride quite far before having to stop at red lights for cars. Hank, Nadine and I rode our bikes about 5 miles from our hotel to the new aquarium, Den Blu Planet. I read that over 30% of people in Copenhagen commute to work and school by bike.
One day while it rained we saw Ironman 3, and noted that Nadine bears many similarities to Pepper Potts. In Copenhagen we also arrived at our first trip motto for Nadine: “Usually right, always certain.”
First morning of the trip
From a window seat Hank catches the sun rising somewhere over Europe.
Kurt: Our trip plans
We plan to travel overseas much of the next twelve months. Hank, Nadine and I departed Austin on June 9, 2013, flying to Europe. Sarah will join us in early July for parts of the trip. We plan to travel in Europe, South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. We will try to keep a somewhat flexible itinerary. If we hear about a great place to visit, we may change our plans and go there. We hope to meet people from other places and understand a little bit about their lives and what is important to them. Feel free to send us information about specific places or people you think we might like to visit. Some of our goals for the trip are to develop a greater appreciation for what our family has in Austin; to begin to understand what life is like for other people where they live; to have Hank and Nadine understand the value of learning another language; to spend time with our kids before they grow up; and to have fun and relax.
If you want to see the other blog posts from our trip, they are under the ARCHIVES tab located at the top of the home page.