Oh Easyjet, how I loathe you more and more everyday. Remember how they abandoned us overnight in Venice without providing food or hotels like they are legally supposed to? Even though I was reimbursed for the canceled flight, I never received the insultingly low 120€ for alternative travel costs (we paid nearly 1,000€ out of [...]
Full Story »From Annecy to Bassano del Grappa: Taking Grandma to Her Parents’ Birthplace in Italy
David’s grandmother was born in France in 1932. Her parents are from the towns of Bassano del Grappa and Solagna, in the region of Veneto, Italy. Her father, Antonio Tosetto, came to France in 1929 to escape le camicie nere (the blackshirts, or Fascists) while her mother, Maria Todesco, stayed behind in Bassano until he [...]
Full Story »And the I Hate Easyjet Saga Continues…
I got an e-mail from Easyjet that we should be reimbursed for the canceled flight, and a whole 120€ of the nearly 1,000€ we spent on rental cars, gas, and tolls. But who knows when/if we’ll actually receive the money. This morning we also found out that the first rental car company, Locauto, charged us [...]
Full Story »How Easyjet Nearly Put Grandma in the Hospital & Our Journey Home From Abandonment
I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, grandma is fine now and resting at home. We finally got her back to Annecy at 2 am this morning after waiting at the airport for 17 hours and then driving all day from Venice. We hadn’t slept at all and barely eaten anything so [...]
Full Story »Why I Hate Low-Cost Airlines (Notably Easyjet)
We had a great time in Italy until we tried to get back to France. Our flight was scheduled for 6:15pm on July 4th. It is now 3:42am July 5th and we are still in Venice. The flight was delayed later and later until finally at midnight, it was cancelled. There were storms here tonight, [...]
Full Story »Bassano del Grappa for the Weekend
I’m leaving France once again. We’re going here tomorrow: Bassano del Grappa is in the province of Vicenza in northern Italy. The parents of David’s maternal grandmother came from this city, and we are taking Mamie there so she can finally see where her parents lived. They moved to France in 1931 because they were [...]
Full Story »Traveling in Western Europe on 100€ a Day
Traveling throughout Europe can actually be quite cheap if you do your research and reserve/buy certain things in advance. Here’s a rundown of the costs for my two week trip. We spent 3 nights in Brussels, 2 in Amsterdam, 2 in Köln, 3 in Munich and 4 in Strasbourg. I paid for one hotel and [...]
Full Story »It’s good to be home in France, but I miss Germany. And what is happening to Belgium???
I returned home from my 2 week trip yesterday with a cold and over 800 photos. Getting back into a routine is a little hard because I’m so exhausted, but I have managed to upload Dutch, German and French realia as well as several new photo albums. We went to Brussels, Bruges, Amsterdam, Cologne, Düsseldorf, [...]
Full Story »Traveling through Germanic Languages and History
I’ve been traveling for the past week through Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne and Munich. I have been trying to listen to as much Dutch and German as possible and collect all sorts of realia to learn more vocabulary. Of course I’ve also been going to educational places like Mini Europe, which I highly recommend for learning [...]
Full Story »København, Danmark
Denmark was lovely. Even with the awful weather – I should have brought my winter coat and gloves! – everything just was so pleasant. The people were nice, the food was good, and the museums were interesting. My pictures don’t do Copenhagen justice because of the dark, cloudy sky but the city is so beautiful [...]
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