Kids'-eye view of Europe

Dana and her friends enjoy camaraderie and a view of Venice.

Click here to read a story I wrote for the local paper about some of the high points of the kids' recent European adventure: cute gondoliers; rest areas with fresh fruit and pastry; never giving up on using Spanish with Austrians and Italians; and listening to "sick" chamber music in Mozart's hometown.



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Ecstasy in Vienna

Dana's been borrowing friends' cell phones to check in from Europe. (Generous friends. Their parents will probably kill them.) The day she landed, I got this email: "Hey its me on Marcis BlackBerry venice is amazing I'm good. Love you guys. Dana"

Well, she just called from Vienna: "Hey mom, guess what I just did? I went to the Spanish Riding School and saw the Lippizaners."

Seeing the world's most famous dressage horses in the world's most famous riding school was the primary goal of her European trip, so I'm delighted she pulled it off. She and a friend toured the barn, then got to hang out in the performance area for a bit. She was ecstatic.

We couldn't talk long, the conversation being conducted as it was on telephony that someone else was paying for, but as she was about to hang up, she said, "Wait! I have to tell you a funny story! We went to this amusement park (that would be the Prater...), and we all went on this ride called Ecstasy, and when we got off, we found out it's illegal in the United States! It was horrible! Everybody was throwing up all over the place!"

It's late in their trip, but I hope the kids still had some clean clothes left...

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Kids on the loose on the Lido

Dana left today for her school's April vacation trip to Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic. Sixty-five kids, 10 adult chaperones. First stop, Venice.
Dana's been to Venice before, but most of the kids have never been to Italy. Indeed, for many this is their first trip out of the country. I envy them their first ride down the glorious Grand Canal. It's an experience that stays with you forever.

The group is staying at the Hotel Riviera on the Venice Lido, across the lagoon from the city's ancient historic core. The hotel looks like a wonderful value for the money, and some of the rooms have views of the sea.

While Venice proper is where the guidebook and postcard sights are, Lido is, essentially, a beach resort. A playground.

Hmmm.... A beach resort playground for 65 American teenagers in Europe without their parents.
I'll be writing a story about the trip for the local newspaper. This headline idea springs to mind: "Lido: The Chaperones' Challenge."

(These photos? Non-Lido Venice.)
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Liechtenstein: Rent Me

Once upon a time, when corporations had things like employees, customers, fat expense accounts and black bottom lines, and taking everybody and their spouses (or not -- up to you) on extravagant, self-celebratory bonding trips was the law of the land, a prince looked out from his hilltop castle and decreed that his little country should get in on some of that action.

And so it came to pass that Liechtenstein put itself up for rent. And so it remains.

If you have at least 450 people to entertain and $500 per head per day to entertain them with, you can rent this 16-mile-long, 4-mile wide principality wedged between Austria and Switzerland.

The go-to guys, if you're interested, are event marketers Xnet, whose Rent a Village program (they offer nine hamlets in Austria, Switzerland and Germany that you can temporarily overtake) becomes, in the case of Liechtenstein, "Rent a whole country."

Once you pay the rent, Xnet will take care of the details of your group's Alpine adventure and will also see to it that you can, if you're inclined and, presumably, pay extra, "rename streets and squares using names that have a connection with your company. Have your logo carved into the white snow of a mountain slope or introduce your own currency for the duration of your stay."

If you rent Liechtenstein, you do not get to move into Prince Hans-Adam II's castle (photo). You will be in regular hotels, and you'll only see the prince if he happens to drive by in his (I'm guessing) chauffered car.

Nor do the 35,000 permanent residents of Liechtenstein vacate to other nations when you arrive. They stay and go about their business, and you, whose flags, banners and logos flap from the lampposts that line their lanes, do your frolicing, skiing, hiking, biking, team-building, skydiving and bacchanaling around them. I do not know whether your company currency can be used in all establishments, or just those paid to play along for the length of your invasion.

Sound fun? I've been to Liechtenstein, for less than an hour, and it was all I could take.

We were in Switzerland, close to Liechtenstein's border, so we drove in one end and out the other, back into Switzerland.

Liechtenstein, despite its jaw-dropping natural beauty, gave me a mild case of the heebie-jeebies. It smothered me with its perfectness, and I couldn't wait to get back to the less-perfect-perfectness of Switzerland, a wild and crazy place by comparison.

The walls of mountains that surround Liechtenstein were, at first, awe-inspiring, but then they started to move in on our car, inducing claustrophia. We drove right under the royal castle, and I imagined the prince staring down at us, watching us move through his little country. I drove fast, looking for the exit.

There was nothing out of place in Liechtenstein, neither rock nor piece of paper nor shirttail nor blade of grass. The place was impeccable, pristine and unbearably plastic-feeling. The well-put together women strolling the sidewalks looked Stepford Wife-ish. I got the same feeling from Liechtenstein as I get from Angelina Jolie: I was creeped out.

I did like one thing about the perfect little principality: the pronunciation of its capital, Vaduz. It's va - DOOTS.

Go ahead, say it out loud, it's fun: "va - DOOTS, va - DOOTS, va - DOOTS." If you go to Forvo.com ("All the words in the world. Pronounced"), you can listen to Wolfgang Hofmeier ("male from Germany") say it .

Over and over and over, if you like.


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Ten Commandments of Travel

In April Dana's heading to Europe with a group from her high school. About 40 kids (who, according to Dana, are all "getting wicked excited") and a half-dozen adult chaperones will take in Venice, Vienna, Prague and points in between.

I was talking to a few girls who are going on the trip and I said, "What an itinerary -- Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic."

One of them squinted her eyes at me and asked, "Czech Republic? Who's going to the Czech Republic?"

"You are, Sharone, you are! You're going to Prague, where some of the buildings wear funny hats. Prague's the capital of the Czech Republic."

"Wow! I'm going to the Czech Republic..."

The teacher who organizes these annual spring trips -- and who teaches advanced placement history -- will no doubt be glad that Sharone knows the name of the country she's in when she's in Prague. The trip, which requires that the kids do research on their destinations before they travel, is actually a mini-course that nets the travelers two credits on their high school transcripts.

In addition to learning geography, history and culture, the teacher hopes the students will learn something about and from the travel itself, and at a recent trip planning meeting she offered these "Ten Commandments of Travel:"

1. Thou shalt not expect to find things as thou hast them at home for thou hast left home to find things different.

2. Thou shalt not take anything too seriously, for a carefree mind is the beginning of fine traveling.

3. Thou shalt not let others get on thy nerves, for thou art paying good money to enjoy thyself. (I think this commandment should be amended to read, "... for thine parents art paying good money -- which they now have a lot less of than they did when thou signed up for this trip -- to let thee enjoy thyself.")

4. Remember to take only half the clothes thou thinks thou needs, and twice the money.

5. Know at all times where thy passport is, for a person without a passport is a person without a country.

6. Remember that if we had been expected to stay in one place we would have been created with roots.

7. Thou shalt not worry, for he that worrieth hath no pleasure, and few things are truly fatal.

8. When in Rome, be prepared to do somewhat as the Romans do -- same goes for Venice, Vienna and Prague.

9. Thou shalt not judge the people of a country by the one person who hast given thou trouble.

10. Remember thou art a guest in other lands, and he that treateth his host with respect will be honored.

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