Mom and Dad 2.0

November 26, 2019

Mom and Dad 2.0

September saw the arrival of our second set of parents! For me, this ended the longest period we'd been apart since I was born. Matt was nearly equally excited to see his "beaux-parents" (in French your in-laws are called your "beautiful parents!). This excitement culminated when we saw them on the far side of the train platform and made our way over to them. When you wait for people on the platform without knowing which car they are in it can be difficult to find them as everyone debarks... but if you give it a min or two almost everyone flies off to wherever they are going and the few people meeting someone are left standing by their luggage... they are kinda like the wheat amongst the chaff. Not my best analogy (that sentence was Matt, btw).

We gave the parents a tour of the area with our new used car (we had just purchased it that week!) later on that day (a Friday), and then took a trip to the grocery store where we bought a raclette set (becoming more Swiss all the time, apparently) to use for our first meal with them! On Saturday we had the pleasure of travelling to Geneva to watch some tennis. We had secured 2 tickets to the very exciting Laver Cup - a tournament which features Team Europe vs Team World in a combination of marquee singles and doubles matchups. This tournament lived up to its expectations, and was worth the morning stress 6 months earlier of clicking buy about 1,000 times the moment the tickets went on sale! Matt and Dad drew the short straws, but made the best of the time by touring around Geneva, and making a trip to the Reformation Park.

Watching Federer in action!

Matt touring around Geneva - see the Laver Cup flags in the background.

While waiting for us in a parking lot, they got to watch the final points of the excited Federer-Kyrgios match courtesy of an unlimited data plan and Glen and Natalie's Amazon Prime (thanks guys!... we'll logout of your account very soon...).

Left to Right: William Farel, John Calvin, Theadore Beza, and John Knox

The next day, after showing off our parents to our church community and visa versa, we made a trip to Great St Bernard's Pass to see the kennel of rescue dogs they have up there, and read up on the historical importance of the pass and hotel/refuge. We had planned to have a little hike at altitude, but had to travel a little lower first because of all the fog. It was our first week with the car, and the benefits of flexible and remote travel were obvious to us already. On the way home, we went out for some local fish from Lac Leman and overheard a table of four clearly tourists. We struck up a conversation with them only to find out they were Canadians... wait from Toronto... "Us too! where?"... "No way! Woodbridge, and you?" ... Dad: "I was born in Woodbridge!" ... One of the men at the table, very nonchalauntly asks (keep in mind we still hadn't introduced ourselves by name): "Are you Hayhoe's?"... All of our mouth's hit the floor, "Ummm... well yes, but how did you know?!?!" Apparently they just guessed! I guess Hayhoe's are quite famous in the Woodbridge area?

A hike in the alps with the parents.

For the next week, the parents explored our town based on our recommendations (which included a trip to France by boat, and a trip to the Olympic Museum close to our apartment), while we worked hard to bring home the bacon. I guess the shoes are on the other feet now?! A lovely couple from our church (Mia and Dan), invited us for dinner one night, which was a highlight for all of us! When Friday rolled around, we got rolling bright and early on an express train to Venice, where we would leave on a cruise! It was the longest train ride of our lives (6 hrs), but worth every minute of relaxation compared to the alternative (drive, park, walk, customs, security, taxi, fly, taxi, walk, collect bags, other type of taxi...).

Enjoying Evian! The French town across the late (they arrived by boat)

At Mia and Dan's

Mom and me enjoying train life.

The parents had been to Venice before, which was handy for knowing the ins and outs of such a peculiar city. The main way to get around is walking. Walking with lots of luggage over about 15 bridges is something we should have foreseen as being difficult, but we were too busy embracing cruise-norms when we were packing that we didn't think about this aspect. We were well over the google-maps estimated walking time with our plethora of luggage. Also Dad was too stubborn to take a water taxi or let anyone help him with his/Mom's bags, so he needed both a shower and nap once we finally made it the hotel! The cobblestones weren't too kind to the rollie wheels, and now one of us needs to shop for new luggage now I think.

Right next to our night's lodging

During our time in Venice, we were amazed at the skill of the locals to navigate their boats. Wanting to participate in this circus a little bit ourselves, we took a private water taxi to the cruise port! See the vid below.

Thus began the second leg of our time with the parents. Cruise life is quite different from regular life, and by different I mean more full of food and no making your own bed (or lifting the slightest finger), and the average age of people you interact with are over 65 (I think my mom was teh next youngest person to me!). Our stops, in order, were Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, and Italy. We leave you with photos of this section of the trip, with brief caption descriptions, rather than going into detail about our daily routines (wake up, eat, leave the boat, come back for eats, try to get some form of exercise but be mostly unsuccessful, eat some more, enjoy some form of entertainment (avec snacks), go to bed, repeat!).

In Croatia we took a rather large walk with Mom. Mom's hat kinda made the selfie difficult.

A short hike in Montenegro gave us a great view!

Dad decided to shop for a pair of crocs in Greece... but the shoe didn't quite fit.

Somedays we took lifeboats to shore when docking wasn't possible. However, I think "lifeboats" evokes too much fear... so the crew called the boats "tenders" instead.