Finally, however, my dad got orders. Orders are a bunch of pieces of paper all saying the same thing: where a soldier's next home will be. This time my dad brought home orders for GERMANY. We were all kind of excited and scared to be traveling so far from what we knew.
Once we were in Germany, my mom immediately started planning our first family vacation to an actual country. She chose the Netherlands. We drove our Volkswagon Beetle to Amsterdam and stayed in a hotel. Our car was broken into, but we saw Anne Frank's house, visited a brewery and saw lots and lots and lots of tulips.
After that, every chance we had, we were on the road. My mom insisted that we travel to places we'd never been. My dad was only a Captain, so we had to be frugal. We camped out in a tent and ate canned food that we cooked on a propane stove. We walked a lot of places.
My family visited Austria, where we hung around Mozart's house and visited a salt mine. I spent hours pretending I was an archeologist in Italy, and was mad when my mom wouldn't let us walk up into the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We camped next to Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and ate tons of chocolate. We camped on a beach in Spain. We drove into Monaco to see if we could see Grace Kelly. I got a heat rash in Norway because I was wearing so many pairs of long underwear. We stood at the Acropolis in Greece and marveled that anything still stood at all after all these years.
All told, we visited most of Europe. I gained my love of history walking through the old castles and ancient battlements and cobblestone streets. I ended up with a love of old folk stories, no matter what the country. And, I learned that the world isn't just what is happening right in front of me. There are lots of different cultures and people out there, and they all make the world go round. My horizons were broadened, my education enriched, my life improved. All thanks to my mom.
3.) What countries have you traveled to?
