Visiting Charlottesville

We woke up straight in the clouds and in the woods! Sebastian started the day - like many of the other days on this trip - by jumping into his pirate outfit ('mit sørøver udstyrt'). After a nice breakfast we drove down the hill to Charlottesville where we were lucky to find a great playground - made of wood (!). We had a great time playing around and the weather even started to feel a little bit like springtime!

We passed Charlottesville's central fire brigade, and decided to see if anybody was in. We were welcomed by a fireman who was very kind and hospitable, and he let us see and even enter one of the fire engines. This was definately one of Sebastians biggest dreams coming through, but I think that the engine itself was so huge, that he got a little (a lot!) scared and was so shy that he clinged onto Tue very firmly. Well, they managed to sit both in the back and in the front of the engine and the nice fireman even turned on the lights for Sebastian. Thank you for a great visit! Five metres off the grounds Sebastian softened up and waved to the fireman and the engines.

After parking the car we went down the Charlottesville Mall, which is the first pedestrian area we have met, so far, on our trip. It made for a nice and relaxed atmosphere and you can tell that the city is a place for university students: lots of cafés and bookstores. 

At the end of the Mall there is a Childrens Discovery Museum, where we ended our tour by playing with all the toys and - not least - sailing on the big pirate ship! We drove home (a little stop at Kroger to buy our lunch and dinner) and made a picnic lunch on the terrase. After that a little nap, and then playing around at the house, a little walk, dinner and time for a goodnight story and bedtime for Sebastian. On our trip Sebastian has started to want to read to himself after the goodnight story. It is amazing to listen to his litlle voice from his bed telling one story after the other, sometimes mixing them a bit up, but still getting a lot of the details from what he has heard.

This morning we packed up the car and drove down towards Charlottesville, hitting a few shopping centres on our way. Not that we needed anything, but it is interesting to watch the American consumer-culture, and to wonder how this country can have so many shopping centres, yet they all look pretty much alike. Well, we ended up in a bookstore and found a great pirates-book, a cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie - in other words we found ourselves turned into pretty well-trained consumers after all!

We found a great playground, which even had a bit of sun on it, and Sebastian climped up and down, and down and up for a good while. Then it was lunchtime, and after a quick KFC-tour we drove off to our next place to stay: the Inn at the Sugar Hollow Farm. It is very nice and lies in a valley with a great view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, the place is not made for kids, so we are very fortunate to have Sebastian who is not the hanging-in-the-curtains-kind-of-kid! Well, we will see how it all goes the next couple of days.  

Lodging in the clouds

There has been a little 'hole' in the updates, due to a very nice visit with Lars, Anne and Niels Sofus in Washington.

Thursday we had dinner in Annapolis, and found a very friendly and nice sushi restaurant, where Sebastian even had a bowl of noodles! We slept in a wonderful king sized bed, and woke up to the most fantastic breakfast: egg, bacon, homebacked bread and muffins, juice, coffee etc. We ate a lot, but had to leave a few pieces, which Sebastian could feed to the dog Boing - both he and the dog were so thrilled!

We were planning to see a bit more of Annapolis in the morning (Friday), but as we drove off through the city we decided to move on to Washington a bit earlier. This could give us a chance to see the National Museum of Natural History on Friday afternoon - a museum that we were sure we wanted to go and see. Friday afternoon could be a bit more quiet than during the weekend - we thought! As we entered we were met by a wall of noise and thousands of visitors. Too bad, because the exhibitions seemed to be great, but due to the crowds and the noise we only stayed for a little hour. We saw some great skelettons of dinosaurs, some fantastic fossils and a little dense exhibition on orchids. Sebastian prefered a stuffed brown bear and a tiny little stuffed mouse.

We passed Capitol Hill and the White House on our way to Lars and Annes house which is in Georgetown. We went to a playground with Lars and shopped for dinner. It was just SO nice after a couple of weeks in hotels to stay in a real home, cooking some nice food and meeting up with old friends. Lars and Anne has a beautiful and charming boy, Niels Sofus, who is 5 months old. Sebastian took a great interest in him - AND his toys!

Saturday we slept in and had a cosy and relaxing morning. We managed to get out of the door with the two boys at about noon, and took a long walk through some great shopping areas in Georgetown. We had a great lunch at Dean & Deluca and spent the afternoon in shop after shop. Entering home we had - yet again - more bags AND a giant pillow globe to carry back to Europe!

Lars had to go to a formal dinner at the Embassy, so Tue cooked a nice seafood dinner for Anne and I. We had a great evening discussing politics, kids and life! 

Sunday was rain, rain, rain and rain. After a full - full (both Tue and Lars had gone to the bakery!) breakfast, we therefore decided to make Sunday a mall day, and drove off the the fifth largest 'Tysons Corner' mall in the US. It was indeed large - enormous - and with a crazy, crazy playground at the upper level (see video-clip on the front page of this site). The place was so big that we almost felt a bit constipated and despite the endless number of shops we did not buy much. Something for Sebastian of course, but not much else ;-)

We returned back to Lars and Annes place and Sebastian had a great bath-tup tour before we all enjoyed a lovely dinner and the good company of Lars, Anne and Niels Sofus (who has just started eating squased carrots - see photosection). 

Monday morning we packed up and drove off south. We had found a B & B on the internet and knew not more of it than the tempting name: 'The Guesthouse in the Clouds'. It is a wonderful place, just next to the clouds!, a little north of Charlottesville. The last mile was a 27 degree steep uphill. First gear for 10 min. The car was certainly working hard. There is a burned smell from the engine everytime we park the car at the lodge. Due to a great bargin, we have a large lodge on our own, and have just eaten a great homecooked dinner (we have a kitchen!). Tomorrow we are planning to go and see Charlottesville, and will then stay on in our 'clouds lodge' for yet another night.

A little paradise

Wednesday morning we first decided to go all the way down to a place called Onancock, a 3-4 hours drive further south. However, not being able to get hold of anyone of the very few B & B's down there, we hesitated and decided to go to a city called Cambridge instead. This was right on the Chesapeake Bay as well. First stop however, was going out to Tilghman Island (half island), a rather deserted area, with a nice little community at the end. Beautiful scenary.

Returning back - and going for Cambridge - we drove to Easton - looking out for a playground. This we did not find, instead we found a very nice toy shop, where Sebastian got very occupied by a Brio train landscape. We tend to use toy shops as playgrounds when thats available. Having seen a few American toy shops so far, this one was definately one of the finest, with some of the toys even made of wood - and not only plactic as in "Toys R Us"! Arriving in Cambridge we were met by a huge playground at the visitor center, where Sebastian turned into a pirate, sailing, yelling and running for a little hour. We then went for lunch but was VERY dissapointed to find the city of Cambridge very run down, with hardly any life and only one slightly decent lunch pizza place. Eating one of their pizzas, which consisted of nothing but fat, fat, fat cheese melted down on chuncks of bacon and a tiny piece of tomato, we found ourselves a bit grounded in this place. It felt like a big, boring hole - and we qucikly decided to move on. Out of Cambridge. 

Not knowing much of the area, we drove to a place called Oxford (!). Yet another town off the bay, but quite different from Cambridge. Not much life, but neat and with some very nice houses and a little marina. Right next to the little harbour we found the Oxford Inn, where we stayed for the night. Very friendly people and a nice room - and on the ground floor they were even running a cosy little restaurant, where we had a nice dinner. 

This morning we slept in until 9! We packed up and drove off - on the road again! Visiting the US we decided that we had to go to one of those big outlets, we had heard so much about. Just outside Queenstown we drove into 'Prime Outlet', where we sure found shop after shop after shop after shop .Great !.. Starting off with a cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie we went shopping - big time! After 6 or 7 stores we were ready for the grand finale: the toy shop. Unfortunately it turned out to be a plactic one, and we ended up buying one little car for Sebastian (from the movie Cars). His choice would have been a sword from Star Wars, with which he 'shot' his way through the whole store. Being a mother-who-will-not-allow-any-guns this is NOT sweet music to my ears. Maybe I ought to listen to Mr. Wise Tue, who claims that the more I ban guns the more Sebastian will want it. Hmmmmmmm - he might be right. Sebastian got a torch yesterday, and even this little device to produce light has been reduced to a killing gun. Boys!

Did we forget to mention that we also had to buy another suitcase! Having been in numerous GAP kids stores, we have runned out of suitcase room already a week ago. With our new red purchase we hope to have enough space for the rest of the trip. Keep dreaming ...

We called up a B& B that we had found on the internet, just outside of Annapolis. They had a room vacant and we drove straight to their place, which turned out to be a little paradise. We got the 'king sized room', which is very nicely decorated. The house faces a little lake, where their dog 'Boing' took us for a little stroll. Sebastian laughed so sweet and hard when Boing went into the water and came back up, shaking itself dry. 

This Evening we are going into Annapolis center for dinner and a short walk. When Sebastian wakes up from his nap...

St. Michaels

Tue started the day early by picking up our rental car - a grey Grand Marquis with lots of room for our little traveling party. We packed up and headed for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, which turned out to be an excellent place - both for kids and for grown ups! They exhibited the most incredible steamengines - one of them 100 foot long! - and had trains in all sizes and from all times. Sebastian was SO happy - he ran into the grand 'remise' and kept on shouting "it's just perfect, it's just perfect". We ended up in the shop bying a little black steam engine toy for him, which he "loves" and has taken with him into bed. Great succes!

We drove off south (it must get a bit warmer the further we get ;-)) and crossed the Bay Bridge by Annapolis. We had booked a hotel in St. Michaels, which is a quiet, very nice marina in the Chesapeake Bay area. We have got the coolest suite right onto the pier - 20 feet off the water. We took a little stroll in the afternoon and discovered road after road of small (in American terminology!) wooden houses, almost all of them with patios and a rocking chair or two. Very neat!

We decided to take our dinner in the room - knowing that this is the place in the whole area with the best view! The menu was crab-cakes and Ceasar salad - yummy!

Baltimore

We started the day with breakfast at the 'Cloud Club' on the 12th floor of the hotel. It was the all American fry up breakfast - egg, bacon, sausages, pancakes and of course a big bowl (at least 2 litres!) of hot syrup! Well, we fortunately had a choice of fruit as well. The two ladies to our left chose a large BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich - MINUS the L and T. Yep: they buttered two slices of bread and squeezed 10 thick slices of dripping bacon in between. We do not know if they had seconds - we left before! 

Off we went to the Baltimore National Aquarium, which was a impressive experience. We saw sharks, crocodiles, rays, parots and lots of other marine animals. Not least the dolphins, which we saw jumping and splashing at a special show. However, Sebastian was more interested in his newly aquired frog handbag and frog binocular. For all of you at Blå Stue, Regnbuen: the picture of the handbag is dedicated to you. Sebastian can hardly wait to go back and flash it in kindergarten!

Seafood in Baltimore is a must - so we went for lobster, clams and mussels for dinner. Sebastian insisted that it was a red grasshopper lying on Tues plate, so we sure need to work a bit on his seafood education!

From New York to Baltimore

Yesterday we managed to go shopping - a bit. It is definately NOT Sebastians favorite thing, but it helped that we had remembed his 'fishing line' with which he caught one bit shark after the other at the shop. For lunch we went back - as promised - to the Grand Central Oyster bar, where Tue got six grand oysters. I got a creamy clam chowder (soup) which was very good. We took a slow afternoon, with some packing and picking up of laundry, and went out for dinner at the Montana Grill House. Great place with some very yummy steaks. Sebastian preferred the chocolate chip cookie and played around with his pirates. 

This morning we went to Central Park. Even though the wind was still cold and fresh, the sun came out to swept the park in Spring sunshine. They had a great new playground ready for Sebastian in the lower part of the park, and he ran, slided, crawled and climbed for a good hour. Then it was time to take a taxi to Penn Station, where we had to queue up in a very slow and long line for our tickets (prebooked from back home - but the ticket machines would not accept the credit card!!!). We made it just in time, grabbed a few sandwiches and boarded the Acela Express towards Baltimore. Sebastian enjoyed the ride and we arrived in Baltimore only a couple of hours after leaving NY. 

Baltimore is definately MUCH smaller than Manhatten. We thougt that the hotel where we had booked our room would be quite a walk away from the harbour. Well, we can throw a stone down the water from our window! Great! However, we had to move rooms (hi, Libbe, you are NOT the only one anymore!), as we had been placed next to a very smoking room (even if it is not allowed!) - we had cigarette-smell all over the place, and they have been very nice to move us to another room right away. With a better view of the harbour even! We went to a very good steak restaurant just a few blocks away, and Sebastian was great just playing with his toys, fishing a bit, drinking milk, eating a little snacks and giggling away when 'Politibetjent Madsen' sent him off to prison (a new favorite game).

On Easter Sunday we cannot help but think - with envy - on the family Easter gathering back home, with the lake and the ducks, the eggs, both from the poultry and the ones made of chocolate. Sebastian says "Gæk" "Gæk" to whomever received his letters - by the way. We hope that everone enjoyed the day, and send our Easter greetings to all our friends and family.

Just an oldie!

We have had kind of a bumpy night with Sebastian in our bed. He had a good nights sleep, I guess, but as he has his habbits - lying across, constantly scratching his fellow bed-mates with his toes in his sleep etc. - we slept rather poorly. Sebastian has his own bed, but insisted - in a non discusable way - on being transferred at 1 o'clock at night. Soft parents - grow up!

We had a great day yesterday despite some very cold weather - it snowed again a few times! We started the day by going with the underground to the Staten Island Ferry, at the very south of Manhatten. We had a donout, a coffee and not least a chocolate croissant for Sebastian to warm us up - and were then ready to board the ferry. Sebastian liked the trip, but was not too impressed with the Statue of Liberty - the woman was in his point of view 'just an oldie'! Back on Manhatten we walked through Wall Street and along Ground Zero and reached the lower part of Soho where we stopped for lunch. Sebastian made several friends among the staff, and we had a great meal with a wonderful caramel coffee to finish it up. 

We walked a bit around Soho, trying to find a toy shop we had read about. Apparantly it moved somewhere else, but we did find another place, where they had a Brio train set up for their small guests. Just what Sebastian had dreamt about! They had a lot of fantastic toys and books. We couldn't resist buying a NASA space rocket outfit for Sebastian. Which he - sure enough - has refused to wear so far. Patience! We walked to Washington Square Garden where there is a great playground, and Sebastian was busy in the sand, on the slide and on the bridge despite cold and snow. After this, a brief stop by in Greenwich Village, where we went for coffee and chocolate chip muffin - in order to keep off the cold. 

Thus warmed up we took a cap to the Roosevelt Island Tram (svævebane), and flew over the East River with a great view of the city. After a little shopping we went for a light dinner and arrived back home at 19.30 - time for bed for Sebastian. We were luckly to find King Kong showing on television, and finished the day off by watching the hairy giant moaning and falling dead off the highest tower in New York.

Toy shops and rib eye steaks

Despite the rain and some fairly low temperature (~50 F) we had a great day yesterday. And long! Sebastian was jumping around in the bed at a little past 5AM in the morning, and he managed to get us out of the duvets at 5:43! All time record! We took the underground downtown, and started the day in Macys, where florists had made some fantastic window displays. Apart from this Macys was not the big adventure, and we quickly decided to move on. Next stop was Toys R Us. The shop is built up around a grand 'pariserhjul' - with a loooooong queue. As Sebastian refused to try it, the queue problem solved itself. 

We went through Times square and was starting to feel very cold and wet. Under the Rockefeller Center we found a nice little sushi-bar, and ordered some take away to eat back at the hotel. After the nap we went out again - this time with more appropriate clothes: 'flyverdragt', boots and gloves! We walked down Park Avenue and spotted some very nice shops. The area around Park Avenue, Madison Avenue and Lexington Avenue definately need some more scrutiny and attention... Being a little dissapointed about the Toys R Us shop, we went to the F.A.O. Schwarz toy shop, where they have some gigantic teddy bears and a great selection of toys and kids clothes. We found the coolest rain-coat and boots! For dinner we were luckly to find a small place, where kids were welcome (asking at an Italian restaurant earlier in the day their answer to whether kids were welcome was: 'if they are well-behaved'. Well, a no-go!). Tue got the grand 16 oz. rib eye steak - happy, happy man! Sebastian got some pita-bread - happy, happy boy!

Today is hospital day, and we are looking forward very much to meet Dr. Auerbach and Dr. Boulad. We will post more later.

Part II

The weather is definately a challenge: walking out of the hotel this morning we were met by SNOW! Well, indeed a fresh start of the day! We went to the Rockefeller University Hospital at the Out Patient Clinic, and were met by the very kind staff. Dr. Arleen Auerbach came to meet us a little later, and we had a good talk and chance to ask a lot of questions regarding the research project. Then Dr. Boulad came by, and we discussed a whole range of issues concerning FA and transplantation. Both doctors were very patient with our many questions, and we got a great deal of very useful information from the consultation. Sebastian was VERY shy and alert throughout the talks, and when we finally came to the blooddraw he gave an example of his hysterically scare of this exercise. So much so that Dr. Auerbach suggested lunch-break after his serious cry out. Great idea! We went for lunch and Sebastian was fine and cheerful quickly after leaving the clinic. We went back an hour later and finished up the paper-work and gave a bloodsample (Tue and I) as well. 

The afternoon was used for napping - everyone was exhausted from the visit - and we did not go out again until 6 in the evening. The cold weather shortened the trip and having walked along a windy and very cold 3rd Avenue for a while, without having found any suitable dinner option, we just went back to the hotel and ordered some take-away 'Italian' food. This evening and the coming weeks will most probably be used to mentally evaluate the visit, as the whole FA journey is indeed a complicated and challenging one.

Tomorrow we are going on the Staten Island ferry despite the weather and probably walk around Soho and Greenwich Village. If Sebastian wakes up as early as the past few days, we will be the first in line for the early ferry ;-

Meeting our neighbours - on Fifth!

It sure is a small world! Walking around on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street we suddenly bump into our neighbourgs from back home in Copenhagen! What a great surprise! Mette and Steen, and their three kids, are living and working in Chicago for half a year, and had gone to Manhatten for the Easter holidays. We went to have a coffee and it was great to hear their news. The reason why we went to 34th Street was to go up in the Empire State Building, but the queue was WAY too long. Instead we walked up to the Grand Central Station, to see the hall and some trains. Tue spotted the Oyster bar very quickly, and a visit has been scheduled for one of the coming days!

We then walked towards the Rockefeller Center as the queue was much shorter than at Empire State Building (yes, the Rockefeller is not as tall, but sure tall enough for us!). And you have a great view of the Empire State building from the Rockefeller tower. We had a little lunch at the Rockefeller Plaza where Sebastian took a great interest in the ice-skaters. Then a little shopping on Fifth Avenue (kids clothes and toys) before heading home for a nap. We went to Jackson Hole right across the street for a burger and are now fairly stuffed and ready for bed!

View from the Rockefeller Center

First night at the hotel

Manhatten

We have arrived here at Manhatten, all three of us, all our luggage and only 'slightly' tired! Although Copenhagen airport was Easter packed with people we managed to make an unstressfull check-in, even leaving time for a nice cup of coffee with Lotte, who was so sweet to help us out to the airport. Thank you! We strolled around a little in the airport and made it out to the plane. It all seemed a little abstract for Sebastian, looking out on the airplanes, until he finally stood face to face with our vessel. Then he wanted to board strait away, and he was in the best of moods when we found our seats. In the check-in area he had seemed a little tired, and this would play fine into our little master-plan: to get him to nap on the way over - not least to'shorten' the 7 ½ hours of flight. But NO, Mr. Sebastian had no intensions WHAT SO EVER to lay down and relax/sleep. He was jumpy and playful for the whole trip! His hearing aid did not fit the airplane movie-system, and we were greatful that we took his little movie-screen with us on the plane. The batteries ran out at some point however (2½ movies), and we managed to read and play until we finally hit the ground in Newark.

 
He must have found the trip amazingly fascinating as he even made it through immigration, customs and luggage pickup until he finally fell asleep (Copenhagen time: 21:30) in the arms of Tue in the taxi driving us to our hotel on East 64th Street. 

We are well installed in a nice, quiet suite with everything we need. We went to the grocery store 'The Food Emporium' right around the corner and bought some fruit, milk, bread and cheese. So we will survive until tomorrow ;-) where we all hope to be a little more up and awake! 

Ready to leave

The bags are packed and we are - more than - ready to go on our US trip! We are leaving tomorrow morning and will hopefully reach New York some time tomorrow afternoon. We are all looking forward, very much, to this trip - not least Sebastian who is insisting to go by space-rocket rather than airplane! We cross our fingers for a safe journey!

Friday we went to the 'growth-doctor' for weight and height control. Sebastian is growing at a very fine speed, and he seems to tolerate the growth hormones well. It has been a great relief to start on the growth treatment, and it seems to have given Sebastian renewed energy and even muscles! In May we are going to look into some bladder-issue, as Sebastian might have a small atresia in his urethra. We hope that it is something harmless, and right now it does not seem to bother him.

Sebastian is very much into pirate-stuff. He dresses up like a dangerous pirate every morning with hat, claw and sword and even changes his voice down into something very dark. Knowing that leaving his pirate-dress behind will NOT be an option, we are planning to pack down his pirate-stuff into the suitcase, hoping that if customs decides to open it, they will not arrest the bunch of us!

We will try to update as often as possible during the coming weeks and wish you all a nice and peaceful Easter.