World Traveler Daddy & Daughter Date

One more day is nothing when it’s been 8 months right? Guess so. When you come from a wonderfully dysfunctional family, you can’t ruin it on the 19^th year! After months of saving money and anticipating my journeys abroad the time had finally come—TO SEE MY DAD! Eight months earlier he decided to travel the world and took a medium sized backpack filled with a couple outfits and memories of the rest of his life and flew half way across the world.

I left the hotel at 5:30 am to catch my flight around 7:30 am. There’s no such thing as having enough time or better yet, “being early” when it comes to Mia. This time, I was ready for early. However, my lack of metro skills really stole the show when I

got on the wrong RER towards Charles De Gaulle Étoile instead of Charles De Gaulle Aeroport. Why. Whose fabulous idea was it to have two Charles De Gaulle metro stops… in the same metro station… but going the exact opposite directions? The guy who wanted me to miss my flight. And I did. And it cost me just over $800. I spent the next couple hours wondering around the beautiful airport—aka sleeping. My dad face timed me a little before his flight was leaving from Turkey, to Munich, Germany where we were meeting, to chat about my flight situation. The painful irony of our funny lives kicked in and while we were talking, his flight delay reversed and his flight actually left EARLY.  I arrived in Munich, and anxiously checked my email to see where my dad was meeting me to find that he had missed his flight. We were both devastated. All ends well though, I was able to take the train to our friends town who lives in Munich and they picked me up in their cute little German car. I spent the evening at Wolfi and Karens. They are two of my parents’ oldest friends and I completely understand why. They are amazing! They shared old photobooks of my parents with me and told me all sorts of stories from “back in the day”. I passed out early and woke up late. It was a much needed two nights worth of rest from missing majority of the previous weeks sleep; packed into one night.

My dad arrived in the early afternoon and we made a quick decision to leave within the next hour and head to Garnish. Our original plan was to stay in Munich for another night, until we found out about EXPO. Every 5 years, a modern day World Fair is held in different locations around the world. This year, it is being held in Milan, Italy. Our plan was to be in Italy in just two days in Venice. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up so we spent one night in Garnish, and left bright and early to Venice. We enjoyed a beautiful day and absolutely delicious dinner! The next day we toured around and left that evening for Milan.

The EXPO was awesome. Every country built a pavilion to represent their position on the theme, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”. Very educational and gigantic, we spent all day! Our favorite part of Milan was the Duomo di Milano. It was so beautiful. We spent an hour walking around it in awe, observing the unbelievable detail of the architecture.

We drove the next day to Lucerne, Switzerland where we stayed the night with my dad’s old friends from Alta Ski Resort. Switzerland is absolutely stunning! The weather is perfectly mild, the grass green, and the wildlife is blooming. We stocked up on Swedish (expensive) Chocolate and hit the road back to Germany.

After days worth of hours in the car, multiple countries, families, and memories, it was over just like that! A perfect week spent with the perfect man. Family is family. Nothing can change that. And I’m so happy my family is crazy. All the best people are.