I am WAY behind on blogging. I guess it’s a good thing we come home in 2 months so I can catch up.

It was nice having my parents come visit. We spent a fair bit of time at home relaxing after the trip to Israel. Went grocery shopping, did laundry, etc. We also took my parents (and most of the kids) to lunch at Tilburg University and to the local pool.

The highlight of their visit to the Netherlands was going to see the old Dutch village, Zaanse Schans, and the tulips at Keukenhof. Pictures can describe it better than I can.

On Monday we packed up and went to the airport. A shuttle driver from our tour company picked us up at the hotel and took us to the airport. He never asked us which flight, just dropped us off. So, we assumed there was only one terminal.

We were about 3.5 hours early to the airport. We looked at the departures board. Our flight just said “Terminal 1.” I figured maybe they would update the info as we got closer to flight time.

An hour later, no update.

So I go poking around. I see that the blue rope for lines says “Terminal 1” on it. Outside of the terminal there is no sign saying what terminal we were at. There was a historical metal plaque that said that terminal 3 was the brain child of so-and-so, but overall the evidence seemed to suggest we were in the right spot.

Eventually I went back to the departures board. Our flight still said “Terminal 1.” Maybe not updated yet? Then I noticed that there was another Ryanair flight that departed in 30 minutes that also said “Terminal 1.” 30 minutes for an international flight and no gate info? Something was wrong.

I went to a desk. Sure enough, we were in terminal 3. So, we quickly grabbed all of our bags and kids and raced to a shuttle. Everything was cut close from then on, but we made it.

However, the plane sat on the tarmac for an hour! Now, Ryanair flights don’t give food or drinks. Plus, we needed to take a train when we got there, and the last train departed about two hours after we were scheduled to land (and we needed to collect luggage, go through immigration, and take a shuttle to the train terminal still).

Luckily, it all worked out. We just barely made our train.

My parents rented a car and drove home with JJ, Timmy, Henry, and some of the luggage. Linda, Ada, Sarah, and I took the train.

The assumption was that the car would be faster and would beat us home, but could then come pick us up at the train station. Great theory, but the rental took a long time, and they stopped for dinner, and needed to put kids to bed, and needed to check into the bed and breakfast before the desk closed.

So, by the time my dad picked us up, it was pretty late, and everyone was pretty tired.

Sunday started out strong. We went to the Dome of the Rock, which is also the historic site of the Temple of Solomon.

We weren’t told a dress code beforehand, but right as we were about to get off the bus, the tour guide told us that women had to have at least 3/4 length dresses and no bare shoulders. Luckily, Linda was wearing a long dress (other days she wore knee-length skirts).

Our tour guide also told us that we could not have any touching between a man and woman at the site (with the exception that I could still hold Sarah). A Muslim woman came up and told Linda it was very disrespectful for her to not have her hair covered. Linda had a hoodie on, so she pulled it over her head. None of the other women in our group were told anything, but Linda was the youngest adult woman by about 20 years, so maybe age mattered.

We also spent some time at a museum. It had some interesting artifacts plus some of the dead sea scrolls, but it was less exciting than our other stops. Henry did like the apple he found though.

At the end of the day we made a quick stop in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is in the West Bank. More specifically, it is in an area where Jews are not allowed to go unless they are official tour guides and have pre-registered their travel. There are warning signs as you enter.

Our tour guide pointed out that the best thing we can do to ensure peace in the area is to buy lots of stuff. Keep the dollars and euros flowing. Make fighting and terrorism be expensive.

We visited a church on top of what is supposedly the stable/cave where Christ was born. We could get into the church easily, but there was a very long line to see the stable. Our tour guide said we could look around the church for a few minutes but we didn’t have time to wait in the line for the stable.

Sarah was asleep in my arms again at this point. Someone (looked like an official security guard) came over and told me that because I had a baby (we were the only people with kids in the church as far as I could see) we could skip the line. He said he could only take 4 or us at a time, so Linda, Timmy, Ada, and I went. The “security” guy asked for a tip afterwards. Linda gave him a few euros. My dad then asked if he could see with JJ (Henry fell asleep on the bus and was still there with my mom). The guy said yes, but stated his price in advance this time: 20 euros per person. I guess we underpaid 😉

In Israel, our church follows the Jewish tradition of Sabbath on Saturday. We went to the BYU Jerusalem Center for church.

The BYU Jerusalem is a campus of Brigham Young University where students can go for a semester abroad. It is a beautiful building with a gorgeous view of Jerusalem.

Israel was definitely the highlight of the trip. I have wanted to visit Israel since I was a child, and this visit was the top of my to-do list during our year abroad.

I had tried without success to find a tour guide in Israel. I had contacted at least a half dozen people. All said they were already booked. I was desperate. Luckily, Linda found a group that would let us join them for a couple of days (at extortion prices, but desperate times called for desperate measures).

The cruise ship said we would dock at 7 and we would get off sometime between 8 and 10. The tour company was going to pick us up at the terminal. Linda told them 9:30 to give us some cushion.

It was a disaster. We were very early to the disembarkation point, but they were very far behind. They didn’t let us start getting off until well after 10, and then we had to go through passport control and multiple rounds of security. We didn’t have cell phone reception or wifi, so we couldn’t tell the driver we were going to be late.

Eventually I got a sliver of wifi and I sent off some quick messages.

When we finally got out of the cruise terminal it was still chaos. No clue where to go. Blockades everywhere. We went down some stairs but there was a lady collapsed on the ground with police helping her. We went to another place only to find a dead end of barricades. We asked an officer there where we should go. He told us to just climb around the barricades …

So, we found ourselves in a random parking lot. We hadn’t had anything to drink in a while, and it was very hot. We didn’t have any cell service or wifi.

I stayed with most of the kids while Linda and JJ went looking for our ride and/or wifi. Eventually they found the car we were supposed to get in, but the driver wasn’t there. We waited there for a little while and luckily the driver came back. He had been looking for us somewhere else.

We drove to the Sea of Galilee. By this point we were late enough that we missed the boat ride, but we were still able to have a pretty authentic lunch.

After that we went to the Mount of Beatitudes.

We had a surprise for the kids when we arrived in Jerusalem. My parents met us in the hotel!

The highlight (for me) of Jerusalem was the religious places in Jerusalem. On Friday we got to see the last supper room, Gethsemane, and the garden tomb (among other things).

The second stop on our cruise was Kusadasi, Turkiye: welcome to Asia! This was my first time in Asia, so it was kind of exciting for me.

We took an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus where Paul preached.

The ruins in Ephesus were in better shape than those in Greece, but I don’t know if it will stay that way for long, because they let tourists walk around and touch them. Interesting to get up close to the history, but a little sad to see it not taken care of.

On the way back to the ship, Linda and the kids wanted to stop and get some Turkish ice cream (with the experience of the seller who plays tricks on you). However, Sarah wanted a nap. She fell asleep in my arms, so we found a place to sit.

A few minutes later a guy sat down next to us and started smoking!

So, I got up and moved. I was feeling a little offended. Didn’t he realize how rude that was? I walked a little bit and a lady waved to us indicating that there was an empty seat next to her. She was also smoking!

Apparently, the first person wasn’t being rude, they just don’t think about the effects of second-hand smoke like I do. Anyway, I kept walking. A shop keeper was sitting in her chair and saw me. She stood up and told me I could sit in her chair.

She then brought me a little pin for Sarah and pinned it on her and said “free.” A few minutes later the wind picked up and she brought us a cloth bag for Sarah to use as a blanket.

When Sarah woke up a little while later, the shop keeper gave us a flute. I tried to give her some money, but she wouldn’t take it. So, I insisted on buying some stuff. Very neat experience.

The first cruise stop was the island of Santorini. We didn’t really know what to expect. Even the shore excursion was unknown. Side note, normally I’m not a paid excursion kind of guy: just find some locals and do our own stuff. However, I was pretty nervous with with the 5 kids. So, we got excursions in both Santorini and Kusadasi.

The excursion in Santorini was just called “Leisurely Santorini” with no description other than “Duration: 3 hours.” So, totally blind.

That said, we loved it! Our tour took us on a bus ride up to the top of the island with some great views. Then around some local towns.

Sarah fell asleep on Linda’s lap on the bus ride, so they stayed on the bus while the rest of us walked around.

Saturday we went to the Acropolis and Mars Hill in Athens. We also had some authentic gyros and Greek baklava.

When we came to the Netherlands, we decided we wanted to see as much of Europe as possible, culminating in a Mediterranean cruise.

Well, the kids are out of school for the 2-week May vacation (actually the last week of April and first week of May), and cruise prices were way cheaper than in the summer, so we decided to go now!

Getting to the cruise ship was a bit of an adventure. Back in January we arranged with my parents that they would come with us. I was pretty nervous about doing a cruise with 5 kids, but my parents said they would come too. Unfortunately, they had to cancel to help out with some health concerns of a family member. So, just us for the cruise!

In January we also bought our flights. We had a very narrow flying window. The kids had to be in school on Friday (you get in pretty big trouble with the government in the Netherlands if you check your kids out of school), but we had to be on the cruise on Sunday. We found a nice Transavia flight on Saturday out of Eindhoven. Noon departure, direct flight to Athens, really cheap.

However, 17 days before the flight, they cancelled it. Apparently they had a problem with some of their planes and had to cancel a lot of flights, but it was still frustrating to us.

EU regulation says they have to give the consumer the choice of a refund or a rebooking on an equivalent flight. I chatted with an agent. They offered me a flight a week later, with a big smiley face at the end of the message (I couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic). That flight clearly wouldn’t work. I explained that we needed to be there on Saturday, so they offered me a flight the following Wednesday with another smiley face (again, sarcastic?).

I again declined, and suggested they rebook me on a KLM flight that was available (Transavia is owned by KLM). They said they couldn’t, but they told me to book it myself and then send in the receipt and they would reimburse me the difference. I did. They declined the reimbursement.

Huge back and forth with them. Rejected over and over. I explained that I bought the tickets per their instructions and EU regulation. Still declined. I told them I would take legal action (the KLM flights were about 3 times the cost of the Transavia flight, and this felt like a HUGE bait and switch). Still declined. So, I filed a complaint with the EU and started to look for a lawyer.

I know it wouldn’t be worth the legal expense, but I was really upset at the bait and switch (I didn’t know about the airplane problems at the time). They sold me a low-cost ticket, cancelled it, and then told me to buy a high-cost ticket. They promised a refund of the difference and then denied the refund (putting me on the hook for about 3,000 euros). I got pretty upset and was determined to do something about it.

Anyway, apparently a lot of people complained to the EU. Before I found a lawyer, I got an email telling me that they would give me the refund (4 days after they had told me they wouldn’t give me the refund and I had given up hope).

So, we got the KLM flight. However, it wasn’t the convenient Saturday flight. Rather it was Friday night at 9:15pm from Amsterdam (a two hour drive). Some of the kids had school until 3:15 on Friday, and I had a meeting with masters degree students about their research notes (part of the thesis at Tilburg) until 4:30. Conclusion: logistics conundrum!

Our whole trip lasted 10 days: Saturday and Sunday in Greece. Sunday onto the cruise ship. Monday in Santorini, Tuesday in Kusadasi, Turkiye, Wednesday at sea, and then Thursday docking in Haifa, Israel. We then stayed in Israel Thursday through Monday, flying back to Brussels and then a train ride home on Monday.

Linda booked an airport taxi, but it cancelled on us Friday morning. Luckily a friend from church said he could drive us. He drove Linda and the kids. I took the train. We arrived with time to spare. Flight to Athens. Landed at 1:15am, ride to the apartment and finally bed at 2:00am. Luckily, most people slept a lot on the plane, plus there was a 1 hour time zone change (so it only felt like 1am when we went to bed), and we could sleep in Saturday morning. Also, the owner of the apartment we rented came to pick us up at the airport, so we didn’t have to deal with taxis.