Speed humps? I beg your pardon?!

When I moved to Florida from New England, I noticed that some of the road sign terminology differed from what I was used to. In New England, the signs read Speed Bumps. In Florida, Speed Humps. Three years later, this is still funny to me. Apparently this term is used in the UK as well, and this got me thinking about what other amusing signs we might find on our home exchange adventures in Europe. So let's see how good the rest of you are: which one of these signs is a fake?

Leave your answers in the comments!

Whatvia?

Yesterday I got an email from Ståle, our Norwegian home exchanger, telling me that he and the family were going on a short vacation to Latvia. Huh? This stuck me as particularly strange, as Latvia isn't know for its tourism, at least not to Americans. I told him so, and it he promised to give me the full report when they return. In the meantime, I decided to check Latvia out and apparently I am not the only one who thinks vacationing in Latvia is strange, as there is a website called YouWon'tBelieveIt that extols its virtues. Maybe the website should be called You Wouldn't Have Believed It - it just seems a bit more positive. Apparently some of the cows in Latvia are blue (the color not the emotion) from drinking water from the Baltic sea, and all you have to do to become a werewolf is to get naked at exactly midnight and then run backwards through a tree root that's been formed into a loop. It sounds pretty good to me, and I definitely wouldn't have believed it.

image: TAVA

Home exchange shopping...

I was thinking about that funny TV commercial with the woman with the extra steering wheel who forces the guy off the road (I know you all saw it because I posted it a few days ago) and it made me think about our British home exchangers. He was concerned about driving in the US, and hadn't taken his host car out for a spin. It's a convertible and a great car to mess around with but he was uneasy because we drive on the opposite side of the road. At least the convertible they have is an automatic transmission. I just realized that their car, the one we will be using, is a stick shift and normally that's not a problem for us but we will have to shift with the opposite hand! Hmmm, I'm not sure how much I am loving that idea. I totally get his uneasiness, and realized that all of our exchangers might be nervous driving around in a new place, even if not on a new side of the road or with a different body part. So, we ordered a portable GPS for our car that we will be leaving for our guests. No, Mom, they're not going to steal it!

cartoon: Bill Junk

Home exchange: I heart Geordies

On Saturday night we drove about 80 miles west of our house to meet our future home exchangers from northern England. They were on their first trip to the States, on a home exchange near enough to our place that I thought it would be interesting to get together for dinner. I have to admit that I was nervous about meeting people that I had only traded a few emails with, and it's uncharacteristic of me to invite them to dinner. I have no idea why I suggested it. So we drove up to to the home they are exchanging, which made it even weirder since it's not even their place but also sort of cool so we could see what the house looked like. This particular house is small, what realtors would call quaint, and its affluent area and charming guest cottage make it a desirable home for exchange. I knew that the swappers have young grandchildren, so I thought this would be like an evening with someone's grandparents, all proper and polite with the kids bribed with candy to keep them quiet. I thought I was going for tea with the Queen. I was totally wrong. These people were amazingly young in both their appearances and in their spirit, and after a few awkward minutes of introduction we settled in for an evening of laughs and great companionship. They enchanted us with stories of home exchanges across Europe and shared tips and advice for us as first timers. It seems the people from this particular region of northern England are called Geordies, known for their friendly nature and hospitality, and I can't think of better people to show us the ropes.

photo: BBC

Home exchange: call me herring and put me in the lake

I guess I am not a perfect home exchanger. I know, I was shocked too. It seems that I inadvertently screwed over the Norwegian family when I told them that we were probably going to exchange with someone else, even though I was trying to be considerate. I was thinking that they would be pleased to hear that we were still available, but instead they thought that I was sort of a jerk for making them an offer and then rescinding. That's not what happened, really it isn't, but I do see how they could see it that way. I knew it was serious when I no longer got replies from the woman I had been talking to, and instead it was the man who answered. Yikes! She is not even talking to me now! After my carefully crafted apologies (yes, there were two), they understood and didn't have any hard feelings, and in fact wanted to exchange with us after all. Can you believe it? Sara was so excited that we'd be going to Norge and I was filled with daydreams of the kids playing blissfully outside, making snowmen, drinking hot chocolate and eating reindeer jerky. I'm kidding. Sara doesn't even eat jerky. We were fortunate to find this kind family who accepted my apologies, especially when I was really the only jerky around. Kall meg sild og legg meg i lake (yep, you guessed it).

photo: GAN

Home exchange: Germany Schmermany

I've been fortunate enough to find 2 families who want to exchange their homes with us, and when the German exchange fell apart I started to wonder. Was I crazy to look for a 3rd exchange? Would it be possible for us as first time exchangers to coordinate a 6 month exchange in 3 different countries, working backwards, with only a few months lead time? Luckily for my family, I am particularly drawn toward problems that seem almost impossible to solve. I went back to my old files on a family in Norway, our other target country. We had discussed an exchange, but they seemed to lose interest over time and they had received another offer, so I thought that it was all over. My daughter Sara had really wanted to stay in Scandinavia, and she kept telling me that she could understand Norwegian because of its similarity to Swedish. I speak Swedish, Mom, so I'll have an advantage in Norge. She pronounced it the Swedish way, Nor-ee-yuh. The problem was that I had already told this family that we were most likely going to exchange with the German family, so by now the Norwegians must have made other plans. Oops. Hey, they had been straightforward in letting me know that they had another offer, and I did the same for them. I didn't want to string them along unnecessarily, and I thought I was being considerate. Apparently I was the only one who thought so, and the Norwegian family was not too happy to hear from me again.

Home exchange poll: vote now!

What do you guys think???

Home exchange: hamburger falls into the fire

It is not easy to get a visa to stay in Europe for longer than 3 months, regardless of where you go. In order for us to get German visas, we would need to fill out a million papers in a certain color ink and get a letter from our bank stating we have enough money to sustain us without getting jobs. We would have to show that we had purchased plane tickets home (which struck me as funny for some reason). We needed to make an appointment to bring this big stack of papers, along with a letter from our exchange partners proving we had a place to stay, to the German consulate in person. The consulate is 6 hours away. So when I got the email from the German family that they needed an interview in Berlin to get a visa, I felt lucky. They, however, felt unwilling to go to such lengths, and wanted to reduce the exchange to under 90 days so they wouldn't need visas. No problem, let's make it 11 weeks. Cool, they said, stand by for the plan. Well, the plan, as it turned out, was a big fat cancellation. We have heard stories about people getting their laptops confiscated at US customs, we don't want to take that risk, and it is so complicated to get a visa, we are so sorry but we've decided to exchange somewhere in Europe. What?! Um, didn't we already have an agreement that we were just waiting to finalize with specific dates? Moreover, didn't they look into any of these details before spending 2 weeks of their life talking with us about a specific exchange??? Very uncool. I wasn't looking forward to breaking the bad news to the kids.

image: Chick-fil-A

Home exchange: Hamburgers and hotdogs

I'm sure you saw it coming, but I didn't. The German house was immaculate and spacious, with a large sweeping lawn and beautiful back yard, and we were more eager than ever to solidify an exchange with the family. After exchanging a few emails reassuring them that the house looked great and would be perfect for us, the husband sent us an email asking specifics on the type of copier/scanner we have. I may need to scan some images while we are at your home, he said. Jon sent him the details on the computer equipment, and we continued to swap emails about local schools, attractions, and the like. It seemed to be a great fit, and they understood that we needed to end the exchange in late April to correspond with our exchange with the British couple. We discussed possible start dates so I said that we are ready to commit to an exchange with them, and I proposed the beginning of January (depending on flight prices). They replied that early January looked good on the surface, and they would look more into the logistics and get back to us right away. Things were looking up, so we started to look into buying plane tickets to Hamburg!

Home exchange pictures shock me!

image: James Martin for About.com

After a few days, I received a note from the German family letting me know that they had posted some pictures of their house on their listing and that they had added some information about their town. They asked me some thoughtful questions about our area, and told us about some local sightseeing. They said that they were really hoping that we would find their house to be suitable, and that they would continue to post more information to their listing as soon as they could. They wanted me to let them know what we thought of their home, and hoped after seeing the pictures that we'd still want to exchange. Yikes! I braced myself for a hideous house or a catastrophe of some sort, and looked up their listing to see the updates. I was shocked by what I saw.

Home exchange tip: no pictures is not a good thing!

I had sent an email to a family in Germany who were listing their home for exchange on the original Home Exchange website, the one from the movie. I was getting progressively more dissatisfied with that website, since there is no way to know if the listings are current and I sent many, many emails during my search that were never returned. I like to think that the listings must have been old and the people never got my message, but I know enough to realize that many people don't have the courtesy to reply to an exchange offer if it doesn't interest them. Weird, since most people who exchange their homes are generally very nice and open people, but it's true. What I started doing was just assuming that if I didn't get a reply after a week, the listing was "dead." So, I was surprised to receive a late, but apologetic, email from a bilingual family in Germany who were looking for a long term exchange in the US. Like us, they work from home and have the flexibility to travel for a longer period of time than just for a vacation. They sent a long and enthusiastic email expressing great interest in a swap with us, told us a bit about their home and location, and promised to post photos of their home on HomeExchange.com. They were new exchangers and had just joined the website and had not had time to update their listing. This should have been a big clue, but I was too eager to find an exchange and wasn't looking at all of the warning signs.

These pants were made for travelling

Ok, I admit it, I am a bit of a Man vs. Wild freak. Yes, Sam and I use our survival skills to stay dry in the tub, and even Jon gets into it playing camera man in the pool. By now, you should know how I feel about those amazing pants that Bear Grylls wears - the ones with the reinforced knees. Part of my planning for the home exchange requires some clever packing, since we are only taking one bag each, and I was looking for clothes for the kids that are designed especially for travel. Perhaps it's because I am not...well...sporty...but I had no idea that this stuff existed. There are shirts that wick moisture away from you to keep you dry in hot weather, we all know that, but these have long sleeves! Apparently the long sleeves keep you cooler (!!) than wearing short sleeves. There are pants with zip-off legs to convert into shorts (good for little kids and extreme campers but not so great for anyone else) and shirts with bug repellant built into the fabric. There are even all kinds of clothes made of a special fabric that doesn't stink after you've been travelling all day - I am getting some of that stuff! But the most fun discovery was...you guessed it...the pants with reinforced knees for kids. They even have reinforced butts! I am definitely going to get a pair for Sam.

image: freetradingsystems.net

Winter home exchange put on ice

With two home exchanges set up for the spring and summer, I still wanted to find something for the winter. I had been in contact with a family from Norway who were looking for a long term exchange, and while we had traded a few emails back and forth, they let me know that they had 2 offers that they were considering, ours and one from Australia. We loved the pictures of their house, and we wanted to be in Scandinavia so their location was perfect. Of course, I don't know a thing about Norway, but I discovered that their house is in western Norway which is where the famous fjords are located. It is absolutely gorgeous in western Norway and there is snow there for Sam! At first, they seemed quite interested and had lots of questions, but then their messages came less and less often, and it seemed as though they were favoring the other offer. We hoped that they would decide to exchange with us, and I tried not to get my hopes up, but I couldn't help it. When we hadn't heard from them in over a week, Jon said that we might as well entertain other offers if they come our way (even though I had turned someone down in Denmark already!). I resigned myself to the fact that Norway wasn't going to work out, and hoped to get an offer. That's when we heard from the family in Germany, and that turned out to be a disaster.

Home exchange redux: would you Adam and Eve it, mate?

On the heels of our good fortune in finding a Swedish exchange, I sent out 2 or 3 million new inquiries (well, maybe only 1 million) and decided to include countries that speak English. Initially we had limited our search to non-English-speaking countries, but after our disappointments with the Swiss and French exchangers, we wanted to keep all of our options open. Besides, we already had a Swedish exchange planned and would at least have some exposure to a foreign language. I was looking through the listings for the UK, and thought that London might be interesting, or even Ireland, as my father's family was originally from Ireland. I looked at a few listings from Ballymena, the town where his family came from, and while it seemed very beautiful, it seemed a bit too...well...boring. I like places where I can explore around and see new things all the time, not just new green hills. So ixnay on Ballymena, and I decided to look in England. I kept unintentionally clicking on this one listing over and over again, and even though it looked a lot nicer than our house, I decided there might be a reason I kept coming upon it and so I inquired. Amazingly, I received an immediate response with great enthusiasm from a lovely retired couple, and they said that they have never been to the States and would love to exchange with us! Their grandchildren visit them often and they have a Spiderman bedroom that Sam would like, and a guest bedroom that Sara could use. I liked them immediately, and we have made arrangements for a 4 week exchange to end a week before we are due in Sweden. Their house overlooks the deep blue water of northern England and they have a huge lawn that leads down to the cliff side. Their pictures remind me of books that I read in the 8th grade, sort of a "Heathcliff goes to Manderlay" or something written by a famous sister. Interestingly, they will be visiting Florida in November for a short exchange to the Orlando area, so we have invited them to dinner to introduce ourselves and to swap keys. Maybe we'll even include my parents who live nearby, so they can befriend our guests and take them out for a sail. Little did we know that this would be the end of our smooth sailing for a while.

Home exchange found!

my niece Allie

After the disappointments with the Swiss family and then the man in Paris, I have to admit that I was getting discouraged about finding a suitable exchange. There didn't seem to be any way that we would be spending the 2008-2009 school year abroad, so we settled on finding whatever we could find, and not worrying about trying to coordinate with the school year. The school doesn't like it, but I don't worry about taking my kids out as long as they are getting equivalent experience and don't fall behind. One year the kids and I went to California with my husband Jon, who was sent for a few weeks of training for his job. All of his expenses, plus a rental car and hotel room were paid for, so we just paid for the extra plane tickets and had a great vacation. I had to help Sara catch up with her homework, but we had plenty of time and she returned to school ahead of her classmates. So when we realized that we might have to take whatever we could get for an exchange, we stopped being so particular about the dates and started having better luck. One Swedish family offered us a month at their place in the summer, but that seemed so short, and so far in the future! Many families wanted to exchange with us over the Christmas and New Year European vacation (they get 4 weeks in practically every European country in December/January!!), and some people even offered us 2 weeks in October (um, no thanks). We finally found a Swedish family with a nice, comfortable house in a suburb of Gothenburg and they offered us either 4 weeks in December-January, or 10 weeks in the summer. Wow, 10 weeks was the best offer we had gotten, and although 10 weeks doesn't sound very long, 2 and a half months sounds pretty great. We decided to accept the exchange with the Swedish family, and they are very nice and the husband speaks perfect English. I like him very much, and we are even going to care for their 2 dogs. He suggested trying to find another exchange that could be consecutive (remind you of anyone?) and so I got started on finding a winter/spring exchange as well. We will be in Gothenburg from May 30 to August 1! The Swedish guy and I have been emailing back and forth to go over details, and I am relieved and encouraged by this good omen: their young son has the exact same birthday as my niece: November 5, 2007! Pretty cool.

Home exchange on the rebound?

photo: Leila Haj-Hassan

One morning I sent a home exchange inquiry to a posting in a French town with a name I didn't recognize, letting them know (in English) that I was looking for a year-long exchange. A gentleman responded almost immediately that indeed he was interested, but I didn't quite understand the rest of his message, which was in English. We switched into French and he let me know that he would like to exchange for 6 months, and that he and his wife could also offer us 2 weeks of hospitality to show us the sights before they went to our place. I looked up the town and it's a suburb of Paris, about 6 miles from the city center. Wow! I had a million questions: where are the nearby schools, do they have reliable high-speed internet for my husband's work, how does the public transportation system work, are any of the schools English-speaking? He, on the other hand, didn't have a single question. Not a one. He wanted to exchange starting the following month, which was much too short notice for us, so we settled on a 6 month exchange for the 2nd half of the Parisian school year (February to July). Because we wanted to spend the whole school year abroad, he suggested we find another family in Paris and arrange a consecutive exchange with them, starting off the school year with the other family and then moving on to their place. Excited to find something, I told him that I would start looking for the "first" exchange and would keep him posted on my progress. I emailed him again and told him I would be happy to answer any questions about our home or about our area, but he just said he didn't have any questions, he and his wife were just looking for relaxation. I thought it was odd but figured he was older and maybe that's just his way.

So after about a week, I emailed the French exchanger after to let him know that per his advice we were still looking for another exchange, but we hadn't forgotten about him and wanted to know what the next step was. Yay, we were very excited and Sam was starting to ask me about France. He responded back that unfortunately, because he was due to leave for the States within 2 weeks, he would have to decline our offer. What!!?? I read and re-read his message, and then copied it into Google's translator just to make sure I wasn't totally crazy. Nope, I understood it - he was blowing us off. Tempted as I was to send him a nasty message, I didn't want to blow the exchange so I said that I didn't understand, I thought we had agreed on an exchange in February so why was he coming to the States in 2 weeks? Was it for a different exchange? No, he said, we did have an agreement for February but he didn't want to wait any longer for us to make a decision, and so he would give us one week to decide if we still wanted to exchange. Huh?? I referred him back to me original message, and again said that yes, we are on board, ready to go, and would like to take the next step toward fixing exact dates with him. I apologized for my poor French, and hoped he understood. I didn't hear from him for 4 days. 4 days! I wasn't sure what to think, when he finally replied back to me:

Je ne peux plus vous attendre. Malheureusement, je dois décliner votre offre pour septembre. Cordialement.

I can't wait for you any longer. Unfortunately, I have to decline your offer for September. Regards. September? This guy wasn't making sense in his own language, no translator was going to help me with this problem. But this was Paris. Paris!! So, of course, I started writing back to him. We are prepared to purchase plane tickets for your offer of a home exchange from February to July. Are you still interested in making this exchange? But before I sent the email I started to think about it. If this man didn't seem trustworthy, or even coherent, over email, did I really want to set my kids up for disappointment and set myself up for non-refundable plane tickets? Would I want this man staying in my home even if the exchange did work out? I knew the answer was no, but like a bad relationship, I just didn't want to let go. I didn't know at the time that a great opportunity was just around the corner.

Home Exchange, Part Don't

photo: Nathalie Dulex

One happy morning a while back, I got an email from a family in Switzerland who wanted to know if we would like to exchange our home with theirs for a year. Their home is set in an Alpine hillside, overlooking a small town in the Valais region of Switzerland (think thermal baths and chocolat chaud), and from the pictures it looked to be right out of a postcard. Originally we hadn't really wanted to exchange in a French speaking country since I already speak French, but these people were very interested and they had contacted us, so we decided to pursue it. We looked up information about the locale and decided it would be quite nice, and I emailed back that yes, we would like to exchange with them as well. Over a series of emails back and forth, the woman and I chatted about one of my favorite meals called Raclette, a Swiss cheese that is melted on a special table-top cooker and then traditionally served over boiled potatoes with sausages and pickles on the side. She proposed a date beginning November, 2008. I accepted, and we exchanged photos of our respective Raclette cookers. She replied that actually January 2009 would be better for her family, and I accepted again, even though we would be cutting the year short to return in August for the kids to start school the following year. She sent me links to local restaurants, but then said that actually, January 2009 would still be bad and that August 2009 is the earliest they can exchange. What?! We had made it very clear from the beginning that we wanted to be back in the states by August 2009, so this was not going to work, even though I had developed a serious Raclette jones. Sadly I said no, but I was mad about it because she had made the offer to me, not the other way around. She was the one who proposed the dates, and we shuffled our plans around to accommodate her. Twice. This ordeal left a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole home exchange process, but I was able to get rid of it with a good meal of...yeah, you guessed it.

The Home Exchange, Part One

Well, we have finally pulled the trigger and have settled on a very interesting series of home exchanges for 2009. This will be our first time exchanging homes, and I'm not exactly sure what to expect! I originally researched the idea, and found that there were two major home exchange websites, each a little different but both around a hundred bucks for a listing. I read and read, and then read again, and scoured the listings to see if there were actual homes for exchange that were of interest to us. I didn't want to join both, so when I finally fell upon a blog by an American woman from Arizona who decided to spend a year in France on a home exchange, I couldn't get enough. I read her whole blog and finally decided to join the one she joined, as she found the type of exchange that we were looking for.

I wrote up my listing, and took a million photos of our house and then re-took them until they were perfect and posted them right away. I wrote carefully-crafted personalized messages to the most promising listings, letting them know that we were looking for a long-term exchange, ideally a year, in a non-English-speaking country in Europe. We didn't care which country, what type of home, inland or coastal, apartment or two story house, it didn't matter. We were looking for new experiences, foreign language knowledge for our kids, interesting new foods. We were looking for culture! Hours passed, then days, then nothing. A whole lot of nothing, no replies, no offers, just nothing. This isn't supposed to happen like this. Then, one morning, I had an email from someone looking for an exchange! Finally! The email said:

Dear exchange partner:
We would like to exchange our home with you this summer for 3 weeks. We have a nice home in Ireland, close to the coast and to shopping, that you will like very much.
Please respond right away, thank you.

Hmmm. Alas, this was the way it would go for a long time, and I did receive a few very lovely replies from families who were not available for long-term travel, or who had already found exchanges. However, the promise of finding a perfect home exchange after only a matter of weeks was out of reach and the process started to feel more and more like internet dating. Why aren't they replying to my email? Maybe they don't like the way I decorated? Maybe they appreciate my sense of humor in my listing? I'm funny, aren't I? My house is nice, isn't it? Finally, after a few months of little to no interest, I decided my house could no longer suffer these indignities and I decided to take a drastic step. I joined the other website. Things were about to look up.