We've begun to attract a lot of attention since we've started traveling within Europe. This probably doesn't surprise most of you since we unintentionally seem to bring attention to ourselves with crying children, our less than textbook parenting techniques, and our general inability to fly under the radar in any situation. But we've realized we draw a special kind of attention whenever we are sightseeing with E. Initially, we thought people were drawn to E because she was 2, has a lot of personality (must have been a freak genetic mutation), and is, in my extremely biased opinion, really stinking cute. But we've started to suspect there might be more to it.
It all started back when we took our family outing to the Jungfrau (a.k.a. The Top of Europe). In typical Mjaanes fashion, we decided the best time to head to the only kid friendly restaurant on the top of a mountain was at noon. Why wait until after the lunch rush when we could eat in a cafeteria with 347 other families who also lack the good sense to avoid dragging their children to a restaurant during the peak dining hours? We had just made our way into the mayhem, when Z announced he had to pee immediately or we'd all be sorry. So while Bryan dragged the boys through a sea of tourists balancing trays of overpriced schnitzel, E and I began the process of jockeying for a table. As I was scouting out the room for the family most likely to scarf down their food quickly and wipe down their own table, a nice young girl approached and offered to have us share her table where she was eating with her young boyfriend. Hey, must be our lucky day! I considered telling her the louder half of our party would be arriving momentarily, and then thought better of it. So we plopped down at their table and the girl pulled some Tic Tacs out of her purse and offered one to E. This probably would have been a good opportunity to have the old "Stranger Danger" talk, but E really digs Tic Tacs and I wasn't in the mood to handle a 2 year old meltdown in a crowded restaurant. The girl seemed nice enough and popped one of the Tic Tacs in her own mouth, so I figured the "Don't take Candy from Strangers" talk could wait.
This is when the nice girl turned a little weird. The next thing I know she's whipped out her camera and started snapping pictures of E like she's America's Next Top Model. I didn't quite know how to react beyond the, "Didn't see THAT coming" look on my face. E just stared blankly at the woman with a look in her eyes that said, "What the hell is wrong with this woman?" As I was contemplating putting an end to the strange impromptu photo session, the girl's boyfriend walked up and they very excitedly began chatting in Japanese and smiling wildly at E. We must have been quite the mother/daughter sight, staring at the 2 of them with dumbfounded looks on our faces. They soon left E and I sitting at the table with minty fresh breathe and a story to share with Bryan and the boys.
A couple months later we experienced our next strange encounter. We had all just boarded a boat on Lake Lucerne and were heading out on a sight seeing cruise. E and the boys had nabbed a seat near the kids play area and were happily building with Legos while Bryan and I enjoyed a beer and pretended like we didn't have children for a few minutes. Suddenly, a young guy in his early 20's walked up and pointed at E. He had a very excited smile on his face and asked us in broken English if he could have his picture taken with her. Hmmmm.....what is the socially acceptable thing to do in this situation? Check references? Do a background check? I opted for the cop out response that placed the dilemma on my 2 year old's shoulders. "E? Do you want to have your picture taken with this guy?" Probably wouldn't be the Supernanny's recommended response, but we were caught off guard and I never claimed to be up for a Parent of the Year award. Fortunately, E had the good sense to say, "NO!". He looked at me like, "Can you help me out here?" but I shrugged my shoulders and offered him a superficial, "sorry." You should have seen this guy's face. He went from the perkiest 20 something tourist I had ever laid eyes on, to a kid who looked like he'd just been told summer vacation had been cancelled. He sadly walked over to his table of friends, who seemed to be waiting in eager anticipation, and began talking to them in Japanese. They all sadly sighed and a few gave him consoling pats on his shoulder, all the while looking over at us and gawking at little E.
Things really started getting odd during out trip to Italy. Anywhere we went that could be considered touristy, E was photographed. On our day trip to Pisa, I was a little concerned E was going to pull a Sean Penn and start assaulting the papparazzi. As we stood in front of the leaning tower of Pisa, taking our cheesy tourist photographs, I began to get the feeling we were being watched. Perhaps it was because we all looked like drowned rats after being caught in a torrential downpour? Or maybe we were being scoped out as potential suckers for a pickpocket scam? No, we were being circled by tourists who were working up the nerve to have their picture taken with my 2 year old. The area with the best view of the tower is pretty crowded with people snapping pictures and oohing and aahing in wonder at Pisa's main attraction. When we sat E up on a post to take a picture of her in front of the tower, a young 20 something couple ran up on each side of her and made silly hand gestures with overexcited smiles while their friend snapped their picture. Fortunately, at this point, we'd decided this weird phenomenon must be documented and we began snapping pictures of the freaks who were posing with our 2 year old. A couple minutes later, another woman walked up to E , put her arm around her, and had a picture snapped. Seriously?!?!?!?! When it happened for a third time in about 10 minutes, I began to create a genious business plan in my head. We could open up a little souvenir stand and sell tacky replicas of the leaning tower while charging 20 euros a pop to be photographed with E. I'm sure child labor laws in Italy are a bit looser than in the states, and this could be a goldmine!
Our last stop in Italy was Venice. It was here that with our combined IQ's, Bryan and I were able to figure out why E was such an attraction. While taking photographs of the kids from the terrace of St. Mark's Basilica, we suddenly found ourselves with a group of about 10 people crowded around us watching. And sure enough, next thing we knew they jumped right in and started posing with them. This is when it all started to click. There is one common denominator shared by all of the wacky E groupies. They were all Asian and all had beautiful DARK shiny hair. I've never been to Asia, but my suspicion is you don't get to see a whole lot of toe heads walking around. And E is as toe headed as they come with her light blonde hair and fair skin. Does this make it any less bizarre that random strangers want their picture taken with my now 3 year old? Absolutely not. Imagine the heyday these crazies would have on a tour of Sweden.
As we looked back at our snapshots of E and friends at the leaning tower, I noticed a woman in blue is sitting in the background of all of them, watching the bizarre scene unfold with a look of bewilderment on her face. Clearly, she didn't understand the attraction either and it makes the pictures that much more amusing. We will continue to add to our own album titled, E And Her Peeps. Someday when her blonde hair turns dishwater blonde like mine, she'll probably get a kick out of the 5 minutes of fame she shared with her Asian admirers. And as a side note, that lucrative business idea I came up with in Pisa has had a change of location. We'll be setting up our goldmine near the entrance to the Great Wall of China. E's college fund should be spilling over in no time.
