Leap Year 2010

Notes:

To celebrate Leap Year today and 2010, I have created a video based on some memorable photos from that year. Many of you readers were with me on these occasions, and some of you are even featured here.

A little background on this: This was by no means a planned thing- I did not have the foresight when I started this little tradition that I would make a video to publish on “Leap Day.” It was more about a fun way to do something different when taking the normal “tourist” pictures. Looking at them all really does bring back such good memories of all the interesting places I was able to explore.

Due to a few spontaneous occasions where I happened to be jumping when my picture was taken (ok, sometimes it does happen spontaneously)- it developed into a “thing,” where, if the occasion permitted- and I wasn’t TOO self-conscious, I would try to get a picture taken of me leaping. I didn’t do this in all of the locations we went to- when I look back at it, I can see that I was most prone to it around my sisters and nieces!  Sara has a very prominent part in this video.* Of course.

Throwing Fiona in the air…now that was a more common occurrence. What I find funny now that I have looked at these pictures for the first time all together, is that when Rijen is throwing her, she is actually catching air, and when I am doing it, there is barely an inch of daylight between her and my hands, if she even leaves my hands at all!  I guess I’m not as daring as Rijen.

I was daring enough to start jumping around in front of other tourists, locals and this fellow in Barcelona:

Actually it was Aleida who was demonstrating her skills, much to this gentleman’s interest.

It was during my trip to London with Aleida when I decided this would become a little travel tradition.  I had done it a couple times pretty spontaneously before, but on this one specific evening, we were walking back to our hotel after attending a Shakespeare performance at the Globe Theater.

We either on purpose or by accident (we will say on purpose) happened to walk by St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Aleida was giving me a little lesson on taking pictures at night. She was trying to get the settings correct, so to make it a little more fun rather than just standing there as her “object,” I started this running leap.  It became more amusing because an Eastern European tour group happened to park themselves and lecture right by where we were having our little photo/jumping session.  So they got more entertainment than they were bargaining for.

Come to think of it, I got the most attention when Aleida was my leaping partner…in Barcelona at the Montjuic fountains, I realized that this Spaniard had begun jumping at the same time as Aleida. Evidently he wanted to get in on it too.  Those pictures are my favorite part of the video.

My favorite picture from 2010 is probably the one taken at Octoberfest in Munich with Rita. (Well, she is behind the camera).  I had a prop- not Fiona this time- and this bridge was just teeming with people- most going the opposite direction.

Leap year comes every four years of course….but a year like 2010, I think it may be once in a lifetime.

Locations in the video:

• Yorkshire, England
• Zaanse Schans, Holland
• Eiffel Tower, Paris
• Versailles, France
• London, England
• Vienna, Austria
• Barcelona, Spain
• Salzburg, Austria
• England
• Calabria, Italy
• Masai Mara, Kenya
• Koenigsbourg Castle in the Alsace region of France (Strasbourg)
• Oslo, Norway
• Burg Eltz, Germany
• Versailles, Paris
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Tangier, Morocco
• Harrogate, England
• Berlin, Germany (my last jumping picture taken-before I was too pregnant to be jumping around)

*Melinda, you also had a prominent part in the video!