Grumpy in Geneva - An Alex Story on Bridge Day

One of the mysteries of children is why they are so grumpy during vacations.  I believe that this is not unique to our family.  Or at least I sincerely hope that is the case and it's not that our child is broken.  Alex is 9 now, but still can't seem to handle vacationing.

Our setting is the city of Geneva, after we visited CERN, on the Bridge Day that comes between the Ascension Holiday and the weekend. After sternly talking to Alex about his attitude, he tries to pretend that he is actually having an "ok" time. We decided to take a bunch of pictures with one of the bridges in Geneva.

Smile!  It's bridge day!

A bridge!

To further improve Alex's energy level and to mood, we found ice cream.  This appears to have worked as you can tell by Alex's thumbs up.  (But as parents know, it's all an illusion of happiness that passes after the sugar crash.)

Ice Cream Bridge Picture

Will helped us out too to try to improve Alex's mood.  He suggested taking a funny picture of Alex when they saw the giant water spout, Jet D'eau, coming out of the lake.

It's pouring on my head!

We also decided to take a break in the park along the water front.  Cooler and shady, it improved Alex's mood a little.  He became slightly more calme.  As you can tell next to this sculpture of "Alexandre Calame."

Je suis M. Calme

In the end, none of this worked.  We went to dinner at a fondue place where both boys got in on the vacation-stress-causing by complaining about the smell of the cheese.  So we ate and went back to our Air BnB.  

The solution?  We will let you know when we figure out how to have a lovely vacation that everyone can enjoy.  The secret formula may involve scavenger hunts.  Although, since they don't seem to enjoy anything we try to make fun for them, perhaps there is only one option.  We will make them only do what we want.  I'm pretty sure that's what our parents did with us when we were kids.