Two years ago, one of my Christmas presents from Will was a globe. After spending more than a decade with me, he knew better than to actually buy the globe. (I tend to be a bit fussy.) Instead, he gave me an awesome paper globe he hand-constructed to stand in for my real globe. In the next month, I was to shop in Ireland to find the perfect globe.
As it often happens with these things, the actual purchase of the globe was constantly delayed. The globe store had limited hours; I didn’t like the colors that I saw; and so on. Globes are expensive so I wanted my globe to be perfect.
Christmas 2009 arrived and I had not yet gotten around to buying a globe. Will was fed up with my antics and decided to take matters into his own hands. He reached into the interweb and, once again, found something to hold me until I find that perfect globe.
So I am now the proud owner of a Ravensburger Puzzleball. What he didn’t know was I had nearly bought the same thing a few weeks earlier! I saw it in a store in Luxembourg, but they only had the Puzzleball in German or French — and English names is one of my (many) requirements.
We opened it last night and started it. We had fun looking at the pieces, testing our geographic knowledge. (We don’t know much about islands and oceans.) We also found:
Chicago
Luxembourg (Look carefully!)
Ireland (and some of the British Isles)
I envisioned a quiet evening after work that would end with a nice little globe. I’ll admit that I didn’t realize how time-consuming the Puzzleball may turn out to be. There is a lot of ocean out there, kids.
We plan to keep you informed of our progress. I managed most of South America last night, but now we need to tackle the ocean around Antarctica before we can go any farther. Personally, I can’t wait to get to Russia as it will cover a lot of ground!
(Insert obligatory “I can see Russia from my house” joke here.)
4 Comments to “My husband gave me the world for Christmas (twice)”
7 January 2010
Now that is pretty awesome. We have a kids puzzle
of the states we put together with Joe. I think his favorite part is putting down California and declaring, “this is far, far, away. We have to take a plane to there!”
7 January 2010
Geography is fun! I said the same kinds of things as we sorted the pieces. “This is where our friend grew up.” There are 540 pieces: I wonder how many of them I’ll fly over (let alone visit) in my life.
7 January 2010
I won a geography bee in 5th grade. One of the proudest moments of my life.
11 January 2010
I love maps too. I prefer physical cartography to political maps. I have a well thumbed atlas that I bought while living in London. But since returning to Poznan I can’t get enough of construction sites. Can’t wait for the next installment of your delayed action sequences.
Best
Cezary