Lunch with an astronaut

Photo Eva Joos

You just have to be in the US to get the opportunity to have lunch with a real astronaut. I mean, how unreal is that? But it happens and it's not even that expensive. For $ 30 you can have a talk with Bob Springer or one of the other American astronauts, over lunch at the Kennedy Space Center. But we were humble, so we had a pick nick with cured ham and hot dogs in the grass and that was great fun as well.

Hubby was real excited about the visit to the Kennedy Space Center. The territory is immense although only 10% of the premises is being used by NASA. The rest is held as a refuge for wildlife. And yes, we saw turtles and alligators and even manatees! But that was not why we came. We wanted to see those rockets! The Saturn V was just immense with the height of a 36 story building. You feel really small next to a rocket that big. BIG is the word grandpa loves to use here, when he compares everything to what we have at home.

It is amazing to see how organized everything is at the Center. We had a bus tour to go around the place and the guide was more than willing to show us all the goodies. It's not like watching some documentary on TV. It's the real thing! Toys for boys!

Like real Americans, we put our hands through a slot, so we could touch a true piece of the moon. Hard as a rock and shiny black, grandpa made the comment that it would be real hard to grow potatoes on the moon..

It was worth the visit. We have spent more than 3 hours in the Center and we were not the only Belgians present. To be exact, Belgium was the first flag next to all the other countries (okay, the countries were sorted chronologically, but nevertheless... )!

Photo Eva Joos

Every school in Florida should do this field trip. I'm sure many of the kids would be inspired by the facts and the sizes of the rockets. Maybe there's an astronaut in every one of us. Have you ever dreamed about going to the moon?