For Christmas, Julie's parents gave the family a 3-D puzzle of earth. Completed, it would be essentially a globe on a stand. With the days off, we set out to build the thing, mostly Jackson & me. Here are some things we learned while building the world, one piece at a time.
1. Water, water, water. You know intellectually that the earth is covered 2/3 by water, and this drove it home for us. "Another piece of ocean" We'd get excited when we would finally get to a continent.
2. When you see that the place where you live is just a dot on a single piece of the puzzle, you get a better sense of the magnitude of the world, and how little we must know about it, having not traveled to much anywhere (despite all those great trips that my dad took me on).
3. When one piece contains several European or middle eastern countries, many of which have been fighting with each other for centuries, you are struck by the absurdity of that. Hey, it's a big world; there's room for all of us. Get over it already. How big could you be if you would just learn to get along and work together?
I suppose i'm treading close to the line of ponderous, so i'll stop. But thanks to the Carsons for the fun (and educational) puzzle.
