Flat Stanley, FTW

by Chris Kratschmer

[I leave tomorrow for spring break. (We're halfway done here already?? Holy smokes ...) Well either way, tomorrow I get on a plane to Budapest, Hungary. From there I go to Vienna, Austria, then to Prague, Czech Republic, and finish up in Krakow, Poland. I'll be gone 9 days. I'm also very interested to see Eastern Europe. They say it's beautiful, and not as bleak and drab as the USSR made it seem... I have this picture in my head that everything is grey there. No color, life is just lived in black and white. I'm interested to see if that's actually true...]

It's been a busy week here in Dublin... I studied for a test for a little while on Sunday, and I wrote a paper on Wednesday afternoon... and... well... I guess I haven't been that busy. Oh well.

The one thing that has been keeping me busy, however, is Flat Stanley.

[A quick synopsis for the unfamiliar; Stanley was a kid who had a bulletin board fall on him as he slept; when they found him in the morning, he was still alive and apparently had no damage to his internal organs, despite the fact that he had been flattened roughly to the thickness of a piece of paper... He made a killing sliding under doors to locked rooms and being flown as a kite, but his flatness really came in handy when he decided he wanted to take a vacation... His parents were resourceful and apparently "careful" with money, so they folded their child up, stuck him in an envelope, and mailed him to California...Like any responsible parent would.

It's a fun story for kids, especially because it's inevitably followed by their elementary school teacher having them color in their own small Flat Stanleys and mail them around to people they know in different places. You get postcards, pictures etc. It's a great geography lesson too.]

How does that apply? A first grader named George is doing a Flat Stanley project with his class, and he had the great fortune to have an intelligent and handsome older cousin who happens to be studying at a university in Ireland with a bunch of other college kids who conveniently like traveling, and love getting to act like they're in first grade again. [...George is my cousin. Just so there's no confusion, I am the handsome and intelligent older cousin. Figured that much was obvious.]

Last week I was excited when a large envelope in the mail that included a letter from George and this little laminated gem...

I was pretty excited to take Stanley with me around Dublin (which I did immediately...),

but I was disappointed that Stanley had just missed the trip to Northern Ireland, especially since I wouldn't be leaving town again until spring break in a week and a half. However, I had a couple friends going to London that weekend. I asked them if they would mind taking Stanley and a few pictures with him.

In the mean time, a wise Stanley veteran had warned me to make copies, in the horrible case that I somehow lost my flat friend...It was only now that I had an unlimited amount of Stanleys at my disposal, I realized the potential awesomeness in my fingertips...

Okay, rewind back to Mrs. Pranitis's second grade classroom, Evangelical Elementary school in Godfrey, IL, circa 1998... The whole class has read Flat Stanley, created their own cutouts, decorated them, etc... They've been told that this isn't supposed to be any sort of contest, it's just a fun activity to help learn geography. Despite that, there is one thought on every student's mind; I must have the coolest Flat Stanley.

Sadly enough for the other poor saps, there could only be ONE coolest Flat Stanley in the class, and one smug second grader with white-blonde hair and a surprisingly large head sat in the back of the classroom clutching a post-card from Antarctica.

Did you even know that tourists could visit Antarctica?? Me either, but my Great Aunt Ruth did.

Despite what Mrs. Pranitis told us, Flat Stanley was a contest, and I was the winner.

Fast forward back to present day: I'm in Dublin, Ireland with approximately 35 other college students getting ready to travel around Europe, armed with a stack of paper Flat Stanleys. One quick email to the Dublin program, and within an hour I had 10 email responses from friends excited to help out.

I distributed copies, and in his first weekend in Europe, Stanley went to Galway in western Ireland, Paris, London, and Brussels.

This week I made more copies, and as we depart for spring break there are several groups taking along our paper pal... In the next two weeks George's Flat Stanley is poised to make an unprecedented run of European (mostly) cities. Stanley will be visiting Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; Salzburg, Austria, Prague, Czech Republic; Krakow, Poland; Munich, Germany; Berlin, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Barcelona, Spain; Toledo, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Athens, Greece; Istanbul, Turkey, and Morocco. That's in Africa.

George is in first grade. I'm pretty sure when I was in first grade I didn't know where most of those cities were (I wasn't exactly sure what the story on Antarctica was either, but I knew it was awesome.). And that's entirely the point. It's like it's a family tradition. George is #winning Flat Stanley.


Check out the photos here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckratschmer/

[I just want to quickly say thank you to all the Notre Dame students with me who have offered to take Stanley with them, snap pictures, pick up postcards, whatever. I really appreciate it; you're helping my cousin have an unforgettable project. And more importantly, he's #winning.]