Another visit ends

Posted on August 12, 2015 by admin

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with our trip home for Christmas last year. Just like the year before, we got treated to a significant snowstorm the morning of our flight out, but unlike last year, I was mentally prepared for the possibility, so I was able to enjoy it a bit with the kids instead if just stressing about how wet everyone’s snow pants were getting. (Good thing, too, because we had another disappointing snow year in Vienna this past winter, so it was nice to get some kind of chance to play in the snow together.) And again, our flight was delayed (though not as badly as the previous year), but before too long we were trekking through the snow to the airport to return to Vienna.

I hate leaving. Every time. Doing it repeatedly does not make it easier. Our time here has gotten long — longer than any of us counted on — so leaving is hard, because part of me feels like we shouldn’t be leaving at all. But we did. With help from our family, clear and safe roads, and our boys, we collected up our things and prepared for another transatlantic journey.

Because of a different seating configuration on the plane, we sat differently than we usually do. Whenever possible, we sit in the middle of the plane, 4 across. When that isn’t possible, we sit 3 across at the window with one on the neighboring aisle. This particular plane had only 2 seats near the window, though, so Dan & B sat there, and L and I sat across the aisle in the middle section. No problem.

Except that it was a red-eye, and when it came time for sleeping, we had a problem. It’s never easy to do a red-eye with kids. No one ever enjoys sleeping on a plane, and kids can get progressively less adaptable as they get more tired. When my guys are a bit older, they might think it’s fun to stay up all night and watch movies as we fly over the ocean, but not yet. B leaned up against the window and fell asleep. Dan dozed next to him. Liam, with no window to lean on and no family member to bookend the other side of him, could just not get comfortable. We tried putting him on the aisle with me in the middle seat, and we tried me on the aisle and him in the middle. Whatever we tried, he ended up either sticking an appendage into the aisle or kicking the woman sitting next to him (the one that wasn’t me). He was so tired. He cried. He tried to lay on the floor of the plane. He could not get comfortable and he could not sleep. He finally dozed off, laying across me, for maybe 20 minutes when it was nearly “morning” (meaning it was still very much the middle of the night for us). I didn’t sleep at all. It was a rough flight.

But, it was at least fast. We didn’t know why at the time, but despite taking off about 15 minutes late, we landed in London over an hour early. (We later discovered that our flight was able to take advantage of unusually strong upper level tail winds — we were traveling at over 700 mph!) Arriving early in London wasn’t as much of a benefit as it might have been, though — we were to have had a 5 hour layover at Heathrow, which would now be over 6. With a very tired family, it was a bit of a daunting proposition.

Other than rare occasions when we get a direct flight to the US, we usually connect through Heathrow or Charles du Gaulle. I don’t love either option. Both are huge airports which require commuting between distant terminals for international connections. I don’t mind flying TO those airports, but I don’t like flying THROUGH either one. This time, though, I learned to love Heathrow a little more.

We were lucky to discover that in the terminal we’d be flying out of (some 6+ hours after we arrived) there was a “Family Lounge”. We didn’t know exactly what that meant, but we decided to find out. It turns out that it was a spacious set of rooms outfitted for kids of all ages, and only accessible to people actually travelling with children. They had comfy places to sit, an indoor play area (full of foam-rubber covered obstacles to play on), a nap/quiet room and a game room with TV and foosball (for older kids). There was also a coffee machine for the grown ups. It was EXACTLY what we needed. Not only were the kids able to both run around and rest as they needed, but we were free from the typical airport worry that we were bothering any of the other travellers.

The kids started out by running around, climbing on the equipment and playing with the other kids who were waiting. Eventually, Liam layed down in the nap room for some much needed rest, and we were able to charge our phones, connect to the wi-fi, and let the kids play games on the iPad while we waited. It gave us some peace and relaxation during a very long day of travel (and has bumped Heathrow up to my most favorite airport to connect through).

The best part about flying back to Vienna from the States is that by the time we get on that second flight back to Vienna, we’re almost home. That last little flight feels so short in the overall scheme of the entire trip, so it’s not so daunting. It was another long day of travel, with another transatlantic journey accomplished, but we made it back “home” from another great trip Home.

I (actually don’t) hate Legoland

Posted on August 6, 2015 by admin

I am not a huge fan of amusement parks.

When I was 17, I went to Disney World for the first time. It was every bit as magical as I had hoped it would be, even as a skeptical teenager who was worried that I was already too old to appreciate it. I had a fantastic time. And, after college, I took a trip with friends to ride roller coasters in Ohio, and I loved that, too. In fact, going to amusement parks generally seemed like good fun when I was younger, even though each trip left me sunburned and vaguely ill. But, now, as a grouchy old adult, my enthusiasm has waned somewhat. Most of the time, when faced with the prospect of an amusement park trip, I struggle to get beyond the expense, effort, endless lines, crush of sweaty humanity, hours in the burning sun, general uncleanliness and near certainty that at least one of us will get sick after (or during) the visit. It’s just not really my thing these days.

That being said, it’s not really about me anymore. As a mom, I try to embrace my kids’ enthusiasm for such places. With one set of grandparents who live in central Florida, a visit to Disney was inevitable. We went a few summers ago, and it was EXACTLY as I imagined it would be: hot, crowded and a test of patience. I spent the day feeling like I was enduring something rather than enjoying it, and, I thought, based on the numerous tears and tantrums, that the kids felt the same way. Surprisingly, though, the boys came out of it feeling like they’d had a great day and with seemingly no memory of the misery that we experienced while we were there. (I vaguely suspect that the chicken nuggets may be laced with whatever brain chemical it is that makes mothers forget the pain of childbirth.) Regardless, my boys were left feeling like they’d had a great day, and honestly, that’s more than good enough for me.

Even so, when my in-laws suggested a trip to Legoland this past December, my enthusiasm was all for the sake of the family. I could not get the episode of “The Simpsons” where they visit “Blockoland” out of my mind. I could not imagine what Legoland had to offer that would be better than Disney. I anticipated a life-sized hours-long ad for everything Lego and not much more. I was not excited. But, I’d take one for the team. However, after the projected 90 minute drive turned into more that twice that, with a nightmare of a parking situation (whatever my gripes against Disney, they do know how to park cars), I was 100% ready to go home before we got through the gates. I was hot, grouchy and already over Legoland.

After waiting in a long line for the bathroom and an another long line for tickets, I was not happier. Plus, the very first thing the boys saw when they went into the park was a giant Lego sculpture … which was not fenced off but was not meant to be touched. Being told off by the guard assigned to protect it and then wrestling a sweaty, exhausted 4 year old off of it, I was ready to run for the hills, but we persevered. By 3:30, we had ridden on the (admittedly cool) merry-go-round (with giant Lego horses!) and had an awful $80 lunch. By 4:00, we’d ridden a water ride that got us completely soaked and had Liam in tears. I decided I hated Legoland.

But then . . . we discovered The Dragon.

The Dragon is a roller coaster, designed for small kids, and everyone else, too. My previous experience with kid-friendly roller coasters was restricted to tiny, carnival-type roller coasters which have not been a lot of fun (for anyone). This wasn’t tiny, and it wasn’t rickety. It was a real roller coaster, just set up to be safe and functional for little kids (as well as adults). I was skeptical at first, imagining waiting through the 45 minute long line only to have one (or both) of the kids chicken out at the end, or, worse, getting them on and having them hysterically beg to get off after it was too late to do so. The boys were absolutely determined to ride it, though, and so we did.

And I’m so glad.

It was great fun. It was exciting enough to be scary, but not so scary as to not be fun. There was no moment when I was worried that the kids were going to fly out or get hurt, but it had enough drops and turns to count as an actual roller coaster. The kids loved it. We all loved it. It was the beginning of turning our day at Legoland around.

The boys had such a blast that we ran around and got straight back in the line. We rode The Dragon several times (even dragging my reluctant in-laws on it) and had a great time each time.

After that, and some face painting, we wandered down to “Miniland” which recreates well-known sights and cities from around the world (extra credit because we got to see a lot of places we’ve actually been to). We didn’t get down that way until dusk was falling, and I think it would have been even more impressive in the daylight (though it was well-lit at night), but we all enjoyed looking at the Lego recreations of the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the monuments and museums of Washington, DC (which is quite near where we’re originally from).

We all would have liked to have spent more time exploring the scenes in Minland, but it was almost time for fireworks, which the boys really wanted to see. On our way to the stadium to see the fireworks, though, one of us had a brilliant idea . . . why go see the fireworks from the stadium when we could try to go see them from The Dragon?!

And so we did. We ran back up the hill and through the park and into the line, hoping that our idea wouldn’t be one that everyone else in the park had already had. We were completely in luck. We climbed aboard and started our ride, holding our special Lego glasses on our faces while we rode The Dragon (again). And we were lucky enough to have an amazing view of part of the fireworks show while riding our favorite ride in the park. (The special Lego glasses made the fireworks appear to be made of Lego bricks, which is also pretty cool.)

After that, we repeated our run around to the line again . . . and again . . . and again. In all, we rode The Dragon 8 or 9 times total (including an extra bonus ride at the end of the night, where the ride operators let us all go one last time before they shut the ride down).

So, I admit it. I was wrong. I thought I was going to hate Legoland, but I actually didn’t. We had a great time, enjoyed the park, and spent some really fun time together. The park didn’t end up being just a giant Lego ad (though there were plenty of places to shop for Legos, too). In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I’d like to go again, and I’ve already started looking into the other things in the park that we didn’t get to do our first time (like Lego jousting — only for kids, though). I was pleased with the number of things they had for the little ones to do (though we did end up doing the same thing over and over again — they had other stuff) and the members of the staff that we interacted with were all friendly and pleasant. Instead of having an awful day, we had a great one. I was impressed, and we will go back. (Or, possibly, we may go to Legoland Germany instead, which all of B’s school friends have been to. They all think it’s weird that he’s been to one in Florida. I hear they have their own version of The Dragon!)

My favorite gifts

Posted on August 5, 2015 by admin

(Yep, still writing about last Christmas. I ought to be done sometime before this coming Christmas.)

This year, when I was shopping for Christmas gifts for the boys, I wanted to find a small way to incorporate more of the idea of “giving” into their holiday. Not by giving gifts to loved ones (which we already do), but something a bit wider-minded — something beyond their immediate sphere. I thought a lot about how best to do that in a gentle, positive way. I considered Heifer International, where you can buy a cow or a goat or a rabbit for an impoverished family in another country, but I worried the concept might be a bit advanced and the gift too intangible for the boys to really understand. I thought that just opening an envelope about a donation of a goat would get completely swallowed up in all the STUFF they would be focused on Christmas morning. So, maybe one day, but not yet. But I liked the idea — of taking the money I would have spent on a gift for them, and doing something charitable with it instead … without it seeming like a punishment or deprivation in any way. (My kids are certainly not deprived of anything, but the idea was to encourage charitable giving, not make it seem like a rotten idea.)

Despite my best intentions, when Christmas comes around at our house, my kids are overwhelmingly focused on the presents. (Though I get the feeling that this is pretty normal.) One unintended consequence of being able to provide so much for our kids is that they take so much of what they have for granted. And though I understand that Christmas (even for those of us who celebrate it culturally, rather than religiously) is about family, togetherness, kindness, charity and peace, somehow, for my kids, it’s really almost entirely about the presents (and also a little about visiting our family, which is a good thing). I think it’s hard for intangible themes of peace, charity and time spent together to compete with boxes of brightly-colored plastic and flashing lights packed up under the tree.

But I wanted to do a little something small to start to make a shift.

So, I kept looking, and found out that through The Sierra Club, you can “adopt an animal” at a U.S. National Park. You get a certificate, a little booklet and a stuffed animal to represent your adoptee, and the money goes towards conservation efforts across North America. It was perfect. It would accomplish the goal of giving, but still give the kids a tangible THING to focus on. My hope was that reading the booklet and playing with the stuffed animal would keep the gift in their minds beyond just the moment that I told them about it.

And, it worked. The kids loved the stuffies when they opened them, but they were even more fascinated by the idea that they had “adopted” a real, actual wild animal in a park somewhere. They wanted to learn more about the animals (a fox for L and a wolf for B), and more about where they live. They learned a bit more about US geography, too, which is something they don’t know enough of yet (because my kids know where the Alps are, but not the Rockies). They are absolutely set on visiting the parks (Glacier and Rocky Mountain National Parks) to see “their” animals. And we were able to talk about conservation and the environment and the way the animals’ survival depends on people taking care of the planet.

I’m really happy. My plan worked! I know it’s not much — we’re not saving the rainforests or ending homelessness — but it was a tiny step in the right direction that we hadn’t taken before. They were my favorite gifts to give this year.

Exactly as it was

Posted on August 4, 2015 by admin

I have a natural tendency to get worked up about things. I worry. I stress. I fret. I am, by nature, an anxious person. It doesn’t serve me well. Though I believe, in the deep and rarely examined recesses of my mind, that my worry and anxiety will ultimately benefit me, they don’t. Somewhere along the line, I became convinced that conceiving of, and preparing for, every eventuality would give me some influence or control over situations. It doesn’t. I read once that “Worry doesn’t rob tomorrow of its problems, it robs today of its joy.” That pretty much sums up the reality, but still, somewhere in my mind, I equate worry with control and control with happiness. Thus, I somehow think that worrying will make me happy, even though it never, ever has.

I’m also a perfectionist. (Being a perfectionist might not mean what you think. It doesn’t mean “doing everything perfectly”. It means “not being able to let go of the idea of doing everything perfectly”. Which is crazy-making, because no matter how well you ever do anything, you can always find a way that it isn’t “perfect”.) If I don’t work on it, I naturally revert to a state where I am constantly anxious about how I can make things perfect. So, I basically make myself miserable pursuing an impossible goal. And perfection isn’t even a good goal! Again, in some back room in my mind, I got the idea that perfect = happy. Also, not true. Trying to be perfect, at everything, all the time, is actually a pretty great way to NOT be happy.

I’m working on this in myself, and I’ve made good progress. I can now see that somewhere in my mind I think that worry = happy, and I can see the nonsense of that idea. I can also see that my life is actually happier when I don’t worry about anything being “perfect”. Which is great. But I’m not totally immune to it yet.

When I was preparing to go home for Christmas this year (yes, back in December), amongst sick kids, sick me, a break-in across the hall and all the usual frenzy of the Christmas season, I slipped back into this thinking. I spent a lot of time in the weeks before my trip home contemplating (aka worrying about) all the things I could do to make the holiday at home with my family go perfectly. I worried about what I would pack. I wanted to make sure we all had the right sweaters, the perfect pajamas, the best outfits that we could for our weeks at home. I tied myself in mental knots trying to figure out how to maximize every moment of our time at home so that we could see all of the people we wanted to see and do all the things we wanted to do in order to ensure a perfect holiday. I stayed up late doing laundry, wrote up complicated planning calendars of people and events, and lost sleep over things like whether or not I had packed all of the most perfectly appropriate socks.

Before I made myself sick, crazy or miserable, I got things straightened out, though. A few days before we left, in the midst of the chaos of that week, I realized that the only thing that truly mattered is that we were going home. We were travelling across the ocean to see our family and our friends. We would spend time with people that we love. We would do fun things. We would also not get to see everyone we wanted to, because time is finite, the holidays are busy and kids have a limit on how much activity they can handle happily. No one would care if we had our best Christmas sweaters or the best possible collection of socks on hand. Whether or not we made the connections on our flights was not going to make or break our trip. None of the stuff I was agonizing over was going to make the difference between having a wonderful holiday and not. What was going to make the difference was me NOT trying to make it be perfect. In trying to make it be perfect, I was going to miss the fact that it was going to be absolutely wonderful regardless. I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it as well, and in not enjoying it, I would have gradually eroded the enjoyment of the people around me. In reality, it didn’t have to be anything different than exactly what it was to be a happy holiday.

In the end, it wasn’t perfect. We didn’t get to see everyone we wanted, and we didn’t get to see anyone for as much time as we wanted. There were tons of things we wanted to do that we didn’t (there always are when we go home). There were peaceful moments, busy moments, quiet moments, festive moments and lots and lots of love and fun. It didn’t have to be any different. It was exactly right as it was.

(I mean, really — how could we have improved on this?)

To Grandmother’s House

Posted on July 9, 2015 by admin

I’ve completely lost count of our transatlantic journeys as a family. I actually just tried to count, and can’t quite resolve the trips in my head anymore. I *think* we’ve taken 4 round-trip transatlantic trips together, plus the one-way trip that brought us here (or, if you like, you can think of that as the round-trip we just haven’t completed yet) but I could be missing one. So, we’ve done at least 9 transatlantic flights together as a family, and though I’m not sure we’re experts, we’re certainly pretty well experienced. (I mean, seriously. My kids have each made at least 9 transatlantic flights so far. I was 37 before I could say that.) But all of our experience does very little to mitigate the unscripted insanity that invariably awaits us every time we do it. Every trip has been a little different, and each one has presented its own challenges. It is, as I often say, always an adventure.

In the past, we’ve usually (always?) flown direct from Vienna to Washington or stopped in Paris. Direct is great, but pricey, and though Austrian Airlines is pretty wonderful, their planes are not always the most comfortable. Last year, we opted to fly through Charles de Gaulle in Paris so that we could fly to Washington on the new A380 — the gigantic, double-decker plane. I said I wanted to try it out because I thought it would be fun for the kids, but the truth is that my years working in aviation left me as kind of a plane nerd and *I* really wanted to try it out.

It was great — comfortable, quiet and convenient, and Air France has stellar service. But Charles de Gaulle is a headache of an airport, and no matter how long we allow for a connection there (we’ve connected through Paris in the past, flying to other European destinations) we always end up running for the plane, which is a crummy beginning to a trip. (Last year was no exception.)

So this year, I thought we’d try something a little different. I was fine with connecting through Paris, but I wanted to allow more time than last year, and I wasn’t set on it being anywhere in particular. As it turned out, the A380 now flies between Washington and Heathrow, too. We’ve had some decent experiences at Heathrow before, and it’s a bonus that people in London speak English. Sold! We booked our tickets with a connection through Heathrow.

We had no delays getting from Vienna to Heathrow, so I expected than having nearly 2 hours to get to our next plane would be no problem. Ha! I had never realized that connecting from intra-European travel to transatlantic travel at Heathrow makes it every bit as much of a headache as connecting through Charles de Gaulle. It was not pleasant.

We had to wait for a shuttle bus which ran only every 15 minutes, and which took 20 minutes to get to its destination. Which sounds fine, except that the entire flight of people from Vienna had to get on the shuttle, and we had to wait through 3 rounds of shuttle buses before we got on. Then we had to go through security again, and there were insanely long lines. When we finally got to the front of the line, we were told that Liam’s antibiotic (remember how we were all sick for most of December?) couldn’t clear security. Huh??? No, really. It couldn’t go through because nowhere on the bottle did it say how bit it was (though it was, quite clearly, the same 100 mL size as the children’s ibuprofen we had — which DID say 100 mL on the bottle, so that was clear to go). Apparently, it would have been ok if we’d had the doctor’s written prescription with us (but we didn’t), even though it was in its original bottle from the pharmacy, all official-looking and everything. I explained that antibiotics are the kind of medicine where it’s very bad if you miss a dose. I offered to take some of the medicine. I offered to let them gas chromatograph it. I asked Dan to find someone to call our gate and tell them we were coming while I pleaded with the (not unsympathetic, but unbudging) security guy. Our flight was due to take off in less than 15 minutes, and we still had a shuttle train to take. We had to choose between leaving the medicine and running for our flight, or staying to argue about the medicine and getting on a later plane. We ran. (Again.)

I’m not exaggerating when I say that by the time we left security, we had just over 10 minutes to get to our gate. I was 95% certain we were going to miss our plane. I figured that, at least, our seats had been given away to someone on standby at this point. We ran, flat out, to the train terminal. We ran, flat out to the gate. We arrived, with about 90 seconds to spare before departure time. The gate agent said that the only reason our seats weren’t given away is that so many people had missed their connections that there were more open seats than standby passengers. He told us that if we hadn’t called from security to say we were coming, they would have left without us. We were the last people across the jetway, they closed the door as soon as we were through it, and we were still walking down the (admittedly very long) aisle when the plane pushed back. We were red-faced, sweaty, stressed, exhausted and without antibiotic, but we made our flight. (So much for not repeating the experience we had the year before!) I wanted to email our pediatrician, to ask if she could email or fax a replacement prescription, but between the dash for the plane and the actual takeoff, there was not a single moment to do it.

The kids were great. Though it’s not great that we keep ending up in that situation, they’re at least getting used to it, and they know that it’s not a calamity. (Besides, they’re getting bigger, so they’re getting pretty fast!) The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful. The boys are definitely getting more and more accustomed to long flights. The service on British Airways was as good as Air France (though the configuration of the plane was slightly less comfortable).

And it was so, so wonderful to see our family again when we arrived. That is the absolute BEST feeling about being abroad — how magical it feels to come home again. There are all of these wonderful people that you miss SO much, and then you get to see them, and they’re just as happy to see you as you are to see them, and they don’t care too much what state you’re in when you arrive. It is the BEST. (And, we got to meet our new nephew/cousin!!!!)

But after we gave hugs and kisses, collected our things, packed everything up, got to my mom’s house and got semi-settled in . . . we still had the antibiotic to deal with.

By the time we got to Maryland, it was late at night in Vienna, so I couldn’t reach our pediatrician (though I left her a message). We had no recourse, except to go to a 24 hour pharmacy and beg for them to give us a single dose of amoxicillin (we figured we could come back with an emailed prescription in the morning, but we didn’t want him to miss a dose). If at all possible, we didn’t want to have to take poor, exhausted Liam to the ER or an urgent care place to get them to write a new prescription that night. I discovered that, randomly, I’d taken a picture of the prescription when the doctor gave it to us (I have no idea why — I never do that) so Dan was able to take that with him to the pharmacy. (It’s too bad that I didn’t realize I had that at Heathrow — he might have let us through with that.)

When Dan went to the pharmacy, he explained the situation. We were fortunate that the pharmacist was as outraged by the fact that the antibiotic had been confiscated as we were, and he refilled the entire prescription for us, based just on the picture from my phone. And so, just 22 hours after leaving our apartment in Vienna, after running through the airport, going over the ocean and through the hassle of getting Liam’s medicine, we were, finally, tucked in, safe and sound, at Grandma’s house.

The shortest day ever

Posted on March 21, 2014 by admin

I have this habit of leaving off pieces of the adventures we take when I recount the stories. Ever since I stopped writing the blog WHILE I was traveling (to allow it to feel like more of a vacation) I’ve found that I get back, start to write about it, and then life happens and I get caught up writing about something new that is happening at that moment, which means that I often don’t quite finish telling the stories of our travels.

I want to get caught up, so I’m going to plan to spend at least a day each week catching up on old stories that have yet to be told.

The snowstorm that came at the end of our trip home to the US for Christmas was a ton of fun for the kids (and I’m extra glad they got to experience it since we barely got any snow this year in Vienna). But the other result was that our return flight ended up significantly delayed, which made for kind of a crazy day all around.

I have to give Air France a ton of credit for how well they kept us informed about the developments with our flight. I woke up the morning of our departure with both a text and an email waiting for me about the initial rescheduling of our flight. Because we had nearly 12 hours notice, we were able to relax, enjoy an extra few hours with family and let the kids play in the snow a bit more. They also seamlessly took care of rearranging our connection each of the several times the flight was pushed back a little later, which let us spend our last day packing and enjoying instead of stressing (overly much) about how we were going to get home.

Late that night, we finally headed to the airport (with much gratitude and sad goodbyes to so much of our family who drove us over there) to wait for a while longer in an effectively closed airport. When we’d first planned the flight, a 7 pm departure seemed perfect. Take off, have dinner, and then everyone sleeps (in theory). My boys generally do well on overnight flights, so I was more worried about the flight over than I was about the flight back.

But with the departure moved back to just after 2 am, I didn’t know what to expect. Waiting at the gate was hard. We put the boys in their pajamas (because, realistically, it was after midnight, and sleep was likely). Liam fell asleep. B tried to sleep on the floor (unsuccessfully) after seeing several other people try it. He eventually gave up and wandered over to watch a video over the shoulder of a little French girl who then invited him to come and share her seat. (That was one of my favorite moments of the journey. I was really proud to see B be brave enough to make a friend — and extra points because they did not share a common language. I count this confidence as one of the many good things that have come of this adventure.)

We finally got on the plane and got underway. The airline dutifully served dinner (at about 3 am) and then got us all ready for “nighttime” just as the first rays of the sun were becoming visible on the horizon (they requested that everyone keep their window shades down so that everyone could sleep if they chose to). They turned the lights on and served breakfast at about noon (that’s CET — it was then about 6 pm where we had departed, Eastern time). By the time we landed, it was evening in Paris, the middle of the night in Maryland, and the kids, who had slept in short bursts throughout the flight, were confused and alarmed that the sun was setting just after breakfast. (“Why is the sun setting ALREADY?!? That was the shortest day ever!” We effectively spent 30+ hours in the dark, which created some of the worst jet lag I’ve ever experienced.)

We were exhausted, we were disoriented, we missed the rest of our family already, but we were home (again).

Our only snow of the winter

Posted on March 11, 2014 by admin

It isn’t impossible that we will still get a big snow storm (we got snow in May last year, and frankly, if posting this jinxes us, I’d welcome it). But the birds are singing, the crocuses and paper whites have bloomed, and it’s light out when we wake up and when Dan gets home from work. Spring has unofficially come early to Vienna, and winter never really brought us snow this year.

We had a two small snows of 1-2 inches or less, and many days with snow showers or flurries. But the kids never got to go sledding, and the “Dachlawine!” signs never had to come out for the melting. We had, as always, plenty of cold and lots of gray skies, but, disappointingly, very little snow.

The only snow my boys really got to enjoy this year was a big snow we got in the US when we were home for Christmas (which inconveniently came the night before we were supposed to leave and resulted in an 8+ hour delay for our return flight home). At the time, I debated whether to let the boys go out and play in the snow — I was worried by how much laundry and packing of wet clothes I would be required to do afterwards. But I’m so glad I allowed the more fun part of my mind to rule. I’m so glad that they got two days of digging and playing in the snow, of snow angels and of shoveling the walk “to help the neighbors”. I’m glad they got to catch snowflakes on their tongues and toss snowballs at each other (and at us). If it was to be their only opportunity to play and enjoy the snow this winter, I am so very grateful that I didn’t allow worries over damp socks and soggy hats get in the way.

Something cinnamony

Posted on January 29, 2014 by admin

(I think everything is going to be out of sequence for a while — since I still have things to post from our *last* UK trip back in September, everything is obviously out of order — so, for now, back to Christmas!)

There are some insights you just can’t have about your own culture until you’ve stepped outside of it. Being home for Christmas was wonderful. Spending the holiday with family and getting to see a few friends was incredibly special. I was so happy to be home.

But, it’s also uncomfortable to feel like a stranger in my own country, to feel awkward and out of place in my hometown (especially because I spend all of my time in my new culture feeling awkward and out of place, too). But that’s the reality. I’ve forgotten how to do things in the US. Grocery shopping feels weird. I can’t exist normally in a coffee shop (I glare at the other patrons and feel compelled to greet and say farewell to the employees . . . at least I don’t do it in German) and I didn’t even attempt to drive. I look like I should fit, it seems like I should fit, but I just don’t. It’s ok — it comes with the territory.

This feeling extended to my social interactions — even those with my closest friends. On one occasion, I was making plans with a friend for a playdate. Our plans were coming together at the last minute — late on Saturday evening for early Sunday morning. As we finalized everything, I asked if I could bring anything along the next day, and when she responded, “Something cinnamony”, I panicked a little. I panicked because I was still in an Austrian mentality — and my first instinct was that since it was late on a Saturday and we didn’t have anything “cinnamony” in the house, that I wouldn’t be able to acquire anything. I instantly started thinking of what I could cobble together. I’m so accustomed to the Austrian shopping schedule, where the shops close at 6 on Saturday and don’t open until Monday morning. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to accommodate such a specific request.

After realizing that I was in the US, and that the shops are open all the time, I realized that getting something “cinnamony” (or anything else) would be a simple task. Regardless of how specific the request was, I’d probably have been able to manage it.

But then I started to wonder what I should get. What the right “cinnamony” thing would be. Whether this or that particular confection would be the best choice. And I started to freak out again, because the pressure of getting it right started to mount immediately. And although I *know* that it’s silly — this is one of my best and oldest friends, and I know that her enjoyment of our visit would have absolutely nothing to do with whether I brought the *right* thing to breakfast — I went from 0 to perfectionism in about 1 minute.

Because, since basically all the stores are open, all the time, there comes a kind of obligation. Since the stores ARE open, and since I COULD get just the right thing . . . shouldn’t I? Isn’t that the “right” thing to do? I felt a near-immediate return to so many of my perfectionist tendencies that I’ve worked so hard to let go of.

In Austria, things work differently. Because the availability of commerce is more limited (shops close down by 6 in the evening, and are closed on Sundays . . . some have very limited hours on Saturdays, too) the pressure to purchase the “right” thing is so much less, at least in part because it might not be possible. If I was going to a Sunday morning playdate, and my host requested “something cinnamony”, I’d either have something like that already in my house, or I wouldn’t. And if I did, it would likely be a partial package of cinnamon graham crackers, which I would happily bring along. And that would be completely ok.

But in the US, the opportunity to find just the right thing leads, I think, to an obligation to find just the right thing. Because the stores are open, we can use them, and therefore we should. And I think it creates a higher expectation all around.

The truth is, I’m sure my friend couldn’t have cared less. Just as I couldn’t have cared less whether she would have coffee for us when we arrived. But, just as I instantly snapped into a sense of perfectionism and obligation, I wondered (and worried) that she might, too. Since we were coming over, did they feel obligated to run out to the store (at 9:00 on a Saturday night) to make sure they had the things in the house that we might like to have when we arrived on Sunday morning? I certainly hoped they didn’t. It hadn’t been at all my intention to create any sense of pressure or obligation, but I knew, since I had just experienced it myself, that it might.

The interesting thing to me is that I’m not sure I would ever have had the awareness of the pressure I felt to provide the perfect thing if I had never lived without it. Or, at least, I never would have questioned it. Living in a culture with fewer hours of access to shopping inevitably lowers the bar when it comes to these kinds of expectations — sometimes the “perfect” thing isn’t available, so you have to make do with what’s convenient, and that’s completely acceptable. While in the States, I feel like I existed in a space where the availability of resources created an obligation to use them . . . and I wasn’t even aware of it.

I started thinking about other ways that this pressure exists in the US. Since the gym is always open, don’t we feel like we have no excuse if we don’t work out? Since the mall is open late and on the weekends, don’t we feel an obligation to purchase a perfect gift? Since the activities for the kids run all evening and all weekend, don’t we feel obligated to take advantage of them? I don’t think the availability of shopping creates this pressure on its own . . . the incredibly long store hours may instead be a reflection of the cultural requirement to have the perfect thing and to fit ALL THE STUFF into every 24 hours. I wonder if we haven’t convenienced ourselves into insanity.

What I know is that this pressure does not exist here. The feelings of “good enough” instead of “perfect”, of “making do” instead of “making it right”, are much more comfortable to me. Thinking of things in the “you CAN so you MUST” way makes me go a little crazy. I like that I can see it, because it allows me to opt out. I hope I can hold onto this perspective — it’s something I’d like to carry with me when we come home again.

(As it turns out, we stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for cinnamon donuts to take to my friend’s house . . . and chocolate donuts . . . and coffee . . . all at 8:00 in the morning, which was pretty fantastic.)

Gifts on Christmas Eve

Posted on January 16, 2014 by admin

Christmas in Vienna is lovely, and both times that we were there for the holidays we had a very nice (if very quiet) time. But nothing compares to Christmas with family.

The lead-up to Christmas Day in Vienna truly is wonderful. I’ve been completely won over by the coziness of the Christmas markets, the grand yet warm feeling of the lights hung over the busy streets and the peacefulness of focusing on togetherness and family over shopping and buying. I absolutely love it. I’m a convert. I hope to carry part of Christmas in Vienna with me my whole life. I hope that I have been fundamentally, irreversibly changed by experiencing it.

Christmas at home, surrounded by a bustling family, is where my heart really lives, though. Getting a tree, wrapping gifts, gathering for meals, watching my boys put the star(s) on the tree and spending the days leading up to Christmas Day playing and talking together — it was exactly the holiday I wanted to have.

Christmas Eve itself was a whirlwind of dinner, bath time, hanging stockings, sprinkling “reindeer food” on the lawn, leaving a snack for Santa, reading “The Night Before Christmas” and then tucking two very excited boys into bed a few hours later than I’d planned.

And then we elves went to work! The wrapping was mostly done, but all of the gifts had to be pulled out from where they’d been hidden away, batteries had to be put in place, everything had to be set out just right and we had two firetrucks with over 100 pieces each that needed to be assembled (thanks for that, Santa). It was a big job, but since this was our sixth Christmas as parents, Dan & I are not strangers to the late-night Christmas Eve gift assembly party. But this time, it really WAS a party. My brothers and sister came over and we all stayed up until well after midnight to fit tiny firehoses into brackets and figure out how to put together front-end wheel assemblies for the remote control options. Truly, nothing says “I love you” like putting together 177 pieces of plastic in the middle of the night.

It was great. It was festive. It was togetherness. Although they don’t yet appreciate it, my boys were on the receiving end of a lot of love from their whole family that night. After a couple of years of doing Christmas mostly on our own, there was an amazing sense of joy and celebration just in getting together to play Santa for Benjamin and Liam. I absolutely loved it.

And, around 1:00, when I was picking up the last little cardboard pieces, making sure the instructions were squirreled away, and turning off the lights, I realized that back in Vienna, Christmas morning was already over. Had we been in Vienna, instead of in Maryland, we would have been already finished with opening most of the gifts, and we would be impatiently waiting to talk to our family back home, to wish them a Merry Christmas and to let the boys share their excitement over everything Santa had brought for them. And that always has been one of the hardest things about celebrating Christmas far away. The time difference is more noticeable on Christmas Day than any other day of the year, because when we want to be celebrating and sharing it together, everyone at home is still sleeping . . . and by the time they’ve all gotten together to have Christmas dinner, we’re already on our way to bed in Vienna.

So that moment, the camaraderie of an evening spent constructing toys and the anticipation of the Christmas morning still to come, was pretty magical. Even being in the same time zone as our family would have been special enough, but getting to actually be together to celebrate was the best thing I could have gotten for Christmas this year.

Lumberjacks

Posted on January 14, 2014 by admin

For many years, we had the habit of foregoing the Christmas tree lot and heading out to rural Maryland to select and cut down our Christmas tree. The habit started with my dad, who almost always gets his trees this way (you certainly can’t beat the freshness, but the hour or so home with the tree tied to the top of my little car — part of it on major highways — was always a bit of a harrowing adventure).

I think the last year we did it was Benjamin’s first Christmas. That particular year, instead of taking cute pictures of our little baby in front of his first Christmas tree at the tree farm, we ended up with a screaming, miserable wind-blown baby with whom I retreated to the cold car where then proceeded to accidentally bang his head on the car door (which wasn’t the fault of the location) and we spent a miserable hour waiting for Dan to choose and retrieve a tree on his own. (Note, the tree in the picture is not “our” tree. We posed this picture at the end so we would have something to show for our efforts . . . other than just the tree.) That corrected my romantic notions about tree-felling with tiny children, and afterwards, while still in the States, we relied on the local tree lots for our trees.

I still really like the idea of cutting down our own tree, though, and, had we stayed in the US, it would only have been a matter of a few years until we had most likely returned to our yearly familial trek to the countryside for a tree.

In Vienna, though, that hasn’t been an option for us. Without a car, finding a place to get a tree and (more importantly) getting it home would have required entirely too much effort. (Although I did recently see someone transport their tree by city bus, and there was a lady who checked in a tree as luggage at the airport, so maybe I just didn’t think hard enough about a solution.) So, since we’ve been in Vienna, we’ve satisfied ourselves with the super-convenient tree lot across the street from our apartment building.

This year, since we spent the holidays in Maryland, we didn’t get a tree for our apartment in Vienna at all. It was strange not to have one. Decorating, and then enjoying, a festive tree is one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season, and I don’t follow the Austrian tradition of getting one at the last minute. I always want to have as much time as possible to enjoy it before (and after) the holidays. But I couldn’t think of a way to really make it practical to have one this year, since we were gone for 2 weeks, and Christmas trees aren’t even available here until mid-December. So we didn’t get one of our own.

With our trip home this year including an arrival shortly before Christmas (late on Dec. 20), my mom had already gotten and beautifully decorated her tree. It was like magic for the boys when they saw it (I get my high standards for tree decorating from my mom, but she’s had more practice). They absolutely loved it — especially because it was their job to put the finishing touches on. I think *not* having one ourselves this year made it even more special to arrive at Grandma’s and to have one so beautiful to enjoy.

The boys really got the best of both worlds this year, though, because the day after our arrival we headed out to cut down a tree with my dad. Although Benjamin had technically been on such an adventure before, he had no memory of it, and Liam had never been. We were so fortunate to have amazing (if not very Christmassy) weather for it — we didn’t even need our coats!

It was so much fun to watch the boys rush off to find and inspect trees. Liam nominated the very first one that we saw. They chose big ones and small ones, of several different types. (They had a strong preference for “soft” ones that they could touch or hug without getting hurt.) After a bit of dashing about, nominating trees, and befriending a little boy they met (they were simply FASCINATED that he could speak English!), with Grandpa’s, Sam’s, Margie’s and Adam’s help, we finally chose “the tree” for Grandpa’s house this year. The kids were thrilled.

And then, to top it off, Benjamin actually got to get down on the ground and help Grandpa with the saw. He cut down his very first tree! And then, he was so proud that he pretty much pushed Uncle Adam aside when it was time to carry the tree back to the cashier. Both boys were so proud to be able to help.

And so, the boys got to play lumberjack, and they got to take part in a piece of Christmas tradition I’d been wanting them to experience. I suspect that in the years to come, whatever we decide to do in terms of acquiring our own tree, going and hunting down a tree with Grandpa is doing to remain high on their list of favorite Christmas traditions. (I don’t think that true December weather will even dampen their enthusiasm at all!)

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Adventures in the US