Guest post: re: packing

Posted on October 17, 2013 by admin

And here is Dan’s perspective on the packing and general chaos of last Saturday.

Faithful readers of AMommyAbroad will already be aware that I was entrusted with packing for our latest trip. Emily, with great serenity, stepped aside and allowed me to do it my way with no interference.

For reference, Emily’s way somewhat resembles a military commander marshaling her forces for a campaign. Elements are gathered at staging locations at least a week in advance, deploy in-theater a day or two in advance, and culminate in an unstoppable onslaught of preparedness and organization.

Myself, well, I’ve always appreciated the benefits of that level of organization, but I’ve also felt it took too long, was too stressful, and we took too much stuff. At the same time, I never offered to do it because the sheer number of distinct items needed to make traveling with kids go smoothly boggled my mind and I couldn’t imagine thinking of it all. Emily was always the clear choice of packer.

However, it’s a lot more work than all other pre-trip tasks combined (except maybe planning the trip, which Emily also does), so when Emily suggested I pack for this trip – a short in-country trip to a place we’d been before – I thought it would be a good chance to pull my own weight. Emily would make sure our dog, Bailey, was taken care of, and I would pack for the family.

This wasn’t a test, or punishment, so Emily was happy to be a resource. She answered questions about where to find things like the boys winter wear and provided her most recent packing list.

I knew I would pack in a fraction of the time that Emily took. I knew we’d bring less stuff. I hoped, that with a skillful application of Pareto’s Law, I’d do a good job and we’d have everything we needed.

I came home early from work the evening before we left and started packing. I initially worked without a list, simply trusting to intuition informed by all the trips we’d been on before. I gathered almost everything we needed pretty quickly – a few hours with breaks for dinner and whatnot. But then I had to stop for movie night and then putting the boys to bed. By the time I resumed packing, it was after midnight. And Emily soon wanted to go to bed. I piled everything I’d gathered into a suitcase and brought it and two vacuum storage bags of winter clothing out to the living room and proceeded to finish.

Oh, that sucked.

Of course I’d left the hardest stuff for last. And trying to be quiet so as not to disturb a sleeping house while searching through crinkly plastic bags and hallway chests was a huge pain. The whole process became painfully slow and frustrating, which, combined with that whole it’s-past-1-AM thing, sapped my motivation and I slowed down, which just made it all worse. Finally, satisfied I’d gathered (but not packed) everything, I spent too much time on FaceBook. And then went to bed. At 03:18.

In the morning, the remainder if what I had to do delayed us probably close to an hour, which I didn’t feel too terrible about. We were, for the first time, renting a car in Vienna and driving to out destination, so we weren’t on a strict schedule. And Emily was being very understanding.

So, about an hour late, I went to pick up the car, discovering, as I was walking out of our courtyard while looking up the address of the rental car place, that I had somehow rented the car for a weekend two months in the future.

Er.

I went back inside and made an embarrassed call to Sixt which rectified the situation. We’d get a slightly nicer car and have to pay ~100 € extra. I left again.

The Vienna City Sixt didn’t have a car in that class yet and I’d have to wait until one arrived from the airport.

Er.

Emily was still understanding, but keeping two boys who were very excited about vacation and the car Daddy was going to bring home from tearing the house apart like two lion cubs made of flubber was started to take its toll.

But, earlier than they’d said, the car arrived! And a child’s seat! And a piece of styrofoam! Wait, what? “That’s the booster seat.” “You don’t have one of those, you know, more substantial booster seats…with the back and arms?” Nope. Okay…

I installed the seat and tossed the styrofoam in the back and drove home. Thank God for built-in nav; Vienna is *not* friendly to cars and it took me as long to drive the convoluted route home as it would have taken without the car.

Emily was not happy about the styrofoam. I put B in it and it seamed to be safe enough, but, given Em’s discomfort, I decided to drive us back to Sixt to ask for a child’s seat. Good thing too…the booster seat only kept Benjamin safe as long as he sat up straight…not something a tired 5-year-old is going to realistically do for a 3-hour drive.

The Vienna City Sixt was, after calling around, able to locate a child’s seat at the Westbahnhof Sixt. So we drove there (again, thank God for nav) and picked it up and installed it and had a late lunch as we were all starving.

We finally left Vienna.

…5 hours later than planned.

We arrived at Grubsteighof at night, having had to scramble to find groceries and dinner before everything closed (which they do in Austria on Saturdays).

Oy.

I forgot story books for the boys. I forgot my razor. One morning Liam wanted comfy shorts I elected not to pack. Liam slept in comfy pants on our last night because his diaper had leaked the night before and his only pair of pajamas got wet. We couldn’t offer the boys sunglasses because I didn’t pack them. There’s a good chance they wouldn’t have worn them, but still. The boys were congested and I didn’t bring their decongestant spray.
I didn’t bring a roll of paper towels for the car. I packed a dozen folded up in a suitcase instead, but, while that space-consciousness makes sense for air travel, it doesn’t for a car trip. A full roll would have made all the difference if we’d been hit with stomach viruses like we were on our first UK trip.

More disappointing, I didn’t include the boys in picking out what to bring. They like having a say in what they wear, and it gives them a sense of ownership to share in the preparations.

What else? Oh, I packed two right snow boots of different sizes for Liam. Em caught that before we left and fixed it.
I laid out a dirty onesie for Liam to wear the day we left. Em caught that too.

What have I learned? Well, leaving the packing to the last minute didn’t cause the problems with the rental car (I normally do a good job with that, by the way), but it meant we started the day off-balance to begin with. Not how you want to feel when there are problems to be dealt with. And it meant that I didn’t check everything, and so I didn’t catch my mistakes. Some of the things I forgot were actually on the packing list Em gave me.

I’ve also learned that packing in one shot is indeed more efficient than packing over the course of days when you have children. Emily always has a lot of work to do protecting her staging areas so they don’t get knocked over or have small items pilfered by curious boys, and she always has to make sure the bed is clear at the end of the day so we can sleep on it. A one-shot job avoids that.

But I probably won’t ever do it that way in the future. Again, it’s the kids. There’s too much to Daddy work to do in the evening, every evening, for me to just add a full packing job in there, even with Emily’s support. And if the hypothetical one-shot job is the night before we leave, then I run the risk of discovering I need something we don’t have. If it’s not the night before, then I’ll have all the same work of protecting my packing job for a couple of days.

I want another chance. Not the next trip, because that’s a big one and I plan to just be as supportive and helpful as possible given my new-found appreciation for the difficulties involved. But the next trip after that, I want to try again.

Wish me luck!

The lost day

Posted on October 16, 2013 by admin

I had a plan. (I always have a plan.) The dog sitter was coming at 8:30 to pick up Bailey, Dan needed to pick up the car, we would have some last-minute packing to do, we all needed to have breakfast, and Dan and I each needed a shower. I set my alarm for 7:30, with a goal of leaving the house at 10:00, but I really wanted to be on the road to Salzburg by 11:00. We’d have a busy morning, but not a crazy one.

But, things did not go according to plan. Dan, who was in charge of packing for this trip, left everything until the last minute. The morning became a flurry of tracking down boots (Dan had packed two right foot boots in two different sizes for Liam), finding winter clothes and accessories not yet unearthed from last winter, and keeping the kids out of piles of semi-organized but as yet unpacked clothes. But the last-minute packing was to be the smallest of our delays for the day.

Running only a little late (the 10:00 departure time was now impossible, but leaving at 11:00 was still a reasonable goal), Dan left to pick up the rental car from the other side of central Vienna. And then he came right back, because he realized that he had booked the car for the wrong dates. A somewhat frantic Germenglish phone call to the rental car company later, and he was off again, with a new car reserved. Except that when he got there, it wasn’t there. They had arranged to have the car brought over from another location (at the airport) but it wouldn’t be there … until noon.

Our schedule was quickly slipping away. But Dan managed to get the car, install the two rented car seats, and get back to us by shortly after 12:30. We were late, but it was still manageable. We could still arrive by late afternoon, with time to relax before dinner. We gathered up our things, got the shoes on the kids and went downstairs to pack the car … only to discover we had the wrong car seat for Benjamin.

We’ve run into this before. B is quite small and light for his age, so when we reserve the correct seat for him and also provide his age, they second-guess us and provide him with a booster (appropriate for a bigger child, but also technically ok for a 5 year old). Of course, he saw it and was so excited to have a “big kid” seat, so I was the most unpopular mommy (and wife) when I insisted we take it back and switch it for a regular car seat.

Of course, the original rental place didn’t have an appropriate seat, so we had to pick it up at yet another rental location. The one *they* had was too small for B, though, so we had to switch Liam to the new seat and put B in the one that had been “Liam’s”. Sigh.

At this point, we were exhausted, starving, and still in Vienna. What’s another 40 minutes, though? So we stopped for lunch.

At 3:45, we were finally all in the car, strapped into appropriate seats, fed, and on our way. Nearly 6 hours after we had planned to leave. 6 hours late for a just-over-3-hour trip (really, closer to 4 hours with several bathroom breaks). We could have almost driven to Salzburg and back in the time it took us to get out the door.

In all, it felt like the day that we didn’t have on our trip. Instead of a leisurely drive, stopping as we liked along the way, we instead started out tired and wishing we were already at our destination. Instead of having time to play and shop for groceries when we arrived, it was a stop at McDonald’s for dinner and then nearly straight to bed.

This was a hard one. I try to be flexible. I try not to let circumstances, mistakes or other frustrations take away from my experience of the moment. I try to stay mindful of the fact that although our day did not go as intended, nothing actually bad happened. I try to remember that we will remember this as a great, fun, relaxing trip, and that if remember the day spent watching tv and wandering through Vienna at all, it will probably be with humor. It truly was a fine day. At the end, we were safe and happy and where we wanted to be. But this was a tough one for me in terms of staying positive and choosing to be happy. I managed, but it wasn’t easy.

Role reversal

Posted on October 11, 2013 by admin

We travel pretty frequently. As someone who has distinct memories of a week-long near panic of overwhelmedness the first time we flew to Florida as a family (and that was just with Benjamin), I can say we’ve gotten this pretty well down to a science. It is something that gets better (and easier) with practice. We’ve learned what and how to pack. We’ve learned how to choose a great hotel and the most functional transportation for our purposes. We’ve learned that almost anything that seems like a major crisis (head injury at Edinburgh Castle, ER trip in the States, vomiting across England, child who cries all night on the sleeper train, all of our luggage lost on the first day of a 17 day trip) can be overcome, and will even be funny in hindsight.

Honestly, I feel like we’ve got a relatively expert handle on traveling with the kids. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take a TON of work to pull it off. For a week-long trip (or longer), I start packing and organizing at least 2 weeks before we leave. I strategize which clothes will wear the best (and longest), how to be efficient without being spartan, and how to cover our bases for as many weather situations as possible. (And, I’ve watched too many episodes of shows like “Survivorman” and “I Shouldn’t Be Alive”, so I secretly harbor an illogical belief that we could, on any trip, conceivably end up stranded on a snowy mountainside for days.) I prepare. I plan. I’ve gotten really good at it.

We’re going away this weekend. Dan has a day off next week, so we’re taking a long weekend and going to our favorite working farm outside of Salzburg, with plans to spend a day in Hallstatt, which we’ve always wanted to visit. It’s a short trip, so we don’t need a ton of stuff. We’ve stayed in this place before, so we know what they already have. We’re renting a car, so we have lots of flexibility with schedule and space (we only have to carry the luggage downstairs, and it doesn’t matter how many trips it takes). Also, the area where we’ll be has lots of shops, so nothing that we forget will be a major problem. This is a much easier endeavor than our usual long trips that involve train or air travel.

So, this time, Dan is in charge of packing. He’s been wanting to give it a try, and I’m enthusiastic to give him a chance (partly because I think he’d going to be a bit more impressed by how hard it is once he’s done it, and partly because he tends to create shortcuts I don’t think of). I made the hotel reservation and he rented the car (our usual duties) but he’s packing for himself and the kids, and I’ve made arrangements for Bailey (which is our switcharoo for this time).

There is no question in my mind that I won out on this deal (although that’s only because I typically do the proverbial heavy lifting in this equation). I started packing for myself yesterday morning and was shocked when I was mostly finished 10 minutes later. All of my stuff (including the snow pants I’m bringing, just in case) would fit in my medium-sized backpack with a fair bit of room to spare. I can pack the few things I have left (the things that have to wait until the last minute) in 10 minutes (or maybe less). I’m ready to go.

We leave tomorrow. The packing for the rest of the family . . . hasn’t started yet. I’ve done mountains of laundry, so Dan has all of the supplies he needs, he just hasn’t packed anything yet. There was a time in my life when I would have been stressed out completely at this point, and probably would have started doing it myself. But, not today! I know Dan, and I know that he will, in some way that seems miraculous, make this all work. I know it’ll work out. And I suspect we’re both going to learn something from this. (For instance, I already know that I don’t have to start packing 2 weeks ahead of time. It remains to be seen whether this turns out to be a superior plan, though!)

R’s house

Posted on October 8, 2013 by admin

Although I’m an introvert, I like to talk to people. It’s fun getting to know new people, hearing their stories, finding out what life is like for them. It’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed about all of our travels, and one of the (very many) things I’ve loved so much about visiting England, Scotland and Ireland — since I speak English, connecting with the people we’ve met there has been the easiest and the most rewarding. On our first trip, we met lots of new people, and this last time (back in July and August of this year), especially since we went back to some of the same places, we made some good friends.

Our single favorite place to stay has been Littletown Farm, where the food is amazing, the rooms are cozy, the scenery is stunning and the company is warm and charming. Besides, one of the Beatrix Potter stories I grew up with was actually set at the farm. (What’s not to love?)

Along with our wonderful hosts there, Rob and Sarah, are their children. Their youngest, R (he’s not my child, so I’m not putting his name on the Internet!), is only a few months younger than Benjamin, and on our first visit, the two of them instantly bonded over a love of Lightning McQueen. Ever since that first trip, Littletown has been known as “R’s house” in our family, and both of my boys would often ask when we were going back to “visit our friend R”. (In fact, everyone we met on our entire trip to the UK who asked the boys what we were doing on our vacation was told that “we’re visiting our friends in England”.)

My boys were so happy to be reunited with their friend on this most recent trip. Each morning, and after every meal, the constant question was, “Where’s R?”, and Benjamin explored all over the property seeking him out to play. (I think R enjoyed it too — he apparently talked in his sleep about playing with Benjamin, too.) B even got to explore some parts of the farm usually off-limits to guests, since he was escorted by R.

My boys loved playing with R. They started asking about our next visit to R’s house before we got back to Austria. I’m so happy to see my kids making new friends as we travel, too. And I’m sure we’ll make it back to R’s house again.

“Drive on the left!”

Posted on August 21, 2013 by admin

Whenever we rent a car, it’s never so easy (or inexpensive) as JUST renting the car. We need two car seats and a GPS as well. (We own car seats for both boys, but dragging them around the world is impractical, and the navigation provided by our phones is only free in Austria.) It adds up to a lot of expense — the cost of the GPS and car seats is usually as much as (or more than) renting the car itself.

It’s entirely worth it. Although I do miss our wonderful car seats from home, they’re heavy and bulky and I’d worry about them being cargo when we fly. And the GPS is essential — not so much to get us where we’re going (we could look up directions from anywhere we could get wi-fi) but because it enables to deviate from our planned route, always knowing we’ll find our way back. Sometimes we do that out of need (stopping for a potty break or looking for lunch) but, even more often, we do it by choice. We can take the “scenic route”, explore an interesting looking turn off of the main road, or just drive, always knowing we’ll be able to get back to wherever we were headed. We do it all the time — it’s one of our favorite things to do when we travel (that’s how a 2.5 hour drive became an 8 hour one in Scotland, and how a 2 hour drive became an 8.5 hour one in Ireland). It’s how we have some of our favorite experiences and get to see some amazing places. So we feel the GPS is always worth it (though with what we’ve spent renting them, we probably should have just bought one at this point).

We had fun with ours on our most recent trip to the UK and Ireland, setting the English language accent as appropriate to where we were (English, Scottish or Irish). And we also laughed each time we turned it on, because EVERY TIME we started it up, it gave off an alarm sound and reminded us to “Drive on the left!” (including the exclamation point). That still didn’t stop me from ALSO reminding Dan myself that he should drive on the left, not only each time we started out, but also almost every time he made a turn from one road to the next. Dan did an amazing job, though — he drove on the correct side the entire time! (And I’m incredibly grateful to have gotten to experience far-flung parts of England, Ireland and Scotland without having to drive at all. I would have been a stressed out mess on those tiny roads AND driving on the “wrong” side.) It is amazing how ingrained the habit of driving on the right is — I kept wanting to get in the car on the wrong side, and crossing the street, I had to constantly remind myself to look both ways VERY thoroughly, because if I didn’t think about it, I would forget which direction the traffic was likely to be coming from.

It’s funny, though, because I don’t recall our GPS shouting and dinging at us to “Drive on the left!” the last time we were in the UK — and even though the two GPSes we rented during this trip were different models, they BOTH had the warning. (I wonder when they added that feature — and I wonder if it makes UK drivers crazy, or if there’s an option somewhere to turn it off?)

(As a note, we had Tom Tom GPS units on both pieces of our trip, and in both cases we had good experiences. Again.)

No rain, no rainbows

Posted on August 20, 2013 by admin

On both of our trips to the British Isles, we’ve had incredible luck with the weather. (We actually seem to have fantastic luck with the weather wherever we go.) England and Ireland are known for being gray and rainy. And although we’ve had more dry days than wet ones when we’ve been there, I’ve never been disappointed by a rainy day in the UK or in Ireland. After all, the only way the countryside can be so wonderfully lush and green is for a lot of rain to fall. Not only that, but we kind of WANT to have appropriately British weather when we’re visiting Britain — otherwise, it feels like we’re kind of missing out on some of the experience.

In addition to making everything vibrantly green, the persistent rain showers in England also seem to create excellent rainbows. We saw several rainbows during our most recent trip (all of them in England, although I have to imagine that Ireland can spawn some impressive rainbows as well — not only because it’s an equally drizzly country, but also because of the ubiquitous folklore and imagery that ties Ireland and rainbows together) but one was particularly outstanding. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a double rainbow, and the bottom arch was visible across it’s entire length — from the ground, up into the sky and back to the ground again. We were so struck by how vivid and complete it was that we pulled the car over and got out to see. For the first time in my life, I could actually SEE the rainbow’s end (it was at the base of a tree in a cow field not very far from where we were). I’ve always been a bit perplexed by the whole “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” thing, because I’d never before been able to see where a rainbow ended. They have always dissolved far above the ground, leaving a vague sense of their destination. But this one was clear. It was amazing, and it lasted for quite a while (we stopped, stared, exclaimed, gazed at it and took lots of pictures before getting in our car and heading to dinner, and it was still there). As the rain shower which created it marched off down the valley, the rainbow shifted slowly up the hillside, but only lost a bit of its clarity.

We were so impressed that we were still talking about it the next morning at breakfast, and mentioned it to our host, who smiled and gave us a look that clearly said, “Yeah, you’re not from around here.” I guess the perfect rainbows just come along with the verdant hills and the need to carry a raincoat everywhere. Just another amazing thing from that part of the world.

Pilot and copilot

Posted on August 19, 2013 by admin

I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure that we travel a lot more than average with our kids. My boys have each already logged more airborne miles than I had by the time I was 30. But for some reason, we’d never done the whole “visit the cockpit” thing — I’m not sure why. It might be that we haven’t flown airlines that are likely to invite a child to stop by, or that we often have felt stretched pretty thin while flying, or that we were always supposed to be the ones that suggested it, and it never occurred to us. (Is it something that even happens anymore in the US these days?)

A few months ago, a friend posted pictures of her grandson sitting in the copilot’s seat of an airliner, and it seemed kind of odd to me that it was something that my boys hadn’t yet experienced, so I made a mental note. But I didn’t know how it would work. Who should we ask? When? The first day of our most recent trip involved too much stress and literal running to even think about it (besides, one plane actually waited at the gate for us while we raced through the airport and had our Legitamations cards scowled at by German passport control, so they’d already done plenty for us).

But on the second day of our trip, early in the morning, we were the first to board, the cockpit door was open and the flight attendant was immediately friendly to the kids, so we asked. She said we couldn’t do it before takeoff, but she asked the pilot and he told us to come back after landing. B was so excited. He started telling me about how he couldn’t wait to see the front of the plane, and how he needed to learn how to fly it because he’s going to be a pilot one day (the first time I’d heard that particular aspiration) followed by Liam’s enthusiastic, “Yeah!”

After a quick trip to Edinburgh, we stopped by after landing. The pilot (who looked closer to Benjamin’s age than mine) was happy to have both boys visit. The kids were so happy. B was a little overwhelmed by all of the buttons and levers, but Liam wiggled his way right in and started pushing buttons and flipping switches. I was afraid they were going to do something catastrophic, but the pilot assured me that everything was off and that as long as the parking brake stayed on, we were good. After a moment, both kids had made themselves at home and were completely thrilled by the experience. They loved it.

We had such a good time that the next time we flew, B asked — all by himself! — if they could go in again, and again, they got to go — they even got to bring their dinosaurs along. This time, the pilots seemed a bit wary of Liam’s desire to mess mostly with the big red buttons (the ones that seemed like maybe not the best choice for operation by a 2 year old), but they were still great about showing the kids around, and even demonstrated what all the warning lights looked like. (We tried again after our next flight, but they said no — and I was impressed at how well the boys took it. They seemed to completely understand.)

Both boys already love flying, and I have the distinct impression that this is something they’re going to make a habit of. I expect that flight attendants around the world will now be subjected to the sweet, polite, super cute requests of Benjamin and Liam.

Lost luggage

Posted on August 5, 2013 by admin

It was bound to happen eventually — after 9 or so international journeys (I’m losing count) our luggage was lost on our trip to the UK. It’s easy to see how it happened. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and we got to the gate without a problem. Then, just at boarding time, our flight disappeared from the monitoring screen at the gate — never a good sign. Then “all passengers connecting to London” (us, plus a woman named Dorothy) were called up to the desk. Our flight was delayed, and the airline was worried about us missing our connection, so we were rebooked on another airline, connecting through Cologne. We were assured our luggage would be rerouted, too, and of course we were only ACTUALLY booked from Vienna to Cologne, but we had to go “right now” to make our flight, and so we did.

We were only booked standby on our new flight, and although we got seats, they weren’t together. But while the first person I asked to switch so B and I could sit together actually said no (Dan worked out seating for himself and Liam), another passenger switched with me, and yet another switched so that B could have a window seat, and all was well.

Until THAT flight was delayed by about 45 minutes, which resulted, after a trip to the check-in counter for another booking, in a flat-out “Home Alone” style sprint through the Cologne airport while they actually held the plane at the gate for us while we got through security and passport control. Of course, we didn’t have seats together on that flight either, and the plane was literally backing away from the gate while we sorted things out. (Again, one person gave up their seat so B & I could be together while another volunteered to switch so that B, who wasn’t even whining, could have the window. People are awesome.)

So, sweaty and exhausted, we made it onto a plane bound for Stansted airport, and, 2 hours later than we’d planned, we finally arrived. But our luggage did not. So there we were, day 1 of an 18 day trip, with two kids, no bags and an early morning flight the next morning to Edinburgh (after which we planned to rent a car and drive 3 hours further away).

On the bright side, everyone we talked to from the airline was thoroughly helpful. Also, we didn’t have much luggage to drag to our hotel. And, I got to do a bit of unplanned shopping for the family at a mall outside of Edinburgh. By late the next evening, our bags had been located, and, with our carry on stuff, the fruits of our shopping excursion, and the kids’ clothes kindly lent to us by our bed & breakfast hosts (who have a 4 year old son), we barely missed a beat of our vacation. Both suitcases were delivered on the fourth day of our trip, safe & sound. (Never have I been so glad to see old socks.)

Our trip is going wonderfully (lost luggage aside), but we fly to Ireland tomorrow, and I can’t help over-thinking every single thing I pack in our carry on — instead of packing light and taking just what we need for the trip, I feel a little like I’m packing the carry on for wilderness survival for a week. We managed quite well for being without our bags for about 72 hours, but I’d really rather not do it again . . . especially not on this same trip.

Can it possibly be like we remember?

Posted on July 26, 2013 by admin

We’ve just about arrived at the “vacation” part of our summer vacation. We leave this weekend to spend 2+ weeks in England, Scotland and Ireland. Yes, we were there for 2 weeks less than a year ago, and we’re going back already. We loved it that much.

I wonder, as I do anytime I go back to a place I’ve been before, if we’ll like it as much this time. Was it a fluke, or was it really as fantastic as we remember? After a night outside of London and an early flight the next morning to Edinburgh, we’ll actually drive back into England and spend 5 days in the Lake District, at the same place we stayed last year (it was so great last year that we just had to go back . . . and stay longer this time). We’ll follow that with a night in Glasgow (which will be new to us) on our way to the coastal highlands (which we tried to visit last time, but we had to reroute that part of the trip due to illness). Then we fly to Ireland, visiting both Northern Ireland and the Republic while we’re there, before flying back to London to spend a last day there before we come home. I am really excited to go back to my absolutely favorite travel destinations so far.

Last year, when we were in England, we fell in love. There wasn’t a single place we visited where we didn’t find something wonderful. And then, astonishingly, we maybe even loved Ireland more. (We loved Scotland, too, but we saw so little of it that I want to reserve judgement.) We were lucky to have wonderful weather most of the time (an anomaly, I know) and to meet kind and welcoming people (who all spoke English, which, alone, was a treat for us) throughout our travels. So, with amazing, picture-postcard-perfect memories like these, is it possible that it’s going to be as great this time around?

And then I pause for a moment and remember the other stuff that was also true of our trip. I planned parts of it very poorly, and we ended up driving for hours (and hours and hours) in some cases (I think the worst day involved 11 hours of car and air travel). We got a flat tire while we were in the Lake District, had to limp back to the hotel on the bad tire with both kids soaking wet in the backseat, and had to wait until the next day to have it fixed. Both boys got horrible stomach illnesses. They were sick in 3 different countries, 4 different hotels and 1 car. Liam fell when we were at Edinburgh Castle and bonked his head and we spent the rest of that day in the Emergency Room. Our hotel in York had NO HEAT even though it was COLD. Our trip to the Giant’s Causeway was a disaster — the weather was terrible, the kids were miserable, we had to change a diaper outside, in the rain — I don’t think that trip could have been more traumatic if there had actually BEEN a giant in residence.

But, for all of that . . . *including* all of that, in some cases, partially BECAUSE of some of those things . . . it was my favorite trip that we’ve taken since we’ve been abroad. (Well, it was my favorite destination(s) — having 2 of my sisters with us in Italy might have made that *trip* my favorite.) Without blowing out our tire, we would never have had a warm, boisterous, a la carte dinner with our fellow travellers in the Lake District. Without the kids being sick we would have spent even MORE time driving, and would have missed out on one of our favorite pieces of Scotland. The stories and pictures from our miserable day at the Giant’s Causeway make me smile and laugh EVERY time I think of them. We had a fantastic, wonderful, amazing, memorable, family trip, and it didn’t have to be even nearly perfect to be magical.

So, I don’t think we’re painting an overly rosy picture of our trip from last year — I think we just had a great time. This trip won’t have to be perfect to be excellent, either. I’ll be there with my most favorite people in the world, in some of my most favorite places in the world. We’ve got less driving, less “stuff” to do, and more downtime planned. We’re going back to some of our favorite places and trying out some of the ones we wish we’d seen last time. (And, it’s also true that everyone still speaks English, so that’s still going to be a major plus again.) I’m so excited to go back.

Assorted thoughts on Paris

Posted on June 28, 2013 by admin

A few thoughts and notes about our most recent trip to Paris:

* The last time we went to Paris, I was surprised at how beautiful it was. It’s one of those things, like hearing how green Ireland is, that you hear so often that you figure it can’t live up to the hype. But, it does. And then, if anything, it was even more beautiful this time of year. The roses have bloomed, the twilight lasts for hours, and the color of the Seine during the long dusk is amazing.

* The late, long evening really messed with our heads. One night, we accidentally kept the kids out until 10:15, when it had just started to get dark. The next night, wiser and more aware, we accidentally stayed out until 10:40. The following night, we were out until after 11. Oops.

* Beignets! How did I live for 36 years without ever eating one? My life is now complete (or would be, if I lived across the street from the bakery that made the ones we ate in Paris). Last visit, we swooned over the macaroons, this time, the beignets. Our current theory is that we might have to try every bakery in France to determine what their particular speciality is. Ah, France!

* For the first time ever in our air travel with the kids, we checked our stroller (complete with gliding board) at the ticket counter, instead of at the gate. We were pleasantly surprised to find it easier to move through the airport without it (except that Vienna now has a separate security line for people with strollers, which would have been nice). So often, a gate-checked stroller isn’t returned until baggage claim anyway, so it didn’t make any difference on the arrival end, and it made us feel even less encumbered by stuff prior to departure. Not sure we’ll do it every time, but it’s probably something we’ll try again. (The kids did have their Trunkis to ride instead. Not sure I would have ditched the stroller otherwise.)

* We bypassed the stroller hell of the Paris Metro by taking a cab from the airport to our apartment. I didn’t have a concrete plan for getting back, though, other than the phone book. But, lo & behold, I found an advertisement for a taxi service, listing reasonable fares, attached to a street light near our apartment. In what might have been a major lapse in judgement, I contacted them. And it turned out perfectly. Our driver, Raphael, showed up right on time and got us quickly, comfortably & safely to the airport (for a good fare — a few Euro less than it cost us to go the other direction). It was a gamble that paid off. (Info: http://www.navette770.com/ ). I would absolutely use them again.

Liam, with the world’s largest lollipop (actually, 15 of them, cleverly packaged), and Benjamin, afraid he won’t get any (he did)

* Since the kids are off of bottles and don’t use pacis, we’ve struggle with how to handle ear pain from pressure changes during the flights. They usually get so upset so quickly that we can’t coax them into drinking water, milk, or even juice from their sippy cups, and they end up just having to tough it out. This time, we tried something new that worked great — lollipops! The kids feel like they’re getting a special treat, and they last long enough to get through the pressure change (wait until you’re rolling for takeoff to hand them out, though). Coming home, we were out, and had to go shopping. Our only success was a mega-pack at the Duty Free shop at the airport. (Now we have some for our next trip!)

I think that’s it from our trip to Paris. More soon from Vienna again!

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

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