Icy space/time February 2 - 16, 2006 Traveling to the alternative reality of European winter

	So this is how we pictured our return to our old country -- looking at Greenland, though

	Tom inseparable from his luggage

Every trip to our old country invokes in me a sense of time travel. Different climate, different time zone, and an absolute separation of my former life from my current reality -- all this creates such a confusion that my brain feels it easier to accept a vacation like, well, living in an alternate space/time.

This time, in winter, the change in weather felt quite strong. Right before departure, we were hoping that temperatures around zero (Fahrenheit) would recede and we would be able to take our kids out sometimes. Somebody up there was merciful and we received perhaps the best weather we could wish for -- lots of snow and temperatures just below freezing. Thus we encountered no cruel cold, no inversions, not even muddy slush and dirty black and gray middle-european winter depression. Even so, the trip represented a great deal of stress for all of us.

The first flight leg was with United Airlines. So far I had heard about them, the stories were more negative than otherwise, but we were satisfied. No line at the check-in, the ground attendant was quite welcoming. She said that the plane was to be half-full, and re-arranged our reservation quickly so that we had a few empty seats between us, which we could extend to. We used the extra space liberally (in the end we occupied six seats). Lifting the hand rests allowed Lizzy to crawl up and down the whole middle row; Tom could stretch out and sleep in almost civilized position. Not that the children would overuse their opportunity to doze off, but at least they more or less slept through the last two hours of the flight. Given that they wanted, besides seat room, grab as much as possible real estate on their mother, I was essentially out of luck with sleeping (imagine trying to sleep under a live blanket with four sharp elbows and four sharp knees, which weighs altogether some forty pounds).

	Tom with grandpa and Annie

	A family snapshot Prague grandma, Tom, Annie, great grandmother, Carol and Lisa

When switching planes in Frankfurt, Germany, Tom caused an awful scene. We aimed to use a moving walkway -- yet Tom did not know how to get on with "his" luggage and refused to continue without it. Eventually we -- while providing entertainment to fellow travelers -- had to cycle around and around one stretch of the walkway, until junior learned the whole procedure. The hand luggage turned out to be probably the best present Tom has ever gotten -- despite never being intended as a present, much less one for Tom. But it was on sale and the day of our departure was getting near -- a must buy! Tom immediately fell in love with this small red carry-on: it's got wheels (an important attribute to every boy's toy) and one can pack and move things inside. At home, Tom used to drag a few of his toy train engines and cars around in it, but for our trip we packed it with regular heavy stuff -- nevertheless Tommy stubbornly insisted on pulling this and no other luggage with him during all our traveling. We must have looked like a pair of exploiters of children, especially during our shorter journeys within Czechia and traveling light (usually the only carry-on was Lisa), while our poor toddler dragged a loaded red luggage in our footsteps.

Tom fell asleep during our short flight to Vienna, and was morose after landing. We still had to work out a car rental and moving the whole circus to their parking lot. In that moment, another problem arose around the red luggage. Tom refused to let go of it, but in twenty five degrees (F) the frost was getting under his fingernails. Hence he was either squealing desperately that his hands ached, or he cried for we were taking away his luggage. I would like to use this space to point out a subtle inaccuracy in the meaning of certain descriptions -- for example, under the term "renting a car at the airport" (for which we paid €49.31 extra) I imagine a car at the exit from the terminal -- not a half mile farther down. Not that I would be generally opposed to a small walk. but with ten pieces of luggage, with a stroller, a baby and a sleepy toddler, on a frosty evening, it was somewhat far. Moreover, we had been put under an impression that a "minivan" must be relatively spacious vehicle -- and instead we had to make do with Opel Meriva, which can accommodate comfortably about two briefcases, but not a four-member family. We had two large suitcases, two car seats (with kids on them), a collapsible stroller, three carry-ons, a laptop computer, a camera, Tom's backpack with toys (not to be confused with his red luggage) -- and we ended up with Lisa traveling practically with the stroller on her head. We somehow all fit into the car and could cover the last few dozens of miles of our journey to Brno.

We were on our way for twenty hours and our children went limp right away when the car moved. We felt it being a crazy brutality to wake them up two hours later, but we had no choice. Lisa managed OK, she has not been into this sleeping thing anyway. Tom, however, is used to his 10 hours of uninterrupted night-time sleep, and so he whimpered through the first two hours of his visit to his grandmother. Alas, it was not the last time. A positive nine-hour difference meant that Tommy would always eagerly crawl into his bed harboring a hope in vain that this time, he would be finally allowed to sleep enough. Subsequently, every afternoon waking up was accompanied by much crying and our afternoon program marred by Tom's bad mood and general disinterest in doing anything meaningful.

	Look-alikes skip a generation

	Tom with his grandma from Brno

I have to say that I was taken by surprise by how badly our children dealt with the change. Lizzy channeled her stress from a strange environment and a change of both climate and time, into her usual solution -- she held tight to me and would not let go. She has always been very attached to her mother, but I often managed to slip away to go to the bathroom or brush my teeth and so on. Any activity of mine, if incompatible with carrying my baby, was during my vacation punished by desperate screaming. For some reason Lisa concluded that even her father was a "stranger" and so Sid could not unburden my fate. Tommy changed under the pressure of our circumstances into a depressive, lethargic zombie. They say that kids sometimes react to the birth of a sibling with recessive behavior -- Tom responded in this fashion to our traveling. I did not mind that he absolutely refused to use a potty. Our successes at home are based on a regular regiment, which of course was completely upset. We were rather bothered by his sudden "lack of ability" to eat without being fed. Not that he would not pick up food, but when we placed a spoonful into his mouth, he would sometimes ignore it completely, and sit there with his mouth open, until it would fall out again. We came perhaps closest to becoming domestically abusive, during our trip to the Highlands. Tom stood and gazed stupidly, while both of us were trying to put gloves on his hands. Tommy offered us a hand like a dead fish, and would not respond to our trying. No amount of appealing, explaining, threatening and yelling would work -- we eventually gave up and he continued with gloves barely attached like little bags on his hands.

But I am getting ahead of myself. After arriving at grandma's, I eventually managed to place a whimpering Tom on a window sill and light in him a spark of interest -- in "trains". To our great advantage, our grandma from Brno lives near a busy street with street car traffic. Tommy had spent standing in that window most of the evening and the following morning. I don't need to underscore that our mornings were early indeed -- kids got up in a better case at five a.m. (towards the end of our stay), in the worse case at three. Lizzy's attempts to nurse at least three times a night meant that during my "vacation", I recalled with a tear in my eye all those wonderful nights after Lisa's birth, when she would wake for milk every forty minutes, but at least I had nothing else to do all day long.

In spite of our semi-conscious state of mine during our European visit, we managed to run many errands. Among the most important ones was visiting the Prague limb of our family tree. Although we had this rental (mini)car, we opted for taking a train when going to Prague. Tom loves trains (a railroad station was one of our most frequently visited locations), and we did not need to worry about things like road conditions and stalled trucks. Three times out of four, Czech Railroads let us use their newly acquired, infamously scandalous Pendolino bullet train. Well, it's a new and clean. Tommy was delighted by pushbuttons opening doors between individual cars, and walked the whole length of the train up and down countless times, being more thorough than the conductor, thus we even helped a lady who was feeling uneasy in these cars that pivot automatically to counteract lateral forces in turns. Alas, it is hard to believe that someone had to invent seats smaller and less comfortable than those in an airplane. After two hours in a Pendolino, I did not know how to sit and not to feel like a masochistic contortionist.

	A romantic wintertime in the Highlands...

	... often requires lots of work with a shovel

Tommy was ecstatic from meeting so many relatives. He naturally remembered his grandma from Prague, but he surprised me that he recalled grandfather as well, whom he has not seen for seven months. He responded to great grandma (and our explanation that this is "another grandma ) with, "Wow, nest granny" -- and since then she retained the title, next grandma. I was hoping to chat with my cousin Barbara, but I confess I must have been a lousy companion. Jet lag manifests itself with me like a enduring hangover, and my head aches, eyes burn, my stomach jumps and I am overall out of shape. Tommy was just a bit more chivalrous -- if I remember correctly, together with Barbara's Annie, they had invented a wonderful new game of "who can stomp louder on an old rickety threshold", and enjoyed playing it for most of the afternoon.

I had looked forward to our shopping stop at Hudy's -- my climbing harness has seen many winters, and is entitled to develop a material fatigue fault. Besides, I have transformed myself into a heavyweight, and I would not enjoy becoming the last straw, which makes some seam give. Further I needed to buy some climbing shoes -- my feet had widened into male sizes and American shoes (5.10) don't fit me at all (neither does their price). Our last acquisition was a child's harness for Tom. The other day at the gym he spent much time explaining (first he dragged us to the register where they rent out material; when we still did not understand, he began to put on my harness) that he longs much after climbing pleasures; we are certainly not going to prevent him to share our hobby -- but the basic rule is, he must be secured.

Breaking out of the city life routine, and becoming the high point of our program, was our visit to the Czech-Moravian Highlands. Our early wake up call drove us out on our way by six a.m., so we were sneaking through the snow-covered country roads pretty much by ourselves. After Telč, the road was neither plowed, nor treated, and our driving got a bit more adventurous; we passed without an incident, although the place felt quite eerie -- a white road ahead, snow covered trees around us, not a soul in sight -- I could not believe that in the twenty first century, in the middle of Europe, one can encounter such a sense of comfortable loneliness.

Our country cottage was hiding under a powder snow, in which grandfather managed to dig narrow paths. Having just once traversed across the back yard into the house, I was wet; fortunately gramps found my old galoshes, so I was able to function and run with Tom for the rest of the day. Sid with his hippo feet had no such luck; he was limited to short sorties onto a plowed road. Tommy presented us with the above mentioned scene with gloves, but otherwise he enjoyed snow with excitement. His loaned overalls worked perfectly -- Tom could pretend to be a snowmobile and run away to snowdrift piles where I could not follow, sinking to the half of my calves, while junior easily floated on roaring snow waves. Towards the end he had discovered that snow can be tasted, and with a typical childish steadfastness he purposefully plunged face-down, refusing to be chased back home, although he - in my opinion - must have been freezing.

	First time on a sled

	Tom was excited by all that snow

We spent altogether eight days in Europe; of those, four whole days in Brno, during which we three times visited BABY CAFE KICKIN. A cozy environment, huge play corner for kids, changing boards, toddler chairs, and located in an area where you can take little children for a short walk. First time we went there to a mothers' meeting, twice later with other visitors. Another attractions, of which we fully learned only two days before our return, was MODEL WORLD - the largest digitally controlled model railroad in Czech Republic. "The Model World covers 463 square feet, its lowest point is at 27 inches, and highest at 126 inches over ground. The Model World is ruled by a president, who's decisions must be confirmed by a parliament with two houses. It is administratively subdivided into The City, The Industrial Zone, an The Countryside." Forty trains run day and night (at night, the sky -- a.k.a. the ceiling -- show stars in familiar constellations). There are fifteen hundred tiny (plastic) people on static display, including Berta the phantom, boy scouts, punkers, wedding party, picket line -- even a traffic accident with ubiquitous rubber-neckers and police of several national jurisdictions in one spot. It's a whole family experience.

On the last day before departure we packed the whole traveling show and drove to Vienna, Austria. After five years of separation, I saw again my friend Pepe. With some people time does not mean anything; I have a feeling that we simply continued where we stopped the other day -- although Sina, then a newborn baby, is a big girl now, and Sarah, then hardly older than our Tom currently is, has been going to school for a while now...

Getting up at three in the morning was brutal all by itself, but when we pull Tom out of his bed, we lost our original resolve to fly anywhere. Tom was wheezing, almost could not talk, and it seemed that he had trouble breathing. Pepe scared us with speculations of laryngitis, Tom cried, and Sid and I tried to pack and load everything into the car. We let the windows cracked open on our way to the airport, and Tom gradually returned back to normal. Hence we decided to try to fly anyway, and should his condition worsen, we would interrupt our trip in Frankfurt.

A cold shower greeted us at the check-in -- where do we have paper tickets for the children, they asked. Here's where our opinions differ -- Sid claims that we used to have those tickets and probably lost them somewhere; I maintain that all we ever had were printed out itineraries and neither of them was a real ticket. Either way, the fact remains that we were unable to produce the papers they demanded and until then we could not imagine that we would need anything else besides having paid for our transportation, carrying valid passports for everybody, and being properly recorded in the airline's computers, for we were -- to our best knowledge -- flying on e-tickets.

	Tom knows not where to look first

	My Hippo at Baby Cafe, besieged by beautiful girls

In the time remaining to the plane's departure, I carried a slumbering Lisa and chased around Tom, who was getting healthier every minute. Sid, who understands German, stood at various counters and offices, while a Lufthansa representative talked into phones louder and louder. At seven we were to take off, and by 6:58 we were still rolling our whole circus through a passport checkpoint, cleared to fly to Frankfurt without valid tickets, but with a hope that our situation gets clearer before our next stop. We should have had an hour to switch planes in Frankfurt, but we arrived a half hour late -- fortunately they are apparently quite used to very close connections -- they moved us past the waiting lines, and soon we stood before the last gate. There again, clerks poked the computer at length, with much muttering and head shaking, but eventually the unbelievable became reality and we were sitting inside our plane on our way HOME.

The flight itself carried on according (our relatively pessimistic) expectations. We naturally received "only" three seats and a basinet for Lisa -- we could hardly ask for extras, now that we were glad to fly at all. Lisa liked the basinet -- she loves to be carried by her mama, but after a while it feels good to stretch out. At one moment Lisa even let our very nice neighbor hold her. That quite surprised me -- but Tom surprised me even more. He demanded that Lisa be immediately returned to the family. Oddly enough, Tom understood that the flight was going to be long, and in one moment he settled on his seat and slept for two hours. The only unpleasant event came in the form of a flight attendant's announcement that they ran out of other food and can only offer us beef goulash. Whatever -- I don't have to have it, but if I should choose between starving and a goulash, I devour the goulash. Alas, we certainly did not consider it an appropriate diet for an ill two year old toddler. The attendant snapped that we should have ordered kids' meals before takeoff. To this my Hippo replied quite strongly, that he had been dealing with Lufthansa representatives since five a.m., and that she better not make the situation any worse... and abracadabra -- Tom received chicken with veggies and rice.

Finally, we stepped out of the plane into seventy five degrees (F), among apple trees and magnolias in bloom. Our friend Adam came to pick us up, and we would all fit into his car (which was neither a van, nor a minivan -- simply a regular car) including our extra child seats, and then we were suddenly back at home. I thought that only us, the adults, realize that -- but even Lizzy showed extreme joy -- she shouted, laughed, kicked her feet, rolled from one person to the next and overall made it obvious that she noticed being "at her place".

And because we had all the training, two days after our return, it started freezing in California and the mountains around our Bay got a load of snow. We have seen it a few times already, but it's definitely not something common and it does not happen every year. Well, being used to dressing self and the kids warmly, we have simply extended our winter by a few days.

	While mountains change their coats, first February flowers began blooming in the Bay.

	A view from our living room From our vacation, we have brought snow to sunny California

What to say in conclusion? We have enjoyed seeing our close ones, and tasting home cooking again. Tom appreciated riding the street cars and trains; was fascinated by snow. Contrary to all initial doubts, we came to like our vacation's timing -- we captured ideal, romantic winter weather. It surprised us how few children we have encountered there (except for the usually full Baby Cafe). I don't know if it's because fewer kids get born in CZ than in California, or because Czech moms are tired of the lengthy winter and stay at home. A pleasant change, compared to our previous trips, was the absence of a feeling that we would bother someone. Quite the opposite, we had to countlessly explain to friendly passengers on trains that we CANNOT take the offered seat with Lisa in her carrier, for her long legs get in the way.

Contrary to common perception I must say that the actual traveling with kids is not really exhausting -- our stay at airport terminals, on the planes, cars and trains, however long, is easy to survive, as long as there is an end in sight. The jet lag, however, multiplied by the number of children involved, and dragging on longer than half of a month, seems to be endless -- and therefore unbearable.

Copyright © 2006 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.