Bluebird's Nest

Our last day was spent again poolside soaking up the rays.

We did a little shopping but to be honest I was spent on all the negotiating you need to do in this country. I think you have to either just suck it up that you’re going to get ripped off in every situation (which you do in every other part of the world – it’s just that you can’t negotiate the price anywhere else) or don’t go shopping. After reflecting on the whole purchasing situation here, I’ve decided a few things:

1. If you are traveling alone or with one other person, negotiating a price and playing the game can benefit you.
2. If you are traveling with kids or parents, it’s really not worth the time and energy spent trying to get the absolute best bargain. I’d rather be at the beach or pool thank you very much.
3. If the venders are yelling at you, you’ve obviously gone too far and now it’s almost an insult to them.
4. Yes items should be cheaper in Egypt then here (Switzerland or Canada) but they’re coming out of a revolution and they could probably use our money and it will help boost their economy and help their families.

And a few words of advice to people traveling to this country with kids:

1. Find out ahead of time if you will need something for your baby to sleep in.
2. Out of all our entire family, every single one of us got Montezuma’s Revenge EXCEPT for the wee babe. Consider eating baby food and drinking bottled water ONLY while you’re in Egypt.
3. Take a car seat and don’t be tempted to skip buckling her in. The Egyptian’s don’t drive with their headlights on in the dark as they feel the roads are bright enough. They only use them to signal to other cars on the road and this happens constantly.
4. A baby carrier is probably going to be too hot to carry a baby in.
5. Naps will probably be inconsistent or non-existent.
6. All efforts of sleep training your baby will be gone by the time you get back and you’ll have to start all over again.

We had a la carte for our last night at the resort but what was funny about this was that it was “a la carte” but the carte was fixed. Have you ever heard of such a thing?!?!?

The next day we took a bus to get to the airport. By the way, in Hurghada, there is an airport tax to get into the airport. Nothing to get out. So it seemed like a scam when we were negotiating the price for transportation to the airport but it’s not. I won’t even get into how long it took for us to negotiate the price of the bus and the plethora of different options to get to the airport (1 car with all our stuff and all 7 of us piled in there sitting on top of each other, 1 car two times to the airport and double the price, or the bus that they finally told us about after my SIL negotiated with them for a half an hour. Ugh!!)

The flight was great.

And then we arrived at immigration in Switzerland.

Everything was supposed to go smoothly. My hubby had done paperwork after paperwork making sure that the wee babe was recognized as being Swiss (but she didn’t have a Swiss passport, just Canadian), he got the visa for the tweenager (she’s got a Canadian passport) but we weren’t in possession of it (it was supposed to be in the system), and I was travelling on my British passport and according to the money we paid for me, the permit was also supposed to be in the system.

I guess since it had been 2.5 months since we had entered into Switzerland, the guard thought that maybe we were trying to leave for a week and get some fresh 3 month stamps on our passport so we could stick around another 3 months. He was an obnoxious jerk. He kept telling us nothing that was supposed to be in the system was. He was looking at a different system then the system that has our paperwork in (that we paid a lot of money to make sure we had in place before we left). My hubby and him argued back and forth and he was being a huge jackass…

They were obviously speaking in French and I was following along. Finally I butted in (in English) and asked him to call the place in Vevey that we had done all our paperwork through. He cut me off and started waving his finger around saying “no English! Only French!!”

So after they went back and forth for a couple of more minutes I asked in French “What are our options?” He said “You either stay here at the airport or go back to Canada.”

I began to shake. It felt a little like my trip to Vancouver after coming back from Amsterdam. So powerless. Thoughts of our apartment in Vevey and not seeing it or the lake again for a few years started flooding through my mind. How abruptly we would be ending our trip here. How soon I was going to be seeing my family again. The tweenager’s school… All the stuff that needed to get packed up. It was a little too much to handle.

Finally, after my hubby and the guard argued a bit more, the guard finally said that he was going to stamp our passports and we had 15 days to figure it out or we were considered illegally in Switzerland. Can you believe it. I’m not sure what I was more pissed at… how we had tried so hard to have all the right paperwork in place and paid a lot of money to do so only to have immigration’s system to not be the same as the one we were in, or the fact that when I had asked what our options were, he just said what he said to scare the shit out of me and there was actually one other option that he was neglecting to tell us.

I should apologize to my tweenager now for her having to hear all the foul words that came out of my mouth after we left his sight. I won’t repeat them here but I was pissed.

And now that we’re back, we had the necessary paperwork in our hands now so if we ever want to go to France or Italy this trip, we can do so legally. Oh and on the bright side, the permits are for 5 years so we could technically stay here for 5 years now. And it allows the tweenager and I to work here if we want to. Bonus. Don’t worry friends, family and colleagues back in Canada, we’re still coming back home in January

Anyway, that rounds out our trip to Egypt. A shitty ending. That’s for sure. Although I must say, we had a wonderful dinner back at my in-law’s house after we returned so I didn’t need to cook, and I was really thankful for that.

Since all I ate while I was there was potatoes, rice, bread and pasta (ok, I ate some fish and chicken) I felt like a huge potato. So I have been doing a “cleanse” since we’ve been back and I haven’t eaten any rice or pasta. I’ve been trying to eat salads, veggies and fruit soley but have splurged on potatoes and definitely cheese. I’ve tried to up my intake of water in order to get rid of the back bacteria that was occupying my body.

When I get back to Canada I’m going to do a proper cleanse probably for parasites. I’ve tried to look here for something but they either don’t have it or I’m looking in the wrong spot.

All in all Egypt was amazing. The history, architecture, the people, the scenery – it was all stunning. Would I do it again? For sure, but probably not for another ten years now.

Oh it felt good to sleep in. We almost missed breakfast time as we stayed in bed for so long.

We spent the day beside the pool soaking up the heat (Switzerland is now in the cool 11/12 degree range) and trying to stay in the shade.

My sister-in-law and I had been wanting to go into Hurghada to check it out and do some shopping. I really didn’t want to bring the wee babe with us as all she would want to do is breast feed, probably cry and want only me so I wanted to leave her with my hubby (he was ok with that) when we went. But due to the heat and the timing we decided to go altogether and take her along. My SIL also wanted to experience an Egyptian restaurant (rather than the resort food) and I couldn’t blame her but with the wee babe’s witching hour being right at dinner time, I felt it was a better idea if we parted ways and the hubby, tweenager, wee babe and I head back to the resort and the in-law’s head out for dinner.

My sister-in-law had been talking with the guy whom we bought the snorkeling trip off of. It seemed that he had a 3 hour city tour that he could hook us up with for cheap. Ali is his name. My SIL wasn’t totally sure we should pay the price as she felt we were going to get ripped off if we went this route but with 7 people it’s probably better than trying to organize it with taxis plus we didn’t know what to expect in Hrughada.

We walked out to the area where we were supposed to meet him. It all felt a little sketch.

He showed up in a van/bus. It was the most ricketyist thing you’ve ever seen. I asked if there were seat belts (the wee babe was in her car seat of course). He said no but assured me it was safe. I told him we needed seat belts at least for the wee babe. He said it was fine, and it was totally safe. Everyone was looking at me to decide what was going to happen here… were we going to go without seat belts, or were our family going to head back to the resort and let the in-laws go have fun. I spoke harshly and said that accidents happen all the time and there’s no way to know when and where it’s going to happen so I didn’t want to take the chance. Ali then said that he would get a taxi for us with a seat belt. The pressure was too much and I began to cry.

A few minutes later a taxi drove up. I got in the back seat and the hubby put the baby beside me and then we realized that the female part of the seat belt wasn’t there. I said there wasn’t a seat belt. The taxi driver then proceeded to tell me it was safe, no worries. By this point I was freakin’ done. I tried to get out of the back seat and the taxi driver put his arm up in my way. Oh no you don’t!!! I yelled out NO! and grabbed the baby (with car seat) and started walking back to the decrepid van that held the rest of our family while my hubby (much more rational than I) was fishing out the seat belt. I was yelling my SIL’s name and waving my arms. “I’m outta here” I kept thinking and then I heard my hubby yell that he got it out and we could continue into town now.

Sigh…

So I get back in, the wee babe get’s strapped in, and off we go. Immediately, the wee babe starts crying. From what I understand, the city of Hurghada is only 10 mins away so she’s ok to cry for 10 mins. Well, the taxi driver starts to get a bit antsy… asking why she’s crying. Asking if there’s anything we can do to make her stop… pointing to his boob and asking if she breast feeds… So he thinks that turning up his Arab music is going to help. Really? By this point, I was completely frazzled. I stuck my boob in her mouth to shut her up and just sobbed in the back seat.

We finally made it to town.

We did some shopping and got right ripped off. You see, there are no price tags in Egypt. Everything is negotiable. So the tour guide brought us to the shops that he knows the vender. What I’m sure that happens is the vender and him have an agreement that if he brings the tourists there, the vender will give him a cut. So we paid way too much because we didn’t shop around and see if there could have been better prices. Which there were.

Oh and the whole while the wee babe wanted to breast feed and she cried for only me. It was awesome.

My SIL was pissed. She said that we could have taken a taxi into town for way less and not got ripped off. She’s right. Lesson learned. Do it yourself next time. The only thing is that we didn’t know what downtown Hurghada was like so it was impossible to know ahead of time that we could have done it ourselves.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was spent and couldn’t wait to go to bed.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Egypt and if you can believe it, the only person who didn’t get Montezuma’s Revenge was the wee babe, thankfully.

Our family just came back from a trip to Egypt. Not a destination you would think of to bring a 9 month old baby but if you notice my Life List I can easily knock of the “Visit to Egypt” and “Visit to Africa” in one blow. Although, I think I’ll keep up my visit to Africa up there though as my intentions are more to see some wild African animals and to experience the African culture.

When I say our “family” went, I wasn’t kidding. It was my hubby, the tweenager, the wee babe, my sister-in-law, and my parents-in-law. 7 all together.

We took two cars to the airport and had to be there for 4:30am. Yikes. The airport was not really too interesting and then we boarded our 4 hour flight. Arriving at the airport was when things took on an Egyptian flare.

We had decided to wait to get our Visa’s until we arrived at the airport as they were cheaper there. After a short bus ride from the airplane to the terminal we were greeted with many men yelling and strongly urging us to go in their queue to purchase a Visa. As the in-law’s were already ahead of us I said no that I wanted to stay with them. The man continued to reassure me that it was ok, I could go with him. I continued to say no. The tweenager was looking at us with freaked out eyes wondering what was about to transpire. Finally I pretty much yelled “NO!” and he finally walked away. We walked up to the rest of our family a little worse for wear after our first encounter.

We got our Visa’s ($15 Euros each) and then headed into our next queue. There must have been 400+ people waiting to get their Visa’s stamped. And get this, only 3 windows open to all the people. I think we must have waited about a half hour until we finally got our Visa stamped.

Then onto picking up our luggage. Yep, they were the last suitcases turning around. I hate that. Anybody can come in and get your luggage if they want. We had checked in my mother-in-law’s stroller and a little attachable bag on the back of it had gone missing.

Then there was either 2 or 3 more check points you needed to get through and you had to show your Visa at every stop along the way. Imagine a huge bottle neck with your kids and your luggage and trying to show 4 passports. I needed my Rescue Remedy badly. After finally pushing through them all we arrived outside into the hot Egyptian air. It was about 10am.

Next task: getting a taxi. So the first thing you need to know about Egypt is that everything is a negotiation. A game if you will. My sister-in-law is well versed in playing this game so we left it up to her to get us a good price. She spoke with one guy who we negotiated the price of the taxi (for 7 people and all our luggage) to be 8 euros. He ushered us off to another guy and once we got to his van we asked again to make sure that this was his price as well. He said “absolutely not”. Something about how many people there were, how much luggage we had… My sister-in-law continued to stand her ground and before you know it the guy was yelling at her and some other Egyptian taxi drivers who had come up.

For me at this point I was just interested in getting to the hotel. If you’re feeling this way, you’re bound to get ripped off. But to be honest, I didn’t really care. After the stressful airport, I was ready to be at the hotel getting situated in our room and with the 3:00 am wake up call we had had, I was already feeling a bit tired.

The price was finally negotiated to be 15 euros to get us to our hotel (Pyramisa Blue Lagoon) which is only about 8mins away. From what I understand, we didn’t get ripped off but I think we could have shaved a couple of extra euros off the price if we were even more persistent (if you’re reading this and thinking of going to Egypt with 7 people, keep this in mind.)

So with the luggage strapped to the top of the van, the baby seat belted in (we brought her car seat), we set off for our hotel.

This was my first taste of the desert and the garbage of Hurghada, Egypt. There are palm trees there but it’s also very dry and desertish. And there’s garbage all over the side of the road.

We arrived at the hotel. It was beautiful. The staff were amazing. Very accommodating. We got checked in. My hubby’s family heading off to a place close to the pool (with stairs) and us over to another area of the resort (with an elevator). The room was great. Big king size bed (hard but good), a mini-fridge to keep your water cold (every day you would get 3 free big bottles of water), a bidet (that we once gave the wee babe a shower in), 2 TV’s, a porch, and a living room area. The tweenager got the short end of the stick on the bed though. It was a cot that totally sagged in the middle. We put two mattresses on it but it still was pretty pathetic. As for the wee babe, we had to ask 2-3 times for them to bring us a bed for her. The first bed that was brought was intended for a baby who couldn’t roll over or crawl or stand up. The second one was better but it had a hole in the back of it for her to crawl right out of if she wanted to. There was no other options, so we had to take this one. We pushed it up against the wall and draped an extra sheet over it to try and block the hole. On the opposite side of the hole the other end of the playpen was falling down so the hubby mickey moused the side of it by putting a table on it’s side and propping it up. It wasn’t too bad but we would find out the next day that the wee babe would hit her eye on one of the table legs jutting into the bed and cut herself. Sigh.

We headed down for lunch. This was an all inclusive resort so food was supplied as was free drinks. The food was buffet style and for the first day was pretty good! Ask me by the 7th day and I would say, ugh… it’s the same every day. It was Egyptian fare so rice, potatoes, steamed or fried veggies, some sort of meat in a sauce. There was a whole salad bar that I steered clear of. DON’T eat the salad in Egypt, you’ll get sick. An entire table of different kinds of bread and another whole table of different kinds of deserts.

As for the free drinks. The rose wine was disgusting. The white wasn’t much better. I never tried the red. The beer was good. The spirits all tasted the same. What we realized afterwards from talking to some of the staff is that over in Europe and North America, we let our spirits age (rum, whiskey, vodka, etc…) for years before serving them. In Egypt, they don’t, so they all have a kind of odd same taste to them. Instead of Gordon’s gin it’s Gordoon’s. After 3 days of drinking 3-4 of these cocktails a day, I couldn’t take it anymore and just drank a few glasses of beer.

After lunch, I went back to the room with the wee babe for a little sleep and the tweenager went swimming with my sister-in-law and hubby. It was crazy windy and the temperature was probably around 28 degrees.

Then down for dinner where we sat outside around the pool. It was an early night for the hubby, tweenager and wee babe. For me I stayed up with the rest of the family and watched a dance show put on by the animation team. It was pretty good.

Tomorrow we head to the beach and the next day on a snorkeling trip….

So we’ve been at Swiss school now for one full week. And I must tell you about a couple more interesting facts.

1. Every single class that the tweenager has, she has to stand up before the teacher comes in and stay standing until the teacher says sit down. On her second day, the German teacher gave her the stink eye because she didn’t do it and she didn’t see everyone doing it as she was sitting at the front of the class. Doh!
2. In the computer lab there are 15 iMacs! 15!!! Talk about having enough money to share the wealth…
3. In the sewing room, there are 10 sewing machines so everyone gets one. EVERYONE.
4. This one shocked me the most. First I have to tell you about the smoking situation here. There are a lot of smokers. And up until recently you could smoke in the train, the mall, restaurants, etc… You get the idea. And when I say recently, it’s within the last 5 years. For us it’s been a long time with no smoking in public places, nevermind 3 meters from any door way.

   So I go to the school to pick up the tweenager and I sit there and wait. I see a mother smoking. But not only that, she’s smoking on the school grounds!!! I understand that smoking is accepted more in public areas than in Canada but come on. The school grounds! THEN she tossed the butt on the pavement of the school grounds (where grade 1 kids run about) and it was still smoking… I was about to walk up to her and ask her WTF but then I remembered I don’t speak French good enough to give her attitude or understand what she would say back to me. Incroyable.

5. So the tweenager is taking German while here. (She might be changing it to just working on French homework. More on that…) On her first day of German, the teacher basically told her that she had to catch up on the previous year in order to be up to date with the class. Well, that sent her into a tizzy and me as well. My protective mommy pants came on and I wanted to march right down to that school and ask the man why he was being such an ogre (by the way, he’s also her PE teacher). We decided that it wasn’t even necessary for her to have to do well in German and that it was basically just for her to learn a few things if she wanted to.

   My hubby wrote a note to him saying pretty much that, and my tweenager has decided that she’s just going to work on French while she’s in the German class. It all came into perspective when the tweenager said to me, “Can you imagine trying to learn a 3rd language from the 2nd language you learned?” Yeah, thinking about that makes my head hurt a bit.

6. Let me start this last point by telling you that I have absolutely no qualms about teaching religion in schools. Bring on Christmas and Hanukkah any day. I just think it’s so completely different here when it comes to religions in schools. Switzerland vs Canada. In Canada you can barely even mention God’s name in school. Here in Switzerland, they have a class called the History of Religion. The tweenager said that she’s learning all about churches and how to tell what denomination they are and when they were created. Cool idea. I wonder if we taught about the history of religion in Canadian schools, there might be more tolerance for different religions and their beliefs. Just a thought..

All in all, I’m so impressed with how well my tweenager did on her first week of classes. She has to navigate through different schools. There isn’t one building she is in, she has to move to 3 other buildings and they are all part of the secondary school. Secondary school = bigger kids.

She’s speaking the whole day in French (can’t even ask clarifying questions in English) , making new friends, trying to remember everyone’s names including the teacher’s. And on top of it, we’ve almost been gone now from home for 2 months and she’s coping really well with that (if any of her friends are reading this, she would really like to receive emails from everyone )

Great job, bon travail my tweenager

Yesterday, we got the keys to our new apartment in Vevey. I had seen photos of it and to be honest with you I was a bit nervous about it as living in the house has been amazing and from what the photos looked like, it looked SMALL.

“On the shore of Lake Geneva, Vevey is a town of images, culture and shopping. Home of the Nestlé headquarters and several museums, Vevey’s charm enticed Charlie Chaplin to spend the last 25 years of his life there.”

Let’s just say, I was really surprised and totally happy when I got to see what it’s actually like. It’s bright and twice the size than I thought it was. It has an amazing view of the mountains and the lake. The beds are great (except the tweenager is a bit worried about her bed as it’s pretty flat) and there’s plenty of room to have people spend the night in the pull out couch in the living room if they want.

Some drawbacks:

• There are 50 stairs you need to walk up to get to our place on the 4th floor. I’m definitely going to get my exercise.
• You have to pay to use the laundry and it’s in the basement. I’m not sure I know how I’m going to get the baby and the laundry down there. I guess it will be one of those experiences that you always remember.
• We don’t have a car. YIKES!!

The pros:

• It’s really close to the tweenagers school and the centre of the city so we can walk there no problem.
• It’s really close to the lake.
• It’s about an hour and a half walk to Chateau de Chillon.
• It’s a beautiful walk from Vevey to Montreaux
• It’s about a 30 seconds walk away from the hospital if anything goes wrong.
• It’s walking distance to the city of Vevey which is a beautiful lakeside town with markets, shopping, dining, etc…

All in all, I’m excited about making the final move there. Right now, we’re a bit in limbo where we’re living in Bussigny, but some of our stuff is in Vevey. This is also proving to be a problem too as my hubby has lost his glasses and we’re not sure if he left them at Hans’ house or maybe I accidentally took them to Vevey with the stuff we brought yesterday.

I’m looking forward to be in our final destination for the next 4 months. No more transitions. We can finally settle in a bit.

Speaking of the tweenager starting school tomorrow. Poor thing has her summer cut shorter than usual as Canada doesn’t go back until after Labour Day. That’s not too bad though as she gets 2 weeks off in October that Canada doesn’t get.

I’ll write more later on the initial first days of her school and how her teacher is, if there are language differences, if she made any friends, how she likes her class/school etc… I have to be honest, I’m even a little nervous for her but she’s such a good soul and she’s so strong and is easy to make friends, I’m sure she’s going to do amazing. I can’t wait to hear all about it. And I’ll be right there to drop her off and pick her up. ?

Some links:

• My Switzerland – Vevey
• Montreux Riviera
• Wikipedia – Vevey

Tonight’s blog is written from a raw place in my heart. Tonight my wee babe went for her first ever sleepover to my in-law’s place. We’re doing this as a trial for her (and me) to see how it goes and get her used to sleeping at their house as we have two upcoming weddings that we are attending and if you know anything about Swiss weddings, they go until around 4 am. No kidding.

So today has been heavy day. All day long I’ve known that around 6pm, I need to part ways with my wee babe and hand her over to her very capable grandparents. I’ve been dreading it. Not because I’m worried about them but because I’m worried about her and how much I know it’s me who can sooth her when everyone else can’t. And trust me, there are times every night that she gets fussy and it’s only me who can calm her down. So what’s she going to do? Explode? I guess in my head, I’ve maybe built it up to be something like that.

So we drop her off. Hugs, snuggles, cuddles, one last breast feed, one last smile, one last giggle. And as we leave she makes a little whine and I make a little whine, knowing that I’m not going to see her until tomorrow and knowing that she doesn’t know that or know what’s in store for her.

I miss her immediately. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way as I’ve already done this once before when my tweenager was a baby but I guess I forget about how I’ve already passed these feelings 11 years ago.

We head home (the 3 of us) and we have dinner. All through dinner I’m thinking about her. But I don’t say anything to my family as I don’t want to seem ridiculous and lame to them. Immediately following dinner I ask my hubby to call his parents and see how she is. Something inside of me is saying don’t listen in case she’s crying. I just don’t think I can take it. And wouldn’t you know it, she is crying.

I think maybe the hardest part was the fact that everything that was said about how she was feeling was said in French, so I’m constantly asking my hubby, what did they say? What’s going on? Did she eat the carrots? Did she drink her bottle? Are her pajama’s on? And the lag in translation was killing me. It seriously was all too much for me and I broke down. Come on. Let’s be honest here. We all knew it was going to happen anyway from the beginning of this story.

We take a break and call them back in a bit. And she’s still crying. At this point I’m wondering if maybe it was too early for her (and me). Should we go over there and pick her up? What am I feeling about that? A failure? What’s going to happen on Saturday night when I NEED them to look after her? Am I just being a pussy and over reacting? Maybe I just need a good cry.

And then she stops. Ok, she stopped enough for the tweenager to break into “Baby Beluga” and wouldn’t you know it, she’s looking for the voice that’s coming from the computer. (By the way, we’re skyping so we can see her but we haven’t turned on our camera so we don’t scar her by seeing us.) She was still a bit whiny and so I decided to add my voice to Baby Beluga but when I started singing it, more tears came. Then the hubby started crying so that got me going even more (I might be crying while I write this).  Then the part in the song where they say “Is your momma home…” I can’t even get through it without crying. The look in her eyes is priceless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so huge since I’ve known here. Like the cat in Shrek. Come pick me up, their beckoning to me.

So she was still a bit whiny and standing up usually solves this for her. Sit down = she cries. Stand up = she stops. Go figure, it’s pretty annoying. So I make a joke to papinou (grandpa) why don’t you stand up, dance and sing to the little angel. I feel like we’ve told them all the little quirks that make her happy so what’s one more thing. Hold her like this so her fingers are free so she can put them in her mouth, stand up, sing to her, dance, flap your arms in the air, do some jumping jacks, etc… you get the idea.

Papinou get’s up and throws on a dance CD. Where’d her get that from? And on top of it, it has graphics for the TV too so the wee babe is transfixed. He puts down the computer so we can see him holding her, dancing. It’s freaking AWESOME! The tears are gone, and now I’m smiling from ear to ear. No more tears from anyone – my face actually hurt from the smiling and laughing. We’re laughing and the wee babe is dancing with papinou to some crazy disco song. Oh man. Then the tweenager grabs the flip mino and get’s almost all of it on video. I need to get papinou to sign the release forms first before I can post this on YouTube though. Stand by.

The song is over and we decide to leave on a good note. Papinou is moved to tears which gets the hubby crying again which sends me into another blubblerfest. Enough said.

Was I ready? I think so. Just on the edge of it. I might have been pushed a little bit due to a wedding or two but I think it was the right time for her. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that the tweenager has been able to sleepover at anybody’s house. Anybody. And I attribute that to the fact that she slept over at people’s houses from a very young age. Very young. So shouldn’t I be trying the same thing with the wee babe then if I want the same results? I think so. It’s just so damn hard. She’s so little and I HATE to see her cry even for a minute. It breaks my heart when I know that I can make it stop if she’s just with me. But whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger right? I’m sure she’s not going to die over there tonight so she can only be stronger.

Bon nuit ma beaute. Fait de beaux reve. Jusqu’a matin. I can’t wait to see you in the morning.

It was a hot humid morning waking up in an unknown apartment in Geneva with my boyfriend. Let me be clear, the apartment was known to him but not to me.

We were heading over via EasyJet to the South of France to attend his cousin’s wedding that morning.

After boarding the plane it dawned on me that this would be the first time I would be meeting his family. And not just his parents and sister. His ENTIRE French family. I began to shake a little.

My French was appalling, I’d had little to no sleep and I’d just been through the time change ringer so my senses were all a tizzy. Oh and did I mention it was hot?

I expressed my uncomfortableness to him and he said not to worry. All I need to know is that in France they kiss on the cheek. Oh and they do this in Switzerland too but instead of the standard 2 kisses that the French give it’s 3 for Swiss people so his Swiss family will greet me with 3.

Huh? Are people going to be flying flags so I know if they are French or Swiss? What if Germans come? Or Italians? My heart began to race.

The questions came pouring out.

“Could you demonstrate how I should be doing this? Do we start on the left or right? What if we both go left and then we kiss on the mouth!??! Do we actually land our lips on their cheek or is it more of an air-kiss-cheek-bump? Do we grasp each others arms so we don’t fall into one another? Do I make a kissy sound? What about my breath? Does it stink? And my makeup? What if I accidentally get lipstick on someone? Should I wipe it off? What about sweat? Did I mention it’s hot out? Do the guys kiss each other? And if a French person and a Swiss person kiss, how many kisses do they give? What about germs? If someone has a cold do they not kiss? We don’t hug when we have colds. Is this whole kissing thing optional like when you can tell that someone isn’t really a hugger? NO?”

I wasn’t sure I was up to the task. Could we go back to the unknown apartment? Not only am I meeting his family for the first time but now this whole kissing thing is happening. It gave a new meaning to “all up in your face”.

Did I mention that they do this upon greeting and departing? Has anyone ever heard of a hug sufficing?

The plane landed and we were greeted by a couple of people in his family. I got to practice. It went not too poorly.

We arrived at the wedding. Smiles, kisses, some awkward cheek smashing, (hey, I’m new at this!) but I got through all 45+ family members. If you do the math, let’s say there’s 40 French people and 5 Swiss people so that’s 40 X 2 and 5 X 3 which equals 95 kisses I donned out. And then I got to do it all over again when we left.

I wonder if people in Europe actually account for the added time it takes to greet people for events like this cuz let me tell you, hugging is much more time efficient

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This post was prepared in response to a RemembeRED prompt for the Red Dress Club. This week’s prompt was about affection. We asked you to write how the show of affection played a part in your memory.

I find that I only blog about our multi-country preparations when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Is that a good thing? Therapy much?

I think I turn to my blog to help me sort my thoughts. Get everything in order and then move forward. Onward and upward.

As the time looms closer (a little over a month now), I’m finding so many mixed emotions.

Overwhelmed by all the things we need to get done before we leave.

Nervous about the exchange of the keys for the people we have moving in temporarily.

Excited by the trip of a life time.

Afraid of the unknown. Not knowing how my wee babe is going to grow and what stages she is going to go through when while we’re away.

Protective of my tweenager to make sure all her needs and emotions are met.

Happy and lucky to be able to give our children such an amazing experience.

Anxious about the well being of our tenants.

Freeing once we’re on the road. I can’t wait to feel this feeling to it’s fullest. Granted it will probably take me a couple of days to feel this in it’s entirety – to let go of my lists and responsibilities and know that I’ve taken care of it all – but won’t that feel amazing…

Over and above everything, this is really challenging my “controlling” nature. Not being able to get a grip on everything I’m feeling, is leaving me to feel a bit distorted. Actually, a lot distorted.

I’m finding that I just want to keep doing fun things around here while the weather is getting better and better. Let’s go to Sidney Spit for the day. How about camping next weekend with my best friend and her family? And who can say no to BBQ’s a plenty.

But after yesterday, I think I’m going to have to bid these events adieu until 2012. My hubby and I went through our house yesterday, making yet another list to decide on what we need to pack up. We need to do this because of the people we have moving into the house. And after we did that (it’s a loooooong list), we itemized it to figure out what can be done now, and what needs to wait until the weekend before and what waits until the day before. We have a lot of things that need to wait until the weekend before. A LOT.

And that’s just packing up the house! Then there’s packing of our suitcases. 4 people (one infant) and three seasons. Figuring out the logistics of who’s going to water the garden, how do we do the exchanging of the keys, fixing a few things around the house, packing the camping gear, packing the car, cleaning the house from top to bottom, making sure I have enough clothes for the wee babe for the size she will be in the season it will be…

Phewf! Head is spinning again. Take it one day at a time. You can do this.

Start making a dent in what needs to get done and you’ll feel like you’re getting somewhere. Give your tweenager hugs and reassurances that everything is going to be ok. Include her in the preparations so it feels like we’re moving forward. Make lists, check things off. Check lots of things off so it feels like you’re on top of it all.

It’s all going to get done before we leave. It will. There’s no doubt about that.

Onward and upward.

This was a week for firsts for the wee babe (and me).

First was swimming. I was nervous as I always am when I’m doing something new and out of my comfort zone. If you can believe it, I was nervous about what the heck to do with her once we exited the pool. Not the actual act of swimming and how she would do. I guess I just knew she would like it since she enjoys her bathes.

So we got all ready to go to the pool. Bathing suited – off we went. We arrived and I saw a woman who had a little boy who looked like he might be a starfish like my little swimmer. Sure enough she was and she told me that the class was really easy and that they were doing dunking today but that I’m sure I wouldn’t have to do that since this was our first day.

Let me back up. When signed up for the lessons, the babe was 3 months. They can’t go until they are 4 months and since we’ve got this trip planned, I wanted to make sure we got into some lessons before we left otherwise, I just didn’t want to have another swimmer who was afraid to get her face wet until she was like 8. So when she turned 4 months she had a cold and an eye thing going on and then the next week was my ingrown toenails and thus now we are at this week, and four and a half months old.

So I strip her down and me down and I grab the car seat (because they don’t fit in the lockers so what are you supposed to do with them?!?!?) and her and head off to the spot where they all gather for starfish. In the water we go (there was about 6 mom’s and dad’s) and we practice back floats, front floats, “jumping” off the side of the pool, splashing, singing, back kicks, front kicks and of course bubbles. The babe didn’t smile but she didn’t cry either. There was this grimace on her face like “What the heck is going on? I’m not sure about this.” We’ll have to see what next week brings.

The class ends and now I’m at the point of where I’m just not sure how it’s all going to go down. So I grab the car seat, her and head off into a family change room. We rinse off in the shower. I get her changed (she’s not really impressed plus I think she’s tired now.) then strap her into the car seat and then I get changed. Walla! I’m done in 15 minutes. Thanks for the tip Megan!

I walk to the car and by the time I get there she’s asleep. Pretty tuckered after all that swimming

The next day we head off to Mother Goose. It’s a beautiful day so I decide I want to walk home from the Sidney Library (where Mother Goose is) so I need to catch the bus there. It’s 10.1 km’s by the way.

I get down to the bus stop and I start to get a bit anxious realizing I’ve never done this before. How do I store the stroller? Where do I get off on the bus? What if the babe starts to fuss? Breastfeeding on the bus? Didn’t someone get asked to leave because of that?

The bus pulls up and lowers itself so the stroller and I can get on. Walking on a moving bus with a stroller is no easy feat. We get to the area where the strollers can park and there’s already a stroller there. Also, the area where handicapped people can sit is taken as well. Hmmmmm… so I pull the stroller in perpendicular to the bus.

The bus driver pulls over. “You can’t block the aisle.” he says.

So I ask him how I should put the stroller.

“Not sure but you can’t block the aisle.”

I look at the lady who owns the stroller and she’s got her baby in her lap and her stroller is FULL of stuff. I’m panicking. “Should I get the next bus?” I ask him. No answer.

I look at my stroller and decide that I’ll have to collapse it even though I have tonnes of stuff in the bottom of it, I’ll have to pass my babe to some stranger to hold while I collapse it and the bus won’t start again until this is done.

Anxiety, panic, nervousness, everything that I was expecting to happen was happening.

Then someone suggests that we collapse the chairs in front so that we can park both strollers going horizontal. Success! Phewf! We did it and I didn’t need to catch another bus.

My nervousness subsides until I realize, how am I going to get the wee babe into the stroller without falling over. How am I going to get off the bus? What bus stop do I get off at…

Don’t worry, it all worked out in the end.

And Mother Goose was a success as well, save for the puke fest that the wee babe had during it. Oh, and I walked all the way home in the wonderful sunshine.

You guys are going to think I make a lot of pit stops in my daily life. The dentist, the podiatrist, and now the hairdresser. Really, I’m not that high maintenance. Right hubby?

I’m hoping for a few things out of this trip.

1. It doesn’t go like my trip to the dentist.
2. That the hairdresser can tell me the copious amounts of hair falling out of my head, is normal.
3. That I can actually relax.
4. That I’ll look amazing of course!

I finally get to do something nice for me

I haven’t been to the hairdresser in about 10 months. Last time I went, I got a really cute hair cut where it was a bit longer in the front than in the back. The reverse short-long. My hair has considerably grown out now so I’m contemplating keeping it long and just getting it layered so it’s a lot lighter and there’s less of it (less of it to fall out all over the floor and everywhere else). Also, it should be easier to style. I’m sure you don’t really care about all of this so I’ll save it for a before and after photo.

My poor mother is going to be the babysitter again but this time the big sis will be here and dad won’t be far behind. Oh and I’m defrosting 5 ounces of breast milk to give her if she gets hungry. I’m feeling a bit more at ease as my mother can then be relieved of a screaming baby if she needs it. But, it’s raining outside, so no one’s going to want to go for a walk with her in the pouring rain (which is what worked like a dream last time).

Oh the things that go through my head!!!

Ok, signing off for now. I’ll be back later to tell you how it all went down.

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There was absolutely nothing to be worried about.

My baby is getting older and my mother worked it like a true champion. It was especially great when she would send me reassuring messages every once in a while letting me know the wee babe was doing fine.

I also realized that leaving a bottle with her made me feel a lot more at ease. Like she wasn’t going to starve!! Mental note: leave bottle behind for relaxation purposes.

I didn’t get the before shot of the hair, so the after shot won’t happen either. Sorry.

I’m glad this time everything in my head went a lot more smoothly. I didn’t have to feel like I was rushing home, wondering if she was going to need counseling when she grew up because her mother left her for 2+ hours.

And not only did I do well, but she did great too! She drank her bottle with minimal protesting, went for a walk in the rain and I understand my tweenager managed to squeak out a giggle or two out of her

Happy baby, means a happy mama.

Thanks mom for being such a great babysitter and thanks for being there for me. <3