Bluebird's Nest

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….

I awoke at 6 am after waking briefly throughout the night wondering how she was. When I awoke at 6, I woke my hubby and asked if it was too early to go and pick her up. I wanted her in my arms.

I surfed the net and read some email and then drifted back to sleep. I awoke again at 8 am and this time I was excited. I quickly sent an text to my father-in-law asking the status of my wee babe. I sat with baited breath wondering if she awoke throughout the night giving my in-laws no rest or miracle of miracles she slept through the night. No that wasn’t possible.

But, in fact, it was.

He replied that she had slept all the way through the night (I found out later that he awoke in the middle of the night to make sure she was still alive – as I do too) and that she had woken at 6am. They gave her a bottle and then got up.

When we saw her not long later on Skype, she was sitting in her chair, getting ready for bananas. Doing GREAT! We turned on our video and she took a minute as we all said hi and sang to her in our sing song voices for her. Then she started to cry. I think it sank in a bit that she missed us. So we turned off the video camera and all was good again.

We ate breakfast, then ventured over to her. Every light took forever. I couldn’t get there fast enough.

And then I saw her. And she reached for me for a snuggle. Man was that snuggle good. I breathed in her sweet warm smell. I touched her soft hair. And then I received the biggest familiar smile I think I’ve seen.

We were together again. Mama and babe.

Et un grand merci pour mes beaux-parents pour garder ma petite fille.

~~~~~~

Below is the video we took of Papinou and the wee babe on Skype with our Flip camera. The quality is terrible but this is no fault of the Flip camera.

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’s been a full week now that we’ve been here and we’re settling in quite well.

Yesterday, we ventured into France with the hubby’s parents to check out the Mont Blanc. We took a gondola over to a glacier and we were able to walk inside. It’s not too often you can walk into a glacier and I told the tweenager that she would need to be sure to blog about it. What an experience.

It was pretty neat. Ice caverns acting as tunnels. There was even a St. Bernard inside that you could have your picture taken with for 6 Euros. Poor doggy. The most interesting (and sad) part for me was they had placed markers on the side of the rocks stating where the glacier was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. It sure has receded quickly over the years. Every year they need to build new caves as the glacier moves so quickly. We could hear rocks tumbling as the ice melted. I think my hubby said it moves 90 meters a year. That’s insane.

We walked down the 400 steps to get into the glacier then back up and back into the crowded gondola. Oh I forgot, we took a really cool train to get to the top of the middle mountain. So Swiss and so pretty.

I told my hubby today that I really like his country. It’s so beautiful. I think I fall in love with it just a little bit more every time I come here.

I also spent some time a few days ago with the belle soeur and the tweenager swimming in Lake Leman. It’s her private swimming place kind of. So cute. I almost thought it was someone’s private property and we might be trespassing but there was a garbage, a change area, a shower and a toilet. The water in Lake Leman is so beautiful and refreshing. I feel like I’m in a little piece of paradise here.

It’s hard to explain but the vineyards etched against the blue mountains with the Swiss architecture is beyond picturesque. I can’t wait to see what happens in fall and winter.

One thing that I’ve grown to liking is the meals here. I never thought I’d be saying that. I remember the first time I came here 6 years ago. I spoke next to no French, I barely knew anyone and everything was strange to me. The thing I disliked the most was the meals. Not because of the food. Oh no. It was because the meals were so drawn out and long. Ever meal started with a salad, then the meal, then the bread and cheese, and then fruit and a little coffee. Talking, talking, talking in French. Of course I had no idea what anyone was saying and the hubby would translate (poorly) I wouldn’t get any jokes and it was just a huge clusterf*&k for me. I hated it. It would have been better if I had brought a book or magazine to read. Although I guess that would have been really rude. But now! Oh now it’s wonderful! I can understand about 80% of the conversation. What I don’t understand, it’s much easier for the hubby AND the tweenager to translate and the food… the glorious food! For some reason, the food before seemed so foreign to me. Now I embrace it and look forward to it. (I don’t think I will ever be able to eat a fish with its face on though, that’s a little too much for me. I also don’t think I will ever get used to the water with bubbles either.) I love the fresh salad and fresh dressing, the unique meals and the cheese. Oh that cheese! Let’s not forget the bread and wine. And I would be so lucky to end off with a little coffee. I’m in heaven.

I need to make some friends though. The landscape, meals and warm temperature are only going to get me by for a while until I feel like I need more adult friendly conversation. And maybe my belle soeur isn’t going to want to hang out with me all the time The hubby is doing well with spending time with me, but I know he longs to see his friends he hasn’t seen in a while. And I feel for the tweenager. But it won’t be long until she is at school and meeting all sorts of new people.

Enough of that talk, we’re planning a trip to the Gewürztraminer area of France for a night. Just a small road trip. We might do a couple of others as well but I think we’re all a bit burnt out from traveling in a car for the time being. It’s nice to be planted in one place after such a huge trip across Canada. Oh, and the gas here is sooooo expensive. I think it works out to $1.70 per litre. It cost us $85 the other day to fill up. It’s going to be a relief when we move to the other apartment that we won’t have a car. Although, that will come with it’s own set of problems I’m sure.

We did a little photo shoot this morning with the wee babe when she was eating her carrots. I hope you enjoy.

Wee babe Update:

• She’s eating carrots, bananas and yams. Next up: apples and squash.
• She’s pulled herself up to a standing position a few times now. Wow, do I ever get nervous when she does this as she is so wibbly wobbly I can just see her tumbling over onto her head. Oh mon dieu.

I’m going to start out with an update on the wee babe.

Wee babe update:

• She’s officially crawling. She’s actually moving in a forward motion with both her hands and feet. It’s really cute. Before I know it I’m going to have to be fencing her off.
• She’s also pushing herself into a sitting position.
• She’s loving her index and middle finger on her right hand to suck. She uses these to soothe herself a lot. It also helps her to go to sleep sometimes.
• She just cut her 6^th tooth! Feels like she’s been teething for half her life now…

At the dinner we had at my in-laws house, there were many presents from them, my belle soeur, relatives and friends that were given to us, the tweenager and the wee babe. The wee babe is now dressed from head to toe. There aren’t enough days in the week to wear everything once. She has more outfits than all of us put together I think (ok, maybe not me LOL!).

A moment of reflection:

I’m feeling really good about being back here. Since this is my fourth trip here, life is beginning to feel really familiar now. I remember how things work differently here and I can actually speak better French than I ever have. (OK, I didn’t say perfect by any means. Just better.)

Although, last night we went to one of my hubby’s friend’s houses and it was like a blast from the past when all the friends showed up. Talking too quickly with too much slang. I couldn’t keep up. It’s times like that that I wonder what they think of me, this mute foreigner who’s 6-7 years older than all of them. My internal dialogue takes over.

I’m sure I’ll improve. I was happy to have 30+ minutes with our hostess to catch up on the wee babe, her upcoming wedding and her new condo. She speaks great English and with my broken French it was a wonderful conversation. We figured out that we’ve spent four 1^st of August’s together. I’d say that it’s now a full fledged tradition.

A funny foreigner story:

My Swiss mister had left for the stag so it was just me and the girls who were left to do the first shopping trip. To be honest with you, I was kind of excited to be driving by myself and figuring out the shopping by myself without the assistance of the hubby.

We started the morning off right with a brunch at the mister’s parent’s house in the pergola. This was really welcome as we had no food in the house (yet) and I love eating outside in the company of his mom and dad and sister.

After that it was time to get on the road. The tweenager was so much help. We both successfully (after one wrong roundabout exit) got to the shopping centre. Then we were faced with the shopping cart that you need to insert a coin into to free it from the other cart ahead of it. Cue looming music. Since I only had a bank card and no actual cash we took the elevator up to see if we could find an ATM.

We walked around the mall for a bit, me trying to summon up the courage to ask someone for directions to the machine, if there even was one. Finally, I stopped a man and asked if he spoke English (yeah I know, chicken right?) he did and he instructed us one floor below. Then again I asked another man (this time in French) to the nearest ATM. Ok. Mission accomplished. I had the $50 Swiss franc in my hand. Alas, you can not stuff that into the cart so I needed to get change.

Over to another shop to try my hand at more French (getting more confident now) and I then had the 2 francs in my hand for the carte. A half hour after we arrived at the mall, I finally had the carte in hand. Now I just needed to make it through the grocery store.

The grocery store was fairly uneventful save for every single item in the store is in different packaging than what you’re used to and written in a different language (thankfully I brought my human translator with me). Oh, and it was also slightly embarrassing when I didn’t realized that I needed to get on the other side of the cart when going through the checkout so the cashier needed to help me.

Then the drive home. Wow, can I just take a moment to let you know how much my tweenager is growing up? She did about 80% of the navigating that was needed to get us out of our wrong turn. We drove around the little village of Bussigny for about 10 minutes before deciding that we needed help and that we were just going to go back to the hubby’s parent’s house to get a chauffeur back. We came back out to the main road and at the next set of lights I recognized the gas station where we normally turn. After that, the tweenager navigated us through the little streets and walla! We were back home.

I have a feeling I just made a memory

Tomorrow I’m going to have the tweenager on as a guest blogger on my site, giving us some of her thoughts on our cross Canada trip. I’m looking forward to that!!