India explorations

We are in India and having an amazing time.

Flying to India

Zoe and I flew to India a couple of days ago. It was the first long haul flight I have taken with her in a year and it means she has reached 100.000 miles now (but let me get back to you on that after I have added things up). It was remarkably different to travel with a talking, walking, running toddler compared to the 18 month old stumbling, babbling toddler from last year. One major difference is that she is now able to sit and concentrate on watching cartoons or draw, or even play with her doll, by herself for about 20 minutes. Another difference is that she can walk most of the way herself on a layover, although having a one hour 15 minute layover in Munich was a bit stressful when she walked over to every single shop with any kind of cuddly bear or colorful bag hanging on display. "Se mor!"[look mommy] she said in that way only kids can, with wide-eyed amazement. In the end I had to simply let go of my fear of missing the plane (and unfortunately I have a bit of a history on that one...) and just be calm. What a nice bag, Zoe. Yes, that's pretty too. Come on, let's go, we are going to India to see your uncle and aunt. "Oh yeah", she would say, as she just realized that right now and follow me.

On the long haul Lufthansa Airbus 340-600 we got seats not too far away from the galley and the stairs down to the restrooms (yeah, I had never been on an airplane with restrooms downstairs, it had ups and downs, mostly downs when you have a not so stable stair walking toddler who loves going to the bathroom). This meant that after Zoe had snoozed for a couple of hours, letting me have my meal and watch TV comedies, she could get up and ask for more cashews from the flight attendant herself. Did I mention that this is a major advantage of having a bi/trilingual kid? She has no problem understanding English when we travel despite her living in Sweden and speaking Danish with me. "More cashews please", she said and after initial confusion and the flight attendant trying to give her apple juice, he got it. Throughout the rest of the flight she continued to ask for more and managed to eat 5 packs. And a small pack of ketchup instead of any of the delicious food that was on her special kids meal tray. As she exited the plane she waved at all the flight attendants: "bye bye airplane", to the smiles of most of them.

Exiting in Mumbai was a bit of a shock to me. Of course I knew that it would look different from what I'm used to in my little Western World bubble, but the smell, the warmth and people running around everywhere was still overwhelming. Zoe was still walking all the way through immigration but as we were waiting for our bag and car seat she got hyper, running around me in circles. I got slightly worried about her running too far away and getting lost in the crowd so I suggested she go in the baby carrier. Luckily she got excited: "Zoe little baby in carrier", she repeated and I managed to drag my two suitcases (a carry on roller bag and a slightly bigger checked in bag, along with the car seat) out towards our waiting hotel transport. Luggage trolleys were nowhere in sight so it took me a bit of effort and I was surprised that nobody offered to help me out. With a toddler on my back and two suitcases and a car seat. In the US I would have had three guys and one fellow mom asking me if they could help. We kept up the spirit and after a long walk faced the airport exit crowd. What a sight. Hundreds of people with signs, people with luggage standing waiting and people yelling everywhere. The warmth was mild but humid. After not seeing my sign anywhere a guy in uniform finally felt sorry for me and asked what company I was looking for. He swiftly found the driver of my ride and in three minutes we were on our way. Mumbai here we come. 

Where did I go again?

It should be no surprise for the observant reader (someone who for example reads the title of my blog) that I travel a lot. In one month (October) I was in the US twice, and in-between, I was in London. All for work. The nice thing is that I am around other people who travel a lot too, since academia, and particularly my branch of social science, bases knowledge exchange on conferences and workshops, often international since my field is rather small. There are probably not more than a couple of thousand people in Sweden who are truly working in my broader field, PhD students through full professors. So today when I had coffee with a colleague who had just returned from three back to back trips and we exchanged journey experiences, I suddenly blanked on where I had been while he was also away. Not just blanking for a couple of second, but no I simply could not remember where I had been. At all. "I know I was flying somewhere!", I said and my colleague laughed and reassured me this also happened to him sometimes. After a couple of minutes and changing the topic, I finally remembered. I was in Florida. For two and a half days. In a resort for the conference the whole time. No wonder I couldn't remember.

Next week Zoe and I are off to India, a completely private trip for the leisure of both of us. My brother and his wife live there and I am so excited to go visit them and see parts of India for the first time. I am less excited about having a 2 and a half year old on a plane for 12 hours, but grandma brought 8 new books last time she was here and I am borrowing an iPad with movies on. I have also taken out my old baby wrap, which I can still carry Zoe in, hoping that the excitement of 'Zoe little baby in carrier' will add calmness to the trip.

Christmas in November

One of the best Scandinavian Christmas traditions is the so-called advents calendar. Despite this name in English, it is in fact a daily calendar where we count down from December 1st until christmas eve: December 24th. It comes in many shapes and types, chocolate calendars, present calendars and some with just pictures. However, a stable one in each Scandinavian home is also the calendar candle. It has a series of numbers running down the side and is often decorated prettily in tasteful colors.

This year I will not be home for most of December. I am going to Paris (bringing Zoe) and flying directly to China (without Zoe), landing back in Stockholm 19th and possibly going to Denmark the 21st (bringing Zoe). Instead of using the calendar candle for December I then had the brilliant idea to use one in November. Zoe will be able to learn numbers and instead of counting down to Christmas we are counting down to our trip to India. We leave on the 23rd and I bet that a two and a half year old has a hard time distinquishing between 23 and 24 anyway. I bought a very nicely decorated calendar candle yesterday (and an ornament for Zoe, shaped as a drum, she did not want to leave the shop without) and we have started countdown. Zoe meticously lights it every day watching that she doesn’t burn her fingers, which she did once and therefore never will again. Only 19 more days to go.

Two return tickets to India

I just bought two plane tickets to Mumbai, India. One for me and one for Zoe. It was not a difficult decision although some people in my life (read: my mom) think I travel too much. After all, what else is a "single mom" to do when she has freedom to do whatever she wants to do and happen to have a brother in India? That's right: my brother moved there in May with his other half who is now doing fundraising and yoga while my brother manages a department in a large producer of factory parts. I have never been to India but always wanted to visit, I have had many nice Indian acquaintances and find the culture fascinating. So why not find the first available week and go visit? In the end of November, I will grab Zoe, get on a plane and spend a week there including weekends on both sides.

Now I knew that India requires a visa, or that is two, one in Zoe's passport and one in my passport. Zoe has two passports so I chose to use the Danish one where the visa is the cheapest. For some reason Americans pay a premium for most visas in this world, something I learned when we took Zoe to China and her visa was three times the amount of her parents' visa. I also know that a visa requires you to hand in your passport for a short time. What I hadn't calculated was the very short time between my US trips this fall and the fact that I would need my passport for these. And what I hadn't done was to prepare my India visa application for handing in the minute I stepped off the plane in Stockholm two days ago. Today I realized that I have to wait with the Indian visa until I get back from my next trip to the US in the end of October, which leaves me with 15 business days to get it done. The website says 10 days so that should be okay. Still, I cannot help worry a bit and thinking that I am the one who needed two passports, not Zoe.