Hawaii here we come

After an idyllic family Christmas, Zoe and I are embarking on our longest plane journey ever (the one to China from California was not quite as long); we are off to a conference in Hawaii. It was a long-shot when I submitted a paper last summer but it got in and now I have to go present it. From Copenhagen, Hawaii is as far away as anything possible, 12 hours behind, meaning our chances of actually getting over jetlag before we have to return are slim. I am envisioning a lot of nights in our hotel room reading books and waiting for breakfast to open, but also beach trips and Zoe yawning through conference talks in the back with her iPad (that's how we do it these days when conferences don't have childcare). It is a once in a lifetime trip and if I wasn't so broke from plane tickets between Copenhagen and Stockholm (5983 DKK per month to be exact), I would splash out on some actual trips on the island. We will be on the Big Island at a Hilton resort and there will be friends of mine with kids and someone who have promised to look after Zoe when I present my paper. All in all a good deal I think. Zoe has been singing 'Hula hula' all December in anticipation and packed not just two, but three bathing suits along her swimming doll.

Back in Copenhagen life happened. A lot of it. I can't be specific but let me say 2017 will be interesting to say the least from my personal perspective. Happy new year!

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.

Long haul flight back from Sweden

Flying back from Sweden with a 4 month old baby was not bad at all. Zoe slept almost the whole long haul flight from London to LA, letting Mark and me have nice dinner and watch a movie. Zoe was snoozing in the bassinet above our seats, where she occasionally opened her eyes, looked drowsily at us and then dozed off again. This preemptively made up for the full on cry all the way from LA to San Diego.

We had been relaxing in the LAX lounge when the personnel came down and told us that our flight was about to board and the gate was quite a walk away. It was still early which is why we hadn't packed up yet and I was feeding Zoe. I had to de-latch her and put her in the carrier where she started crying. She was not done eating. What we also hadn't realized was that we had to go through security again. And the line was long. I looked the officer in the eyes as he sent us out a door where the end of the line had snaked around to, hoping he would realize I was carrying a crying 4 month old and let us through before everyone else. He didn't budge. Outside I started pacing back and forth while Mark stood in line for us but Zoe was still out of it. People looked sympathetically at us but nobody offered us their spot. When we got inside the door, still with a wailing baby, there was a bit of commotion up front and the security officer from before came over and, still not looking at me, told us to come up front. They let us go through in front of the still snaking queue and I almost felt the communal sigh from the crowd as we started jogging towards the gate.

At that moment a little airport car came towards us with a woman that was about to save our night. "Do you need a ride?" she said and we nodded. With Zoe still crying we made the flight as the last passengers and a check-in guy letting us know that we were very lucky. I didn't feel very lucky because Zoe was still crying, now hysterically, so hysterically that she couldn't even latch on as soon as I attempted after sitting down and fastening my seatbelt. She just cried and cried. Mark took her for a bit of the 20 minute flight, which felt like three hours, but it wasn't until the pilot turned on the seatbelt sign for our inflight that she finally fell asleep. We stayed on the plane until everyone had left and then very carefully, very quietly put her in the carrier again where she continued snoozing until we got out to the curb. Our friend and summer subletter were waiting with our car and Zoe's car seat. Mark and I agreed that for a 18 hour journey, she had done very well. This was not bad at all.