A Bend in the Road: July 2013

While the majority of our trips transpire as a result of a cheap airfare deal, this trip to Edinburgh came about in a different way. In an effort to stay involved in the world of women's health, and save at least a few brain cells from becoming permanently claimed by toddlerese, I'm always on the lookout for interesting conferences or trainings in my field, especially while out here in Europe. Last year I had attended the Certified Lactation Counselor training in Landstuhl, Germany, and loved the opportunity to travel, earn a new certification, and have some time that was strictly "mine". It's far too easy to get lost in the day to day of doing for others, filling your children's needs, and dwelling on your sudden lack of identity. Periodically I get lost in this mindset, and realize then it is up to me to find balance when I'm feeling overly extended and "sucked dry" (my mother's term).

When I saw that Ina May Gaskin (often described as the world's most influential midwife and the author of so many books already on my bookshelf) would be speaking at this birthing conference in Scotland, I jumped on the opportunity. Despite the fact that I don't deliver babies as a WHNP, birth -- especially natural birth -- is a deep interest of mine, and something I can't seem to get enough information about lately. This conference featured some amazing speakers from all over the world -- obstetricians, doulas, midwives, lactation educators, endocrinologists. It was two days of evidenced based science supporting so much of what already feels so right about a more natural "hands-off" approach to pregnancy and birth. It was fascinating to hear a more global perspective, especially within the UK, which takes a more progressive approach to understanding that, in many cases, less is more when it comes to the laboring mother, and it is the quiet support and empowerment that so often makes the biggest difference and produces the best outcomes with woman laboring and giving birth. Coming from the highly medicalized system of childbirth in the USA, it was very enlightening to see some highly respected, educated, and knowledgeable professionals from around the globe speak about the dangers of this overly generalized medical approach, and reaffirm that, in the vast majority of cases, and in the appropriately supported environment, women's bodies often know best. Obviously a topic I could write about for days, but for anyone who is interested, there are some excellent documentaries outlining what I describe above: Birth Story and The Business of Being Born , do an especially good job, links attached.

OK, off the soap box.

So once I secured my spot at this conference, Chris and I decided to make this one a family excursion, taking some extra time while we were there to visit Chris's Aunt and Uncle who live there permanently. We had heard Edinburgh was a spectacular city, so this felt like we were winning all the way around...sightseeing in a new place, visiting family, and recharging my professional batteries. We would leave on Thursday, I would spend Friday and Saturday at the conference while Chris saw some sights with the kids. Then we would have Sunday and Monday together as a family to explore.

The trip started out...a little bumpy. The rental car, for starters. Now, let me just say, I'm kind of an expert at booking hotels. I have found some sickeningly good deals on hotels over the past year and a half. We stayed in a 5 star hotel in Budapest for 60 euros per night. I found us the quintessential English country cottage for peanuts in the Cotswolds. I'll say it: I have a hotel booking gift. Cars --not so much. I never seem to get the reservation right, always thinking I'm getting a great deal but ending up with some kind of extra charge for this or that. We never have the right documentation, credit card, or identification. We are cursed when it comes to renting cars.

This trip was no different.

After what was...ahem...not our best flight with the kids (insert crazy children running in circles chasing each other at the arrivals gate, angry disapproving father wishing he could leave the kids at the baggage claim, and exhausted mother wishing she had a sandwich in her hand), we arrived at the itty bitty airport of Prestwick. Huh. That's funny. I thought we were flying into Glasgow...

Backing up here. Ryanair, our budget airline of choice, tends to do some false advertising when booking flights. "29 EUROS TO LONDON!" "19 EUROS TO ROME!" You get all excited thinking you are going to be getting the steal of a lifetime...until you realize, you aren't so much flying into the actual city, but some tiny, long forgotten airport about 50 miles outside the city.

I swear on all that is holy that when I booked the flights, Ryanair told me we were flying to Glasgow. Apparently it was Glasgow-Prestwick. I was super psyched, because it was a huge price break to fly into Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, which was only a 30 minute drive away, and likely a scenic drive at that. Therefore, when I booked the car, I booked the car at the Glasgow airport. Duh.

Well, I thought it was a little funny when we arrived, and we kept seeing all these pesky Prestwick signs. And as we approached the Europe Car desk with my neatly organized little folder of vacation tidbits, proudly handing over my previously printed out reservation confirmation, imagine my surprise when the nice Scottish woman informed us...we were not, in fact, at the same airport as my car reservation.

"WHAT?! Stupid Ryanair! It said Glasgow, I thought we were going to Glasgow! It says it right here...on my....oh."

I had pulled out my flight stub and looked down to see the tiny print that read "Prestwick" as our destination. I know it sounds really weird that our entire family just flew to a city without really realizing which city we were flying to...but I swear these kinds of things start to happen over here, and can happen to even the most responsible adult (or who once was, previous to entering the strange little world of expatriation). Though, with the current state of Williams' family mentality, none of this mattered. My husband was not amused. (Sadly, this booking of a car at the wrong airport has happened again since. For what it's worth, Palma, Mallorca of the Balearic Islands, is not so much La Palma of the Canary Islands. Turns out, not even the same continent. Whoops.)

Well, the good news was that we were able to cancel our previous reservation without any additional fees. The bad news was, there was only one car left available in Prestwick. And when I say car, I really mean glorified go-cart. As we herded our wild animals, luggage, and trusty double stroller out to see our new wheels, we were stopped dead at the sight of this tiny little clown car. Fur began to fly. Swears were muttered. Time-outs were given. Somehow, someway, after a few mini-meltdowns we managed fit everything into the car, children included, and were on our way to Edinburgh.

As we pulled onto the main highway, and looked up through our furrowed brows, the view of the Scottish countryside gave us the much needed slap upside the head, "Hey A-HOLES, YOU'RE IN SCOTLAND!!!" Chris and I smiled, looked at each other, and grabbed hands. This is it. Nothing else matters.

It was breathtaking. Green rolling hills spilling over into the ocean. Wooden fences encasing farmland, and a landscape that held so many different textures and colors, it looked like a collection of museum paintings, all meshed together into one panoramic masterpiece. My heart aches, literally aches, as I type this. Wishing I could go back and see it again.

And I will say once we arrived at our efficiency apartment rental, complete with complimentary upgrade, I had fully redeemed myself. We had a huge, newly renovated, one bedroom apartment complete with a full kitchen, UK TV, and huge American style bed. The last hour of knees against the windshield and luggage on our laps was long forgotten.

Spying on the neighbors from our room

I have to say, we were reminded of one of the most glaring differences between the UK and Spain almost right off the bat. The first night we went in search of a place to eat. Naturally, we wanted some real Scottish grub, so we walked up to the first pub-style restaurant we saw downtown, happy to finally be in a country that served diner before 9pm. Immediately we were approached by the host... who informed us that children were not allowed in this restaurant. Not only that, but there was only one restaurant in the area that did allow children inside for dinner, and he directed us to it. Once we arrived the only kid friendly joint in town, we were given the rules by the hostess: we had to sit in the back roped off "kid" area, we had to order a meal, when our meal was done we couldn't sit and have drinks, and we all had to be out by 8pm at the latest. Well then.

We get it. We don't necessarily always want to be eating dinner with our children either. But this all seemed a little extreme, especially coming from Spain -- where children are included in everything, everywhere. You could walk into the nicest restaurant in Barcelona at 11:30pm, and I would bet you would find at least one family with a small child. In Barcelona, children are a part of life, and families do everything together. It was very interesting to see just how different it was in the UK. I had mentioned this to one British father friend here in Barcelona, and as he put it, "we assume children should be tucked into their beds at that hour, not out at a restaurant". Understandably so, but as a family traveling together, we weren't given that option.

Mia's first taste of haggis

Anyway, aside from the segregated meals, we couldn't say enough about Edinburgh. As a city, it really doesn't get any better. Gorgeous old buildings, great food, friendly people...history up the wazoo. In one afternoon, I managed to find a laundry list of American goodies I had been missing -- Aveda make-up, Starbucks instant coffee singles, and a new car charger for our phone. It was the best of what we love about being in Europe, with all the creature comforts of home in the USA.

Real Scottish Breakie

Admiring the Scotch selection

While I conferenced, Chris brought the kids to the National Museum of Scotland -- and declared it the best museum he had ever been to. Best of all...it was free! He liked it so much, he went back the following day to see more. Evan especially loved the train exhibits and robotic arm that could spell their names.

A night out with family...

On our way to dinner with Chris's Aunt and Uncle

During our final day, we decided to head outside of Edinburgh, to the seaside town of North Berwick. A quiet, coastal town with a New England-y feel to it.

We woke Evan up from his car nap to see the beach...he wasn't impressed

We headed over to the Scottish Seabird Center, a very kid friendly little museum full of activities for kids, and local wildlife exhibits. We spent some time inside exploring, then headed back to Edinburgh...a perfect day trip, and had us wanting to see even more of this beautiful country.

Despite the bumpy start, Edinburgh continues to be some of our fondest memories traveling as a family. It came with more than a few challenges, but left us wanting more from this gorgeous, friendly city. We LOVE Edinburgh, and vow to be back someday...maybe once the kids are old enough to get into restaurants :)

I can talk about our experiences...blog about them, and share pictures. I can Skype, and take my friends and family on virtual tours of our apartment with our laptop and have the children pop in to say hello and talk about their day. But ultimately, it feels like no one will ever "get it" without coming here to see for themselves. The good and the bad. For me, time abroad no doubt has altered my perspective on life and I often have a hard time trying to temper that little voice inside me that screams, "I realized an important lesson about life today, let's share it with the world!!!". When I see beauty, when something rocks me to my core, when I'm humbled and feel like I'm seeing something for what it really is for the first time, I want to share it with anyone who will listen so they can feel it too...find that moment for themselves, and then tell me what they feel and think about it. My greatest challenge is finding the right voice, the right forum, and the right audience, without imposing my thoughts and ideas of those who may not, quite frankly, care. It's been hard when these moments are coming at me fast and furious while living in Spain.

I knew coming here visitors would be limited. Airfare is far from cheap, and when it is multiplied by four, as would be the case for many family members with children, well...we're talking about the price of a new car here. Add to that school, work, kids, and I fully understood we would likely be just sharing stories and pictures of this experience with those who were closest to us.

It was an added bonus when our parents all came to visit last year (Chris's mom, Chris's Dad, and my mom), spending time with us as a family and seeing for themselves what this experience is all about. We were still newbies ourselves, figuring out life and slowly spreading our Barcelona wings, so their experience I think was also focused on our new view of life in Barcelona, and much of what we saw and did, we were discovering together for the first time.

When I was home with Evan in the US in February, I sat sitting at my sister's counter having coffee one morning, the questions started to come...

"What is the weather like in April?"

"When you get to the airport, how do you get to your house?"

"What is the flight like?"

She was going to do it...my sister was going to come! It wasn't as if I wasn't excited about our parents who had come to visit the year prior. We were thrilled. It was just that this would be my sister's first trip to Europe. It was special, and something I knew she especially would love and appreciate. There's something kind of unique when you step out of a plane for the first time in a completely foreign land, and realize that the places you had spent your life thinking and reading about actually do exist. Seeing the similarities and differences, realizing the world was even bigger (or smaller) than you realized. Maybe I'm just overly indulging my own little world view, but at the very least I knew she would not regret her decision to come. .

Never one to miss the opportunity for a family Jamberoo, and much to my excitement, my mother decided to join my sister for the week, and so began their travel plans for a mid-April visit to Barcelona. We were THRILLED to have them.

I have to say, I'm not a huge planner by nature. Most of the vacations that Chris and I planned included hotel and car reservations, but apart from that we usually just had a general idea of what we wanted to see and do, with no real plan on how it would all happen. Over time, we've realized that it does work to our benefit to put together a loose plan going into it -- you eat better food, waste less time, and are able to see a whole lot more. But never once I had a made an hour to hour itinerary...until my sister's visit. I was DETERMINED to fill our week with as much of the European experience as we could fit into seven days to make her trip worthwhile. We are talking a week filled with the best of the cuisine, Barcelona sightseeing, and even a two day excursion to Paris. In hindsight, I think I took it to the extreme...I ran my poor guests ragged the first few days and after an epic alarm clock fail that was quickly followed a minor injury on the morning of our Paris flight, we all agreed to take it down a notch. We included more downtime, planned a leisurely drive up to Carcassonne, France and a night in Toulouse instead, and just focused on enjoying each other's company, filling our time with sights at a more reasonable pace,

Overall, the week was a huge success. I will be forever grateful and appreciative that my mother and sister were willing to come so far to see us, and to share this experience with us...An intangible life experience that, ultimately, really has nothing to do with Gaudi buildings or tapas...it's something we will always share.

Some little snip-its from our week together...