Saturday morning musings
Some random follow-up on recent posts and comments while waiting to leave for Oxford:
--Gretchen said that using "I heart" in my post about London sounded like Dictator Princess...this was entirely unintentional, but in retrospect I'm probably guilty as charged.
--Yet another annoying blog reader (their moniker, not me casting aspersions) asked about salaries in Switzerland with regard to our expensive Thai food. I don't have anything solid to base this on, but my sense is that salaries overall in Switzerland do tend to be higher than in other places, especially for lower-level jobs. (It's hard to compare my personal situation because I'm in a unique working arrangement.) I've heard people suggest (again, with no evidence) that there is an informal social compact in Switzerland where people are willing to pay higher prices and to favor Swiss products to maintain an overall high standard of living for the country as a whole. The only thing that's strange is just how much cheaper things can be across the border in France or Germany, both of which also seem to be places where the lowest-paid workers still earn a living wage.
--Carmi made a comment on Gretchen and Baby's travel challenges that really captured how our travel style has changed. The problem is that we have two conflicting goals. On the one hand, we're trying to get Baby on as much of a regular schedule as possible (she is an incredibly Sweet Baby most of the time, but when it comes to sleeping and eating she is quite the Difficult Baby). On the other hand, we want to still be able to do as much as we possibly did before Baby. Increasingly, the former goal is trumping the latter. So now the main critera for choosing restaurants is not the quality of the food but rather are they open early and can we get in and out quickly? Or, as we discovered in Capri, can we get takeout to bring back to the room? And when it comes to choosing a place to stay, I find myself poring over hotel websites to see if I can tell whether or not they have comfortable chairs for nursing, whether there is room for a baby crib (in London, by the way, I failed miserably on both counts), and whether they are likely to have good room service if we can't take Baby out to eat. A balcony is an added bonus as well.
--Everyone should travel in Italy with a baby at some point. It's amazing how much people love babies. Spain was similar, but the big difference is that in Italy the men were just as likely as the women to want to play with Baby. We had the entire staff of hotels and restaurants come over to see Baby, and we had people stop us on the street to kiss her hands. This was really nice at all times, but especially when she was in Difficult Baby mode.
--We noticed we've taken different travel roles now when it comes to Baby. I find myself trying to push us to do as much as we possibly can (since I'm not the one who generally pays the price when Baby overdoes it), whereas Gretchen tends to be super-cautious about doing too much (since one bad moment can stay in her mind more than ten good moments). So far this has actually been a good balance as long as we're clear with each other. We've done some things we might otherwise not have done if Gretchen had her way (a great Thai meal the other night, for example), but we've also avoided potential fiascoes because Gretchen can read Baby's mood and decide she needs a nap NOW.
Uh oh, Baby awakes...
--Gretchen said that using "I heart" in my post about London sounded like Dictator Princess...this was entirely unintentional, but in retrospect I'm probably guilty as charged.
--Yet another annoying blog reader (their moniker, not me casting aspersions) asked about salaries in Switzerland with regard to our expensive Thai food. I don't have anything solid to base this on, but my sense is that salaries overall in Switzerland do tend to be higher than in other places, especially for lower-level jobs. (It's hard to compare my personal situation because I'm in a unique working arrangement.) I've heard people suggest (again, with no evidence) that there is an informal social compact in Switzerland where people are willing to pay higher prices and to favor Swiss products to maintain an overall high standard of living for the country as a whole. The only thing that's strange is just how much cheaper things can be across the border in France or Germany, both of which also seem to be places where the lowest-paid workers still earn a living wage.
--Carmi made a comment on Gretchen and Baby's travel challenges that really captured how our travel style has changed. The problem is that we have two conflicting goals. On the one hand, we're trying to get Baby on as much of a regular schedule as possible (she is an incredibly Sweet Baby most of the time, but when it comes to sleeping and eating she is quite the Difficult Baby). On the other hand, we want to still be able to do as much as we possibly did before Baby. Increasingly, the former goal is trumping the latter. So now the main critera for choosing restaurants is not the quality of the food but rather are they open early and can we get in and out quickly? Or, as we discovered in Capri, can we get takeout to bring back to the room? And when it comes to choosing a place to stay, I find myself poring over hotel websites to see if I can tell whether or not they have comfortable chairs for nursing, whether there is room for a baby crib (in London, by the way, I failed miserably on both counts), and whether they are likely to have good room service if we can't take Baby out to eat. A balcony is an added bonus as well.
--Everyone should travel in Italy with a baby at some point. It's amazing how much people love babies. Spain was similar, but the big difference is that in Italy the men were just as likely as the women to want to play with Baby. We had the entire staff of hotels and restaurants come over to see Baby, and we had people stop us on the street to kiss her hands. This was really nice at all times, but especially when she was in Difficult Baby mode.
--We noticed we've taken different travel roles now when it comes to Baby. I find myself trying to push us to do as much as we possibly can (since I'm not the one who generally pays the price when Baby overdoes it), whereas Gretchen tends to be super-cautious about doing too much (since one bad moment can stay in her mind more than ten good moments). So far this has actually been a good balance as long as we're clear with each other. We've done some things we might otherwise not have done if Gretchen had her way (a great Thai meal the other night, for example), but we've also avoided potential fiascoes because Gretchen can read Baby's mood and decide she needs a nap NOW.
Uh oh, Baby awakes...
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