We have a failure to communicate

Sometime this weekend, either our modem or something else in the connection to our ADSL provider (needless to say, they think it's the modem, although we're not so sure) was mortally wounded. I tried to install a new modem last night, with no luck. Gretchen has successfully resisted the urge so far to call me at work every hour or two to ask if she has any new emails, but it's not easy. It's amazing (or not, I suppose, when you don't really have English language television) how quickly you feel cut off from the rest of the world--hopefully we'll get it fixed soon and post some ever-so-cute pix of Grandma Caril's visit......

Throwing the rock

Amidst the chaos of my mom's arrival and my trip to Nairobi, I almost forgot our exciting evening last week. The same friends who organized last year's curling extravaganza, which Gretchen unfortunately had to miss, decided to put together another unforgettable evening of ice, brooms and cheese fondue. While Gretchen could only come at the very beginning because it was almost Baby's bed time, she still got to follow in her father's footsteps and give it a shot (he curled back in Wisconsin...I mean, other than ice fishing, what else are you going to do during the arctic winters?). Anyway, a good time was had by all...

Never too old to learn

So, I got back from Nairobi this morning just in time for Thanksgiving...which is, not surprisingly, a normal day here. While I didn't have enough time in Nairobi to see anything beyond the drive from the hotel to work, I nevertheless learned a lot in my 48 hours there:

• I weigh 12.5 stone. I've never understood what it means that someone weighs x number of stone when reading the British press, but Kenya being a former British colony, the scale in my bathroom was in both stone and kilos (but not pounds).



• You always hear about Anglophone and Francophone countries in Africa, but when someone mentioned "Lusophone" countries as if I should know what that meant, I hadn't a clue what they were talking about. Oddly enough, none of the African residents I asked knew what that meant either, but finally someone from France told us it referred to Portugese-speaking countries. So now you can bust that out at your next party and impress your friends and loved ones.



• I'm afraid I missed out on one of the local culinary delights...Goat Eating.



• Maybe everyone else but me knew this, but "hakuna matata" is an actual Swahili expression meaning "no worries". (Although I still prefer "jambo", which is the Swahili word for "hello" and is especially amusing when spoken to African hotel staff by middle-aged/elderly white people wearing safari gear.



• Think international travel is all glamourous? It doesn't necessarily feel that way when you're crammed into a rickety old van that gets a flat tire on the way to work and has to pull over to the side of a busy road in Nairobi. (Somewhere there's a blogger in Nairobi who is posting that it is especially amusing when a bunch of white people in business suits are standing along the side of the road during rush hour next to a broken-down van.)




• My first night, I slept horribly in part because I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. Could have been a coincidence, but it turns out Nairobi is at about 5,500 feet (1,675 meters) elevation, which is higher than a lot of Swiss ski villages.



• Whereas in Dakar the local mini-buses were called Alhamdoulilahi and often had Muslim-themed decorations, in Nairobi at least half of the minibuses, or matatus, had sayings like "Praise the Lord" and "Jesus Saves" and "Look to God" on them. Lots of others went to the opposite extreme and said things like "100% Pure Pain", "The Game" (referring to the rapper of the same name), "Home Boyz", and possibly my favorite, "White Boy". Having nearly been in multiple accidents between the hotel and work, I'm still not sure which theme would inspire more confidence.



• I had the following conversation with the hotel concierge:
  ME: Is it safe to walk downtown during the day?
  CONCIERGE: Oh, yes...but it's not recommended.
  ME: Why is that?
  CONCIERGE: For safety reasons.



• Flowering jacaranda trees liven up even the ugliest of cities. (Lame picture, I know, but it's the best I could do from within the safe boundaries of the hotel grounds.)

Our little angel

After many sleepless nights and frustrating moments with our little angel, I think we've turned the corner. She's sleeping better, crying less, smiling more, and has been an absolute joy to be around. OK, so she still wakes me several times in the night, still eats far too often for my liking, and still tends to take only short catnaps, but we're making baby steps toward progress and that makes me a very happy (and less stressed out) Mom! I've had several people comment over the last few days that she seems like a very "content baby". This is new. She had previously been the very "serious baby". Maybe she just really loves having her Grandma Caril around! Whatever the reason, I'm hoping it's a sign of more good things to come. How could you not love a face like this?!

Manly man

We have an irritating cat in the neighborhood that especially bothers us because it poops in our yard and Grady evidently thinks this is some sort of rare delicacy (maybe it's his way of telling us we don't feed him enough, but regardless, it's not one of his more charming habits). We're not cat fans to begin with (exceptions include The Big Finn's cat, King, and my brother's dearly departed cat, Cat), but this is pushing us over the edge.

So the other day we thought we had an opportunity to teach the cat a lesson. Gretchen evidently caught it approaching our back door during the afternoon, so she sent Grady out after it. She knew Grady wouldn't actually hurt the cat (years of chasing squirrels have made that abundantly clear), but we still expected he might at least give it a good scare. He charged the cat--and Grady is a good 30 kilos (around 60 pounds)--but rather than running away, the cat just stood its ground, hissed and raised one paw, claws extended, and Grady simply stopped in his tracks. He just turned around and came back in the house and left the cat alone. It's a good thing for us that he has such a loud, booming bark because the reality is he's about the biggest wuss of a dog you're likely to meet (but we love him just the same).

Gonna see lions?

After a great couple of weeks of holiday spent mostly hanging out at home, it's back to reality--a 6:40am train to Zurich to catch a flight to Nairobi, Kenya for work. (In honor of my destination, an oldie-but-goodie...Only in Kenya!) I'd like to say I'm going to do lots of exploring, maybe go on safari, but the reality is that I'll be working both days that I'm there, plus Gretchen has demanded asked that I stay in the hotel since the city has quite a reputation for crime (although if there's the slightest chance I can sneak away to Nairobi National Park, I might try...just don't tell her I said that).

Anyway, I've been spoiled by having two weeks with my girlz (not to mention a couple of days with my mom), so I'm expecting a rude awakening tomorrow...

Yeah!

Grandma Caril is here (the first one in either of our families to meet Baby)!

Miracles happen

The last couple of weeks have been pretty tough Baby-wise. Let's just say that if she weren't such a sweet little girl most of the time, we were about ready to see what we could get for her on eBay. (And just so there's no confusion, that is indeed sarcasm. Besides, the baby section on eBay doesn't even have a category for actual babies.) In addition to her usual lack of napping, she was waking up at least five times during the night and not settling back down easily. It was literally worse than when she was a newborn. All of which makes for a very tired and cranky mother (and also explains why she is in a blogging moratorium), which in turn makes for a cranky papa. Good times all around, let me tell you (it'll make for fun stories when I go back to work next work and my co-workers ask how I spent my holidays).

Then all of a sudden last night she only woke up three times. Granted, that would have been normal a month ago, but compared to five times it actually let Gretchen feel like a human being this morning. Not only that, but both of them were rested enough to let us try a day trip to Strasbourg, France (since we had to cancel our trip to Venice, a closer city with canals had to suffice). She slept on the train. She let us eat a good Alsatian lunch. She didn't cry in the cathedral. She fell asleep in her stroller. She let us enjoy a fantastic tarte aux pommes at a nice little tea house (which we later found out was proudly featured on alsacegay.com...will we be allowed back into Virginia now?). She let us (i.e., Gretchen) change her diaper in multiple locations--including a really gross French train bathroom--without a squawk. She slept in the train on the way home. Then when we got home, the ultimate surprise: she fell asleep without crying or soothing. Gretchen just set her down and within 15-20 minutes she was asleep and three hours later still hasn't woken up. She has been like Bizarro Baby in every way today, but all for the good. I'm a bit nervous that writing about it is going to jinx it, but even if tomorrow is another rough day, huge thanks to Baby for giving us a great day!

(I think she's realized her Grandma Caril is arriving on Saturday morning, so she's already on her best behavior...)

Oh, and we really liked Strasbourg:

Put what on her face?

So Baby's been having issues with her skin--her cheeks in particular, but also her forehead & scalp to a lesser extent, have been red and dry and itchy. To make things worse, during her sleep it was obviously bothering her because we'd find little scratches all over her head (you'd be surprised how sharp a baby's nails can be). You can see a bit of it here; her other cheek has actually been worse:



So anyway, she had a check-up recently and her pediatrician prescribed a mild steroid cream for her cheeks--which, sadly, makes her ineligible for the Olympics in Beijing in 2008--and later added antihistamines to the mix (NOTE: I know some people are not very happy with babies and drugs, and we totally understand--but if it makes her feel better and not claw her face up, well, I guess we're willing to be bad parents as far as that goes). By the way, this is where I get to feel guilty. Gretchen did some research and discovered it's likely eczema, which babies tend to get when they have a parent who suffers from allergies. Let's just say that when my allergist did a skin test on me I literally came up allergic to 27 out of 30 irritants, and that two of the loud sounds she is most accustomed to are my (1) sneezing and (2) blowing my nose. Consider it papa's little gift to you, sweetheart.

While I wasn't there, my understanding is that she and the doctor then had a conversation that went something like this:

DOCTOR: So you use the steroid cream for six days, then switch to fat cream.

GRETCHEN: Excuse me, what?

DOCTOR: Fat cream.

GRETCHEN: What is fat cream?

DOCTOR: Here, I'll give you some.

Sure enough, it's actually called Fettcreme, which indeed translates to "fat cream". I'm sorry, but while I'm sure it's very effective, this doesn't seem like the wisest marketing strategy of all time. Maybe it's just my inner American speaking, but applying "fat cream" makes me feel like we're rubbing Crisco or lard onto her face...

Are we missing something?

So we were reading this weekend's IHT and were interested in this blurb about winter folklore festivals in Switzerland because it said that "One of the oldest traditions in Europe, pre-dating the Middle Ages, takes place Jan. 13 to 27 in the northern city of Basel."

Huh?

I mean, Fasnacht is of course huge here, but it's not until the end of February. There's also a festival involving something called a Vogel Gryff, but I thought that was more or less a one-day affair. So is there some huge tradition we've been missing out on? If so, I hate it when that happens.

(In the same blurb, we were pleased to see that there will be a flood barrier in Venice since that's where we were supposed to fly today but are putting off until Christmas instead--although I suppose it might be a bit unrealistic to think that a multi-billion Euro barrier will be built in the next month-and-a-half...)

Time on my hands

If it seems like I'm blogging a lot more than usual, it's probably because I'm in the midst of two weeks of holiday. Other than being in England at the beginning of the week, all we've done is stayed at home and that's all we'll be doing next week as well with the possible exception of a day trip or two. We decided it was for the best to postpone a trip we'd planned for next week since we really need to get Baby on more of a sleeping routine. Ordinarily in that situation I would probably just go back to work, but I'm actually required to take two consecutive weeks of holiday during the year (what a novel concept for an American!) so I'm just going to chill out at home. As strange as it feels not to be hopping on a train or plane somewhere, I have to say it's been really fun just to have some family time, especially since Baby is at an age where she is becoming very much her own little person (as opposed to just an eating/sleeping/crying/pooping machine) so it's great to get to spend a bunch of time with her and also to give Gretchen as much of a break as possible--feeding excluded, of course.

Killing time on a cold, wet Saturday afternoon

Saw this on Michelle's blog and thought I'd give it a go...things I've done in bold [personal commentary in brackets]:

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins [Not intentionally, but they would sometimes get close to shore in San Diego]
03. Climbed a mountain [Does hiking to the top of small mountains? I'm guessing not]
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid [Too claustrophobic, but I at least saw it]
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped [but I think I would if I was on The Amazing Race]
11. Visited Paris [love it]
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea [the lightning was at sea but I was ashore...I'm counting it]
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights [very dimly in northern New Hampshire]
15. Gone to a huge sports game [Duke-UNC basketball surely counts]
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper [but not until a few months ago]
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon [I rode up in one that was tethered to the ground, and it was enough to convince me I never want to ride in one again]
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment [I don't remember when, but hasn't everyone done this?]
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states [stuck on 46]
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had/Have amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing [or at least tried, but was too uncoordinated]
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland [weekend in Dublin, but would like to see more]
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow [in elementary school...it's way more difficult than it looks]
56. Alphabetized your cds [yes, I'm a geek]
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke [see 54 above]
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving [I wish]
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China [was ever-so-close but didn't get out of Beijing]
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice [hopefully before the year is finished]
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage [high-school air band contest...like I said, I'm a geek]
85. Been to Las Vegas [Vegas, baby. Vegas.]
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark [does sharks-fin soup count?]
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently [typical American]
95. Performed in a Rocky Horror Picture Show
96. Raised children [early days, but I think it counts]
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a TV game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery [just oral surgery]
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours [when sick]
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states [getting there, but 40 above makes it difficult]
124. Visited all 7 continents [still missing South America and Antarctica]
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days [canoes are WAY too tippy]
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper [as a kid]
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach [but not on purpose]
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read “The Iliad”
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read [I'm sure I have, but I don't remember who]
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care [not really my decision, but mother-in-law]
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident [nearly a really bad one...thankfully no injuries but her car was totaled, plus she was a lawyer and didn't sue me, which was a big plus]
150. Saved someone’s life [once tried to get someone out of a car after an accident but he had already died]

I think that's about 74, although some of them are admittedly pretty weak...

Just for the record

(1) So many of the pictures we've taken (and posted) of Baby are when she is in Very Serious mode. While it's true that she is Very Serious much of the time, she also smiles a lot, it's just that she usually stops the minute we get the camera out. We're happy to provide evidence that she is not, in fact, always Very Serious:



(2) It's never too early to start working on rap moves:

This is our life

Gretchen found this while reading about Baby's development this morning:

"Strong-willed and high-strung babies require an extra dose of patience and gentle guidance. They often don't adapt to changing surroundings as easily as calmer babies, and will become increasingly upset if pushed to move or perform before they're ready."

High-strung she's not, but strong-willed? With a vengeance. (From what we understand, this is not unlike her mother when she was a child.) She's the only baby we know who won't take naps of longer than 30 minutes, in part because she seems afraid that if she sleeps any longer she might miss something good. (And yes, we're often guilty of ascribing adult motives to her infant behavior...)

Recap

Despite several sleepless nights with Munchkin, who for some reason is actually waking up more frequently during the night than she was a month ago (perhaps because we just learned she's in the 90th percentile [!] for her age in both weight and length), we had an excellent long weekend in England. While the people in Italy were incredibly baby-friendly, London was a far easier city than Rome to manage with a baby. Oxford was the quintessential university town--each little college more picturesque than the next, young people out doing whatever it is young people do these days, lots of good shops, cafes and pubs, etc.





Part of the reason we went to Oxford was to see the Cotswolds, and my original brilliant idea was to rent a car and spend Sunday driving us around (I drove on the left side of the road in Malaysia and Thailand, so why not?). Then I was looking for information about our hotel and came across a company where you can hire a driver to take you around the Cotswolds. So I swallowed my pride and didn't drive us around myself, and having seen the tiny little country roads I would have had to navigate, was that ever money well spent. The Cotswolds were as charming as advertised...rolling hills, stone houses and fences, cute little rivers (what we might call a creek or a stream, they call a river), sheep galore, sunny skies, it was all good (except no celebrity sightings...sorry, Lee!).







The cold air meant that Munchkin even got to bust out her spiffy new hat-and-mitten combo:



And while our new life means pubs are no longer a regular fixture on our trips, we did manage to get to one for lunch in the perfectly named Stow-on-the-Wold:

4 months isn't too early...

...to start getting into Sesame Street, is it?



(Actually, Sesame Street aside, it's a bit frightening how quickly Baby has noticed the TV...at times Gretchen has to turn it off during feeding because Baby is so mesmerized, even by something as bland as CNN. Yikes.)

If it's not too much trouble

Only the Brits could find such a polite way to say "keep your f&#*ing dog off my lawn!":

O happy day

If we've got a little extra spring in our steps this morning, it probably isn't just because we're happy to be home...

Home

It's nice to be back in Basel, especially after getting a 5:30am text message telling us our 8:30am flight had been cancelled and instead not getting back until 6:00pm. More later, but of course London was great, Oxford was a gem, the Cotswolds were oh-so-charming, eating lots of good food was a real treat (it's hard to believe it wasn't all that long ago that "good food" and "England" wouldn't have been used in the same paragraph), Guy Fawkes and the young people of Oxford went easy on us despite our fears, and Baby was great except for a few miserable (especially for Gretchen) sleepless nights and a hysterical crying fit on the flight home...

Guy Fawkes can bite me

So it turns out that tonight is evidently Guy Fawkes Night here in the UK. We're still not entirely sure what this means except that it involves someone who tried to burn down Parliament hundreds of years ago, but what we do know is that it involves copious amounts of fireworks. We know this in part because last night Baby was sleeping soundly when someone set off a bunch of loud fireworks or firecrackers nearby, and the next thing we knew she was screaming--not just crying, but screaming uncontrollably--at the top of her lungs. Maybe the full moon had something to do with it, but from that point on she basically woke up every 30-60 minutes throughout the night. So we're really looking forward to tonight, since last night was just a warm-up for the real thing...

A whole new world

We really liked the hotel where we stayed in Rome a couple of weeks ago, but the only weird thing is that the whole time they were filming what turned out to be a music video so we were constantly dodging film crews and equipment when entering and exiting the hotel. One day while I was in meetings Gretchen said that they seemed to be filming a remake of that song "A Whole New World" (which she couldn't miss because it was played at such a loud volume that it woke up Baby when they were in the lobby). We figured it was probably some cheesy Italian singer and promptly forgot about the whole thing...until tonight.

I had picked up a copy of trashy Brit celeb mag OK! for Gretchen, and as she was reading it she came across a two-page spread about someone named Peter and Katie filming a video for "A Whole New World" at a hotel in Rome...whoa! But who the hell are Peter and Katie? As quick as you can say "google", I learned that they both seemed to be B-list celebrities in the UK (Katie aka Jordan) and Australia (Peter). Gretchen actually walked right past Katie, so I guess I wasn't the only one to have a minor brush with fame this month...

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...

Love letter

Not that I've had time to see anything beyond walks to dinner and taxis to and from work, but can I just say that I heart London? I'm sure I'm biased by having eaten a great Thai dinner last night and Indian tonight, but I absolutely heart this place. Everything about it. Well, almost everything. There are actually three things that I really don't like about London:

(1) Geez, is it expensive. Cost-wise, London = New York + Tokyo. No, seriously.

(2) On a related note, the hotel value-to-cost ratio is absurd. We're paying ridiculous amounts of money for a room that looks like hasn't been re-decorated since, well...ever. Walking from one side of the room to the other is pretty much impossible without moving furniture (or each other) out of the way. (Although in fairness, the location in Mayfair is excellent and the bathroom is modern.)

(3) Gretchen is pretty much incapable of walking around without singing Fergie's "London Bridge".

But I do heart everything else...

Jolly old England

We're torn--on the one hand, travelling with Baby is getting progressively less easy as time goes by, but on the other hand we only have a few months left in Europe so we want to take advantage of every opportunity we have to squeeze in a bit more travel. So lately we seem to be erring on the side of travelling, even if we (and especially Gretchen) pay the price for it.

Why mention this? Because I have a meeting in London on Friday, followed by some vacation time, so Gretchen and Baby are going to come up for a long weekend (we're figuring London has to be more stroller/pram-friendly than Rome). But since we can't ever do things the simple way, I decided that it wasn't enough to deal with the security hassles of flying into London and the fun of trying to drag Baby around the sprawling city. I figured that in all of my visits to London, the farthest out of the city I've ever been was Windsor Castle (which is basically in the suburbs), so we should get out of London for a couple of days and see a bit more of what England has to offer. So, we're planning to take the train and spend the weekend in Oxford just to see something a little different (besides, if we stayed in London for the weekend it's not like we would be able to go to shows or exotic late-night dinners).

Assuming we make it through all the travels without killing each other, what I hope will be the highlight is that we've arranged for a tour from Oxford of the Cotswolds, which is supposed to be a quintessential English countryside region. Truth be told, I didn't know the first thing about the Cotswolds until I started looking into this trip, but when I saw that it included towns with names like Stow-on-the-Wold, Wotton-under-Edge, Moreton-in-Marsh, Bourton-on-the-Water, Painswick, Chipping Campden, Snowshill, Bibury, Cirencester, and Upper and Lower Slaughter...well, I knew this was a place we had to see (I couldn't make up names like that if I tried).

[And please, PLEASE let Baby stay calm enough for us to least go out for a good Indian meal or two while we're there...]