I haven't looked, but my guess is that about a third of my entries here on the ol' blog-o-rama start off with something like "when I started this blog,..." and then go on to say something about how I'm not very regular with the thing. I won't keep saying that every time. Even if it is the truth.
Every year, Daria and I lament our failure at preparing and sending a Christmas Letter. This year is no different. So instead, we're sending a narcissistic note about our jet-set-selves and our awesome international travel-on-a-whim lifestyle. Because really, that's all we do. Unless we’re lounging by the pool nibbling chocolate covered strawberries and sipping Pinot.
We departed Portland in early December last year. We took joy in the fact that, for once, it was US waking Eli up at an hour that he thought was best reserved for sleeping instead of the other way around. Unfortunately, 330am sucked just as much for us as it did for him, and once we were seated comfortably in the Town Car aka Limo that whisked us to the airport, he easily went back to sleep while we ourselves did not. I don't think of myself as a limo guy, exactly, but the last time Daria tried using a taxi to get to the airport really early, the guy never showed up. The Limo guys always show up 15 minutes early and wait outside with the heater on; then they insist on carrying all your bags; then you sit inside a giant car that has bottled water, and they play the kind of music you like while a guy wearing a suit whisks you to the airport in no time flat. And it costs about $5 more than a taxi, but you don't need to bring money because they bill your credit card. And they have car seats, which not all taxis offer. Don't get me wrong - I like taxis.
The flights to Milan were pretty uneventful, which was awesome. Daria's Mom and Uncle picked us up, which was also awesome. They were really impressed that we had only two suitcases for the three of us on a two month trip that would include winter in Italy followed by summer in Australia and also contained Christmas gifts for family.
By the time we arrived in Cremona, Eli had developed a bad cough. This was frustrating, as we'd just finished dealing with a weeks-long cough that he'd been stuck with while in the states and had given him his final dose of antibiotics the day before we left. So he was well for almost 48 hours. The day after he got sick, Daria got sick and I said something about the merits of growing up in the woods immersed in bacteria having been an awesome good thing. A few days later, they got well and both Daria's mom and I got their sickness, which we enjoyed for 3 or 4 days.
This disrupted our plans to visit the Automobile Museum in Turin and to spend a day in Milan visiting Daria's Father's resting place and a stop at our favorite vegetarian restaurant and a viewing of The Last Supper.
Immediately after we got well, the rest of the family arrived from London, with our nephew having just gotten over a rather high fever. He was his normal energetic self, but his sister ended up with a sore throat and chills. About the time I was worrying that Eli might get sick yet again, I got myself a sore throat and chills. One of those sore throats that makes all your glands under your jaw hurt, and gives you an earache and hurts badly enough despite having access to Tylenol with codeine that it's not worth trying to eat anything, and to wearing thermal underwear [designed by people who summit K2 just for fun even though they have only 1% body fat] to bed and hogging all the covers plus taking the pretty quilt that's only for display purposes and using that as well in your effort to keep warm.
I was still cold. That's the sickest I've been in twenty years.
And we had Christmas, which was terrific and full of great food, then there was some family drama which will all get sorted out eventually and had the convenient side effect of reducing the number of people we had to say goodbye to as we departed Italy and headed for Dubai.
Our departure from Cremona was at 4pm. We’d arranged for DHL to pick up three suitcases to deliver back to the US, which meant we had to be at the house until DHL arrived, which was sometime between 9am and 6pm. So our last day in Italy was spent not going out for lunch, not visiting friends. We sat at home and wished the doorbell would ring. It did not.
The day after, DHL sent an email saying that they hadn’t come. Big news, this. Another day later, they said they’d come by on January 2, which is the day after the suitcases are supposed to be delivered to the US. Daria’s sister called them and used the Special Italian Magic Talking that she and Daria inherited from their mother, and the DHL truck and driver appeared within hours. Special Italian Magic Talking. I've seen it firsthand, and all I can tell you is that it’s an ally like no other and a foe without equal. The main reason I haven't learned to speak Italian is that my language illiteracy includes some measure of immunity.
We weren't really going to Dubai (which sounds sexy and awesome). We were passing through the Dubai airport on our way to Hong Kong. Lucky for us, though, the Dubai airport is a very sexy and very awesome place for a layover.
I was excited to ride in an Emirates plane, as everyone says this is the very best airline and that they do a very nice job. It's true that the stewardesses are completely attentive and professional and go well beyond what you'd find at, say, United. And they're equal opportunity employers – there was one steward on the plane to provide a gender balance with the two dozen female stewardesses. And though I barely noticed him, he probably – like his female colleagues – could easily be a supermodel and melt cast iron with his perfect smile while flirting shamelessly with, and cooing over, my son.
My son, by the way, has it made as far
as the ladies go.
Other than that, though, Emirates
wasn't what we'd expected. We'd reserved – months in advance – a
bassinet for Eli. They did get us a seat behind the bulkhead (this is
where the bassinets can be installed) but they handed out all the
bassinets to other passengers before realizing that the only people
who'd actually reserved one didn't get one. After I heard the
stewardess tell this to her colleague, I then heard her tell Daria
that Eli was too big for a bassinet [despite him being under two
years old, which is the threshold, and despite him being in the 35th
percentile for weight although they didn't ask us about that]. This would have
been okay if they'd seated Daria and I together as we'd asked and
reserved (and they'd promised and confirmed), but we were seated on
opposite sides of the aisle, and the rows are offset, which meant
that I was sitting next to the passenger that was seated directly behind Daria. Which
meant that we couldn't take turns holding Eli and eating, or lift up
the armrest between us and let Eli stretch out, or any other
accommodating thing.
Our landing was delayed more than two hours
because of fog. I'd never considered that fog could be an issue in
Dubai, but I really don't know anything about Dubai. Now I know that
they have an airport that sometimes experiences really thick fog.
So Daria was stuck with Eli by herself.
And her little TV thing didn't work. And the people next to her were,
to be blunt about it (and by her estimation moreso than my own)
assholes. I wasn't too bothered by this because all the stewardesses
kept coming by and doting on Eli while pretty much ignoring everyone
else on the whole airplane. Even the one who was stationed upstairs
came down to see him a few times.
Eli does a really good job of making
strangers smile. Looks shouldn't make a difference. Apparently, looks do make a
difference.
Dubai was just a quick layover (made quicker by our delayed landing) but we
did enjoy walking through the airport, looking at the shops and considering whether or not
to buy raffle tickets. They have raffles in the airport to raise
money for charity. A noble cause, no doubt. Though we like to give to
charitable causes, and despite the prizes being duty free, we didn't
buy a ticket to win a brand new Porsche, Audi, Rover nor (snif) the
675 horsepower MacLaren. So we're not bringing home any $500,000 cars
this time around. Nor the cheapskate $70K cheapskate consolation prize
cars. There's a cap on how many tickets get sold, so your odds aren't
horrible. But [ahem] the tickets aren't exactly cheap. We also,
though it was sorely tempting, managed to avoid buying 24 karat gold
chain sold by the meter and took a pass on the $230,000 wristwatch. If I had it to do over, though, I'd buy a
ticket for the MacLaren.
We ran through customs and security,
which I thought was odd given that we weren't exiting nor re-entering
the 'secure international flight' part of the airport itself and I
kept thinking “there are a lot of paranoid Americans who would not
want to be here.” White people were the minority, and there were
many people who were wearing clothing appropriate for their Muslim
faith. If you buy into the whole “dark complexion long beard
flowing robe = scary” propaganda spewed forth by the Western media,
let me offer some advice: stay home. And turn off the TV.
Really, I think every American should
have the opportunity to be in an obvious minority in a place where
they don't speak the language and have Zero cultural reference. For
example: go to a crowded market in Tanzania where you're the only
white person among thousands of locals and you don't speak the language and don't know your way around. Have the experience that
allows you to realize that you are completely at the mercy of others.
You will, I guarantee, find kindness out in the world.
The second Emirates flight saw us
seated together, which was really fortunate because we were all
really tired by then and really did want to be able to share the Eli
Load. Either we wanted to take the load off one another, or we wanted
to pass it along to one another. As had been the case in our prior
flight, all the supermodel stewardesses acted like they think babies
are the greatest thing ever, and even the ones assigned to other
parts of the plane came by to hold his hands or pinch his cheek or
give him the chocolates that only the first class passengers are
supposed to have. Daria fought a migraine for the final two hours of
the flight, and the landing, and the baggage claim, and the customs,
and the immigration, and the taxi (which is thrilling in Hong Kong),
and the check in. By the time we made it to our hotel we'd been
traveling for close to 24 hours, a trip which had started a full
fifteen hours after we'd gotten up in the morning. We were not at our
best.
We slept like dead pigs and woke at
930am feeling profoundly better. Then we noshed on the hotel
breakfast and laughed about how much better life is today than it was
yesterday.
We got directions to the nearby mall so
that we could pick up a few things, instantly got ourselves lost,
came back to the hotel and got new directions and found the place,
then found that the stores here have all the same brands as the New
Seasons by our house back home but at a third the price. Eli met a
little Chinese girl who was exactly his size and they had fun
laughing together while we all waited in the checkout line. I about
fell over when the little girl pointed at my shirt pocket and said
“glasses” in perfect English. Eli replied in what sounded to me
like perfect Chinese, though the little girl's parent didn't seem as
impressed by his speech as I'd been by hers. Then we hopped on the tram (also an experience
every American should have) and went to another part of town for some
walking and sightseeing.
One thing that's nice about being six
feet tall 5'11 5/8"is that you can see over most of the people on the street
in Hong Kong. That probably sounds racist or insensitive, but I don't
mean it that way at all. I just mean that it's pretty cool to be able
to see three or four blocks ahead of yourself even though there's not
an inch to spare in a mass of people who completely fill the space
between the storefronts and the street everywhere all the time. Most
of the people you can't see over are white, which means that people
like me stand out like a sore thumb. Pretty cool. It's also good to
try out a culture that doesn't view personal space the same way
Americans do. By that, I mean “a culture that seems to have no
awareness of nor concern for personal space.” If you can't stand being
squeezed into a really small space with a lot of other people, Hong
Kong will push some of your buttons.
I don't mind being surrounded by people
but I sometimes get claustrophobic. Solution: sit by the window.
Simple.
We got back onto the tram and rode it
until the end of the line though we hadn't seen our stop. As we were
looking at the map, the driver asked what we were looking for and we
said “Hill Road.” He told us to get back in and that he'd take
us. We rode all the way back to where we'd started and realized, when
we came to the “Hiller Street” stop that we may have
miscommunicated. We got off, waited for another tram, got back on,
rode it to the same terminus, got off and looked at the sign across
the intersection. Hill Road.
We returned to the hotel for the
evening canapes and wine and found that – again – the people we
least like to meet during international travel are Americans. Eli
elicited nasty looks from all four of the people at the next table
when he dared to remove one of his shoes in the presence of their
Chianti and sauteed tofu. Then he walked to the other side of the
room to look at the ornaments on the still standing Christmas tree,
which produced obvious disgust in the faces of the couple seated on
that side of the room.
We left the hotel and went out for
dinner. As soon as we were seated, Eli threw his chopsticks on the
floor, and before I could pick them up, a waiter had delivered a
fresh set and collected the old ones. Then Eli leaned back in his
chair and pushed the table with his feet, which tipped his stroller
over. We didn't spill much tea from the table, but we were a tad
embarrassed when the folded stroller fell onto another diner's leg
while he was trying to eat.
We ordered our food to go, went for a
short walk, returned to pick up our dinner, made a quick stop for
some Super Ginseng Wine and Haagen Dazs and came back to the room.
When I finished writing this, it was 11:50 local time. We'd be watching
fireworks from the 23rd floor in a few minutes.
I realized, in that moment, that life just couldn't be better.
All the best -
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