Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Travel Funnies

Seriously??

The picture is blurry but you'll still get the gist of things...

Yesterday I posted something about travel, and someone said they didn't care for airports much, but that wouldn't stop them from traveling. It's not my favorite part of the trip, but usually things go pretty well. We have, however, had a few things happen.




In Germany a police officer deliberately sent his drug-sniffing dog over to my teen boy to sniff his luggage while we were walking in the airport. My son was mortified/outraged at the stereotype, and I was dying laughing. I still laugh if I think about it.

In one country the police in the airport had guns, very unsettlingly large guns, that they carried around like military.

My daughter has been singled out for a pat-down 70% of the time since she was like 12 (I'm not kidding, it's a standing family joke, but we do find it a tad ridiculous).

On our last international flight there was a child in front of us (one of two in his family), and half way through the long trip, he discovered my son directly behind him. He would lean over, touch my son's Kindle screen to 'help him play,' try to take his stickers, which my son was willing to share anyway, and various things like that... even when it was dinner time (ew, no germs around my boy's food, please), the mom let her son hang way over the seats (see very first picture of this post). I told the boy it was 'time to turn around now' a couple of times when we needed a little peace. Invariably he'd come back, which was okay for my son (he enjoyed the company), and okay for us a little, but still there was the, "Hello, are you even paying attention to your child???" thing going through my mind.

Eventually, when the plane landed, the child was leaning so far over the seat to try to get something of ours that he fell over. A complete, over-the-top-of-the-seat, half-somersault fall. We were standing, collecting our things, and his fall knocked my entire seat cushion off. I bent down to pick the child up. He thankfully wasn't hurt but my arm and hand got pretty scraped up from the exposed seat.  I handed the mom her child, and she STILL didn't say anything, just took her boy and started collecting their things. All I could do was think, 'Geeez.'

Anyone else have airport/plane stories to share? Or find it ludicrous that a parent would let their child hang over a seat like that on an airplane? No judgement, but as for me, I would never...

Monday, September 16, 2013

Paris, France


Standing in front of the Musée d'Orsay

This is where I should be today, well not today since the museum is closed on Mondays, but you know what I mean. :)  Driving home from the kid-run this morning, the feeling to travel enveloped me. It does that from time-to-time, I'm used to it. I get these overwhelming urges to just go-go-go. I suspect I got it from my father. He passed when my mom was expecting me, but every once in awhile I hear about his spontaneity, or willingness to just go-go-go, and I'll think, 'ah, that must be where I got it from.'  No one in my childhood family likes to travel like I do, most of them don't even like to fly. ;)

Thankfully, my kids like to travel and they enjoy the places we go. Me? I'm busy saving for the next trip as soon as the first one is over. Why? Because I love it so very much.


Some of our friends and family don't 'get' the travel thing, they can't understand why we take our trips. I'm always surprised at their disdain for international travel, or their lack of support that we want to go. For me, it's the only one thing I'd change in life. I'd have started traveling much earlier, had I known how much it would mean to me. There are so many places to go, so many things to see, learn, experience... and today I wish I was in Paris. I was dreaming of it on that drive home this morning. I could feel it, see the Seine in my mind...and so I came home and pulled out the photo album. And there it is...and the pictures help. A little.  I'm still dreaming of our next trip though, and saving. :)