| Subject: Travel with Children |
|
This thread kind of got to me because I realized that it has now been over
30 years that we went on our first European trip. We had two small children
and initially thought of leaving them at home but then changed our mind.
The consequences of taking them were rather fascinating. The older one
remembers a lot of what happened; the younger one does not. However, she
has compensated by becoming easily the most intrepid traveler of all four of
us (among her other accomplishments was to climb Mount Fuji on a trip to
Japan while stationed in Korea). I recall one rather horrible moment when
certain consequences of drinking strange water posed a problem and another
more humorous time when, as first time travelers, we were trying to get our
biological clocks switched. The younger one was standing in her crib saying
Hi Daddy, for what seemed like an eternity starting at about 1am.
As positives, consider the following: 1. The English are not exactly the most fond of children traveling (or much of anywhere else, perhaps), but this is easily turned to an advantage. We went to the head of the class, so to speak, at Rule's, an elegant London restaurant, when there would have been a sizeable wait. 2. Scandinavia and continental Europe loved our children. Indeed, perhaps our major problems were in keeping away some of the sweets that were proffered to them Ira H. Bernstein |