Lots of good news to report here. First off, we made it through our long travel here unscathed. Since we used miles, the trip here was hectic. We had to connect in Houston then Frankfurt. In both airports we had to hoof it to make tight connections. But it was no big thing. We really focused on traveling as light as possible and that helped enormously. Also, Anna was a champ. She only got a little fussy once on the long overnight flight when the sun came up and tons of people had their windows open letting the sun in even though there were a few more hours to go. She was tired and confused as to why the sun had come up. But besides that, things have been going perfectly.
My own attitude towards travel has changed so much since I don't work anymore. One bummer about my old job was even when I was on vacation, I had to check in and I often had to work a few hours. I can really see now how unfortunate that was. It added an element of stress and focus on the time. It has been nice to throw all concept of time out the window on this trip. Right now it's almost 11 pm and we are all awake. Last night Anna woke up at 2am from jet lag and I just went with it. We has a snack, watched a movie, and slept in until 11. No worries. We just shifted our day later - which really works well up here because it stays light late. We finished dinner after 8 and it was still beautiful and light out.
The iPad has been a godsend. I loaded new movies and games for Anna before we left and those went far on our 18+ hour travel day as well as here in the hotel room. But the thing is, Anna has just been amazing. She is really having fun and being cool chilling everywhere. Part of it is I have finally figured out how to be a chill mom/person and it's rubbing off on her. Part of it is she is a lot more mature. I don't know if it's because our life is pretty urban at home but to me Europe with a toddler is simple. I was saying to Uri in some ways it's more relaxing than a place like Hawaii because there it's all about swimming and that is very tiring and hands on with a toddler. Here we walk around a lot with her in the carrier. I just couldn't drag the stroller here especially since we have 3 more flights in Europe then a few hops to get home.
I have some pictures but I can't blog them right now. I am posting a few to twitter: @polkadot_hippo or instagram which I think is the same user name. Also Facebook. Boy though, I freaking love Amsterdam so much. Such a beautiful place. On Monday we fly briefly to Stockholm then to Helsinki. I am looking forward to seeing both. I'll try to touch base soon!
