The Young and the Traveled

Traveling internationally with Eamon has been quite the experience.  We've taken a lot of road trips over the years so I thought I had a pretty good idea of his travel temperament and so far he hasn't disappointed - other than his newly acquired motion sickness.  :/  There have been a lot of other things that traveling with a kid has taught me these past few weeks so I've compiled a handy-dandy list! 

• Flight attendants will give you all kinds of free drinks and snacks to keep your kid from puking on the flight!  :D  

• Cabbies in Belfast (at least the ones named Marty!) will ply your kid with candy and give you a fiver to buy him junk food if you promise not to take him out of the hotel on a politically iffy night.

• Your kid makes the perfect mule for sneaking fruit and mini jam jars out of super fancy breakfast buffets - especially if you make sure he's wearing cargo pants!  Bonus - if he's caught, you can just pretend that you're horrified at his juvenile behavior! 

• The questionable cleanliness of a hostel won't faze your kid at all (unless you've got one of those weird kids who likes showering, then I can't help you!).

• Your kid will adapt very quickly to staying in 5 star hotels and B&B's, especially if they have complimentary robes and slippers!

Exhibit A ;) 

Worst Travel(writ)er Ever

Now that we are on Day Five (FIVE?!) of the trip, I guess it's time to update my travel blog.  Why I haven't done this sooner, I don't know.  Oh, perhaps it's because every time I've had my laptop out and a wifi connection, Eamon has been at my elbow asking, "Can I get on?  When can I get on?  So about those video games..."  Also, I think it took me a few days to recover from the trauma of The Toronto Incident, as it shall forever be known.

What, you ask, is The Toronto Incident?  Well, let's just say that in one of my most spectacular travel debacles ever (and there have been quite a few), I [subconsciously] decided that I quite enjoyed the international lounge at Toronto's airport, so much so that Eamon and I spent about 5 hours at the wrong gate in the wrong concourse and nearly missed our flight to London.  Actually, after the slowest, shortest, most non-effective airport shuttle ride ever, we were told that we had in fact missed the flight but after about 10 minutes of tears and ticket agents trying to reroute us, they told us that they might let us on after all, if we felt like running.  I guess the airport gods were sufficiently pleased with our grief and contrition - or the ticket agents just didn't want to bother trying to find us alternate flights.  Needless to say, my "seasoned traveler" image was a bit tarnished after that.  I will say that after running through the airport with a 14.7 pound backpack and a fully-laden purse, I feel like I might be ready for one of Mark's crazy races!

Marti & Eamon, BTTI (before The Toronto Incident)

UPDATE:  Wow, I'm so bad at this that I posted this on the wrong blog... :P