train travel through Europe, part 1

On Monday evening 22 October 2012, our weekend with friends in the Netherlands was nearly over.  We had dinner with Bart & Alida and Herman, and then loaded up in the car.  Bart & Alida drove us to Utrecht train station to catch the CityNightLine train.  This is an overnight train to Munich, Germany.  We got to Utrecht with plenty of time so Bart & Alida insisted on treating us to Starbucks.  :)  They really went out of their way to make sure that we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves!  We are so grateful for their generosity towards us.

It was pretty easy to find the right platform to wait for our train, with Bart and Alida assisting us. The train was about 5 minutes delayed.  Throughout our train journeys we found that when things got a bit ‘sticky’ was when we had to board a train which would be pulling out again within just a couple of minutes.  Boarding with all of us and our luggage took a lot of pre-organizing, and teamwork, but by the time we’d traveled across Europe we were getting the hang of it!  Besides the two children, we had a stroller, which was foldable but not entirely collapsible (bigger than we had wanted for our trip, but it was the only collapsible stroller for sale in Lusaka when we left… so we made do!), two very large rolling duffel bags, David’s backpack, my carry-on size bag, usually a plastic bag of food and oddments for the journey, and sometimes Elijah’s Pillow Pal or our winter coats if they didn’t fit in the duffel bags.  So it was too much for both of us to carry on board the train in one trip, thus we had to figure out ways to transfer everything in stages without leaving the children OR the bags unattended. Utrecht was our first attempt, and thankfully Bart was there to help shove our things on board. The train seemed to leave in a great hurry but thankfully there we were, everything intact, on our way!  Waving to Bart and Alida out the window.  It was an abrupt end to our delightful stay in the Netherlands, but now we were on our way to Munich! 

After shuffling around awkwardly (after putting our stroller and our gigantic bags on board there wasn’t much room for maneuvering in the corridor area at the end of the train car) we found our way to our compartment.  We traveled ‘economically,’ that is to say, in a couchette compartment.  These are kind of the equivalent of dorm rooms on a train, except that being train compartments – they are a lot more cramped!  There are two choices for couchettes: either you can book a 6-bed compartment, which is the cheapest option, or you can pay a bit extra for a 4-bed compartment if you want a bit more space.  The 4-bed compartment still has 6 beds in it, but the middle 2 bunks are left folded up so as to provide the 4 occupants with more space.  Since we were traveling with the children (who would be sharing our bunks - if you want a bed for a toddler you have to pay the same fare as an adult) we decided the extra space would be VERY welcome, otherwise we could end up sharing a compartment designed for 6 with 8 instead – two being very squirmy children.  This was a very, very good decision.  :)  The compartments are incredibly, almost unbelievably small.  There is enough room between the bunks on either side to stand up, but not more than that. 

There was a luggage rack above the compartment door, where we put the stroller.  Our two duffel bags managed to fit under the lower bunk (on this train – I don’t remember if they did on the next sleeper train) as well as our shoes and carry-on bags.  There was a ladder against the far wall (not that it was far away!) which reached to the upper bunks.  Each bunk was provided with a complimentary bottle of drinking water and also a reading light.  There were 2 types of locks on the compartment door for security.  The attendant came in to collect our passports and check our tickets.  The passports were kept by the attendant overnight, ostensibly so that we wouldn’t have to be awakened during border crossings (although sometimes they will still wake you – it is completely inconsistent) and returned to us in the morning as we approached our final destination.  After that, we never saw the attendant again – so hope that you never have an emergency or a situation where you require some assistance, because we couldn’t find the attendant afterwards.

It was past the children’s bedtime, so we focused on getting them settled and getting some sleep.  Elijah slept on David’s bunk, and Ketzia slept on mine.  Each bunk was equipped with a sheet, a blanket, and a pillow.  It was helpful to have the 2 extra blankets from the unused middle bunks since there were 4 of us. The bunks were nothing fancy – just flat, padded bunks which doubled as seats during the daytime. 

We were informed by the attendant that there would be a couple joining us around midnight for part of the journey - the occupants of the 2 upper bunks.  So it was an interrupted night!  Don’t choose a train journey if you want a peaceful, blissful night’s sleep (unless you pay for a first-class compartment and travel alone – and even then nothing is guaranteed). But it was definitely worth it for the experience.  Poor Elijah’s dinner didn’t settle and he woke up and vomited on his pajamas and the compartment floor.  That was when we couldn’t find the attendant to get something to clean the floor up with.  So we ended up using baby wipes and then covering the floor with one of the extra blankets.  After that Elijah was fine and went back to sleep peacefully. But that was one of those moments when you think, ‘Wow, our first family train ride, and my child just vomited! Is this a sign of things to come?’  Ketzia was teething, feverish and restless during the night.  She must have nursed almost the entire night.  Our companions, an older couple, came in a bit after midnight, took a few minutes to get themselves and their luggage (which had to be left standing up in the crevice between the bottom of the ladder and the compartment wall) arranged, and then climbed up to their bunks.  They came climbing back down about 4 hours later, to disembark at their destination. Since it was the middle of the night it wasn't exactly a good time to strike up an acquaintance!

During the night there were also police on the train at one point – dealing with some drunk people, at very least, who we could hear further down the corridor.  I think someone might have gotten taken off the train.  During the border crossing into Germany the police/guards tried to open the compartment door (which was on the chain) and when I quickly cautioned, ‘shhh, the children are sleeping’ (just so they’d be aware!) they closed the door and left, and didn’t come back!  So I guess they weren’t too worried about us.  They had our passports anyway.

So yeah… it wasn’t a terribly restful night, but at least we did get a bit of sleep. We had been forewarned anyway.  If I remember correctly, we arrived the next morning in Munich around 7am or so.  We made our way through the train station to the upper balcony area overlooking the platforms, where there was a café.  We ordered coffees and ate breakfast from the travel food we brought along with us.  Had a chance to change the kids’ nappies and clothing for the day of travel ahead.  And got a real good idea of the hustle and bustle of Munich Centraal during early morning rush hour on a work day!

It was now Tuesday, 23 October – my mom’s 50^th birthday.  My family was already in Italy, where they had arrived a few days before, and were settled in the villa we would be sharing, awaiting our arrival late that night.  But first we had a full day of travel ahead… from Munich across Austria to Bologna, and then down through Italy to Naples.  Our train left Munich around 9am for the long ride south.  This time we were in a normal traveling car with comfortable seats and small tables.  It wasn’t a full train so we could use the empty seats next to us for the children.  What did we do on a long train ride with the kids?  Well, like riding on an airplane – we got them to sit still when we could, with a variety of things to keep them occupied – toy cars, puzzles, coloring, reading books, DVDs, snack food, etc.  But sometimes you just have to move around, and thankfully they could easily walk up and down the aisles.  Meanwhile, the scenery outside was FABULOUS!  We were passing through the Austrian Alps during the middle of the day – a sunny, clear day with gorgeous views of the mountains.  The train went through the Brenner Pass which is just stunning.  David spent a lot of time trying to get photos from a moving train – which wasn’t entirely successful, but at least we got a few shots to show that we were there.  :)  We ate our packed lunch as the train sped along (sausage bites and cheese bites from the Netherlands!) and just enjoyed the experience of traveling through somewhere we might never be again! 

It was a long train ride – we didn’t reach Bologna in the north of Italy until about 4pm.  We had a bit of time before our next train left for Naples, so we went looking for food.   We found the Bologna station a bit of a challenge because it was not exactly clear where we should go – and there were lots of steps up to each platform, so what to do about the stroller? And the rolling bags?  In the end, I think we found a lift.  Then we were looking for food, so that we could get an early dinner, but there were no cafes or shops in the station as far as we could tell.  Eventually we found that there were vending machines scattered throughout the train platforms, selling not only snacks but also sandwiches and paninis, so we got a few things to count towards ‘dinner’, though it wasn’t a proper meal.

Now it was time to catch our next train, one of the brand-new high speed Freccarossa line!  These sleek ‘designer’ trains are carving up the time it takes to travel the length of Italy.  We were very interested to see how these high-speed trains compared with the normal trains we had been travelling on.  It would be about a 4-hour journey from Bologna south to Naples.  These trains travel at speeds reaching higher than 300 kilometres per hour! 

Interestingly, we found that these trains (at least in the economy section) were the least comfortable of all the trains we traveled on in Europe.  The seats were high-backed and the tables were very, very tall, so tall that if you dropped something you couldn’t reach it off the floor because the table was in the way.  It all felt very tight, cramped, and claustrophobic.  The children had to sit on our laps the whole way because the train was booked full, and because the tables were so tall, that meant the tables were practically in the kids’ chests.  So it just wasn’t comfortable.  We did have to deal with a bit of unhappiness during this leg of the journey.  Thankfully, even children get tired of fussing after a while and just ‘zone out’ (helped by the DVD player) or go to sleep.  It wasn’t exactly a fun or relaxing ride, but it was an experience whizzing across the Italian countryside at 300kph! 

We finally reached Naples around 8:30pm… after a full 24 hours of travel by train across Europe!  But our journey wasn’t over yet.  We disembarked the train and were met on the platform by my dad and my brothers Ezra and John, as well as my dad’s friend Tom who lives in Naples.  So there were plenty of hands to help with bags and tired children.  My family had been in Italy for several days already and had been visiting with their old friends Tom and family (who work with a Christian outreach to servicemen), and when Tom heard that we were arriving in Naples late at night and would need to travel by train a FURTHER hour to the Sorrento area where we were staying, he offered to give my dad a ride to the train station to pick us up, and then drive us all to the villa where we were staying!  This was SO kind and generous of him and we were very grateful.  We all piled into his minivan and took off through the congested, crazy streets of Naples.  This was the only glimpse we got of Naples, really – it was after dark and Tom was driving with great experience, so we didn’t have to worry about anything.  But overall, Naples is not a great city.  It is very dirty, and not exactly nice.  There were hookers on the street corners looking for business (mostly from sailors as there is a large Navy base nearby).  I was glad that we were spending our holiday further away from the filth of Naples.

It was about an hour’s drive to the villa where we were staying, which was in San’t Angello, a small, quiet village very close to the bustling, busy tourist town of Sorrento.  It was close to 10pm when we arrived.  Tom dropped us off and we got our bags and baggage sorted, and there we stayed for the next 9 days….  :)

our weekend in the Netherlands

So on Thursday, 18 October, our family was in Lusaka.  We had said affectionate farewells to our amazing super-nanny, Sarah Moriah, the night before, after she and I returned from our crazy whirlwind girls’ outing to Vic Falls.  (She was staying on in Lusaka for another week or so with another friend.)  We had repacked our luggage in what we hoped was a semi-sensible fashion for our upcoming crazy days of travel.  In the afternoon we drove to our friends the MacDs who had invited us to come for dinner before our flight.  We would be leaving our truck parked at their house during our 3-month absence from Zambia, and our colleague Phil who was also at their house would be giving us a lift to the airport that night.  We had an enjoyable, relaxing dinner with everyone.  Afterwards there was time to put the children in their pajamas before heading to the airport - it must have been sometime around 8:30 or so that we left for the airport.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:45pm, an overnight flight direct to Amsterdam.  (Direct flights are so nice!)

The flight arrived as scheduled in Amsterdam the following morning around 9am.  By the time we got through immigration, collected our bags, and found our way around the airport to the meeting point, it was past 10am. We had arranged to spend the weekend with old friends of my family’s, a Dutch family whom we’d known since meeting in California in 1997.  Way back then, the father, Bart, was in CA on a business trip and brought his wife and 3 young children along.  We met them when they visited our church one Sunday, and really hit it off.  During the remainder of their stay we got together several times – going swimming together, going on picnics to the redwood forests, and going to the beach are some of my fond memories. The amazing thing was that all of us kids got along really well even though they didn’t speak a word of English and we didn’t speak a word of Dutch… we had great fun.  After they returned to the Netherlands, I kept in touch with their daughter Hanneke by email. As she grew our correspondence became easier, because she learned English in school. Originally our letter-writing consisted of a process whereby I dictated an email to my dad, who typed it up for me and sent it to her dad, who translated it into Dutch and gave it to her!  As we grew older we could write letters directly to each other, and her English improved year by year!  We have not been in close correspondence in recent years, but remained friends on Facebook, and Hanneke’s parents have remained in close contact with my family.  When my parents traveled through Europe on their way to visit us in Scotland in 2010, they passed through the Netherlands and spent a couple of days with their family.  At the time I was very sad not to be with them visiting my old friends!

So when it turned out that we would be traveling through the Netherlands ourselves I contacted Bart and Alida and asked if we could visit them for a weekend. They welcomed us with open arms!  When we arrived at the airport on Friday morning the 18^th of October, we were met by their eldest son Henk – who was a lot taller than I remembered him as a child of something like 5 years old!  He brought us from the airport to their home in a small town about 30 minutes from Utrecht.  As soon as I walked into their garden I felt peaceful.  :)  It was so beautiful and quiet, with lovely flowers and shrubs.  They had a pet duck (whose name I’ve forgotten).  We were warmly welcomed by Bart and Alida with a cup of coffee sitting in the sunshine in their garden.  We managed to visit during some lovely weather for the Netherlands – beautiful, spring-like, sunny weather.

They truly made us feel at home for that weekend!  We stayed in the 3^rd floor of their house, in a large room. They had beds for the children, which had belonged to Alida when she was a child.  They had gotten high chairs for the children and car seats for us to use that we could take outings in the car.  They even installed a child safety gate at the top of the stairs specially for our visit!  (That was nice because it meant the kids could play on the landing with a big box of lego and other toys and we didn’t have to worry about them.)  They did everything to make us feel absolutely comfortable, and it was a lovely way to begin our holiday.  We had such an enjoyable visit with them.  On Friday we rested a bit and didn’t do much other than visit.  Bart took us for a short walk into town, to see the nearby canal and the shops.  We stopped and got gelato – the first gelato of our Europe trip, but certainly not the last!  :)  Henk was home briefly and then went back to his own apartment. Their 3^rd child, Herman, was around and we probably saw the most of him.

On Saturday they took us on an outing to Utrecht so that we could see a Dutch city.  We strolled around for a while, and then Bart and Alida took us on a boat tour of the canals, which was really interesting.  It was fun to get the feel of our first European city – the different architecture, the canals, the bicycles everywhere, the open-air cafes.  On our way home we picked up Hanneke who is a student in another city.  She came home for 1 night, so at least we got to see her briefly – I hadn’t seen her since she was 7 or 8 years old!

It was so fun to stay with Bart and Alida and get a taste of Dutch culture.  Enjoying Dutch treats, yummy coffee, Dutch cheese, Dutch sausage… mmmmm.  Listening to their family playing music together in the family room.  Chatting.  Resting.

On Sunday we went to church with Bart and Alida and family.  We were impressed by the warmth and friendliness of their congregation.  It was a restful day.  In the late afternoon Bart and Alida took us for a short drive to a park with nice walking trails and woods, and we had a peaceful walk with the children. Alida brought a plastic bag so that Elijah could help her pick up horse chestnuts under the trees.  It was a beautiful evening and felt like autumn.  We walked across a large grassy meadow covered in beautiful autumn leaves – the only true glimpse of autumn we got that year!  They were huge, crisp leaves.  Elijah and Ketzia had a fabulous time crunching through them.

David and I absolutely loved the idea of going for a family bicycle ride along the canals, so this morning (Monday the 22nd) Bart and Alida made arrangements for us to borrow bicycles and bicycle seats for the children, and off we went!  We had a seat clipped behind David for Elijah, and a seat clipped in front of me for Ketzia.  Alida went with us to lead the way and show us around.  It was SO MUCH FUN.  I think it was the most fun day I’ve had since I got married!  The weather was stunningly gorgeous – sunny, cool, and refreshing, and the countryside was beautiful.  It was so enjoyable to bike along somewhere that didn’t have lots of ups and downs!  The kids had a great time, and Ketzia even fell asleep in her seat.  :)

After lunch the children went down for their naps and David stayed with them while I went to the shops with Alida (on our bicycles).  I needed to buy nappies and food for our train journey, and also wanted to get a Dutch memento to give to my mom for her birthday which we would be celebrating in Italy that week.  Then it was time to re-pack our bags for our train journey tonight…

Europe! (an introduction)

This is the first post in a series about our travels in October-November 2012.  I am posting these belatedly (in March 2013) but putting them in their proper chronological place on my blog so as not to disturb the current flow of recent blog posts.

I thought it would be fun to post about our travels in Europe and the UK for two reasons: firstly, because it was a fantastically fun trip and it's fun to remember (and I was disappointed not to have the chance to blog at all during the trip), and secondly, because I thought you never know -- maybe someone out there will be inspired or encouraged that it is possible to take crazy trips when you have small children.  (Or maybe they will just think we are crazy. :D)  Or maybe someone will be motivated to see the beauties of Europe while they can still get a student fare on train, or a discount advance fare.  Or maybe people will just enjoy reading our adventures.  :)

There is one blog post which you should read before this one: the Pre-Journey: the Girls Go to Livingstone.  :)

Now you may be wondering: why Europe??  How could we afford it?  Why did we decide to go there?  Well, the main reason we decided to go there was because my father, who is retired USA military, is able to fly for free to any USA base in the world, on military transport planes.  He can bring all his dependents with him, too!  My family traveled this way in October 2010 when they came to visit us in Scotland -- first flying to a military base in Germany and then from there taking a budget flight to Edinburgh.  This awesome military benefit means that it is affordable for my parents to travel - but also to bring their 4 dependent children along with them!

So David and I had always been talking about taking a family holiday in Europe, back when we lived in the UK - because it is so easy and so inexpensive to get across to the Continent from the UK.  But it didn't happen while we were living in Scotland, and now here we were living in Zambia.

However, we knew we would be returning to the UK for the break at the end of the year, so we decided to arrange a couple of weeks of holiday at the beginning of our 3 months in Scotland.  BUT... our flight back to the UK had a stop-over in Amsterdam.  The idea finally came to us (thanks to our dear friend Mairi who was quicker to realize than we were!) that it would make a lot of sense to just get off the plane in Amsterdam, skip the final leg to Glasgow, and instead travel wherever we wanted to in Europe!  We picked our destination in Europe based on where it would be easiest for my family to meet us, because we really wanted to see them.  It's sad living so far from grandparents!  There is a large military base in Naples, Italy, which was why we picked Italy as our destination.

Our flight was directly from Lusaka to Amsterdam, and from there we would be traveling by train across Europe to Italy.  We looked into flying budget airlines, but budget airlines are actually only any good if you are flying during peak times of year!  Our holiday time is 'off peak' and it's so much cheaper to do things that way... except fly.  No holiday airlines are going to Rome, or anywhere else in Italy, at the end of October.  We did research for months.  What if we flew from Amsterdam into a different European airport and then took a shorter train ride?  Nope, that didn't save any money.  If we flew a big airline like BA or KLM, we had to pay for our children.  Train travel across Europe definitely saved us money because we didn't have to pay ANYTHING for the children (most train and bus companies in Europe won't make you pay for children until they are 3-5 years of age, it varies obviously).

So much of our research was done via via the amazing website seat61.com which we found absolutely invaluable.  Check it out!  This website is the way we found out about booking advance fares on trains to save a ton of money!  You REALLY have to jump - we booked as soon as the 90-day window was open and still missed a couple of the cheapest fares, so we did end up paying a bit more than we had been hoping for, but we still got fairly good fares.  (If your travel dates are completely flexible, you can get awesomely good fares - our dates were only a little bit flexible because of the dates my family was available to meet us in Italy, which meant we did have to take the more expensive options to get the tickets we needed on a couple of occasions.)  And even better, seat61.com gave us the confidence that we COULD actually pull off a train trip across Europe, as complete novices to Europe, with two small children.

So that's an introduction to Europe -- how we managed to afford it, and why we chose to go there in the first place.  Maybe I've missed a detail you want to know about?  If so, share it in the comments! The next post in this series is Our Weekend in the Netherlands.  :)

the Pre-Journey: the Girls go to Livingstone

We wanted to do something special to thank super-nanny Sarah for coming to help us for nearly 3 months.  :) Sarah and I had tossed around the idea of taking her to see Victoria Falls, which is about 6 hours south of Lusaka (11 hours from where we live).  In the end, it worked out for us to arrange a whirlwind trip to Vic Falls at the beginning of the week that our family was scheduled to fly out of Zambia!  We couldn't afford to drive down as a family because of the cost in fuel, so it was decided we would travel to Lusaka together (since we had to go anyway that week) and then Sarah and I would travel by bus the rest of the way to Livingstone.  Here's how it worked:

1) Pack everything by Saturday night, 13 October 2012, and get it loaded into the car.
2) Clean the house frantically for weeks leading up to this weekend, so that everything is finished on time.
3) Eat all the remaining food in the house on Sunday.
4) Load everyone into the car, close up the house for 3 months, and leave at 6am on Monday morning!

So we drove to Lusaka on Monday morning the 14th of October.  It's about a 5-hour drive so we were there just before lunchtime since we left first thing in the morning.  We drove straight to the bus station so that Sarah and Ketzia and I could catch the afternoon bus to Livingstone.  Unfortunately, we got there too late to catch the 12:30 bus (because they required you to buy your ticket 30 minutes ahead of the scheduled departure) so we had to wait for the next bus which left at 2:30.  This meant that we had time to get back into the truck with David and go to the nearby shopping mall for a bite of lunch and a spot of air-conditioning!  :) 

We went back to the bus station to board our bus around 2pm.  We were sitting together at the back of the bus, which had no air conditioning.  But it wasn't dreadfully hot with the windows open!  And off we started for the trip to Livingstone.  Since it takes between 5-6 hours to drive in a car, I was expecting the bus journey to take about the same amount of time.  So imagine our surprise when we realized it was about an 8-hour bus ride!  :)  Because of the number of times it stopped in the towns we passed...  Anyway, that was fine.  We were flexible.  :)  Ketzia was perfectly content because she was traveling with her mommy, who was an unfailing source of nourishment.  (It's so much easier to travel with children when you are breastfeeding!)  A large portion of the trip was after dark, and we dozed.  There was a bit of rain and a thunderstorm at one point, but overall the trip was uneventful and we arrived in Livingstone in one piece, although a bit stiff... and much later than we had hoped.  It was after 10pm!

Sarah and I were planning to stay at Fawlty Towers, a backpacker's place in the center of town, not too far from where the bus stopped.  But since it was after dark and we were 2 girls traveling alone, we couldn't walk there, so we had planned to take a taxi.  But we were not expecting the greeting we received when the bus stopped.  As we disembarked from the bus, we were met by a pushing, shoving, shouting swarm of men at the bottom of the bus steps - mostly taxi drivers shouting for fares, but also some hangers-on.  It was after dark, and I was unsure of myself, and quite frightened by their behavior.  Just desperately wanted to find a taxi driver who would take us to Fawlty Towers! The first man I asked acted like he didn't know where Faulty Towers was, so I asked another man because I did NOT want to get into a car with a man who didn't know where he was going.  We collapsed into the car feeling very anxious but the man assured us he would take us to Fawlty Towers.  He zipped us up the road and we were there in 2 minutes, to our great relief.  But imagine our consternation in the morning when I was speaking to the receptionist at Fawlty Towers and describing our experience!  She asked, 'Was it a blue taxi?'  I said, 'No, it was just a normal looking car.'  She said, 'Yes, those are illegal taxis!  Only the blue taxis are legal.'  So, that was that.  Now I knew something I hadn't known before.  I was just so thankful that we arrived safely the night before, and still a bit shaken by the experience!

So anyway, here we were in Livingstone -- Sarah, myself and Ketzia who was about 10 months old.  We had only 2 nights there and our schedule was as follows: Monday - travel and arrive; Tuesday - see the Falls; Wednesday - travel back to Lusaka.  We were so tired after traveling the whole day on Monday that we pretty much went straight to bed.  We were staying in one of the dorm rooms since they were the cheapest option, I think they were $10 per person per night.  Basically it was just a big room with three sets of very tall bunk beds, a dresser with individual locking compartments, and a very noisy fan mounted on the wall. We were alone in the room, which was nice.  Ketzia shared a bed with me.  There was a communal bathroom with showers and toilets which we shared with the other dorm occupants but there were only a few other folks around.

On Tuesday morning we got up and had some breakfast and then headed out for our visit to the Falls!  We decided to be as economical as possible, which meant taking a minibus to the Falls.  So we had to walk maybe 10 or 15 minutes to the town market, where we found the taxi and minibus area.  It was a crowded, noisy and busy place but someone immediately put us on board to the correct minibus.  I was very nervous after our bad experience with the taxis the night before, but this went blissfully smoothly and the people were friendly and helpful!  We only had to wait a couple of minutes before the minibus was full and ready to depart. The Falls are about 8 kilometers down the road from Livingstone.  The minibus stopped a little bit up the road under a tree, and from there we had to walk across the road to the park entrance, where we paid the entrance fee and went in. 

The next couple of hours were spent wandering all over the Falls.  David and I had visited the Falls in May with the kids - we camped in Livingstone for a week and had a fantastic time. So I could show Sarah around a bit.  We hiked down to the Boiling Pot which is always worth seeing.  Because we were visiting Victoria Falls in the very height of the dry season (it hadn't rained since March) there was no water coming over the Falls and it was remarkable to see the difference from when David and I were there before.  But lest you wonder if it is worth visiting Vic Falls during the dry season - YES, it certainly was still worth the visit because the view of the canyon into which the falls flow was stunningly beautiful!  You could get such an idea of the scale of the falls.  It was really amazing.

Because there was no water going over the falls, you could actually climb into the riverbed and walk around on the rocks.  I took photos of Sarah who insisted on sitting on the edge of the falls.  She had one rock between herself and the edge, I will give her credit for that! 

While wandering around the top of the falls, you see lots of baboons.  They are quite used to all the people around and are attracted by the food.  It was pretty incredible to see how close we had to walk to them as they just sat around on the walking paths scratching themselves!  Thankfully they were completely uninterested in us.

We had gotten an early start that morning, and within a couple of hours we had done all the hiking and sight-seeing we wanted to do at the Falls and had wandered to our heart's content.  It was getting close to lunchtime so we headed back into Livingstone. This time we decided to splurge and get a taxi - it was SO hot outside we didn't feel like walking back to the minibus area and waiting in the sun for it to be ready to leave.  We got the taxi to drop us off at the Italian restaurant in town, where we got some lunch.  This restaurant, Olga's, is awesome!   The pizza is genuine Italian and cooked in wood-fired ovens.  But best of all, they have homemade GELATO -- for real!  It is exquisite!!  Words cannot describe the pleasure of a bowl of smooth gelato on a blazing hot day!

So that was us having seen the Falls, which Sarah pronounced a success, to my delight (I had already seen them before so I was hoping for her sake that it was worth the trip to her!).  Now we had the rest of the afternoon to relax and enjoy ourselves.  There was a pool at Fawlty Towers so Sarah went swimming and relaxed by the pool for a bit.  I went off to the private Fawlty Towers salon where I had seen hair plaiting advertised!  I had gotten my hair plaited back in 2008 while I was in Uganda, and David has always said that he liked the photos of me with my hair plaited a lot, and thought it would be fun for me to do it again sometime.  Well, here was my opportunity! I was on a girls-only holiday, I only had 1 child to juggle while having my hair done, and I had a free afternoon!  And it really doesn't cost very much at all to have your hair plaited!  I think it cost slightly under £10 - about £2 for materials (I had to get 2 swatches of hair extensions) and the rest for labor - but considering that it took two ladies 3 hours to plait my hair, I think that's very, very cheap!  The girl in charge of the salon walked with me down the street to the beauty supplies shop where I had to buy the hair extensions.  Then we walked back and got settled in and she started braiding my hair.  Ketzia nursed and went to sleep in my arms and slept through most of it!  The rest of the time she played happily on the floor and ripped an old magazine apart!  :)  As I said, it took more than 3 hours for the 2 girls to finish my hair.  It turned out really nicely though, and well worth it. I was so glad I had decided to get it done, and now I had something to surprise David with when we got back to Lusaka the next day!

After my hair plaiting, I decided to get a neck and shoulders massage.  Again, I had a wonderful opportunity and only one child to worry about!  Ketzia went and played with Sarah for half an hour during my massage. Then it was Sarah's turn for a massage!

At the end of such a relaxing afternoon, I had a few minutes to take Ketzia into the swimming pool to cool off.  I can't say as I remember much more about that evening.  I think we had a quiet evening and went to bed early, trying to catch up on rest after our late night the night before.  We had an early morning start-off.  Our bus was scheduled to leave Livingstone at 7:30am, so we had to be there at 7 to board.  This time we had an air-conditioned bus! However, this was to prove to be a real shame, because the bus broke down an hour or so into the journey and the air-conditioning stopped working -- and the windows didn't open!  So, moral of the story: pick a bus with natural air-conditioning (working windows)!

Yes, our trip home was the biggest part of the adventure by far.  Our bus broke down.  And then it broke down again.  And again. And again. And again.  We spent hours on the side of the road waiting for more replacement parts. We left at 7:30 and we were scheduled to be in Lusaka 7 hours later.  Instead, we got to Lusaka at 5:30pm after 10 hours of travel!  At the end, the bus broke down for the final (probably the 7th time, though I'd lost count) time in Kafue, about 20-30 minutes outside Lusaka.  Thankfully it broke down directly in front of the taxi and minibus stance in Kafue.  At that point there were only about 10 passengers left on our bus - most of the other passengers had already gotten off at their stops, or had run for another bus when it became clear earlier in the day that this bus was doomed.  I was concerned because it was starting to get close to sunset and I didn't want to be stranded - two white girls traveling alone, in an unfamiliar town with no money left, after dark.  There was another group of 'azungus' (white people) on the bus with us - a young man and his parents - and they agreed that we should stick together.  In the end the bus employees agreed that the company would pay for two minibuses to take us passengers the rest of the way to the Lusaka bus station.  So we got into the minibus with the other American family and headed off! It wasn't too far to Lusaka.  David had been in touch with me the whole day by text message, so he was at the bus station waiting to meet us, and be surprised by my braided hair.  :)

What a day!  We were so thankful to be safely back in Lusaka, especially after a near-accident occurred to our bus when a lorry ran us off the road as our driver was overtaking.  (The bus nearly flipped.)  It hadn't been an easy day, but what an experience!  We will have many things to chuckle over and remember for years to come.  It was a whirlwind 2 nights away and a  fun and memorable way to end our 2 1/2 months with Sarah as a member of our household.  David and Elijah had survived without me, and we had 1 night together as a family in a guesthouse in Lusaka before we flew out the next day to Europe... :)

glimpses.

Daily things:

Doing laundry

Washing dishes

Mopping floors with Sarah at night (after little feet have gone to bed)

Normal things:

Shopping in town, visiting the same shops every week, building relationships

Reading books on my Kindle

Endless hot, sunny days

Hard things:

Burying our part-time lecturer after a horrific accident

Dealing with 2-year-old tantrums

Ongoing sleep deprivation and a baby who thinks 5am is when the day begins!

Necessary things:

Going running a few times each week

David & I taking a break for a cup of tea together each morning

Nail polish

Fun things:

Breakfast dates with my fun, quirky, contrary, cute husband

Movie night with “Despicable Me” projected onto our living room wall and homemade candied popcorn!

Wandering through the market with Sarah buying beautiful chitenges

running

Today I ran for the first time since before David and I got married.  Three years and more. 

It felt so good.

I’ve had this impulse to start running again for months; a restlessness that would strike me in the early mornings, an urge to get 20 minutes’ strenuous relaxation – a momentary pause from my life as a mother, from the dishes, from the laundry.  Just breathing in and breathing out, hearing my feet crunch on the sandy road, and feeling awake and refreshed from these few moments in the fresh air and new day.

I didn’t think it was possible until I read my friend Coreyanne’s blog.  She spoke of running skirts, which I’d never really thought about.  I just knew that I couldn’t run without a skirt – because of the culture where I live.  I would need a skirt that reached well below my knees, and yet was designed for running.  The information that Corey posted on her blog spurred me to investigate.  My mother-in-law found a girl on Etsy advertising a handmade running skirt, who was willing to customize the length for me.  Better yet, it was half the price of the “name brand” running skirts out there (which weren’t even available in my size).

Suddenly things were coming tog ether, and I realized that my desire was being fulfilled.  The skirt was ordered, and my sister-in-law included it in the care package she sent us this month.  It arrived this week, a flowery and uplifting print, along with my athletic shoes which had been left in storage in the USA under the mistaken impression that I wouldn’t need them here.  The pieces were falling into place. 

I want to run early in the mornings, as soon as the sun is up.  When there are fewest people on the roads, out and about, and I have to deal with as little staring as possible.  They already think I am very strange for taking a walk with Marjanne every afternoon.  Zambians don’t comprehend the idea of walking for leisure.  Now they will see an even stranger sight – the ‘mzungu’ woman runs down the road as if she is fleeing a lion!  But if I go early, maybe I will even avoid having any early-bird students see me over their breakfast cup of tea. 

Ketzia accommodates me by getting up early in the mornings.  She is always awake sometime around or after 5am… too early.  I arrange to leave her with Sarah, to play in the bedroom while I am gone.  David is on “Elijah duty,” but Elijah never gets up as early as Ketzia, so it’s likely that David will get a bit more rest while I am gone.

The final arrangement is to borrow Sarah’s beautiful iPod.  I need a soundtrack for my exertion, to keep myself focused.  One of these days I  will get some music loaded onto my own mp3 player, but for today, I have fresh music to spur me down the sandy road, songs I’ve never heard before.

And so it comes together.  Ketzia wakes up at 5:47.  I nurse her briefly, to keep her happy until my return.  My alarm goes off at 5:50.  I take Ketzia into the bathroom so that she will be happy with Mommy in sight while I change into my new running skirt, put my shoes on, pull my hair up.  I drop Ketzia with sleepy Sarah for a cuddle, grab the iPod and earbuds, and take a  few swallows of water.

My dogs greet me ecstatically as I do some minor stretches in front of our gate.  I call Merry to join me, and leave Tuppence behind.  She is too wound up to run properly with me.  We walk rapidly towards the College sign, the entrance to the campus, building up steam.  At the sign I turn right onto the dirt and sand driveway which leads, 4kms later, to the tarmac road.  It is 6:07.  I settle into a slow, rhythmic  shuffle.  The music plays.  The breeze cools my face.  My dog trots alongside, delighted.

I’ve decided to start slow, so I run for 2 minutes, walk for 1 minute.  Rinse and repeat.  I feel encouraged that my body seems to remember how to do this.  Breathe in, breathe out.  No cramps arise.  The breathlessness is not so bad.  After two running cycles and two walking cycles I turn around.  There is no need to push myself too far on the first day, or I might hamper my progress by wearing myself out.  I retrace my steps in the freshness of the morning.  I don’t see a single person during my run, and return to the house renewed.  Time for a quick rinse in the shower, and then I collect my baby back.  Husband and son still sleeping.  The house is quiet.  And I even have to time to write a blog post about it.   I think this is the beginning of a positive life change!

I've agreed with my friend Mairi that I would say I've been holding off from posting so that she doesn't miss anything while she's here in Zambia with no internet access.  :-)

So this is just a quick note to say that I'm alive, and (as is obvious) I'm not able to blog much at present, for a number of reasons. Tomorrow we are going away for a long weekend. When I come back we'll be smack-dab right in the middle of our next women's conference, the preparations for which have been occupying me all week.  We've had sickness (cold/flu) making the rounds in our house for 2 weeks now, in conjunction with a 2-year-old who's cutting his molars and a teething 7-month-old, as well.  I am delighted to say that someone whom I've known for a very long time (longer than I've known my husband) is coming to nanny for me until October... Miss Sarah Moriah Barr.  I am SO excited, and so thankful, and so blessed.  Reinforcements are on the way and arriving next week...

More later...

a picnic.

Today Marjanne and I went for a picnic by the dam which is about 20 minutes’ drive from the College.  It is an earthen dam with a pretty blue lake next to it, and grasses blowing in the wind.  There is a narrow road which runs over the top of the dam, and we took this road a couple of months ago when David preached in one of the village churches beyond the dam.  At that time, since it was still the rainy season, the lake had overflowed across the road and we had to ford the waters in our truck. Thankfully it was not too deep and we were able to cross quickly without becoming stuck.

So today we decided to take the children and have a nice relaxing outing to the dam with some lunch. So we packed our baskets and brought our camp chairs and Marjanne drove us (in our vehicle – since I cannot drive, not having a Zambian license and not knowing how to drive a manual).  I brought a sun-umbrella hoping that we could sit under its shade, but sadly we couldn’t get it far enough into the ground and the wind was toppling it every time.  So, we gave up and just sat in the sun on a sandy spot next to the water’s edge, grateful that there were some clouds in the sky so that it was not blazing hot.

There can be parasites and other nasty things in the water, so even though the lake looked refreshing we did not go in.  Marjanne brought her sewing and enjoyed having something to do.  I spent the entire time alternating between chasing Elijah (who wanted to wander off) and consoling Ketzia, who hasn’t been feeling well because she is cutting teeth.  In between we ate our picnic lunch.  Marjanne brought leftover pizza from our outing yesterday as her treat, and I packed a bottle of Sprite and a bag of potato chips as a special treat to go with my sandwich!  

The thing about picnicking as a ‘mzungu’ (white person) is that you have to be prepared to be stared at and observed at length by every passer-by.  The first one to stop was a teenaged boy who recognized us from the time we went to the village church, and from Marjanne’s school visits.  He greeted us, and we had some chitchat.  Then he remained, observing us, for the next hour!  Eventually two other small girls, one with a very young baby on her back, timidly approached us as well.  We learned that the baby was less than 4 weeks old.  The small girl was babysitting this tiny infant while the mother worked in the fields.  The baby woke and cried from hunger, and the little girl shushed it back to sleep because the mother wasn’t back from the fields yet. By this time the boy who was observing us had collected a large rock to use as a seat, and arranged himself comfortably next to Elijah’s camp chair, playing with the two trucks I brought for Elijah’s amusement.  Meanwhile we were also getting attention from passers-by…

We stayed for about an hour and a half, and when we had eaten our lunch and the children were getting tired we packed up.  It must have seemed so funny to these staring villagers, these silly mzungu women who bring baskets of food and sit and look at the water!  As Marjanne was backing the truck up we got stuck in the sandy road and the tires were spinning. So I got out and with the help of the boy who was still observing us, we managed to push while Marjanne accelerated and with some significant effort we got the vehicle to move and were on our way. I gave him a biscuit package in thanks for his help.  It was nice to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine for a little while even though I didn’t get to “relax.”  :)