Tomorrow I leave Raleigh and embark for Deutschland, via Salt Lake City.
What's that you say? They are in opposite directions? Yet it is for a good and wise purpose.
Am I concerned about spending almost thirty hours travelling? Well, only the first seven or eight hours when I have two small boys in tow. Of course, I worry more about the seven-and-some-odd animals at their grandparents' house. Hopefully I will not return to asthmatic boys doped up on allergy medication.
How can I be so cheerful? Because I'm going to Deutschland to see castles! For a real honeymoon after a mere seven years of marriage! And because anything I suffer on the trip will be well-deserved karma for doubling my 2007 carbon footprint with all this air travel.
Well, actually, no. I'm sure I deserve penance for my environmentally irresponsible behavior, but I don't look forward to it. Really, I just figure that any experience must be better than the last time I went to Germany, three years ago, with a toddler who screamed and cried for most of the nine-hour flight. In my lap. Disturbing a minimum of ten seat mates in the vicinity. This time, at least, there is a possibility of sleeping on the plane.
But ask me again in 48 hours, when I collapse wearily at the hotel in Munich.
Tonight is Book Club, where I am leading the discussion on "The Blue Castle" by L. M. Montgomery. I think the main message of the book is that decisions drive plot and character development. I mention this because a few weeks ago, I decided to go to Germany. Since then, I have concentrated my energies on making it happen. I will always regret not going to France for the summer in high school, but at least I can say I have learned from that disappointment and am not repeating the mistake.
So that's the real reason I'm so cheerful. I have made the decision, and now I am committed to making it work. I own my choice and the consequences...even the part where I deal with two cranky, wiggly boys during the sixth hour of sitting, cramped, in economy seats surrounded by sticky cereal bar crumbs, fighting over whose turn it is to "fly" the toy airplane.
But then, it might go marvelously well!
We'll see tomorrow.
1 comment:
I'm sure you'll have a fabulous trip, once all the actual flying is over. And this time I won't ask you to bring home German Chocolate for me, because I have a limitless supply right here!
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