Travel with kids scares me

And this is why. I remember, you see. I remember being 14 years old and being completely hideous when my parents took us on a month long trip to Athens, Crete, Paris, London, Boston, Washington and New Orleans before we settled in Boulder Colorado for a 6 month stay.

Here I am with my mum and brother and sister at the Parthenon in Athens. It’s on the top of a bloody great hill you know, and we’d just walked up there. I was not pleased.

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We did a lot of walking in Athens, I spent a lot of time being displeased. My poor mother.

And here I am in the gardens of the Meudon Observatory in Paris reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and daring anyone to try to get me to be enthusiastic about the view or going for any more walks. (To be fair, I had the worst period pain that day.)

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We went the the Louvre, maybe the next day? My strongest memory of being there was reaching a point at which I announced that if I saw one more painting of fat naked babies I was going to scream.

I did enjoy the food though, especially in Greece. Developed a taste for olives and fetta cheese in greek salad that was a little ahead of the culinary curve back here in Australia.

Dessert at the waterfront restaurant in Iraklion.

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Maybe if we take the kids to Europe we should make it a culinary tour and we’ll sneak the visits to historical sites in between lots of seriously amazing meals. That’s a reasonable plan isn’t it?

50 Things post No. 39

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10 responses to “Travel with kids scares me”

  1. Ariane Avatar
    Ariane

    As long as all of the meals also have chips. In that case, it's an excellent plan. 🙂

    Reply
  2. mimbles Avatar
    mimbles

    Very true. Wouldn't want the small girl fading away on the trip.

    Reply
  3. bri Avatar
    bri

    That second photograph is just gorgeous. I love the light and shadow and the wistfulness of your pose and expression. Beautiful.

    Reply
  4. Toni Avatar
    Toni

    I can see a great resemblance to David in the second photo.The trip sounds great.

    Reply
  5. Kt Avatar
    Kt

    Having recently taken the kids to Hong Kong for a week, I can confirm that overseas travel with some teenagers is… let's just say… special. Especially teenagers who are being dragged away from the love of their (short) life. I mean how could you possibly want to see all that interesting stuff when you could stay in the hotel spending the whole day on Skype.

    Reply
  6. suze2000 Avatar
    suze2000

    ^^^ I was taken away for two weeks when I was fifteen and had just fallen in love for the first time. I think I spent the whole trip whining about how much I missed the BF. Certainly my travel journal is full of it. So if you are going, you better do it soon, before they start wanting to be with the opposite sex more than their friends and family. Prior to falling in love I think I generally enjoyed family trips. But a lot of the time, it was just an opportunity to read books in a different location. 🙂 Your hair is amazing. Even when my hair's really long it's kinky and frizzy which I hate.

    Reply
  7. mimbles Avatar
    mimbles

    As it happens I too had been dragged away from the first love of my life – and we were staying away for 7 months! We'd been together for 3 whole months, which is an eternity at 14 :PThere was one small mitigating factor though, his family were moving to Nowra permanently about a month after we left, so the relationship was doomed anyway 😉

    Reply
  8. ausmerican Avatar
    ausmerican

    My parents took me to Florida & Disney World when I was 11. Just old enough to be "too old and cool" for that "baby stuff" and slightly too young to wise up and just have fun with the cheesiness. Although, I did dig the Star Wars ride which started my brief addiction to Star Wars books …

    Reply
  9. Penthe Avatar
    Penthe

    Ned was vile quite often when we took him to Paris, but he has since talked about it as something he really, really loved and remembers heaps of details about it. So it was probably worth it. Of course, he was also getting sick which didn't help.

    Reply
  10. Mrs4444 Avatar
    Mrs4444

    Of course, that's a great idea. What a cutie pie you were, even if you were, it sounds like, an irritating beast. 🙂

    Reply

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