Children in Tow

This is Swathi playing rapid catch-up. Of course we are already behind blogging!!

June 24 Copenhagen
We explored more of Copenhagen with our resident friends. First we went to a fun park so the kids could play, then we went to the main cemetary in the city. Cemeteries are social spaces in Denmark. So we hung out with H.C. Andersen and Soren Kierkegaard’s graves. Meera was so excited to be at the other Soren’s grave that she had a major blowout (not pictured).

We then  headed over to see the Rosenborg Castle and gardens, attending an interesting puppet show there, and visiting the crown jewels.

 This is not the typical puppet show of couse..it featured a man dressed like an old woman who is the premier figure in electronic music in the 1970s Denmark. Musical history and entertainment for all! See below:

Meera playing on the castle grounds..1st time she sat independently! and for a whole minute!

Sadly, by Sunday night, Ditte had to depart to Scotland to attend an academic meeting.

June 25 Copenhagen/Veijle
On Monday we were officially on our own as Pedja and kids resumed their usual weekday routine. We visited Tivoli and then hopped on a train to begin our journey deep into the flat grassy lands of Denmark. Tivoli is a blend of permanent amusement park/carnival/gardens, including several toddler friendly rides we all enjoyed. It is just lovely to walk around and look at. Soren got himself some strawberry flavored popcorn…(yuck!) he likes all things red.

Soren on a car ride at Tivoli:

The above photo at Tivoli illuminates our packing for the 2 day trip to Vejle – 2 backpacks, 1 of which is a diaper bag, and it all fits (sort of) on our stroller.

We then went to a small town Vejle which is located relatively close to Legoland in Billund. This is our walk around Vejle:

Our hotel set us up with a king sized bed for us, a toddler bed for soren, and a pack-n-play for Meera. There was also a nice-sized kid play room with tons of toys for Soren to amuse himself with.

June 26 Veijle & LEGOLAND!!!!!!!
We settled in and the next day Soren and Clark headed off to Legoland, where they reportedly had the best time ever. Soren got to go on a lot of rides, play with Legos, and even eat lego-shaped french fries!! He also was a perfect toddler all day. Meera and I had a relaxing day in Vejle, enjoyed nice walks around town and a lovely outdoor lunch, and copious napping.

Soren of course had a blast. He ran around for 8 hours in 80F heat and then came home only to sprint around our hotel room while eating dinner. What energy!!

Goood thing we napped back home because here is where the children really go nuts. Meera developed a fever overnight and refused to sleep or be awake (tough spot!) then Soren vomited around 1am, Meera just whined constantly waking up Soren, who would then cough and threaten another vomiting episode. This is Meera’s first illness, poor little sweet baby. Finally Clark Meera and I finally slept around 4am. Only to be woken up around 7:00 by a whiny Meera who sort of settled but not quite settled down around 7:30 when Soren woke up with a bloody nose and blood all over the sheets and pillow which he found emotionally traumatizing. Meera started having constant nose snot or watery eyes. We finally all settled into our buffet breakfast and things calmed down in time to catch our train back to Copenhagen…where I am currently blogging!

FYI catch-up post:

Hey all, what a crazy past few days it has been! Just last week we were lazing about our beloved Pittsburgh apartment moving and now we’ve moved out, flown to another continent and been given a fabulous whirlwind tour of Copenhagen. Or København as they write it around here. Danish spelling is very intuitive to me.

Before I jump into the blog I need to shout out some BIG thanks to a couple of our recent heroes. First to William Weiner (Snapchat handle wdubdubw) for driving us to the airport. We got him a Rick Flair shirt for his efforts:

Next, to our wonderful and gracious hosts Pedja, Ditte, little Oskar and little, little Inge. They welcomed us into their home, gave us a first-class city tour and provided abundant of frøsnapper. 🙏🙏🙏

Now, onto the past few days…

June 19 Pittsburgh…packing day

Mover’s came and put all out stuff in boxes. Won’t be seeing that stuff again for 2 months. Soren was just a little confused:

Also, we got a surprise visit from my good buddy Drew at the last minute! Glad to have him here just as our Pittsburgh adventure is coming to an end.

June 20..loading day
They put all our stuff in boxes and shipped it away. Soren and I went swimming in the rain.

June 21…fly out 

After dropping Soren off for daycare, Swathi and I did final re-pack to get down to our final travel bags. Final invetory 2 big bags, and 2 backpacks, plus a stroller/carseat (unpictured):

After a quick Chick-Fil-A dinner, we hopped on our 6:45 flight to Denmark (via Iceland). Soren got a new pair of fuzzy ipad headphones for the trip:

The kids were perfect for both flights. Soren didn’t sleep much and Meera put Swathi’s arm to sleep by sleeping on it funny, but really no complaints.

June 22…stumbling off the plane into Copenhagen

After our big trip, Ditte picked heroically whisked us away from the airport and introduced us to frøsnapper. Per the intro, we are duly grateful.

Other highlights photos here.

More København to come soon!

That was a quote by Soren as we were wandered around Copenhagen yesterday. This is Swathi writing. We had such a wonderful time!! We took the bus from Pedja and Ditte’s home into the center of the city and mostly walked around, hitting up some toy stores, a burger restaurant for lunch, went on a boat tour of the city, then an outdoor food market for an early dinner before heading back home. It was a perfect blue sky day, although a bit cooler than we were prepared for!

It just feels so good to be in Europe again. The delicious baked goods, yogurt, cheese, and food in general, YUM! Soren has successfully eaten ice cream and oatmeal here without any vomiting issues. I love how much more thoughtful routine Danes are about life. For example, Pedja and Ditte live in a 2 BR apt, 3 floor walk-up exactly as we did when we lived in Manhattan – the difference being that they have a little grey shed to store the strollers/bikes whereas we had to carry those up and down all the time in NYC after Soren was born. While we both lived in more “dangerous” neighborhoods with families that were less well-off than us, the playgrounds here are much better than what we had access to in Washington Heights. It was such a pain to get to the waterfront from our apartment, despite being close to such a beautiful space.  Here, there is an explicit attempt by the government to try to have people from different walks of life live in the same space and to integrate public housing. Danish people are notorious for being the happiest people on the planet. Sure of course there are problems here as any other place. But having reasonable financial and healthcare security go a long way in how much one is able to enjoy life. 1 year maternity leave, amazing childcare for all kids, these things help young families thrive instead of just get through the tough years. Kids get home-made meals and baked bread in their daycares. Yummm! Anyways, enough comments about society in general.

Short note about our wonderful hosts. I went to college with Pedja at the University of Pittsburgh, but would probably never have met him if it weren’t for my trip to Belgium where I studied abroad for a semester – Pedja was also abroad at the same time. We took an amazing art history course together where we traveled all over Western Europe with our class and visited museums, historical sites, and really had the best time ever. Pedja then did a Humanity-in-Action summer program at the end of his college years through which he went back to Europe and met Ditte, his now wife. Pedja then did the Peace Corps in Morocco where he befriended Clark, my now husband. Clark and I met at a chance encounter on the street when Pedja came to visit D.C. in 2011, when Clark was also living in D.C. A decade and 4 kids later…here we are! Awfully romantic isn’t it?

Today there is more exploration of Copenhagen awaiting us and another beautiful day 🙂

 

Greetings all and welcome to our 2018 summer world tour blog! As you may have heard we are moving from Pittsburgh (😭) to Tacoma WA (😀)  and decided to make a trip of it. We will be spending the better part of the next two months making our way over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans with children in tow. Brilliance? Madness? Brilliant maddness?  Join us as we find out together through all the tantrums, vomiting, diaper accidents, and jet lag.

Let’s take a look at the game plan for the summer:

A. Pittsburgh
B. Copenhagen (June 22-28)
C. Lisbon (June 28 – July 5)
D. Guimarães & Porto (July 5 – July 11)
E. Barcelona (July 11-July 24)
F. Hyderabad (July 24 – August 24)
G. Hong Kong (August 24 – August 29)
H. Seattle & Tacoma (Arrive August 29)

A. Pittsburgh

We begin our journey by departing our beloved Pittsburgh and will be moving out of our apartment the day before our flight.

Highlights:
– Final dinner at our (Soren’s) favorite Ethiopian restaurant
– Final breakfast at our (Swathi’s) favorite breakfast spot

B. Copenhagen (June 22-28)

Our dear friends Pedja, Ditte, Oskar (5) and lil’ Inge (2) will be graciously hosting us in Copenhagen for our first three days of our journey. From there we will make our way through the Danish heartland of Odense to Vejle and ultimately to the original Legoland in Billund. A quick trip back to Copenhagen and we fly out for Portugal.

Highlights:
– Apparently there is an semi-autonomous state within Copenhagen. Who knew?
– Carousels, music and playgrounds at  Tivoli Gardens
– Hanging out with The Little Mermaid at the Hans Christian Anderson house

C. Lisbon (June 28 – July 5)

Once we get to Portugal, we will meet up with our friends Rheka, Adi and Arya (3) as well as Roby, Ashley and Tony (2). After a few days beachside in Cascais (pronounced Kush-kaish or Cashcaish) outside Lisbon, we will move into the city and do proper tourist things: tram rides, porcelain tiles, pasteis and, of course, watching a bunch of  fish swimming around in the giant aquarium.

Highlights:
– Wandering around the narrow medina-esque alleys of the Alfama
– Sintra for fairy tale castles
– Time Out Market to feed

D. Guimarães & Porto (July 5 – July 11)

Hopping in a rental car (yikes!) and heading north to explore some more off the beaten path locations. Not super un-beaten mind you. Just more like moderately beaten. Guimarães is a medieval city where we will stay in a monastery for a few days. The city will also be our launchpad to explore the terraced vineyards and bucolic landscape of  Duoro valley. Finally, we will head to Porto and attempt to live out the NYT’s “36 Hours in…” feature on the city.

Highlights:
– Staying in a Pousada (converted monastery)
– Quintas (vineyards) in the Douro
– Petiscos in Porto (Portugese tapas)

E. Barcelona (July 11-July 24)

Our temporary home in Barcelona

 

After out trekking about in Portugal, we’ll settle down and pretend to live Barcelona for a couple weeks. There will be a guest appearance by our friend Isha, who now lives in Switzerland. We do not really have much planned specifically, but this should be more about connecting with the city than seeing the major sights. By the way, Barcelona was where I started my very first solo traveling abroad almost exactly 12 years ago! On that trip, I slept on park benches, got locked into Park Güell, and hopped on a bus to run with the bulls. I expect fewer adventures this time.

Highlights:
– We got reservations at Tickets!!!!
– The fantastic Gaudi buildings and parks of course
– Jamon iberico DROOL🤤

Bonus content: me in a bull ring from my first Spain visit

via GIPHY

 

F. Hyderabad (July 24 – August 24)

From Europe, we will continue east and make our way to Hyderabad to spend time with family. Many idlis will be eaten. Primarily by Soren. The adults have big ambitions for self-improvement projects like exercising, getting Tacoma business in order, and studying. More likely, there will be lots of biryani eating and subsequent napping (this is generally what Swathi and Soren like to do). Depending on our energy we may venture out to Goa or Kerala, TBD.

Highlights:
– Celebrating our 5 year anniversary back where it all started
– Going to the mall. No seriously, we will be going a LOT
– Biriyani the right way at Paradise Biryani

G. Hong Kong (August 24 – August 29)

I’ll be honest. We haven’t really planned much of anything in Hong Kong. Our AirBnB host just cancelled on us, so technically we don’t even have a place to stay yet. We are counting on our friend and HK resident Adam to point us in the right direction. Adam, we are counting on you!

Highlights:
– Guess we can discover as we go, but at baseline I expect good dimsum and maybe some boat rides around the bay

H. Seattle & Tacoma (Arrive August 29)And finally, we will stumble bleary-eyed out of the plane and to our new home in the Northwest. Depending on our housing situation (did I mention we don’t have a place there yet), we may spend a few days exploring Seattle as we adjust. The final FINAL leg of our journey will be a quick 40 minute drive down I-5 to Tacoma where we will hit the reboot button on life and start our new life.

Highlights:
– Coffee…glorious coffee ☕
– Proximity to Canada if things get (more) out of hand over here
– Embracing my inner mountain man with beards and flannel