There are seasons of exploration. And then there are seasons of contemplation. Opportunities to slow down and soak in change. A chance to grow amidst life’s transitions. This is that season for me. For us.
Last year was a year for exploring. It was soul-enriching. We went new places, did new things, and had a ton of fun. And then, in October, our second child was born. Our new baby girl Arya has added a whole new kind of enrichment to our family life. She has given us the opportunity to slow down and figure out life with two littles. It’s been a couple of months of hard work to maintain peace and find balance in our new life. We have worked hard to simply keep up with the mundane, but still very necessary things. Things like keeping our two dogs walked, making time to exercise or finish an important conversation with the spouse, keeping everyone fed and bathed and in clean clothes, tackling the never-ending piles of dishes and laundry (compounded by the fact that we have two kids in cloth diapers). But we’ve also cut back and slowed down in other areas, to savor and give one hundred percent to the things that truly matter. Things like serving others. Fostering friendships, old and new. And we’re hearing things better. Sounds like leaves falling off trees while taking our toddler to the park, and hearing our toddler give his baby sister kisses (which may be the sweetest thing we’ve experienced yet).
If you’ve been reading for a while you’ll know that I’ve blogged about this before. For years before our kids were born, we said our lives won’t stop when we have kids. When Johann was born it was a hard change, but it seemed like we fell back into an active life soon enough and he just came along for the ride. While life is certainly harder now with two young kids (and it’s only been three months!) in some ways not much has changed. We’re still the same people, we still have the same values, the same priorities, the same purpose and the same drive. We’re just in a season of contemplation. Transition. Figuring out our new normal.
Ryan and I are talking about what backpacking, camping, and travel will look like for us this year. People still ask us if we’re crazy for continuing to do this stuff with two littles aged two and under. We may be! And, we hear a lot of “I don’t know how you do it.” But the things we do: get outside, travel, be still in nature, live with less stuff, live responsibly towards our planet, be more self-sufficient, continue enjoying financial peace and debt-freedom…among other things, these stem from our values, our WHY. These are things we so desperately want to pass on to our children that we are being intentional about them. A little planning, and starting small goes a long way. Arya went out on her first real hike at four weeks old. It was a tame forty-five-minute back-and-forth thing, but it was enough for us to see that she, too, has inherited her parents’ love of the outdoors. We took her to the mountains to play in the snow and went sledding all day at nine weeks. She is already adventurous like her big brother, and every bit as flexible and easy-going.
Life is good, and it’s about to get very, very exciting indeed.
So, I’m still here. And, I’ll be back to post more frequently as we move towards our new normal. Thank you so much for sticking with me, for reading, and for the words of encouragement.
A couple of months ago our family of three hiked into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, a large and beautiful part of our Cascade Mountains, and spent the night on the shores of Lake Dorothy. This was our third backpacking trip with our son, then eighteen months old. I’ve talked about backpacking with a baby before on this blog but, as we’re learning, taking a toddler along is a whole new thing!
Total distance: 4.5 miles
Number of nights: 1
Location: Lake Dorothy
We arrived at the nearly empty trailhead on a sunny Friday morning, and pulled up next to a dad and his daughter getting ready for an overnight trip, too. The little girl was in deep concentration, filming a butterfly as it flew around the parking lot. Johann was fascinated by the movie-making and watched intently. That is, for about a minute, until he lost interest and ran off to find the nearest stick he could pick up. In chatting with the dad-daughter duo, we found out that this trip was a birthday celebration and a different sort of milestone for them. The little girl was turning nine soon, and this was her first trip where she would be carrying all of her own gear. She was excited to do something so special with her dad for her birthday. Wow! The dad asked how old Johann was, watching with interest as we strapped Johann into the Ergo carrier and got our gear ready, then started sharing his own stories about how he and his wife adventured this same way when their daughter was Johann’s age. The whole incident made both Ryan and me very happy. It was a brief but realistic glimpse into what our future could look like just a few years from now. We want to live with peace and confidence, without guilt or shame, about raising our son to love the outdoors and teach him how to push himself to face new challenges. Watching this dad and daughter do the same thing was validation.
All five of us geared up and headed out, each group taking turns snapping photos of the other. It was just over two miles to the lake and campsites, and about one thousand feet in elevation gain. As Johann has grown and changed, so has our packing approach. I was also nearly four months pregnant at this time, and still “being careful” as we hadn’t shared our news with too many people yet.
Ryan volunteered to carry Johann in front, on the Ergo carrier, and take my smaller pack. I took his bigger pack, but still carried less weight than Ryan did. He ended up carrying about twenty pounds more than I did, poor guy. He felt really manly, though. We took our time hiking up, soaking in the scenery as we went. This was a new trail for us, and there was a lot to look at!
Camp Robber Creek
We hadn’t seen anyone else there besides the dad and daughter, so we had our pick of campsites when we got to the lake. The trail that runs along the 1.8 mile length of Lake Dorothy is several hundred feet high up along a ridge, with occasional steep boot paths that lead towards the lake, and flat areas for tents along the way. We went back and forth a bit trying to find a good spot. We chose a really pretty site that had a few fallen logs bordering one side (Johann loved climbing on these!).
We had a nice view of the lake and mountains through the trees, and a steep bootpath down to our own nice sun-warmed rock beach. The smooth rock-face formed perfect seats, no chairs needed. The whole site offered a high degree of privacy, exactly what we wanted, since we like our quiet and we had a toddler! We dumped our stuff, and headed down to the water to relax over our lunch, take in the views and dip our feet in the cold water.
Mmm….lunch.
The next order of business was to set up camp. It is in these moments that one realizes backpacking with a toddler is ten times more difficult than with a baby. We were basically down one adult, because one of us had to watch Johann the whole time. The biggest hazard here was the possibility of him rolling down the steep hillside about a hundred feet into the lake. He is curious and has absolutely no sense of self-preservation, which made things like tent set-up a lot more challenging. There were times when he wanted to “help” so, as long as his interest held, we would just let him be right in the middle of everything, even if it went slower and took us twice as long as a result.
Once the tent was mostly up, we put him inside to explore for a bit, since it was probably the safest place for him to be anyway, and the zippered doors were still a bit tricky for him to figure out. (However, this was almost three months ago and he has figured it out now. I’m glad we milked that while we could.)
Johann played in the tent for a few minutes while we put everything else away. It was around 4 p.m. now and, feeling settled, we were eager to explore our beautiful new surroundings. We headed down the trail to see the rest of the lake. Johann was overdue for his nap so when he fell asleep right away, we took our time exploring, lingered to take a lot of pictures, and finally returned to camp around 6 p.m.
The sun was just starting to dip over the mountains. We cooked dinner and enjoyed being on the rocks again, taking in the sunset as we ate. We took turns exploring the area with Johann, helping him simultaneously indulge his curiosity and burn off as much energy as he could, and cleaning up dishes. We walked around for a little while trying to find a good spot to hang up our bear bag. I gave Johann a headlamp to play with since this was another task which would go so much faster with two people. He had never played with it before, so it held his attention for about three minutes but he was more fascinated with what we were doing. “Daddy, why are you hoisting all our food up into a tree?”
The light was fading fast, and we all turned in for the night just before 9 p.m. Sleep has been another challenge on these trips. At home, we can just say “Goodnight, Johann” put him in his crib and not see each other again until everyone is well rested and awake the next day. It’s a little different in a tent, when he’s laying a mere inch or two from both of us. So we snuggled into our sleeping bags and alternated between playing quiet silly games, and pretended to sleep, hoping he would fall for that. And then somehow, Johann ended up fish-hooking Ryan and giving him a bloody nose. Our first-aid kit was handy but proved unnecessary as a bandana took care of it. I was more concerned about the fact that Ryan doesn’t like the sight of blood. I scooted Johann far over to my other side for the next few minutes, and just hoped Ryan wouldn’t pass out.
Crisis averted, it was now around 9:45 p.m. and we looked over at Johann to find that he was fast asleep. He stayed fast asleep until 7 a.m., opening his eyes and cooing just as the sun came up over the mountains. We were floored! He had stirred twice during the night, for a second or two each time, but quickly found a new position and went back to sleep both times. The whole sleep thing is an adjustment, for sure, since we’re away from our normal routine. Ryan and I have had to adjust our expectations about what “a good night’s sleep” looks like on these kinds of trips, and that’s half the battle. While Ryan and I may still toss and turn at night on backpacking and camping trips, compared to our own bed at home, our kid sleeps comparatively much better than we do, and we are very grateful for it. Johann also got his own sleeping bag this summer, which has made it more comfortable for all of us. It’s a nice kid-sized sleeping bag that we hope will stay with him through his preteen years and many more wilderness memories to come.
We woke up to see that it was a brisk 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so layered up before getting coffee and breakfast going. It promised to be another sunny, beautiful spring day.
Early morning is one of my absolute favorite parts of a backpacking trip. Why? The stillness of the mornings make it very easy to appreciate the peace, calm, and raw beauty of the lake or mountains, or wherever we may be. Here, there was absolute stillness, punctuated only by birdsong. No motor noises, no electronic whirring noises, no people-chatter. It was pure joy.
As soon as Johann was up he wanted to run around, exploring our campsite as if he were seeing it for the first time. So.much.excitement. He loved climbing on trees and big rocks, picking up sticks and pinecones.
Johann loved climbing on all the logs at our campsite.
We let him have as much freedom as possible in the safer, flatter areas away from the steep drop-off and thorny brambles. He especially loved our private little rock beach, and stopping at the creeks nearby to drop rocks into the water.
Our oatmeal was taking longer to cook than Johann liked, and he started getting fussy. Ryan decided to tide him over with a few cheerios and eventually just put him in the Ergo. It worked, and he calmed down right away! We enjoyed our hot oatmeal by the water, cleaned up, then set off to do some more exploring.
“I’ll take my coffee straight up, thanks!”
Everything looked totally different in the morning light, compared to the previous evening, and we were able to appreciate it all over again.
It was almost noon when we got back to camp. We wanted to leave soon, so we could go pick up our dogs. So I occupied Johann with lunch while Ryan started breaking down camp. We said “bye bye” to Lake Dorothy, and headed out.
Lo and behold, who should we run into again but the dad-daughter duo! We asked the little girl how the trip had gone and, with a huge grin on her face, she said “great!” and that her favorite part was swimming in the frigid alpine lake. Yikes! (Kids.) What a memory this is going to be for her – one that will shape her, stay with her, become a part of her.
I felt so lucky to witness this. It made us feel like we’re on the right track with this crazy stuff that we drag Johann into, that the things we do will have meaningful results just a few years from now. It completely validated our why.
Backpacking with a toddler is far more challenging than with an infant. But still possible. And, in many ways, slowly becoming more rewarding. His personality traits are starting to show themselves more, and it is wonderful to interact with him. To notice things the way he notices them. To explore the outdoors with him as if for the first time, every time. To watch him pick up a stick and wave it around like it’s the most exciting thing in the world. To hear him squeal with glee when he drops a rock into the water.
This is a fun age, and we are enjoying this precious time before Johann crosses over from being a stowaway, to becoming an active contributor to and participant of our family life and adventures. We had a weekend of priceless memories that made the work of it all totally worth it.
Are you thinking of taking your baby or young child on a backpacking trip? How can we encourage you?
We’ve been sharing our experiences from the trip we took to Germany and India earlier this summer. So far, you’ve heard our stories from Germany, and now we’ve arrived in India. While we’re hardly the first family to travel there with a baby or toddler, there are a few things we learned that made life a bit easier on us. And, there were things we could do nothing about, things that we just had to roll with.
India, as always, was amazing! I enjoyed taking my son to familiar places from my childhood, and we spent happy days at the beach, but our time there was really all about soaking up my family’s love and attention. My grandmother was especially happy to meet her first great-grandchild for the first time.
I really cannot talk about a trip to see my family without talking about food. I come from a family of foodies, most of whom are talented home cooks as well. On top of that, there was amazing restaurant food too. But, the food was the easy part. Mealtimes, however, were very different than Johann was used to. So, our schedule had to change a bit…
THE SCHEDULE
The days are laid out quite differently in India. A typical workday usually doesn’t start until around 9:30 or 10 a.m. Lunch doesn’t usually happen until after 1 p.m., and dinner doesn’t usually happen until 9:00 or 10 p.m. (usually much later if eating out). A far cry from Johann’s normal 7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. routine. To get through the longer days, we adjusted right away by putting Johann down for a nap mid-morning, then an afternoon nap again later. He had been on a one-nap-a-day schedule for the past eight months so it was different than usual, but he took right to it since he needed his sleep and he knew it. Despite the extra nap, his overnight sleep was still far less than normal, and so he only got about ten or eleven hours of total sleep per day, at the most, compared to at least thirteen or fourteen hours a day back home. We’ll chalk it up to “vacation schedule” since he hopped right back into his old routine when we got home. But, he was happy to sleep in his travel crib, and quite comfortable since the bedroom we slept in was air-conditioned! Which brings me to…
THE CLIMATE
Southern India is hot, like most people expect, but it’s tolerable if you know how to adapt. My husband’s favorite climate adaptation in Indian living spaces is the ceiling fan! Not just any ole’ ceiling fan, but an Indian ceiling fan. Why is that special? Let me illustrate. Comparing a ceiling fan in America to a ceiling fan in India is like comparing a paper airplane to a helicopter. With high humidity and average temperatures being in the high 90s or 100 F, even hot air moving fast feels good. Those fans are pretty powerful.
When we went out, Johann’s hair was constantly stuck to his neck and forehead in sweaty clumps. But he didn’t seem to mind that he was plucked from the mild Pacific Northwest and put in the middle of South India’s summer. It was really only miserable if we were outside, or traveling in confined spaces. Which leads me into…
THE CAR TRAVEL
Car travel was the only real low-point of the trip. We didn’t bring Johann’s carseat because he didn’t need it. In Germany we only used trains and public transit. India has no carseat laws, and while nowadays you will find people using carseats there (mostly modern urban families with the means and inclination to do so), carseats are still very far from the norm. It’s not even an option for the vast majority of the population who don’t own cars but instead cart their babies, toddlers, grown kids and elderly relatives alike on the backs of motorcycles or scooters. Sometimes it’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?
We were only too happy not to lug his carseat around anyway. So how did we deal with car travel in India?
If it was just the three of us and my mom in her tiny car, either Ryan or I would sit in the back seat with Johann. That was the safest place for him to be. On the 20-minute ride home from the airport he sat quietly next to us the whole time. He must have been either wordlessly absorbing all the culture shock (which is a real thing, even for a toddler), or just very tired since it was 1:30 a.m. The next car ride, in broad daylight, and all subsequent car rides in Chennai for that matter, were a completely different story. Johann would start out sitting obediently in one of our laps for the first few minutes, but found the numerous sights, sounds, and smells out the window to be far too fascinating. And who can blame him? Car travel in India provides far too many compelling sensory treats even for fully grown adults.
The “low points” here were basically every time we added one or two more adults to the already small car, but particularly so in stop-n-go traffic, in the stifling heat. The cars are all air-conditioned, but it’s not the same in that kind of heat. This is where you remind yourself of all those jokes you once laughed at: How many elephants can you fit in a Volkswagen? And then you realize that you’re in it right now. You’re the elephant sweating in a Volkswagen, with a toddler dashing back and forth on your laps between the back windows cackling at the two swarthy gentlemen sitting on the motorcycle stopped at the traffic light right next to you. Maybe Johann found their mustaches amusing. And, rush hour? It’s every hour, all day, every day, with few exceptions.
But the worst part was when we all piled into said tiny car (that’s five adults, plus one active toddler, if you’re keeping track) with each person’s luggage and Johann’s travel crib, and drove down the coast for over three hours, on one particularly hot and humid day, to meet up with the rest of my family for the weekend. Being with the whole family was a very happy occasion indeed (more on that below), but that car ride was miserable. There was little room to breathe, and we were all uncomfortable. Johann napped for a grand total of about thirty minutes, but woke up for a delicious roadside treat: A summer fruit with a short season that I grew up calling “nungu,” but known in English as “ice apples.”
The “ice apple” inside the husky shell.
Neither icy nor tasting anything like apples (although they do look a little icy and, once removed from their husky shells, sort of like apples in profile, if you squint), these are actually the fruit of a particular variety of palm tree. It tastes similar to a really thick, sticky, tender coconut but not as sweet.
Jackfruit was in season, too.
Jackfruit bigger than our kid!
Stopping for roadside treats were awesome, especially when seasonal fruit was involved. But the car travel in general was tough.
THE BEACH
As I mentioned earlier, we headed down the coast to meet up with my extended family for a few days at a beach resort. On the way there, we stopped at an organic farm outside the city, and Johann got on a horse for the first time (closely held by his Daddy, who grew up riding horses and loves them).
This kid really loves animals too.
We ate a delicious farm-to-table breakfast, saw all sorts of farm animals, then continued on our drive down the coast. We arrived at the beach to a warm welcome after our hot sweaty car journey, and very much ready to start relaxing!
We enjoyed hanging out with my family, the balmy sea breeze (which actually made the hot weather “feel” pretty comfortable), no mosquitos, and also some pool fun. We went to the beach early in the mornings, and had the place to ourselves except for a handful of people who strolled by.
The waters were rough, and the current was very strong, so one of us had a tight grip on Johann at all times. But the beach was beautiful, clean and very sandy.
It was unquestionably peaceful. Johann was having a blast, and so were we. The whole weekend, and getting to spend time with my family was great. It was fun to be with my cousins, and watch them play with, wrangle, and generally enjoy Johann.
And where my family is involved, there is always food. It was a blessing to enjoy meals together, and eat well as a whole group.
THE FOOD
If you’re still thinking about those “ice apples” and Jackfruit, I don’t need to tell you that Indian food is a treat. My family is serious about good food, and Johann definitely fits that mould. He savored everything he tried, which included so many new foods, even spicy dishes.
Dinner at one of my favorite places!
He ate everything without question or complaint, and faithfully proclaimed his enjoyment of all meals with hearty toddler belches politely followed by the sweetest grins in the world. There’s no doubt this kid likes to eat, despite his tiny frame. Small but mighty, as Ryan and I like to say.
Mangoes, veggies (many of which were seasonal and not even available at the Indian stores in the States!), and any kind of fish were his favorites. He loved the local milk and yogurt, too. The milk, as I grew up drinking it, would be hand-delivered to your doorstep by an actual milkman wheeling his own cart around the neighborhood. Straight from a cow, usually not touched by middlemen, the milk needs to be boiled at home for safe consumption. With its full-fat and rich taste, I don’t blame Johann for glugging down several cups a day. Same with yogurt, or “curds” as it is called in English over there.
Really good yogurt!
Johann scooped up as much yogurt as he could with lunch and dinner, daily. He probably dreams of decadent yogurt baths. With a little milk thrown in there (for splashing, y’know).
We ate our fill of delicious food. Some of it is not even Indian, but still very much a part of my childhood.
Ais Kacang! A popular Malaysian dessert. You know you want to eat this.
It was all food I grew up with. Food I’ve loved. Even some food I hated as a kid but love now (don’t we all have at least one or two of those?).
While the food was fantastic, our trips to India are ultimately about family and this trip was no exception. We were happy to enjoy a semi-routine at home, eat, veg, and just spend the precious little time with loved ones. Johann soaked up all the attention, and easily found entertainment in little things.
THE ENTERTAINMENT
Since we were traveling so light, we had brought hardly anything for Johann to play with. A very small board book, a cheap set of beach toys, and some very small toys that were really just distractions for the plane rides. He pretty much ran around as fast as he could, as often as he could. The apartment building had a huge rooftop terrace that was nice to go up to when the sun wasn’t so harsh, and Johann liked running the length of the clotheslines and seeing people’s clean laundry fluttering in the breeze. When he wanted to sit still, he found various things around the apartment to play with, and it was wonderful to watch his curiosity and imagination unfold in new ways. One game he invented involved emptying out all the take-out-menus that my Grandma had put into a little envelope holder on the side table next to the phone, and transferring them one by one all the way across the living room, then back again into the envelope holder in a totally different arrangement of his own choosing. The balcony, however, was hands-down his favorite entertainment. He had a great view from up above, and enjoyed the constant distractions out on the street. That, and opening and closing the french doors to the balcony. I’ve already talked about the great balcony-bird-poop incident.
We also found playgrounds wherever we could. Some kids just have to stop to play at a playground every time they see one!
Everything was new, novel, and held his attention far longer than we hoped. Especially the balcony. And, all this entertainment was free.
The coming months will find us in a new season of life, one where we don’t expect to do any 9+ hour flights. We won’t say so definitively, since we love seeing new places, but I cannot underscore enough how much work it is to travel that far with babies and toddlers. Even though our motivation is strong, and our travel plans are usually well thought out, there is always something unexpected to deal with, which is difficult enough for an adult to handle (let alone families with little ones in diapers). In a couple of months, we’ll have two littles in our house, and we’ll probably scale back our adventures a bit as we adjust to a new normal. We’ll continue sharing how we explore and do things simply around here, on this blog, but mostly we’ll just be enjoying our current season. Thanks for sharing the journey with us!
If you’ve been following our adventure so far, you know we traveled to Germany and India last month with our one and a half year old son. We’re thoroughly enjoying sharing our lessons learned, highs and lows of traveling light with a highly active toddler boy, and the unexpected joys and challenges we experienced while visiting both unfamiliar and known cities and countries as a new family right here in this space. This kind of thing is deeply rooted in our veins, and we love sharing what we’re learning. So thank you for reading!
Right now we’re talking about Germany. We landed in Frankfurt, which would serve as “base camp” and spent the first day settling in and doing just a little exploring in the evening. We also spent a day in Heidelberg. If you’ve missed it, head here to read all about it.
The next day we hopped on an early morning train, after another filling and delicious breakfast (God bless our hotel find), and spent the day in Würzburg.
A short train ride to Würzburg
Würzburg sits in the region called Franconia, in Northern Bavaria, and marks the start of the “Romantic Road.” If you haven’t heard of it, that’s a route that runs through the bottom half of Germany connecting a series of picturesque towns and castles, ending at the very famous Castle Neuschwanstein. The region is also famous for wine-production, which at least one of us sampled while there and can now attest to the fact that it deserves its fame. There were so many sights we wanted to see here. For example, the local World War II exhibit, which showed in miniature detail the ninety percent of the whole town that was destroyed in 1945 during the British air raids. We actually did see everything we wanted to see here while going at a relaxed pace, and giving Johann his much needed “running breaks.”
We arrived in Würzburg after a short train ride. We had walked about three quarters of a mile towards the Altstadt (old town), when I noticed that Johann – riding in the Ergo on Ryan’s back – had chucked his sun hat somewhere along the way. The hat is a high-quality one, and was meant to fit his head for the next three or four sizes of growth (supposedly). So we retraced our steps, and finding nothing we gave up all hope, sad to start our day with a small but sad loss. But, to our surprise, a kind stranger had perched the sun hat atop a post mere steps away from where we had discovered it was missing.
Setting aside the hat-chucking incident, and a harrowing train-catching incident yet to come, we loved our day in Würzburg.
One of our first stops was the World War II exhibit at the town hall. The magnificent churches, castles, and town buildings we marveled at were almost completely reduced to rubble, then painstakingly reconstructed to prior accuracy in the decades that followed.
Everything in Würzburg except the bridge and cathedtral was completely destroyed during World War II.
The accompanying text said that the town wanted to remember the tragedies it suffered through, and never wanted to face anything like that ever again. The whole thing was a humbling paradox of an experience, one that made us feel very blessed and fortunate not to be living in times of war devastation and also one that showed us how normal life can seem one or two generations later. Like it was nothing.
It was easy to find beauty and joy in everything we saw here.
But the churches here were especially beautiful, and we explored as many as we could.
That is, until Johann discovered echoes. As in, his own very loud echo inside a church. While someone was giving a talk. The more he heard it, the more thrill he got out of it. Yep. So I went in with the other tourists who knew how to be quiet, and took the keepsake pictures. But that wasn’t all of Johann’s church-related mischief. At another church here (one that was completely deserted except for us, thankfully), Johann decided to take a break from running when he inadvertently discovered that the cushions could be pushed off. The excitement grew when he discovered all the cushions could slide off in a long line down the pew.
We broke the day up with a nice, leisurely lunch at a picnic table in the Altstadt Marktplatz.
We all shared one huge German Pretzel. Johann inhaled his share of lunch then sped off to run around the square and play peekaboo with random but friendly big German guys enjoying their lunch break while we ate and drank. We couldn’t help but smile the whole time. As a side note, we were able to eat really cheaply in Germany, with the abundance of picnic stalls and summertime pop-up vendors, and ended up spending less than $8 per person per day while we were there, which included all the water, snacks, gelato, and other drinks we bought too. Getting a free daily breakfast helped greatly, but we were still pretty proud of ourselves since we came in well under budget for the whole trip to Germany and India.
Another highlight was the Residenz and its gardens. An enormous palace commissioned in the early 1700s by the Prince-Bishops of Germany, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inside of which pictures were strictly verboten. But the whole interior, particularly the tile and woodworking details were indescribably exquisite. We then walked around the impeccably manicured gardens with its millions of varied flowers, and were able to take pictures outside while we took a snack break and waited for Johann to wake up from his afternoon nap.
The gardens of the Würzburg Residenz.
Everything was going smoothly, and we were having fun. We walked around a little more, stopped to buy the one and only souvenir we bought during our time in Germany – which, because I know you’re all dying of curiosity, is a bottle of Franconian wine, to open and celebrate after baby number two comes – then headed back to the station to catch our train. Which brings me to the train-catching incident that shall forever live on in our memories as THE train-catching incident. Let me elaborate…but first, this cuteness.
While we wait at the platform.
Waiting for the train is like waiting on a high dive board. The platform is a narrow space, it’s hot (95 F) and you’re nervous so you try not to move too much. On this high dive board you also have an active, sweaty toddler, and also about a hundred other people. Johann did not want to be held, which was okay because it was hot, and there was no breeze to make it even remotely comfortable. He was also cranky now, after being an angel all day, which makes complete sense since it was after 5 p.m. now and it had been a long day. He had a mostly empty apple juice bottle that provided some excitement, and he carried that around while Ryan made sure he didn’t get too close to the edge of the platform. Sort of like the old game of pong. My son and husband bouncing back and forth between the two platform edges. There was one exciting moment when Johann bolted for the edge and tripped. He and the bottle in his hands went flying and Ryan had to choose which one to catch. He chose correctly, unfortunately though the bottle added to the litter next to the tracks. This bothered both Johann – since he lost his entertainment – and Ryan who loathes litter.
I watched all of this play out while trying to figure out what happened to German precision and punctuality. Forty minutes after the scheduled arrival there was still no train in sight and the digital signs on our platform with the train information had yet to change. Then, without notice or announcement, the signs changed to show a different train. Not ours. Slowly, as the wave of awareness swept through the sweaty crowd on the platform, a garbled announcement came over the PA system. Something about our train changed and platform four, which was not the one that we were waiting on. Suddenly the crowd that had been simmering in the heat started to move like a herd of cattle beginning to stampede. The ones closest to the stairs started to move and then everyone started to funnel down into the tunnel between platforms. Getting Ryan’s attention, ensuring we had our daypack and of course Johann – who was very excited to be doing anything besides waiting – we pushed into the herd. It was unclear when the train would be arriving but the leaders of the herd seemed to think it was pulling into the station as they bolted to the new platform. Of course the rest of the herd follows so we ran too. Had we known what was to come we would have conserved our energy. The new platform was just the next one over, eager heads turned to look down the track and saw nothing. The slow members of the herd arrived in plenty of time, basking in their calm while the rest shimmered in their sweat.
Finally a light on the tracks. Using the handy map that the Deutsche Bahn had put on the wall, we figured out where on the platform to stand so that we could board straight into our car when the train stopped. Standing confidently, we watched as the train came in and started to roll by and keep rolling by, finally stopping. Our car was not in front of us nor were we even close to our car number. Taking off at a quick pace we ran towards the end of the train, unaware that no one else was coming this way. We realized why when it dawned on us that none of the doors on this section of the train were open. Looking behind us, we saw everyone boarding the train back where we had been standing. Now, in a panicked full run, we made for the first open door we could see, back the way we came, pushing a Chinese tourist group and their enormous wheelie bags in ahead of us. We all jumped inside the door with seconds to spare. If we had to do all of this pulling suitcases full of stuff behind us, we would not have made it. One active toddler and one small daypack was enough for this sweaty five-months pregnant wife and spouse! Johann was securely in the Ergo carrier, and was now laughing hysterically because of all the running. Turned out, our car was just the next one over, in the opposite direction of all the closed doors (of course). We sank hippopotamus-like into our seats, and spent a full ten minutes recovering before tearing into the sandwiches we had grabbed for dinner.
We had saved our last full day to see more of Frankfurt. After another filling breakfast, we took the U-Bahn to the Altstadt. Side note: getting around Frankfurt was really easy by U-Bahn. We also got lucky being there on weekdays. Since the city is mostly all about business-activities, the best time to see the city is during the week.
Nearly empty subways all the way.
We got the Altstadt and started with the Kaiser Dom. The cathedral itself was beautiful in its gothic architecture, and interesting.
But then we climbed up three hundred and twenty-eight steps straight up to the top of the bell tower.
The spiral staircase was old, and narrow. There was almost no room for the couple that passed us on their way down. We got to the top and were the only ones there for most of the time. It was the perfect place to enjoy the 360 views, let Johann run round and round, take a snack break, and change a poopy diaper.
Next, we headed into the Historiches Museum. What a pleasant surprise! The museum is shiny and new, built only within the past few years and it turned out to be the thing we enjoyed most in Frankfurt. We walked in, and Johann promptly fell asleep. I guess the soothing lighting and quiet atmosphere of the Museum was too strong a sleep inducer. We learned a few things in the medieval and World War II exhibits, then headed to the attached tower.
Ryan learned that putting on full chainlink armor and carrying a sword would add over 10 kilos to his weight!
Johann woke up just in time to enjoy pushing all the buttons that simulated different church bells hundreds of years ago, and look through kid-friendly telescopes to see what medieval Frankfurt had looked like. We left and had a nice picnic style lunch in the plaza, and did a little more sight-seeing before heading back.
Kids finding simple joys in the Altstadt.
We packed, then put Johann down to bed, and enjoyed one last sunset on the balcony, feeling extremely grateful for such a wonderful time in Germany. The next morning we would be boarding our flight to Chennai, India. And things continued to go smoothly. We took the S-Bahn back to the airport and caught our plane. There were no lines anywhere through the airport, and God must have shown us mercy because we had an empty seat next to us. I don’t need to say, but I will anyway, that the 9.5 hour flight that day was the smoothest one we’ve ever had (even including our pre-baby days). What an amazing trip so far.
My next post will be my last and final post on this series, will cover how it all went in India, including how we dealt with the weather, Johann’s adjusted schedule, and car travel. Thank you for sharing in our journey!
We took our toddler to Germany and India last month, traveling with little more than a backpack, a carryon bag, and a daypack. We booked this trip months ago, then promptly forgot about it until a couple days before we left. Why? For completely self-inflicted reasons. The month of May was a conglomeration of backpacking and camping trips, and family visitors from out of town the week before we left. Then there was some unpleasant business with the visas that took a little time, effort, and expense (!) to sort out, which only subtracted from the trip excitement. We knew these months would be busy, but it didn’t hit us until the end that we were leaving in a couple of days on our big trip. Now, all of a sudden, we were excited, eager and ready to be off.
The evening of June 1st arrived and Ryan and I went to bed like little kids on Christmas Eve, too excited to sleep yet so eager for the morning’s excitement. We were about to see a new country! No one was looking forward to the long flight, especially with a squirmy toddler on our laps, but an exciting new experience awaited us on the other side and so we were anxious to get to Germany. We knew we couldn’t possibly “see it all” in just four days, so this took a lot of pressure off and we were ready to relax, simply explore, and have a good time.
FLYING WITH A TODDLER IN YOUR LAP
Our direct flight to Frankfurt took nine hours and thirty minutes. And it was rougher than we were expecting. Ryan’s high points were walking up and down the aisles with Johann, and exploring the aircraft with him. My high? The approximately ninety minutes of sleep I got while Johann also napped, which kept me mostly sane until our next official “bedtime” at Frankfurt thirty-six hours later. Johann’s favorite plane activity was running up and down the aisles. While seated, snacks were the biggest hits. His other highs included swapping smiles with strangers, enjoying many compliments from the same strangers on account of his “empirical” cuteness, making his captive audience laugh when he figured out pretend-sneezing during the first flight then doing it non-stop for the last thirty minutes, and playing on the floor beneath our seats. (We got over that one real quick, and while the thought of him playing on that filthy carpet beneath our legs was not appealing, he seemed pretty happy down there and he couldn’t get into too much trouble as long as he was close by.)
He played for a little while with the small pull-back cars we had brought for him – best purchase ever from the $1 bins at Target. Those, a couple of cheap wind-up toys from the local pharmacy, and snacks got us the most value for money. Other than that, he fussed for about half the time. Yes, truly. We didn’t know this then, but that first plane ride would be the worst one of the trip. By the time we got on our next flight, approximately ten hours from Frankfurt to Chennai, Johann had become more familiar with the iPad apps and understood the purpose of the headphones, and so figured out how to actually get something out of the combination of them. These things had been brand new to him on the first plane ride, and so he just kept ripping the headphones off his head, and mostly ignored the iPad. We had all the other usual stuff to distract him: stickers, crayons, paper, etc. but those were hit or miss. The second, third, and even last flight were dreamy in comparison.
By some miracle, on our second flight there ended up being an empty seat next to us. It made all the difference in the world, and we thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to sprawl out (especially considering we would never have paid the $1k+ for the extra seat).
Johann was quite comfortable stretched out on a seat all by himself, and napped like at home, for three hours straight.
At the end of the day, flying with a toddler is so much more work than flying with an infant. But still worth it.
FRANKFURT
We were expecting all commerce and steel. Boy, were we wrong! There was some of that, for sure, but there was also art, beauty, culture, and history. We really enjoyed Frankfurt, but felt that two days there was enough. The neighborhoods were compact and walkable, and it was easy to get around further by the U-bahn.
We arrived in Frankfurt around 8:30 a.m. the day after we left Seattle. This was both Ryan’s and my first time in Germany (not counting several airport transits) and we weren’t really sure what to expect. During the trip, we realized that Germany truly is beautiful, and just as we had imagined.
We took the S-bahn from the airport to the main train station, and made our way to our hotel, which was just a block away. We fully expected to drop our bags and leave for a few hours until they could get our room ready, but they said they would check us in within one hour. What a blessing! We walked around the neighborhood a little bit trying to find a cafe while we waited for our room, and couldn’t help but notice that the environment was a little “odd.” We booked this hotel because it was cheap, being geared mostly towards business-travelers and that was fine by us. We also loved the location, knowing we’d need to come and go from the main train station for our day trips every day. The best of the reviews we read before booking described the hotel, and the neighborhood around the train station on the whole, as “slightly seedy.” Liars. What we didn’t know, and what became obvious while we were wandering around the streets behind our hotel, with our toddler son at 9:30 a.m. looking for breakfast, was that we were smack-dab in the middle of the sex district. At least the open doors had closed curtains and we could only imagine that not all of the drug activities were happening out in the open streets. Yes, this was at 9:30 a.m. Walking as fast as we could while carrying little Johann, we beelined for the “better” side, back on the main road, and immediately stumbled upon a quiet coffee shop. The cafe was perfect, and had a large empty room in the back just for Johann – who was completely wired and functioning quite well on less than three hours of sleep over the past twenty-four hours, jet lag shmet lag. What a morning. In hindsight, isn’t this the kind of stuff that the best family travel memories are made of?
The hotel itself was great. One of the highlights of our fifth-floor room was floor-to-ceiling windows that opened out onto a balcony. We sat out there after Johann went to bed, and decompressed from the long days, enjoying the balmy breeze, sunset glows and skyscraper views. Another highlight was that we got a free full breakfast every day, and it was a huge spread. Johann gorged on all the fresh fruit, yogurt, eggs, and German pretzels he wanted to, and we didn’t have to bother with ordering a variety of local fare because it was all right there in front of us. We fueled up every morning before heading out for the day. The only real lows were that Ryan’s allergies kicked into high-gear the minute we arrived in Frankfurt, and this area of Germany started experiencing a heatwave the same day that we arrived, which made our room on the fifth floor stifling. No air-conditioning, either. This meant that the windows were open a lot, the room got very dusty and rendered the daily housekeeping completely useless.
But we were here now, and ready to see Germany.
HEIDELBERG
Right after breakfast on our second day, we hopped a train to Heidelberg. It was a one hour trip, and we enjoyed the scenery. Heidelberg is a charming city, and home to Germany’s oldest university. Another interesting thing is that the city was almost completely spared during the Allied bombings of World War II, so we didn’t see the reconstruction and restoration that we saw in a lot of places across Frankfurt and Würzburg.
Our first stop was the ruins of Heidelberg Castle, theworld famous Schloss.
The castle grounds were a great place for Johann to do some solid running.
The castle above ground was beautiful, but so were the dark wine cellars down below.
After we left the castle, we enjoyed walking around the compact Altstadt (old town), crossed the bridge to the other side and back, and saw a number of churches. At one particular church, Johann discovered pews and what fun it was to run through them and come out on the other side.
All this while Ryan and I were marveling at the medieval history and sheer age of these places. Toddlers don’t quite appreciate these things the same way, I guess. But, at the end of the day, on our way back through town to catch the bus back to the train station, we stopped at a playground. This was our first playground stop in Germany and it looked to be tailor made for toddlers. There was a large sand pit, and all sorts of other cool stuff. Johann was in heaven! He quickly made a friend named Luca, and we enjoyed chatting with Luca’s mom while the boys played.
Everyone we met in Germany was nice to us, but we particularly enjoyed talking to this local family. Sometimes, simply being a parent is all one needs in order to find common ground that spans cultures. Kids are really the same, no matter where in the world you are. If Johann could talk, he would probably say that playing in that park with the boy named Luca was one of the highlights of the trip. It truly was “down time” and quite relaxing. We were also in the shade here, which was a nice break from the high eighties Fahrenheit we had been walking around in!
With a full day behind us, we caught our train back to Frankfurt and grabbed some pretzel sandwiches from a self-serve cafe at the station to eat for dinner back at our hotel room. Johann hadn’t napped much during the day, so he crashed in the Ergo on the less-than-ten minute walk from the train station to our hotel.
Yep. He was completely worn out. But he was pretty happy to wake up to shower, eat dinner, and to do some reading before bedtime. We were having a wonderful time!
Next up: Würzburg, more about Frankfurt, and onwards to India!
