Keeping In Touch from Abroad

So, the holidays were great and involved lots of travel.  Here is a recap:

Missy came to visit.  This was lots of fun.  She’s going crazy because while school is fun, she’s living with several college students and surrounded by college students.  The problem here is that these are average college students doing average college-aged stupid things like going drinking all the time.  Missy, no longer as young as her new peers, misses the ability to have adult conversations.  Further, the crew we hang out with in Atlanta is definately NOT average.  So she is not being challenged mentally by the converesations offerred.  Also, she and her beau have been in constant battles with each other.  Considering they are thousands of miles apart, you can see this isn’t easy on her.  So, her visit entailed lots of hanging out and conversing which was just what we wanted too.

After this, Lori, Thomas and I packed up and headed to Coventry to visit Sean and Stella.  On Thursday, Lori and I packed our bag and I took this to work with me.  On Friday, Lori packed the things Thomas needed and that evening she met me at the train station at 6:30 pm.  However, Lori did forget one critical thing: her passport!  (I had Thomas’ passport.)  So, I checked into the last train (8pm) and bought our tickets.

I then took a cab across town (we live on the north side) and back to Gare du Midi (South station) with a great cabbie who originaly came from the Congo.  I had a GREAT conversation about the origins of Hutu and Tutsi groupings (relatively arbitrarily designated based on wealth by the European colonists) and about much of the political environment of the past 80ish years there.  We had time because we were taking a cab through the center of town to the north side during rush-hour on a Friday near Xmas.  Hopefully, I’ll write a post on this - the converstation was THAT good.

After returning to the station, Lori and I made our way to Coventry.  The last time we did this, the tickets were less expensive from London to Coventry (but more to London so it worked out to a similar price all told).  Also, and more importantly, the last time we took the 7pm train from Brussels and arrived in Coventry at roughly 11pm (midnight Belgian time). This time, because we took the 8pm train from Brussels and due to changes made in the Virgin train system (Virgin system because England removed the government assistance with trains so prices spiked and… read the complaints on other blogs as I don’t really care), we arrived in Coventry at roughly 1:30am (2:30 Belgian).  This was pretty rough on Lori and I, though Thomas traveled well.

Upon arrival, Stella, Lori and Thomas went to sleep while Sean and I went out for a drink.  Sean, just back from his company’s Christmas party, was fairly toasty and had a couple of colleagues with him.  Given our late start, we ended up at a pool hall / dive bar.  At the end of the night (4am local) we headed out of the bar and were accosted by 4 Chavs (local asshats).  For some reason that eludes me, these guys ignored me.  As the most sober and largest of our group, this was retarded; but then all Chavs are retarded.  Anyway, one of the Chavs headbutted one of Sean’s colleagues breaking his nose and then removed his belt to use as a weapon.  Sean stepped in to calm things down and was rewarded with a belt to the knuckles.  He was able to calm things down because he didn’t want to be deported.  I am glad he did because I too was about to be deported. (For Eric, I think I better undersatnd how you felt in HS with Wally, John and I with that ‘coffee talk’ moment.  I was about to take out two guys on may way to the guy with the belt… and I *know* I could have done it because they had ignored me and I had positioned myself well… and I’m much bigger than they are.)

The rest of the trip was much less eventful.  We went to eat at Stella’s resteraunt which further cemented my view that England is in many cultural ways half way between the rest of the European continent and the US.  The food was great; the service was not.  Specifically, the initial service was disjointed because the maitre de was a chav.  He didn’t tell the downstairs crew (the bar crew) that we were seated down stairs so they were not prepared.  He wanted us downstairs because of Thomas (who was decent for this outing).  He also failed to inform the kitchen (and Stella specifically) that we had arrived.  Once seated, the service was fine (great from the perspective of Belgium).  The food (as expected) was excellent.

On the way out, I had taken Monday off of work.  Lori, having been to Englad a few times now, still had not seen the white cliffs of Dover so we decided to go via the ferry instead of the Chunnel on our way back.  We were delayed in getting to the ferry because of canceled trains and our need to pick up a changing mat for Thomas which we had left in the car museum (see it!).  The weather was VERY cold and windy so the missed trains sucked.  Because of these delays, we caught a late(ish) ferry to Calais, France landing at around 6pm.  We showed up with some touring Americans who called a cab.  The cab appeared at the same time as the bus to the train station: 6:30pm.  We were at the train station maybe 5 minutes later and learned the last train left at 6:20pm and they were closing.  In typical French fashion, the bitch then shut the window and walked out without providing any assistance (like where another, neighboring trainstation may be located or pointing out *any* train schedules to allow us to map our morning out).  If I had been thinking more clearly, I’d have taken a cab from there to Lille where we could have then boarded the high-speed train to Brussels and shared it with the other Americans (who were headed to Belgium too).  Since I was not thinking clearly, we stayed the night in Calais.  So Thomas has been to 4 countries (with the definition being having eaten and slept in said country)!

Once we returned to our apartment, we started preparing for our trip to Atlanta.  The flight to Atlanta went well.  The plane was packed but thankfully we had the bulkhead seats so we had the cradle for Thomas.  There were about 6 other kids under 2yrs old on the flight and for the few times Thomas was crying, one of the others was already crying so he was drowned out and not noticed.

Atlanta was wonderful.  Thomas got to meet his second cousins Flynn Jr and Avery.  My son is the cutest of the three (but not the best behaved).   Thomas got to meet his aunts Caitlin and Alex and his Uncles Ben, Keith and Hunter (he’d already met Glen).  He also got to meet his grandfathers Ray and Tom.  Thomas did briefly meet William, but as William is a bit older and Thomas isn’t a cartoon nor someone who can play rough games, they didn’t hang out.  I am sure that like my cousin Brian and I, they will in the future.

For the whole week I was there, we constantly went from one family function to another.  We had a blast.  I did get to see a few friends as we stayed with Hunter and Glen as well as running into several for lunch.  Tom Miller was in town so I got to introduce him to my son as well.  Thomas got a ton of gifts (yay).  He has attempted to eat most of them by way of thanks.

I flew back to Brussels on Saturday (landing Sunday).  I think I picked up some minor cold on the plane because I never recovered from the jet lag and felt like crap at all hours for the next week.  This was particularly rough because this included the New Year celebration.  I bailed on hanging out with Davy because he was in Antwerp and there would be no way for me to make it home between about 1am and 5am and I didn’t want to be stuck (barring a 100 Euro cab ride).  I also didn’t want to make friends ill so I didn’t look up anyone else either.  I went down to Grand Plac and wandered around until around 1am and was asleep by 1:30.  I did get a call at 7:30am to talk to the crew in ATL who were having a blast.  Thomas stayed with his grandmother Cathy who had a blast.

The next weekend, Lori and Thomas flew to D.C. to see Nicole and meet John.  They had great amounts of fun together and thoughtfully sent me pics.  Apparently Lori figured out that Thomas flies well in the morning but not evening as he was good on the way out but not the way back.  I kept a low key for the weekend because I still wasn’t feeling top notch.  I got to hang out with Angelo and Titsiana who cooked for Vito, Juliana one of their friends and I.  Juliana is about to pop so Vito also has been keeping in lately so this worked well for us.

Also, the two work weeks really were not great for me.  Along with not feeling well, there were some scheduling issues and I got to perform lots of teir 1 work (I’m teir 3 normally).  Having to judge which escalations to take and ignore always is rough (and common during this period) but combined with the extra (busy) work of teir 1, I dropped a couple of things.  I did manage to clear my queue nicely before returning to ATL though.

Back in Atlanta, I focused this trip (for me) on seeing friends and getting prepared for Sean’s wedding.  Saturday (I flew in on Friday) was the bachelor party and at my strong recommendation, the best man (Eric Price) started us early with Whirly Ball.  WOW this was fun!  Unfortunately, I was on the loosing side most often (we freely swapped around) and even more unfortunately, I have the most memorable moment because I attempted a high speed no look pass which ended with the ball traveling approximately 1 inch into Ben’s eye.  And he was a teammate!  I’m still sorry Ben!  Thankfully, it was a wiffle ball and he was ok.  Also unfortunately, PRice was ill that day and I ended up as DD for the evening part which otherwise was lots of fun.  The bachelorette party came over at the tail end of the evening and we all partied hard (I bailed at 4am and it was still going strong - groom and bride too which is impressive as they had come from England).  Lori and I spent the night at my mom’s this evening because she was babysitting for us so we could party.

During the next week, Lori and I either worked on preparations for our return (emptied out the storage shed into our house, etc) or preperations for Sean and Stella’s wedding (or, for the evenings, related parties).  Lori, Thomas and I attened a party on the following nights: Sunday (dinner party at the Bender household), Thursday (wedding party at Rutledge’s house), Friday (Rehersal dinner at the Depeaux in Decature - recommended) and Saturday (wedding itself at the trolly barn downtown).  The wedding was a beautiful affair with the best wedding food I’ve head (and best service too - those people were great).  I’ll try to write a whole post on this later…

Wednesday was a great evening.  Glen and Hunter babysat whilst Lori and I went on a date.  We ate at the Vortex because I have been craving a good burger for a while.  Since they brought Lori her cider before the food, she was actually fairly buzzed and was able to maintain this easily but didn’t have a hangover the next day.  Basically, this venue worked out really great for both of us!  This showed us why we really want to get back to Atlanta - trusted babysitters with minimal notice will allow us better abilities to date again.  Note - the massive amounts of parties didn’t hurt either .

On Sunday, mom had a dinner party so we could hang out with family.  Alex, Keith, William, Caitlin, Andrew Frits (in town for the wedding), Glen, Hunter, Cathy and Tom all came out to make a great final night in town.

The flight back to Belgium was not as good as the flight in.  The plane was mostly empty (yay) but unfortunately, Thomas didn’t sleep during take-off and landing as he had the first time.  We still had the awesome cradle for Thomas, but he really wanted to be held while we walked around.  This had the double disadvantage of not allowing us any sleep either.  We made it through customs and baggage claim in very very short order and were back in our house by around 8:30 or 9am (I think - I was very brain dead).

Unfortunately, our day was not over.  Our landlord had arranged to have our floor repaired this day and had sent me an email which I had not yet seen.  So, as a surprise, we got to clear out of our bedroom (and therefore prevent any napping to allow sanity) while they worked on the floor.  Just about the time this was complete, the leasing agent from Century 21 came by to ensure we were able to show the apartment and then came right back with people who wanted to see the it.  I later found out that these people are moving in Feb so I’m a bit upset since we are moving in March…  In any event, we were able to nap for a few hours… 11am to 4pm.  This was needed as we had not slept in about 21 hours.  However, this didn’t help with the jet lag at all.

Finally, whoever said that babies don’t get jet lag is fucking retarded.  In my current state of mind, do not say this in my presence as I may retort via physical violence.  Somehow, this is not the psuedo-blissful sleep deprivation state I had entered when he was born.   My son had a decently great sleeping schedule in Atlanta.  Since our return here, he wants to play between 2:30am and 5am.  If he isn’t playing then he has this high pitched scream that he emits to present his displeasure.  This scream does not indicate he is scared, hungry, has a wet/dirty diaper or anything else.  This is a scream he uses almost exclusively to indicate boredom.  Unfortunately, since our return, it is morphing into a scream he uses when tired too.  This has been playing merry hell with my ability to work because I have been a zombie at work.

I have found *a* solution as of last night… I go to sleep at 9pm (?!?) and this way I can get 6 hrs of sleep before the 3am mark when he will wake up…  Lori is taking him for a doctor’s visit today so hopefully we’ll get some advice on how to speed the process of moving his hours.  Also, Lori is waking him up earlier every day to help ensure that his schedule moves quicker.  However, since he naps during the day (which Lori needs him to do as she is also packing up our household etc), his schedule does not move quickly.

Also, I’ll be working on the home PC this weekend and transfering the many pictures to that PC for Lori to work on.  Once this is complete, we’ll be uploading pictures.  Sorry for the delay, but Lori and I have both been mind dead due to lack of sleep this week and have been a bit busy since Missy’s visit previously.