Adventures in Sweden - an almost family holiday...

Our first trip outside of Belgium since we got here was to Sweden. Probably not a country that I would have put on my "must see immediately" list. Mostly, because I had no knowledge of anything there whatsoever. But there was an international conference in Stockholm that hubby had to attend. Hence the statement that this was an "almost " holiday, or in other words, our usual type of holiday where the family accompanies hubby as he attends conferences in interesting places. We did have 3 days after the conference finished to have some real family time and this was enough to feel slightly refreshed again.

Is it just me or is there something wrong with the fact that I could dedicate a whole post just to the journey there??? Surely, travelling places should just consist of: we left, we caught the plane, it was boring, we arrived? Some day I think we will have the luxury, just not this day....
Our trip to Sweden was somewhat complicated by the specific requirements for our travel arrangements. As hubby was working on the Friday and presenting papers at the conference on the Sunday, this left one single day to travel there. And lo and behold, what do you know? There are absolutely no (reasonably) priced flights from Brussels to Stockholm on Saturdays (or at least not this particular Saturday). And the majority of the flights that did go, went off somewhere else first (like Croatia or Switzerland) resulting in a 12 hour journey. After much research, I booked flights from Amsterdam, so that we caught the bullet train from Brussels to Amsterdam and then flew direct to Stockholm from there. All up a 3 hour trip. This was all straight forward and organised 3 weeks before the departure date (I must, I must, I must learn to be more organised, last minute bookings is not the way to go for stress free holiday management).  To get to the train we were taking public transport and left the apartment at the designated time. I had not checked the bus/tram schedules and they were a little less frequent than I had thought on a Saturday morning, and then the bus was 3 minutes late (a big deal in the end).  We had to be at the train to get on, 2 minutes before the proposed departure. I had originally laughed at this, how ridiculous, wouldn't 5 or 10 minutes be more appropriate? Well, we hurtled at top speed, 6 of us running with the two very mobile suitcases and arrived with 1 minute (literally) to spare. This is not an experience I would wish to repeat... missing this train would have meant, missing our flight, which potentially mean hubby missing his important conference presentation.
But here we are relaxing on the train trip:

Arriving at Schipol (Amsterdam), it turns out that I have unknowingly booked business class. A few minutes of confusion (and later we realise that there is no difference between the business and economy class on this flight except free food) and then we are offered to go hang out in the business class lounge. Yee ha!
I am not quite sure they knew what they were thinking when they offered that, but here are the Ponkies enjoying business class lounge.... For once the volume levels were appropriate in this deadly quiet space.

The flight itself was short- 1.5 hours and after the initial reactions of shock and disbelief from the kids that there was no inflight entertainment (accompanied by tears, gnashing of teeth and wails of "but what are we going to dooooooooooooooooooooooooo???") we all settled in well and made full use of the free food on offer.  They, surprise, surprise, did manage to find something to do and did not die of boredom in the entire 90 minutes they had to stay seated. And they had messed up our seating so I was with the 4 little ones, and hubby was 2 rows ahead by himself so I was thankful the flight was so short. Peace, more or less, reigned until the descent process started. C again had ear pain (she burst her eardrum on the flight to Belgium) and she was not a happy camper, but the real disaster came from little S (4 years old). It started off with wails that her ears hurt. Yes I can completely sympathise as it can be very painful. Possibly she might have had a bit of a cold so this would have made it worst. Unfortunately, this pain appears to have triggered a chain reaction in her brain that caused it to go into some kind of uncontrollable, inconsolable, irrational domain and the wails continued to crescendo throughout the 20 minute descent. She shortly moved on from her ears, to shrieking that she wanted daddy (inconveniently seated 2 rows in front and across an aisle). After no joy from this request, she moved on to screaming "you're hurting me" while thrashing and writhing in her seat, eventually ending up with "you're choking me" at the top of her lungs. Presumably referring to the seatbelt that was dangling somewhere around her knees by this stage. I'm quite surprised I didn't get  reported to some child protection agency with the accusations that were being hurled around.  Of course the grand finale as we were just touching down - "I NEED TO GO TO THE TOILETTTTTTTT!!!". Deadly silence in the plane, I expect everyone was hoping beyond hope that she could find it within herself to hold on another 5 minutes... I have had my fair share of horror flight moments with small children, but I think this one, must just take the prize.

Finally we arrive at our apartment in Stockholm after 10 hours of travelling. The arrival at the apartment has its own semi disastrous story but I won't share it here - just to say that the owner of the apartment hung around for 2 hours after we arrived.. in the end everything worked out fine.

So onto more pleasant matters- Stockholm is actually just lovely! Some sightseeing I did with just the kids (during the conference) and some we did as a family. Some things worked out well, but others (like the hopon/off bus) were not quite as good as I had expected (not because they weren't good attractions, more that I was doing it alone without another adult present to help steer the wandering children).

Our first adventure I highly recommend for anyone going to Stockholm with children. It is a kids paradise and you can spend the entire day here. It is called Junibacken - and is the home of Pippi Longstockings. Here are a few photos although my iphone camera does not do the place justice.There were 3 play areas and a story train.  An absolutely fantastic place to let the imagination go wild....... And a cafe with, as we were to discover fairly quickly, the standard swedish fare- swedish meatballs (a la IKEA) and pancakes (crepes) served with jam and cream.

Of course, we purchased a pippi longstockings book which the older two have been loving since coming home. I will post the next lot of Swedish adventures in the next post. 

Update on public transport....

So it looks like there may have been just one too many near miss incidents between pedestrians and the tram... Look what they have just painted on our crossing:

Phew..guess we were not the only ones that assumed a green flashing man meant you could cross safely.

And I should add there are distinct advantages to living in a NON english speaking country when you are taking public transport with small children...  On the whole, I am relatively confident that the other passengers do not understand the vocal sounds my darling cherubs are releasing from their mouths...

Particular moments that spring to mind include little dude D ( 3 years old) who has a habit of calling anyone (young or old) who is bald - "granddad".  So as he is yelling "hi granddad" to the 20-something cool guy who has shaved his head, I can rest assured that he is more than likely not going to understand and save myself some embarrassment.  (And yes you may have guessed, his granddad does not have hair, hence  the association between lack of hair and granddad status).  This does not work quite so well in non english speaking countries or areas where the level of english is high amongst the general population. Little dude did in fact greet one of hubby's work colleagues (with excellent english) as "granddad" which was less than ideal for a first impression. 

Another slightly uncomfortable incident was when O (7 years old) decided that she would loudly count the number of muslim women on the bus during one trip home. Declaring that there were "7 of them altogether". Children can be so black and white, but also with such complete innocence.

As I have yet to discover a reliable volume control switch for my children, I remain grateful that most of what they say is unlikely to be perfectly understood by the majority of the other public transport riders here. 

Getting around and transport in Brussels...

WARNING- this post is not for the fainthearted, some traumatic incidents are detailed and may cause stress in some individuals... 

It is a beautiful spring day again. Really, Brussels is gorgeous in the springtime.  I am constantly amazed by the greenery and blossoms and flowers everywhere. I am grateful that my primary mode of transport is bus and tram as I can enjoy the scenery (rather than being underground in the metro not enjoying the dank smell of stale cigarettes and urine and feeling mildly guilty every time I pass a beggar).   I am sure that spring is beautiful everywhere in the world but the trees and the grass just seem greener than I remember from Brisbane. And maybe I am just more appreciative of the beauty here as it is all still so new. 

But I digress, my intent today is to freak you out with my stories of travelling on public transport with 4 children.  I have previously described the school horror run during our initial few weeks in Brussels, but I omitted a few incidents that gave us all a fright.  

Firstly, public transport is actually very good in Brussels, at least compared to anything we have downunder. Admittedly the 'M' is nowhere near as ubiquitous as what I was used to in Paris - where it is difficult to walk around a corner without encountering another Metro entrance.

But to compensate it has a wide network of trams and buses that cover the city pretty well if you can decipher the map. I don't think I had ever taken the bus when living in Paris which shows how widespread the service is, but here, unless you live very central, you are likely to take buses and metro and trams and the disadvantage is having to change transport in order to get to a destination.  This was particularly problematic during our horror school run as it meant making 3 changes and taking 3 different types of transport to get to school and back.  

Here are a few pointers we have picked up along the way: 

The bus: 

1) Brussels bus drivers (presumably like every where) are crazy. You get the good ones, who wait for you to enter or exit the bus before taking off, and the not so good ones who start closing the doors when you have only half of your brood of 4 chooks off the bus.  We learnt pretty early on, that if you stick part of your body in the door, they will not close and by doing so you can get the rest of the gang off the vehicle, as well as the gazillion jackets and school bags and other paraphenalia that has been carted along.  I am not 100% certain that some bus drivers would not take off with the doors half open though.....

Th tram: 

1) The trams are actually pretty nice, new and clean along the lines we take. They come frequently (every 4 mins or so) and are never late. However, we learnt in one scary incident, that trams have right of way over pedestrian GREEN LIGHT CROSSING SIGNALS.

Yes, see this signal- apparently, this does not mean cross, this means watch out for any trams that may be racing through as they will not stop.  Fortunately in our case, the tram did stop after the kids stepped out to cross on THE GREEN CROSS SIGNAL. Now we make sure to check for errant trams before crossing any road.  (As you can see by the use of CAPS I am still annoyed by this). 

2) On a lighter note, you are allowed up to 1 or 2 bikes aboard the trams, buses and metro.  Below is a fairly common type of bike which completely folds up into a backpack.  This guy is just unfolding his to get ready to bike off the tram.  Apparently only the flemish ride bikes (and all without helmets and with little baskets at the front, sitting straight upright), so I presume this guy is flemish rather than french.

The metro: 

1) I am glad we are no longer taking the metro on a regular basis. It was always a saga getting in to the station.  We had 3 swipe cards, and 5 people. The little two are free. But what this means is that they have to go with another person. And without fail there is a kerfuffle about who gets to swipe the card. They can actually go through the normal gates with one of the big girls, but they are "supposed" to go through the access gate for people with young infants, prams, luggage etc.  

As you can see from the sign, it says 2 people only. Pfft, says I. My little two are less than the equivalent of a single person.  So I press the button and bundle in with both little ones. Once you are inside the central portion you swipe your card and the second door opens to let you through to the station.  So I swipe my card ready to bundle them out the other side. Only to be blocked. Apparently the machine can count. I have exceeded the total people allowed in and I am not allowed through. I am now stuck in the access gate with two toddlers and my big two are on the other side of the gate as they have passed through the normal gates. It momentarily feels like a little glass prison cell. I am a little unsure how to proceed and more than a little worried that I may be stuck there.  fortunately as I turn around, the door of the entry opens and I am allowed back out. Sadly, when I go to try my swipe card through the normal entries, it does not let me pass as it has already been swiped once in this entry place.  Obviously too smart for its own good.  Begrudgingly I have to pay for another ticket in order to let myself and the little two pass through. 

Travelling with 4 kids (and 5 bags and 5 jackets and a few umbrellas): this is such fun (where oh where is my sarcasm font?).  One of the more stressful incidents (apart from almost being run over by a tram and getting stuck in the metro entry) was right at the start of our time here. It was at the end of an exhausting return from school and I managed to get all children off the bus with 4 school bags and all coats. I felt that something was not quite right though..... It only took a split second to realise I had left my handbag (containing my wallet, my keys, my phone, my passport) ON THE BUS. As I have already mentioned, the crazy belgian bus drivers are not ones for just hanging around.  Without even thinking I leapt back on the bus leaving my 4 small children on the footpath, using some special gymnastics/pilates manouevres I positioned one leg in between the bus doors (since we had already learnt previously that inserting body parts in the doors can stop them closing momentarily) and "excusez-moi'd" to grab my bag that was still sitting at the foot of the seat I had occupied (thankfully very close to the door). And I leapt out again. I still feel a sense of horror of what would have happened if the bus had taken off and my children had been left alone in the dark on the footpath watching me disappear. It is the stuff parental nightmares are made of....  Or if I had not realised in time and my handbag was gone with everything in it and being completely stranded with 4 tired kids  (this being of course the day that hubby worked late).   But neither of these things happened, and all that was left was to reassure them that it was ok and to brainstorm about what would have been some potential solutions if the bus had taken off with me in it.  

Lesser anxiety provoking moments have involved a lot of bodily fluids ending up on me during our horror school run... yes I've had it all. And not uttered a word.  I am sure on the whole, the other travellers have been oblivious to the moments I have been peed, pooed and vomited on... Such are the sacrifices of motherhood.   The one time (thankfully only one) that we had a vomiting incident, was with little S who had had a child vomit outside her classroom the day before (maybe this should have warned me but I was calmly oblivious to the upcoming event). She had been miserable the entire trip home with more frequent collapses in tears and squawks on the floor and I ended up carrying her for most of the journey.  It was just 1 stop before the end of the journey when she says she feels sick, and voila - vomit down my lap appears within seconds. The man seated beside me immediately gets up and moves without a word and I somehow think he may be going to do something helpful. Unfortunately no, he is just removing himself from the vomit projectile (which is probably fair enough).  I am left holding my breath and praying that there is no more vomit to come, because what do you do on a packed bus when there is vomiting???? I mean, who cleans it up, does the bus stop?  Luckily we got off at the next stop at which point she promptly vomits down my back. At least I am now symmetrical. There is nothing left to do but to get home and peel off these clothes and chalk this one up to experience.  I am not quite sure what I would have/could have done if the vomiting had started closer to the beginning of our journey rather than the end. Small mercies :). 

So our adventures in public transport continue.  Overall I have been impressed and pleased despite lots of moaning about it from other expats and belgians, I have never had any issues with transport running late or being cancelled or anything else really. As we are a "belle famille" (literally translated beautiful family but meaning big family- don't the french just do things better sometimes?!!) we get half price off our transport which makes it substantially cheaper than the costs of running a car. Plus, given that Belgians are the worst, most aggressive drivers in Europe, I have not started driving yet (more on driving to come...)