The beginning of the Europe trip

I'm sorry that this blog is starting so late.  I can only plead a lot of travel, jet lag, and a jet lagged baby which has made for precious little time for blogging.  And I truly am a single parent in Europe because John has been busy with 20 students the first few days while we all find our feet.  Hopefully, we have a groove and I will be able to write more often about what's going on.  But I'm behind and will have to make up for lost time.....

probably the last bath for a while, showers on in the
ready for showers in Europe

I thought about starting this blog a week ago, because I feel like I have been preparing for this trip or already working on it for months now.  Research, lists, amazing amounts of manpower have gone into this trip already and we haven’t even left yet.  But it starts off amazing with a horrible haircut, made worse by the same stylist trying to fix it (I had a mullet) and then a 3^rd haircut that I thought would 

waiting for a tram at Heathrow

 have to be a buzzcut to save any hair at all….but, I found someone who made it workable.  Then, I lost my packing list.  This doesn’t seem bad necessarily, but I had everything I needed on that list and it was keeping my Oscar info intact, so I freaked out when it happened and never really trusted the second list that I kept adding to in the middle of the night when something would hit me.  Like the stroller.  Someone at work said, "well, 

 you wouldn't forget that" and that is exactly the kind of thing that John and I would forget.  We would hit the big things like meds, passports, travel documents, the suitcases and then forget the thing that pushes Oscar around Europe for us that I researched to hell and back.        I know that I have been slow in getting to the big Europe trip, but I have to say that I have been exhausted.  I have never 

been a good sleeper on a transatlantic flight and this was one was just worse because I’m awake making sure that my baby is asleep and not bothering others, or keeping him happy so that he’s not bothering others, etc, so maybe one hour of sleep for me on that flight.  The FLIGHT FROM HELL!!!  Let me start by saying that John went to get Rachel to take off from our house and that was the best part of this travel day.  Oh, wait, we all enjoyed lunch at Arby’s in Cedar Springs…..but then Oscar fell asleep like he was supposed to, but only for an hour a half, which he needed more nap time.  Then we hit Chicago and I don’t understand why this city hates me.  I like it when I’m in it, it’s just getting in and out of it that makes me crazy.  It’s 3pm on Wed and we hit dead stop traffic on the tollway because of a wreck.  Dead stop traffic is never fun, but when you are driving to catch a transatlantic flight that you can’t miss….it’s hair raising.  At least we weren’t in danger of running out of gas at this point like last time.  We finally get through this traffic and while we left later than we thought we should because we gained an hour in Central time zone, we lost it in traffic and the fact that O’Hare is pretty far out of Chicago proper.  So, we fly into the parking lot of O’Hare with wheels squealing because we’re behind our time frame.  Also, O’Hare needs to mark their damn parking lots better and from the road.  I did 2 or 3 uturns and quick turns with no warning because we find lot G by accident.  The shuttle is there, but no parking spot, so we’re hurriedly trying to find a spot and not miss this shuttle, but at least the next one comes pretty quick.