Well I’ve had some requests to continue the blog (2 if I’m honest, but still). So it would be rude not to.
I would really like to say that the journey to Spain wasn’t that bad, and so people I know with kids don’t dread travelling, but I’d be lying. It was the single most unpleasant experience of my life.
The babysitter 'C', had agreed to come to Spain with us to work as a full-time nanny whilst I started my new job (it was only shortly after arriving that we realised that babysitters/nannies are paid a lot more than the going rate in Portugal and she wanted to leave, but that’s another fun chapter).
Thankfully she was flying with us, because logistically I’m not sure how I would have got 2 toddlers, rucksacks, bags and buggies from our flat to temp. accommodation in Madrid on my own. Andy was still in Lisbon because he had to work his notice. Also we were going to have to get the metro when we got there, from the airport to the flat, because we don’t have car seats so we couldn’t get a taxi. I suppose I could have bought 2, but it seemed a waste of money for one journey, and the metro had seemed pretty easy when I’d got it last time on my own.
The run up to the move was so stressful. Trying to rent our flat out, all the hassle involved, legalities, fixing things (for the tenants to still find strange things to complain about, ranging from: There’s a tree branch overhanging a bit onto the washing line, cut it down ‘fore it tickles my washing, to: Someone could scale your back wall and get in the back door). Err only if they were fecking Spiderman, and anyway we’re surrounded by grannies in our area, and also it’s Lisbon not ‘The Hood’. What are you going on about??!!
Only finding a removal company we could afford at the absolute last minute. Changing all the names of the bills, cancelling things being mailed there, packing, packing, packing. Thinking about what I had to leave for the removal, and what I needed to take for us whilst in temp. flat. Felt so stressed the night before we flew, thinking the journey through in my head. I was trying to be calm, like a calm, hippy mum, who doesn’t get flustered, but just breezes around travelling mannn, and not stressing out. I’ve come to the conclusion they don’t exist. Either they’re just really stoned, or they are really rich. If you’re the latter, then it doesn’t really matter what you do if you’ve got a nice fat Mr Visa in your pocket. I had about 100 Euros to my name, so not getting far really.
Also looming over me was starting my new job literally the next morning after we arrived. So I would only have after school and the weekends to find a flat.
So there we were in the airport waiting to check in (after a trip involving me on the bus with the 2 kids, and C in a taxi with the bags). Everyone was in quite good spirits. I took a photo to celebrate this exciting moment. This would be the last cheery moment to be captured on camera.
As soon, and I mean literally as soon as we’d sat down on the Easyjet flight, Jess started crying and freaking out. She was on my lap in the aisle seat. Dan sat calmly reading, C near the window. Jess wriggled, and shrieked for the full 40 minutes it took the plane to start its take off. Just then, the air host (ess), if it’s a man is it a host? Tells me Jess can’t sit in that seat for security reasons. I turn and snarl at the man, practically biting his hand. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before the plane started taking off then?’ Sorry, says he. She can sit on the other lady’s knee though. Ah, that’s ok me thinks, no faffing about getting out our seats, and feel strangely relieved that she’s not on my knee anymore! Funny that.
Then Dan starts crying.
Then the plane takes 40 minutes to do its descent, and the turbulence is terrible. It’s like constantly falling. I feel really queasy by now.
Then Dan really starts screaming. Oh crap. Literally. I can smell it.
I need to clean him up because we can’t sit like this for the next half hour, plus it smells, plus he’s really uncomfortable and won’t stop screaming. I can’t get out my seat though. We’ve had the fasten seatbelt signs on for about 40 minutes. I start doing it there in the seat. There’s no other option. I turn my back to the other passengers and swivel round so no one can see him. As I change him, more starts coming out. I’m literally catching it with a sick bag. Then the cherry on the cake. Dan pukes up everywhere. No doubt, because we’ve been swooping down for the last 40 minutes. It. Is. Everywhere. Especially, quite handily, all over my laptop bag that was under the seat in front of him. Now he really starts screaming. I am catching fluids from both ends. My life has reached a new low.
The Brazilian teenage lads, who up until now had thought the whole thing really funny, and been laughing their heads off in the seat next to us, now really start wetting themselves. Their relatives start cracking jokes about ‘Open the window etc’. Ha ha. I hate you. I hope you have a terrible holiday and one day, an unpleasant experience such as this happens to you.
I wipe everything up and stuff it all into a sickbag.
Dan falls asleep. I have my head in my hands and 5 minutes later we land.
The air hostess tells us they can't give us our buggies back and we need to get them from the baggage carousel, thus heaving all the bags and carrying the kids at the same time (well Jess anyway).
I hate Easyjet.
I long for travelling as a single person when all I had to think about was what album to choose on my ipod, and whether a glass of vino would be nice or a cup of tea.
…but at least we’ve still got the fun journey ahead all the way to the centre of Madrid on the metro with a buggy each and dragging a huge bag behind us. Hip hip hooray.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically it took us a long time! And we nearly lost a baby or a bag at every train change….but we made it. We stayed in a tiny apt. for 3 weeks, I started my new job the next morning. The kids cried every night as the area was party central. No one slept. I found a flat, and things seem ok now. The babysitter left (her visa was running out and also FT babysitters get a lot more money here which we couldn’t afford), so my new search was not for a flat but for an affordable nursery. I found a nursery. It closes too early though, so my mum’s quit her job in Qatar and come to help dropping them off and picking them up. We worked out Andy can’t afford to work as an English teacher here, so he had to stay on in Lisbon and he’s job-hunting, and that’s about everything. I need to learn Spanish (and not speak Portuglish or Spanglish) I need to find the time to discover Madrid. I’ve only seen a little bit. Bit by bit it will get easier.
I don’t regret moving, and I love Spain.
I am never flying again until Dan and Jess are at least 5.
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment