Last week we took lil G on her first trip, to London, for five days. I had planned on it being five days of not having to clean and ordering room service but it did not exactly turn out that way. We made the mistake of booking a room in a “boutique” hotel which was not accommodating AT ALL. The stroller barely fit into the tiny ass elevator and there were swinging doors every 10 feet in the hallway that I had to struggle to maneuver through. In addition to that, the staff at the front desk of this overpriced mess rarely helped open a door when I was coming and/or going. In fact, on two occasions someone from the bar saw me and came over to help.

The place was a total sham. It sold itself as a spa hotel but really, it was nothing more than a glorified travel lodge charging four seasons prices. 27 pounds for an English breakfast? Srrsly, they must be high. I wound up never ordering room service because I just could not justify spending 30 euros on eggs and instant coffee and so each morning, when I had imagined myself lounging in bed sipping on espresso, I had to get ready and try and figure out where the hell we would eat and how the heck we would get there because the hotel advertised being central when, in reality, it was a good 15 minute walk from High St.*my husband was at a business conference during the day so we were on our own*

Actually, the biggest mistake we made was not thoroughly reading the reviews – our experience was literally every negative comment combined. Our problems with this place started the moment we got there when they put us in some dungeon of a room that smelled like sewage. Of course, we complained and were moved, but upon reading the reviews I discovered that they put EVERYONE in that room, at first, lie and say it’s an upgrade (because technically the room is larger) and wait to see if the customer complains. They didn’t even apologize, which was pretty appalling. They also advertised having free wifi – this should almost be expected these days- which turned out to be total BS. Sure, wifi was free, ON THE THIRD FLOOR LOBBY ONLY?! In the rooms you pay 40 euro for a connection crappier than 3g. Scam Scam Scam. All the way.

The straw that put me over the edge when I was supposed to be fucking relaxing was when we asked the front desk to call us a cab and rather than call a taxi with a meter, they called some “pre booked” car service who charged us 3x what it would have cost for us to go less than 5 minutes in a normal taxi. Not cool. I asked for a cab, not a car service driven by some distant cousin of the owner of the hotel and when these same people showed up to drive us to the airport when we were leaving, after requesting a cab again, I almost lost it. I straight up asked him if he had a running meter and when he said no, flat rate, I told him the max we would pay, with traffic, because that is what we paid the regular cab dood when we arrived there.  He appeared a little uncomfortable with my assertiveness but agreed with the price which was a good thing because I KNOW, had I not put my foot down, this guy would have charged us like 100 pounds, easily, thinking we were dumb tourists. I hate that we had to deal with this.

What a piece of poo, so not relaxing at all. From now on we are staying at big corporate hotels like the Hilton where you can expect a decent level of service and shit is standard, no matter what country you in. We were kicking ourselves because both the Hilton and the Holiday Inn offered breakfast included every morning and both were in better locations (our hotel was in a dodgy neighborhood as well).

Aside from the hotel situation, the trip was great. Georgie did really well on the flight over and actually slept through the night for the very first time on our third night there! While Hair was at his conference, G and I wandered around High St and did some shopping. It was a nice change of scenery and the shopping was almost like being back in the US. I loaded up on standard drug store items that in Germany I’d need an rx to get (baby ibuprofen, baby paracetamol, mylecon(SP) drops). It is cheaper to shop in London than it is in Germany. How crazy pathetic is that?! I bought some boots for 30 euros less than I would have paid, for the same boots, in Germany. We stocked up on Ibuprofin, 16 for 39 cents…same thing costs 5 euro in Germany. I cannot wait to go back to the US. I don’t know how people live here. Too many restrictions in this damn country.

Anyway, the second biggest mistake we made was booking an evening flight back. G is fussy in the evening so you can imagine how that whole situation went down. She cried for about 30 minutes which felt like 30 hours and sent me into one non-stop panic attack from the moment we took off to the moment we landed. I could sense the hate coming at me from every direction.It sucked big time.  It also didn’t help that I was crammed into a window seat and if I wanted to get up and walk her around 500 people would have to get up and move. From now we are only taking morning flights. Lesson learned. I also picked up a couple of pacifiers for our next flight (we are going to Poland in two weeks) so that if she does start having a long drawn out moment I can give her something to sooth her and clear the pressure from  her ears, since nursing her during take off and landing aren’t possible because babies have to be strapped in to an infant lap belt.

The one thing that I was not prepared for was how much shit we’d be lugging around for this little one! Car set, which is a must if you will be taking cabs at your destination, stroller, and in our case, a pram, since she is too small to sit upright in a collapsible stroller, carrier, diapers, wipes, 500 onesies and so many changes of clothes.

While we didn’t get her her own seat, we were able to carry on the car seat and check in the pram as bulky luggage at no additional charge. I was not super happy about having to check in the pram because I worried it would get damaged.  I had called the airline beforehand and was told that I’d be able to walk it up to the gate, which turned out not to be the case. They wouldn’t even allow small umbrella strollers on board so we had to check it in and it wound up getting a bit dinged up on the flight back. I freaked out, then complained, in that order,(as if I wasn’t already exhausted enough) and the airline agreed to pay for the damage, so the chassis is now in the shop getting the latch that got bent repaired.  I am not sure if we will be bringing it to Poland with us since, most likely, it will be too cold to go for a walk anyway.

My advice for traveling with a baby:

- read the reviews if you are not booking a hotel you are familiar with. the best way to do it is to read the bad reviews and see what they’ve all got in common. If 50 people complain of the same “odor” chances are it really exists and you don’t wanna deal wit it. Oh, and read comments from people with kids.

- book the flight during your baby’s least fussiest time. for us, it’s morning.

- bring a pacifier on the plane, even if your baby doesn’t normally use one. flying causes pressure to build up in the ears and that shiz can be painful if you don’t “pop” your ears. I read that sucking/swallowing helps babies with relieving the pressure but since you cannot nurse them during take off/landing, when it is the worst, a pacifier can help.

- bring TONS of onesies, two a day was good for us. hotels usually only have dry cleaning available.

- outfits that have feet=less socks to pack, less socks to lose.

- buy a bungee cord to make sure your stroller doesn’t pop open. We bought one to secure the chassis shut because it doesn’t have a locking feature like most strollers do but I’d get one even of your stroller locks. Or I’d get a travel case for it.

… I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head.

Holiday aside, like I mentioned above somewhere, G has started to sleep through the night, with the exception of last night. She’s been going to bed between 9 and 10 and waking around 4am. Pretty incredible although I still am not getting much sleep since I tend to crash late these days (1am last night).

She isn’t showing much interest in toys. She acts bored after two minutes and you can’t blame her, really. What she does enjoy is being spoke to, face to face, and she totally talks back.  She has started to make a “HA” sound pretty consistently as well as other funny little noises, while sticking out her tongue. If I stick out my tongue back she bursts into a fit of giggles. It is so darn cute. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but a little over a week ago, at 8 weeks old, she laughed out loud for the first time. I have a hunch that she’s gonna be an early talker.

She still loves music (this girl’s got rhythm, I tell you!) and the sensation of air hitting her bare feet, and er bottom. Still hates tummy time though. Not sure what to do about that…

This has been a long post which has taken me two days to write.. crazy.

I love this little muffin!

xo

C