Travelogue, Day 0: Denver to Munich

ETA: Pictures added!

Our little Torsten is certainly used to public transport, but he’s never been on a bus or train for more than about two hours at a shot. So when it came to his first flight, we decided to do a nice short one.

10 hours. (And that isn’t counting the connecting flight to Helsinki afterwards, or the two hours it took us to get via bus to the airport, or whatever)

Torsten in Denver, Market Street Station, on the way to the airport

Torsten in Denver, Market Street Station, on the way to the airport

Enough to daunt any parent.

I don’t think I can tell you what a pleasant surprise it’s been – Torsten’s a good-natured kid, and new things engage his curiosity and sense of fun, but when I say that this is one of the easiest flights I’ve ever been on, with or without a child, you’re not going to believe me.

But it’s true. Right now, we’re somewhere over Ireland, and little guy is happily asleep in his bassinet. He’s had a minimal number of fussy moments, and the only real crying he’s done is before takeoff, when we were told to withhold his formula until the plane started to ascend so that we could relieve pressure on his ears.

He’s amazing – and I’ve only had to pull out one of the reserve new-and-never-before-seen toys to entertain him so far.

Torsten and Papa on the plane to Munich

So status is this – less than two hours left on the long-haul flight, baby and Papa are sleeping, no major meltdowns, little guy has met his first girlfriend (the sweet 9-month-old two seats over named Colette, who has had a much harder time with her first flight than Torsten has), and everyone is still sane. Well, as sane as we ever were.

I’m sure we’ll pay the piper with jet lag (especially me – I sleep very poorly on planes), but so far it’s been pretty darned good.

Yay Torsten!

Christian is reading along now, having “woken up” (he says he never really fell asleep), and wants to know where something good about him is in this post.

Well… I’d just like to say thank you to the most awesome pack mule, servant, snuggler, baby calmer, bottle washer, and German dude on this plane. Or the world, for that matter. Seriously, though, we make a good team, and he’s awesome.

Of course, I’d just like to remark to him now that he is out of his seat and not reading along that I am also superawesome for doing ALL the packing and laundry for three people for a month, doing almost all of the trip planning/hostel reservations/ticket reservations, and doing a lot of background research for how to take a baby on a plane overseas.

So I also rock.

And last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank Torsten for picking us as parents, because God only knows it wouldn’t have been this easy without a baby as cool as he is.

Last minute preparations (which for me ended up being a lot of the last week) paid off, but have made me really tired. I finished the christening dress (that’s for another post), which actually looks really impressive considering it was made by someone who can’t really sew and got a lot of other crap done at the expense of sleep. Maybe that’ll somehow make jet lag easier to bear (see the post on the babytime time zone), since when you’re not really ever getting enough sleep it doesn’t matter so much when it happens.

Anyhow, they’ll probably serve breakfast soon (and let’s all hope Mr. T sleeps through that so we can eat before we have to juggle him!), so I’ll sign off, but so far so good.

All hail Mr. World Traveller Torsten!