Mom's Travel Experience

Middle East » Bahrain
January 8th 2007

Published: January 23rd 2007

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EchelonFive

Best Gift of Christmas 2007!

Our new granddaughter Quinn, born on December 8th at home in Bahrain. She is the reason I ventured forth into international travel.

This trip is the first time I have ever travelled out of the United States. All of my children and grandchildren travelled to a foreign country before I did! Although I am an adventurer at heart, I must admit I was anxious about going on this trip. It had been over twenty years since I'd flown commercially, and the thought of being on a large crowded airplane for seven hours at a stretch was what I dreaded most. As it turned out, the flying was fine. And when I thought about how people used to cross the Atlantic on ships that took two weeks, I felt very grateful for such a comfortable, fast journey!

Upon landing in London (Gatwick) we hit the ground running. Henry, who usually takes his time doing things, has a different persona when he travels. Everything is fast and furious, go, go, go. The first day in London was a blur. Henry rented a car--he had reserved a basic model but there wasn't one available so they substituted a Mercedes--and we set out for our hotel which was north of London, a substantial distance from the airport. None of us had ever driven a car that

Wild Man Driver

This was my view from the back seat.

had the steering wheel on the right side, or driven on the left side of the road. So Henry was the brave one who took the wheel. He quickly got into what I perceived as the crazed tempo of London drivers going around roundabouts and cutting in front of each other. John, who was in the passenger seat, was freaking out at how close his side of the car kept coming to fixed objects and kept saying, "Watch out! You're about to hit these cars over here!" I was in the back seat and finally just stopped watching because it looked like we were going to hit everyone on all sides. I still don't know how we made it through 4 days of driving in England without a scratch to the vehicle! I remember the terror of the road more vividly than all of the pleasant sightseeing!

That first day we drove round and round in the crazed traffic for two hours looking for our hotel before realizing that streets in London change names on a regular basis from block to block. And there are not street signs like we have in the U.S. The street names, if you're

Palace Gate

This is one of the very ornate gates to Buckingham Palace.

lucky, can be found on the side of one of the buildings, sometimes carved or etched into it!

The second day we took the train/subway (tube) into the center of London. We walked around the Tower of London, across the Tower Bridge, along the riverfront, and throughout the central area. The highlight was a tour of St. Paul's Cathedral. I couldn't fathom how men built it; the architecture was amazing. That is one of the great values of the Y chromosome: the achievement of seemingly impossible things, such as great domed buildings like St. Paul's. I and most females I know would just not be interested in building everything bigger, higher, greater, more difficult. I sure do enjoy great buildings and bridges, though!

The third day we drove to Cambridge, and thoroughly enjoyed walking through the campus of Cambridge University. The students were on break so in most places it was quiet with just a few people wandering around. The buildings are very intricate, solid and beautiful; the river Cam flows pleasantly among them, crossed by several quaint bridges. However, just outside the campus border there were bustling crowds of shoppers looking for after-Christmas bargains. We noticed though,

Punting on the Cam River

I think this would be fun to do in the spring. Cambridge students push the boats (called "punts") with a 16' wooden pole.

that their "bargains" were still about twice the price in dollars as an equivalent item in the Branson outlet malls or Wal-Mart. So all I bought was some chocolate. Yum!

We had a very nice hotel room in Cambridge. John went to the grocery store and came back with, among other things, a little container of milk shaped like a typical gallon jug. It was so cute! And the really neat thing is that, although it was pasteurized, it was not homogenized, so you could actually see the cream in it. English milk is exceptionally delicious!

The fourth day was gray and rainy (or should I say, more gray than the previous three). After pleading my case to drive on some back roads so I could see the English countryside, the guys reluctantly agreed and we set out for Oxford. There are some skinny back roads in England!! With cars parked on them!! Anyway, in spite of the navigational stresses we did enjoy seeing the green fields of sheep and the country houses with thatched roofs. By the time we reached our hotel in Oxford there wasn't time (or an inclination, since it was raining) to walk about

Cute Milk Container in Oxford

Yum! Delicious! And not homogenized! Oh, and they also have soft drinks in little mini cans.

the campus of Oxford University as we had planned. Instead, we decided to go to the Oxford Story. But in the process of walking to the bus stop and waiting for a bus to come along, we got pretty drenched. After that we had dinner at The Eagle and the Child, which was very pleasant. But outside it was chilly and damp and not comfortable for walking and bus-waiting. We didn't know where to catch the bus and thought we had missed it, running for two blocks to try to get it. Henry and I got into a shouting match about it on the corner in downtown Oxford. I must have yelled "freakin'" at least fifteen times, as if my brain was stuck, which is odd because I rarely even use that term. People were staring at us but I was too tired, damp and cold to care. I consoled myself with the rationalization that it probably entertained them to see Americans fitting in with movie stereotypes. Then, alas, the bus we were fighting over, which we thought we had missed, appeared across the street...it had simply gone around the corner to the end of its run and was going

31 Flavors in Bahrain

I was surprised to see this.

the other way now. The three of us rushed across to catch it, then waited in line (or queue, as they say there) for several minutes to get on. All that running and rushing and yelling was totally pointless!

The fifth day, which was New Year's Eve (Sunday) we got up early and drove to Heathrow. I took the wheel for awhile on the main highway when the traffic was light, since I always thought it would be a neat experience to drive on the left side of the road sitting in the right front seat of a vehicle. But I still had not adapted and thus kept having tiny panic flashes as if I was on the wrong side of the road. It wasn't pleasant and when traffic began to pick up I gladly took the left seat while Henry drove the rest of the way, dropping John off at Terminal 3 for his flight to Dublin and the US. He spent the day and night in Dublin, then traveled to visit his twin sisters, cousin and aunt in Benton, Arkansas for a few days.

Henry and I turned in the rental car and within a couple

New Bicycle for Kai

Shawn is putting training wheels on the little bike they bought him.

of hours he and I were taking off for Bahrain--another 6-7 hour flight.

What a happy sight to see family at the Bahrain airport, and to meet our new family member (my granddaughter; Henry's niece) face to face, and be able to hold her! This was the purpose of the trip, and what motivated me to leave the comforts of home and country, and it was well worth it! The next eight days were spent mostly enjoying the company of my daughter (Augusta), son-in-law (Shawn), son (Henry), grandson (Kai) and granddaughter (Quinn), as well as their nanny, Theresa, who is a very sweet, kind lady from Sri Lanka. She has taken good care of them all throughout Augusta's pregnancy and postpartum, standing in as their "mom" as well as Kai's nanny.

It was dark when we arrived in Bahrain, but in the morning we were greeted with...SUNSHINE!! After 4 chilly, gray, damp days in England it was a nice contrast. But it was still cold, and the houses in Bahrain don't have heaters! BRRRR!

One of the most heartwarming experiences for me in Bahrain was when the neighbor children came over to play with Kai. Watching them

Neighbor Children Playing Together

Kai loves to play with his friends!

all interact was funny and interesting...the dynamics between older and younger siblings and between friends was pretty much just like American children. One difference was that each child or sibling group had a nanny watching over them...kinda reminded me of fond childhood memories, when most of the children in our neighborhood had a maid, who we loved like our own mom.

It was very surprising to me how similar the people of Bahrain are to Americans. The news media tends to focus on and magnify differences among cultures, but basically human beings have broad, large similarities and an infinite number of tiny differences that make people so unique and interesting.

In Bahrain I also played my first round of golf. It was pretty fun, although I was embarrassingly terrible at it! It was unseasonably cold for Bahrain, and also nighttime, and we had the course to ourselves--which was a good thing, at least for the sake of other golfers who might have otherwise been hit by our bad shots. Shawn could hit the ball so far I could never see where it went. I made it through all nine holes with the same ball, which I thought was

Thea Gilien, our cousin

Thea is showing Henry a map of the Dublin area before we set out to walk around the city.

pretty cool. But then again, when you're only hitting the ball 20 yards at a time, and it only lifts 12 inches in the air at its highest point, it's hard to lose. Henry hit several expensive balls in a row off a tee into the same lake, then, being the frugal person he is, decided to just take a drop from then on when faced with a devouring body of water.

My greatest golf victory was a bogey on a par 3. Woo hoo!!! The rest were pretty much giga-bogeys.

On January 6th we finally celebrated Christmas together. It was also the eve of Augusta and Shawn's first wedding anniversary. One of their gifts was a custom wedding album scrapbook made by their sister-in-law, Ashley Teal Cherri. It was by far the coolest wedding album I've ever seen! We looked through it and immensely enjoyed reminiscing about their wedding day, and all the amazing things that have happened since they met.

It was sad to leave the Cherri family (we call it The Cherri Orchard-Bahrain), but we will see them again hopefully in April. They needed their space back and I needed to go home and

Walking through Dublin

We enjoyed the atmosphere of this area since it was pedestrians only.

back to work. But I felt so grateful to have those eight days with them all.

We divided the long return trip into two legs, staying for a day and night in Dublin, Ireland after gaining three hours time while in the air. Like London, it was an interesting place to walk and look. But the bus rides...aaargh! Skinny streets, a big wide bus, fast traffic, tight turns and a bus driver that puts NASCAR drivers to shame all made for a very harrowing riding experience. I longed for the relative civility of midwest USA drivers and wide, well-planned streets. Anyway, we went by the Boston College office there to see our cousin, Thea Gilien, who graciously greeted us without having any notice. She gave us a guided tour of the 3+ story house/office where she works, telling us about its history and inviting us back later for a meeting of the Dublin Historical Society, which we did attend. The lectures and discussions I heard were quite interesting; however, since I had been awake for nearly 36 hours, I experienced a strange phenomena of falling in and out of sleep as they talked, and in the drowsiness I was

Dublin Duckies for Sale

These were in a vending machine in the Dublin Hilton.

having dreams that mixed with the reality of the meeting, creating a surreal sense of a wide variety of actions and conversations going on at the same time. I think the Irish/English accents, along with the non-American perspective of topics that we would not even discuss, made for a movie-like experience.

After the meeting, Thea walked with us to the hotel, and her partner Damien met us all there. We sat in the lobby conversing and had a beer, enjoying the time together. I was so glad to see Thea again and to meet Damien.

The next morning, which happened to be Henry's 28th birthday, we got up early and rushed around in Henry's go-go travel mode. We walked to the bus stop, waited a bit and finally were on our way to the Dublin airport. That is, until I looked for my passport. In England, Henry had repeatedly asked John and I if we had our passports, and stressed how important it was for us to keep track of them and guard them. So I checked and...it wasn't in my purse...or in my bag! Then I remembered that I had shrewdly put them under the Gideon Bible

Home Sweet Home

Cold outside, but warm and loving inside!

in the hotel room when we had gone out the previous afternoon. And since they were so well hidden, we didn't see them when we were packing up our stuff. We got off the bus at the next stop and Henry sprinted the mile or so back to the hotel to get them while I waited in the pre-dawn chill of downtown Dublin. It's a good thing the bus hadn't gone two or three miles, or we might not have made it!

The flight from Dublin went through Shannon, and we could see the beautiful green Irish landscape on approach and after takeoff. We then had a long but pleasant flight to Chicago, then to St. Louis; then drove home to Columbia.

"There's no place like home" as Dorothy would say. John met us with a carrot cake for Henry's birthday, with a lamp for his desk. It was nice to be back in the comforts of home, with great memories of travels and family fellowship. For my first trip out of the country, it was pretty awesome!

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