Comfort zones

There are all sorts of comfort zones I thought I would be stepping outside of as we traveled. Learning to get around in a country where I don't speak the language. Figuring out how to shepherd four children around alone as Dave works and we explore a new city. Stepping into the role of teacher for my children and setting the learning expectations. Improvising the next set of travel plans, three to four weeks out, while also creating the visiting plans for wherever we are at the moment.

Certainly I have found challenges in many of these areas. And yet many were much easier than my imagination had made them out to be. Italian was actually surprisingly easy to interpret given my knowledge of French and Spanish. I even had a phone conversation inquiring about a used van for sale where I spoke French and he spoke Italian but I was able to follow it. (In truth, it was a very short conversation where he basically said "No, we certainly have nothing like a 9-passenger van available.") Taking four children around is much the same as at home, with much more walking and no driving. And we have now learned to navigate the Paris metro, London underground and double decker buses, Edinburgh buses, Venice buses and vaparettos,  Milan metro, Italian trains, Menton buses and trains (limited as they were by the storms), the Italian autostrada and Swiss autoroute. Homeschooling has certainly had ups and downs but in the end, they are learning, they are adjusting and so am I. I'm getting adept at learning about new places and figuring out transportation options. Ebooks from San Diego County library fill the need for travel books and sites like skyscanner.com, omio.com, momondo.com and rome2rio.com help figure the costs of getting from here to there. This is especially true as we've decided not to go the road trip route and will include many cheap flights to get us around.

The comfort zone that I find the most challenging surprised me. This is because it's really not anything new to Europe or travelling or homeschooling.  Dave is the natural cook in our family but it's usually up to me to make dinner and fill the children's bellies while he works. Trying to figure out a healthy menu each night that will be mostly acceptable to the children (I work on a law of averages, if half eat it all up and half complain I figure it's a net zero and acceptable meal) is a daily struggle for me. Yes, it's harder shopping in foreign markets and carrying all your groceries home. And certainly compounded by some of the kitchens we have been working with (in Menton we had no oven and only two stove burners!) But in the end, I'm just not a very imaginative cook, I dislike menu planning and too often panic in the face of ravenous children. Perhaps by the end of all this, I'll have improved and at the least I'll go home to a wonderful kitchen and a huge grocery store a short drive away and feel quite spoiled.