Day 184 (December 23): Advent and Adversity
Monday, December 23rd was our first full day in Perth and we had high expectations. The day before, we had landed in the early afternoon, obtained our rental van, arrived at our house, shopped for groceries, eaten dinner and gone to bed mostly without incident. The house is exceptional, with plenty of sleeping space, a well equipped kitchen, excellent air conditioning and many terrific amenities for the kids.
We woke up quite early (on account of a few hours westbound jet lag) with two main goals in mind: re-establish the school routine and do a massive amount of preparation for Christmas, which was only two days away.
Leaving the kids with the house's gobs of toys and cable TV, Elise and I headed to a nearby Target, confident that we would enjoy the same one-stop shopping as we would at home. We didn't. This is a much smaller franchise that is fine for clothes but not for all the other things. For example, we planned to buy a digital camera to replace Lily's, which died several weeks ago. They had zero.
We did better at a store called Officeworks, which is pretty comparable to a Staples in the USA with a superior selection of writing implements and art supplies. This was much better for us. We even thought we were going to solve our digital camera predicament but they were entirely out of stock.
We returned home, hid the loot, and started in on the school day. The teaching/learning went pretty well but the lunch break didn't because Kraft Mac-n-Cheese doesn't taste "right" and was roundly rejected.
Nevertheless, we got through school and rewarded the kids with a trip to downtown Perth to see Frozen 2! We left with so much time to spare that we figured we'd park the van and do a little shopping before the show. Unfortunately, all of that time was spent searching for parking. You see, all the rental agencies were out of stock in the normal categories of SUVs and minivans (called "people movers" here) so we have a gargantuan 12-passenger micro-bus. It's 2.5 meters (7.5 feet) tall, which turns out to be quite a bit higher than any downtown parking garage. Furthermore, all the street parking is for 1 hour or less, which won't work with a movie.
With considerable difficulty and delay, we found somewhere to park and then walked about half a mile to the theater, arriving exactly at showtime and dragging at least one child who claimed to be dying of thirst.
Still, Frozen-freaking-two! The movie was great, the kids were crying and clapping at all the right moments and we walked out of the theater ready to enjoy a beautiful evening among the holiday decorations in the downtown. Or not.
An hour later, utterly dejected, we climbed back into our van without dinner. Most of that time was in a bookstore. We bought items and yet you'd think we had tortured the kids. With that base of operations, Elise and I had run errands to nearby stores for other gifts. Somehow we utterly failed to find dinner. I don't know if we missed the restaurants or if the shopping district is curiously absent of places to eat.
On the way to the car we passed families enjoying the "trails of lights" that lead you through 27 different Christmas light installations around the downtown. We drove home on a route that at least gave us a glimpse of the sunset over Swan River, which is quite like a lake or bay in size. We had "breakfast for dinner" and set a handful of whining, crying children to bed.
At lights out, I remember telling Lily about the cliche, "it's always darkest before the dawn." I hoped, with all my heart, that somehow we would pivot away from the misery of the 23rd to somehow reach a merry Christmas. Elise felt even more pessimistic than she had 24 hours earlier about assembling a semblance of Christmas so the kids wouldn't riot.
In these moments, our greatest worries take over: will this trip drive a wedge between the members of this family, instead of bringing them together? Will this journey cause our children to hate travel and resent foreign places? Will the behaviors they are using to compensate for difficult circumstances get hard wired into their personalities beyond the context of this trip? Will their memories of us from this trip only be yelling and crying?
Fortunately (a bit of foreshadowing here, made possible by writing this post on the 26th), we had one day left before the 25th, which was just enough time for a Christmas miracle.
We woke up quite early (on account of a few hours westbound jet lag) with two main goals in mind: re-establish the school routine and do a massive amount of preparation for Christmas, which was only two days away.
Leaving the kids with the house's gobs of toys and cable TV, Elise and I headed to a nearby Target, confident that we would enjoy the same one-stop shopping as we would at home. We didn't. This is a much smaller franchise that is fine for clothes but not for all the other things. For example, we planned to buy a digital camera to replace Lily's, which died several weeks ago. They had zero.
We did better at a store called Officeworks, which is pretty comparable to a Staples in the USA with a superior selection of writing implements and art supplies. This was much better for us. We even thought we were going to solve our digital camera predicament but they were entirely out of stock.
We returned home, hid the loot, and started in on the school day. The teaching/learning went pretty well but the lunch break didn't because Kraft Mac-n-Cheese doesn't taste "right" and was roundly rejected.
Nevertheless, we got through school and rewarded the kids with a trip to downtown Perth to see Frozen 2! We left with so much time to spare that we figured we'd park the van and do a little shopping before the show. Unfortunately, all of that time was spent searching for parking. You see, all the rental agencies were out of stock in the normal categories of SUVs and minivans (called "people movers" here) so we have a gargantuan 12-passenger micro-bus. It's 2.5 meters (7.5 feet) tall, which turns out to be quite a bit higher than any downtown parking garage. Furthermore, all the street parking is for 1 hour or less, which won't work with a movie.
With considerable difficulty and delay, we found somewhere to park and then walked about half a mile to the theater, arriving exactly at showtime and dragging at least one child who claimed to be dying of thirst.
Still, Frozen-freaking-two! The movie was great, the kids were crying and clapping at all the right moments and we walked out of the theater ready to enjoy a beautiful evening among the holiday decorations in the downtown. Or not.
An hour later, utterly dejected, we climbed back into our van without dinner. Most of that time was in a bookstore. We bought items and yet you'd think we had tortured the kids. With that base of operations, Elise and I had run errands to nearby stores for other gifts. Somehow we utterly failed to find dinner. I don't know if we missed the restaurants or if the shopping district is curiously absent of places to eat.
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| It was unimaginably hard to get the kids to stand for this picture in downtown Perth. |
On the way to the car we passed families enjoying the "trails of lights" that lead you through 27 different Christmas light installations around the downtown. We drove home on a route that at least gave us a glimpse of the sunset over Swan River, which is quite like a lake or bay in size. We had "breakfast for dinner" and set a handful of whining, crying children to bed.
At lights out, I remember telling Lily about the cliche, "it's always darkest before the dawn." I hoped, with all my heart, that somehow we would pivot away from the misery of the 23rd to somehow reach a merry Christmas. Elise felt even more pessimistic than she had 24 hours earlier about assembling a semblance of Christmas so the kids wouldn't riot.
In these moments, our greatest worries take over: will this trip drive a wedge between the members of this family, instead of bringing them together? Will this journey cause our children to hate travel and resent foreign places? Will the behaviors they are using to compensate for difficult circumstances get hard wired into their personalities beyond the context of this trip? Will their memories of us from this trip only be yelling and crying?
Fortunately (a bit of foreshadowing here, made possible by writing this post on the 26th), we had one day left before the 25th, which was just enough time for a Christmas miracle.
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