July was an exciting month for the Mjaanes family. After 2 1/2 months of living in Switzerland we returned to Chicago for a month long visit. Here are the highs and lows of our trip...
The plane ride home alone with the kids. Shockingly, I'm going to put this in the "high points" category. As the day of our departure loomed nearer, my level of fear rose dramatically with each passing hour. Bryan would also say that my level of bitchiness rose considerably as well. Unfortunately for him, it peaked when he came up from loading the car and gently asked me if I was ready to leave. He then suggested (again very delicately) that we leave right away because the car battery was dead and we were going to have to take the train. I will spare you my reaction to this news and just let you know that it was not a sane woman's response. After reacting ridiculously, I ordered him to go down to the pizza place on the ground floor and ask them to jump our car for us. At this point, he was just glad to get the hell away from me and quickly headed downstairs. We are now forever indebted to the wonderful owners of Cafe Luna and I'm really glad they have amazing pizza because we will be eating there frequently and tipping well to repay them for their kindness. But from that point on, the trip went amazingly smooth. The boys were angels and kept themselves busy with leapsters, legos and movies for the 8 1/2 hour plane ride. E was a little higher maintenances, but as long as I constantly offered her new activities from my bag of tricks, she was pretty happy. I was very proud of all three of them and might even consider flying alone with them again. Maybe....
4th of July Family Tournament. This sadly goes in the low point category. Every year we head to my parents house for a 4th of July celebration. Included in this celebration is a very competitive tournament that usually includes Backgammon, darts, and (I can't say this without snickering) Corn Hole. Clearly we are not the most athletic family. Some families like to play softball or volleyball, but we prefer activities that allow us to either sit in a chair, or at least stand in one place while throwing something that weighs less than a pound. The Mjaanes family was the reigning champion from the 2008 tournament. I don't mean to gloat, but we swept the competition last year. For an entire year, we were the proud owners of the Youngs Family 4th of July tournament trophy. It's actually an old golf trophy my dad got years ago. To make it official, someone taped a handwritten slip of paper over the real plaque, that says "4th of July Tournament Winner". It usually spends the year in a closet, despite my dad's demand that it be displayed on the winning family's mantel for the full duration of the year. But this year, I was on my own since Bryan was still in Switzerland. I'd like to say this is the only reason Team Mjaanes placed dead ass last, but part of the blame lies in the fact that my father cheats at Gin Rummy. Because it rained all day on the 4th, we decided to play gin rummy instead of darts. Bryan is the rockstar of the family at darts and I thought it was in my team's best interest to rally for cards as a replacement rather than play darts while holding an umbrella. My father will deny he cheats at gin rummy, but there was a heated discussion regarding the number of cards that should be dealt and he refused to replay me with the standard 7 cards after beating me while playing with 11. Ridiculous. But since it was at his house, he provides all the prizes, and everyone gets to pick a prize regardless of their standing, I let it go. And since my 12 year old nephew didn't yell "IN YOUR FACE!" as the annual handing over of the trophy picture was taken, I let him have it and set my sights on the 2010 tournament. Plenty of time for practice....
Grocery Shopping. This was definately a high point of MY trip. One of the activities I HATE here in Switzerland is going to the market. Why do I hate this errand? Where do I begin. It's probably best if I just share with you the wonderful things about grocery shopping in the States that most of you probably take for granted. First, I was able to pull into the parking lot and park for FREE. Then, I was able to casually stroll up to the line of grocery carts and pull one out WITHOUT INSERTING A COIN. I felt like I had forgotton something when I started pushing my cart around. I realized it was because I didn't have a giant bag of stinky pop bottles and yogurt containers to shove into small holes in the wall for recycling. God Bless America and their lack of environmental consciousness. I do my part the other 11 months of the year. Then it was time to actually SHOP. Aaaahhhhh..... the American concept of bigger is better. Is it hot dogs you want? Ball Park, Kosher, Turkey, Fat Free, Light, Beef, Cheese filled, foot long, microwavable already in the bun...... I could go on and on. The Swiss? They offer you one ridiculously overpriced package of hotdogs. Take it or leave it. This is true for almost every product, with the exceptions of chocolate and cheese. The beauty of it is, if I WANTED to buy 1 of every kind of hot dog offered, I could actually fit it in my American sized refrigerator and still have room for a Costco sized box of Capri Sun. Here, refrigerators are about the size of the one you had in your dorm room to hold beer and leftover pizza. And the freezer is literally an ice box, too small to fit a normal American sized frozen pizza. There have been times when I've been faced with a difficult decision in the beverage aisle. Do I buy a bottle of wine to fit in the fridge, or a carton of milk for the kids' cereal? Fortunately my kids will eat toast.
After I had filled my cart with a weeks worth of convenience foods, I entered the checkout line and piled it all up on the conveyor belt. This is when I realized I hadn't brought my eco friendly bag. Did the lady at the checkout glare at me and make me buy 8 new eco friendly bags? No. Not only did I not have to buy new bags, I didn't even have to bag my own groceries! An apparently mute and heavily tattooed teenager placed all my groceries in 10 perfectly sturdy plastic bags.
In Switzerland, the most stressful part of going to the market is after I have paid for my items. This is when the checker and I begin our race. I have to have all my groceries in my reusable bags by the time she is done with the next customer and needs my bagging lane. It's intense and I'll do anything to win the race. Including throwing wine bottles on top of my overpriced eggs and bread. Losing this race of speed and agility results in annoyed looks from both the checker and the customers who have been delayed. You might has well just stamp "STUPID AMERICAN" on my forehead.
This is why grocery shopping ranks as one of the highlights of our trip home. Next time you are perusing Super Target with your cart full of economy sized American products, say a quiet thank you to the American philosophy of Bigger is Better. I'll be at home trying to cram a frozen pizza in my ice box.
Airport Check-In. This small portion at the end of our visit falls in both the high and low points categories. If it wasn't so hysterical in hindsight, it would have been one of the low points of our trip. While we were home, I shopped for items that aren't available to us in Switzerland. Everything from furniture cleaner to prescriptions we needed to stock up on before leaving the states. I even decided to buy some extra toys while we were home since they are so expensive here and it's a pain to go to the toy store every time one of the kids gets invited to a birthday party. Needless to say, by the end of our visit, there was quite an assortment of products piled up on our dining room table. I originally had delusions that we would be able to pack everything in the 3 suitcases we brought over, but quickly realized on the day we were leaving that I needed to run to Target and buy a cheap new suitcase. When I brought it home, Bryan wisely counseled me on separating the heavy non-clothing items in order to even out the weight of the suitcases. No problem. Or so we thought. When we attempted to check in at the Swiss Air counter, the ticketing agent went about her business efficiently and finally asked Bryan to lift each suitcase onto the scale. This is when things went awry. Apparently 3 of our 4 suitcases were overweight. And not just a little overweight. At the moment I can't remember what the weight limit is per bag, but they weigh them in Kilograms which made the problem that much more irritating. Is a kilo more than a pound, or less than a pound? I know I've been in Switzerland for almost 3 months, but I've managed to remain clueless about the metric system and I like it that way. The ticketing agent suggested we try to repack our bags to even out the weight. "How much is the charge for an overweight bag?" I asked thinking "No way in hell am I going to start repacking in the middle of the international terminal at O'hare". Fast forward 5 minutes later when I am frantically pulling random crap out of my suitcase to lighten my load. For $450 dollars, I'll make a fool out of myself anywhere. When I pulled out 4 giant cans of black beans, the look on my parents faces caused me to immediately holler, " THEY DON'T HAVE BLACK BEANS IN SWITZERLAND! I NEED TO MAKE MY CORN AND BEAN SALAD!" For the record, it's a really good corn and bean salad. Next came six bottles of grape jelly. With a pathetic whimper I passed them on to my mom to shove in her purse. When I pulled out a ziploc bag full of Bryan's favorite deoderant, I heard someone say, "What, they don't have deoderant in Switzerland either?!?!" Yeah, if I couldn't make my corn and bean salad, Bryan would have to perspire freely until he broke down and bought a Swiss brand of deoderant. 1 bag of chocolate chips, 2 cans of Manwich and and a bottle of Old English furniture oil later, Bryan headed up to the desk to weight the bags again. I watched his face as he placed each one on the scale and it wasn't hard to tell that we had not accomplished our mission. 2 bags were still well over the weight limit. "Take out my toiletries! I'll carry them on! I can layer my clothes if I need to!" This is when Bryan looked me square in the eyes and said, "Screw it. We're paying the extra charge." As some of you know, I am what I like to refere to as pleasantly thrifty. So the thought that I had purchased $150 worth of toys to save a few bucks, and now would pay $300 to take them on the airplane was more than I was willing to accept. But my sane husband had made his decision. "Go get the black beans if you want them. We might as well load up the heavy ones since we're going to have to pay for them anyway." What followed was an odd sight. I can only wonder what the other passengers in line were thinking as my father and I ran cans of black beans, bags of deoderant, and other miscellaneous items from the bench where my mom sat to the check in counter at O'hare. I was overwhelmed with the emotions of pleasure to have my black beans and grape jelly, and horror that they were costing me $300.
This time we had a different ticeting agent. Bryan let her know we had 2 bags that were overweight and he laid his American Express card on the counter. She checked in all the bags, handed us our boarding passes and told us to have a nice flight. Seriously? All that drama and she wasn't even going to charge us? I elbowed Bryan as I discreetly removed his AMEX card from the counter before she could either change her mind or realize her mistake. Thank God, or everytime my kids didn't finish a PB and grape jelly sandwich, I would have had to give them the old "grape jelly doesn't grow on trees" speech and force them to choke it down.
Friends and Family. The best thing about our trip home was by far, spending time with our friends and family. The simple activities like hanging out in the backyard with friends, spending time with our families, going to dinner with the girls, and having a houseful of kids over for playdates, are some of the things we miss most while we are away. It felt like we had dropped right back into our old life and it was very sad to have to say good-bye to all of them again. Home is the one place where you can let your guard down and just be yourself. Our friends and family there just get us, or at the very least look past our weirdness and love us anyway. We're still optimistic that the Swiss will come to enjoy, or at the very least tolerate, the wacky Mjaanes family. Maybe I'll make them some of my famous corn and black bean salad to win them over.
