Vacations, version 5.0
I landed in Portugal 8 days ago, I’ve slept in three cities, been to four, travel in a plane, subway, cars and boat, saw many friends, made a few others angry, got angry myself. I’ve been sick, threw up, had a fever, watched two movies, visited one famously dodgy restaurant, tried a few new ones. I’ve been with my parents, parents-in-law after months away and with my kids after three weeks - they flew home two and a half weeks ahead of me. Me and my white milky skin traveled 250 km down to the Algarve to become reacquainted with the sun and the beach, which I can’t do full time lest I wish to become a pulsating red lobster (all hail the Great Lobster), but since I’m only here for five days, I’ve been at least trying to salt my skin a bit.
In the next 8 days I’ll sleep in two more cities, visit four others, see my grandmother and aunt, my cousins, my new nephew and family that I couldn’t see in the first half of this time here, drive some 500 km, pack again and say goodbye to my parents and parents-in-law at the airport once again, and explain to my kids - especially the youngest - that no, they won’t be coming with us on the plane back.We will land, catch a taxi, evaluate what has happened with the place and what needs to be done about it and the next day I should be back to work - depending on what happens I may stay one extra day home to get some rest from all this rest - and we’ll do a million things
Long gone are the summer vacations of young age, were boredom would mark the last part of almost 3 months of break, or the summer vacations of professional but in-love age were me and my future wife would visit places we haven’t been before and do camping or visit some nice hotel, where on the second week we would feel the boredom creeping up again, or even the summer vacations with kids where we would find -on a very rough average - 2 weeks just the three or four of us, where boredom wasn’t an issue but we were together.
No, all that is gone, we’re expats now, expats with kids and we have a lot to learn …