Winter travels part 4: Hawai'i

If you're counting, yes, this is my fifth trip this winter, the third trip that involves crossing the Atlantic. I've seen a lot of films on aeroplanes now. This wasn't a trip I had anticipated making, but I got a call inviting me out to Hawai'i for a job interview! (All travel costs covered, of course.) This wasn't totally out of the blue -- I'd applied for the job, and I'd had a preliminary Skype interview, but there are usually so many applicants that the odds of being invited for an in-person interview are very low. So, it was time to pack my bags!

As you may know, my contract here in Paris ends at the end of August, so I've been looking for new opportunities. As I explained in my post "What is a postdoc?", my goal is to get a permanent position in teaching and research. That'd be a "lecturer" in the UK, an "assistant professor" in the US, and a "maître de conferences" in France. The Hawai'i job is an assistant professor job, so it's a big deal if I can do it right.

It's nearly 7,500 miles from Paris to Hawai'i (that's nearly 12,000km), and that's plotting a straight line. There are no direct flights from Europe, so you have to fly via some major hub in the US (or in Asia, which is slightly longer but doesn't make that much difference). All told, it was about 24 hours from takeoff in Paris to landing in Honolulu. The time difference from Hawai'i to Paris is 11 hours.

The Sans Souci State Recreational Park. Yep, sans souci is French for "no worry".

Given all of that, I decided to arrive in Honolulu on Monday evening, which gave me a couple of days to adjust my internal clock before my visit formally began on Thursday. Academic job interview visits in the US are fairly intense. In this case, it involved meeting one-on-one with each faculty member in the department (for 30 minutes to an hour), presenting a research talk to the whole department (faculty and postgraduate students, plus any other interested parties), teaching a (real!) class as a demonstration of my pedagogical methods, being formally interviewed by the entire faculty of the department, meeting with the dean of the college, meeting (and being interviewed by) the postgraduate students, and then also going to dinners with various faculty members in the evening. It's a real marathon, designed to test your skill and aptitude as a researcher and educator, and also your collegiality and ability to get on well with others. Those extra days were crucial for me in de-fogging my jetlagged brain, and also in allowing me time to explore the island and investigate what it'd be like to live there. This last part was especially important as it's not a temporary position, so any relocation to Hawai'i has the potential to be permanent.

Of course, you don't want to know the details of the interview process -- you want to know what was Hawai'i like?

A view of Honolulu. The hilly crater in the distance is Diamond Head. Buildings on the left are part of the university campus.

Well, it was quite lovely, especially in contrast to Paris in February (rainy, cold, dreary). It was apparently a little colder than usual when I visited, but I didn't notice. Since records began in 1877, Honolulu has never been colder than 11C (52F) or warmer than 35C (95F). It's usually between 23C and 27C year round (73F to 81F), so it's extremely pleasant.

A lovely tree at Kailua beach. Hawai'i has lots of lovely trees.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• Everyone wears flip flops.
• No-one is in a hurry.
• Apparently there are centipedes and flying cockroaches. (I didn't see any myself.) They lurk.
• I had been in Hawai'i for three days before I heard a car sounding its horn. (You might get three minutes in Paris if you're lucky.)
• A quick scan through some radio stations while driving revealed chamber music, reggae, Japanese punk rock, Korean slow jams, and surf rock.
• This will sound strange, but the closest point of reference I have is New Zealand. Hawai'i is like New Zealand, but tropical and American rather than temperate and British.

There are several dramatic cliffs with secluded beaches below.

The island of O'ahu, where Honolulu is located, is about the size of the isle of Skye in Scotland, and is home to about 950,000 people. (Skye has 9,000 people.) This means that it can be pretty crowded, especially in the city; but it also means that you can find most goods and products that you need, like any major city. You will pay a lot of money for them, though. Most cost of living indices put Honolulu at about the same level as San Francisco or London, just behind New York. It's not cheap to live in paradise.

Part of this is because most goods must be shipped in on planes or container ships. At more than 3,000km from the closest continent, Hawai'i is by some measures the most isolated archipelago in the world. Unlike the isle of Skye, there is no convenient bridge connecting you to the mainland.

A panorama of the Mānoa valley, the neighbourhood where the university is located.

Even with the extra time I built in, it was a whirlwind trip. I was able to tour around Honolulu and some nearby places, but there's only so much you can do and see, especially when you're fighting an 11-hour jetlag! The 11 hour time difference also made it difficult to stay in touch with Talia. We'd talk in the mornings and evenings while we were both awake, me sharing stories of banana trees and mangos and her sharing stories of baby poops and interrupted sleeping. Before I knew it I was on a plane back to Europe and home in sunny Paris.

PS, I got the job! I start in August.

Winter travels part 3: Christmas, Scotland (and Texas)

Following on with my recap of our winter travels (see part 1 and part 2), we went to Scotland over Christmas. This trip mostly consisted of Maëlys meeting friends and relatives for the first time.

Great Grandma Turnbull with Maëlys.

Ken, a family friend, with Maëlys.

Me, Maëlys, my cousin Kathryn, and her daughter Jess. Jess is two days younger than Maëlys!

We've been to Scotland many times before, so we didn't do any sightseeing or anything. Strangely, it was unseasonably warm for most of our visit. I think it was about 12C (52F) on Christmas day. It's usually somewhere between 2C and 8C (35F and 46F), and doesn't get into the double figures until March.

Sunrise! At 8:30am. Gotta make the most of those 7 hour days.

It was great getting to see everyone and I was strangely proud when "showing off" Maëlys to people. A little like an enthusiastic schoolchild showing off their class project, "I made this". Except better! She seemed to enjoy the attention too, and wasn't afraid to meet new people as babies sometimes are.

After Hogmanay, I left for Paris, while Talia and Maëlys remained in Scotland. After three days I was leaving for Texas, for another conference (in Austin). We had originally intended to all go to Paris together, but Talia decided to stay in Scotland with my parents rather than be in Paris alone with Maëlys, which was a sensible decision, I think. Of course, my parents were thrilled to get to spend more time with their favourite granddaughter!

I had a couple of days in Paris, which was enough time to unpack and re-pack and to digest Julien Barnes' excellent novel The Sense of an Ending. Then I was off to Austin, Texas for a linguistics conference.

I don't have any pictures for you from Texas, I'm afraid. I was travelling light so I didn't take my camera, and I was in fact travelling so light that I forgot my phone charger, so I don't even have phone camera pictures. In any case, I spent most of the time at the conference hotel, so there isn't much of interest to report. It was in fact unseasonably cold in Austin, also around 12C (52F). I understand that normally it's more like 20C (68F).

It was a good conference, with excellent scientific content and good opportunities for me to meet other academic linguists, new and old. Still, I was very happy to get home, this being the longest I'd ever been away from Maëlys. It was also good to be stationary for a while after all this travelling.

Stay tuned, one more "winter travels" post to go and we'll be all caught up!

Winter travels part 2: Milan

The alps, as seen from my plane.

As Talia alluded to in a previous post, almost immediately after we got back to France from the USA I left France to go to Italy. Specifically to Milan, for an academic conference where I was presenting a paper. The timing was a little unfortunate, as it meant I was abandoning an exhausted Talia with a grumpy jet-lagged baby in the middle of Paris. I was jet lagged too, but I didn't have to deal with a baby...

A tram scoots through one of the medieval city gates. Not pictured: Roman ruins, ornate basilicas, Italians.

Instead, I had to deal with trams, mopeds, and medieval architecture. And excellent coffee.

Traffic.

Speaking of coffee, and food, on my very first morning I went to a local bakery that had been recommended to me for breakfast. I walk in, and the conversation goes something like this:

Baker: [some greeting which is neither buon giorno "good morning" nor salve "hello" (or even ciao, the informal version).]
Me: Buon giorno! Non parlo italiano. ["Good morning! I don't speak Italian."]
Baker: Ah! [stream of Italian, very quick, wherein he explains what each of the baked goods on offer are made of, what they taste like, how they're cooked, etc.]

It's not strictly true that I don't speak any Italian -- I was able to piece together the gist of what he said via my knowledge of French and Spanish -- I was amused by the knowing look he gave me, and by the fact that he very kindly explained everything to me, the confused foreigner, in Italian.

It's not that I expected him to speak English (especially as Italy is one of the most monolingual countries of the EU!), but I thought he would at least slow down, use simple phrases, or something. Maybe point at a bun, say cioccolate, molto bene, 'chocolate, very good', something like that.

In any case, if you must know, I ordered a cappuccino and a chocolate brioche. They were both molto bene, although the brioche was covered in powdered sugar and was quite messy.

It turns out that Italians aren't great at French either:

It should be "crêpes".

Apart from the food and the conferencing, my main activity in Milan was wandering the city and examining the architecture. Lots of churches of various shapes and sizes!

The famous Duomo cathedral.

Another angle on the Duomo.

The tower of the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio.

All in all, it was a pleasant break from my usual routines. The conference went smoothly and my paper was well-received. I was very happy to get home to Talia and a sleepy baby, though.

Winter travels part 1: Thanksgiving, USA.

We've travelled a fair bit this winter, but we've hardly blogged at all! Sorry to keep you waiting. This post is the first in a series!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a big American holiday in late November, where you get together with family, eat a lot of food, and be thankful. It's basically a harvest festival.

For Talia's family, this is a big celebration, so we made a special effort to traverse the 9 time zones from Europe to Oregon. Since it's such a long trip, we spent two weeks there.

The Oregon coastline.

Marilyn, me, Maëlys, and Talia, keeping warm on the beach.

The big event, of course, was thanksgiving day. There were 21 of us in total - me, Talia, and Maëlys; Talia's three brothers and three sisters-in-law, and their children (three boys and two girls); one of Talia's cousins and her husband; another of Talia's cousins and her two children; and Talia's parents. Eight children, ranging from 4 months to 11 years, and thirteen grown-ups. What a party!

Maëlys's cousins learn how to spell her name.

Marilyn's famous dinner rolls!

Lemon meringue pie!

More pies, and a turkey.

Everyone assembled before the eating began! Not pictured: me.

Of course, for everyone except Talia's parents, it was their first time meeting Maëlys. (And she'd grown a lot since Talia's parents saw her last!) So there was lots of baby-holding and cooing.

Maëlys with Grandpa and Erik.

Maëlys with Hanna.

Maëlys with Mayela. (Note her thanksgiving-themed dress!)

Aunt Ashley reads a story to Travis, Maëlys, Sage, and Erik.

As a bonus, here's a picture of Hanna reading her parents the Scots translation of The Gruffalo, and explaining what words like "biled" and "ahint" mean.

Click to zoom in!

A lot of food was eaten, as is traditional, and it was fantastic to see everyone and have them meet Maëlys and compare baby stories. A refreshing trip to the new world!

Next up: Milan!

Have baby, will travel

Baby becomes world traveler

It's 8 am and my nearly 5 month old daughter is noisily sleeping in bed next to me. She fell asleep mid-suck during her last feeding an hour ago and I just kept her on our bed. She's been farting every few minutes. It's kind of cute, actually. (Add that to the list of things you never thought you'd say until becoming a parent!) Her pudgy little arms are stretched out in a T; she's enjoying taking up half of the big person bed since Rory is currently in Austin, Texas.

Maëlys gets her own seatbelt!

After spending two weeks in Scotland with his family for Christmas, Rory left us here to go be an academic and give a talk at the Linguistics Society of America conference. I'm still enjoying the kind assistance of his parents so that I don't have to take care of the baby on my own in Paris. I tried that for three days after our return from Oregon a month ago (we spent Thanksgiving with 20 family members!) and it was by far the hardest time I've experienced thus far with the baby. While Rory was at another conference in Milan, Maëlys and I were suffering from a 9-hour jetlag, and for nearly a week she was waking up every 15-30 minutes during the night and wailing. Nothing made it better. I could count my total hours of sleep that week on one hand. I have much more sympathy now for parents of children who sleep poorly. And for single parents. I felt like a train wreck.

But in all other respects, travelling with a baby has been easier than I anticipated. Maëlys has now been on five airplanes, 30 total hours of air travel, and she was an excellent passenger on four of them. The only exception was the 10-hour flight back from Seattle to Paris, which she didn't seem to like despite doing fine on the way over. We had a bassinet* at our disposal, but she barely slept anyway and was fussing in our arms most of the way. Still, she's had no problems on any of the flights with the change in altitude creating pressure on her ears, which was my big concern, and we've always had enough diapers and spare clothes to get us to our destination. For reference, we packed one diaper for every hour of travel and had plenty to spare. Just in case that's useful information for you.

Travel expectations
When I married a Scotsman, I knew my future would involve lots of travel. We've made it to visit our families in both the US and UK almost every year that we've been together. And I knew if we had kids it would mean plenty of plane, train, and automobile rides with our offspring. But whenever you tell someone you're taking a three-month-old on a 22-hour door-to-door trip, they unfailingly look at you with shock and pity and then say (perhaps with a hint of schadenfreude?), "That's going to be rough. It'll be even harder when they're older!" The effect these words have on an intrepid new parent is to terrify the pants off them. We already know it's not going to be easy. Long-distance travel is hard on anyone. But when seemingly every single person perpetuates the same fear-inducing attitude towards travel with babies, it makes the experience much worse for first time family travellers.

Can I make a suggestion? If someone tells you they're travelling with a young child, don't express how hard you think the journey will be, whether you have personal experience or not. Don't even assure them that it'll be fine now but worse when the kids are older. Instead be excited for them. Ask questions about what they'll see and do. If you do happen to have helpful tips from your own family travels, share them tactfully if they are welcome. And then when they get back, perhaps congratulate them on a successful trip and by all means empathize with them if they had a difficult journey. But help them stay positive both before and after their trip and they'll be more likely to enjoy the experience.

After all, for the last two months, Maëlys has been experiencing a deluge of new people, sights, smells, and sounds, all of which enrich her development and understanding of the world. She's experienced Oregon evergreen forests, rambunctious cousins, the salty sea air, sheep in Scottish pastures, a surprising number of rainbows, an assortment of accents, Christmas trees and lights, babies older and (two days) younger, grand- and great-grandparents, and cuddles from everyone under the sun. She has taken it all in stride, often with wide-eyed curiosity and an eager smile. For her to have those opportunities is worth any potential discomfort from the voyage. I, for one, am excited to travel with my baby and can't wait to share the delights of the world with her.


That's all for now! We're still trying to get caught up with our normal lives after spending five weeks away from Paris. Obviously, blogging has fallen by the wayside. We'll put up some pictures from our trips to Oregon and Scotland soon, I promise!


*A word about bassinets on planes: Delta Airlines has sleeping bassinets for babies under 20 pounds and 26 inches long (9 kg, 66 cm), but their policy on providing one is iffy. When Rory called to book our flights he was told they couldn't guarantee him a bassinet and it was first come, first served, so we should get to the airport three hours early and request it at the gate. We dutifully did this, and it worked fine in Paris. Coming home however, the Portland Delta staff told him the bassinet would go to whoever booked their flights first. The lady spent ages looking up this information, as there was another dad waiting in line just behind Rory for the same reason. Turns out we booked second, so it should have gone to the other family, but they had booked an extra seat as well and were willing to give us the bassinet. Hooray! Too bad Maëlys didn't want to use it. The moral of the story: find out your airline's policy on bassinets. Then be prepared to be told something completely different.

Fontainebleau

Lest our blog become purely baby-related, I wanted to post some stuff about recent travels we have been on. Except... we haven't travelled since the baby arrived. Well, we've made trips around the Paris metropolitan area (which is a pretty big area), but we haven't really been out for more than a few hours or an afternoon or so. Life with babies is complicated!

But, earlier in July, we took a day trip to Fontainebleau, a town about 50km south of Paris. I had been planning to write about our trip, but I never got round to it! Let's do that now.

Fontainebleau is a popular tourist destination for Parisians, mainly due to the nearby Forêt de Fontainebleau (Fontainebleau forest), but also for the Château de Fontainebleau, regarded as one of France's most magnificent. The forest is pretty big, 280 square kilometres; that's approximately the same size as Edinburgh, Exmoor national park, or the borough of Queens in New York; it's just under 10% the size of Rhode Island. The forest is popular for hiking, cycling, horse riding, and rock climbing.

It took us maybe an hour to get there by train, and then a 10 minute bus ride from the train station to the town centre. Apparently it's a popular site with Chinese tourists, and there were signs in Chinese at the train station explaining how to use the buses. For us, since the trains and bus system are all in the "Paris region" transport system, we were able to use our monthly transport passes to travel. A day trip for free! Doesn't get much better than that.

The chateau de Fontainebleau.

The castle has been successively expanded over the centuries by its different owners, which has lead to a multitude of different architectural styles for the different wings. I'll let you judge whether this has a positive or negative effect on the overall appearance:

A view of part of the castle from a distance.

The château is surrounded by extensive gardens, including a lake. You can visit the inside of the castle (apparently the tour is well-regarded), but the weather was so nice we opted to remain outside and stroll the gardens.

Such tasteful decorations in the castle grounds. (Oui, c'est un chien qui faire un pipi.)

Some people relaxing with a picnic by the lakeside.

Another view of the castle from one of the tree-lined promenades.

We didn't venture out into the forest (there was too much to see at the castle, and Talia, being pregnant, only had so much walking energy for the day). Perhaps we will be able to revisit soon and have another exploration, this time with baby in tow!

Two months of sweetness

Maëlys is two months old today! The first month passed in a haze of exhaustion and amazement and a pervasive what-the-heck-do-I-do-with-this-creature feeling, but the second month is where the love and confidence have started to grow in earnest.

Smiley Maëlys!

At six weeks, she intentionally smiled back at me for the first time, quelling the sneaking suspicion I had that our daughter would resemble a humorless and demanding alien for the rest of her life. Shortly thereafter, she started to become much more cuddly, burrowing her face into my neck and wrapping her arms around me when I held her. She started showing more interest in her stuffed animal toys, as well as holding a person's gaze for much longer. And this morning, she consistently giggled (cutest sound in the world!) when Rory wiggled her bottom and made a motorboat noise. It's episodes like these that make your heart overflow with love for your tiny human. And make the less fun stuff worth it.  

Our latest otter comparison.

You may be wondering what it's like to raise a baby in Paris. I might also write later about my experiences with labor and delivery and our stay at a French hospital if people are interested, but I'll save that for another post. For now, here are some interesting facets of new parenthood in Paris. For the record, I suspect it's actually quite a bit easier to have a baby in France than it is in the US (though I can't say I've tried the US version). Here are some reasons why.

• Mothers stay at the hospital for an average of three days after giving birth. This gives them time to recover and learn how to feed, change, and bathe their baby with the assistance of the nurses. They also have time to make sure the baby is healthy before being sent home. In our case, two days after she was born, Maëlys started to have trouble feeding--she had very low energy and fell asleep before she could get enough food, which was a sign of the start of jaundice. Though not uncommon in newborns and not a terribly serious problem, it still freaked me out and had me bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Instead of being home alone by this time and having no idea what was wrong with our baby, our midwife very quickly diagnosed the problem and the nurses helped Maëlys get better.
• Along the same lines, mothers in France are entitled to a home visit from a midwife a few days after they leave the hospital. My sage-femme (literally "wise woman") came out to our home and spent over an hour with us to check on the baby and me. The follow-up of mother and baby that is built into the French medical system makes problems less likely immediately following a birth.
• There are community medical centers called PMIs (Protection Maternelle et Infantile) which offer medical care for women and children free of charge. PMIs offer the services of pediatricians, midwives, puéricultrices (nursery nurses or childcare workers), and psychologists to anyone, regardless of income. Unlike in the US, where a free medical clinic such as this would most likely only be found in poor inner-city neighborhoods and would have somewhat of a social stigma attached to its use, PMIs are used by families from all walks of life and the quality of service is generally quite high. I have visited three different centers and they all had friendly, welcoming staff and a professional yet kid-centered environment. We will be taking Maëlys to our PMI on Monday for her first vaccinations (which are free, by the way). Oh, and there are three PMIs within a 15 minute walk from our house. I think France has some things figured out.
• Mothers are prescribed la rééducation périnéale following a birth. This is a practice not widely found in the US or UK, but it's essentially physical therapy for a woman's perineum (the muscles that get very stretched and sometimes tear during childbirth). Unlike in most other countries, France actually recognizes that childbirth can lead to lasting medical difficulties for women, particularly problems like urinary incontinence. La rééducation périnéale is typically carried out by a midwife and the goal is to retrain the muscles to prevent problems later in life. I start my first of 7-10 sessions of rééducation this coming week. Although it feels like a very awkward and uncomfortable thing to do, I'd rather not have to wear Depends when I'm older, so I'm willing to give it a try. 
• I mentioned in a previous post that France gives paid maternity and paternity leave (unlike the USA). Women get 16 weeks and men get two weeks. Rory's work was flexible, so he was actually able to spend most of Maëlys' first month at home with us. This time was invaluable for us to grow into our new roles as parents, to explore our changing relationship as a couple, and to love and support each other through the sleep-deprivation, constant cluster feeding, and piercing newborn screams.  
• And finally, another great aspect of living in France is that French people love babies. Especially older French women. So if you live in or visit France and want to practice your French conversational skills, I highly recommend having a baby with you (preferably your own). Parisians who wouldn't deign to look at you before will now ooh and ahh over your baby and will chatter away with you. Also, they are largely very kind and quick to offer help if you need it. 

What a cutie!

So it's been a great two months. Challenging, testing of patience, and requiring lots of learning, but an amazing experience nonetheless. Figuring out some of the resources available to new parents and understanding the medical system here has made a big difference in our confidence levels, and despite our very imperfect French language skills, people have been helpful and accommodating. Plus, we have this super cute baby who is learning new skills every day and becoming increasingly loving, responsive, and fun to play with. I'm a happy mama.