Traveling with a Baby

When we decided to come to Europe we had planned ahead of time that we were not going to save our money and vacation time going back to the states, but instead seeing other places. While it has been hard to be away for almost 3 years straight, it has been exciting to see other parts of the world. Then we had a baby. While the traveling slowed down a bit, we have learned how to bring her on our trips. There is so much more to think about and many upsides and downsides to bringing a baby, but it has been wonderful just the same. Our most recent trip was to Italy and while it was a little tiring trying to see everything with a baby on your back, I think it went pretty well!

First off, we live in Hungary and Hungarians, in my opinion, are a quiet type people. They do not talk loud or yell and it seems their babies are never screaming in public, except mine. Well Italy is the exact opposite and seemed to be the perfect place for Brooklynn to scream and whine and nobody cared! One day we were walking back to our hotel and a shop owner was standing outside his shop and as we passed Brooklynn was doing that fake wining crying. The shop owner went right up to her and copied her whining loudly right in her face! Brooklynn just stopped and stared. We couldn't help laughing, not only did it work, but you would never see that happen in Hungary or America and I think most Hungarians or Americans would get upset at someone doing that at their baby. But being that my family is Italian I was almost glad to see it. Instead of getting stared at by other people like, "what's wrong with your baby?", he helped take care of it and it worked. Later we passed back by his shop again and Brooklynn wasn't whining anymore and we all just smiled. It was really quite relieving that we could be loud and no one would even think twice about it.

Walking around the city was also quite different. While I had Brooklynn on my back most of the time, sometimes she needed to get out and walk around. Budapest and in America as well, you would not just let your kids walk down the middle of the street or even close to the street. Obviously the street is for cars and is dangerous, but in Italy so many people were walking all over the streets that often I thought we were on a pedestrian street and then along would come a car or scooter or truck! Suddenly everyone would instantly move to the sides of the street and when it passed go back into the street. It was so weird and made me a little nervous, so that was a new interesting experience!

In all, our travels with Brooklynn have gone pretty good and it has been great to experience difficult cultures with a baby!