Asymptomatic

For our 10th wedding anniversary, Berta and I stayed over night in Philadelphia. The interesting story is less about what we actually did than what we tried to plan.

Mostly, you wouldn't call it a plan. Friday night, we dropped the kids off at Mom's then raced home to decide what to do. It was still early enough to consider flights out of Philadelphia, provided that they were late enough.

We'd been thinking about getting away for a while, specifically to exercise our passports one more time before they expire. Berta has stamps from Mexico, and I've got stamps from France, and we both have stamps and visas for India. I thought it would be nice to be "world travelers" and add another stamp to the book before it was retired.

It's kind of strange explaining these trips we take. It's like we just need to get away for a while, and it's not about being pampered or being extravagant (although the travel might seem that way), but more about just getting away from home. And so on Friday night we simply looked for a reasonably cheap flight to anywhere that wouldn't keep us away longer than the weekend. This is harder than you might think. more

When we used to travel as kids, the entertainment in the car consisted of counting cows out the window, playing the "I'm going on a trip" memory game, looking at the maps stuffed into the pocket in back of the driver's seat, and as a special treat, those "magic ink" puzzle books. But what we most often did in family car trips was sing songs.

It's a very unusual idea now to think of singing songs in the car, since the advent of in-car DVD players, MP3 players, and the GameBoy, but for little kids who don't have the toys or aren't interested in those things, some interaction with the family via singing in the car can be fun.

This morning, the kids woke me up by playing a CD of kids songs and nursery rhymes far too loud. Some of these songs were songs we used to sing in the car on our long-ish trip from home to the Bay. There were many songs that we sang that were not on their CD, and quite a few nursery rhymes that I didn't know anyone had put a tune to....

I've taken the train only a on a few occasions. I realize that this is strange to some more urban denizens, but out the suburbs the train only really seems to go into the city or away into the hinterlands. Even at that, this week holds some landmarks for me in riding the train.

My prior trips included a jaunt to New York City. This trip consisted of getting on an Amtrak train in Downingtown, and riding it the entire way to Penn Station in New York. I didn't have to transfer, and there was only one stop. No mess at all; hardly a train experience.

I later traveled via train to the airport when I left for Paris. This required one transfer at 30th Street Station in Philly, which was only a bit of a challenge, having never switched trains en rout somewhere before. Paris also yielded many metro transfers, which didn't phase me at the time, but seemed like something different. The interesting bit being that I did not use a car to get anywhere for that entire trip....

On this day in 1999, we were sipping free champagne on a flight between Amsterdam and New Delhi to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.

I was working at Kruse at the time, and our off-shore contractor wanted us to come visit and have some personal contact with the team. The ramp-up for the visit was quick - only two weeks, which was quite possible in the days before 9/11. When it was decided that I would be going on the trip and the date was picked, the question was essentially, "Got anything going on that week?" And my answer - "Just my first wedding anniversary."

I have the impression that sending your wife with you on a week-long business trip around the world because it was during your first wedding anniversary is not something that most employers would do. Mine did....