Ok so you know we said that we were going to follow Elizabeth around the world on her very Ooo! travels with her 3 beautiful children, well here is the first installment. Enjoy...
"After a very tearful goodbye with Craig (the on/off boyfriend) at the airport i boarded our plane with my 3 beautiful children Chaska, Malika & Xantippe to start our once in a lifetime journey around the world. I had mixed emotions, a little scared of our unknown future from here on and a little worry about whether the children would be alright. You know the usual thing when you take your kids abroad with illness, home sickness, whether someone would try to steal them!
As we settled down on the flight though it became clear that this was the right thing to do. There i was with the most precious and unconditional things in my life sat right next to me. My children...my babies. Thankfully, Tippe fell into a blissful sleep soon after getting on the plane. Seeing that for the long first leg of our adventure we were travelling Cattle Class it was a godsend. Being only 1 years old she was tired from just the excitement of the airport! Oh to be a child again. As i gazed at her I wondered to myself. Would she remember any parts of our trip? The places, the smells, sights or people or would they be distant memory. Like 'de ja vue' moments that we all get later in her life. My attention drifted to the other two, Maleika 5 and Chaska (my 'little man') 6. They were tired and excited, although i'm not sure at that age that they could quite comprehend the enormity of this trip and how privileged we all were to have this amazing opportunity. Maleika, bless her thought that we were already in India because of the number of Asian people on board, as we sat on the tarmac at Heathrow. I had to explain that many people on the plane were from India and were probably going home to visit their families. Bless! One thing i knew though was that we would have a ball, as a family. This would make our already unbreakable bond even stronger and experience some of the most incredible places on earth as a family. I couldn't wish to be anywhere else."
"...after what seemed like an eternity, with Tippe on my lap for 7 hours and thus most of the feeling having drained from my lower body, we arrived in our first destination. New Delhi. The children bless them had slept for most of the way and were still groggy when we arrived. It was 1025 am and it was hot on the tarmac. As we emerged from the plane and i gathered children and belongings together we somehow managed to stay together and make our way into arrivals, leaving the last essence of the United Kingdom on board the British Airways Jumbo. The heat was intense like that of a sauna bath, the noise was unbelievable! A cacophany of engines, voices shouting, doors slamming mixed into what made up an entire Urban Orchestra. None of the voices were familiar and the language, of course, was unintelligible. For a moment i faltered and felt excited, overwhelmed... It was so far removed from the equivalent British atmosphere i was enraptured. Then i felt the little hands in mine, my children for whom this welcome must have been even more overwhelming and unfamiliar. I remembered that we were being collected from the airport by 'limousine'. I know this may sound extravagant but it is quite normal. They don't recommend that westerners, particularly women and children, wander alone around the city and thus the Limousine practice is 'everyday'.
Our stop was the Grand Intercontinental in New Delhi where we would be staying for our first few nights. A beautiful hotel which, being a lover of FABULOUS hotels, was great for me but boring for the babies. They can't do much with palm trees and ornamental animals! It did give us a chance though to have a look around the city. Any excuse to get out of the hotel. We were fortunate, i think, to meet a Chinese lady who was quite taken with us all and our quest. She had her driver take us where we wanted to go during our stay and so we were able to explore the city a little and visit an amazing 'Government Market' which was full of the most beautiful traditional clothes i have ever seen. I resisted though because we were on a budget but i did buy the children their very own outfits. We managed all of this without getting mugged or kidnapped by the Chinese lady who it would appear was gracious because she could be, nothing more. For that i am eternally grateful because it made the first days of our adventure as exciting as i hope the rest will be.
Thursday we are going on a tour to one of the great wonders of the world. The beautiful Thaj Mahal. The journey is nearly 4hrs each way but to miss it would be scandalous as this is exactly the reason we are doing this.
Well I had better get prepared for these snoring children to wake up, we have definately been on go slow since we landed!
Take care all and God bless,
Love the Corrigans
"After a very tearful goodbye with Craig (the on/off boyfriend) at the airport i boarded our plane with my 3 beautiful children Chaska, Malika & Xantippe to start our once in a lifetime journey around the world. I had mixed emotions, a little scared of our unknown future from here on and a little worry about whether the children would be alright. You know the usual thing when you take your kids abroad with illness, home sickness, whether someone would try to steal them!
As we settled down on the flight though it became clear that this was the right thing to do. There i was with the most precious and unconditional things in my life sat right next to me. My children...my babies. Thankfully, Tippe fell into a blissful sleep soon after getting on the plane. Seeing that for the long first leg of our adventure we were travelling Cattle Class it was a godsend. Being only 1 years old she was tired from just the excitement of the airport! Oh to be a child again. As i gazed at her I wondered to myself. Would she remember any parts of our trip? The places, the smells, sights or people or would they be distant memory. Like 'de ja vue' moments that we all get later in her life. My attention drifted to the other two, Maleika 5 and Chaska (my 'little man') 6. They were tired and excited, although i'm not sure at that age that they could quite comprehend the enormity of this trip and how privileged we all were to have this amazing opportunity. Maleika, bless her thought that we were already in India because of the number of Asian people on board, as we sat on the tarmac at Heathrow. I had to explain that many people on the plane were from India and were probably going home to visit their families. Bless! One thing i knew though was that we would have a ball, as a family. This would make our already unbreakable bond even stronger and experience some of the most incredible places on earth as a family. I couldn't wish to be anywhere else."
"...after what seemed like an eternity, with Tippe on my lap for 7 hours and thus most of the feeling having drained from my lower body, we arrived in our first destination. New Delhi. The children bless them had slept for most of the way and were still groggy when we arrived. It was 1025 am and it was hot on the tarmac. As we emerged from the plane and i gathered children and belongings together we somehow managed to stay together and make our way into arrivals, leaving the last essence of the United Kingdom on board the British Airways Jumbo. The heat was intense like that of a sauna bath, the noise was unbelievable! A cacophany of engines, voices shouting, doors slamming mixed into what made up an entire Urban Orchestra. None of the voices were familiar and the language, of course, was unintelligible. For a moment i faltered and felt excited, overwhelmed... It was so far removed from the equivalent British atmosphere i was enraptured. Then i felt the little hands in mine, my children for whom this welcome must have been even more overwhelming and unfamiliar. I remembered that we were being collected from the airport by 'limousine'. I know this may sound extravagant but it is quite normal. They don't recommend that westerners, particularly women and children, wander alone around the city and thus the Limousine practice is 'everyday'.
Our stop was the Grand Intercontinental in New Delhi where we would be staying for our first few nights. A beautiful hotel which, being a lover of FABULOUS hotels, was great for me but boring for the babies. They can't do much with palm trees and ornamental animals! It did give us a chance though to have a look around the city. Any excuse to get out of the hotel. We were fortunate, i think, to meet a Chinese lady who was quite taken with us all and our quest. She had her driver take us where we wanted to go during our stay and so we were able to explore the city a little and visit an amazing 'Government Market' which was full of the most beautiful traditional clothes i have ever seen. I resisted though because we were on a budget but i did buy the children their very own outfits. We managed all of this without getting mugged or kidnapped by the Chinese lady who it would appear was gracious because she could be, nothing more. For that i am eternally grateful because it made the first days of our adventure as exciting as i hope the rest will be.
Thursday we are going on a tour to one of the great wonders of the world. The beautiful Thaj Mahal. The journey is nearly 4hrs each way but to miss it would be scandalous as this is exactly the reason we are doing this.
Well I had better get prepared for these snoring children to wake up, we have definately been on go slow since we landed!
Take care all and God bless,
Love the Corrigans
posted by Things That Make You Go Ooo! Team @ 12:27 pm
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