From Sevilla to Granada

"From Sevilla to Grenada" Professor Preobrazhensky hums obsessively in Mikhail Bulgakov's 1925 short story "Heart of a Dog."  The line is from a well-known Tchaikovsky tune, "Don Juan's Serenade." Preobrazhensky hums the tune because that's who he is: a man of high culture, attending opera and theatre instead of the meetings of the housing committee that's trying to appropriate his apartment. "From Sevilla to Grenada" is European civilization, all that is beautiful and valuable in the world, according to Bulgakov. In the early 1990s, when I read the story, "From Sevilla to Grenada" came to mean all that was beautiful and inaccessible, the world of knowledge and culture from which we'd been cut off by the Soviet Union's iron curtain.

The names of these towns evoke oh so many romantic notions formed on misleading cultural stereotypes. (Don Juan, the trickster of Sevilla, is such a trope in Russian culture, a burrowing from Spain long detached from its roots and used by countless writers from Pushkin to Vysotsky through A.K.Tolstoy who wrote the play that formed the basis of Tchaikovsky's serenade.) What becomes apparent traveling from Sevilla, through Cordoba, to Granada is to what extent the European civilization in these parts is built upon the remnants of the Islamic kingdom Al-Andalus; so much so that a thousand years later the main attractions in these towns are the old Moorish buildings that have been built upon and re-purposed but never quite destroyed. Cordoba fell to Christians in 1236, Sevilla--twelve years later, and Granada held on until 1492. Today it takes about two hours to drive between these cities, a convenient triangle for tourists with a baby napping in the back seat. We brought our own car seat with us, and this part went perfectly according to plan: each time we got on the highway, Bowie fell asleep and slept until we rolled into the next town.

Road tripping!

On his blog, Dave outlined the highlights of our road trip. The two hour naps were about half of what Bowie needed, and most of the days we weren't able to provide the other half. Whatever museums, palaces, mosques, synagogues, and cathedrals we wanted to visit had shortened their hours for the holidays, and Dave and I also needed food, coffee. Bowie humored us most of the time. Only when we got to Granada, his need to sleep outweighed all else. We have just finished our morning rituals, getting dressed, taking the medicine, tinkering on our devices, and Bowie yawned so hard and so plaintively that we relented. Instead of going out for breakfast, we returned to bed and took a nap.

Somewhere between Malaga (where the ocean scared him) and Sevilla, Bowie developed a feverish love for running water. Be it in a hotel sink, at a Moorish fountain in the Alhambra, a medieval open sewer in the middle of cobblestones, he wanted to get close to it, to touch it, to taste it, to figure out where it was going, to capture it with a cup or a glass. Several of the hotels greeted us at the reception area with carafes of drinking water flavored by fresh fruit, and at our comings and goings Bowie asked for this water, dunked his hands into the glass, licked his hands, drank more, tried it with his hands again, spilled it all over himself and the floor. What a wealth of joy and information captured in one carafe of water! (One of the hotels also provided an aperitif of anisette, a treat for mommy. On our last morning in Granada and in Spain, mommy also got to enjoy coffee with a cognac. A perfect morning drink, it wakes you up, smoothly.)

Bowie studies a glass of water

The highlights of hotel-living: a massive nativity scene under the floor of a hotel lobby

 

We flew home through Paris, where we stopped for the night. Dave and I have a history of funny overnight stays in Paris; the highlight of this one was seeing Marie Houzelle. She played along when we proposed this late night middle-of-nowhere CDG meeting, and as we collected all of our ten pieces of baggage (the number of bags had started out sanely in San Francisco and grew unreasonable during the road trip), there she was meeting us in the lobby! I've written about Marie's novel Tita, and now she says she's days away from finishing edits on a new novel--something to look forward to this year.

And then--and then--some number of hours and a few unsatisfactory naps later--we were entering our home in San Francisco. The cab dropped us off on our street. The look on Bowie's face was that of recognition, yes, but also of wonder and a kind of disbelief. Was it possible that he was recognizing the garage door, the tree in front of our house, the front steps? On a Saturday, our neighbors who had seen us off on the trip two weeks earlier were greeting us and welcoming us home. He knew these people. He knew this house. Was Bowie dreaming this? Or had his adventures up to now been a dream? After waking up in four different hotel rooms in the space of two weeks, was it possible that he actually had a place of his own to come back to, a home?

We entered the hallway. Our building is over hundred years old, and after two weeks away it develops a very particular odor--Dave and I picture a prim Edwardian-era lady who in our absence moves in with her scents and powders. It was this concentrated scent that hit home with Bowie, and then seeing his room with his play rugs and toys. He took in the impossible familiarity of it all--and cried. Bowie was home.

He had a good cry, and then wanted to get down to the floor. Bowie was home. There were blocks to stack, books to organize, boxes to unpack. He was suddenly oh so very busy.

Feeding his pony with a carrot

Andalucia

Dave, Bowie, and I met the new year in Fuengirola, a resort town in Spain, on the Mediterranean coast. With us was my brother Kostya (Konstantin for the English speakers). Our friends Olga and Ron made a feast of paella, with rice meticulously cooked in broth to perfection and the freshest local seafood. Just before midnight we took champagne and grapes out onto the town square, where the locals and expats and tourists were assembling.

Once our phones announced midnight, we started placing grapes into our mouths, one a second, for the first twelve seconds of the new year. We’d been hearing about this Spanish custom. A few seconds into this, the church clock rang, and the locals started counting the seconds out loud, in a choir, and eating their grapes. We were almost done with ours but gladly took the opportunity to slow down. Then, instead of the fireworks, the town’s official started shooting firecrackers. Bowie, attached to Dave’s chest in a carrier, handled it well: he startled, but didn’t cry. Olga and Ron’s six-month old baby was also awake, and he came out of his stroller to dance and sway in his parents’ arms.

One of the local bars broadcast dancing music. Many families were out and groups of friends with champagne and beer and cigars and cigarettes. A heavily tattooed Englishman whom his friend called John-O and we heard "Turbo" tried to give high fives to the babies and then pinched them on the cheeks. A local family gave out rattles. Two years earlier, Olga, Ron, Dave, and I celebrated a coming year together in Bangkok, dancing and drinking on top of a skyscraper into the wee hours of the night. Now our babies “danced” around each other and tried to poke each other in the eyes.

Dancing with uncle in the square

Sparklers!

Kostya wanted to take a middle of the night swim in the Mediterranean, and I entertained the idea of putting Bowie to bed and then skedaddling to the beach. Once, a few years earlier, on a New Year’s trip to Israel, Kostya and I had shared a late night swim in the Mediterranean—not a bad thing to turn into a tradition, I thought. But this night got a little too late too fast and we were a little too tired, so we let it go. Sometimes just having the idea is enough. The thought alone felt fun and irreverent.

Thanks to Bowie, I’ve been carrying this sense of joyful irreverence all throughout this trip to Spain. We’ve been here for a week already, with another week to go. Kostya returned to Vienna on the second of January, and we took our leave of Olga and Ron and started a road trip in Andalucia. Our first stop is in Sevilla, with Cordoba and Granada coming up on the itinerary. A road trip, across Andalucia, with a thirteen-month old? Why not! It looks similar enough to California and there’s a mountain range here called Sierra Nevada.

Bowie wants room to run around. He’s not walking yet, but he wants to cruise and crawl and climb over things and play hide and seek. On the floor, he'll hide around the corner of a hotel bed and sit there, quietly, until either Dave or I find him. “There’s Bowie!” He laughs. Then, he shoos us off to another part of the room and goes back into hiding. “There’s Bowie!” He laughs. In Fuengirola, Olga and Ron took us to a couple of lovely playgrounds where Bowie tried going up the slides and down the staircases. He spent a couple of afternoons on the beach, eating sand and throwing clumps of sand on his head and hair.

"What's that?"

Let's go UP a slide

Playground/cafe

What Bowie resolutely does not want to do is sit tied up anywhere. He does not want to ride quietly in his stroller. He does not want to sit in a high chair at a restaurant and listen quietly to adult conversation. He does not want to be in restaurants at all, especially the busy and the noisy ones, where we don’t let him get on all fours and explore on his own. He’s been showing his displeasure by loud shrieking, wiggling, and crying. At best he tolerates being in mine or Dave’s lap, staring at lights, into windows, flirting with other babies and little children. He wants to know what everything is. At one restaurant we received a reprimand from a child psychologist. “Are you from Russia?” this woman asked Dave, having overheard me speak to Bowie in Russian. She spoke English, but with a Nordic, perhaps German, accent. “A child should be in a hotel room, resting,” she told him. “I’m a child psychologist and I don’t care about humans, I only care about children. The restaurant is too noisy for children.”

Backup at the hotel, after a late night game of hide and seek, we received a handwritten note from our neighbors slipped under the door. It said, “Idiots.”

Idiots!

Every morning, Bowie wakes up with a question on his mind. His eyes barely open, he extends an arm and points a finger, “Eh?” Which I take to mean, “What is that?” “Window,” I say, “A curtain. A light. Another light. A smoke detector. An alarm clock. A telephone. Blanket. Pillow. Daddy. Bed. Window. Light. Wall. Our bed. Our luggage. Our clothes. Window. Light. Telephone. Daddy. Daddy’s nose. Mustache. Mouth. Lower lip. Beard. Teeth. Large teeth, the easier to eat you up, baby.”

Bowie’s been nursing a lot. For a week, he hardly ate any solids but a few pieces of bread. After the new year’s feast of paella, he’s been trying more foods. Baby eels. Pasta with meat sauce. Rice in squid ink with calamari. That last meal went down particularly well because Dave had him in the carrier and we ate at a bar window, outside, standing up, so Bowie was sort of on the move throughout the entire meal. He could also eat the rice straight from the table, just shove it into his mouth with both hands. Because we were outside, the waiters didn’t care when half of the rice ended up on the floor. Nobody rushed in to clean it up. Picture baby whose entire face, hands, and sweater are covered in squid ink, and who’s got a grain of rice stuck between his eyebrows, and more rice in his hair. Picture his proud parents: baby’s feeding himself. Professor baby.

For another perspective on the trip and great photos, check out Dave's blog.

At the Fish Market

In many ways, the three of us vacationing together is easier and more fun (even more fun :) than Bowie and me on our own. The responsibility is divided, and so risk tolerance increases, as does our mobility and physical prowess. Dave's been carrying Bowie in the baby carrier, but even when he's not, we're able to pick up the baby and the stroller separately and so manage shortcuts to subway and stores. Tokyo subway seems fully handicapped accessible, but the elevators are not always in the most obvious locations.

Each day, as we understand each other's needs better and grow more accustomed to the patterns of life in Tokyo, we're able to stray further from the apartment, to see and experience more neighborhoods and attractions. Olga eats a substantial breakfast in the morning. Dave wants his coffee in the afternoon. Bowie must nap and crawl. It sometimes rains in Tokyo--coming from San Francisco in the middle of a prolonged drought, we forget what that's like. Bicyclists here ride on sidewalks (we see lots of moms on bicycles with one child seated in front and one in back). Pedestrians seem to obey automobile traffic patterns and walk on the left side of the sidewalk, making window-shopping a bit tricky. Stations in the subway are marked differently--on some, arrows for walking point to the right side, on others, to the left. People who wish to stand on escalators and moving sidewalks stand on the left side; those who want to walk, do so on the right. Those who want to walk fast make a weird zigzag between the first and the second.

We've made it to two major tourist attractions so far, the Sensō-ji temple in Asakusa and, this morning, to the Fish Market. Ok, we may have only barely stepped inside the actual wholesale fish market and spent most of our time meandering the entertaining foodie stalls in the outside market area, but we did see a lot of dead fish being chopped to pieces. This is sort of the opposite of what our diving and snorkeling excursions have been about, and so we weren't hugely comfortable on the premises. That didn't prevent us from eating sashimi for brunch (the freshest, most fragrant and finely textured fish I've had anywhere). Of the three of us, Bowie held the moral line the firmest: he refused to have any fish and stuck to the noodle-like shredded radish.

Bowie's been eating noodles almost exclusively this week and breastfeeding lots. As we're approaching his one year birthday and he shows no signs of being ready to wean himself off breast milk, I'm considering my options. KellyMom.com, the website I've been using to answer my breastfeeding questions, suggests that children naturally self-wean somewhere between two and seven years of age, and that health benefits of breastfeeding do not have an expiry date. I'd love to give Bowie the option to wean himself, though I'm not sure I'm prepared to wait seven (or even two) years for him to do so.

Being on the road, if anything, has definitely strengthened our breastfeeding bond--he's been nursing for comfort in unusual places and situations, asking for the breast almost as often as he did as a newborn, every hour or two. Our Tokyo efficiency apartment comes with a full-sized crib and most nights I put him in it. But his sleep is very restless. He's teething continuously (his bottom canines are out now; we're waiting on the last set of molars), and cries out in pain in his sleep, then wakes himself up. So I take him into bed with Dave and me, which means he's nursing throughout the night. He's a strongly attached baby, and I'm starting to worry now about how these patterns will have to adjust when we get back home and I return to work. I nearly cried of joy today at the fish market when Bowie picked off a strawberry from a mochi custard dessert Dave and I shared and little by little munched all of it (he tried the mochi too, but didn't go past one bite). A child could probably survive on noodles and strawberries, right? Right.

On to the Tokyo Dome for the afternoon's adventure. It's a notable concert hall venue (the Beatles played at the Dome two years after it opened, and George Harrison recorded Live in Japan here) and an amusement park. We hear there's an awesome indoor playground there, and we can all ride the carousel too.

In the alleys outside the fish market

Chopsticks are the best part of what you call dining

Ebisu-Tokyo Living

From the palatial halls of the Beijing business class hotel we are delivered to an efficiency Tokyo apartment that we booked via AirBnB. There's a hallway/kitchenette and the main room with the bathroom partitioned behind a glass wall, so that the bed is actually jammed against the bathtub. The three of us, our three pieces of luggage, two backpacks, Bowie's utility tote, a stroller and a car seat, all fit inside, just so. Seen another way, we're severely under-utilizing the space. If we consolidated our luggage and hooked the ladder over the door, two more people could use the bed in the attic space.

The tiny apartment is a thing of beauty. Several things make it so: tall ceiling in the room and the window that admits plenty of light by day; large sink in the kitchenette; a washing machine and an ingenious drying rack in the closet; a small shallow pool outside the bathtub that, when I unplug the tub, automatically fills with warm water--to keep my feet from getting cold while I'm drying the rest of my body with a towel.

I also love the fact that the apartment is keyless. A combination code opens the door to the unit, and the front door opens like the entry booths in San Francisco's subway, with a tap of a plastic card. At least three security cameras monitor the entrance, and I have a feeling that these are not pro forma, somebody is truly watching and monitoring the security of this building. Upon our arrival on Friday night, the card that opened the front door was missing from the agreed-upon location, and so we were milling about outside while Dave texted with our AirBnb host. One of the neighbors let us in (taking pity thanks to Bowie, who was babbling plaintively from his car seat), but wouldn't do so until she confirmed we had the right combination code for the unit.

My first impression of Tokyo? I had no idea how many stereotypes about Japan I'd consumed. My imagination was largely fueled by the few novels I'd read (Murakami, Kobo Abe, Amelie Nothomb) and movies (Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Spirited Away, a recent art film The Great Passage)--in addition to WWII stories of bombings, geishas, and vets, occasional news stories about financial crises, electronics empires, fashion crazes, overcrowded subways, alcoholism, and overwork. As is the case with China (though China's case is more extreme), this media diet now seems extremely one-sided and largely negative (at best, Japanese customs might be represented as "odd"). In short, without thinking about it, I'd been expecting to meet sad and depressed loners (mostly men and young school girls), subservient and prone to suicide. Needless to say, this is like picturing all Russians as vodka-guzzling murderers of old women and prostitutes. Argh.

We're staying in the Ebisu area of Tokyo, a fun mix of fairly gritty bars and noodle bars and a maze of alleys with the yuppiest establishments I've seen anywhere. Think: a cafe that imports beans from Yemen, ice cream topped with honey comb, another ice cream shop that makes its own square cones and serves up vanilla-azuki bean flavor, a flavored canele craze, with competing pastry shops serving up their own versions of this French pastry. Bowie's nap schedule and the weather (o joy! it rained hard this morning) continue to set the pace for our journey, so we're fully enjoying exploring the alleys, the cafes and the playgrounds of our neighborhood. The party sometimes comes to us: apparently, this area is Halloween central; so on Halloween night, Dave and Bowie got into the midst of it--Dave's posting his pictures on his blog.

A novel way to travel!

Yemeni cafe in Ebisu

A preternaturally calm poodle getting a haircut

How about a fistful of noodles

Exploring Beijing

Little by little, in between our strenuous nap and meal schedule, Bowie and I are exploring Beijing. Our business class hotel is located, appropriately enough, in Chaoyang, Beijing's business district, and within it, an area particularly reserved for office towers, high end malls (think Prada, Versace, Chanel, Gucci), posh hotels and residential blocks, peppered with foreign embassies, high end restaurants and bars. Typically, sans baby, I'd hop on the subway and seek out urban adventures--as Dave and I did on our previous trip here in 2010. With Bowie, we've been keeping close to the hotel, in part, because we're still transitioning our sleeping schedule and Bowie gets cranky after short awake intervals, and, in part, because Dave's here, and in the last few days, he's been able to take breaks and spend them with us. Half an hour of play with daddy beats all of the hutongs in Beijing--for now.

We don't need to venture far from the hotel to experience the city. This part of Beijing is developed in Las Vegas-style long blocks, and crossing the broad avenues dividing these blocks is, in itself, something to write home about, especially with a stroller. Pedestrians, taxis, scooter, mopeds and motorbikes, bicyclists, small delivery vehicles, all descend onto the crosswalk at the same time, going in different directions. There are street lights that some people do try to obey. On our very first excursion outside, we saw a deliveryman on the ground, head in a makeshift brace, one leg at an awkward angle. Accidents will happen; I don't know whether in Beijing they happen more often or are more severe than anywhere else (Though few motorcyclists here wear helmets; this man didn't)--witnessing this one early in the trip has put me on guard. The man, I hope will be Okay--he was talking to the people gathered round--though it took the length of our walk, at least twenty minutes, for the ambulance to arrive.

In between the large public avenues, there are malls, office buildings, and residential blocks connected by hutongs--small alleys, spaces that feel a lot more private. The ground floors of many office and residential buildings have shops and restaurants; there are also street vendors. Security is tight; most yards at least in this part of town are fenced off and the entrance is monitored by guards. This doesn't mean they are closed to the public; some are, many aren't. Bowie and I went inside one of them to explore one fine-looking playground, and deemed it acceptable for a warmer day. In another yard, we found a 7-11, where we restocked our supplies of yogurt and teething biscuits. The next day we did better by finding a local supermarket. I imagine it was state-owned and subleasing space to private vendors: There were stores inside the store. We bought sweets from one vendor and a notebook and stickers from another.

The minimum security yard

The maximum security yard

I'm not ready to tackle the crowded subway with Bowie's stroller, but today we tried a taxi. I asked to be taken to Temple of Sun park, that on a map appeared reasonably close to our hotel--a forty-five minute walk. I figured, we'd go there by cab and walk back. Twenty minutes into the cab ride, I started to suspect we were heading elsewhere. Fine, I thought, I didn't really have an agenda. The day was sunny and warm, Bowie was enjoying the cab ride, alternating between flirting with the driver, gazing out of the windows, and trying to dismantle the roof of the cab. My biggest problem was not being sure of the way back. I had no idea what part of the city we were being taken to; my cell phone in China only worked for texting, not data, and the only person I could text (Dave) was in the midst of running his company's annual conference; I did have a bilingual map with me, but spending the time to figure it out would sorely test Bowie's patience (he tolerates the stroller when it's moving; standing still is no good). Taking a taxi to get back would be my only reasonable option. I'd never stopped a cab in China before--getting one from the hotel was easy enough, but do cabs stop on the street? Would they stop for me and Bowie? Would I be able to find a proper taxi stand? What was Mandarin for "taxi"? I'd taken from the hotel a card with the hotel's name and address written down: Something to show the driver. Having this card in my pocket felt reassuring; I relaxed into the ride and distracted Bowie from reaching for the gear stick.

Entrance to the Temple of Earth park

The driver dropped us off in front of what soon turned out to be Temple of Earth (instead of Temple of Sun) park--inside, I found an English-language description. I wonder if the driver purposely decided to upgrade our experience. The doorman had been surprised at our desire to go to Temple of Sun park--it's just a neighborhood attraction, nothing to see there, he said--and, writing this up, I looked up Temple of Earth to find that it's the second largest temple park in Beijing, after the famed Temple of Heaven. This park was similar to Temple of Heaven (I remember it well from my first trip to Beijing) as a gathering place for the people. Bowie and I strolled by a group of retirees singing into a portable karaoke machine and dancing, people playing miniature golf, several booths displaying and selling products and foods from a particular town in Yunnan province (There were ample tasting opportunities. I tried rose-flavored cakes and sesame and peanut cookies and some kind of marinated mushroom and a chewy mint- and anise-flavored fruit. Bowie stuck to his teething biscuits).

To Bowie's delight, we promptly found a playground. Here were opportunities for play and exercise for all ages. Toddlers used the swings and climbing structures while moms, dads, and grandparents swung from monkey bars and used stationary bicycles. Bowie became fascinated by fallen leaves. In San Francisco, demarcation between seasons is mild--he's missing the experience not only of snow, but of rain, thunderstorms, changing leaves, mud. He wanted to clear all of the fallen leaves off the playground, and succeeded in tidying only a little corner before I got worried about all of the scattered cigarette butts and dragged him off. We spent about fifteen minutes waiting for a baby swing to open up (children were taking turns), when to my surprise, the guardians of the last child took the swing off with the baby--apparently, the swing was not a part of the playground set up, but had been supplied by the family and strapped on to the exercise rods. Ingenious. Bowie didn't mind. Another friendly child shared her balloon with him, and so he proceeded to bang it against the ground and tried jumping on top of it. Luckily, the balloon escaped unscathed.

A little guy riding his private swing

Contemplating foliage

Park for all ages

The return trip turned out easier than I feared. After we exited the park, we walked around the residential neighborhood for a bit, giving me time to observe the traffic and taxi patterns--and get an ice cream. Taxis did drive in the quieter outer lanes of the busy avenues. Just as Bowie started to fuss, I was able to flag one down. The driver helped me with the stroller; we were on our way to the hotel.

No car seat!

And, yes, I do feel uneasy about riding with Bowie unstrapped in the back seat of the car. Accidents will happen. I keep thinking about that man we saw lying on the street, waiting for the ambulance. We have one more full day in Beijing left. Shall I take Bowie to what I heard is an awesome dinosaur museum or stay close to the hotel? Bowie has developed rug burn on his knees from crawling around the hotel's hallways. He found and nearly ate shattered pieces of floor tile in an indoor playground at the nearby mall. The risk and reward calculation is far from obvious. I'm making plans one day at a time. Since there's weather here, let the weather decide.

Bonding on vacation

Writers don't take vacations. Neither do mothers. And yet, Bowie and I are undoubtedly on vacation, as opposed to Dave, who's working every day, including weekends, on this part of the trip. Vacation, for us, has meant not something we go away from, but the sense of departure itself, the journey, the change of pace. We feel strongly the absence of nanny Marina, Bowie's tireless guide in his exploration of the world, and whose companionship and love, experience, and steady character we've all come to depend on in the last few months. I admit to weighing Bowie a couple of times on the hotel bathroom scale, wishing to have some tangible report of progress to send Marina. His weight gain has definitely slowed in the last couple of months, which wouldn't be a cause for a second thought if he hadn't been a baby champion in his early months. No dice; the scale's barely holding steady. What's growing is his second set of canines--the bulges are about to pop through--to the total of sixteen teeth; so, there.

In Marina's absence and Dave's occasional presence, Bowie and I have been bonding. Each morning, we accompany Dave down to breakfast, where we share a table with a rotating crew of his co-workers. They are on various deadlines; we're on a mission of discovery, and watch them come and go as we stay for a two hour long ritual of taking up foods, throwing some on the ground, placing others into mommy's mouth, taking out the remains, placing into own mouth, chewing--taking a break to flirt with the neighboring tables--occasionally swallowing, usually spitting out. Baby's favorite food this week? Bacon. Unlikely second winner? Papadum, Indian crisp bread--thank you, pan-Asian buffet. I keep expecting Bowie to develop a sudden interest in congee and fruit (aren't babies supposed to like mushes and sweet things?), and so I keep piling those on our plate, too. So far, he prefers things crispy and crunchy, something to sink his teeth into, with the occasional exception for yogurt (in China, we've tried several varieties; even the "plain" ones seem sweetened). In the time it takes baby to chew a single piece of bacon, mommy ends up having three breakfasts. Hey, it's all my favorite foods.

After breakfast, Bowie exhibits signs of extreme tiredness. There's the eye rubbing, the tugging on mommy's shirt, the jumpiness when somebody makes a loud noise. We return to the room for a nap; nurse; the baby's wide awake. He rolls off the boob, begs to be lowered down to the floor, crawl-runs for the nearest electric plug or a shoe, tugs, chews, gracefully allows to distract himself with a book or a ball. Preparing for the trip in San Francisco, nanny Marina has helped us pack a few of Bowie's favorite toys and books. This kit is a huge success. To it, we add magazines from the hotel room, bottles of water, pieces of food squirreled away from breakfast, and, argh, as of yesterday, TV remote control. Dave and I don't really watch TV at home or on the road, but guess what? The remote control comes with the big red button that tells a baby, able to comprehend cause and effect toys, "press here." It's all trial and error. Nobody showed him how to use the remote. He pushes the button, and occasionally it works. He pushes some more. Next thing I know, he's switching the channels. Quite purposefully.

The amazed mommy, simultaneously thrilled at the baby genius and eager to get baby unhooked from the shiny picture, picks up the balls from the toy kit. Up goes a ball in the air. The baby half turns, curious to see what's happening, then returns full attention to the screen. Up goes the second ball. Now I've got the baby's attention. Eeee, he says, which I figure to mean, do it again. So I do. Again. And Again. Faster. With clapping. With funny sounds when I lose both balls and requests to Bowie: Will you get me that ball? And that other one? Bowie does. This baby, who merely a few weeks ago barely reacted when you said his name, can now follow through a command; tries to repeat the word for ball--мячик, I say, ма-ма-ма, says Bowie. Ma-ma-ma, which could mean mommy or ball, and probably still means neither, but there it comes, the next step is clear. Мячик, I'll say, мя-мя-мя, will repeat Bowie, going for the ball and tossing it back to me (or hiding it from me, as his sense of humor develops). But we're not there yet. We're on the rug and mommy's learning to juggle.

When this juggling routine gets old, we take more laps in the hallway, then return to the room. Blinds closed, lights off, we try to summon sleep once more, and with some luck, and punching, and kicking, sleep sets in. Bowie goes into his crib, mommy makes coffee.

Berry compote in the making

Living it up in Beijing

My friends Anna and Eric recently journeyed by train from San Francisco to Portland and back. Their friend, a frequent train traveler, had amassed enough points on Amtrak to be able to treat them to bunks in a private cabin. On their return to San Francisco, Anna wrote an essay that she shared at the San Francisco Writers Workshop about a man they met at dinner on the train, who was curiously well-informed about all the rail, air, and highway networks in the country. Anna, who is completing an international spy thriller, suspected the man of being associated with the firm. She and Eric clearly felt like spies themselves, infiltrating the world of the eccentric first class train travelers and observing not only the landscape in the window of their cabin and the constellations in the nighttime sky but also their fellow humans and themselves in an unfamiliar setting.

Travel, by way it pegs us to assigned seats, highlights the disparities of wealth and privilege. It also allows us the occasional opportunity to cross over, to intrude and take note of the lives of others. I remember talking to an American woman once who'd been dreaming of making a pilgrimage to Israel, to walk the way of Christ. She could picture the route exactly and had her entire itinerary planned out, down to the places to stop for lunch. The thing that was holding her up? If she were to take a cross-Atlantic flight, she wanted to be comfortable, she said. She wanted to do it in style. She was saving up for a first class ticket.

Here in Beijing, Bowie and I are trespassing as business travelers. We're sharing Dave's room in a comfortable--very comfortable--business class hotel. Clean filtered air, a crib for Bowie, mini fridge, a coffee maker and an electric tea kettle, TVs in the room and in the bathroom over the tub (TV is supposed to be relaxing?), a desk with lots of electric plugs, accommodating various standards, for all of our computers and phones. There's a leg massage machine. The room is on the 23rd floor and when we open the automated blinds, we're entertained by the view of the endless stream of traffic down below and new construction projects.

Beijing construction in the smog

In the forty-eight hours since our arrival, we've had little opportunity and need to leave the hotel. Bowie's got a case of jet lag, which means short drowsy days and then complete alertness at two am. At that hour, we've been picnicking in the bathroom and taking long crawls down the hallways. Then, back to bed until breakfast. The breakfast buffet, a smorgasbord of Asian, American, and European dishes (think: kimchi and baked beans) is just the thing for a little man who's experimenting with solids. There's cucumber and bacon and noodles and buns and watermelon to munch on, or, well, to throw around, yogurt to dip your fists into.

Picnic at 2 am

Sometime after breakfast and before dinner, we did make it to an indoor playground at a shopping center across the street from the hotel. The playground is perfect for crawlers and beginning walkers: a large enclosed padded space with miniature houses and slides and little rocking dragons (why rock on a horse if you could rock on a dragon?). Bowie took to this playground right away--and instantly became the center of attention. The half-dozed moms, nannies, and grandmas (and one grandpa) instantly wanted their babies to say hi to the foreigner. They did, and Bowie did; hands met hands and faces and noses and mouths; there was a little laughter and a little crying and a little hair pulling. Then followed the photo shoot, where we all had to document this cultural exchange. Bowie climbed the slide, rocked on a dragon, hid behind a miniature house, and then, as soon as seemed appropriate without causing an international scandal, we said пока-пока, bye-bye to our new friends and took off. I have to admit to being more scared of friendly babies than of airports and airplanes and cold and traffic jams and bad air. Their mutual curiosity and inability to cover their faces when they cough makes them perfect conduits for germs. In his eleven months, Bowie's had what feels like more than his fair share of colds, and though the docs keep telling me I won't be able to protect him from having another, I do wish I could. I trample on his social life; we return to the hotel.

Friends forever

Taking Bowie on the Road

Between professional travelers and the people who prefer to stay close to home, Dave and I, passionate as we are about experiencing new places and cultures, have not built our work life to accommodate more than a couple of trips a year, and so each departure feels fresh, an adventure, some of them more scary and daring than others.

Baby traveler

Once, on a Greek island of Naxos, we met a French couple with a three-week old baby. The two of them worked for Doctors Without Borders, and never got a chance to spend enough time together. After their baby was born, instead of staying in their hometown, surrounded by well-meaning family and friends, they decided to take the baby to a quiet relaxing place where the three of them would have a chance to bond. These professional travelers thought nothing, nay, found it relaxing, to take their newborn to a small island, accessible by ferry only in calm seas (the ferry we arrived on was able to dock at the port on the third attempt, just barely) and by a small aircraft, equally dependent on weather. At that time, Dave and I were only thinking about thinking about having a baby, and we put this story away as something both thrilling and worth aspiring to.

Sleeping like a rock star

I'm writing this from Beijing, where the nearly eleven-month Bowie and I landed yesterday, to rejoin Dave. Dave's been traveling to China for work; this time, he's helping to organize the company's annual conference happening next week. He's been here for a few days already to see things through (here are his photos from the past week). Bowie and I couldn't miss this chance to watch him do his job magic and to assist by breaking his sleep into bite-size chunks (tastier this way?). We also have our sights set on the following week, when Dave will take a vacation and we head to Tokyo.

So far, we've done little more than arrive, take a brief survey of the hotel and the nearby malls, fall asleep at dinner (Bowie), take a two o'clock in the morning snack of the dinner leftovers (Bowie), have breakfast and take a midday nap (Bowie). I'm hanging out now waiting for an appropriate time to wake Bowie from the nap (jet lag baby!) so that we could try out the perfect indoor playground area Dave had scouted out for us.

Here's the thing I love the most about traveling with Bowie so far: the baby knows how to make friends. In the airport and during the flight, he worked the system better than a priority status. We got seated early and, since the aircraft wasn't completely full, the flight attendants moved the man seated next to us, allowing Bowie extra room to crawl and play. A tireless neighbor behind us spent at least an hour playing peekaboo with Bowie; another neighbor used her fingers to teach him Chinese numbers. Bowie then counted individual grains of rice served to us for dinner--a few did end up in his mouth.

And hey, those baby changing stations on the Boeings? Quite functional with plenty of counter space with entertainment for the busy crawler. From the paper cups and paper towels to the faucet and the mirror, it's all a curiosity to him. Speaking of entertainment, while waiting on that clean diaper, peeing all over that changing station seems just the thing to do!

Overlooking Beijing traffic

Bowie

On November 24, Bowie happened.