photos!

Whoo Hoo - the photos are here. Click on this image (thank you Mini!) to view the photoset of Sophie's first holiday! Dusty roads, ancient archeological sites, gelatos tangy from the salty ocean spray... A Beautiful holiday for Sophie and me.

Of course after all that careful packing, they had to lose our luggage in Rome. A mixed blessing because then I realised how little we really needed (I just lived in my orange bikini!). Although it was still a relief when the luggage arrived.

Sophie is a natural born air traveller (she better be - with parents like hers). No difficulty with take offs and landings and airplanes in general. She just latches on to my boob like a pro, and sleeps through the flight. Even the flight attendants were impressed (and they see alot of babies everyday).

Travelling alone with an infant can be challenging at times. Most times, we were lucky, and good samaritains helped me when they saw me struggling with stroller, luggage and infant. If you ever see a lone traveller in such a situation - do not hesitate to help them out, they will be entirely grateful for it. I am so tired from all the transfers we made - was joking to Fabien that I need a holiday to recover from my holiday!

The good news is that we are going on a short break tommorrow - for 5 days in Grenoble, and then Fab has to spend a week in Prague for work (but I think we will not accompany him) and then we set off for 3 weeks in France. This European tradition of taking long summer holidays in August is a great idea. The work ethic here is just much more sensible than in frenetic Asia.

Anyway, the closing thoughts are these: Life is almost entirely what you make of it. You can choose to let your whole life change after having a baby, or you can try to hold on to your identity. This trip was at times tough, but the enjoyment and the renewed sense of self which I got from it, the deeper friendship with Chiara (who invited us to Sicily) was all entirely worth it.

Later after Grenoble!