Our Kids’ First Memory
Our kids are still just 9, so it’s difficult to know for sure what their first memory is, but based on recall popularity, I’m going to assume it’s this story that I’m preparing to share with you now. Grab a drink, relax, and let me regale you with a travel story gone sideways.
PIcture it: August, 2018. We were preparing for a trip to Budapest and Vienna. We had done our research, and knew that our hotel was a manageable walk from a bus stop. There’s a bus that runs from the airport into the city center, and it makes 2 or 3 stops along the way. We knew our hotel was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. The boys were 3 at the time, so we had a backpack for everyone with clothes, plus diaper bag, a Tula (soft sided baby carrier), and a single umbrella stroller (rather than our usual double stroller). We were also arriving close to dinner time, which we knew about and planned for. We felt confident. Perhaps, in retrospect, our confidence was the problem.
We bought tickets, boarded the bus, found seats for our kids towards the back, and Hubs and I stood. We casually chatted to one another and our kids as the bus headed into town. As we’re driving into town, out the left side of the bus, I can see streaks of lightning in the sky. As a good Midwestern girl, I immediatley know that if we can already see lightning it is just a matter of time before the thunder and rain arrive. I knew we had about 15 minutes left on the bus, and the previously mentioned 10 minute walk. So at this point, I’m just thinking “please wait until we’re at our hotel. Please wait until we’re at our hotel.” We make the two previous stops, and as we arrive at the third stop, Hubs, who has also noticed the lightning asks what we should do. We arrived into a part of the center with no clear shelter, and it hadn’t yet started to rain yet, so I said let’s pop up the stroller, set a kid in the stroller, their bags under, diaper bag on a handle, one pushes the stroller, the other carriers the other kid, and we just haul ass as best we can. So we do. We get off the bus, and execute my plan.
Y’all. Hand to god, we did not make it to the end of the BLOCK before it started raining on us. But raining isn’t even accurate. It was a torrential downpour. Like someone was pouring buckets of water out of the sky. And we were 100% soaked before we could even dodge under an awning or bus shelter, so we figured we should just carry on to the hotel. Hubs and I are Midwestern, but our kids are not, so these sweet three year olds are low key worried about the thunder, and also soaked to their literal bones as we’re slow jogging//fast walking to the hotel. We open the door, and just immediately make puddles at the entrance to this nice hotel. IMMEDIATELY, the front desk asked our name and just gave us our room key and said to come down to check in once we were sorted out.
We had to go upstairs, and unpack EVERY SINGLE THING we had packed to let them dry out. Our whole room was covered in clothes, and we had our backpacks open and turned upside down to dry. Our kids were so wet we just tossed them in the shower while Hubs went to check us in, then we put their pajamas on, and we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant (a major treat for our kids). They thought it was hilarious to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant in their pajamas.
The storm luckily blew through our first night, and while it was cloudy the second day it wasn’t stormy or rainy. For months and years afterwards, our kids would routinely, unprompted and out of nowhere, say “Rember when we got all the way wet on our way to the hotel? In Budapest?”