Before I begin, some of you might recognise parts of this post from earlier last year. However, due to the time factor (it’s due today!) and the fact I’d be repeating myself anyway if I did a whole new family-holiday post, I’m slightly modifying and adding to this one. As you may be aware, I’ve been listed as one of Kidspot’s top 50 Aussie blogger (yay!) and as a member of that list, have the opportunity to win a family holiday to Dunk Island – partly by vote numbers (you can vote for me here) and partly by writing a post about family holidays. I’m sure there are some of you who haven’t read this one yet, and for those who have, there are a few more wacky holiday adventures I’ve included (and many, many more I havent!) from my childhood and teenage years. So far, the family holidays I’ve had with my own little family haven’t been too bad. But that’s likely because my kids are still small enough to not understand embarassment. And we’ve really only been a couple of days away in the same place every year. In fact, Steve and I are useless at organising holidays – we didn’t even go on a honeymoon! I think I need a holiday-planning lesson from my dad, minus the National Lampoon tendencies…
Imagine… you’re in your early teens. You’re going to Europe for a holiday. You’re picturing mopeds around Italy, trench coats in Paris and spunky ski instructors in Germany. Instead…
THIS is your mode of transport…
…THIS is your cold-weather outfit…
…and THIS is the result of NOT learning to ski with a spunky ski instructor. Or any ski instructor for that matter.
Welcome to my family holiday. Ok, technically, this was three different trips. But because stupid things seemed to happen to me on my childhood trips away, I’m combining them all. Now, don’t get me wrong, we had an absolute blast on all of our holidays. I’ve seen some incredible parts of the world and I’m so, so grateful for the experiences – I know not everyone is so lucky. But we do tend to remember the funny, annoying or head-scratcher bits, so in the interest of all who have children (and as a reminder to myself for when mine get bigger), here is what NOT to do on family holiday. Because if you do, they’ll not only not let you forget it, they’ll tell the online world about it too!
DON’T… leave your driving skills at home. So after a few European trips already in a range of hotels, villas and relatives’ places, this time it was as adventurous as you‘d care to get with three children in tow: a motor home trip across Western Europe. We all stare a little dubiously at the bus-sized home on wheels and get in, half excited; half terrified. As we drive down the driveway of the hire place, I ask dad “are you sure you can drive this?” Dad: “Pfft! Of course I – BANG – oh s#$@! Oops…” he says as he swipes the side mirror off on a parked vehicle metres from the hire place. Then there was the terrible height misjudgment of a boomgate which we got stuck under. And the hours we spent attempting to park the darn thing, giving up and just stopping it wherever there was a space big enough and returning to a parking ticket. We had quite the collection…
And a special three cheers to the genius who designed the seatbelts in the motor home. They were attached to the cushions of the seat. Which you took off each day to turn it into a bed. So whenever you turned a corner sharply, you – and the cushion – went sliding off onto the floor or into the kitchen cabinets. But you were wearing your seatbelt!
DON’T… make your family wear ridiculous, matching clothes Living in such a warm climate, we’re not really prepared clothes-wise for the cold European winter. Enter a new coat. Not a nice, normal coat. Not even a ski jacket. But a full-length Drizabone. A family of five Drizabone-wearing Australian dorks checking out the sites and doing everything in their power to look like tourists. But that wasn’t enough. Oh no. Once we were over there, our shoes didn’t work well with the snow, so we cold-footed it to the nearest shoe store closest to Neuschwanstein Castle to get some warmer shoes. Only, because it was nearing the end of the season, they’d pretty much sold out of everything but sandals and… Moon Boots. Typically, they had something normal and cool in Dad’s size and my sister Kristie managed to find something ok to fit her, but mum, Gretchen and I? We were left with Moon Boots, which I’ve since discovered is actually their name and even went through a popular stage when Paris Hilton wore them. But there was no Paris Hilton back then and most definitely no cool factor. And just in case they weren’t obviously bad enough, they were only available in fluro pink or fluro yellow. We looked HOT. It then of course started to rain, so just to top off our incredibly stylish outfits, we grabbed some clear plastic rain hats that tied up under your chin. I actually welcomed this hat – it meant I could obscure my embarrassed, red face – as well as clear plastic can. So there we were, walking around the Fairy Tale castle looking like something out of one – ie, unbelievable!
DON’T… mistake your family members as swimmers or cars – the only two things it would be appropriate to use a Chamois on Towels took up too much space in our bags, so this handtowel-sized, super-soft, luxe, warm piece of rubber (above) was what we used to dry our freezing selves with in camping-ground showers IN THE SNOW. I’d much rather have swapped my Drizabone for a towel. I’m still shivering…
DON’T… trust your daughter to follow your advice Because she’ll listen to her older, cooler cousin’s idea instead. When I was 15 I went to Austria for six weeks to stay with my cousin and help her with her English (I taught her all the swear words of course). Every New Year they‘d head to their holiday house in the Alps and go skiing with a bunch of her friends. I was so excited and was given money for a ski instructor. Of course Niki had a better idea: “how about my friends and I teach you and you can spend the money on something else. Like clothes!” And I did. Only when it came to learning to ski, I was whisked up about 5 different chairlifts onto Austria’s largest Alp (well, it felt like it) and pushed onto a T-bar – because I couldn’t even move in skis on the flat, so clearly I was ready to tackle a T-bar and ski down a mountain. On the way up, my cousin’s friend told me to just slide over the left, push the T-bar behind me to the right and all good. Only I COULDN’T MOVE in skis so I was standing still trying to move out of the way but the T-bar behind me slammed me in the face and knocked me out cold. I demanded a helicopter or snowmobile and stretcher to come get me and my swollen, bruised head. How else was I meant to get down this monster? Instead, I was given some chocolate and a very bad crash-course in skiing. And crash course it was. I crashed the entire way down multiple hills and mountains and possible cliffs. Tore a hole in my ski suit, saw the same four-year-old ski zoom pass me three times and couldn’t walk for days. Never. Attempting. Sking. Again.
Honourable family-holiday mentions…
+ I was attacked by a teeny tiny ancient little woman in Paris. For wearing a camera around my neck. The horror! She was screaming, hitting and kicking me and not quite sure what to do about this, I laughed (it was quite funny, but rather painful – she was tiny, but bloody strong!) which made her madder and she got really got stuck into me.
+ After mustering up the courage to swing off a rope on a huge tree high over a river in Cairns, I managed to land on an eel which got tangled up my legs. Horrifying.
+ A year or so later my sisters and I attempted to swim to other side of Lake Jindabyne (on a narrow section of the lake!). I was fine until I remembered my eel-tangled-in-legs experience and freaked out – halfway across. It was a loooong swim back.
+ Instead of schoolies after Year 12, my family decided to take us camping around Australia’s outback. In the height of summer. We left on Christmas Day and promptly broke down in Dubbo. Attempted a four-wheel-drive-only trek in a Ford Falcon sedan and had to evacuate the car when it started to slide sideways while driving THROUGH A CREEK. We walked across and Dad managed to keep the car afloat.
+ On said trip we showered with scorpians, swam with crocodiles and toileted with frogs – all unwillingly of course.
+ I was nearly decapitated in New Zealand. Riding a quad bike for the first time ever I managed to loose control, smash through a wooden fence and got tangled in the barbed-wire on top of it. Luckily, the handles of the quad bike took the brunt of the barbed-wire, but a couple centimetres higher and it would have been my neck.
+ On the same trip we nearly lost mum while white-water rafting. We all tipped out on the 1-metre “fall” (embarassed!), all stayed in on the 2-metre, and thought we all made it over the 10-metre drop, but while high-fiving our achievement, we noticed we were a (wo)man down. Freaking out, we looked around and noticed the people watching from the shoreline were pointing to a floating pink helmet miles away from our raft: Mum’s. We flew over there praying there was a live body attached to the helmet and saw mum’s insanely grinning face bobbing in the water. She didn’t realise she was out of the boat until she’d cleared the whole rough water patch!
+ On the same NZ trip, we hadn’t learnt from our European motorhome adventure and hired another one. At one of the caravan parks on New Year’s Eve we befriended other holidaying peers who informed us of the New Year’s fireworks at the lakefront. So my sisters and I went and had fun until our panicked parents came searching for us, frantically calling for us – torch in hand – because we were out so late with strangers. I was 18. It was 12.21am.
And there you have it! There were of course a million and one fun, brilliant non-embarassing moments which I will treasure forever. And I do hope and pray I’m able to provide my children with the same opportunities to see and enjoy the world as my parents did for us…
So, your turn: what’s your most memorable holiday moment – good or bad? x
