Sarah Wong
Aug 22, 2017 · 4 min read
Venice, Italy

Strangers While Travelling

My name is Sarah.

And today I was so close to elbow checking a complete stranger in the face I envisioned it simply to get the self satisfaction. Haha. Seriously though.

My husband and our 5 month old daughter have been in Europe for the last 2 and a half weeks. We are here for a total of 3 including travel time. It’s been wonderful as a family together, and to say I’m proud of our daughter is an understatement. She is amazing.

We waited a while for our incredible daughter to make her appearance. Pregnancy was okay, giving birth sucked. And the first couple of months were so much more difficult than I’d ever imagined. You hear it all the time, but my daughter has been worth every pain, every minute waited, and every meltdown she has had and will have.

I’m a little over-protective… My husband would probably say anxiety riddled. Heck, I say that about myself. I stressed for weeks before our trip to guarantee her safety in every aspect or circumstance possible. I read blogs, I asked family and friends, our doctor and so on.

I wasn’t sure how strangers would respond to us and our young baby. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised and thankful. Flight attendants and passengers have been gracious and kind on flights. In Italy grandmothers have shouted “Bella! Picolina!” and rushed to touch her little feet. In Germany we had a man on the underground train help us up a flight of stairs whilst drinking a beer.

Never mind our daughter is freakin adorable (I’m biased I know), and that it takes very little prompting to get a smile out of her.

However, we have also encountered other ______ people. Please insert any creative word you’d like before “people”. Any bad word you’re thinking, I can assure you I’ve thought it while travelling. We’ve had people barge in front of us, block us off, or ignore us completely when we should have the right of way or a place to sit. We’ve seen perfectly healthy adults crowd elevators while we waited with our stroller, carrier, and all our luggage. Today while 3 families with strollers and someone in a wheel chair waited for an elevator a woman rolled her eyes and audibly grumbled at us in distaste and walked away in a huff because she couldn’t use the elevator quickly enough. In Austria, there was a man who kicked her stroller while trying to get in front of us and didn’t say a word. Every time we’ve grit our teeth and grumbled behind peoples’ backs. It’s been an enlightening experience, and has caused me to be more aware of my surroundings and who is in need. Even back home in Vancouver, I have been shocked as young childless women have come into nursing rooms at shopping centres just to sit down or use their cell phones and taken seats that could have been used by others, or interrupted the privacy of a mother nursing her baby.

Let me be clear, this is not okay. I can’t describe how thankful I have been when I’ve been alone with my daughter and someone is kind and conscious enough to open a door for us. The simplest gestures make such a huge difference. Of course I can survive opening a door on my own, but it’s nice when it takes only a couple of seconds versus an awkward 30.

So today, as we walked the East Side Gallery in Berlin through an already crowded street and a man continuously jumped in front of our stroller and stopped to take pictures I was ready to take to action. The third time it happened, I turned to my husband and announced I was ready to elbow check the stranger. He promptly agreed he was having the same line of thought.

Thankfully, no one needed to resort to violence. And honestly, as angry as I was and could have gotten the chances of me having a physical rebuttal is so low it’s probably off the charts. But I sure as heck gave the back of his head a hearty death glare. And I envisioned that elbow action.

I’ve been wanting to blog for a while, and it’s also something I’ve avoided for a long time because it scares me to share publicly about my life. Even superficial things have been difficult for me to share. But I recognize I have a lot of good things to talk about, and quite frankly I think I’m funny and should share that joy with the world. More than anything, I hope blogging will become an outlet where I can voice my thoughts, practice writing, and provide insight into various circumstances or situations in life. I plan on sharing and talking about whatever comes to mind. Today, it was the man I wanted to elbow check. Most posts will likely be about parenthood or what works for my family and my daughter. I will be sharing about our travels, what we packed, what worked and what didn’t, and so on.

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