PenPenWrites

My granddaughter and I  are back from our 8-day trip to Oslo and Reykjvik and the delightfully cool temperatures of Northern Europe.  Each of us came home in one piece, but we did not reach the U.S. on the same day as planned. Our trip, which was otherwise marked by few glitches and an easiness with each other, ended on the very traumatizing note of a canceled flight (hers). I abandoned her at the Reykjvik airport at 7:00 a night with nothing but Icelandic Airlines to take care of finding her a hotel room and rebooking a flight (for her and some 200 other passengers) for the next day. The anxiety is terrible when you run off to make your flight home, the airport is about to shut down for the night, and your 20-something grandchild is alone with other stranded passengers. I reminded myself: She's an adult; she'll manage. She did. But I didn't calm down til my phone pinged with a text from her that she was in a hotel and her mom had booked her an early morning flight home.

The good news is: We're both back in our respective homes in our respective cities–me on time; she, a day late. But she made it through the ordeal of the delay and even thrived. 

How to sum up our trip together, one in which I made all the airplane and hotel reservations and she figured out how to see and do whatever it was we wanted to see and do in each city. 

A compensatory division of labor kept everything on an even keel.  I, who in theory was there to take care of my grandchild, arrived in Amsterdam (our meeting spot; she had just finished a two-week course at the University of Amsterdam) with a GI episode already underway. By the time we landed in Oslo two days later, I had come down with a nasty head cold. She didn't exactly have to take care of me but she was very accommodating and uncomplaining about the limits my not feeling well put on us.

We both like traipsing around cities and our 5-day stay in Oslo was perfect for that. She knew what she wanted to do (visit bookstores, go shopping; she found plenty of both) and helped me find the sites I was interested in–Henrik Ibsen's home, the new opera house and the old church.

Our hotel was in the theater district which was also the heart of Oslo's sites, shopping and its sprawling parks, green spaces and forested trails. I would make reservations for, say, a two-hour cruise to see the fjords, and she would figure out where the pier was and how to walk there. Oslo felt very safe, which meant that she could take long walks on her own in the evening, and so could I. We could also take our books, sit in a park and read by daylight that lasted until 11:00 at night. Those were ways we were able to give each other privacy and space. And that was all we needed to get along–besides her ability to download boarding passes quickly and put mine in my Apple wallet without rolling her eyes.

We had a special moment at the Domkirke (the old church), one that for me marked the deep joy and wonder of traveling with this granddaughter. The church, like so many major buildings in Oslo, was understated–no gilt-laden religious statutes or lavish stained glass windows. Instead, it exuded a simple warmth and comfort. Neither she nor I are religious but we found peace sitting in the silent church, lighting a candle for Mike (her grandfather and my husband, who died last year) and being there in the quiet of the moment, holding hands.  Who better to be with for that than her?
I've been home for a week and I still miss her companionship. She says she's already picking out where we should travel next summer. 

painting: Travel Jetty by Eugene Boudin

photo: Ivy Coleman