I grew up in London and each year around March I start yearning for my adopted home. Back in England, March is when the daffodils come out in a riot of bright yellow all over Hyde Park, the heavy veil of winter nights lifts, and it stops raining 23 hours a day. Spring is fantastic there.

So each year I try to arrange a trip to London with the kids to visit my parents and all my old friends. That way, when March rolls around and I am about to slit my wrists with the misery that = Spring here, I can look forward to getting away and taking a trip down memory lane.

Everyone’s money situation is different, and for some, a trip to Europe for the family is a once-in-a lifetime treat. For me it’ a part of my modus operandi; travel is what I live for. I work so I can travel. I save so WE can travel as a family. The main reason we moved from our beloved California–where I would happily be crocheting a muumuu while sitting in a eucalyptus tree if I could–to the East Coast is so that we could be closer to Europe.

Whoa, hold on to your panties. We better catch up to reality here! Those flights to London used to cost around $300 - $400, and I often had a child on my lap. It was expensive, but worth it. Flights to London now cost $1,300 each, even on the cheap travel websites. OK, we have a free place to stay, but I don’t think United will allow me to take a 6 foot 1 inch-tall 15-year-old as a lap child. Damn.

So I sat on the phone with India for over 60 minutes, twice, and managed to find five tickets on various flights using our mileage. Since the world is coming to an end soon (ha, ha), I figured I better use up every single mile we have before they confiscate them so they can send poor old McCain on a much-deserved vacation to Acapulco.

Then it took me another 43 minutes on the phone, picking at my nails and trying not to freak out, to sort out the wrong tickets they issued me.I don’t mean to sound racist but agent #1 was Indian and very nice, but had a lot of trouble understanding my humor. After five minutes I cut the humor out and started talking as though I was speaking to a dense five-year-old, finishing every sentence with “Is that correct?“Agent #2 was American, and understood everything I said. She found me tickets that didn’t include a ten hour layover in Toronto.

Long story short: When you really, really, really want a time out that seems totally prohibitive and crazy, sometimes you have to be very creative, and PATIENT to make it become a reality. But it’s worth it in the end.

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