After seeing how well Kaia did on her flight to and from San Francisco, Chris got excited and started looking into flights to go to Europe for Thanksgiving. We haven’t been to Europe or anywhere for Thanksgiving since 2019. 2020 was obviously a lost year given COVID, and in 2021, I was just weeks away from my due date. He booked a trip for us to spend Thanksgiving week in Munich, so we’d be able to experience the famous German Christmas markets again, but in different cities. In 2013 when we went, we experienced the Christmas markets in Berlin and Hamburg, which were incredible, but Munich is supposed to have even more lavish ones if I can even imagine it. And this time, Kaia will be with us. Even before she was born, Chris kept talking about how much he wanted her first Thanksgiving to be in Germany to experience the Christmas markets there. He wanted us to start traveling again and get used to being out and about with her, and he thought it would be a fun memory to share with her when she got older. Plus, she’d be able to see endless photos of herself in Germany for her first Thanksgiving. It would be very un-American, but why not? It will be her first time out of the country and using her passport.

I thought about this while we were sitting at a bar eating tapas and having drinks with Kaia today at Little Spain near Hudson Yards. We really haven’t been able to travel much between COVID, then being pregnant, and getting through the first year of Kaia’s life, and though it will certainly be a challenge, it will be one we will have to face if we want to continue traveling and living the life we want. I hope our baby will continue to both be a good little eater and little traveler. She already has done so well, and it’s been amazing to watch her grow and evolve. It’s hard to believe her one-year birthday is just around the corner, and by that time, she’ll already have been to more places in New York than most adults; to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California; to Germany, and finally at the end of the year, to Australia.