Traveling

Let me put this as delicately as I can. Traveling with a bunch of females is an experience. The fact that two of the females are in their teens only serves to improve the level of drama.

I am (or at least I think I am) a pretty easy traveler with a couple of exceptions. I get very caught up in the logistics- getting to the airport, seats on the plane, getting to the hotel, being satisfied with the hotel (or apartment in this case)- that stuff, and can get irritable quickly if that doesn't go well. But once I arrive anywhere I'm happy happy happy. I can just walk around a new place aimlessly and endlessly and find something or nothing to do and look at and be completely entertained and content.

I'm sure there are women who are easy travelers, I think my mother was one, but the women in my life are not among them. And I'm not trying to pick on anyone. Women are more complicated creatures than men, and complicated doesn't do easy. Lots of things that don't matter at all to men matter a lot to women, and I'm not just talking about physical appearance. Everything from getting up in the morning to eating to a day's activities to going to bed is more complicated for women. One of the annoying/endearing qualities of traveling with teenage girls is that all of the internal turmoil that all women live with but adults generally keep to themselves is right there on the surface. I am now quite familiar with what a girl who's concerned about her weight goes through every time she sits down to eat, and though I don't enjoy living through it, it's enlightening.