Making Decisions

One thing that is really different about our lives this year compared with our normal lives back home is the number of decisions we are constantly making. Every day has many, many possibilities, which sounds good on paper, but can be difficult to navigate, especially with four strong-willed people trying to make decisions together. Back  home, there are plenty of decisions to make, but they are usually A/B decisions, or at least the possibilities are limited in some way. And the decisions rarely involve or affect every member of the family. So while I often feel like I have decision fatigue at the end of a day, at least the decisions have some structure to them. 

One big decision we had to make recently was where to go for Christmas. We have to vacate our İzmir apartment on the 22^nd of December, so staying put is not an option. Likewise, moving to Seville (our home for the winter) is not possible at that time because we cannot re-enter the Schengen area until 90 days have elapsed since we left Amsterdam on September 29^th.

The possibilities for where to go were limited by our budget (though we don’t really have one, so perhaps I should say our own reluctance to spend a lot of money) and visa restrictions. Other than that, we could do pretty much anything. So how do you make a decision like that? 

Well, I knew that the kids did not want to go somewhere warm. They are sad to be away from Victoria for Christmas and the last thing they want is to be somewhere that feels nothing like home. So many of the places that other people would consider as a winter vacation (and Tobias’ dream of going to North Cyprus) were out.

The kids wanted to go somewhere with a Christmassy feeling. This means a place where there are a lot of Christians and/or Westerners. So this meant that places like Delhi and Tehran were out.

Because of our Schengen restriction, most of the EU was out.

Tobias was not willing to pay for big-ticket flights. So Canada (the obvious choice) and Japan (a favourite of Sophia’s) were out. 

In the end it came down to İstanbul, St. Petersburg or London for Christmas. (Please note that while Istanbul is located in a Muslim country, our research leads us to believe that it does get a Christmassy feeling, thanks to snow, lots of Christmas trees, lots of Western expats, and lots of Christmas Eve candlelight carol services to choose from.) 

London was in first place. The flights were cheap and Tobias and Sophia were very keen on what they called the “Dickensian aspect”. But once we discovered that the cost of accommodation was approximately one limb per person per night, and that we each only had four limbs, London was struck from the list.

St. Petersburg looked promising. We could have turkey dinner in a hotel on December 25th and go to the ballet performance of The Nutcracker right after. In RUSSIA. Plus, Christmas market and troika rides. True, the Russians don’t celebrate Christmas on December 25th, due to their use of the Julian, not Gregorian calendar, but nevermind, we could definitely make St. Petersburg work. Flights were reasonable, accommodation also. 

Then we found out that the sun rises at 11am in December in Russia. Ixnay St. Petersburg.

So İstanbul it is. I was pretty delighted about this, I don’t mind telling you. I left my heart in İstanbul when we visited last month and I so long to spend more time there. Not seeing sights this time, but staying in a regular neighbourhood and getting a more local perspective on life there.  I still don’t regret that we didn’t decide to live there, but I do want to visit there again.

When we finally nailed down that decision I was pretty chuffed with our four-person decision-making unit. We did it! We took kinda sorta limitless possibilities and we narrowed them down to the best option! We didn’t kill each other in the process, but we did kill a few trees making pros and cons lists. 

This was before I knew that our apartment in Seville would not be available until January 4th. I thought we would fly to Seville on December 28th and then we would settle into the third of our four homes this year. But then we learned that the apartment wasn’t available right away and this threw a wrench. 

Other wrenches came winging our way: we realized we would be in violation of our Turkish visas if we left on the 28th. I did not want to travel on the 27th but Tobias convinced me, using the technology of a calendar, the set of integers, and his pointer finger, that we had to. I don’t like travelling on December 27th because that is Sebastian’s birthday. And Sebastian doesn’t like flying. He’s not afraid of it, he just hates it. Well, who doesn’t?

The last wrench was that the costs of flights from İstanbul to Seville anywhere around those dates were high.  Comparatively, they were really high.
So high that Tobias spent a long time trying to convince me that we should fly instead to Sofia, Bulgaria, then wait two days, then fly to Madrid, then train to Seville. With all of our luggage. With Tobias’ guitar, Sebastian’s LEGO collection, Sophia’s books, Sophia’s art supplies, my books, all of our clothes (for every season), the children’s school notebooks and textbooks, the computers, the iPads, all the cameras, the chargers, the power cards, the external hard drive, the external keyboards, the external mouse, the stuffed animals, my binoculars and not to mention any new Christmas presents we may have picked up along the way. I was very reluctant to travel in that way with all of this stuff.

That’s when things started to get a little heated about this decision.

It is not good that this sort of thing should derail us. It is not good that we should take a situation that would be an incredible dream and opportunity for most people (and indeed, is a great privilege for us) and turn it into an argument. But what can I say? Decisions are hard, especially when you have two Year of the Dragon, first-born types with completely different perspectives on nearly every situation trying to compromise between them.

Anyway I was frustrated and I flounced off, saying, somewhat sarcastically, “Whatever! Let’s just go to Rome for a week. Maybe that will save us money.”

And then as soon as I said that I thought “Huh, maybe it actually will.” And I looked at Tobias and I could see that he was taking the suggestion seriously and looking up flights.

“Or Paris?” he said.

“Suuuuuure,” I said, wondering if it was possible that this weird, out-of-the-blue, tossed off suggestion made in frustration would actually be the best compromise between what he wanted (to save money and see new places) and what I wanted (to lower travel and change-associated stress).

Apparently my subconscious mind was really helping us out that day. Could it be possible that a good way to save money when you have to get a family of four out of Istanbul (and Turkey) on the 27^th of December and into Seville on the 4^th of January is to do an 8-night stopover in the city of light over New Year’s Eve? It could.

The flights worked well. The accommodation (AirBnB) was reasonable. And instead of telling Sebastian we were going to spend his entire birthday flying and transferring and flying some more, I could say “We’re going to Paris for your birthday!”

Sophia got to go to Paris with Tobias for her tenth birthday. (Well, actually, he was in Europe for business, there was a reasonable price for a ticket for her to go meet him there, and it all happened in the same month as her tenth birthday, but the story is “Sophia got Paris for her tenth birthday”).

Now, due to another weird set of circumstances, Sebastian will get to go to Paris with all of us for his eighth.

Maşallah.