Kids Abroad! : Taking Your Children to Europe Doesn’t Have to Be the ‘Trip From Hell’ : Home Away From Home in England

Up, up to the top of the medieval castle’s tower we forged, my husband and I and our four children, as our eldest son, David, counted the steps . . . “217, 218, 219 . . .” This must be the ultimate Stair-Master, I thought. But once we got to the top, we all agreed the breathtaking view of the countryside surrounding Warwick Castle was worth the climb.

Back on ground level, we returned to our vacation home, a charming stone house just minutes away in a small hamlet in the heart of England. The children bounded out of the Renault Espace van and onto the huge lush lawn as my husband and I went inside to start dinner.

Meanwhile, back in Southern California, another family of six, Nigel and Cathy Shortt and their four children, were waking up in our house to begin a day of sun, swimming and sightseeing in our Chevy Suburban.

Last August, with no money changing hands, the Tkaches of San Diego and the Shortts of Stratford-on-Avon traded houses for two weeks. We also swapped a considerable amount of trust. How and why did we come to lend our cherished home, car and belongings to total strangers? And why would they do the same?

First, the cost. Beyond $60 for a catalogue listing properties abroad available for vacation exchanges, our only extra expenses were air fare, some overseas phone calls, passports and a few souvenirs (food and gas were everyday expenses at home anyway, we figured).

Second, convenience. A home base meant we wouldn’t have to constantly pack and unpack. We would have a washer and dryer (an absolute necessity with a 1-year-old), a kitchen to prepare meals, lots of space, a yard, even toys.

Third, a home swap meant the opportunity for a rich cultural exchange and exposure to life abroad as the locals--not tourists--lived it. This was something we wanted for ourselves and our children.

But there were also potential disadvantages: the risk of the unknown, of letting people we knew nothing about take over our home, of being stuck in a locale we discover we don’t like.

The family with whom we swapped homes, of course, would face the same fears. As it turned out, it was one of the most enjoyable vacations imaginable.

Exchanging homes with foreign families takes homework and perseverance. First we collected names of several home exchange agencies, which are essentially publishing companies: They send out application forms for individuals, couples or families to fill out and return with a small fee--in our case $60--and a photo of their home.

The agency publishes the submissions in a catalogue. Typically, the catalogues appear in February, April and June, while sign-ups are usually in the fall and winter. The agency neither makes nor guarantees matches; that’s up to the registrants.

The application forms are cleverly designed. Directions are translated into several languages, but a universal letter code is used to describe each house’s features, location and nearby recreational opportunities. Some are quite detailed, asking for the number and ages of children; whether the property is smoking or nonsmoking; if pets are allowed; what home appliances are available; whether there is beach access.

In December of 1990, we filled out applications for two agencies detailing the features of our four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in a suburb of San Diego, and noted that we preferred to travel in July or August and wanted a house in Great Britain or France.

After the first catalogue came out in February of last year, we received numerous inquiries from Great Britain and France. But we had narrowed our location choice to England, reasoning that our first family venture abroad would be easier in an English-speaking country. We wanted a rural area, but not too isolated, with major tourist sites within a short driving distance. A pleasant hobby became scouring the library and bookstores for information about Great Britain. The area surrounding Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare and one of the prettiest parts of the country, sounded perfect.

We threw ourselves into a catalogue published by a Northern California company called Intervac because it seemed well organized and easy to digest. We were looking for houses big enough to accommodate us, and owned by families who listed USA as their vacation choice. We quickly learned how to decipher the strange British postal codes to determine locations--and whether the catalogue entry was misleading. If a property was described as being near the quaint tourist area surrounding Stratford-on-Avon, but the postal code revealed the house was actually two counties away, we crossed it off our list. For an arrangement that was to be based on mutual trust, any early misrepresentations seemed foreboding.

Finally, we began telephoning. By now it was late April, and we decided letters would be too slow. It was fun getting acquainted with international dialing, time differences and accents. The calls produced only three match possibilities since many families had already arranged exchanges by the end of April. Within a week, the three options narrowed to one.

The house owned by the Shortt family sounded ideal. They also happened to have four children the exact ages as ours: 1, 3, 5 and 7. Nigel Shortt listed his occupation as “food broker,” and we later learned he helped run the family business, Shakespeare Products, established in 1975 to distribute tea and coffee.

After exchanging detailed letters with lots of photos, we began a series of frequent phone calls, talking about our houses, our neighborhoods, our cars and activities for children. We sensed a thoroughness to the Shortt’s questions, and thoughtful responses to ours; they clearly didn’t have a cavalier attitude about this undertaking. The cost of the calls was negligible considering we were cultivating security.

In fact, Nigel purchased advance theater and bus tickets for us in England, trusting us to leave money at our house to compensate him for these. We also arranged for our own baby-sitters to come in for two evenings during our two-week exchange, to give each couple some nights out, with the baby-sitters’ fees being paid by the hosting family.

From the moment we landed to the time we left England, we appreciated the advantages of our house exchange.

From Nigel’s instructions, we knew to catch the Flight Link bus from London’s Heathrow Airport for the two-hour ride to the Stratford area. From here, Nigel’s sister-in-law picked us up to take us to our home away from home. It was one of about 15 houses, all with descriptive names instead of street addresses--Green Shutters, The Laurels, Hillview--in a hamlet about 10 miles outside town. The Shortts’ was called Jobs Close.

We had seen pictures of the two-story stone house with its thick walls, but we never expected such a huge yard, complete with playhouse, slide and sandbox. Set on about three acres at the end of a narrow country lane, it was surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with sheep, hedgerows and stone fences.

As we stepped across the threshold, the house at first felt small. We weren’t used to European floor plans. Unlike contemporary Southern California homes, with their vaulted ceilings, open rooms and pastel colors, the front door of Jobs Close opened to a small vestibule with a tight, twisting staircase leading upstairs. Before us were a series of doors to separate rooms. All told, the house had a living room, dining room, modern kitchen, playroom, five bedrooms and four bathrooms. (Our San Diego house had about the same number of rooms.)

My husband, Larry, and I came to relish the feeling of discreet, private rooms. Every evening after dinner we would retire to the spacious living room, decorated with chintz furniture, family photos and mementos, and a large bay window, to plan the next day’s activities. The decor said “adults only,” and I envied the Shortts’ ability to seal off one room this way. All the rooms were brightly papered--no paint and no neutral tones--and on a cool, cloudy day, the house felt warm and snug.

What also felt snug were the bathrooms. The tight fit of toilet, basin and tub in each bath--and the low water pressure in the shower--discouraged lingering in the “loo.” On the other hand, we loved the towel warmers, large shiny heating coils perfect for preventing mildew in a continually moist climate. Daniel, our 5-year-old, found another advantage: they warmed his “blankie.”

(“Magnificent,” Nigel Shortt later pronounced our much larger bathrooms in San Diego. “I am determined,” he declared in a phone call, “to see if we can do the same one day, even if we all end up in one bedroom!”)

The house was secluded--it was a good 200 yards to the next house through a small thicket of trees--but felt safe. David, 7, did not feel safe, however, when during our first night he woke up screaming: “There’s a grasshopper in my bed!” We rushed in to find a moth flitting about the night light, and suddenly realized that our windows had no screens. In fact, we never saw screens on any buildings.

A few nights later, the baby woke up screaming, and we realized we had a bigger problem. Early the next morning, we phoned the Shortts local dispensary and took Andrew over to a building that looked like a ranch-style home with exam rooms and a pharmacy. The doctor diagnosed an earache and handed us a banana-flavored antibiotic. The visit was free.

After that we slept well. Our 3-year-old, Sarah, was so comfortable, in fact, that she thought we had moved, referring to this as our “new house.”

One day, Nigel’s three brothers and sister paid us a visit, proudly pointing out how modern, by European standards, the kitchen was. The room had a stainless-steel sink and drain board, microwave, dishwasher and separate refrigerator and freezer. In a nice English touch, one shelf held three little helmets lined up in a row and, below, three pairs of riding boots used for the children’s English riding lessons.

Compared to American appliances, however, both the refrigerator and freezer were small; there was a limit to how much meat and fresh produce we could store. But we didn’t need much room for milk, which was delivered fresh every morning in glass bottles.

As befits the parents of small children, we did a lot of clothes washing, but no more than we would have done back in San Diego. Helpfully, Cathy and Nigel had demonstrated how the appliances worked in a videotape they made for us. We enjoyed seeing them on tape, thinking this would be the closest we’d ever get to meeting them.

But we never quite seemed to master the washer. Frequently, buckets of water would spill out onto the floor as we absentmindedly opened the silent machine, thinking the load was done. Metric measuring cups also confused us, and the centigrade-temperature oven made for a memorable birthday cake for my husband. He and Sarah were licking beaters and making icing when the oven began to emit black smoke. The chocolate cake was rescued just in time.

(If we had minor appliance problems, back in San Diego the Shortts were frantically rereading the house manual we’d written for them. The air conditioning was not working one morning, and the weather was already very hot, especially for a family used to much cooler temperatures. Luckily, the weather had cooled by the time we picked up their phone message later, but we felt guilty we hadn’t had the air conditioner serviced before we left home.)

We went two or three times a week to the Stratford supermarket, Tesco, but especially enjoyed shopping Saturday evenings. Meat, produce and breads were being marked down, lower and lower before our eyes since grocery stores are closed Sundays. With the staff rushing to sell all perishables by 7 p.m. and shoppers rushing to get bargains, there was a lively atmosphere.

Each family had left the other a two-week supply of “nappies” (diapers), so our shopping mainly concentrated on food. The number of pork and fish selections was impressive, but some names took getting used to. Raisins were “soltanas,” “honeydew” was a type of squash, and we found hamburger meat under “mince meat.” Fruits and vegetables were sold pre-wrapped, one or two pieces to a package, and their labels listed the country of origin: Spain, Israel, Italy, South Africa.

The array of dairy products was fascinating. We had been introduced to whipped double cream--a heavenly rich-but-light spread that is neither cream cheese nor butter and has no American equivalent--when we had tea later with Nigel’s parents. Butter, on the other hand, was displayed in a separate case labeled Fats/Butter, a too-graphic reminder of what it really is.

We tried to be gastronomically adventurous, but when our eldest looked aghast at some things --”steak and kids’-knee pie, Mom?!”--we were reminded of the realities of traveling with children whose tastes run narrow.

Having a home abroad enabled us to enjoy tourist attractions but never feel like tourists. After a day visiting William Shakespeare’s home, the coal-mining museum and the falconry center, we returned to a house full of Little Tykes toys and cooked dinner. Cleaning up in the English kitchen at night somehow aroused in me a tremendous sense of kinship with a woman I had never met, who was caring for her own four children in my home as I was caring for mine in hers.

We could walk our entire village in about 15 minutes. There was no church, and the only public area was a post office/store located in what seemed to be the parlor of a private home, where stamps, soft drinks, ice cream and candy bars were sold. Perhaps it was the English country version of a 7-Eleven. When we walked down the roads leading out from the village, it seemed we could walk forever. We wondered what was past each gentle dip and curve, but usually it was more sheep, a cluster of cows and a cottage or two.

For other recreation, there was an indoor swimming pool in Stratford, hidden in a two-story red building labeled only “Leisure Center.” Thanks to our exchange family, we knew this was the place to go to enjoy lots of splashing at “Crazy Time,” when various inflatable floats are brought out for the children. This was remembered as a highlight by the children when they dictated postcards, along with “Tell them I rode on a double-decker bus! On the top! No seat belts! And that English money is heavy!”

We ate out only occasionally. When we spotted a McDonald’s in Stratford on our first trip to the grocery store, we decided to check it out in the interests of cultural comparison and jet-lag fatigue. It was a three-floor vertical restaurant, squeezed between two stores devoted to Shakespeareana. The third floor sat only about 10 and had two stationary McDonald’s toys anchored in the floor and some funny circus mirrors on the wall. Packets of “tomato sauce” (ketchup) cost about 15 cents each and quickly slackened our appetite for ketchup.

After a few days we began to notice differences in people’s appearances. Seldom did we see men, of any age, in shorts, and on women dresses were far more predominant than pants. Complexions were far paler but appeared somehow healthier, no doubt attributable to the moist climate and less sun. And everyone wore leather shoes; people who sported the rare athletic shoes we spotted were, we suspected, American tourists like us.

(The Shortts were probably also easy to spot, wearing their San Diego Padres baseball caps and Sea World T-shirts, and speaking in crisp British accents. They were enjoying their supermarket excursions as much as we were. The variety of fruits really impressed them, as did the endless junk food. In fact, they so liked a blend of jelly and peanut butter called Goobers that they took home eight jars as souvenirs.)

Nigel had listed several “take-away” food places in Stratford that serve fish and chips, pizza or chicken wings. “Just give a call-through and the chappie will have your food ready in about 10 minutes,” he instructed. Instead, we ventured out to one or two pubs that the Shortts spoke of as “family-oriented.” While the pubs did have high chairs, they did not seem totally suitable for children. The rooms were smoke-filled and the menu offerings limited. But the children were always happy with a burger and French fries (“chips”). The baby did well with peas and a baked potato (“potato in a jacket”). My husband and I tried typical English sandwiches: shrimp and dill, ham (gammon) and onion, cornbeef and tomato.

But our most memorable meal was Sunday tea at the nearby home of Nigel’s parents, Peter and Rosemary. Their house was a sprawling stone manor, and Andrew, our baby, pressed his nose against the window and chanted, “Baa! Baa!” as Labrador pups bounded among grazing sheep. Inside, we listened spellbound to family tales of years spent working in India and Uganda as we munched on scones, tarts, finger cakes and homemade raspberry jam.

(Back in San Diego, the Shortts were experiencing an American culinary tradition at our neighbors’ home. At a back-yard barbecue they ate corn on the cob and homemade ice cream, then had a dip in the Jacuzzi. Chuck E. Cheese was another hit. And “Soup Plantation was a great success once we got the hang of what to do,” Nigel later wrote in a letter.)

After two weeks it was finally time to return home--reluctantly. We were sorry that it looked like we would never get to meet the family whose house we had come to know so well, even though they were scheduled to arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport the same morning we left. But as we were checking our bags through security, my husband noticed a sunburned man waving vigorously from a mezzanine above. We recognized Nigel Shortt and his family from photos. Our introduction lasted all of 10 minutes, and we found them to be extremely nice, really no surprise. Then we all hugged and left, too quickly, on to our separate destinations.

GUIDEBOOK

Swapping

Homes

Oceans Away

Home exchange agencies: Although others exist, two agencies with well-established reputations are Intervac International and Domestic Home Exchange Service, 30 Corte San Fernando, Tiburon, Calif. 94920 (415-435-3497; fax 415-386-653) and Vacation Exchange Club, P.O. Box 650, Key West, Fla. 33041 (800-638-3841; fax 305-294-1448).

Intervac currently charges $70 to list your home and receive three directories per year of available homes. Although it is too late to list your home in a 1992 directory, you can still purchase two books for $38 and contact other registrants. Vacation Exchange’s fee is $50, and includes your home listing and four directories, plus newsletters of last-minute listings.