Parental Permission...the Biggest Hurdle

The trouble with having a stubbornness contest with your kids is that they have your stubbornness gene.  ~Robert Brault

How would your parents feel about you hiking Mount Kilimanjaro? My mom and dad were reluctant, to say the least. Winning over my mom and dad was one of the first things on my Kilimanjaro To-Do. Gaining my dad's blessing, specifically, would be the toughest. The thing about my parents is that their travel experience is limited mainly to the United States. While my dad has been practically everywhere in the States, his first trip to Europe was to visit me in Barcelona when I studied abroad there in the summer of 2009. My mom had at least spent some time in Sweden while getting her master’s degree so she was more understanding of my overwhelming desire to go all over the world. Seeing as my dad had a hard enough time accepting the fact that out of all the places I could choose to study abroad I decided to go to Africa, one of the seemingly most dangerous continents, I knew convincing him to agree to Kilimanjaro was going to be a challenge.

Fortunately, while I am a nice and mostly agreeable girl, when it comes to traveling I can be pretty stubborn. And when I say stubborn, I mean it in the sense of once I get an idea in my head of some particular place to go or some particular adventure to have, I am basically as unstoppable as a freight train traveling at a high speed. Thanks, Dad for this quality. So after a fair amount of talking to my parents and convincing them of why I absolutely had to hike Kilimanjaro beyond a shadow of a doubt in my mind, they reluctantly agreed. Well mostly my mom agreed. My dad still had his fair share of qualms but while I usually am not a proponent of the phrase “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission,” it definitely came to mind. Now I could officially check off get my parents approval from my To Do List. Check!

Mom, Dad, & Me in front of the mosaic dragon in Parc Güell

Mom & Dad in front of La Sagrada Familia Church (I lived a block away from it!)

Mom & Dad at the Mediterranean for the first time