Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Some of our early adventures

Our fabulous sponsors invited us to accompany them to Shakespeare on the Bow, which is Calgary's version of Shakespeare in the Park. The performers do one play each year, and this year was Midsummer Night's Dream, which is a perfect pick for us because Alex's class did some Shakespeare a couple of years ago and this was one of the plays. It was a beautiful evening, we were congratulating ourselves on throwing the picnic blanket in the car for our road trip so we had it to use, and the performance was amazingly good - especially for being free/donation requested. We are so excited for next year's season!

The only downside came when Zoltan, playing with the other kids after the performance, fell off the stage and injured his foot. He said he couldn't walk on it so I piggybacked him home - thankfully the performance was only a couple of blocks from our temporary housing. We stayed home the next day and on the day after that, when he still refused to put any weight on his foot, we went to the emergency room.

So far I have exactly one complaint about Canada. Who the heck makes emergency room parking paid?? And you have to pay in advance, so you have to guess how long you'll be there. The nice triage nurse guessed we'd only be there an hour and I should not have trusted that, given that I went back twice to add additional hours to the meter. Otherwise, the whole process went very smoothly, x-rays were taken and reviewed, no breaks were confirmed, and crutches were provided when he still refused to put weight on his foot.

Another Calgary delight our fabulous sponsors let us know about is the Southland Leisure Centre, which (most relevantly) has water slides and a wave pool, as well as ice skating, a gym, and other resources we didn't check out because we were there for the pool.

A final adventure of our first two weeks is the spectacular Calgary Public Library. We got our library cards last week, the kids signed up for the reading challenge, then decided it was their job to finish it with all due haste. I told them if they came back one week later with 40 hours of book reading accomplished the library might not believe them.  The library has a whole indoor play space for the really little kids, a giant chess set, it's huge, roomy, airy, with super available, helpful and friendly librarians. The book checkout stations are throughout the library, not only in one corner at the entrance. There's a cafe inside and a huge variety of seating for reading your finds, from cushions on the floor to a standard reading room with long tables and signs to remember to be quiet.

Between Zoltan's "still injured" foot and house hunting and the weather we still haven't made it to the mountains for hiking. I'm hopeful we get there before too long.

This week will be the last one before the kids start camp and I go to work. Most of our time has been spent either trekking from house to house in hopes of finding our home, or kids reading/playing games while I scour the rental web sites for new houses to see, or going to the grocery store because when you are starting from scratch there are a million things you need to buy.

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Frankfurt, first impressions

I've been here about 10 days now, more or less, and so far everything is both exactly as I expected and totally different. There's a lot of people crossing against the lights, although I am pretty sure most of them are not German. For example, I heard a Russian couple arguing the whole way down the street and across it ... when the walk sign was RED.

It took longer than I've ever experienced to get internet set up in my apartment, which is a big deal because the internet is how I communicate with the family. But it is now done so I'm happy.

My boss seems great, my colleagues too. I was supposed to be training all week but a colleague called out sick so I started adjudicating visas two days earlier than the training plan had anticipated. On my first day I adjudicated a whopping 32 visas!  I got better at it the next day.  Still haven't figured out my routines yet but that will come in time. One thing I will say, it is good for my diet that when I am adjudicating visas I don't take a break for anything, I even forget to drink from my water bottle which is next to me on the counter (I think as I get more settled into it, though, that will change).  But it is bad for my diet that, like I hear about consular offices around the world, people bring in treats to share just about every day. And my desk is right in front of the nice little table where the treats are displayed.

I can't wait for my bike to get here, because there are bike lanes EVERYWHERE and most things are bike-able but not walkable, unless I have nothing else to do (such as go to my job or get home in time to eat dinner and go to bed). The buses show up at exactly the time stated on the schedule. I am constantly amazed at that.

My first weekend at post I mostly spent getting to know my way around my neighborhood, and stocking up with the basic essentials I need (no broom in the house. Or salt and pepper. Or sponges. Or cleaning agents to use with the sponges)  I've been paying attention to the pantry basics I am buying and thinking about life in other parts of the world, or for other parts of society. Between the rice, oatmeal, and couscous, plus the butter, sugar, eggs and olive oil, I could probably consume sufficient calories for a month out of what I have right now.  Sobering thought as I rush out to buy cherries or wine or some other totally non-necessary extravagance. 

Friday, July 21, 2017

Goodbyes, again. And Hello

The car is on its way. The house seems bigger with so much less stuff in it. In the last few weeks I said "so long" to friends and family. For some, I've got a feeling I'll see them when I'm next in town - only about six weeks after leaving - and for others it's still hazy.  Offers to host people in Frankfurt have been extended.

My apartment is fine, everything I need and nothing more.  It is also the smallest housing I've had in the foreign service, good practice for when we retire and live at the cabin!  My boss and colleagues seem nice, my only complaints are happily temporary:  1. it is too hot for me to sleep, there's no air conditioning and Terry has ruined me for tolerating heat and 2. the process to get internet in my house is ridiculous. Makes waiting all day for Comcast sound like a walk in the park. So I am writing from the community center/restaurant in the neighborhood for its free wifi. I probably won't have internet for several weeks. Normally not such a big deal, but it is sort of how I can communicate with my family so it sucks.

Monday, September 19, 2016

We've got wheels!

This one is a good one. A really good one. Our car got packed up to head out of Astana about six weeks ago.  On Thursday afternoon it was delivered.  By Thursday evening it was registered, insured, plated and ready to go. We drove it to work Friday.

Let's hope this didn't use up all of our shipment good mojo.  We still have the most important shipment - HHE from post - yet to arrive.

In the last days of Astana ...

[Oops, somehow this never got published....]

In the two weeks before packout we had excitement - some serious stuff, some less serious, some personal, some work-related.

We learned that the route we intended to fly - involving a first leg of Astana to Vienna - had been cancelled at the last minute about every other flight or perhaps even more often during the last two months, with increasing frequency, and would officially cease to exist the day after our intended flight. My orders had me stopping in Vienna, so to change my flights required all the bureaucracy and paperwork one might think accompanied something called "changing my orders." Presumably, as more and more Astana-ians discovered the fate of the Astana-Vienna leg they would also be working to change their flights, possibly making three seats unavailable on our intended day. Although I was a near-hysterical bundle of stress for about 4-5 days, that was all the time it took to get everything done and dusted, as my British friends say.

Terry has a family emergency that sent him back to the USA for about 10 days, arriving back in Astana 5 calendar days before packout.

My boss, who I adore and we have an excellent working relationship, had been on holiday and was meant to return for my last 2 weeks at work. After one and a half days in the office he had to fly back out and only returned about 15 hours before my departure - so although we got to say goodbye, we did not work together again.

On a positive, note, my successor arrived three weeks before my departure - overlap is an unheard-of blessing in the foreign service world.  A major event got scheduled for one of my days of packout and although I did have to devote endless time and energy to preparing the event, she was able to take over on the day.  Also, although it took longer than expected, I was eventually able to focus my time on handover rather than current issues while she worked on the issue of the day, and managed to get done everything absolutely necessary before heading out on my last day of work at a normal time.

And of course, nobody is indispensable, time marches on, and by the time our airplane hit cruising altitude the spaces we occupied in Astana had likely already been filled in with suitable replacements. 

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Best. Packout. Ever.

11 boxes of air freight (65lb underweight) and 219 boxes of ship freight (almost 2000lb underweight) later, with a total of 6 suitcases and 4 carry-ons for 4 people, we have crossed a threshold.

Ten men came through my home like whirlwinds, like a finely choreographed dance, and packed, weighed, labeled, moved and paperwork'd all to finish at the same time. Did things get packed that shouldn't have? Sure, but in all cases it was our fault - we forgot to set those things aside. Is any of it critical?  Nope.

Our house now echoes with vast emptiness. Last night, our first night in pared-down surroundings, we went out to eat as at that time we hadn't unpacked the welcome kit. It will be interesting to see how the children entertain themselves with only the toys they had selected to bring in their suitcases (plus several bonus games I'd squirreled away)


Sunday, June 26, 2016

Breaking up is Hard to Do

... no, no, don't worry, Terry and I are fine.

With 5 weeks to go in my tour things are winding down. Many of my kids' friends - whose parents are often our friends - have started leaving for their summer holidays, only to return after we've left.  My kids spent the last couple of weeks bickering with their friends more often and some friendships ended on such terms that there was no goodbye. Cultural differences I used to think enriched out experiences, and even found endearing at times, are grating on my nerves and offending my sensibilities. We're starting a lot of sentences with "When we are in the USA..." and "When we get to Germany..."

We all know the end is nearing, and it is easier to say goodbye if we are also saying "good riddance."

It isn't you, Astana. It's us. 

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Leaving, on a jet plane ...

Well, not anytime soon, but it is for real now. I have orders and I have plane tickets. At this point it's just me and the kids, we don't know the details about what will happen with Terry (whether he leaves with us or 1-2 weeks later. He will leave Astana in August, that is for certain!)

With fewer than four months to go, everything seems funneled.  We base our meal planning on what is in our pantry we need to get through before departure day. we have stopped shopping in bulk and cancelled many a Subscribe and Save.  We're looking hard at anything we could donate: clothes, kitchen items, toys and although we've done one large load to the nuns, I plan to fill the car at least one more time.  Looking to sell the car. We try to keep the kids from buying things with their allowance, knowing we'll be moving them soon. Our last major allowance drawdown was when we convinced them to use their money to go visit the amusements at Khan Shatyr. We even let them buy themselves ice cream/sorbet at the end.  We have our bucket list of those things we figured we'd get around to doing, then never did - Khan Shatyr beach, you're on the agenda within the next couple of weeks!

At work we're looking forward to our successors, looking for time to prepare handover notes among regular work duties. Goodbyes are still a couple of months away, but there is that note of winding down.


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Settling in

We have books on the shelves.  The children have toy storage furniture in their rooms and the toys to fill them.  The awesome two story UAB box fort is just a pile of recycled cardboard and I think I am the only person who mourned its passing. Four boxes and two suitcases of clothes, books and housewares to donate to the nuns.  Snow tires on the car. More shelving requested from GSO and all balconies are full. We finally reached critical urgency in getting Alex new ice skates as the rest of the family's skates have arrived and skating is once again on the family activity list (spoiler alert: we got skates this morning and hit the rink this afternoon).  Beer is brewing.

We have spices, sauces and seasonings. Terry doesn't even normally like Mexican food and we've eaten enchiladas, tacos and tortilla soup all in one week.  Turns out what I suspected is true ... I don't need much in the way of clothes, toys, games, gadgets. But I must have my kitchen/pantry in shape or I'm a big grump.  

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Our stuff!

The day after the "psych out" I was certain something new would arise to prevent the resumption of cohabitation between my stuff and my family.  Our stuff was scheduled to arrive at 13:00. At 12:30 I was starting to get ready to go home, because if they say your stuff is coming, you go home even if you think they are teasing you.  The phone rang and the voice on the other end of the line said "The boxes are here early. Can you come home now?"

Well, duh.

These movers were fabulous. Very helpful, respectful, calling out the box numbers for me to check off my own handmade list (also good practice for Russian three digit numbers recall) and patiently waiting while I figured out which room each box should be put in.  The unpacking got overwhelming, and in several cases I had to tell the movers to stop unpacking things because a pile on the floor needs immediate attention whereas a pile neatly boxed can wait until tomorrow if necessary and there is a critical threshold of floorspace that cannot be cleared in a day.

As expected, everything was cold. Some things frozen solid (shampoo).  Some things exactly the right chilly temperature for enjoyment immediately (Yeungling).  We put all the items that, once cold, should probably not resume room temperature in one bedroom's balcony and opened the window to the outside.  We now have until April or May to consume everything located therein.

And for some other items, we now play the game of "can this, frozen and then thawed, be safely consumed?"

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Psych!

My stuff arrived in town the day after Thanksgiving. The Monday afterwards is a local holiday. I was a little surprised and definitely pleased to receive a phone call Tuesday morning telling me customs had cleared my stuff and I needed to be home by 1:00pm to receive it (the call came just before noon).

I ran around letting my boss and others know, and hopped in the car to get home in time. Lunch? Who needs that when you're pumped up on reuniting with snow tires that so helpfully keep you from getting killed as you get across town?  I got home, changed into jeans, and waited.  At 1:15pm I sent an email to the embassy shipping guy.  At 1:30pm I was looking up his phone number when he called.

Oops. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Car: Finally Victory

We didn't have any more pockets of free time until Saturday morning so that is when we went to make our second attempt at getting tires.  We were told at the embassy if we had pressure sensors for our tires we had to go to this one specific place to get the tires put on, even if we buy them elsewhere (as we had to - they don't sell tires at this place). So I called every half hour Saturday morning until they were open because their hours are not on the web site nor their telephone's prerecorded message.  We did ok finding the place except that the map showed the place being several blocks earlier than it really was.  We bought the tires and they said it would be about 10 minutes and they would bring them out, we could go wait in our car.  Um, it is freezing and sleeting and my children are with us, so I think we'll wait right here.

After a bit of time Terry went down to wait in the car. The kids had a snack and were playing with the few toys they had brought. Time ticks on. They eventually try to tell me to go downstairs and wait. I tell them I will go when we have tires in the car.

Once that happens it's off to get the tires put on. Here is victory #1.  I had to explain that we wanted the spare put back under the car, one new tire on the rim of the busted tire that was currently in the car and then that put on the back, the other new tire on the other back rim and lastly the tire from the back rim to replace a front tire that was well worn.  It was all done perfectly.  And we were able to lunch while we waited, thanks to the Hardees that shares space with the gas station next to the shop.

Except the tire pressure sensor was not re-set, indicating that they probably didn't do whatever was supposed to make them the only place to get pressure-sensor-tires replaced.

Victory #2 came during naptime, when I had to run out and buy a birthday present for a party Alex will attend this week. The invite came Friday, the party is Wednesday. Felt like we were back in Russia. With the help of the car I was now completely free to use - with gas, windshield wipers and a spare tire - I was able to run to the store and back in record time. I even didn't get lost!

Monday, October 6, 2014

More on the car

This car is more needy than a newborn.

When we realized what was missing from the car we immediately sent a confident message to the transportation guy that we were sure the windshield wipers and tire were somewhere and we would be happy to pick them up the next day. Confidence does not always make magic happen. The tire was still there, yes, but nobody knew what happened to the windshield wipers. And of course it rained, but cleared up enough for Terry to drive the car to the embassy the next day (after we corrected our insurance to also cover him. Somehow that never came up when I was dealing with all the paperwork previously. Now that I think about it, I may or may not still owe our shipping guy 2200 tenge - roughly $15 - for that.)

When you put a car on a boat for long distances, you are required to be sure there is no more than 1/4 tank of gas in the car. There are many stories of people aimlessly driving their car for a long period of time in order to get to that point when the transportation folks arrive and discover a fuller-than-allowed gas tank. I have to imagine some car exploded on some cargo ship somewhere in the world and now we have this rule. Anyway, what it means is #1 priority when a car arrives at the other end is to fill the tank.  Unless you don't have a spare tire because the spare is on the car and the busted tire was taken away from the car so a second nail-through-tire mishap would become tragic. In that case priority #1 is to re-obtain the busted tire so there is a rim on which to put a new tire.

I speak Russian, Terry does cars, so we end up having to do a lot of things together that one or the other of us could theoretically handle on our own. One day last week I had enough of a break between meetings, and he had enough free time, that we decided to hold a late "lunch hour" and get some things accomplished. First was finding the busted tire at the embassy motorpool garage. First step: find the garage (10-15 minutes). Second step: let them know we came for the tire  - not as easy as it sounded as the guy we spoke with didn't know about "the tire" so I tried to explain in my level-2 Russian and he definitely came out of it thinking I was asking for one of the embassy's tires because the second guy was surprised when I said "maya shina" - my tire - and he eventually figured out what I wanted and showed me the tire, then made Terry drive into the warehouse to where the tire was to pick it up.  Getting to the gas station that also sold windshield wipers was the easy part of the whole experience, except that our car takes two different sized windshield wipers and one of those sizes was not sold there. We found close enough and the guy pumping our gas helped up get the wipers on with the help of Terry's pocket knife to open that darned clamshell packaging.

Off to the tire store! Except the shopping mall where the tire store was meant to be has  two names and the one we knew wasn't the one proclaimed in big letters on the top of the building so we had to go past, turn around in traffic, and head back.  There was a sign showing that parking could be had in the back so off to the back we went. The biggest tragedy of this story is that we didn't get photos of the abandoned construction site we walked past from the parking lot to the front of the mall. Imagine a half-built building, sitting in at least a half-floor of water like a little pond, and the road that goes along this pond has almost rusting metal bars sticking out every few inches or so into the air above the pond, dissuading anyone from jumping in (not that one would. It also smelled of sewage).  I have never seen anything like this in the middle of such a developed city - as Astana is nothing if not a very developed city.

But I digress.  We go into the mall, find the tire store, and ask for the tires we need. I had called earlier and I knew they had them but there must have been a mis-communication because they now told me they only have winter tires. We have four winter tires on a boat in the Atlantic so we really wanted all season/summer ones. Strike out!

Making the best of the situation, we headed to the grocery store we noticed in the mall. We've been in this chain before, it sells Shop-Rite brand stuff. We grabbed a bunch of things we didn't think existed in Astana and called it a victory.

Part II comes soon .....

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

I drove my car

The car is here, cleared customs, registered, insured and ready to drive. We only noticed after we got it home that the windshield wipers have gone missing, as well as the rim to the tire that got destroyed in shipping (the benefit of a big car is full sized tires as spares!) I'm hoping motorpool can find those items today. We still need to buy tires as we have no spare right now ...

Thursday, September 18, 2014

UAB forts

One thing that has become a tradition for our family with each UAB shipment is the follow on cardboard forts.  We pack a couple of box cutters and a roll or two of packing tape in the UAB boxes.  When they are emptied we give the kids a play area that they are so excited to have.  Another benefit is that the three walled cardboard used for UAB is it really sturdy, so you can make dual level structures.  We could probably go higher but I have visions of Zoltan wiggling out of a window back down to the floor for a nasty bump on the noggin.  So when UAB showed up the kids were very very excited to the see all the big boxes.  The first night we put together a relatively simple structure with two levels (Upper right photo).  The kids each agreed on one entry box being their own houses and the two in the middle are the shared house.  You have to go through one or the other kid's house to get the shared house.  They were quite pleased with the arrangement.

This tour is unusual that we also got an HHE by air shipment. The movers in Maryland packed it just like any other UAB shipment.  So we have lots and lots of boxes this time.  I decided to expand the fort some the next night.  I added another bottom section but not actually attached to the the first section.  Then I added a second section on the second level that you can use to as a bridge to go from one side to the other.  Alex was showering when I finished this up.  She can out and went in the fort and proceeded to go to the second level when she saw the new addition.  Her words were something like "Hey what the? Oh Cool!!"  Unfortunately the written word can not really catch the confusion in her first statement followed by the excitement in here second.  Not sure how many of these we will build before they become boring to older kids (or they just don't fit) but right now it is such fun to watch.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Air Freight!!

Glory glory be. 23 days after arriving at post our air freight has arrived. 

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Welcome kit life

Now that our air freight is here (glory, glory, blessed be - finally!) I will try to explain what it is like to live off the "welcome kit". Mind you, I am not trying to compare our "privations" to the lives of the impoverished, for whom even our meager surroundings may seem a bounty. But for those of you reading at home in your stocked houses or apartments, imagine this:
  • You have to do laundry frequently because nobody has enough clothing to last a week.
  • Down to the salt and pepper (in our suitcase this time!) if you want to make a meal, you must go out and buy every single ingredient. You don't already have in your pantry a bottle of olive oil, a jar of basil, a can of baking powder. Now repeat this experience a dozen times or more. And while we're at it, remember you have no car and you're new in town so you have to hand carry home every item you buy and you might get lost in the process. And sometimes you have to go somewhere else for your fruit, or your meat, or your dry goods - not a lot of one-stop shopping outside the USA. Good for building muscles!
  • Your children have four toys so they spend a lot of time aggravating each other for entertainment. You can't count how many times you have told them about your friend's aunt whose toys throughout childhood were "One red pencil. And one blue pencil. You at least have more than that. Now go play."
  • For two-pillow sleepers it is especially challenging to get a night's sleep, as the welcome kit pillows are more like one-half pillow. I resorted to snitching the kids' lovey-pillows if they weren't sleeping with them that night.
  • Tummy bugs cause real panic, because there is exactly one set of sheets per bed. If the vomit doesn't make it into the bowl, the kid sleeps on a bare mattress until laundry can be completed. (We were blessed with sufficient notice, decent aim, and very good friends who loaned us a set of sheets).
  • On a similar vein, on laundry day nobody can dry their hands or take a shower either, as there is also exactly one towel per person. Extra bonus for the exfoliation skills of the towels we have, as they are at least half sandpaper (be careful drying those sensitive spots!)
Ah, yes, the glamorous life!

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Where's our stuff?

When our home in Astana is at full complement, we will have received four shipments: UAB (air freight), HHE by Air (extra air freight), POV (our car), and HHE (ship freight - the bulk of our stuff).  In the normal course of things, UAB and HHE by air arrive within 2-4 weeks after an employee gets to post, the car and HHE arrive within 2-4 months.

Our car will arrive the same week as one set of air freight - juuuust inside the 4 week timeframe. The other set of air freight hasn't even been scheduled yet, nor has the bulk of our stuff. Alex and I are running out of rice milk, we are running out of meals that can be cooked in two pots and/or one small pan, and we all will need hats and scarves soon as the temps are into the 30s Fahrenheight at night already. I am totally patting myself on the back for packing everyone's winter coats and the kids' sleeping bags in our suitcases.  I am eternally grateful for the new friend who has loaned us a blanket indefinitely, as our welcome kit blanket can't hold up to Astana September nights.

Zoltan came down with something last night. We had to borrow a second set of sheets from a friend in case he vomited in the middle of the night and didn't grab the bowl in time, because we have exactly one set of sheets per bed.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Astana

We're 3 days in and things are starting to move along at rocket speed.  Alex has been assessed at school and we've bought a first tranche of uniforms. She even has a special school logo backpack she has to use (sorry, mom). Zoltan managed to snag a spot in the detsky sad where we wanted him to go. Terry has a local phone. Technically I have a work phone but it isn't the phone number I was told it was, and nobody knows what it is. Also, it doesn't make outgoing calls or texts.  In case we haven't mentioned it yet, Terry got his teleworking finally approved so it is really going to happen. September will be a big month for everyone, as the kids to back to school and he starts working after 2 weeks on leave.

On the work front, as they say, "everything is awesome". My portfolio rocks, I have already started meeting people and racking up quite a business card stack - now i understand why the embassy printed me a bunch before I even arrived.  My colleagues are wonderful. taking time out of their hectic schedules to explain things to me, give background and relevant info.  The local employee who works on my portfolio is as wonderful as everyone said she is, and as a bonus she gardens so can give us tips for next summer.

Our apartment is huge and not perfectly laid out, so it remains for our stuff to arrive and for us to figure out how to arrange things. Zoltan's room may need to double as consumables storage, and the office will need to be co-located in our bedroom. On the plus side, the bathtub is the size of a jacuzzi and we have three lovely balconies for when the weather is nice. The apartment building takes up an entire city block (like a big hollow square) and the inner courtyard contains not one but two sets of playground equipment. We can walk to a bunch of tourist sites as well as a huge shopping mall that contains a grocery store.  Next week I will try my hand at walking to work.  I also hope to have some photos up soon ... got to get Mr. Photographer working!

Friday, August 22, 2014

The cloud, then the rainbow

(the cloud) When I went to double check that the hotel in DC had confirmed a reservation with a taxi to the airport, the gentleman at the counter confirmed that no reservation had ever been made. Grrr. But he did what he could, and a taxi almost big enough showed up only 15 minutes later than our reservation time. With the help of bungee cord, the "almost" became "just enough."  No traffic meant we made it to Dulles with plenty of time.

(the rainbow) Pretty much everything that has happened after we got to the airport was wonderful.  The whole check-in online thing has really streamlined the time spent in line at the airport. The kid are big enough and motivated enough that they are quite helpful - they each pushed a 360 spinny suitcase and Terry and I were able to manage the rest of the luggage.  TSA Precheck was the most glorious perk of official travel I have experienced in a while. No need to remove ANYTHING from any bags ... except that I forgot a bottle of milk from Zoltan's breakfast and they did have to screen that, but it wasn't too much of a wait.

The flight was uneventful. As usual, the kids did not sleep ... well Zoltan did pass out on a makeshift bed on the floor under his and my seats but a tiny spot of turbulence meant we had to get him up and buckled and that was the end of that. The inflight entertainment options were plentiful and the kids never asked for the tablet. The kids' TV shows were largely shows they like and the movie options included Frozen AND Lego Movie AND Cars AND Cars 2. We could have stayed on that plane all day.  One glitch was that we didn't request kids' meals 24 hours in advance, but as we knew that we bought a sandwich in the airport before the flight and cobbled together snacks and the roll that always accompanies airline meals into a decent enough meal. The flight attendants very kindly asked if we needed anything more and did in the end bring us applesauce for each kid.

At the airport we quickly got our bags and equally quickly found the place to leave the bags overnight.  Off to the hotel!

This is where I rave about the Frankfurt Marriott hotel. The gave us early check in (9:00am - super early!) AND late checkout (3:00pm - kids can nap before the red-eye!) AND adjoining rooms. The month and more we spent living in hotels last summer did wonders for Terry's status with Marriott so we got executive floor access, including the club room. This means breakfast, a "happy hour" with enough food to fill our bellies, and water whenever we want it. Score!  We ended up eating lunch in the hotel restaurant too and although European prices are still heart-attack worthy, the food is at least delicious. I am still thinking of the tomato and buffalo mozzarella starter we had. The staff has been so amazingly helpful and gracious. When I asked if one dessert had milk in it, the employee I asked checked with the kitchen, came back to say sorry it does, and then told me that if we would still be guests of the hotel tomorrow night the chef would make something special for Alex.  They gave the kids sweets and again were sensitive of Alex, handing her bags of gummy bears along with the chocolate candy for Zoltan.  I can't say enough good things about this hotel and look forward to staying here again when we PCS.

And another shout out to my mom for her mad shopping skillz.  The Hungry Hungry Hippo travel game has already earned back whatever she paid for it, and Alex has already done half the templates included in her magnetic mosaics toy. We should have guessed that Zoltan would be absorbed with anything vehicles and not bothered packing anything else, but the tape road was a big hit in the hotel room.

One important lesson we learned is that when we let the kids pack themselves, we need to double check. I added a ton of extra clothes for Zoltan but we trusted Alex to follow directions and in the end she will be sharing socks with Zoltan and/or me until UAB arrives.  And we should have had her pack a bit more pants and a bit less shorts, that is our fault though. Thanks to the insight of one of my A-100 colleagues who suggested flying with a bag of the little detergent packs we are ready for laundry, which will be needed as we don't have a ton of clothes in general. The laundry packs already saved us in the hotel last week, as we got to fly with all clean clothes.

Also, the two travel nights' bedtime went like this:  We give hugs and kisses to the kids, then retreat to our hotel room while Alex reads a story to Zoltan in their hotel room.  It's pretty adorable.