I am jumping ahead nearly 7 months. This has been such a momentous year for us and everything has hit just one thing right after the other. I find myself finally dealing with the good and the hard of it all. Going through pictures and documenting them is proving a tougher thing than I had imagined. When I realized that I was avoiding blogging because of the struggle, I decided to jump ahead to the move. I'll get the rest caught up though. The short list of what I am temporarily leapfrogging: a Caribbean cruise that Cori and I took with Sandy, Ray, Cory and Brittany; a visit from my parents; the late miscarriage of our baby girl; the initial trip to India where Cori interviewed for his current position and I got to decide if I could handle life here; the end of the school year; all the kids' sports stuff; our 5,200 mile RV trip; the Rockwood family reunion in ID; the burial of our baby girl in Nevada; our final days with our framily (friends who are family - I just made that up, or surely someone did before me...) in Cypress; Jeffery's accident/miracle. This bring us up to these pictures...
Our time in India has been nothing like the challenging adventure Forester paints in his famous book, but getting here was an adventure none the less. Sorting out the transport of our belongings was the first big piece of the puzzle. We were given two checked bags each to pack for the immediate time after our arrival. This was followed by our air shipment, 1,300 lbs. of goods, which arrived two weeks after our arrival. Then the rest of our goods were packed into a 40 foot sea shipping container which has yet to arrive. (Shipping time is 6-8 weeks. Our freight did not set sail until the first week of September and is not due into port until the 13th of October. It will sit in customs for some time as it is checked and then finally delivered before Halloween- fingers crossed!) There was a 4th grouping of our things that were sent away to storage.
Cori and I spent weeks cleaning out our belongings and organizing things into piles. Imagine laying a hand on everything you own and deciding if you want/need it in two days, two weeks, two months or three years. I used different colors of painters tape throughout the house labeling furniture and closets so there would be no mistake. Once the packers arrived it was impossible to be in all the rooms at once making sure that things were happening correctly. And it all went so quickly. These pictures were taken at the end of the first day of the 3-day pack.
There was a small bit of drama towards the end of the final pack day. Long before the pack began, I toured our home and belongings with a surveyor. Said surveyor assured me that we had ample room in our air shipment and that our sea freight would be cutting it close. Our air shipment ended up not being as accommodating as I had been told. All our luggage, which had been packed and moved out of the way, contained items that I had chosen with the understanding that certain other things would be included in our air shipment. I then found myself hand picking boxes - already packed and only generally labeled - and having them weighted until we maxed out the shipment weight. Many things I was counting on having (kitchen items mostly) would have to wait for the sea shipment.
But then- the sea shipment! The packers had loaded the truck packing it like a puzzle. I got a call in the afternoon saying that we were nearing the limit of the 40ft container and there were still a 'few items' that were not yet packed. I would have to make some decisions of what to put into storage rather than take with us. These 'few items' included most of our beds, half of the dining set, and a few other vital pieces of furniture. I was shocked. "Simple," I told them. "Remove the patio furniture." But they had loaded the patio furniture first. Long dramatic story short, the packers would not repack the truck. I had to make a list of things I would allow to go to storage. And then we were to trust that the packers (different employees than the ones who had actually done the packing) who moved things from the truck to the shipping container would pull out the correct items. Everything was wrapped in paper - so there was no saying, the brown armchair from upstairs... And the items had been labeled by men who spoke little english. There were many phone calls and a few private tears. Cori, who was working overtime getting his former position closed out, reminded me during a particularly frantic phone call that we would not be penniless and would be able to replace anything we needed. Oh, perspective! It was so frustrating though. We found out just a couple weeks ago that in a lovely though anticlimactic conclusion, EVERYTHING FIT into the sea freight. Sheesh.
When Cori and I had flown out in the Spring, we took an itinerary of two long flights with a stop in Frankfurt. When we flew out with the kids, we had the idea that it might be a little easier to just have one really long flight with a couple of smaller flights on either end. So the itinerary we booked was Houston -> New York -> Mumbai -> Bangalore. As we got off the plane at JFK we knew we would never do that again. Long flights are so much better than changing planes. Period.
Our flight from Mumbai to Bangalore was a domestic flight. We had to take all our luggage through customs, recheck it, and then take a bus to a different airport. This was all happening at 12AMish India time which was who-knows-what time to our jet lagged bodies. At the domestic airport we got to walk to the plane and board via a rolling illuminated staircase. We were the only non locals on the flight and everyone noticed. And even though we were traveling in the middle of the night on a 1.5 hour flight, they served a full meal. Take that Southwest.
We were met at baggage claim by a manager from the hotel where we stayed while we were waiting for our villa to be ready. Suresh, our full time driver, was also there. It took two minivan-esque vehicles, two drivers, and 3-4 additional airport employees to get our crew and all our gear moved to the cars and then transported to the hotel.
26+ hours of travel. No problem. The car pictured here is the Toyota Inova that Honeywell is leasing for our daily use while we are here. It is the ubiquitous expat vehicle.
The hotel we stayed in is part of the clubhouse complex in the gated community in which we now live. We stayed here for about 5 days. The clubhouse is very near to our villa and the bus stop that the children use. So it was nice to be close and jump right in to a regular schedule. Also, the clubhouse grounds are so lovely. There is a lot to do: 7 different swimming areas, out door playground, indoor playground, gym, tennis courts, badminton courts, squash courts, 2 restaurants, and pool/pingpong tables. We consider living so near to it our consolation for having zero back yard!
Path leading up to our rooms
Grounds worker with her broom/rake ~ a handful of branches
The clubhouse has these low, wide, metal bowls everywhere that they fill with floating flowers and petals. I want one so badly for our front step. The bowl at the main entry was boasting India's flag for their celebration.
We had been invited to a Church activity that night to celebrate. We were excited to go and meet some of our new Church family. However, the afternoon got the better of us and we ended up taking a very long family nap. When we woke, we opted to take dinner at the clubhouse and to check out the festivities that were going on. We didn't have to look far! This band had set up right outside of our window.
Sunday brought our first visit to church. Monday was spent driving the kids around to their different schools and getting them settled (more on that coming up). By Wednesday, we were in our villa, big kiddos were getting onto the bus every morning and Jeffery and I were happy campers hanging out with Selvi.
