4:15am, Wednesday
Holy crap!
We left Chicago at 2:45 yesterday afternoon, right in the midst of the family Christmas festivities. We skipped Aunt Jane's Christmas dinner in favor of salads and happy meals at McDonald's. We all did well through Indiana, and we traversed Ohio quickly. But after about 10:00pm, things fell apart. Between then and now, poor Annika has spent well over half the time screaming. Her voice grew hoarse just a few hours in. She would wake Sophia, who would join the chorus, making everyone crazier. Somehow, sleepy Lilly kept her head through all of this and remained quiet and peaceful in the back row. Hyped on caffeine, I managed the drive just fine. Not hyped on caffeine, Dave still got no sleep and both of us expect very little patience with anything tomorrow. Happily, everyone fell quickly into the room and to bed. We are all in close quarters, but the room has black out curtains and no neighbors on either side. Hoping for a late, late morning.
8:30am - The phone rings at full volume in a room full of very sleepy children. Dave reaches for it and misses. He stumbles, grabs it and drops it. It's still ringing at full volume. Blessedly, the children are still sleeping. He carries on the entire conversation inside the room of children, because where else would he go? The conversation begins soft and business-like, switches to strong surprise and then drops into an angry tone. It finishes frustratingly resigned. Lilly is stirring. The rest of the girls remain asleep. The company who will ship our car to Venezuela has called. For them, this is the start of the first business day since they became our shippers. For us, they have held our contact information for at least 5 days, have left calls unreturned and emails unanswered while we tried multiple times to be in touch. So far, Dave's voice is quiet and professional. They tell Dave that they'll be here in 2 hours, and want to know where "here" is. Here, his voice has taken on a strong note of shock. We've been expecting them in the late afternoon. We have a to do list which is more than 2 hours long. Dave now takes on a firm tone, reminding the caller that we have done our due diligence and more, and stating that the car won't be ready for them until 4. Dave's really not a firm tone kind of guy, though, and he soon sounds resignedly conciliatory. They never told you? I understand. The closer to noon, the better. 11:30 will be fine. Dave dresses quickly, asks if I've seen the email from the landlord, then disappears to the garage to empty the car. Lilly tries to assert perkiness, but falls back to sleep when I tell her to. Dave returns with a cart full of Christmas road trip detritus, and then heads to the house to pick up our last few things and drop off the keys. The girls stay asleep. I can't check email on my iPad because my library book will disappear if I connect to the hotels wifi. It was due yesterday - such a lovely, if slightly unethical, little benefit of e-reading. The benefit no doubt extends to my not being able to see the note from our landlord right now. Betty has never shown herself to be a nice person, and stood us up for our walk through, claiming the holidays and a sick family member precluded her from visiting while we were able to join her. Not surprisingly, I'm afraid, once we left town the impending holiday stopped being a hindrance. She is apparently nickel and dimming us on our security deposit and I'm dong my best to adjust to that fact before learning the details. After all, I'm still stuck in a dark hotel room with three sleeping children. I need that library book.
9:15am - Lilly is awake, but willing to play quietly on daddy's iPad.
10:45am- Dave is back from the house, so leaving the keys is done. Our luggage is now filling the room in a rather humorous way. Fia and Annie are stirring, but not yet fully awake. Lilly is still quite content on her iPad. The tasks ahead of us today are to feed our kids and keep them entertained while repacking all of our luggage, all from an airport hotel with no car. It sounds much more difficult than it is. Sleeping until nearly noon should provide us with chipper kids, open to the adventure of our hotel room. And we fly out of Reagan national airport, so we have plenty of restaurants within walking distance. I think neither Dave nor I will complain about the early bedtime necessitated by sharing a room with young children. Not this evening.
11am - The car people have arrived, 30 minutes early. Such is life. Sophia is still asleep, and Annika is still happy to feign sleep, so I have more time to remain quiet in the room. Dave may not do so well with that task, so I suspect everyone will be up within half an hour. It feels rather exciting, really. Crystal City, Virginia may not be a typical vacation spot, but I've no doubt we'll make an adventure out of the day.
Thursday, 2:10pm We finished our day in Arlington uneventfully, without ever even stepping outside into the rainy, cold weather. We made our flight this morning with no trouble and with all our luggage, and it looks as if we'll be spending the afternoon in the Miami airport. We checked 4 pieces of luggage and 6 boxes, all packed to remain unopened until Caracas. At check-in we learned that all Latin American flights hold a temporary embargo on boxes as luggage. We intend to leave all of the checked luggage here at the airport, because the girls and I will be on our own tomorrow. So we need to repack from here. The airport. We pushed through to baggage claim, gathered each of our 50 pound bags, and then looked around hungry. As it turns out, Miami is not an airport with a big food court outside of security. Dave discovered the lone Burger King in another concourse and is on his way. He has not yet discovered a luggage store. Next steps still up in the air.
9:38pm - A few hours later, and we are the proud owners of new luggage. We bought a nice combination of high quality luggage and cheap-duffels-we-used-to-cover-our-boxes. Upon checking them into the storage room, we learned that the change added a few pounds and we now have a few bags which are over the baggage weight limit for American Airlines. Not sure what that's going to look like. Annika's fever has returned and she spent most of the day asleep - although she did perk up tremendously each time we rode a shuttle bus. Riding a bus is the ideal pastime for our 2 year old. She was briefly in heaven.
Outlook for tomorrow: Dave has work and will meet us at the airport at 3. I am wimping out, and plan to stay at the hotel until then. We have a large suite where annika can sleep late and also nap. The hotel has a pool, a Starbucks and 3 restaurants. We have some new Christmas toys in our bags. I have a book I want to finish. We are taking a lazy day, and will just have to explore Miami Beach on our next trip. We will land in Venezuela around 8pm, gather our belongings, and still be over an hour from home. I expect to get there around 11pm, with some very tired kids.
Saturday, 12:32am - We pulled up in front of our building at 10:02 pm. We turned out the lights for the big girls at around 11:30. They slept until 9am this morning. I am hoping for a repeat performance. The apartment is easily twice the size of our last place and has loads of funny quirks. I wish our things would arrive soon, so we could fully settle in, but we will make due with what we've got. Hard to sleep tonight - I'm itching to organize and unpack. And the sheets are scratchy, too. 10:06pm - We spent most of the day exploring the quirks of the house, and unpacking our luggage. We have loads of storage in ths house, which is disappearing surprisingly quickly. Still, the size is quite comfortable and the layout is pleasant. We don't have a balcony, but the airflow through the first floor makes you feel as if you are outside. We have a small garden below with a rickety playground, a place to grill and ride trikes, and a small pool. This has the girls quite excited. They've cheered many times today that they love our new home and especially the pool, and hope we can live in Venezuela forever. This after tears yesterday, crying out I hate moving; I miss my friends. I hate Venezuela.
Our neighbor, two houses down, took me to the grocery store this afternoon. We did a quick driving tour, in which I learned where we live in relation to the embassy and the mall, I determined that driving in Caracas will not be scary, and I felt carsick from the ups and downs and twists and turns of driving up and down our hill. Our neighborhood is lovely and hilly, but only very walkable for the truly strong of heart. I am afraid I was a poor conversationalist the entire time. There was simply do much to take in. I made the poor man walk every aisle of this grocery just so I could feel the place out. I came out with an odd hodgepodge of groceries, a fairly large bill, and the confidence that we can live off of the stores here without too much trouble. Notwithstanding the empty shelves due to shortages on sugar and the like, I found the store to be better stocked and with more western goods at more reasonable prices than City Shop in Shanghai. But do note - I probably felt the best about City Shop on my first trip there. One interesting difference, though - Shanghai's City Shop was an expat grocery, and this place was not.
We are exploring this new world slowly, in concentric circles. Today, as a family, we explored our home and our building. Tomorrow we will venture into our neighborhood - a circular drive with a guard at the entrance. We hear there is a park with a small playground. Baby steps. We have plenty of time.
Sunday, 10:15am - Lilly is melting down. She misses her friends and her school.no doubt she misses familiarity and a regular routine. We are sleeping until we wake up and eating when we realize we are hungry - usually right after blowing up at someone. We still have holiday for the next few days, but I promised a homeschool routine starting the day daddy goes back to work. Sophia seems to be happy, after having a short fuse for the past few days. Annika is staying close to us, preferring to be held nearly all the time. Her fever has disappeared, but she is still behind on sleep and clearly overwhelmed. Bringing boxes full of new Christmas toys has proven to be a blessing, the girls can spend hours having their new fairies and ponies explore the living room and it's surrounds. Dave and I tire quickly, but remain in good spirits. Our bed and sheets are uncomfortable, but the breeze in through the windows and the view out of them makes it hard to stay grumpy.
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