I know it's been quite a while since I posted anything. Mainly because our life right now is pretty boring. Not boring to us, mind you, but would be really boring to all of you. Much like last week when I pulled out a vacation photo album to show a friend a few photos (only four pages, that's it - not the whole album!), and Nathan started rolling his eyes and making rude comments about looking at other folks' vacation photos. That's what it would be like for all of you to read a weekly post from me right now! Just not much going on.
A funny thing did happen in applying for my government passport. I have to get a government passport, even though I already have a regular passport (and as a side note, my traveling around Europe has to be done on my regular passport; the govt passport is just sort of...extra). But into the government passport has to be stamped a special Visa from the Italian Consulate. In filling out the passport application, I noticed the instructions to mail in my regular passport with the application. Why? This made no sense. So I called the handy, dandy 1-800 helpline, just to verify that they would actually send my regular passport back to me. The representative from the State Department who answered my call actually said to me, "We don't normally send back your passport, so just put a post-it on it requesting it back." A post-it! Are you kidding me! Nathan insisted I had to follow the instructions, so yes, I actually mailed off my passport with a post-it note taped to the front. In the days of iPad and Blu-ray and GPS, I have entrusted one of my most prized possessions, the thing that gives me freedom to move about the world, to a post-it note (and prayer). I'll let you know if I actually get it back.
We did go on our family visit vacation and had a great time visiting with all our family over the course of two weeks. Despite the fact that we'll hopefully see our families as often as we currently do, it was a weird feeling to say goodbye and know that we'll be across an ocean from them. Living in the continental US, even when we lived in southern California, there was always the knowledge that we could get in our car and drive "home." No matter what happened, as long as we had a car and gas money, we could get to family. Just having the ability to do such a thing can stave off homesickness. We've been reading books, articles, blogs, etc. about Italy and the rest of Europe, though, and are enjoying talking about all our, "It would be fun to..." plans. So far, we've come up with enough vacation plans to last us for two lifetimes, so we'll have to cram all of that into three years.
Once we're moved "over the pond," then I do intend to post weekly, at a minimum. Possibly more often. For now, just occasional updates. Next week, we should get our schedule for the actual flight. Because we'll be travelling with Crazy, I mean Scully the Dog, then we'll most likely be put on a military, Space-A flight. In doing some research, we found there is a military flight every two weeks out of the Norfolk area, so our guess is we will be put onto that. But who knows. This move is full of interconnected pieces, each one managed by a different person or office. I don't play chess, but I feel like a pawn right now, just being shuffled about the board, with each move depending on prior actions and anticipated future actions. Very confusing.
