Santa Claus First!

This morning, in that half asleep phase that comes before waking up completely I had a revelation. I opened my eyes and shared my newly acquired wisdom with my husband: "We should have gone the other way!"
"What?!"
"We should have started the trip on the other side! Like that we would have had an 8 month long summer!"
"Have you got something against sleeping?"
With consciousness, arrived even the reasons for the original choice: avoid the Olympics in China and winter in New Zealand, plus enjoy the Australian summer. I knew we had a good reason!

Strange days these last ones before departure. The shops are full of turkeys, hams, chocolates and Christmas puddings. People arrive to the check out with trolleys full of stuff like they were preparing for a siege or a famine. I on the other end am doing my shopping just day to day, with my little basket, careful not to buy too much stuff that I would have to chuck in a few days. At the same time, we have received more invitations for lunch and dinner in the last couple of weeks than in the previous 7 years: family, neighbours, colleagues, they all seem to want to say goodbye before we go, a real wake like with those that emigrated to America years ago.

At a week from departure I am after all quite calm. I keep asking myself if it is really the case but the answer is always the same: "I'm cool!" Except at every little itch going for cool to stressed in zero seconds. I start doing the "what if" game trying to predict the future and every possible scenario, settling eventually for the most tragic as the most probable until I find myself in a spiral of anxiety. I touch the bottom and calm down, finally understanding that I can't do anything but live one day at the time and react as best as I can according to the inspiration of the moment. In the meantime though I have wasted a lot of energy that I could have used better. Luckily for the ones who live with me all this happens inside, without consequences for the others. I'm a bit of a cold fish, the more I get nervous, the calmer I look.

Today I have learned a lesson from my 8 year old daughter. At breakfast I asked: "Girls, are you excited about the trip now?"
In between spoonfuls of corn flakes Nina answered: "No mum. Now I am excited about Santa Claus, once that will be gone I'll get excited about the trip!"
She is right, one thing at the time.

Ascoltando: Muse, Space Dementia

'Tis the Season to be jolly

The date approaches fast and a certain unease is starting to crawl over me. For the last couple of weeks it's like being at a boarding gate, in limbo. Everything is ready, enough waiting, now it is time to go. Even if it's not actually all ready and every day there is something to sort out. Yesterday for example I went to the doctor to ask him for a letter to explain the amount of medicines we'll be carrying: all legal drugs and for personal use. Ten boxes of antibiotic could rise some eyebrows going through custom. Last week we payed for the Yangtze cruise, today they confirmed having received the transfer and gave us even an upgrade: from the Victoria Rose to the Victoria Prince, bigger and more modern. Our friend Li Beiyan in Beijing booked for us the train between Beijing and Xi'an and the flights between Xi'an and Chengdu and Yichang and Shanghai (Xie xie Beiyan, I hope you are picking that restaurant nice and expensive!!). We're left with the hotel in Xi'an and the one in Shanghai, there's still time.

For once I am totally immune to the Christmas frenzy that every day becomes more intense around here. We're to the point of avoiding the city center unless absolutely necessary. Christmas carols have been playing continuously in all shops since the beginning of November, after one hour drives you nuts. I am quite capable to resist the temptation of buying beautiful and useless staff, party clothes, cashmere scarves and scented candles leave me totally cold this year. Yesterday, passing by the pet shop I have seen a new one : Santa's stockings for cats and dogs with toys and food with a Chritsmas theme.

I am not a complete King Herod, I decorated the tree for my daughters and Santa will arrive even to this house. My Christmas shopping is of a different kind. I can't pass Mahers Outdoor Shop in town without going in and every time I came out with some new gadget. The last purchases are some really thin super absorbent towels with practically no volume and 4 Sporks, knife, fork and spoon in one. I have almost fallen under the spell of astronaut food but then I told myself we're not going to the jungle and we'll be able to buy whatever we're missing on the way. My last, for now, bit of shopping was on ebay: two gadgets not to lose your children, some traking devices with an alarm that will go off if the child strides further than 25 meters. Not exactly necessary but can't hurt having them.

Insurance

From the very beginning it was clear that the problem wasn't easily solved. All the insurance packages seem to be made for students backpackers or retired people who go to Lanzarote for two weeks. Families going on holidays for three weeks at the time are also catered for, but backpacking families are definitely out of any scheme. In the end we had to go through a local broker, O'Leary Insurances that found a tailored made solution to our problems: a policy that will cover medical expenses for the eight months up to 6.350.000 per person, repatriation, but even covers luggage, passports, credit cards, cancellation, legal fees and civil responsibility up to 2,5M E. It covers even activities like skiing and scuba diving. Last but not least, we'll have a person on the other side of the phone to deal with if things go wrong. Always better than dealing with an agency in England where every time you ring up you deal with a different person after having being put on hold for ages. Total cost 1000e.

Listening to: The Cure, Friday I'm in love

A Puff of white smoke from the Magic Dragon

Anybody who lives abroad and has regular dealings with consulates knows very well how frustrating the experience can be. If bureaucracy is heavy in the country of origins, it's guaranteed that in the respective consulate it has the specific gravity of lead. Not to mention all the other national defects that for whatever reason when exported abroad become worse (It's not my place, who cares?), and when concentrated in a public and happy island like the consulate they reach maximum potential. In the Italian Embassy in Dublin they put Catarella to answer the phones so that to whoever calls, my country introduces itself with an individual that doesn't speak either Italian or English, when in a good mood he grunts, when God forbid you find him in a bad mood he showers you with insults: "For f*** sake, who the f*** is it now? Can't you leave me in peace today?"

The Chinese consulate doesn't seem any better. Located in Dublin, it doesn't accept visa applications by post, you should go there in person to apply and the go back 5 working days later to collect the passport. They concede to use a courier, which is the solutions we chose: cost 100E, plus 130E for the visas.

Because of the money involved, we wanted to be double sure that the documents we wanted to send were ok, so about a month ago we started to try and inform ourselves by phone. On their website they give the opening times to the public and the ones when they answer the phones. No matter how many times we tried though nobody came to answer our calls. After a week of no luck, Brendan sent an email with a list of our documentation, details of flights and itinerary, asking if it was enough to get our visas. They answered within minutes with a clear yes. So we sent our courier and after ten days with no answer I asked Brendan: "Still no news from the Chinese consulate? The five days are up."
"Don't worry, maybe it takes a bit longer, you'll see that...SHIT!!"
"WHAT?!"
"I forgot to include pictures!"

We sent an email profusely apologizing for the oversight, telling them we put the pictures in the post that day and asking them to please join them with the application they received nearly two weeks previously.
Red Dragon: "Bring pictures when you came to collect passports. Mon-Thurs 9 to 12."
Green Shamrock: "Thanks for the suggestion, but it will be a courier to collect the passports, can't we send the pictures in the post and then collect by courier?"
Red Dragon: "We don't accept applications by post."
Green Shamrock: "The application is not by post, it's just the pictures. You already received the application by courier, can you please accept the pictures by post?"
SILENCE...PLEASE...SILENCE...PLEASE, PLEASE...
Green Shamrock: "Tell me now if you are going to accept the damn pictures by post or I have to come to Dublin to bring them myself!"
Red Dragon: "Give pictures to person who comes to collect the passports."
Green Shamrock: "Who comes to collect the passports is a courier who already charged me 50e to bring you the application and 50 to collect the visas! If I bring him the pictures now he is going to charge me another 50!! Can't you please put together the pictures that now surely have with the application you've had for the last 2 weeks??"

SILENCE

Finally Brendan sent another email starting again with the apologies and politely explaining that we needed an answer straight away because if they insisted in receiving the pictures directly one of us had to get on a plane and bring them to Dublin as it was cheaper then sending a courier (God Bless Ryanair!).

With money coming into the equation we find a way to communicate and finally they empathize with our problem: "Brendan, this is incredible! I thought much cheaper sending pictures by courier! As you already have put them in the post it's ok."
An hour later we got an email to say that the the visas were ready.