Thursday, July 24, 2008

T-Minus 4 days and counting...

Visas? Check.

Airline Tickets? Check.

Panic Attacks? Check.

We're leaving Sunday for our week long trip, and these last few days have felt like I am on a 45 degree slope made of that slidey material they make the "speed skate your way to fitness" mats out of. I have nothing to wear. My hair is a wreck. I'm pretty sure I am going to suffer a stress-induced acne breakout that will cause me to look like I'm headed to The Netherlands on a high school club trip, not a home-finding mission.

But OH MY GOD WE'RE FINALLY GOING! This is where you, reader, heave a giant sigh of relief- the boring posts with "waiting two more weeks" are over! This is the dawning of most exciting part of this blog- the part where I actually BLOG about something!!!

Now that you have all (three of you) changed your pants, since you lost total control of all your bodily functions from the anticipation and excitement you are no doubt feeling, I will run through just a few small stories about the last week with our preparations for departure.

First, Anke. Lovely, wonderful Anke. Megan and I dropped off all the necessary paperwork, AND those all-important forms, last week on Tuesday. Anke was there, and seemed to have no recollection of who we were, but struck up a PAINFUL conversation with Megan while we were in the office:

Anke (devoid of any emotion and inflection): Hello. What is your name?

Megan (with sparkles and hearts dotting the "i"s): Megan. *small sparkly grin*

Anke: What? *leaning closer to paperwork port-hole in glass wall*

Megan: MEGAN.

Anke: Ah. Hello Megan.

Megan: I'm moving to the Netherlands.

Anke: Ah? You are?

Megan: Yes, to Amsterdam.

Anke: You're moving to Amsterdam?

Me: Well, CLOSE to Amsterdam.

Anke (with no recognition I spoke): That's nice for you, Megan.

(pause where I SWORE she was going to ask Megan if she had filled out the paperwork)

Megan: I have on my stripey leggings.

Anke: Ah.

Megan: They match my black headband.

Anke: Ah. (now looking into the office for something to take her away from the window)

Megan: I-

Anke: Nice to meet you Megan. (walked away to desk)

Megan looked at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders. She did the same, and went over to the lovely bench she was so familiar with from our last visit. Poor kid.

Second, our lawyer. (This is not as long and interesting as the Anke interaction, but it happened in the last week, so I wanted to include it.) We had a handful of legal documents we needed drawn up (most of them we've needed for 10 years now) so Kip and I enlisted the help of counsel, namely Hal D. Hale. Yeah. It just adds to our "Texan" rep that we have a lawyer by that epithet. (PS, he reads this. How cool is our lawyer? Ridiculously cool, that's how.)

So, the next update will be FROM the Netherlands. Unless I get a wild hair before then, which is possible, seeing how my hair is reflecting my mental status these days.

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