I was going to say that this is the first move where we’ve gotten on a plane and ended up in a foreign country, but then I realized that’s exactly what we did to get to Oman. By way of Egypt. So this is actually the third time we’ve done that in a row. Why does this time feel different?
Probably because I’m sitting here thinking, “instead of eating lunch in Oman tomorrow, I’ll be finding a place to eat in Bahrain.” Up until now our overseas flights have involved approximately 24 hours of travel, several stops, and an extended headache, but tomorrow we’re getting up, going to church, heading to the airport and 90 minutes later we should have new visas in our passports and be in our new “home” country. We even leave here at 1 something and arrive there at 1 something (we move back a timezone so we’ll be 10 hours ahead of CA). It looks like move #10 will be our fastest move yet — the previous record held by #7, Twenty-nine Palms to Monterey (an 8 hour drive).
It was a great decision to skip blogging this past week. I hate long goodbyes and all I would have been able to write about was “the last time we saw our friends before they left for the US” or “our last trip to Adventure Zone” or “our last Wednesday night dinner at MEA.” I enjoyed the week without having to make it a Long. Drawn-out. Emotional. Ending. This week is a fabulous time for us to move because almost everyone has already left for summer vacation back home in the US. It’s easy to forget that they’ll all be coming back in August and we won’t be here to start the school year with them.
The hardest goodbye was with Lucy. She was so upset to leave us on her last day of work — especially Camille. We are sad for us, because we’ll be lost without her, but she has a great family that she’ll be working for and we’re not worried about her future.
Today we went to her house to say goodbye to her husband and because she wanted to make samosas for the boys one last time. It was a lot of fun to see where she lived and she gave us the grand tour of the very grand house where they live (her husband is the personal chef for a VIP in the Sultan’s staff). This goodbye went better as evidenced by the smiles above. I know Camille is going to be in for a shock when she wakes up on Saturday morning and there’s no Lucy to make her every wish come true.
T-minus 18ish hours!