Moving

I think I can speak for most people when I say that moving sucks. And the packing and unpacking isn't even the worst part in my mind. What's really annoying is all of the logistics and things to coordinate before going. Fortunately with our place here we don't have to worry about changing the utilities (which I seem to always forget until after we have left a place). Other things have more than made up for that hassle, most of them Jason has had to do.

Jason is working on his UK visa. As simple tourists and only being there for three months, Anna and I don't need visas for the UK but since Jason is studying, he does. Up until recently he wouldn't have needed one either since it's less than six months but they made a new visa category - Student Visitor - just for him. I helped him fill out the freakishly long application but left him to do the things like education since you were 11 and all of your finances including how much you think it will cost you to live here and where all that money is coming from. Then he had to assemble a slew of documents, most of which we don't have with us. Fortunately it doesn't say they have to be official documents, just verifiable so we have gotten a bit creative. He goes to the visa place today so we'll see if it works.

We leave in one week from Sat. so we have kind of put this off until the last moment but Jason was so busy with work that he really hasn't had a chance to do it sooner. Fortunately, they have a fairly quick turn around (a girl from Jason's office is also going to the UK to study and got hers back in 4 days). We have high hopes. And we have given ourselves a little window before school starts in case we need to push back our flight but we really don't want to do that.

The next annoying thing Jason had to do was go back to the police commissioner's office. He went when we first got here and they said to go back within ten days of leaving. He went yesterday. When he got there, they realized there was a form that he didn't have so they left to drive back to the office on the other side of town. They didn't want to drive all the way back (getting through town is less than fast or direct) so they called Bindu who had them stop at a store where they were and she faxed what they needed to them.

As with any move, there is always where you are moving to. We still don't have a place in London. We have gotten a lot of information from some people we know there and have been looking and looking. The problem is we have pretty specific needs. A lot of the listings and websites are about sharing a place with roommates but we just don't think people will want to share with us. And with Anna, we really do need two bedrooms. I thought about a one bedroom and looked into some but when I really thought about it, I don't think I would be happy with that arrangement. Then there is the time frame. Most places say a 6 month minimum. To top it all off, we would really rather not pay 1000 pounds a week (rents are listed by the week), especially with the exchange rate. We are working on a place that looks perfect and we have high hopes and just hope it hasn't been given to someone else. Hopefully we will know by the end of today.

With all of this, I have to remind myself that we are going somewhere pretty dang cool and that I should be excited. I am, I just don't realize it yet. I'm sure it will come when we are actually there and it has all worked out.

To make things more exciting (because they weren't enough already) we are going on a trip next week so there is everything that goes into planning that. We are taking the train to Mumbai for a couple of days (where we will be able to go to church, I'm so excited) then onto a town called Arungabad where we will see some really cool caves. We will be back on Thursday night so we have a day to pause, regroup, and sleep before we leave EARLY Saturday morning. I hope Anna can make it. I figure, since I'm messing with her schedule anyway, why not go whole hog then we can deal with the fallout when we get to London.

So yesterday I did laundry, today I'm doing all of the packing (though probably not Anna's crib, we'll hold off on that) and tomorrow we are going to try to do a little shopping. There are still a few more Christmas presents to buy and we would rather do that here with Grace to know the good deals and haggle for us than in Mumbai where we will have no such assistance. This vacation will have to be pretty low key to counteract the past few weeks.