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Published: July 22nd 2008
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mark leaving the Consulate
This is not the most interesting picture but I had to include it as part of my journal. I would have zoomed but Mark might have said "What are you doing?!!!!" so I took it really fast and he didn't even notice. I will open by saying we did get all 4 visas and we are set to leave for Shanghai on
Wed, July 30th...that's next Wed. 1 week from tomorrow. Real soon. Anyway, until we went to the Chinese Consulate and applied, we really didn't know if this would go smoothly or not. We've never applied for visas for working/living in another country...plus there's the matter of the Olympics and all they restrictions associated with visitors during that time frame so we were concerned there might be delays, but it all worked out. We have tickets, we have visas, we have an apartment, we have a school. Things are getting more and more organized at home (not quite there yet, but we will be).
Since the kids are in Ohio, we are using our evenings to get stuff done--Mark has to go to work this week since he's been out of town for about a month and has to wrap up a lot of things in Chicago. I took the train down to meet him and we ran a few errands in the city using Mark's car. I had recently had it detailed since we are going to be using it when we come back to Evanston and my car will be in Ohio for the duration of our China stint. Then, on the way home, he was talking about how great his car looks and how good a car it is since it's 10 years old when the car--as if it were laughing at us--starts to gasp and stutter. The gauges all went wacky and it looked like we were going 0mph and had no gas, and then the gauges went back to normal. So, in the end, the card did indeed die. Luckily we were in the parking lot of our destination (after making a few stops along the way before the car started acting strange). We were at Costco, which is about 20 minutes from our house. We remained extremely calm and mellow about the entire thing. First we went inside to determine the address of Costco. Then we called a tow truck (thank goodness for Goog411! OH and for those who are not familiar, 1800-Goog-411 is a number you can call to do a Google search via the phone). The tow truck said to leave the key and he'd find the car based on license plate and location info we gave him. So, we went shopping! We figured, we were already there...would have to take a cab eventually, so why not shop first. We called a cab, took it to my car in Evanston near the train and finally made it home after a long evening.
As annoying as this car trouble was and as expensive as the repair is, better last night than Tuesday next week...and another reminder of some of the stresses we won't face in China. No cars, no breakdowns. No cars, no crazy gas prices to deal with. Mixed blessing for sure, but I am ready for a car break. We will have cabs and trains galore, and of course our fabulous feet. Also, the fact that we handled the situation so calmly and so well as a team gave me a lot of comfort. We have many challenges in our future as we embark on our journey. Team Slaven! We can do it. Maybe I should get us all Team Slaven t-shirts...in China.
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Wow. Just a few days to go. I feel like you are all boarding the Mayflower for the New World. Kind of sort of .