Wednesday? Really?

This is the bathroom I was locked in. Can't wait to get my stuff in July... the leafy theme I had before will go perfectly with this!

Wednesday greeted me at 0600... and it was good. I realized my main problem on Tuesday was that I had my blinds all the way down so it made the house pitch black inside. This time, I made sure they were open a bit at the bottom so the sunrise would wake me up (along with the alarms, of course!) and it worked. Here is part of the view from my window... I couldn't get a good shot of the mountains in the distance, but they're clear from here as well.

So in order to remain in the country, Felix and I have to have visas which requires a lot of paperwork, some pictures (4 each) and fingerprints (we're still waiting for *that* appointment). Today we head out to get our pictures taken and make sure they get into the hands of the people who need them. That was not particularly scary or difficult because I found the button on the bus and the directions to the photo place were super easy with Rob leading the way after lunch at the DFAC which is apparently one of the most popular places for families to meet for food here (according to Rob) and I can see its potential: the food's good and reasonably priced and everyone speaks English. It's a win-win-win! Anyhow, we move along to get the paperwork for Felix to go to school, which should be straightforward right? HA! Fooled you... I "preregistered" Felix online with DoDDs to try to expedite the registration process once we got here. That was one million percent pointless. As it turns out, we needed to do all of the paperwork in person and turn it into someone who is only available from 0830 - 1100 on school days. This is fine, we'll make it happen. Felix and I go from the picture place to the ACS building... not a tremendous walk - thankfully this base is tiny - but when we arrive, the school liaison is unavailable. Fine, she's supposed to be back after some luncheon, no big deal we'll just go to the CYSS people and get Felix registered. Good thing CYSS is in the same building, just one hall away. That process is quickish and only mildly painful when we get to the point of emergency contacts who are not the parents and wonder who exactly we can put down. Oh wait - they have to be local as well? Fine. My frg leader and her husband are our emergency contacts. Good thing we like them! Finish up with CYSS and move back over to the school liaison who is now back from lunch. She's also a very, very nice lady and takes the time to make sure we have everything we could possibly need... including the packet of forms we have to fill out. The packet has to be scanned and emailed to her so that she can print it out and give it to us. Should take only 5 minutes. Riiiiiiigght. While we wait, we go over the school info I hand carried and it turns out that Felix will need a shot before he can start school. Did you know that NC doesn't require the Hep A vaccines? Me either... so we leave the ACS building after our lovely liaison promises to have everything ready for us and leave it with the front desk if she has to step out for any reason and head over to the clinic to get Felix his shot (he is completely unaware of this, by the way) and of course, we have to register with Tricare first. That took less than five minutes because Rob has been here awhile and is already in the system. Best move EVER was going over separately, even if it was unintentional, because he got everything important taken care of during in-processing so we didn't have to wait for a physical address, phone number, box number, or any of the multitude other things we've been asked for - it was all basically issued to him. The clinic is a little bit nicer than the hospital at Bragg, which is awesome because Womack is pretty nice. We got there two minutes after the cutoff for immunization walk-ins. The receptionist found someone who was willing to stay and poke one more kid with one more needle. Awfully nice of her! It was at this point that Felix realized he was about to get a shot. Let's just say his reaction was much younger than I expected... I'm giving to him that he was exhausted and jet-lagged and hungry, but WOW did he overreact. I think the best part of the whole situation was how freaked out he got and while he was sitting on the table arguing with the guy about why he shouldn't get a shot, he got the shot and had the band-aid on his arm without the slightest inkling that it had happened already. Once he realized it was over, he thanked the man profusely for not sawing his arm off and he managed to get a tootsie pop out of it as well. Then I took him to Subway where he got to pick the sub with bacon on it and we walked over to the post office so I could get in the looooooooooooooonnngg line for our packages while he ate his sub. The package line was an uneventful 15 minutes of my day quickly disappearing, then we headed back over to the ACS building to pick up the school packet. The packages I sent were flat rate boxes that I made the most of, so they were a touch on the heavy side and filled mostly with items for Rob. I called him from the ACS building which is very close to where he works and asked him to come get the boxes because I couldn't really see myself on the rush hour bus with two heavy boxes, three folders and my wallet - oh yea, and my kid! - and not losing everything in the process. It would figure that I'd take my backpack with me and not need it Monday/Tuesday but certainly needed it Wednesday and didn't take it with me! ACS closed for the day, so Felix and I went outside to wait for Rob - the weather is spectacular here... I'm loving every moment of it! Rob stops by, grabs the boxes and heads back out, then we're on our merry way back to the bus stop. But I've never taken the bus back from Ederle before... I presume the bus stop must be on the other side of the street from the one I got off at here because that's generally the way it works with buses. Excellent, it is. Crap. There are several bus lines that pick up at this stop and I have to know which one I need. Ok, well I do actually know which one I need. What I don't know is that I have to step out into traffic to wave it down because it won't just stop for people congregated at the bus stop. Here's another time God watches out for kids and fools... there's an American contractor taking the same bus I need and he explains the system in much greater detail to me. Thanks dude!!

So we conclude Wednesday, not realizing that Thursday will also be a complete wash - knowing that we live in one of the most beautiful places on earth and we are quite fortunate to be where we are even though it's half a world away from everything we are currently familiar with. We get to this corner and turn to go home... this field can be seen from our balcony, but this picture is from the road the bus line travels. This hectic week is almost over... I can feel the calm coming!