Just Checking In

Hello and merry Christmas to everyone who is checking in on us.

The good news is that we're still alive and all is going well. The bad news is that we're no longer in our own house with our own computer equipment and our own freedom to do whatever we want, so we'll keep this short as it's a whole new ball game now.

Anyway here's the skinny on the move so far:

We overpacked. We overpacked to the point that not only were we exceeding Aer Lingus's weight limit for flights from Cork-Amsterdam (per person), we were even exceeding our own 4 baggage items' capacity to fit stuff in!! At the last minute, some very lucky friends of ours got given some very nice bottles of alcohol and the charity shop definitely got a bunch of nice clothes!! On d-day, we were still way over the weight limit but decided to bite the bullet and pay the €8/kg extra that we'd surely incur at the airport. As luck would have it, being xmas eve and all, Mr. Baggage-Checker-Inner was feeling happy and jolly himself (even at 5:10 a.m.) and let us off with only a warning! Ace in the hole!!! Now we can unload some of our winter unnecessaries, leave them here in NL, and save a bunch of weight for the trip from Amsterdam-London-Joburg on the 3rd. whew!

Our last 2 nights were spent in the posh, swanky ´Presidential Suite' type-room at Cork's finest: The Ambassador Hotel. My office party was oFridayay night there, meaning we got a special group rate on rooms for those who wanted to stay over, so we just stayed the extra night as well... it was a much-deserved reward for the last 3 weeks of packing, chaos, and madness back at our own humble abode. It worked out great, too, because we could take advantage of the bed, sheets, pillows (such an improvement on the last week of air-mattress-living) as well as an official wake-up call at 4:30 am, and the night porter ordering us a taxi to the airport, etc etc. Great move.

The (more than a) week of goodbye after goodbye was hard. There were even occurrences of tears at times, lots of emotional heart-to-hearts, and so on (not my favorite part of moving) many presents, many email addresses changing hands. Probably the most difficult part was the fact that much alcohol was consumed at my office 'do, and that means the hearts were opened and the floodgates were bursting like crazy!! (and I'm NOT talking about myself, here!!) I just don't know what else to say in these situations other than "um, please stop crying? see I'm kind of looking forward to this whole thing and you're freaking me out, here...." Sounds harsh but seems to work. Nonetheless, a great time was had by all. Our last night we went out with the cream of the crop (6 friends) to one of our favorite Cork haunts (groovy chinese restaurant) one last time, and said our last goodbyes, in an extremely decent fashion. It wasn't too melodramatic, it wasn't too hard, and most of all it was just nice.

Christmas time here in NL is different.
The Mr. and I exchanged our presents alone at the kitchen table today and I was happy that we're going through all this together. I got my favorite tv series (LittlBritainan) seasons 1,2, and 3 on DVD (WAHOO!!!) and he got an Irish rugby jersey and some guitar picks. Why the guitar picks, you ask? Because that's part 2 of his present... when we get settled in at the new place. He wants to learn, and I think it's a fabulous idea. We'll see how many chords I can remember when it comes time to do the teachin' !

So there are my thoughts for the moment. We both wish you all a happy new year and can't wait to see you ''down south'' in the coming year(s).

J2