The last minute panic

We moved to Indonesia Tuesday, July 24, on the 5:30pm flight on Singapore Air.  I'll never forget standing in our Houston hotel room, the four of us in a circle carrying or pulling our bags.  Mike said "ready?" and I began to tremble and quietly cry.

I want to go, ever since last fall when Mike came home excited about moving to an island not even Google Maps can find.  I'm in, I'm up for it, but I'm ashamed to say I freaked on the final day and during the taxi ride to the airport held panic-fuelled text conversations with Amianne, Tracie, and my mom where I demanded everyone tell me uprooting my kids from a life they love was absolutely the right thing to do.  Everyone came through, GG even had news (gossip!).

While Mike and Cassie dropped off our rental, a small dark man (who totally looked Indonesian) drove me and Jack to the airport, both of us sniffling.  Me from crying, Jack because I think he has a mild form of Tourette's and always has to sniff, sigh, blink, or shrug.  It's on my list of things I need to Google, along with how to work this rice cooker in my hotel room.

Flying to the other side of the world will knock your internal clock completely off.  I'm posting this on Monday, but I feel like it should be Friday.  We flew for about a dozen hours to Moscow where we had to get off the plane for an hour and a half.  We were there during the day and that airport was a happening place, tons of pale blonds, too.  Then we loaded back onto the same plane and flew another 10 hours or so to Singapore.

We landed about 5am on Thursday, July 26.  We took a Maxi-Cab (yes I made a lot of under-appreciated jokes) to the Singapore ferry where we waited for the 8am to Batam.  The ferry was very civilized!  I was expecting something out of Momma Mia but this thing was air-conditioned and no one smoked in our area.  We were the only anglos on board, and it was a full house (boat?), but I was very pleased not to be next to a crate of chickens or a chewing goat.  Mike made me pop two Dramamine because I had a bad moment years ago on a tour boat of the San Antonio Riverwalk (it's so interesting to live with me) so the massive rocking didn't bother me at all.  Most of the people on the ferry headed to a casino on the island which sounds like a plan to me at 8am on a Thursday.

In Batam we unloaded and the first thing we saw were monkeys, I kid you not!  It must have been a little family, there were a couple of babies clinging to moms and probably a dozen altogether.  I took it as a good sign since Cassie has been saying for weeks that we would Move to Indonesia to See Hello Kitty and Monkeys.  They were smallish, maybe the size of groundhogs, and brown.  I wonder what kind--something else to Google.

Our handler Junie showed up late, Mike said I should count on most everyone running late, and took us to Mike's office where I met lots of people I don't remember and can only hope I wasn't too embarrassing.  Who does a meet and greet after two flights and a ferry?  Really?  Junie then drove us to a McDonalds for lunch.  One of the Happy Meals had a drumstick and the red sauce in the stainless pump was chili sauce instead of ketchup, but the fries and nuggets were the same so the kids ate.
We finally made it to the hotel but first the manager had to take us on a tour (again, really?).  The hotel is pretty new and they are quite proud.  We toured the restaurant, conference rooms, penthouse, and ballroom where I probably shamed us all by having a huge hacking coughing fit and had to step out rather that oooh and ahhhh.

It was noon when we were finally left alone.  Cassie and I fell into bed and didn't wake up until 3am when we ate granola bars and played on the computer, giggling over Pinkie Pie and the rest of the ponies until we fell back asleep at dawn.  Jack made it until about 8pm the first day before he surrendered.  Yes, Mike went in to work Friday, and Saturday.  I don't think the kids and I were quite right until Sunday or maybe today.

The kids already miss their friends.  Jack keeps checking emails, Cassie asks about Libby.
 
Reading over this post I have to apologize that there's so little about Batam here.  You are just going to have to give a small-town girl a break here, I've never been anywhere so different.  I've never been on a plane longer than a night's sleep.  My senses are saturated, I just need a little time to absorb and observe.  As my lovee Tracie said, "the first thirty days are the hardest".  So I've decided to make no judgements for a month.  I did lapse once when I discovered no hot water runs to the kitchen faucet.  That's just unsanitary y'all.