The Broken Tooth

Teeth are important and I do try to take care of mine but genetically, I have been "blessed" with less than optimal teeth, hair, nails.  Hair is thinning, nails rip and tear off anytime I look askance at them, and teeth like to crack.  So there are a lot of crowns - fillings - and even a few caps in there, and one implant.  Otherwise, my teeth are still my own so not doing too badly at my age, I guess.

My teeth have personality and minds of their own.  They have made it a point to always give me grief when I travel.  Is it because they know I am eating strange foods, or they know there is a dentist close by that might not have been trained in hygiene?  Whatever the reason, during the last two or three years (and yes, I do travel a lot), I can count on something going wrong inside my mouth either during the trip or immediately before the trip.  On occasion, my teeth have messed up the timing - giving me enough opportunity to run to a dentist and get it fixed before I go.  Today they have caught me out as we're leaving on holiday tonight and one of my fillings is broken.

Is it possible that dentists are like many manufacturers these day in that they build in obsoleteness into your fillings and crowns so that you have to come back for more?  Or are my teeth really sentient on their own and hate to travel while most of my other body parts love it.  Whatever it is, for the next two weeks, I must remember to chew only on one side of my mouth, keep my tongue from exploring the broken bit, and hope that it doesn't get worse before my return.

Random Zapping

          My husband and I started our holiday yesterday for our 30th wedding anniversary.  We wanted to do something big so we're traveling to South America to visit three countries where we haven't been before.   Was an odd start because we left our daughter at home.  I say odd because usually she is the one traveling back and forth to her job in Africa so it was odd to say goodbye to her and walk out the door.   No problems getting to the airport early on a Friday morning in spite of having to travel the M25 "Parking lot".  No problems checking in and dropping off our bags.  Didn't even have a problem using the "fast track" lane where it scans your bar code and then opens the gate for you to walk into security.  It actually worked for us yesterday and half the time it doesn't.

          Get to the security line and I am removing all jewelry, my shoes (because I they have a kid light on them which is metal), my belt, my watch, my fitbit, etc.  My shoes and belt and purse go in a tray.  My computer  and my little bag of liquids and gels go in a tray and my carry on goes in a tray..  I walk through the scanner, fairly confident that I will pass without the miserable beep since I have NO METAL on me at all.  NOPE.  That's what I get for thinking the machines are actually and truly functional.  I get beeped.  There is nothing metal on my body at all.  oh wait, my bra strap has two metal hook and eye clasps on it.  Not even an underwire!  No metal parts inside me either and yet I am zapped.  So it has got to be random!  Of course I now get a thorough pat down and that's never enjoyable to have some unknown female run her hands all over your body.  And of course she didn't find a single thing.  And of course you can't even make a snarky remark or a joke or anything because you don't know what kind of mood these officers might be in and they could keep you off your flight.

          That done, I go to pick up my bags and notice that they have not come through the scanner even though it takes awhile to get the pat down.  Nope, opps, there they are but except for my computer and my little bag of gels and liquids, they have all blissfully been routed to the other side of the belt which means they will be further checked for explosives or drugs or whatever it is they get checked.   So I'm holding my pants up because my belt is in the other side.  I have no shoes on my feet and I'm holding my computer and little bag in in my hands.  Luckily we are not in a rush to make a plane.

          Finally an officer gets to my two trays and just pulls out my carry on bag and hands it to me.  What the heck???  Why did it go to the "to be checked" side if they weren't even going to look inside it.  But that's fine.  They are always great about taking everything out and they you have to stand there and get everything back inside while people are bumping you and trying to get to their stuff.  So I take it happily and wait for my next tray to be checked.  He brings me my shoes, without checking them.  great.  more randomness that apparently was so unnecessary that even the officer working the security desk didn't feel like he needed to check anything.

          That leaves my coat and purse and belt and watch and fitbit.  He runs the little explosives checking pad over the outside of everything in the tray, sticks it in the machine, and it squawks negative and he brings me my tray.  15 minutes or random zapping of me and my stuff.  Heavy sigh.  Airports are SOOOOO much fun these days.

          No further problems really, other than our airplane had one bathroom out-of-order, until we get to Miami.  We do the POWER WALK MILE that is so typical of airports these days or at least for us.  I think I have only had an airplane park close to the immigration desks maybe 3 times in my life.  Otherwise, seems like I am always walking from one far end of the airport to get into the country and out to get my luggage.

          Miami has the passport machines.  We have not run across these before.  If you are a citizen or have certain other visas or reasons to be here, you go to one of the machines lines up on the wall, answer questions, slide in your passport to be scanned, it takes your photo, and then gives you a receipt.  My husband and I are standing side by side using two machines not realizing that if we are traveling together, they really only want us to use one machine and put both passports in as family members.  So we screwed up the first pass through and had to do it again.  When our receipts came out, there is the passport information on it, a horrid photo, and a big X across both of our passports.  X's are NOT good.   

         You then take your little receipt and walk out pass an officer who sees the big X across your receipt and sends you into the line where you have to go past the immigration officers.  Crap.  more random zapping!  AND because just about everyone can use these machines (Brits with ESTA's, etc) it means that there are a lot of people with x's across their receipts and so the lines are much longer than if you had just gotten into a line without the blinking machine.  And true to most airports, there were two immigration officers sitting in the line of 30 or more desks.   I really try hard not to complain but yesterday I was tired and hot (being in Miami) and sweaty and so was really muttering under my breath about the whole thing.  I never, ever complain to the immigration people though as they can really be mean and keep you out.

          We finally get up to a trainee who has an officer behind her guiding her moves and it takes her less than 3 minutes  check us into the country.  She even said, don't know why you got an X.  Random zapping in all phases of airport travel it seems.  And it seems yesterday was my day to get zapped in all phases of it as well.

         h well, we are here, we are on holiday.  We are going to have a wonderful time.  We do have about 7 more flights to get through.  I hope that this will be all the random zapping we get but probably not!

One of the "I" Countries & Maintaining Reputations

Am quite ashamed to admit that I forgot where my husband was this week!  That has never happened before.  In my defense, he's been taking more than the usual amount of business trips and so far, never at a time when I could tag along - worse luck for me.  Most of his trips have been to Italy and while I have been there many times, I love going there so I've been quite peeved that he happened to "mention" going on this next trip after I already had committed to various things.  Ah well, next time.


So last week he was in Italy.  My husband is quite the pizza connoisseur.  Thus, we have pizza in every single country we have ever visited.  Sometimes this has been to our delight and sometimes this has been to our dismay.  But we must maintain his reputation for trying pizzas everywhere, no matter how far from Italy or how far from any kind of mainstream food sources.  And he always calls me on his business trips when I am not along for the ride so he called me on Tuesday night and one of the first things he said was "I'm maintaining my reputation".  I knew right away that he was referring to the pizza reputation but I responded with "You've already had pizza in Italy so you didn't have to do it again!".  OMG.  He's not in Italy this week.  He's in India!!  I knew this, I really, really did but we've been so busy trying to have our belated Christmas and then getting him back from Italy last Thursday and ready to go to India on Monday that it just slipped out of my mouth.  Boy, was he amused.


We have been in India before and tried the pizza there so he actually didn't need to have pizza again but we do love it and that's one reason we always try it.  So he didn't mind trying it again.
Anyway, his pizza reputation is intact, my geography reputation - if I ever had one - is shattered.  And I must remember to keep my "I" countries in order and which week goes with which "I" country.

Chasing the Passport OR A Good Taxi

       Due to some rather heavy over scheduling, I realized that April would be the only month free of foreign travel where I wouldn't need my passport.  As such, as soon as we returned from our trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar on April 1, I promptly sent off my passport for a new one.  It was quite hard to do as my old passport is nice and fat with visas and stamps and exotic locations but I have to have a new one this year.  The U.S. embassy in London stated that you should allow a month to get your passport back.  By special delivery, my passport got to them on April 3 and we are leaving on May 4 for our next trip.

Around April 18, I got a call from the embassy telling me I needed to send in another photo as the one I had sent wasn't good for their new technology.  I had to run around to the place they "recommended" (they aren't allowed to recommend but he did hint broadly that this particular place did good work), find a post office and send them another application with my new photo and new charge card details.  He assured me that I would still be able to get my passport in time for our trip.

May 1st came and went without a passport showing up and now I am getting nervous but still hopeful.  I must get it on May 2 or I will have to go into London on the 3rd to get an emergency passport or else my husband will be going off on holiday by himself.  May 2 the postman actually came to the door with another package but it wasn't my passport.  GULP.  I immediately got online and did the "request for emergency passport".  Two hours later I had the reply and an appointment for the next day at 2 p.m.  I do ahead and do all the preparation for our trip like packing and getting the proper cash and boarding passes, etc. etc.

This morning I had to drive my husband to work so I would have the car to take the train into London.  I worked out all the time schedules on the train so I would have plenty of time to get to the embassy.  I waited until the last minute and while some packages did arrive at the house, no postman.  So I am off to the train station and to London Waterloo and to Bond Street and to the embassy.  I made good time and got there at 1:30 p.m. and they are pretty much closed for lunch.  Dang.  the guard tells me to return at 1:55p.m.  there's not really anywhere to go so I just go to the park and sit and read and keep watching the time and the door. Finally at 10 till 2, I look at the embassy and figured I could go and maybe get inside.  By the time I turned off my kindle and put it in my purse and stood up and walked the 20 yards back to the embassy, there were 8 people standing there in line!!  Stealth citizens!  they all came out of nowhere.  But they are starting to let people into the embassy and I know that even with a 2 p.m. appointment, if I am in line, I am good to get into the embassy.  Still, it takes 25 minutes to get in because they only let in one person (or group) at a time to go through security and a couple with a baby took 15 minutes for some reason.

Finally I am into security and hand over my car keys, phone and kindle and get my claim tag and get into the embassy and get my magic number.  I had not sat down more than 5 minutes when my number was called.  YEA!  and the on line information had said you could wait 2-4 hours!  I go to the window and explain that my passport had not been returned even though the man said it would.  She explained that if I had an emergency passport that it would cancel out my new one and that I would then have to begin again in the while process but she would check and see the status of where was my old passport and new one.  Took her awhile and talking to 4 people at their desks but when she returned, she said to me that my passports had been mailed yesterday!  She asked me what time I had left the house.  11:30 I replied.  Oh, she replied, it says here they delivered it at 12:45!!!  OMG.  of course they did!  if I'd only had faith!  She is trying to reassure me that I can probably pick it up in the morning before we leave but we have to be at the airport by 9.  Thank goodness we didn't have a 2 or 3 a. m. flight.  So I'm thinking maybe I can get it this evening if I take a taxi home from London which will cost me about 140 pounds.

So I head out of the embassy and collect my things and call my husband immediately and give him the skinny.  His computer is down for a work break but says he will start tracking it down for me and see what are my chances.  I make my way back to London Waterloo.

Reaching London Waterloo, I call again.  his computer is still on a work break.  I can't get a train back to our area for another 20 minutes and I, of course, didn't go to the further train station today but to the one close to home so there are no fast trains.  it will take me at least an hour and 10 minutes to get back to the car park.  After getting totally frustrated and upset and hanging up on my hubby who was only trying hard to help me, I popped onto the train and called him back and asked if he could go pick it up.  I explained that it was NOT the post office in the mall or any of the small ones in shops but it was in some industrial district and he'd have to go home first and get the slip they put through the door that said they'd tried to deliver it.  He was so gracious and immediately called a taxi and left work.

Now I am on the train and on my way and wishing I had a glass of wine or something.  He calls and says he's at home and has the paperwork and the taxi is now going to take him to the station to pick up the car so he can go get it.  Maybe we are saved after all.

Now we come to the Good Taxi part.  The taxi driver took him to our station.  There are two parking lots.  I only knew about one of them which is located behind the train station and across the tracks.  it is not the main parking lot.  the taxi driver and my husband only knew about the main parking station which is by the train station and on the same side of the tracks.  They pulled into the parking lot and my husband does not see our car.  The taxi driver, and my husband was still on the meter and the driver had waited for him at our house while he retrieved the paperwork from the post office, remembered there was another parking lot and drove to it and wow, there's our car.

My husband now gets out and pays the taxi driver.  By now, the driver has been told the story of the passport and knows that my husband is trying to get it before anything closes and that his wife is a little wacky and upset and freaked out too.  He volunteers to drive over to the post office in the industrial park and have my husband follow him in our car.  This is totally off the meter and off the payment plan!  What a very, very nice man and a good person!  It wasn't far from the train station because I have been there but it is hard to find if you have no clue where to go.  The taxi driver drove right to it with my hubby following and took him right into the parking lot and then left him there to go find another far.  This driver is going to get some good karma for his deeds today.

My hubby goes into the post office and retrieves my passports.  I have to carry the old one with me because it has my England visa in it but my new one is all ready now for more exotic locations and stamps and visas.  Yea!  Thank you U.S. Embassy, thank you royal mail special delivery, thank you my wonderful husband, and thank you unknown taxi driver.   We travel anon!!

$1000 Weekends

$1000 Weekends

            We love being ex-pats.  We have tried to take advantage of the culture and the location and the vicinity of surrounding countries/opportunities whenever possible in all the places we have lived overseas.  When we started living overseas many years ago, there wasn’t a lot of money or time in the budget to do much but we still managed to visit some incredible places and see some fantastic sights in each place we have lived, albeit on a minimal budget most of the time which meant cheap hotels, long uncomfortable bus rides, you know the drill.

            Nothing is different about that philosophy now except the location has changed, there is a more money in the budget, and we have a bit more time too as my husband has off work every other Friday.  That gives me two 3 day weekends each month to try and come up with something exciting, either here in England or “on the continent”.  So far we have managed to go south towards the coast for a weekend, to Cardiff, Wales for a weekend, and will soon have a nice weekend in Cornwall.  We have also hit Belgium for a weekend and I have just managed to set up a weekend in Sardinia.  Also on tap are a lot of the “English Must Do’s” such as Ascot, Windsor, Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and Royal Chelsea Flower Show.  And I’m just getting started!

            Needless to say, these weekends are no longer budget cheap, especially if it is a weekend where we have to fly somewhere and rent a car, stay in a hotel, pay for food, yada, yada, for two people do cost more than one even when I am getting every discount I can find, every Groupon coupon, every mileage usage and points usage due me.  So it’s about a $1000 for a good weekend away.  That probably includes all of the above plus gas and entertainment, entrance fees, diving fees (sometimes we dive), transportation, whatever.  The end point you ask?  It’s a hell of a lot of fun, we are enjoying the heck out of ourselves, we are seeing a ton of wonderful things, and we aren’t broke yet