Day Two

Cons:

Ava and Chloe decided that midnight is a good time to wake up and that 2am is a good time to go back to sleep with alternating crying every hour on the hour until 5:45am at which time I just give up. Oh, will Jetlag ever end?

Ava is exceptionally cranky, extraordinarily clingy and is covered in a rash across her abdomen. However she is eating fine, has no fever and is neither vomiting nor has diarrhea. I gave her some Benadryl and did some research on the internet of possible causes. We may be making our first trek to the doctor today. We'll see.

Our bathroom mirror makes me look fat. Aarrrgghhh. :)

I have no motivation to unpack our suitcases again. In 3-6 weeks when our crate arrives, I will be packing our suitcases again for the 7th time this year. I sincerely hope that we will not move again for quite some time. In the last 8 years of marriage, Jeff and I have permanenty moved 8 times with several temporary moves (such as where we are staying for the moment) in between.

Pros:
We picked out the colors for paint in our apartment today. We got to go in and look around. We have a respectable view, a large kitchen and four bedrooms, and a small courtyard for the girls to play safely- yeah!

We ate McDonald's today and even found it ourself. If you saw the weird curvy streets you would understand the accomplishment in finding anything for ourselves.

My dear friend will be taking me to Costco tomorrow for a riveting day of buying groceries. Thanks a million Morgan- you guys are the best. They are also our neighbors in our new apartment and happen to have boys just slightly older than our girls.

I no longer fear looking like a tourist. When we first moved to Chicago and to Thailand, I hated carrying around a camera or a map because I didn't want anyone else to know that I didn't know what I was doing. I don't care much anymore. I have blonde hair, blue eyes and stand about 3 inches taller than everyone. If that isn't enough I have two blonde-haired children and a 6foot tall husband surrounding me- of course I don't look like I know what I am doing. In three years, I will still not look like I know what I am doing because I probably still won't. But, this time I embrace the ridiculousness. It helps with the culture shock.*


Stayed tuned for another exciting Day tomorrow. I might even post some pics if I find the camera.

*p.s. Many people have talked about culture shock and it can be a very confusing thing. Basically, culture shock is a culmination of little irritations, lack of knowledge of your surroundings and unfamiliarity to even know that you don't know what you're doing. Add on top of that the inability to ask anyone because of a language barrier and the disorganization one feels directly after moving and stuff is still packed, stored or lost and you have culture stress. Multiple all that by 10 and you have culture shock.

Example of stressor: Salt and Sugar both come in a similar-sized, clear plastic bag. This morning I sprinkled a good amount of salt on my cinammon toast and then took a big bite. Yuck!

Right now, we are at about 3 or 4 on a scale of 1-10.
We are lower on the scale this time because we can still laugh at sprinkling salt instead of sugar and the fact that we don't know what we are doing and look like clowns all the time. Who doesn't love a clown? (except the scary ones)