Learning to be a Diplomat

I'm back! Hope you missed me! :-)

So here we are, John and I at school, learning to be diplomatic. Hopefully they don't actually pass or fail you. We aren't star pupils!

Yesterday we learned how to deal with customs/immigration if they really aren't interested in honouring your diplomatic status. When it was my turn to play the tired mom, with my kids, no husband (he was to join us on this "trip" later - typical!) and the "health monitor" for the foreign nation wanted to give us Yellow Fever shots or at least wanted a $50 waiver "fee" (cash, thank you very much) - I politely refused both and offered to wait for a supervisor... right answer!! Yeah me!

Another couple playing the part of a couple re-entering an Asian country where the customs agents were looking for a donation as well (the guys playing the agents were hysterical!) seemed at an impasse. John and I urged them to "buy" the agent's hat (it was cool!), thereby paying money and getting the heck out of there. They followed our advice but it was the wrong advice! Oops! I'm sticking to this one though, I really liked the hat! :-)

So it's been very interesting and lots of good info so far. We haven't been doing our homework - let me tell you, between the drive and school its a ten plus hour day. Then home to make dinner, kids and housework. Momma ain't used to such hours! And yes, I have been cooking and yes, I'm doing housework though with an empty house it isn't much! So bedtime is much, much earlier than normal for me. Thankfully school isn't M-F for me.

We're sleeping on air mattresses still. Our stuff won't arrive from Argentina for another month or so. Our car is...somewhere between here and there, hopefully! Our Express shipment arrived - and was delivered exactly on it's deadline day. :-( We haven't been reimbursed for any of our expenses. Just another international move. Ugh.

But I'm back! Glad to be here.