Medical Appointments and Air Freight!!

On Tuesday, the whole family had to go to the medical unit at the embassy for our check in process.  That meant that the girls and I had to use the family shuttle to get downtown and back.  Unfortunately, several other people had the same idea, so in both directions we had to wait for a second shuttle even though we arrived well before departure time.  In the morning we waited twenty minutes, and in the afternoon we waited half an hour.  That is a lot more outdoor time than I would like for my baby in 90 plus degrees weather, so I've definitely soured on the whole family shuttle idea.  It didn't help that no one offered to give up their seats and wait for the next one, so that the baby didn't have to wait in the heat.  Not a good experience overall.

Once we got to the embassy though, the medical appointments were fine, and even had a fun twist.  The nurse who called us in looked really familiar to me, and she was looking at me like I was familiar to her.  We went through our lists of where we'd lived and what we'd done, and it turns out that she was the school nurse at Swanson about eight years ago.  I think it's hilarious that I move halfway around the world and bump into someone who used to work across the hall from me in a middle school in Arlington, VA.

The whole family received a clean bill of health, although my blood pressure was a little high.  I've taken this to mean that I definitely need a spa day next week.  After the medical unit, we walked over to the commissary since Young told me to get her American stain remover for the laundry.  It's great that she knows American and Thai brands, so she can tell me what's fine to get at the local grocery store, but she also knows about things like Shout and sends me to the commissary for that.  We are so lucky to have her.

We are also lucky that we were in the same building as GSO that day.  GSO handles things like air and sea freight and car registration.  I wanted to check about our car registration, but I thought I would also ask how the air freight was coming.  The man who is coordinating our files, had missed an email from me and was very apologetic about it.  I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that we have baby stuff in our air freight, but when I asked about it, he told me to wait a minute, got on the phone and spoke to someone in Thai, and then asked if it was alright if they delivered our air freight the next morning.  Obviously I said YES, with lots of kop khun kas.

We figured it would be best to have Vivi out of the way when things arrived, so she went off to a play date with our neighbors.  Our six boxes arrived shortly after that with several men to help unpack them.  They didn't actually bring the boxes into the house, but opened them in the covered driveway and then handed us things, so Jeff and I were running back and forth from the door depositing things in various rooms.  Young was in charge of the kitchen stuff, and did a great job finding a place for everything.  She then proceeded to do massive amounts of laundry, so that we could have our own sheets and blankets on our beds for the night.

It didn't take more than half an hour to get all the stuff in the house, but I spent most of the day deciding where things should go.  Luckily we had shelves in the pantry already, so it was easy to stack up our cases of formula and coffee.  I am so happy to see my Keurig machine.  We also packed a memory foam topper for our bed, so I sleep well and wake up to good coffee now.  It's the little things that make all the difference.

Elena had her six month check up on Thursday, but after Tuesday's family shuttle experience, I decided to try taxi transport.  I got a taxi driver's number and had him pick us up at the house, wait for us during the appointment (Elena got three shots), and then drive us back home.  The peace of mind was wonderful, but I was bummed that he totally overcharged me.  Money is strange in Thailand, because it's like there are two different economies here.  There are Thai prices and then there are Western prices.  By Western standards the 1000 baht he charged me was not a big deal.  That's about $30 for three hours worth of driving/waiting.  But by Thai standards, it's ridiculous, and I probably should have paid closer to 500 baht.  I looked the driver in the eye when he gave me the price, and told him he was overcharging me, and he went into this big justification of the expense.  I wasn't going to argue with him, so I paid him, but I'm going to find someone with better prices for next time.  I realize that in the grand scheme of things it's a good price for what I got, but I don't like being taken advantage of.

While Elena and I were jetting around in a taxi, Vivi was playing at a friend's house and Young was supervising the installation of our cable TV.  The technicians showed up at the same time as the taxi, and they were still working when Elena and I got back.  They got everything hooked up, but we had asked them to put cable in Young's room too, which apparently had required a lot of work on their part.  Once they finally got things wrapped up, we all had some lunch, then I took Vivi to another friend's house (are you sensing a theme here?), and Young, Elena, and I got a ride with a neighbor to Big C.  We needed some things for the house, and it seemed like the best place for Young to buy a television that would be the right size for her room.

Thursday was a crazy day, but after dinner, everyone got to relax and enjoy our new cable television with tons of channels, at least half of which are in English.  We got the package with Disney Junior, which was, of course, the most elaborate one, but it also has HBO, so we should be all set when Game of Thrones comes back on :-)