Picture/Privacy Policy

I started this blog for two reasons. One is that I want an easy way to keep in touch with friends and family in the States and other places around the globe. The second reason is that when we were preparing for our move, I had a hard time finding information for people like us. I found several blogs for old American dudes who wanted to move to the Philippines to marry young Filipinas who would wait on them hand and foot, and I found a couple of blogs by single people who came over, and one by a couple in the Peace Corps. There is a great blog in the sidebar of this one about a family who moved here, and it was very helpful, but I wanted MORE! I figured if we were looking for more, there were probably others going through the same thing, hoping to find someone else who had been there before who could prepare them for what they were about to embark on. Because of this second reason, I don't want to make this blog available to friends and family only.

This brings up some security issues, though. In American terms, my family is not wealthy at all. We are comfortably middle-class. I would say that our chances of being robbed in the States would be slim, but since we actually WERE robbed in the States, I can't quite say that. Let's just say that had we not lived in the ghetto in the States, our chances of being robbed would have been slim, because we just don't stand out financially when we're there. Here, however, we are amung the Upper Crust (tm). This still rather blows my mind, but there you go. It's all relative.

Because of where we live and the lifestyle we can live here, there is a chance that we can be targeted for crime. This is not to say that I walk around in fear. People are very nice here and I have no worries on a day-to-day level. However, I don't want to be making it easy for those who DO look for targets to single us out. And there are people here who do use technology to find their targets. If you are moving here, be aware of that, and guard your information accordingly.

For this reason, I do not use our names in the blog. I'll use initials if I can't get away with not naming someone specifically in the telling of a tale. This extends to our househelp, too. Please follow this practice in comments you might make on this blog as well. The kids are to be refered to as "the kids" or their initial ONLY.

Also, I will not be posting any photos of our adventures here. Because it is a public blog and I cannot control who sees them, I have decided instead to post all photos on Facebook where I can set them to only be visable to friends and family. What does this mean? Well, if you are a friend or family, then you need to have a Facebook account if you want to see photos of the children. Once you have the account, let me know and I will send you a friend request. Once you say we are friends, then you will be able to see the photos. If you are not a friend or family, then you are out of luck for those photos. Sorry, it's just how it has to be so I can feel comfortable with this blog.

I know that this may come off as paranoid, but it's not. It's a precaution. One of the mailing lists I'm on over here just had a report of someone being targeted by a local gang. They are almost positive that they got the information they needed to con their family from their daughter's MySpace account which was open for public viewing. She had filled out a bunch of those "getting to know you" type quizzes and it was all the information the gang needed to convince the family's househelp to take all the jewelry out of their house to bail the father out of jail, and on the way, the woman was robbed.

Incidentally, quizes like this make you a target in the States, too. Really. Quit filling them out!! We honestly don't need to know your porn star name or the name of your first pet or your favorite color or first school. Those quizes give people enough information to con your children and gain access to your bank accounts, because a lot of them involve maiden names and things that are answers to security questions when you forget your account number. It's just not worth it.

So, yeah. Please respect our privacy guidelines. I know I have been lax myself, but I've just gone through and redacted names, and deleted comments if they had one of our names in it. From now on, I intend to be very strict with myself. If you want to know more or ask specific questions about something, then feel free to email instead of commenting here, or comment on Facebook. Salamat!

Potty Talk.

We have spent more time than I'd like to admit in malls over the last 2 weeks. I finally found some dishes, though MJ and C keep setting the table with the melamine. I need to remember to ask them to use the new stuff, but I always forget until it's already set and I don't want to make them do it over. It's not exactly a huge deal, you know? Anyway, when I bought the dishes, they came in boxes of four settings each, and there were two sales people who came over and opened all three of the boxes, checking each dish for imperfections. Which, considering the fact that they found one was pretty awesome. They traded out one bowl for the display bowl and sent us on our merry way.

Yesterday, we had to exchange a fan that fell over on it's own accord the other morning and broke. They offered to assemble the replacement for us, and while they did, they found that one of the bolts that had to be replaced so the "cage" around the fan blades could be put into place was stripped and couldn't be removed, so they opened up another box and got a new part, finished assembling it, and sent us off happy and smiling.

Everything I'm buying here that is being checked like this before hand is the same stuff I'd be buying in the States, mind you. It's not, like, cheap, knock-offs that are prone to breakage. This is why it is so awesome that they check everything before selling it. I would have been grumpy about the marked bowl and had to have returned the fan with the stripped bolt. By taking the time to check it, they saved everyone involved time and frustration. I LOVE THIS.

Believe it or not, I bought two light bulbs, and they checked those, too. Awesome.

Wait... I have let my love for fantastic customer service get me off track. Focus.

As I was saying, the girls and I have spent a lot of time at malls recently. Festival is comparable to an American mall in just about every way. We learned about one difference, though, when we'd been there for a particularly long time and, as is wont to occur, the children had to use the bathroom. We found where we needed to be, and discovered that there was no toilet paper. Not as in they were out, but as in there was none to be had. Happily for my children's tushies, I had some tissues in my bag, so they made due. There was only one stall not already occupied, so we took turns and made our way out and everyone was happy with their newly emptied bladders.

We were back a few days later, and I was prepare again as it came time to use the bathrooms. This time there were several open stalls, however, we found that only half of them had toilet seats on the toilets. Ummm... Ok. We opted for those WITH seats, did our business, and moved along.

When our quest for dishes failed at Festival, we headed for the SM South Mall to try there. Again, this mall is comparable to a mall in the States. Except for the bathrooms. I was prepared with tissue, mind you, and I knew that for some reason, some of the stalls may not have seats in them, but I was not prepared to find that at this mall, none of the toilets would have seats on them at all. Not only did they not have seats, but the rims were all filthy. The kids insisted it was an emergency time, so I went ahead and told them to try to squat and not touch the rim at all. Not easy for 4- and 6-year olds who usually have to get on their toes to sit on a toilet in the first place.

They had thorough showers when we got home...

I explained all this to A that night in the most restrained "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE??" tone of voice that I could muster. That is when he felt it timely to explain that it's a general practice here in the Philippines to squat over the bowl. "Oh, really?" says I, "They just do the butt hover all the time? What about the kids who are too short to hover?"

"No," A replied, "They squat over the seat. As in, they put their feet up on the rim and squat over the toilet bowl, and then get down when they are done. At my gym there are signs in the bathroom stalls instructing people to sit on the seats and not to stand on the rim. It's pretty common practice here."

That is when I curled up and died.

I can't even imagine the chaos that would ensue if I tried to teach my children how to stand on the rim of a toilet bowl. They'd be soaked in about 3 seconds. I will be packing Clorox disinfecting wipes in my purse from now on, and the kids are on strict orders to empty every waste product from their bodies before we leave the house.

Wait... Why isn't that melting?

Dairy isn't that big here in the Philippines. I imagine that due to lack of vast quantities of land on which to raise cows coupled with lack of refrigeration until relatively recently, it just wasn't practical and so it never really made it into the national diet.

When we first got here, A had some milk on hand for the girls. To keep it affordable, it's actually half reconsistuted milk and half fresh milk. Because we're on the other side of the world and the cow's diets are different, the taste is a little off, too. The verdict from the kids was a loud, "NO WAY!" We're going the path of ice cream and cheese for them instead.

Life is hard, I know.

Which brings me to the topic of cheese. Until fairly recently, it was hard to find things like cheddar and parmasan on a regular basis. The grocery stores in our area seem to have a fairly constant supply, so we're lucky in that regard. There is a "local" cheese product that is widely available, though, called Che*Vital. It's like Velveeta, but white. Or so I'm told, since I don't actually remember ever having had Velveeta. A says it's really good grated on top of hot pasta so it melts all over and gets gooey. I'll let him stick with that.

Butter is about the same price as in the states, but margarine is even cheaper, so most people, when they need such a thing, opt for margarine.

Where am I going with all this? Well, MJ, our househelp who is in charge of cooking, was asked to make pancakes for us this morning. She's never actually made pancakes before, but we got a mix with the instructions in Tagalog and she figured it out quite well. I'm sure she's seen pancakes before: the stack of steamy-warm goodness with the pat of butter on top sitting in a pool of sweet, sweet syrup.

The girls and I sat down at the table and waited for a few minutes and she brought out a plate with a stack of pancakes, smothered in syrup with white pats of... something... on top. It wasn't melting in. I thought that perhaps she'd made them earlier and the pancakes had gone cold. I lifted a pancake onto each of our plates, and the "butter" was sticking to the pancake on top of it. I took a little nibble to investigate, and sure enough, instead of butter, she'd topped each pancake with a pat of Che*Vital.

I laughed pretty hard, but The Youngest was miffed, because she'd gotten a bit bite of it before she realized what it was. It's not like it killed her, and really it wasn't THAT bad, but it wasn't what she was expecting. I took the plate back in and found out that, yes, they were pats of cheese and showed her that we typically opt for butter on meals like this.

Good times, people. Good times.

Catching up.

I have been busy the last few days.

Friday, we interviewed a couple of ladies to be househelp. Our pool cleaner/gardener told us that he knew a couple of women, one old, one young. One had worked for an American family and spoke some English. When they arrived, we saw that they were both young, and it turned out that the one had worked for a Korean family, but had had to speak to them in English as their common language, so doesn't actually know that much proper English afterall. We hired them, though.

So far, so good. I mean, really, it's quite awful on the communication front, but they both clearly have brains and know-how so I think that in time it will get easier to communicate and things will be smoother.

A and I both feel like househelp are a big treat, me especially, because, in reality, THEY ARE. But at the same time, we don't want to be the Nasty Overlords, so there are a few things that we're doing a little differently than the standard set-up with househelp. First of all, we're giving them every Sunday off. To give you an idea of how amazing that was, the two of them nearly lept out of their seats when we told them that. It is standard practice for househelp to get ONE day off a month. ONE. A month. And from what I can tell, the attitude is that they should be happy to have that one day. I don't know. It just doesn't jibe well with me to make them work that much and be away from their families that much. It's sad enough that they don't see their children all week. Add to that that we don't believe in making people work on Sundays unless it's a crucial service, like police and hospital workers, it didn't seem right to avail ourselves of the services of househelp on Sundays, either. Since everything they do for us is stuff we did ourselves quite (ok, not quite) happily on our own before we got here.

I won't lie that it's also nice to have that one day a week when it's just us in the house, too.

There is a definite learning curve having help like this. Again, the prevailing attitude is that you have to be on them all the time. We're going to try just spelling out their duties clearly and see how that goes. Like I said, they seem to be more than clever enough to understand what is expected of them, as long as the expectations are clear. Housekeeping isn't rocket science. I'm not going to shadow them unless I have to.

Also, we unknowingly ate all their food this morning. Oops. I thought they had made a massive breakfast. Turns out that they put the food on the table, and then they eat whatever is brought back in to the kitchen. I think we'd left one egg and, like, 2 slices of bacon. I told them to make more food. When A gets home, I will tell them that they should take their portion off before bringing it out to us. I don't want anyone starving and the whole "we'll just eat what's left" thing doesn't seem right to me at all.

Anyway, enough of that topic for now.

Saturday, we had some of A's old mission companions and their families over for a pool party. They all brought food and it was the Best. Food. Ever. I was so stuffed by the end of it. I'm not even sure what all it was, other than delicious. The B's gave us an ice cream cake when we arrived, and I hadn't had a chance to try it until that day, and it was the tastiest thing ever. I was hoping to LOSE weight here. I don't know if that's going to happen.

Church went better than I expected. Tagalog speakers pepper their speach with enough English that I could get the jist of much of what was being said. There were two youth speakers, and they both spoke mostly in English, so that was great for me. Also, the Sunday School teacher spoke entirely in English when she found out I don't speak Tagalog yet. Relief Society was a blend, but they were teaching from a conference talk, and they handed out copies of it in English, so I had an idea. At one point, I was fairly confident that I knew what was being asked and I offered up an answer. Turns out that I didn't actually understand the question, but my answer worked anyway, so I didn't sound like a crazy person.

I learned two words at church. I'm not sure if I'll spell them right, but mabuti is good, and marami is many. Two words out of thousands ain't bad?

In Homemaking news, I have been trying like crazy to find dishes for us here. A got us a set of 4 melamine dishes to start off with, but we obviously need more now that we have 3 people working with us. Add houseguests and we're seriously into eating in multiple shifts. I think my problem is that I am too picky. I want white dishes. That's it. Just white dishes. It's not hard to find white-ish dishes or truly white dishes with things designed into the edge of the plate. If I wanted dishes with massive flowers painted on them, it would be no problem. I just want truly white, plain dishes, though, and it seems like that is a tall order. There is supposed to be an outlet somewhere, but it's quite a drive. I've tried the two likeliest stores locally, but no luck. I think tomorrow I will try a different mall and see what I can find. They're the last things that I really want to get right now.

A delivery person came by a little while ago and came right to our door. *gasp* SO RUDE!

Wait... Did you hear something?

Apparently, it is considered the height of impropriety to enter someone's property without permission in the Philippines. And entering someone's home without a direct invitation is an absolute no-no.

When someone comes to our house, they bang the metal gate and wait. The gate is fairly loud, and in a typical home, someone would hear it and come out to see who was there. Being wussy Americans with a tendency to sweat profusely, however, means that we spend much of the day holed up in the part of our house that is air conditioned. Because of this, all our windows are shut, and it's almost impossible to hear someone banging at the gate. Even if you are watching through the window and see the person arrive and start banging, the noise is almost imperceptible.

Yesterday, I'd heard something that sounded like a faint doorbell, like one maybe coming from the neighbor's house, but investigated just in case. I didn't think we had a doorbell, but figured stranger discoveries have happened in a new-to-you house. The youngest had gone down to the windows along the door and was looking out at something. I asked her if she saw anyone, and she said no. I looked out myself and saw no one. However, not knowing about the "don't go on someone else's property uninvited" rule, I was looking right outside the door, and not out past the gate. About 15 minutes later, I heard the sound again and investigated again, but again saw no one. Another 10 minutes or so later, I looked out our bedroom window in time to see someone sadly get up from the sidewalk in front of our gate, put on his helmet, kick start his bike, and drive away. I have no idea who he was. We weren't expecting anyone. But I certainly felt like a jerk for missing him.

Last night, we ordered pizza and had it delivered. I happened to be standing at our bedroom window looking out at the gate while talking on the phone with A when I noticed the delivery man pull up on his motorcycle. He banged on the gate as I turned to head toward the door. By the time I'd grabbed my wallet and made it out the front door, he had assumed a posture on his bike that suggested that he was prepared to end his shift sitting outside my house.

He sprang into action, and this is when I realized something: customer service here is like living in a Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. Everything is laid out before you and completely described before it is handed over. The deliveryman took our pizzas out of the bag, and I completely threw him off by handing him the money first. After a long awkward pause, he handed me three lollipops and my receipt and took the money. I wasn't quite sure what I'd done wrong until I made to take the pizzas from him.

Him (throwing a protective arm across the boxes): "Ma'am, please! Check your order!"
Me (stepping back): "Uhhh..."

He then proceeded to open each of the pizza boxes, delineating the sizes and toppings of each for my approval.

Ladies and gentlemen of Bloglandia, I had just had a Pizza Hut order presented to me while standing on my sidewalk with the same pomp and fanfare as if I were seated in a 5-star restaurant with linen table cloths.

He looked for my nod of acceptance, then closed the boxes and handed them to me with a smile.

My brain couldn't quite absorb what had just happened, but honestly, it was pretty freakin' awesome. And I imagine that it saves them a heck of a lot of hassle. Had I not interjected by handing over the money too soon, the entire exchange would have taken perhaps 20 seconds longer than it takes to interact with a pizza deliveryman in the States. But by doing it this way, they know immediately if they've screwed up an order and don't have to deal with getting an annoyed phone call 3 minutes later when you get inside and open the boxes. Also, you're agreeing to the contents of the order in front of an employee of the restaurant, so there are no phone calls from people trying to scam a free pizza that the deliveryman "forgot" to deliver. To top it off, you get the added bonus of making your customer feel incredibly important.

I'm no longer feeling guilty about getting this level of service everywhere we go. I'm now beginning to think that we'd be a lot happier if we still offered service like this in the States. It's essentially free, after all, and yet the benefits to making your customers feel this way would be enormous. Imagine if Macy's tested your rice cooker for you before you bought it, and checked to make sure that all of the accessories were still in the box, and JCPenny's offered the same rice cooker for the same price, and didn't take the time to check it and you ran the risk of getting home with a faulty product that was missing pieces. Where would you shop?

On a final note: a "family sized" pizza here is about the size of a medium in the States. And, they have a side order here that is essentially a pig-in-a-blanket topped with melted cheese. It came free with our order, or I never would have ordered them myself.

They were obscenely delicious.

Shopping is... different here.

We made it to the mall yesterday. I thought that it would be a fairly normal shopping experience, since it was a mall, the most American of shopping areas, but no. There was plenty to learn.

A took the girls to a movie so that I could shop on my own without two ankle biters slowing me down by knocking everything and making friends with everyone they see. (Kids!) The mall here is very overwhelming, but not any more so than a ginormous mall in, say, New York City. That is to say that there are a lot of people, a LOT of stores, and very loud music just about everywhere.

We had something to eat before we split up. We got a chicken dinner at Kenny Roger's Roasters. (Excellent chicken and corn bread, "eh" side dishes) When you order here, you go and sit at the table and they bring the food out. Then when you are done, you just walk away from it. KRR also has a roaming gravy girl who wanders around with a pitcher full of gravy for all your gravy needs. Pretty sweet.

When we finished, we went into a cell phone store and got me a cell. As she was setting up the cell phone for me, the salesgirl started singing along with the music that was playing in the shop. I had heard before that Filipinos loved to sing and karaoke was really big over here, but I'll tell you what, if this girl was in the States, she'd have been thrust on to some reality show or another or signed to some label or at least singing in a dimly lit something somewhere. She was amazing. And she was selling cell phones in a mall in Muntinlupa.

A issued a warning when I split off from him and the girls: "In the stores, someone will cling on to you and try to anticipate everything you need. It will be very overwhelming. Don't be afraid to tell them to leave you alone."

*gulp*

I made my way to Robinson's Department store, which is much like a JCPenny in the States, though they had a far more extensive stationary department that I had to step out of before I started drooling on things, since that's kind of noticably destructive to paper products.

The first thing I noticed as I searched for some soap was that the aisles were very, very tight. A slender American of short stature would feel a little snug in the typical aisle here. An overweight American of close to 6 feet carrying a purse the size of a piece of carry-on luggage was like Godzilla wandering through Tokyo. I only had one moment of knocking something over, only to turn around to pick it up and knock something else over, again and again *ahem* before I got the hang of navigating the store with a bit more ease. I would like the record to show that the one time when I had to actually lift the things I was going to buy over my head to make it down the aisle, the sales lady who was helping me had to turn sideways to make it through, too. When someone who is about 5 inches wide has to go sideways to make it through an aisle, the store might really want to consider extending the space between displays. That's all I'm saying.

I went to the toy area first, because I'd promised the girls a gift on the first night they stay quiet for the entire night. (I'm not above bribery in my attempts to get us over jetlag!) I didn't know what I was looking for, exactly, and apparently, not having a purpose was permission to pounce. I had someone at my hip almost immediately, which was way more attention than I wanted as I browsed around converting prices, trying to find something less than $5. I am cheap, and I take a certain pride in that, but I still don't like someone breathing down my neck while I am being cheap.

Fun fact: Disney-princess themed toys are about twice the price you'd pay in the US. Same thing for My Little Pony, Littlest Petshop, and Polly Pocket. Basically, everything my kids play with already. Another Fun Fact: You can buy a Snow White themed meat-grinder toy. I got a photo. I will get it up.

I eventually found a few toys and escapsed upstairs to get curtains and other household things. This is where things just got out of control. At one point, I had 7 people helping me. Seven. Think about that for a moment. You've just come from a country where it's almost impossible to find someone to ring up your purchases in a large department store, let alone find someone to help you BEFORE you have decided what to buy. You are used to a pressure-free shopping environment where you can hold two products in your hands to 30 minutes while you weigh your options, if you so chose. And then you find yourself surrounded by 7 people, taking different towels off the shelves, unfolding and refolding them before you, holding them up so you can see how large they are, asking what you'll be looking for next, shouting orders to the people standing in the area you'll be sent to to get those items so they can be ready for you, packing things in your basket for you, and then sending you on to be swarmed yet again.

It's a bit overwhelming.

I went in with A's warning in my ears, prepared to tell them all to leave me be, I was ok. But once I got into housewares, I was just swept up in this tide of customer service that pulled me under. I came to, sputtering and gasping for breath an hour later with four large bags of goods and a curtain rod being carried for me out the door by yet another salesman. I'm not sure how it all happened, but I ended up with much of what I needed. In fact, I ended up with two extra towels, but I'm pretty sure that was my fault.

I had texted E while I was in line, and he showed up a moment later and whisked all my things off to the car for me. You can't take bags from one store into another store without having to check them, so that's one of the things E does for us when we go shopping is that he just hangs around the mall, too, and when we ask for him to come, he meets us and takes the bags for us. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty awesome to not have to lug your bags around the mall all evening.

Robinson's doesn't exit to the mall itself on the floor I was on. It exits into a hardware store, which was good, because I needed some hardwarey things. I spent about an hour poking around and got the odds and ends I needed. Except for an ironing board. For some reason, a full-sized ironing board here is $60. I don't understand why that is, but after paying half us much as I'd normally pay for everything else I'd bought, I wasn't going to pay twice as much for an ironing board.

I walked out with two bags this time, but instead of calling E, I decided to make my way to the supermarket on the bottom floor and then have him come get everything at once and then we'd go back to put the stuff in the fridge. That, however, is when I learned that you can't take bags from one store into another. I was pooped by then, so I stopped and had a soda and texted A to find out when their movie was ending. It had just finished, so we arranged to rendez-vous where we entered the mall.

That is when I got lost. Did I mention that the mall is huge? Like mind-bendingly large? I thought (judging from the mall maps, mind you) that it was shaped like a boomerang. Turns out that it's more like a flattened A with stores filling the triangle at the top. Not realizing about a whole other layer of stores in the layout of the mall, I couldn't find the exit I was looking for. That is when I was supremely thrilled that we had thought to get me a cell phone before we split up.

When we got home, the girls had passed out. I tried to stay awake, but by about 5, I was toast. A made us some dinner and tried to wake us up a few hours later. K and I managed to eat something, but the youngest could not be roused. She evenutally woke up at about 1 am and spent the night awake at my side again. K woke up at around 3. This is going to be an issue for a while, I think.

Today, we are going to drive around out neighborhood for a bit to get a sense of what is where and what is available. Then we are headed back to the mall to start getting some small furniture items, like bedside tables. I've dressed a little nicer the last few days, but our clothes are at the laundry, so I'll be a grungy Kano today.

MackDos, Coppers, and my new alarm clock

Mornings here are full of sounds. The first thing I hear is my new alarm clock, also known as the neighbors' househelp sweeping the front walks and driveways clean. You would be amazed at how loud that can be when there are 3 or 4 women out there doing it at the same time. The first morning we were here, I got up before anyone else and wandered around the house for a bit, then stepped out to the backyard to look around there. I was still in my nightgown, and was surprised to find someone whistling at me. Is that how things are around here? Sheesh! I headed back inside and just as I was closing the sliding glass doors, the whistle changed a bit and I realized that it wasn't that we had rude neighbors at all. It was that one of our neighbors has a noisy parrot!

Yesterday we got our car. It's a new Toyota SUV/van hybrid thingy. It's a diesel, because regular gas is about 50% more expensive here for some reason. We drove up into Makati so A could sign papers for the office space, and then we took the kids to a McDonalds for dinner. It's called McDos here (say: MackDoughs) and offers fried chicken with rice and spaghetti in addition to the typical burgers and fries. We also learned that the Happy Meal comes with a drink, toy, and burger or chicken nuggets. It does not come with fries. Though, there is a meal for the same price that is a drink, burger, and fries, no toy. I think it's best the kids cut back on their fry intake anyway. I got a burger and the patty was really good. It actually tasted like beef! I haven't willingly eaten at a McDonalds for months now because I just couldn't take it anymore, but it's actually quite yummy here!

Eating at McDos was our first experience being the obvious minority. When we walked in, everyone looked at us, which I kind of expected, but then when we sat down to eat there were a handful of older people scattered around the restaurant who just kept on staring, open mouthed and befuzzled. I didn't quite realize what a novelty we were going to be, but ok. I thought there were lots of foreigners in the country. Apparently, not so many frequent that particular McDos in Makati, though!

The other night when A picked us up from the airport, he announced that the cops had been in our neighborhood the night before. I cringed. We picked this particular subdivision because it is so secure and our last neighborhood was so not. The cops were in our last neighborhood on a weekly basis by the time we left. I was not looking forward to a repeat of that. But, no. A went on to explain that our neighbor across the street is a retired Supreme Court Justice and now his son is on the Supreme Court. The son was visiting the father, and all the police where there as the son's escort. That was a bit of a 180.

I woke up last night at 1 am, just a few minutes before my brother called to let me know that my mom was out of surgery and doing well. I couldn't sleep after that, so I went into the kitchen and cleaned up a bit. We have household friends here already in the form of little lizzards about the size of a gecko who make themselves scarce during the day, but wander free at night and eat their fill of buggies. You just leave them alone and they leave you alone and save you from pests at the same time. If they keep skittering out of no where when I walk into empty rooms in the middle of the night half awake, I'm not sure how good I'm going to be at keeping up my end of the deal, though.

The girls were also awake, but stayed in their beds until they realized I was up, too. So, then began 3 hours of trying to keep them still and quiet so A could sleep while we dealt with being on the wrong side of the world for our circadian rhythym's liking. At 5:30, I gave up and told the kids to put on a show and started making breakfast.

This is when I learned some more things. First was more of a reminder that it is a good idea to break an egg into a seperate bowl instead of into the working bowl, because you never know when you are going to get one that isn't good. So, after throwing 5 eggs down the drain, I started over. That is when I noticed that eggs here are not quite so spiffy-clean as they are in the US. I don't know how they clean them back there, but an egg in the US is expected to be white (or light brown) all over. I imagine if someone found brown streaks of a questionable nature on the outside of an egg in the US, a store manager would get an earfull. Most of the eggs in the 3-dozen flat had at least some "stuff" on it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be washing them myself before cracking them open, or if it doesn't matter or what. This is why I cannot be trusted to cook my own food.

For a moment, it looked like I wasn't going to be ABLE to cook my own food. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to light the burners on our stove. I know A had cooked bacon yesterday, so there had to be a way, but I was baffled. There weren't any matches anywhere, so I knew I wasn't supposed to light them manually. In the end, I got A out of bed to show me and found out that I just needed to turn them on slower than I was to get the sparking doo-hickey a chance to make the spark.

The kids and I swam and got cleaned up and dressed after breakfast. Now, we're just sitting around being bored, really. Nothing like jetlag to throw off your whole day. We have been awake for 8 hours now, and it feels like the day is slipping away, though in reality it's only 9:30 am. A should be home from the office in a few hours, and then he is taking them to a movie so I can run around the mall and do some shopping, since we were unable to make it yesterday. About the time we leave, I bet I'll finally be tired!

Curse you, jet lag! Curse you!

We made it!

I didn't blog at all here while we were in Massachusetts. Mainly because I was taking care of the kids completely on my own in a place that was foreign to them and didn't have the time. We lived through it, though.

Sunday, we got on the plane to Manila, and last night, we finally arrived.

I can't really report on first impressions, because it just wasn't indicative of what things really are like, I think. We got off the plane and made our way through Immigration. There was only one person in line ahead of us, so that was quite easy. I asked a porter to help us with our luggage, and by the time I made it to the baggage carousel, he had assigned someone else to the task for us, then that fellow had stopped to help someone else and another porter stepped in, all within about 30 feet. While we were getting bags, the third fellow swapped with another man again, who stuck with us over to customs. He had to leave us at customs. There was no line, and when he stopped the cart, he stooped to tie his shoe. I thought that was awesome, because his shoe wasn't untied. He was giving me time to get him a tip! LOL! Brilliant! I pulled out the bills we had left over from A's mission and trip in February, and not knowing how much was customary and knowing that it all added up to about $2.50, I just handed it all to him. When I got to A, I told him, and it turns out that they don't use the 5 and 10 peso notes anymore, so it really turned out to be about $1.50. He probably thought I was nuts.

Once we got through Customs, the porter hailed another porter whose job it is to take you to the curb. Of course, I was out of money when we got there, and I didn't see A, so I asked the porter if he could wait with me until A came because I didn't have any tip money. He offered to let me use his phone, and it turned out that A was literally standing 10 feet behind us looking for us, too. It's a good thing I called. Who knows how long we would have stood there looking in opposite directions?

Our driver, E, was looking for a place to park the car, so we waited a few minutes on the curb before we caught site of him, and then we all piled in. A put me in the front seat so I could see better, and we headed out. E is great! He was pointing out all the cool stuff along the route. I also saw the coolest jeepney in the country on our way, I think. It was all chromed out on the outside, with sparkly blue vinyl benches inside. The part below the benches was covered with vinyl in different shades of blue so that it looked like layers of waves. Awesomeness.

We made it to our community. It doesn't seem like we're very far into the subdivision. We were at our house in a few minutes time.

The pictures did not do this place justice. It is seriously cavernous. There is a living room that our bedrooms branch off of, and just that part of the house is about as big as our old house, and it's only one section of the house! There were all these weird perspective issues, too, with the pictures. Like the front door, I thought, was a normal sized door, but it's about half as wide again. There is a stairway I thought was typical, but it turned out to be twice as wide.

We wandered about for a while and then Brother B came over to say hi. He is one of our favorite people, so it was a nice treat! Then he put me on the phone with his wife, who is also one of my favorite people. Bonus!

I called home to let everyone know we were safe, and then we turned our attention toward bedtime. A put the girls to bed (HEAVEN for me after doing that one my own for the last month with two cranky girls who were missing their dad!) and I hopped into bed. My head was swimming. I was working on about 4 hours of sleep over the prior 30 hours of trekking through airports and entertaining children on long plane rides. Brain fuzz, plus the fact that the house, while semi-furnished, is still pretty spartan, gave me the feeling that I was moving into my first apartment. We're not surrounded by boxes, just a few bags that I haven't unpacked yet. Without all the mountains of things, it just feels very much like we're just starting out. Which I guess, in a way, we are.

Today, I want to drive through the community a bit, and we need to go into Makati so A can do some stuff at the office. Then we need to shop for a few more things to tide us over until our boxes arrive. We started the day with a dip in the pool and have been taking it easy ever since. A is making the girls their favorite breakfast, waffles, so I better go get some while the gettin's good!