As many or all of you already know, I am the worlds worst at keeping up on our blog. I write our monthly newsletter updates and stay pretty consistent with that but I fail at keeping people up on just the life outside of ministry stuff.
August marks our first full year here in EA without summers spent in America and it also marks the first year that Harrison and I both haven't moved over the summer! We finally have made a home, for now! It's kind of funny because as all of our friends were leaving us this June, I found myself going through every room in our house getting rid of old clothes, things we have accumulated that we don't need etc. My body and mind are so used to the typical summer routine for the past 8 years that it wanted me to do it now. Nothing's wrong with a little decluttering though :)
Throughout this past year, we have had some really funny experiences, some learning moments and some I-can't-believe-this-just-happened stories. To commemorate our one year anniversary of living here I thought I'd blog some of them for you to read and laugh or cry with us.
I'd like to start with some of our more popular ones that people love hearing/laughing at or I guess you might say grieving with us over all the crazy things we experience here. I feel like most of these have come due to traveling in this crazy country, and so I would like to begin with our train ride sagas.
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| Us with our 6 bags and 4 carry-ons just before checking in |
We arrived here August 13th and had a meeting we were supposed to attend August 18th, we waited til we arrived here to buy plane tickets because they are usually cheaper in country. But low and behold, on August 13 Harrison goes to our friend's apartment for internet and there is not a single flight available to the city our meeting is in. We are talking a city where there is one or more flights every hour from our city to theirs and there were none! So we decide to check a city north of there where we can fly in then train 2 hrs and yet once again no tickets. No tickets the day before the meeting or the day after it starts. No tickets available 2 days before it was crazy! So we agree we will have to bear the 20-24 hour train ride there and go to check train tickets and there were also none! As in there are 3-4 trains every day going to this city through different routes and none of them were available for us to buy beds for. Only thing available was hard plastic bus seat for 22 hour ride, no thankyou! Luckily those leading the meetings agreed that that was not ideal nor necessary so we missed our meetings :(
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| We did get to finalize our lease and other details with our landlord while missing the meetings |
But our train saga story did not end there. Over the spring festival we also had to travel to the same city for more meetings. Our team was all in Thailand at an event that we were not a part of so we decided that since we had the time to do it we would train there and save over half the price for us to fly. We set it up to train up a few days early so I could go shopping at ikea and so we bought our train tickets. The day came to ride the train. We rode the hour and a half bus ride to the station from our house, got mcdonalds for lunch and had all of our other meals for the next 24 hours in tote that I had cooked and we walk up to the security check and are told we are in the wrong city. What?! Our train tickets were from the city we wanted to go to to our home city instead of from where we live to there. As to why in the world they would sell us tickets departing from the city we wanted to arrive in, I am still confused but part of it was my fault as they asked me to check them the day we bought them, I looked at the tickets saw the two city names and said we are good, not realizing the order of the cities listed, oops. So after standing in multiple lines trying to get our money refunded and a train for the next day booked, we finally were able to leave the train station with tickets for the next morning to leave and head back home with all of our bags, go to sleep, then wake up early and do it all over again. Of course the second time we were able to get on the right train. And believe it or not we actually enjoyed our ride with movies, card games, chicken salad and pizza!
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| Harrison laying on his hard sleeper bed for the 20 hour train ride! |
Once again we wouldn't be living in a crazy transportation country if we didn't have yet another story or travel saga as I have begun to call them. We once again were going to the same city for this summer with 25 students. Having learned from all of our previous mistakes, we had a friend help us book our train tickets online, made sure they were going to the right location and we even went to the train station to pick up our tickets a day earlier to be extra careful. We drive up to the train station and harrison goes through all the crazy security checks now to get to the ticket booth, stands in line, then gets to the teller and they won't give us our tickets. Why? Our middle names are not listed on the reservation. I had our friend book our tickets by train another time and had no trouble with my middle name not being there, but this time they weren't budging. Our first and last names were right as well as our passport number but they couldn't/wouldn't let us modify the reservation. All they would do is refund us 80% of our amount and then us have to buy new tickets. Of course that train was now full but they did have one earlier the next day at 9:30am. So we went with that and after much long tension we left the train station with train tickets for 9:30 the next day.
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| Harrison in line at the train station trying to fix the ticket problem |
Now given that we were going away for 5+weeks and Harrison was wanting to bring his new bicycle on the train, we left earlier than needed the next morning and had a driver friend take us and standby for in case we couldn't take our bike. We get up to the second security check and they say sorry your train is canceled. What? It's raining so your train has been canceled. Note: late June through mid to late August is the rainy season here and it rains every day for 30 minutes or 2 hours but it's a normal thing that happens all the time and is definitely not why that train was canceled. So back to the same window we were at the day before to once again change our tickets. This time we had bought the soft sleepers meaning that instead of being stacked 3 beds tall in open compartments we would be in a compartment that has a door and only 4 beds in the room.
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| Inside of a soft sleeper train cart room |
We get to the ticket counter and they first say there are no more soft sleepers available for the day and very few hard ones. I'm like oh no not again. It's a little after 8am and the ticket lady says oh wait we have soft sleeper seats left on the 8:30am train would you like those? Yes! So at 8:10 we leave the ticket counter running to the security check home alone style. I'm toting a small roller and larger one, harrison is wheeling his bike and has his large pack on his back along with his backpack. We looked like the Clampets. Anyway, we run through ticket and security check, harrison gets to the top of the stairs and starts riding his bike down the hallway to our train gate to hold it and get there just in time as they hadn't even started the boarding yet! PTL!
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| Lauren, just as we reached the line to board, could rest knowing we made it! |
We then get on the train to be told we need to take the bike apart and find a way to store it which luckily we do and then about 4 hours in we find out that we are on the longer train meaning it's 22 hours long instead of 20 but we were so happy to just have gotten on that we didn't care!
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| Harrison taking apart his bike to store it on the train |
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| KFC is often the meal of choice for families on train rides here |
We did finally have our first smooth train ride when we trained home in August! We were about due one I'd say! Ikea purchases and all made it on and no canceled trains, just a 3 hour delay getting home once again due to rain.
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| watching a tv show on the train |
