The longest move ever

I'm sure there are others out there whose moves have spanned years, but ours sure feels like the longest one ever to us! Today was the big box-loading day. We rented a big box from U-Haul, which we pulled to the house (my parents' house, I mean), and loaded up with all of our worldly possessions. We thought we were going to need two of this giant boxes, but almost everything fit into one, so we decided to leave out just a few pieces of furniture in lieu of having one nearly empty (or doing some mad shopping in two hours or something). It was well-packed, shall we say. (Interpretation: I dare anyone to fit more in there than we squeezed in.)

To those of you who donated some wonderful stuff to us - THANK YOU.

In a way, it's a little scary and stressful to drop nearly everything you own off at a U-Haul place and hope they ship it across the country without destroying it in the process. It's also really nice to have that stage of the move done! It's like when we were finally able to check in our baggage at the Nairobi airport and didn't have to haul our suitcases around anymore - good-bye, huge and heavy stuff, see you later.

So, one more stage of the move done, only like eight more to go. We're over halfway there physically - we've gotten ourselves around the world, now we just have to go across the country. We've done almost all of the packing, and unpacking is easier than packing by far. We WILL make it!

In America

At the Narok bus rest stop

Our lunch on the road

Zarya's one chance to stretch her legs along the way

We are in America! We arrived on Wednesday, Feb. 26, a day later than planned. What DID go as planned was our bus trip! Who knew that Easy Coach bus line would be more reliable than British Airways?! Since we thought it was our last day in East Africa, we took a few pictures along the way. Ha - we had another day, little did we know. But at this point, we were just happy that we were on our way and were feeling pretty good to finally be off.

It was a little odd to be traveling as "that family." We were the ones who had so much baggage that we held up the bus' departure. We were the ones with the crying baby when it was lights out on the plane. We were the ones who had to have the special taxi (or two taxis) just to get anywhere in Nairobi. We were the ones who had the complicated tickets that couldn't be transferred to another airline. We were the ones who needed extra help boarding the plane in order to carry the stroller up and down the stairs. We were the ones who got pulled out of the customs line and were allowed to cut up to the front. Everywhere we went on our trip, we were "that family with the baby and all that luggage." I've never felt quite so conspicuous on a plane/in an airport/at a hotel. But, fortunately, life as a white person in Musoma has gotten me pretty used to being stared at, so it didn't bother me too much.

We are now enjoying paved roads, street signs, carpet, and fast internet. I couldn't believe how fast the pictures for this blog post loaded! Usually I have time to run to the bathroom and write an e-mail while I wait for three measly pictures to pop up, and today I didn't even have a chance to ponder my post before they were there and waiting for me to start writing.

So if you're wondering how we're doing, and if it's nice to be back, and all that, my answer is that, despite the fact we're freezing cold, sure, it's nice to be here. I feel like it's just a quick visit, though, which it is in this part of the country. What I think we're all looking forward to is being settled and starting our new life in Pennsylvania. We're just kind of curious what it's going to be like and eager to get going. But in the meantime, it's really nice to see friends and family in the Olympia area and have a little time between our international and our cross-country moves. Andrew is off in PA right now looking for a place for us to live, so he doesn't get much break, but Zarya and I are looking forward to a quiet few days with the grandparents before the wild adventure starts again. After a couple of really busy and stressful months, it's kind of nice.