Chris and I have been two ships passing in the night, with his busy work schedule and our busy football schedule! So, last night we talked and talked. Just trying to catch up with life.... you know those chats. Not deep, soulful conversations, but quick bullet points... Ds2's birthday, packing lists, adapters for Russia, headphones for the trip, visas, passports etc etc etc. What came out of that talk was that we needed to go as a family to get some shopping done for our trip. That being decided we headed out this evening.
We shopped at Kohl's first. I could finally pick up my luggage for $60. American Tourister. It's a good carry-on and hopefully it will last me for awhile. Chris picked up a pair of slippers for the apartment we will be staying in.
The next stop was Walmart. Not my favorite place to shop. Ours is not very fresh and clean looking, though I must admit two reasons for my stop this evening were one stop shopping and low prices. We knocked off quite a bit of our packing list! Chris needs to visit a Best Buy, Circuit City or Radio Shack for the electronic stuff we will need.
I still need to find one of those masks that you wear to sleep on the plane. Becky, you had a picture with one on you... where would I find that? Kim, you mentioned a blow up neck pillow to sleep on the plane, where would I find that? Kelly- I know we talked about international luggage locks, but I can't find that email. Where would I purchase those? Carey, I remember reading that you guys brought a lot of candy. lol! I can see that I will need to bring some for Chris as well. He is Mr. Snack and will be so much happier if he has his sugar fix. And I will need to bring my coffee, as I will be happier with my coffee fix. Definitely!
How many movies should we bring over? Books? I know we only get to visit the orphanage once a day, but we have two orphanages to visit. I imagine our "down time" might not be a lot. Like Becky and Carrie said, it will probably be in the car riding all day in Moscow traffic! I'll be sure to have my laptop ready to type!
That's all for now....
Jackie
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
Even though I don't think you will have a lot of down time either, I would be prepared. Let me just tell you from experience being in a foreign country and not being able to watch TV or talk to many because of the language thing is NOT fun. My next trip to Venezuela, I will have plenty of books and a good stock of movies. But, you will have lots of sight seeing, too. That is one thing there isn't much of in VZ....nothing to really "see!" lol
Here is the link for the locks if ya need it again...They are only like $6.
http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/locks.shtm
I haven't forgotten about that power strip! I will mail it out either Saturday or Monday. The eye mask I had was one that Delta gave us - not sure if your airline does that. Honestly, I wore it for all of 5 minutes because I don't like those things on my eyes. Target has a blow-up neck pillow, you can get the TSA luggage locks at Target as well. We brought an entire season of a show with us and didn't watch it at all. We were busy sightseeing and too exhausted to watch anything. The main difference for us, though, is that it was light out until 10:30 at night so we stayed out late. You might have more inside time. I did bring books and magazines for the plane though! Soooo... exciting! You're getting close!
yea! i made it here! hey, i hate to ask you this, but can you send the invitation to my google email address..it's so much easier to view the blog with that. my google address is now: flamingo.mama@hotmail.com
Thanks Jackie!
Jackie,
So glad to hear the excitement in your voice as you're preparing to leave! Even Walmart isn't so bad when you're excited about where you're going (I'm not a big W-M fan, either...shhh!) I know that you will be more than prepared--you sound like you have lists of all you need, and that you're getting things taken care of. Now just relax and enjoy the process---think of what great lessons you'll have for school.
My personal Russia travel tip is to pack a large envelope, and then save all kinds of paper stuff--receipts, brochures, anything that has the Russian language on it. It makes cool scrapbooking material. And that envelope has come in handy for holding other things, too.
Praying for you as you get ready...so happy that things are moving along!
Isn't this so exciting? Troy and I each brought 3 or 4 magazines and as we read them we left them (one on the plane, one in the hotel room, etc.) for someone else to enjoy and our luggage got lighter. We also brought about 5 movies on trip 1. We did find that we didn't watch but maybe 2 of them. The first couple of days we were exhausted and fell into bed. The next were so busy that our down time we spent connecting to family and friends via the internet or exploring whenever we could. I imagine trip 2 would be different if you don't get the days waived. The eye mask the airline gave us also (aeroflot). You can get the TSA locks at W-Mart (my least favorite place also!) They are pretty cheap! Let us know how you are progressing!
Jackie,
Oops, I keep forgetting to look over here!
I packed several DVDs b/c I didn't know our laptop couldn't play them. (It would have been nice though.) However, I also downloaded a couple of movies and audio books on my IPod and got a splitter for the headphones. We watched/listened to all of them and it was great. Our room's TV only had one English station and it played the same shows over and over. Ug.
I took a novel and crossword puzzle book. Didn't have time to read in the room because there wasn't a lot of down time. In fact, it was a whirl wind. When we weren't visiting the orphanage or sight-seeing, we were either in the business center contacting our IA doctor and calling our boys or in the room desperately trying to catch up on all the lost sleep.
The flight to Moscow wasn't too bad because I watched several in-flight movies that I had been wanting to see. About 1/2 way into the flight, I decided to take a nap with the assistance of 2 Advil PM tablets. I slept alright, but it was a very weird groggy feeling. LOL, I didn't go the bathroom for fear I would fall down in the aisle! I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you are already used to it and have a looong time to sleep.
The whole first trip really goes by fast!
When Charlie has flown internationally, he has received a packet from the airline with a sleep mask, little slipper/socks, and a couple of other things to help him endure the many hours on the plane.
Also, you may not have time to do this, but Charlie has taken our favorite DVDs and put them on an extra hard drive for his laptop. This way he can take as many movies/tv shows, etc as he wants without having to actually pack a separate dvd case.
Post a Comment