I prodded Nico gently, only to be met with the irritated screams of an overly tired preschooler and the mumbled insistence that his legs no longer worked. This was the nightmare I’d been dreading. The one I’d half known was inevitably but had still hoped wouldn’t come to pass. After seventeen hours of traveling how could I expect Nico to be in any state other that completely worn out.

Yet I was lucky that this was the first truly horrible moment of our trip–wait scratch that; perhaps it wasn’t. Getting through emigration in Munich had been pretty horrendous as well. After helping us through check-in and holding our place in the security line while I fed Serafina, Christian sped off to make a massage appointment rather than see us off at the passport-check counter. Nico, who was well-prepared to bravely bid his father farewell, freaked upon realizing that Daddy would be taking his jacket with him. A parent he could do without, but his jacket? That would not stand. That was an injustice crueler than any one might be expected to suffer. And Nico decided he would let the entire airport know this for the next twenty minutes as we inched ever so slowly closer to the front of the line.

It didn’t help that Nico also decided that every stranger who try to cheer him up with a smile or a joke was the epitome of evil or worse yet some how partially responsible in the theft of his jacket. No, that didn’t help one bit.

Upon finally arriving at the counter, I deposited our heap of passports and my residence card before the immigration officer, explaining which ones we were using for our travels (and thus matched our tickets), and which ones were for informational purposes (as dual citizens, the kids don’t possess residence cards, and Nico was traveling on his US passport as we didn’t have the Austrian one before the plane tickets had been purchased). The officer cheerfully accepted everything, commenting upon how well-prepared I was, and then paused a moment before adding, “And where’s the father?”

And that’s when Serafina started screaming.

Now burdened with two screaming kids, I tried explaining that the father had just dropped us off and then left, but that I could call him. The officer agreed that this would be a good idea and further explained that I’m technically not allowed to take my own children out of the European Union without the permission of their father. And so I dug through my bag for my phone while bouncing the shrieking baby and shushing the shrieking toddler, and part of me really didn’t blame the guy for suggesting that I might be kidnapping my own children because really, did I ever want to set foot in the EU ever again at that moment? Would anyone?

Phone found and husband dialed, a swiftly worded conversation took place between Christian and the officer. I only caught the points where Christian was being asked to verify his children’s birthdays, and really I’m probably lucky Christian got that right. On normal days, he suffers from the delusion that Serafina was born in November when she’s actually an October baby. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d slipped up in that moment, but fortunately for the sake of my sanity, he didn’t. Satisfied, the officer hung up, stamped our passports, returned the pile, apologized for the inconvenience while eyeing the screaming children and wished us a safe trip. And then it was on to the security check.

Serafina didn’t stop crying until the gate and Nico stopped a couple minutes later when he found a German boy to play with. The boy’s parents offered to carry our luggage onto the plane, and just like that our luck began to turn.

Nico flies pretty well, but he’s never been one of those perfect children you sometimes see who do everything their parents ask, sit quietly, eat all their food, and kid around politely with the flight attendants. On our Munich-Dubai flight, though, he pulled it all out and then some. Who knew that a boy in possession of my genes, who’d just an hour before had been lamenting the loss of his jacket with such passion you’d have thought someone had died, could turn into the angel of the airplane so quickly? Serafina, meanwhile, didn’t conk out when the plane took off as I’d hoped, but she did lie quietly in her bassinet, offering cherubic smiles to any and all passersby and generally acted as charming as a squishy little baby can.

By the time our plane landed six hours later in Dubai, I was glowing. For the first time ever, I was the woman with the perfect children. It turns out this is a high like no other.

In the middle of the night, Dubai airport is a bustling shopping mecca. We loitered in every store–after hunting in vain for a playground–until exhaustion finally took Nico and we made the most of one of the complimentary airport strollers.

There was a small tantrum from Nico when we had to give up our stroller to board our plane to Kuala Lumpur, but he was soon appeased by yet another bag of toys, compliments of the airline, and the promise of more TV. To the boy’s credit, he made it through two whole movies and the in-flight meal before finally succumbing to sleep again. Alas for me, this meant he was still in sleep-mode when the plane landed and my troubles resumed.

Up to this point, I’d been carrying Serafina, during our non-airborne segments, in a wrap, a sturdy, heavily hyped, pretty piece of extremely long cloth favored by “traditional” mothers and the middle class women who emulate them. I had had just enough foresight of the “sleeping Nico” scenario, however, to learn the basics of tying a larger child onto my back with the uber-scarf, but I’d not yet actually practiced it with Nico. Thus the incredulous looks of some of my fellow passengers were probably warranted as I clumsily wrapped and tied my groggy first born to my back before scooping up the wide-eyed Serafina. Thankfully at about this point a flight attendant did offer to carry some of our bags as far as the plane door.

We made it up the plank, into the airport and were just shy of the terminal doors when my poorly tied knot gave out and the kids and I ended up on the floor in a pile of cloth, Nico insisting once again that he couldn’t walk and Serafina beginning her characteristic pre-crying-fit whining. Disembarking passengers passed us by with looks of pity and someone offered to carry my bags, but what to do with the kids. I had not one, but two insisting on being carried. Left with little recourse, I tied Serafina as far to one side as possible, picked Nico up on the other, and slowly we made it far enough into the terminal to locate a luggage cart, which eased the situation until we had to give it up at immigration. I bribed Nico through the line with promises of another cart on the other side–some fawning over the kids by the female Malaysian immigration officer didn’t hurt either–and soon our future was beginning to look bright and sunny once again…until we had to locate a taxi.

If you are ever in Kuala Lumpur airport and you know you will be requiring the services of a taxi upon your exit, stop at the taxi booth in luggage claim, no matter how long the line. Figuring I needed to keep the kids moving as quickly as possible I bypassed the taxi booth and headed out through the baggage claim exit. Fortunately, I did meet an unnecessarily nice illegal taxi driver who, when I declared that I wanted a “real” taxi, pointed me toward the airport taxi pickup where the attendants pointed me in turn back to the airport to go hunt down another taxi booth where I could pay for my taxi ticket, as it appears taxis really don’t meter from the airport. If there were more taxi booths, I’d find this to be an ingenious idea for cracking down on visitors getting overcharged on taxis. However, with a cart full of luggage, two small children, and far too little sleep, having to walk back and forth across an airport in search of a place to pay for a piece of paper to entitle one to a way to escape the airport is more than just a nuisance. We were eventually successful, however, and found ourselves in a pleasantly air-conditioned car with a driver who spoke fine enough English to debate my Malaysia itinerary and interrogate me about the whereabouts of my husband.

I had booked our place in Kuala Lumpur, a small boutique hotel in the midst of the city’s Chinatown pedestrian market, based on online reviews, its proximity to street food, and what would likely be widespread use of Chinese, without even giving a thought to the issue of transportation. It turns out, though, that staying in a pedestrian area means taxis aren’t going to be able to get you to the door of your hotel, which in turn isn’t so much fun with pounds upon pounds of luggage and two kids in tow. It also turns out that staying in a small hotel means few drivers know exactly where it is, and thus may very well deposit you at the opposite end of the Chinatown Market from where you are actually staying, leaving you to shove through the cheery, teasing weekend masses, gleefully reaching out to twirl the curls of the more accessible child.

Everyone survived, though. The hotel was located, as was a busy, car-friendly street directly at the corner next to its entrance. You win some, you lose some, I suppose.

1) ISP sends ships the modem to us in the mail.

2) Tech guy comes over to the house to flip a switch and plug the modem in to make sure it works.

3) The day after the tech guy visited, someone over at the ISP headquarters or phone company or something flips a switch to route the DSL river toward our house, thus actually activating our internet connection.

In America, the entire process would be done by machines, but it would take less than a week. In China, it would require a dozen people and ten hours, but would be completed within a day. Yet here on the continent that created a special fork just for fish, it takes an entire month. It’s like the entire country is on an eternal coffee break.

Regardless, we have internet now, and I have two and a half months worth of Austrian adventures to post, so hopefully as I get a few free minutes here and there this week, I’ll get a bunch of new stuff up.

Before I’d finished finalizing the details of my flight, August 1st, the dreaded packing date had arrived. The movers were horrifyingly on time, Christian and I were both unfortunately hung over, and the apartment was already a complete wreck. Having never partaken of nor witnessed an assisted move before, neither Christian nor I really had much idea of what the whole thing entailed. We walked threw the house, army of uniformed movers in-tow, and pointed at what we wanted shipped. Then before the command had even made it through the translating chain, poof, it was wrapped, taped, and hidden away in a box that was then assigned a number, a label, and the owner, “Mr. Christian.”

Soon enough, the movers were on auto-pilot like some kind of blue-jump-suited, multi-armed Rube Goldberg Machine, leaving Christian and I with a surprising amount of leisure time and far too little coffee–thanks to the packing of our espresso machine–to properly enjoy it. We took turns walking the dog, playing on the internet, and blaming each other for items that mistakenly were or weren’t packed while the moving machine toiled away. What we didn’t do, however, was kill each other. The movers, whether their blessed swift indiscrimination took the thinking and the arguments out of our hands. No longer was moving a matter of forethought and planning and trying to get rid of one another’s possessions. Moving, rather, had been reduced to its purest essence: pointing and taking naps.

In the end, a few things got packed that shouldn’t have, virtually Nico’s entire wardrobe for one, one of the landlord’s couch cushions for another. A few things didn’t get packed than should have–Nico’s winter coat–but for the most part, everything magically ended up where it ought, and by 2 pm Monday all of our possessions (all 103 boxes) had been loaded into our container in preparation for their two month voyage to our new home, leaving us with an apartment filled with echoes and a marriage still intact.

It’s been a whirlwind of activity since then. Movers had to be found. The dog had to be made EU import-ready. Apartment and car hunts needed to be launched. A new language learned (well it’s not new for Christian). Furniture bought. Jobs given notice. Ayi given notice. Adoption agency and home study guy given notice. Things given away. Friends bid farewell…

As of now, we’re in the final stretch with one month left in China (our stuff leaves on the slow boat in two weeks). As we get closer to the day of departure, loose ends actually are getting tied up and what once seemed like a Herculean effort is proving doable by mere mortals.

As part of our move, this website is also going to be changing with the hopes that without any silly things like real jobs to distract me, I’ll be better about updating it.

Next stop, Dornbirn, Austria!

On the whole, Thai massages are fabulous. I had one truly disappointing massage, which is a pretty good average, I find, as I’m rather picky about my massages. The best one I had was on our last day, in Bangkok. The masseuse bent her head in a silent prayer before beginning the massage, and the gods apparently heard her out, as it ranked among the best I’ve had. Thai massage involves a combination of rubbing, poking, and bending (the bending is very similar to yoga postures), and this woman knew exactly how to align body parts to get the most out of each action (without breaking my back).

It’s a little disappointing to have gone through that and then come back home to the rubbing and pounding of Chinese massage. Though I suppose after a few, I won’t mind so much anymore as any massage is better than none at all.

Well, after two weeks in Thailand, I must tell you that Thai food in Thailand tastes remarkably like Thai food in Seattle… or Denver… or Feldkirch, Austria. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still delicious (it is Thai after all), but it ain’t no Sichuan.

What is fabulous about Thailand, though, is the street food. Once I discovered it, I used every eating opportunity I had to order a papaya salad from any street vendor I could find. Freaking fantastic! I haven’t been this excited about a street food find since liang pir. Between Papaya salad and freshly made coconut ice cream, I think I could happily exist for the rest of my life with nothing else. Christian, for his part, fell in love with another Northern Thai concoction, Khao Soi, which consists of egg noodles in a thick coconut curry soup, laden with chicken, and topped with crunchy fried noodles. He was also a fan of Thai iced tea (consisting of tea, sugar, and condensed milk… Thailand must be what keeps Nestle in business with all the condensed milk they used in their tea and coffee).

Some of the most surprisingly amazing things we ran across, though, weren’t even Thai. I had the best Palak Paneer of my life in a little Thai-Indian restaurant right by the Night Market in Chiang Mai. I also came into an absolutely brilliant banana-coconut-ginger smoothie, which was just heaven on earth (as was the organic fruit and yogurt I was eating it with). And then there was this great feta-spinach wrap in a whole wheat tortilla that was so delicious, I’ve forgotten what Christian had at that meal (though I do remember that there were two monks at the restaurant). On Ko Samui, we came across some amazing seafood at a French-Thai fusion restaurant.

And then there were the bananas! There exist these little fat, ugly bananas in Thailand that are sweeter and more custardy and just better than any banana you have ever bought from the supermarket. One awesome dessert involved cutting them up and putting them in a soup of coconut milk, but they’re brilliant raw (and also fabulous in smoothies, which everyone in Thailand calls shakes for some reason).

So as far as I’m concerned, go to Thailand for the street food and the bananas, then grab a couple awesome foreign meals while you’re there. The Thai food might actually be overrated (though admittedly fifty times better than anything we can get in Dalian).

I arrived at Dalian airport shortly before 6:30am for an 8:00am flight. By the time I made it to the front of the only economy line open to check in half the airport’s morning flights, it was 7:00am, and the woman at the check in counter informed me in Chinese that check in for my flight had already closed. I don’t have the vocabulary in Chinese for “check in has already closed, you poor bastard and there’s no way I’m going to do anything to help you such as tell you where my supervisor is because I really, really want you to miss this flight, you spoiled American,” so there were a series of panicked phone calls to Christian and the ticket booking company (which was closed!), as well as some swearing at two separate agents both of whom refused to check me in for a reason I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t until I went to the trouble of asking for a representative who spoke English that I was directed to a manager and she explained what was going on and checked me in anyway. It was 7:10 am at this point, and the final boarding call was already being made on the loud speaker for my 8:00am flight.

Of course, all the lines at security were super long. Though one woman, seeing me utterly horrified, mentioned that it was okay for me to cut the line since my flight was being repeatedly announced and all that. So I did, and no one said anything about it. After security, I ran to my gate, dropping everything from the pockets of my coat twice before finally arriving, short of breath and in a daze, confused as to why the flight’s staff were giving me quizzical looks. They didn’t seemed to notice that they’d been doing “final boarding” calls for five minutes. The plane ended up taking off at 7:35am, though to the end all the schedules continued to say 8:00am.

Despite the inauspicious start, the rest of my day in Beijing was quite fabulous. I went to a wonderful Ashtanga class at Fine Yoga, I found an imported food store filled with such hard-to-find delicacies as sourdough bread starter and red lentils, and spent far too much time oggling the books in some tiny Foreign language bookstore (not the big one near Tiananmen). In fact, if not for the inconvenience of spending forty five minutes getting my fingerprints taken and turning in documents at the Embassy, the entire day could have very well been one marvelous birthday present (you’re not getting out of my birthday that easily, though, Christian, but if you do want to give me another day in Beijing…). Heck, even the embassy was pretty fun. The guards had a great time going poking around my yoga mat and the groceries I left at the front gate and the officers in charge of my fingerprints and taking oaths and what not were all pretty jovial.

After the embassy, I had to spend some time hunting down a suitable box so that I could check my groceries on the flight home as I was pretty sure Christian’s giant bottle of Heinz 57 ketchup (not to mention my much coveted bottle of wine) would be declared a liquid. That done, I still made it back to the airport with plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely dinner at the awesome Thai restaurant in Terminal 3 as well as a cup of (not-Starbucks) coffee afterward.

Then it was back home on an eight thirty flight and straight to bed with dreams of all the organic brown rice pasta I didn’t buy gnawing at my brain.

Bummer.

Unlike some of the other Consulates out there, like, say, the Guangzhou Consulate, which oversees all adoptions of Chinese orphans by American citizens, the Shenyang Consulate, wedged into a little barbed wire block with the Japanese Consulate, the Russian Consulate, and the North Korean Consulate, is a humble little place with a crazy amount of security.

Having learned my lesson on our two previous trips in the last two years, I pre-warned my dear consulate people that I would be arriving with a non-American. All of his information was entered into their little list. Still, when we arrived, we were greeted with a guard who glanced once at the Red cover on Christian’s passport and shook his head.

“He’s on the list,” I prompted. The guard when a step further by walking the passport inside the barbed fence to another guard inside the booth, who also shook his head.  The first guard returned with the passport and shook his head once more. “They know he’s coming today. He’s on the list,” I insisted.

Guard one eyed me hesitantly before returning to guard two, who now obviously annoyed that we weren’t leaving, finally decided to pull out a booklet that was presumably “the list,” shuffled through it without much interest, made some notes, and we were finally waved in. It was an inauspicious beginning to what was actually an okay visit.

We had two tasks to complete on this adventure. The first was we to notarize more than a dozen separate documents, mostly mundane things like birth certificates, tax forms and whatnot. The second task was to file a document asking the U.S. government for permission to adopt. As part of this petition, we also had to have our fingerprints taken for an FBI background check. Fairly straight forward stuff for the most part. However, the Shenyang Consulate had never dealt with filing a petition for an adoption from a country that isn’t China. Makes sense since we’re in China and all, but it’s really a bad sign when you expect to be able to file a document with a certain office and the person working there asks, “So how are you going to get this to the Immigration office? Are you going to mail it?”

A bad feeling crept up my spine as I nervously pointed out that I’d been on the State Department and USCIS’s website and was under the impression the consulate was equipped to handle our petition, steeling myself for what I felt must surely be the inevitable denial and an insistence that I call USCIS when I get home.

However, the lovely government worker did no such thing. Instead she offered up, “Huh. We’ve never done this before. Let me just call the USCIS office in Beijing and see if we can accept it.” This was the beginning of a three and a half hour learning experience for everyone. USCIS was consulted several times. Signatures and sworn statements were done as well as a course in proper fingerprinting. Those government officials could have oh-so-easily turned us away, but instead they were game for a new adventure into bureaucratic paperwork, and it was awesome.

So thank you my little consulate, you guys rock. Though you really ought to do something about that fellow in charge of your list to get in.

• We went to America. Saw Seattle and Bellingham in Washington, Portland and Corvallis in Oregon, Victoria in British Columbia (okay, so that’s Canada and not America), Denver (and surrounding cities) in Colorado, and Norfolk, VA. Nico fulfilled Christian’s goal for him to make it to ten countries before his first birthday.
• Nico started walking. This occurred the day after we arrived in America, at my mom’s house. My mom missed it as she was ordering Chinese food. At first Nico was pretty set on not repeating the performance, but over the past month, he’s gotten more and more comfortable and now lurches about like a drunken sailor.
• I turned 27. As was the case last year and the year before, I was sick for it. We did, however, eat some awesome Ethiopian food.
• My tv career began as my first episode aired. So far as I can tell, only Chinese people have seen it. Comments have run along the lines of, “You were drinking tea!”
• Negotiations have resumed over Nico’s lack of a sibling and rectifying that situation.
• Nico turned one with a giant birthday party, loads of presents, and three cakes.
• We became the proud owners of an espresso machine.