A few funny highlights from Legs...
Our flight left Hyderabad at 11PM and arrived in Singapore at 6:15AM the next day...we both thought Thumper would sleep the whole way but he sure didn't! During take off and landing he yelled, "Pilots driving TOO fast!"
Thank goodness the hotel let us check in early and we all crashed until the afternoon. Like Pancho mentioned, we had our fair share of Starbucks, and with a good nap and some caffeine we set off to the Botanic Gardens. We waited for green crossing lights, saw no burning trash, weren't concerned about being hit by a car, auto rickshaw, motorcycle, or cow, and headed straight for a big lake with lots of fish and turtles (see pictures from Pancho's post). Pancho left out my favorite picture of an intersection in Singapore...note the differences.
We got to the lake and Thumper couldn't take his eyes off all the kids throwing bread to the fish and turtles. Except I don't think he understood that they were throwing bread and he immediately took off his sunglasses and threw them in the lake. They sank to the bottom and he frowned and said, "mama, glasses?" But, losing his glasses did not deter him and at the next lake he promptly threw in his plastic construction toy; however, this item floated and Pancho did some crazy acrobatics to retrieve it from the pond.
The purpose of our trip was for medical care and to quote the Zac Brown Band, "There's no dollar sign on a piece of mind, this I've come to know." The facility was clean, the doctor was amazing, people listened to me and didn't just talk to Pancho, I had all of my questions answered, it wasn't invasive, and we got to see our little baby moving around on the ultrasound screen as a whole family. The doctor even printed Thumper his own picture of the baby which he immediately put up to my stomach and said, "mama, baby sister!" To be clear, we don't know the gender yet but Thumper keeps saying "girl" and "baby sister" whenever we ask him what he thinks :-)
We returned to India refreshed on so many different levels. Pancho speaks for the both of us about the new perspective we gained from this experience. Singapore made us realize that the world is a big place...some places we will like, some we won't, but they aren't all good and they aren't all bad. The great thing about this job is that you get to try something new every two years. We have learned so much about ourselves and our family through this experience in India and we look forward to taking all of those lessons to heart when we bid for our next post. I'm sure at our next post we will continue to learn and ultimately that's why we joined the Foreign Service...to learn about ourselves and to learn about others.
There are hard times when we miss family and familiarity of Western culture. I broke down in tears the last time I left the doctor's office here after I had been walked in on twice while getting blood drawn...It wasn't that I didn't have privacy, it was that the other patients came in just to stare at me and they didn't leave until they were forcefully asked to do so. Combined with everything else that had happened at the doctor visit I left with tears streaming. I got to the car and our driver asked me what happened. He listened and reassured me. When we got out of the car he said, "You know you can ALWAYS take me with you to any appointment, you are not alone here...you are my sister." I have never felt so comforted by someone I've known for such little time. He is one of our best friends here and he is the reason why we chose this life.
Our flight left Hyderabad at 11PM and arrived in Singapore at 6:15AM the next day...we both thought Thumper would sleep the whole way but he sure didn't! During take off and landing he yelled, "Pilots driving TOO fast!"
Thank goodness the hotel let us check in early and we all crashed until the afternoon. Like Pancho mentioned, we had our fair share of Starbucks, and with a good nap and some caffeine we set off to the Botanic Gardens. We waited for green crossing lights, saw no burning trash, weren't concerned about being hit by a car, auto rickshaw, motorcycle, or cow, and headed straight for a big lake with lots of fish and turtles (see pictures from Pancho's post). Pancho left out my favorite picture of an intersection in Singapore...note the differences.
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| Singapore |
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| Hyderabad |
The purpose of our trip was for medical care and to quote the Zac Brown Band, "There's no dollar sign on a piece of mind, this I've come to know." The facility was clean, the doctor was amazing, people listened to me and didn't just talk to Pancho, I had all of my questions answered, it wasn't invasive, and we got to see our little baby moving around on the ultrasound screen as a whole family. The doctor even printed Thumper his own picture of the baby which he immediately put up to my stomach and said, "mama, baby sister!" To be clear, we don't know the gender yet but Thumper keeps saying "girl" and "baby sister" whenever we ask him what he thinks :-)
We returned to India refreshed on so many different levels. Pancho speaks for the both of us about the new perspective we gained from this experience. Singapore made us realize that the world is a big place...some places we will like, some we won't, but they aren't all good and they aren't all bad. The great thing about this job is that you get to try something new every two years. We have learned so much about ourselves and our family through this experience in India and we look forward to taking all of those lessons to heart when we bid for our next post. I'm sure at our next post we will continue to learn and ultimately that's why we joined the Foreign Service...to learn about ourselves and to learn about others.
There are hard times when we miss family and familiarity of Western culture. I broke down in tears the last time I left the doctor's office here after I had been walked in on twice while getting blood drawn...It wasn't that I didn't have privacy, it was that the other patients came in just to stare at me and they didn't leave until they were forcefully asked to do so. Combined with everything else that had happened at the doctor visit I left with tears streaming. I got to the car and our driver asked me what happened. He listened and reassured me. When we got out of the car he said, "You know you can ALWAYS take me with you to any appointment, you are not alone here...you are my sister." I have never felt so comforted by someone I've known for such little time. He is one of our best friends here and he is the reason why we chose this life.
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