Sylvia's Journal

I am sliding in the ‘back home’ routine as if nothing has happened, waking up even a bit later than one would expect, coming from 6 time zones away. Lobster cove is shimmering in the early morning sun and beautiful as ever. Going away a lot and then coming home again is the best inoculation against being bored with what you’ve got.

Yesterday saw more snow in Holland for which the airport was not quite ready. All the planes left too late as we queued up for the de-icing and as a result we sat in the plane over an hour longer than the flight time had indicated. I had splurged once again and bought myself an upgrade with points and thus the extra hour was no problem – just more time to read.

In the morning Sietske, the dogs and I went for a long walk through cold and wet weather, good exercise before sitting for over 8 hours in the plane.

On the other side of the Atlantic Axel was waiting for me, after having had an extra hour to read the Atlantic. We headed straight for a restaurant in Jamaica Plain where we met colleague Liz for an orchestrated handover of passport and visa forms which should have arrived in Washington now. There they will be rushed off to the Bangladesh consulate for a quick turnaround visa. Taking the passport pictures in the dimly restaurant was a challenge. We first tried the bathroom with a white apron draped over the door (this failed) and then we headed for the kitchen with the kitchen staff encouraging me not to smile because that was a waste for such pictures.

In the end Liz left with a packet full of forms, letters, my passport and nine different passport pictures, just to be safe. We didn’t want to leave anything to chance. There is no room for error as there are only three workdays this Thanksgiving week in which the stamp can be put in my passport. Whether this will actually be accomplished (and whether I can thus leave for Bangladesh in a week) remains to be seen. I am trying to be philosophical about it but it appears to be high time I get myself a second passport to avoid this sort of last minute visa stress.

We stayed in the restaurant for a meal and then headed home where I tumbled in to bed, early for EST but late for Dutch time. And now I am back on schedule to resume my US life.