Sunday 17 October 2010

They're Here!

My carefully planned bachelor lifestyle was shattered with the arrival of Oscar and Rachel, who have respectively filled the house with toys and rearranged the kitchen. It's a small price to pay to have my family with me again.

Their flight to Indonesia was pretty rubbish by all accounts: little sleep, no children's food and total lack of sympathy or assistance from the Etihad cabin staff. They were pretty shattered when they got to Jakarta, but Oscar rallied and his rampage through the airport was part fueled by the excitement of seeing his Daddy and the thought of getting on another airplane. (I half believe it was mostly the latter.) But once on board the Garuda flight to Balikpapan he promptly fell asleep. By the time I got them back to the house it was nearly 11pm so everyone went straight to bed.

The lack of Zzzz on the way over meant that they crashed through jetlag, and by the end of their first full day they were through the worst of it. We've all had some cuddly lie-ins since then, and I've been showing the family the sights of Balikpapan - not that it takes very long.

Rae showed her fortitude by ably coping with a power outage. She put up with no TV or air conditioning for the first half hour before deciding the temperature and Oscar's boredom had risen to a critical point so I talked her through the process to fire up the generator. Amazingly she did it first time. Well done Rae.

So far we've all been on a few shopping trips to stock the house up with the necessaries and to give Rae and idea of the lay of the land and to see what the malls have on offer. I think she is quietly impressed, particularly by BSB (Balikpapan Super Block), the newest and grandest shopping complex in the city which has pretty much all she could want - especially Matahari which has a fine pair of orange Kicker sandals that caught her eye.

She is meeting with one of the ladies from the Balikpapan International Women's Association so I expect to see some new footwear tonight when I get home.

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