Primers passos - moving to Spain

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It's been over half a month since we moved to Spain. Some milestones so far - Indian and Chinese visas in our passports (essentially nothing but expensive stickers that ensure our entry into the countries). Indian visa was very easy, Chinese people were a bit disappointing - at the moment they are not issueing any 3-months visas. The girl accepting our applications seemed to have strict instructions to remain relentless no matter what (she wouldn't even look at our colourful itinerary maps and advised us to request the standard 1-month double entry option, claiming that "one month is enough"). The only way to obtain a 3-months visa according to her was a letter from Chinese government (!?!). A small compensation for this disappointment was a free Hongkong visa. So now the itinerary for the China trip has been drastically replanned, and will be 1 month-before-Hongkong, Hongkong, 1-month-after-Hongkong (although we will try to apply for an extension in Beijing - then we will be back to the original 3-month route).

Leaving the Netherlands was anything but boring, with the main highlights being the washing machine and Baloo's passport.

Washing machine: this 100-percent digital sales transaction was completed 1 day after we left Holland, to a person we never met (thanks to www.marktplaats.nl and trust).

The person who the mashine was sold to in the first place kept rescheduling the pickup with the final arrangement being the day of our flight. When she wouldn't appear at the agreed time and wouldn't answer her mobile, we had to arrange a new deal with another person. However, since there was no time to meet her, the washing mashine was left behind, the neighbours requested to keep an eye on it until it would be picked up, and we went on to catch our next "adventure" of that day - Baloo's passport... He didn't have one for the flight.

After we closed the door of our former home in Aalsterweg it dawned on us that there were 3 of us who had a flight and only 2 had a passport. Baloo's passport at that time was already reaching Spain, a few hours before Baloo had to catch the flight. Having taken all the care to prepare his passport for departure from Holland (missing vaccinations etc.), we have also successfully

packed it on the minivan that took our things to Spain. So instead of having a comfortable 1-hour margin, we ended up rushing to the emergency vet to obtain a new travel document for the cat (God bless the vet for being understanding). The whole 'Aalsterweg - vet - Eindhoven station - Schiphol' route felt like a slow-motion movie. The funny thing is that with his original Checkish and the new Dutch passports, the lucky rascal now has a unique (for an animal) case of double nationality.

For the rest, we are now in a busy waiting mode, arranging our future home in Terrassa and waiting for May 4th, the date of our departure to our first destination - Delhi.