Hotel life - Week 8

I am happy to say that these hotel updates are going to stop in the near future. Our immigration documentation finally got sorted out, and we received our passports back late last week. That meant we could book our travel! Outside of all the loose ends we need to tie up here, we can actually start feeling exciting about moving to the UK. I've started to feel like this experience has been so anti-climactic because it has taken so long. My husband's post was made official in mid-March, right before the country shut down with the pandemic, and we are finally going to be departing in a couple of weeks, so almost 6 months after knowing we would be moving! 

So I might not be updating my blog as often, especially as I won't be working right away, and our travel will be limited during the pandemic, but as I'll be at home, I might get bored and write about things I'm experiencing like culture shock.

Meanwhile, one of the things that created a bit of stress are the changes that the UK gov't recently imposed on pets travelling into the country. There were already limits on when they could arrive--they had to arrive on weekdays, but now they are also limiting how many pets can enter per day, per region, and possibly per flight. It was very concerning to find this out. As a result, we will need to place ours in a kennel for at least a week after we depart as all flights with space for pets are booked up until the middle of September. I appreciate neither the cost nor the fact that it will be stressful for all of us involved--they've never stayed in a kennel or travelled before, and I'll be worried about their wellbeing the whole time until they get to us. Had we been able to travel even 2 weeks ago, this wouldn't have been the case, but everything happens for a reason, so perhaps this is all for the best somehow.

We didn't really do much that was new or interesting last week in terms of being a tourist in our own city, but I did happen to get some beautiful photos of a pelican in a park we frequent. We were there during golden hour in the evening, and the pelican was preening itself. They have such beautiful faces, and my husband mentioned how their eyes look like the wise but serene eyes of elephants. So I'll leave you with a few photos of that.